Aneka Jansen 3: Steel Heart

by Niall Teasdale

  ‘Uh-huh, and people have been using sex, and anything else that gave them leverage, to get what they wanted since long before I was born. Since then sex became a recreation; it wasn’t in my time.’

  Ella took a bite out of her burger and chewed it. It was an obvious delaying tactic. Ella knew full well that Aneka knew it was a delaying tactic too. That just made it more annoying. She swallowed. ‘That’s not fair. You’re using logic on me.’

  ‘I’m a real bitch like that. Look, you seem to think that this guy is going to steal me away from you, and…’

  ‘No I don’t! I… Okay, so part of me does. He’s rich. He’s attractive. He’s rich!’

  ‘You said rich twice.’

  ‘He’s very rich.’ She burst into a fit of giggles and Aneka joined her. ‘Okay, okay, so I’m being paranoid, but Vashma’s tits, Aneka, you have to admit he’s a huge temptation, isn’t he?’

  ‘Not really. He’s an attractive option for a bed partner, but that’s about it. Look, I didn’t go off with anyone else before, and now you’ve got these gorgeous new boobs…’ She tilted her head to one side and stuck the tip of her tongue out the corner of her mouth, and waited.

  ‘You said that didn’t make any difference… And it didn’t, and you’re making a point, and I’ll shut up now before I make more of a fool of myself.’

  ‘It’s cute that a woman who looks like you and has your absolutely beautiful personality would be so insecure about this, but it’s got to stop. I am not going to leave you. Your butt’s too cute.’

  ‘All right. I’ll try anyway. I’m a psychologist so I know you can’t just turn off your insecurities like a switch. I’ll try. And if you have to sleep with Teldarian to get the funds… Well, get video.’

  Odanari, 19.2.526 FSC.

  Odanari was more or less as Aneka remembered it: hot. Despite orbiting a cooler star than either of the Earths, the planet had an average surface temperature described as ‘hot tropical,’ and Aneka’s skin sensors put it around forty Celsius. The heat hit her as soon as she stepped out through the hatch of Teldarian’s private yacht, which he had sent to New Earth to collect her, and she was glad she had taken the precaution of dressing light.

  ‘Good flight?’ Teldarian stood at the bottom of the steps which had lowered from the side of the ship. He was dressed in pale cream slacks and a T-shirt. No shoes, which had to be tough when standing on a Plascrete landing platform.

  ‘Very good. That’s a really nice yacht you have there. You could hold an orgy in the beds.’

  Teldarian grinned; there was the slight implication that he had. ‘Glad you liked the ship. My company makes those, of course.’

  ‘Of course. Maybe I’ll buy one when I become rich and famous.’

  He motioned off towards the north and she walked beside him off the landing pad and onto a sand track. ‘You’re halfway there. You’re already famous.’

  ‘Huh, don’t remind me. Uh, just so you know, the last man who “invited” me to his personal island on Odanari turned out to be a sociopath and terrorist, with a god complex. I hope there’s not going to be a repeat.’

  He laughed, and it sounded pretty genuine. ‘I’ve been called a narcissist, but never any of the others. Charles Hunter, right? Humanity First and their agenda to breed the perfect race of Jenlay.’

  ‘Except he used the old term, Humans.’

  ‘I got you here to discuss history and money, in that order. Though I figured while you’re here you might have some time to enjoy yourself. The island is a, very dead, volcano and the swimming in the lagoon is excellent. There’s walking. The view from the peak there…’ He pointed to the east where another volcanic remnant poked up into the sky. ‘… is quite spectacular, and you can get there on foot or climb if that’s your preference. I have a yacht, of the floating variety, if you’d like to take a trip off the island. Enjoy yourself while you’re here.’

  ‘I’ll give that my best shot, Stephen.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that.’

  They walked maybe two hundred metres through a band of trees before emerging onto a beach which looked like something out of a movie. Almost white sand stretched in a wide curve off into the distance around a lagoon of blue-green water. Aneka figured it had to be a kilometre from where she was standing to where she could see an opening out onto the ocean.

  ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Teldarian said. ‘It’s pretty shallow, and safe, until you get towards the middle of the caldera. That’s deep. Very deep, but it comes up again at the ocean side so the water’s calm unless there’s a major storm brewing. Nothing dangerous in the water either.’

  They walked on down the beach a few tens of metres and she saw the house. It was set back from the beach, but with easy access over hardwood decking. Single storey, but huge; Aneka was not going to try to guess the number of rooms. The entire front was Polyglass, but she could see room divisions and three of the rooms looked like bedrooms, or at least they had beds in them.

  ‘Oh, your choice,’ Teldarian said, ‘beachfront room, or one at the back. The view here is a little better, but some people don’t like the sound from the water. The back rooms have quicker access to the pool, and the trees aren’t bad to look at.’

  ‘Uh… beach, I think.’

  Teldarian nodded and headed towards one of the rooms on the corner of the building. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of giving you guest access to the house already.’ He pushed open a sliding pane to allow them entry and walked in. ‘I’ll have someone down here with your bags, and access codes to the guest network. There’s a terminal in here in case you want to send a message to your partner, but if you’ve a PDA you can hook it in. Select whatever decoration you want. The bathroom is through the door at the back…’ He paused, apparently trying to think of anything else. ‘If you need anything, the staff can get it for you.’

  The room was fairly bare currently, but she would be able to change that. She recognised the slightly matt quality to the walls which suggested that three of them, the ones not made of Polyglass, were video walls. The bed was big enough for four people, there was a seating area with two couches around a small table, and a desk with a three-screened terminal on it. There were three doors on the back wall.

  ‘The other doors?’ she asked.

  ‘Left-hand one is into the house, middle one is a closet.’

  Aneka walked over and opened the middle door. The closet was big enough to house a costume exhibit. ‘I brought one bag, and there’s not much in that. Bikini, a couple of dresses.’

  He laughed. ‘If you actually need more there’s a full fabrication suite on the grounds. Now, I’m sorry to be a poor host, but I have a few things to clear up before I can give you my undivided attention. I’m sure you’d like to get settled in anyway. I’ll meet you for dinner around sunset?’

  ‘That sounds perfect.’

  Smiling, he headed for the left-hand door. Aneka could see an open space through it, filtered sunlight streaming down onto some sort of water feature with plants around it. ‘I’ll see you then,’ he said before closing the door.

  With nothing much else to do until her case arrived, Aneka stepped over to the desk and sat down, tapping a glowing area for attention. The screens lit up, along with a keyboard and mouse pad. The display suggested that the system was configured for her use; Teldarian really had pre-programmed it for her ID. She selected the messaging software and began to compose an email to Ella.

  ‘Al?’ she asked silently.

  ‘There are three wireless networks operating. Two of them appear to be using very strong encryption algorithms: one a service network, by the looks of the data packets, the other a general use network. The third is likely for guest use. I’d imagine they’ll provide access to that one.’

  ‘Can we use it safely?’

  ‘If we need to.’

  ‘Would you think I was being paranoid if I wondered whether the room is wired?’ She finished typing a basic ‘I got here safe’ message and hit se
nd, and then got up making a show of looking around the room. Well it was worth looking at.

  ‘Not entirely. I can detect no transmitters in the room, or within reception range. If there is anything, it’s wired.’

  The bathroom was white tiles on all surfaces, a shower which had a ring of heads suspended over a drain, and a bath you could just about do laps around, and came with water jets. Aneka looked over the place carefully and could find no hidden cameras.

  ‘I’m almost disappointed,’ she commented. ‘I was hoping I could put him down as a pervert and be done with it.’

  ‘I am a little surprised he does not have the means to listen in on business conversations that might happen here,’ Al replied.

  There was a knock on the door and when Aneka called out, ‘Come in,’ a slim man in a white T-shirt and slacks came through the door with Aneka’s case.

  ‘Miss Jansen, I’m Butler. If you need anything your terminal can get me at any time. Would you like me to unpack your case?’ Butler the butler… right…

  ‘Uh, no thanks. Just put it on the bed, I’ll take care of it.’

  He nodded, placing the metal case on the corner of the big bed, and then placing a sheet of paper on it. ‘Access codes for the network,’ he said, ‘and a few other bits of information you might find useful. I’ll leave you to settle in.’

  ‘Thanks. Uh, Butler?’

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘I’m having dinner with Mister Teldarian later. Formal or casual?’

  Butler gave her a smile. ‘Mister Teldarian is never formal when he’s at home, ma’am.’

  ‘Thank you, Butler.’

  With him gone and the door closed, she opened her case and lifted out the clothes. Two mini-dresses, one black, one white, her bikini, and there was actually a pair of shorts and a cropped T-shirt as well as several pairs of shoes. These were all taken to the closet and put up on shelves or hangers, mostly because she figured she might as well use the room since it was there. Then she went back to her case, unlocked the false bottom, and checked that Bridget and the two spare magazines were there. Better safe than sorry. Locking them up again, she put the case away in the closet and picked up her bikini. There was nothing much to do until the sun went down; she might as well try out the lagoon.

  ~~~

  Aneka went for the black dress and some matching mid-height heels, and was dressed and waiting when Butler knocked on her door to lead her through the house to the dining room.

  It was quite a house. Large, certainly, but it somehow managed to maintain an intimate quality which she found rather pleasing. Right outside her room was the open area she had seen earlier, a sort of dividing line between the rooms at the front of the house and those further back. Two carp ponds ran from the outer edges of the room in towards a walkway, which ran from the main entrance to the rear of the building, and the walls and pond edges were lined with ferns. Well, that was the theory. The carp were not actually carp, and the ferns were not any kind of fern Aneka had ever seen, but the overall look was good, and also rather calming.

  Behind the ‘pond room’ the central corridor split the house in half and, aside from a couple of doors on the left and a single one on the right, there was no indication of the function of the spaces on either side of it. Butler said nothing as they walked through, surrounded by a moving video of swirling light patterns. Aneka wondered absently whether they were supposed to be hypnotic. Maybe that was Teldarian’s secret: he hypnotised women into submission.

  ‘I think he just waves his private island at them and they ask what position they should adopt,’ Al suggested.

  Aneka suppressed a laugh; they were reaching the end of the corridor anyway and there was no sign of strange desires to prostrate herself before anyone. Butler opened the door at the end of the hallway, and they walked into the interior pool room. It was not a huge pool, but you could have swum in it quite happily. The main purpose was relaxation, however, as evidenced by the bar on one side of the pool, near the outer wall, and the irregular shape. There was also an indoor hot tub set in a corner off to the right and a T-shaped, bridge-like structure arching over the main pool. Butler led the way up this and then turned right. Out beyond the T, Aneka could see the Polyglass wall which divided inside from outside, and also the underwater tunnel which allowed one to swim between the two pools. The outer pool was visible only as a blue glow through the window, but it looked kind of inviting.

  Somehow Aneka had expected the dining room to be less cosy. In fact it was just a section of a room which seemed to occupy the back corner of the house. Shaped like a Y, more or less, there was a relaxed sort of area near the pool where you could sit and drink, the dining room with its view out over the pool, and a slightly more intimate lounge. The three rooms were set around a sculpture of some sort which occupied the centre of the room: a lot of crystal columns in geometric shapes. Light shone through it, providing much of the illumination in the room, though Aneka could see ceiling-mounted spots overhead which would hopefully give a little more light when the food was brought out.

  The dining room table had space for ten people and was very modern in design, Polyglass topped with a sculpted framework of chromed adanymax holding it off the ground. The seats looked a little odd and not especially comfortable: tall-backed and quite narrow, with the same sort of chromed structure, and a seat and back which looked to be made of Polyglass. Butler pulled out a chair near one end of the table and Aneka sat down. The seat shifted as she sat, moulding itself to her behind. She looked up, seeing the high back which stretched up over her head, the frame curling over into horn-like structures on either side.

  ‘Aneka,’ Teldarian appeared across the table from her, pulling out the chair opposite and sitting down. ‘I’ve got to apologise again for my absence. Abraham fired my enthusiasm again for that dual-core engine design. I was so close to working it out I couldn’t put it down.’

  Aneka gave him a grin. ‘I can forgive you. I’m glad you find your work so fascinating.’

  ‘I do, but now it’s time for my other enthusiasm.’ Aneka was not sure he would not say ‘sex,’ but instead he said, ‘Like I said, I’ve been fascinated by the ancient history of the Jenlay since I was a child. Uh, if you’ll pardon the use of the word “ancient” in that sentence.’

  ‘Well, I was twenty-nine when I was taken. In some circles back then that was just about dead.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘I was ninety last year.’

  ‘Back then you’d be lucky to make it to ninety. Looking the way you do? Not a chance. Jenlay live… two or three times longer than Humans did.’

  ‘Thank you. I’m glad you think I look good.’

  ‘Stephen, I’d have to have some peculiar tastes in men to think you were ugly. Besides, there are more or less no unattractive people now. You, well the Jenlay, have spent a thousand years messing with their genome. I’m lucky I don’t look like a caveman in comparison to you people.’

  Butler appeared from somewhere accompanied by two girls in short, white dresses, and Aneka stopped speaking. The women, who could have been twins aside from the fact that one was blonde, the other brunette, delivered plates with a salad of some sort on them, and then left while Butler poured glasses of white wine for Teldarian and Aneka.

  ‘We’ve really changed things that much?’ Teldarian went on once his servant had left.

  Aneka nodded, taking a forkful of something vaguely like lettuce and chewing on it for a few seconds. ‘There was a movie, a vid, that my brother made me watch once. I think it was called Gattaca.’

  ‘Something to do with genetics? Not my speciality, but that sounds like nucleobase indicators.’

  ‘Yeah, Gattaca was the name of an organisation, but it was something to do with DNA. The idea was that the “best” children were carefully selected and they could get the best education, while the ones born at random were essentially relegated to second-class citizens. There was a lot of subtext about identity, but on the face of it it was a
dystopian world full of genetic policemen. Everyone was beautiful, genetically perfect. This world could be the end result of that society.’

  ‘Except without the genetic policemen.’

  ‘Really? Babies are checked for genetic defects and watched for anti-social behaviour.’ She held up a hand as he opened his mouth. ‘I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. This society is peaceful, almost crime free. The people are long-lived, disease-resistant, and happy. I live in an area that would have been a demilitarised zone in my time. The people who look like they would knife you for a credit help old ladies across the road instead.’

  ‘You’re saying we’ve given up a few freedoms to have a better society. I think it’s worth it.’

  Aneka laughed. ‘Well you would, it’s your society. Don’t get me wrong, it seems to work and I can’t really argue with it. But the technology used to create the Jenlay was only just beginning in my time. Genetic manipulation, especially on a species level, that was going to be a big political hot potato.’

  He grinned. ‘I’m not sure what a potato is, but I get the picture.’ He was silent for a few minutes, letting her get some of her food into her mouth. ‘You know, I’ve had… how to put this… I’ve entertained women here who have a lot less money than some of the circles I move in.’

  ‘I’ll accept that. You’re loaded, I’m not.’

  ‘Most of them were a little uncomfortable about being waited on.’

  ‘Officer training. How to command troops, how to plan assaults and defences, and which knife and fork to use at high table.’ She took a drink of wine; very nice, but still not really wine. There was too much of a berry flavour to it. ‘I also did my fair share of business dinners, political functions, that kind of thing.’

  ‘I read a report saying you did bodyguard work.’

  ‘We called it personal security. I was moving out of that, though. Most of my ops before I left were hostage rescue.’

  ‘You were good at it?’

  ‘Me and my team, we were as good as it gets. We didn’t stand much chance against Xinti weapons though.’ Lifting her glass, she emptied it. Even if the alcohol did nothing to her, it felt good to be drinking it.