Emerald Eyes | Page 6

The first thing Amnier noticed as they cycled through the double doors
that led into the labs was the faint smell of ozone. The bubble let
filtered air through, and it was not supposed to filter anything so small
as an ozone molecule; but before he could be certain about the smell,
he was led through the inner door and found himself upon a catwalk
looking down on chaos.
Kalharri was down there, with a pair of technicians wearing decon
badges. Only one of the decon badges bore the radiating triangle
insignia that meant its wearer had passed training to deal with
radioactive materials. The tech who wore that badge was probably paid
twice as much as the tech who did not; even today, over eleven years
after the end of the Unification War, there were not enough skilled
decon techs to go around.
The lab was huge, easily the largest room in what was not a small
building. This, thought Amnier, is where they work. The things that had
been missing everywhere else were in abundance here; comic strips had
been inscribed in the glowpaint, and decorative calendars were hung in
three different places. The dozen or so desks scattered across the place
were personalized to various degrees; one that caught his eye held the
holograph of a ballerina, turning eternally on point.
The laboratory was the first place Amnier had seen in the building
where glowpaint gave an approximation of yellow sunlight.
A huge laser hung nose-down from the ceiling, pointing at a table that
bore a ceramic depression nearly a meter in diameter. In the middle of

the depression was a small transparent container that had been clamped
into position; tubes so small that Amnier could barely see them from
where he stood led to the container.
Amnier made his way down from the catwalk slowly. Montignet was
already down at floor level. One of the technicians was showing her
listings from the devices attached to the transparent container;
Montignet rose from the computer, snapped, "Ellie, get me nutrient
flow now," and went back to the readouts.
Amnier reached the floor and found Malko Kalharri there, waiting for
him. Kalharri stood with his arms crossed, pale blue eyes calm and
rather relaxed. "Hello, Darryl."
Amnier sat down abruptly on a step four from the bottom. It put his
eyes almost on a level with Kalharri's. "Hello, Malko. How have you
been?"
"Well. And yourself?"
Amnier shrugged. "Busy. I work. What is happening?"
"There was a source of radiation." Kalharri eyed Amnier speculatively.
"It's gone now. Vanished. We haven't been able to track it down."
"Assuming," said Amnier, "that you yourself have not caused this
excitement--and I do not put it past you--please accept my assurance
that I am not responsible for whatever has happened here today." He
looked directly at Malko. "Did you let them take this Jorge person to
the hospital?"
"Of course not."
"It grieves you that you could not."
"It would have made Robin feel better."
"But he would still die."

"Yeah."
Amnier watched the technicians in silence for a moment as they rushed
about at errands that he, and he suspected Kalharri also, found
incomprehensible. "If a living fetus comes out of this, and what I am
hearing leads me to believe it might, I shall find it all most suspect."
Amnier thought a smile might have touched Kalharri's lips for an
instant. "You're flattering yourself, Darryl."
"Perhaps. It is a danger in my profession." Amnier paused. "Our
profession, I might say. You have not forgotten the way things work, at
any rate. I have not needed to say a startling number of things."
"I've been thinking," Kalharri said, "about what you said to me the last
time we talked."
Amnier stared at him. "Malko, that was seventeen years ago."
"I think you may have been right. The United States was in trouble."
Kalharri spoke slowly, almost reluctantly. "I mean politically. In other
ways it was not. The Unification Council--the entire superstructure
your Sarah Almundsen designed--it is, in some ways, more vigorous
than what we had; certainly better than what the Russians had, or the
Chinese. Perhaps this Unification is better. Perhaps it was worth the
deaths that came about in the War."
"It's good of you to say so."
"Darryl."
"Yes?"
"You are--all of you--already losing sight of what you fought for. I did
not agree with you, and today I am not certain that I was right--but your
government is being overrun by the barbarians. It's already happening."
He paused. "I don't know if Americans will tolerate it."
Amnier said gently, "You're too much of a philosopher, Malko. It was

charming when we were boys, but it helped you lose the War."
"--in republics there is greater life, greater hatred, and more desire for