The Gentle Seduction

by Marc Stiegler

  Mentally I shrugged; even if it were true, I couldn't do anything about it. I still loved Rainbow. Love was still my master.

  I picked up my duffel bag. "You stay here. I'll be back as soon as I can." I smiled. "This should only take a day or two. Watch the video broadcasts; you'll love it."

  I confess I felt like whistling as I left. It had been a long time since I had stalked a lover clothed in disguise, though I had done it often enough. More than once in the course of my lifetimes my lovers-to-be hadn't recognized love at first sight. More than once, I had screwed up my relationships with them so badly that I needed to start from scratch, with a new face, a new name, and a new personality. Eventually, each of my loves had learned to live with me, but introducing me in graduated doses had often been necessary to prevent disaster.

  Clearly, my relationship with Rainbow needed smaller doses.

  I found her near a memorial, surrounded again by the charming newscasters. "Here is a permanent monument to our children, those who died in the attacks of Bardon."

  She was good. The audience was her plaything, to mold as she chose. "As you know, until recently I had believed that violence was wrong." She clenched her fist. "But our children! We must not let Bardon kill again!"

  This was my chance. I leaped lightly to a stand on the base of the monument, and caressed the ascending column with my hand. "Then kill his children in turn, Rainbow Dancer, as he has killed mine." My voice almost broke as I spoke the last words, softly but with projection. The cameras turned to me.

  I swept my hand about. "What will we buy with the deaths of the children of Fallform? We will buy only human misery and pain." I gazed at the cameras with confidence, yet cocked my head in puzzlement. "Have we forgotten who the true enemies are? They are not other men, those who live in other forms." Another sweep of the hand. "It is the coldness of the universe that is our enemy. That coldness is still our master."

  I clenched my fist, as Rainbow had clenched hers. "Shall we follow our neighbors into a bloodbath to strip our whole world of resources, resources we need more than we need warfare? No."

  "Then what do you propose, you who have no name?" Fear and anger both tainted the texture of Rainbow's voice.

  "I am Fire Singer." I stepped down from the monument, to stand beside her. "I propose the creation of a united Form."

  I spoke at great length about the vision of all the people of Forma working together; I suspect it made Rainbow and all the pragmatic, practical folk of Springform nauseous (it almost got to me), but my stage presence reigned supreme. To be a mediocre politician requires nothing beyond brilliant acting. Indeed, even to be a brilliant politician requires only two more attributes: the talent to find gifted advisors and the wisdom to listen to them.

  The debate went nonstop through lunch. Points were scored, ideas were challenged. Politics in a videocracy proved more brutal than any other occupation I had encountered—except, of course, for being a mindshifter.

  By dinner time the rankings in the polls had seesawed hysterically. Rainbow Dancer's popularity plummeted from 60% to 45%. Hawk Keensight, her only serious rival in recent polls, had dropped from 40% to 35%. And I, Fire Singer, had come from nowhere to 20% of the poll.

  Regardless of the consequences I had to escape the limelight for dinner. "Forgive me, my friends, but I must take my meals in solitude." With a parting wave, I strode away toward my skycycle.

  As I escaped from the noise radius of the gathering, I heard a pair of feet, light but swift, catching up behind me. I turned. "Have dinner with me, my lady."

  "Thank you," Rainbow said, still breathing hard.

  We continued to walk to my cycle. "You're quite a performer," she acknowledged.

  "I have been at it for a long time."

  "Funny, I've never heard of you." Her voice chilled. "Who are you, anyway?"

  It is hard to come down from a theatrical performance, to return to a semblance of normal humanity. Thus I continued, still feeling my lifetimes behind me, still feeling the stage beneath, "I am one who has lost more to wars and human stupidity than you could imagine."

  "I see." We walked in silence for a bit.

  "And what, my lady, have you lost?"

  "What?" Her almond eyes widened, looking at me. Then she laughed, bitterly. "It's not what I have lost; it's what I've gained."

  We reached the sky cycle. My voice finally came out of stage projection; at last I could be gentle. "Then what have you gained?"

  "Guilt."

  We stood within inches of each other. My heart jumped, because of her nearness, because of her deadliness, and because guilt was something with which I was infinitely familiar.

  Today, four more people would die.

  "What is the nature of your guilt, Rainbow? Let me take some of your burden."

  She shook her head. "I know you. You're the Sirian assassin, aren't you? But you've changed. . . . We met yesterday, didn't we?"

  I was stunned. How had I given it away? Perhaps, almost certainly, it was my speech. My lady—how many people say that any more? How sloppy I had been!

  "Yes, my lady, 'tis I. I came for the one I love. You."

  She looked away. "My guilt. I'm sorry." She stepped away. "It's as I said—" she said loudly, though only I was near, "—he's the assassin!"

  Cameramen ran from all directions. A police cruiser soared out of the sun, and from somewhere a megaphone blared "This is the police. Hold your hands up. Step away from the skycycle and Ms. Dancer."

  I did not pay proper attention to the police warning: I tossed Rainbow into the cycle and jumped in behind her. A lazegun burned to the bone in my left arm. We were aloft before I felt the pain. "Safire," I howled into my wristcom, "send Glitter to meet me at the edge of the city, by the clockward entrance."

  A police cruiser motored up beside me, and I flipped the cycle on its side before they could draw a bead. They couldn't just knock the ship down, with Rainbow on board. They would have to have a perfect shot at me through the clear cycle bubble.

  They would have a tough job. I set the the seats (and thus the thrusters) spinning, carefully controlling the thrust so that our overall motion continued clockward. Spinning, Rainbow and I switched positions constantly, eluding outside sharpshooters. We were safe, as long as I didn't get so dizzy I crashed it. Rainbow turned ghostly white; her eyes squeezed shut.

  Some smart guy put a lazegun blast through the engine compartment. The cycle slowed, and we dropped to the ground. I flipped her upside down on the way.

  Rainbow hadn't been strapped in; she was spread- eagled across the clear bubble. "Safire, I can't make it; have Glitter come get me." I had hoped to get clear of the city, to reduce the risk of police sharpshooters; now, I would just have to let them shoot me.

  Before we grounded, I popped the bubble. Rainbow fell to the ground. Disengaging the webbing carefully, I rolled out beside her. The police megaphone blared once more as a cruiser floated down toward us. Rainbow groaned.

  Another lazegun blast ripped into my skull; had I been a mortal man, I would have died then. I grabbed Rainbow and dragged her over my shoulders, covering myself with her body.

  The police cruiser split open with a roar and crashed to the ground. Looking to my left I saw Glitter descending nearby. Several rocks and trees disappeared as Glitter eliminated hidden marksmen.

  My arm hurt. I took a moment to get calm, to achieve some autohypnotic anesthesia. The trance level wasn't adequate to eliminate the pain, but I felt better.

  With a deep breath, I crept from underneath the cycle and hurried toward my ship, still carrying Rainbow on my back. Another marksman opened up, cutting out my left leg. As I spun to the ground, another marksman, presumably one who had had a line on me before the first one hit, fired. I felt Rainbow's body change shape as heat seared a line across my back. I didn't have to look to see what had happened.

  Rainbow had been sliced in two.

  Glitter picked off the marksmen who had fired. I pulled myself wit
h my one good arm toward the ship. "Glitter, better send out a robot to collect me," I ordered. An airlock opened.

  Wendy came running out.

  "Get back!" I yelled, too late. There was another marksman. She fell.

  I reached her seconds later. "You beautiful fool," I whispered. "I wasn't worth risking your life for." My eyes blurred. "I wasn't even in danger." I had lost Rainbow my love, and Wendy my friend, and somehow the loss of Wendy hurt more. In all my lifetimes no one had ever lost her life to save mine.

  One last marksman sneaked into range before Glitter's robots could get me inside. He put a bolt through one lung and both ventricles of my heart. Had I been a mortal man, again I would have died.

  But though I was mortal, I was a mortal god, one who granted life and enforced death.

  Frontier mindshifters lived in a universe crowded with rich and powerful men—men who, despite all their power, were doomed to die without our special friendship.

  We did not befriend them all. And too often, they believed that if they couldn't live forever, neither should anyone else. We were their targets, first for bribery, then for blackmail.

  So virtually all the Frontier mindshifters took extraordinary precautions. From first Transfer, mindshifters endowed one another with enhancements, enhancements to protect the brain—for that was the part of the body that had to survive. A typical mindshifter had a skull of tungstalloy composite, with a tiny ten-minute oxygenating pump at its base. In many circumstances, that pump was enough to keep the mindshifter alive until he could get into surgery.

  I was also lucky that lazeguns made lousy weapons: unlike the bullets of earlier centuries that made goo of all the organs they touched, a lazegun bolt produced a self-cauterizing, clean incision.

  So Safire and Glitter were able to save my life. With stitches and glue they knit together enough of my system so that I could heal. It would be months before the injuries disappeared, but I could breath and move normally, if not swiftly. While lying quiet, I planned, ever more feverishly, my revenge against the Playmaster.

  Glitter lay in shallow water off the coast of Flame. Flame was the city of Summerform closest to the Eye, at the tip of a peninsula. I was ready to begin my search in earnest.

  Somewhere on Forma was a Playmaster, and as I thought about him my bones chilled. The enemy had been too good. He must have lived multiple lives, as I had.

  But up to now, the Master had been hidden, almost unsuspected. He had played games with the lives of first lifers with ease. I would not be so simple an opponent.

  He had arranged Sharyn's death, I knew it.

  He was also responsible for Keara's death, and for Rainbow's. How could the sharpshooters have failed to warn each other about interlocking fire? Rainbow had not been killed by accident. And I had not struck Keara so hard as to jeopardize her life.

  Please, immortal gods wherever you might be, please tell me I had not killed Keara.

  Sharyn had believed that the Playmaster was in Summerform, though Bardon of Fallform had been her enemy. Very well, I would start in Summerform.

  At least I was properly equipped for this trip from Glitter to shore. I had come to Forma with a bathing suit and scuba gear. I swam the two miles to shore through bathtub-warm water.

  I stepped out of the surf onto the beach; even with flippers on, I could feel the burning sand against my feet, and I hurried toward a huddle of shade canopies protecting assorted scientists and tourists from the sun.

  I reached shade and flopped down. I tried not to breathe too hard; even the air here burned if taken in too swiftly.

  I unpacked my waterproof duffel bag and slipped into some clothes. The scuba gear went into the bag. In another minute, I would ask someone how to get to downtown Flame. But for my first minute, I watched the heat shimmer through the air.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I became aware of the fluid motion of the shimmer, and the waves, and the brown sand; finally I realized that the fluid motion was more than these.

  The fluid motion was a woman, walking casually, nude, across the burning sands. The shimmer was her hair, hanging to her waist. The movement of her sand- brown body was languid, like syrup, against the backdrop of the ocean waves.

  My heart jumped in my mouth; I couldn't be in love again, not without even talking to her.

  She looked at me. I wanted to melt, but I was too tense; instead, I splintered. She smiled. She walked toward me.

  I wanted to scream to her, to get away from me, that she would surely die if she didn't run, but I couldn't speak.

  "You just came from the sea," she said, laughter in her eyes. "There is a spaceship there, hidden beneath the waves. Did you see it?"

  I shook my head. "A spaceship in the water? What would it be doing there?"

  Now she laughed from deep within her throat. "Trying to hide." She shrugged. "It's a logical place to try to hide, for a person who isn't native to Forma and who doesn't know how closely the status of the ocean is monitored."

  Of course it was monitored, dummy! I cursed myself. Just as the skeletons of Winterform flew for meteorology, so must there be an aquarian counterpart.

  She held out her hand. "Let us be friends, in the time that is left."

  I followed her. "The time that is left?"

  "Of course. Is there not an end to time in each life, regardless of life's duration?"

  I pursed my lips; I would not tell her how I had cheated the end to time, again and again.

  We walked to a deserted canopy. She lay in the sun; I sat in the shadows. Her movements were hypnotic. This scene, with the ocean and the sand and the clear skies above, was a standard first image for focussing a patient for hypnosis. And the lady, whoever she was, rocked her leg in a gentle hypnotic rhythm. I trusted her completely, for no reason I could see; I felt the beginnings of trance coming on, and did not fight it.

  "Why do you travel the stars?" she asked; I was past being surprised by her knowledge.

  "To bring life." I closed my eyes. "Though not for a long time."

  "Tell me."

  I told her of the lady I'd lost a lifetime ago; I told her of the good friend who had died in Transfer while I grieved over lost love when I should have been concentrating on his life.

  I told her of the four people who died, every day.

  "Do you blame yourself because men age? Do you think that it's reasonable to blame yourself?"

  "Of course not. But I could save the lives of four people every day, if I could still make Transfers." I trembled. "But I can't. I'm afraid."

  "If you died today, those people would still die. Would you hold yourself responsible then?"

  "No."

  "You must think, not of the people who will die, but of the people who can live. You're wrong when you say that 'today, four more people will die.' Instead, you must remember that, perhaps tomorrow, four more people will live."

  I shook my head. "If you were one of the people who would die waiting for tomorrow, would you feel the same way?"

  "Yes." Her eyes met mine. I believed her.

  "Perhaps."

  We continued.

  She was a masterful therapist; I do not know when the trance ended, but when I looked at her and saw her as a human being, I was far back up the rode toward sanity. We crossed the sands to a limousine, to take us into town. I raised my eyebrows. "A limo?"

  "Of course. What else would the heiress to the Grantship of Summerform travel in?"

  "The heiress!" In horror, I grabbed her by the shoulders. "You're the next target! We have to find you a safe place!" I raised my arm. "Safire, send Glitter as fast as she'll fly." I started searching the skies for cruisers, and blizzards, and anything else the mind of an evil Master might conceive.

  She slipped from my touch. "Of course I'm your next target, silly." She looked puzzled for a moment. "Why would you seek a place of safety for me? You know it's too late."

  "What?!"

  "The poison. I know I'm dying." She brushed her hand through m
y hair. "I was hoping you'd consider giving me the antidote. I love the people of Forma. I believe you do, too." She looked away for a moment. "Why then are you killing?"

  "I'm not!" I tried to scream, but the air scorched my lungs. "It's a set up!"

  She seemed puzzled. "I believe I know you now. You are here to help the people of Forma. You are a good man. If my death will help, I accept it. "

  "Have you been poisoned?" I tried to get some sense out of this conversation. "I'll run every test 1 know. We'll find an antidote." I was talking nonsense, of course; there are billions of poisons in the universe that cannot be counteracted, poisons that strike the brain so that rvoii Transfer cannot help. Death was still my master.

  She knew it, too. Her expression became even more peaceful. "Then you aren't the assassin."

  "NO! NO!" I held my head in my hands.

  She touched me. "You have to promise me something."

  I looked at her. "What?"

  "I know you will destroy the person who's behind this. But you must promise me that first, you'll get even by saving Forma. You have the tools, and the talent, and now again you have the sanity. Promise me that you'll save Forma before killing my killer."

  At the time, numb as I was, it seemed a tiny thing. "I promise."

  "Thank you." She jerked, a broken motion that was not her own. I held her close. "A three day poison," she mused, taking a shuddering breath. "Just long enough . . . the enemy . . . how did he know?"

  An ambulance slid to a stop beside us, and two men leaped out to carry her away. I stared in amazed horror. "We've been on call," the medic explained as they pulled her from me and put her in the back. They left me alone.

  Glitter came into sight; I boarded her.

  On my first sip of Aldebarone wine I choked. Furious at my weakness, I forced the whole glassful down in one gulp and refilled it.

  On my next sip I choked again. In helpless fury I hurled the glass against the wall. The glass didn't even give me the satisfaction of breaking. A robot scurried in to clean up; in minutes, all sign of my anger had disappeared into time's passage.

  Karmel, the heiress to the Grantship of Summerform, had ruined my one path to ruination. I couldn't even escape into a drunken stupor any more. I was trapped with my memories.