Laurus is getting way out of his depth. His own biotechnology degree is ninety years out of date. And an affinity bond with a plant is outside anything he's ever heard of before. «You can put anything you want into these candy buds?» he asks hoarsely.
«Yes.»
«And all you do is sell them down at the harbour?»
«Yes. If I sell enough I want to buy Jante new eyes and legs. I don't know how many that will take, though. Lots, I suppose.»
Laurus is virtually trembling, thinking what would have happened if he hadn't found the children and their machine first. It must incorporate some kind of neurophysin synthesis mechanism, one that was programmable. Again, like nothing he's heard of.
The market potential is utterly staggering.
He meets Torreya's large green eyes again. She's curiously passive, almost subdued, waiting for him to say what is going to happen next. Children, he realizes, can intuitively cut to the heart of any situation.
He rests his hand on her shoulder, hoping he's doing it in a reassuringly paternal fashion. «This is very unpleasant, this room. Do you enjoy living here?»
Torreya's lips are pursed as she considers the question. «No. But nobody bothers us here.»
«How would you like to come and live with me? No one will bother you there, either. I promise that.»
Laurus's mansion sits astride a headland in the mountains behind Kariwak, its broad stone façade looking down on the city and the ocean beyond. He bought it for the view, all of his domain a living picture.
Torreya presses her face to the Rolls-Royce's window as they ride up the hill. She is captivated by the formal splendour of the grounds. Jante is sitting beside her, clapping his hands delightedly as she gives him a visual tour of the lawns and statues and winding gravel paths and ponds and fountains.
The gates of the estate's inner defence zone close behind the bronze car, and it trundles into the courtyard. Peacocks spread their majestic tails in welcome. Servants hurry down the wide stone steps from the front door. Jante is eased gently from the car and carried inside. Torreya stands on the granite cobblestones, turning around and around, her mouth open in astonishment.
«Did you really mean it?» she gasps. «Can we really live here?»
«Yes.» Laurus grins broadly. «I meant it. This is your home now.»
Camassia and Abelia emerge from the mansion to welcome him back. Camassia is twenty years old, a tall Oriental beauty with long black hair and an air of aristocratic refinement. She used to be with Kochia, a merchant in Palmetto, who has the lucrative franchise from Laurus to sell affinity bonded dogs to offworlders who want them for police-style work on stage one colony planets. Then Laurus decided he would like to see her stretched naked across his bed, her cool poise broken by the animal heat of rutting. Kochia immediately made a gift of her, sweating and smiling as she was presented.
Such whims help to keep Laurus's reputation intact. By acquiescing, Kochia sets an example of obedience to others. Had he refused, Laurus would have made an example of him.
Abelia is younger, sixteen or seventeen, shoulder-length blonde hair arranged in tiny curls, her body trim and compact, excitingly dainty. Laurus took her from her parents a couple of years ago as payment for protection and gambling debts.
The two girls exchange an uncertain glance as they see Torreya, obviously wondering which of them she is going to replace. They more than anyone are aware of Laurus's tastes.
«This is Torreya,» Laurus says. «She will be staying with us from now on. Make her welcome.»
Torreya tilts her head up, looking from Camassia to Abelia, seemingly awestruck. Then Abelia smiles, breaking the ice, and Torreya is led into the mansion, her bag dragging along the cobbles behind her. Camassia and Abelia begin to twitter over her like a pair of elder sisters, arguing how to style her hair once it's been washed.
Laurus issues a stream of instructions to his major-domo concerning new clothes and books and toys and softer furniture, a nurse for Jante. He feels almost virtuous. Few prisoners have ever had it so good.
Torreya bounds into Laurus's bedroom the next morning, her little frame filled with such boisterous energy that she instantly makes him feel lethargic. She has intercepted the maid, bringing his breakfast tray in herself.
«I've been up for hours,» she exclaims joyfully. «I watched the sunrise over the sea. I've never seen it before. Did you know you can see the first islands in the archipelago from the balcony?»
She seems oblivious to the naked bodies of Camassia and Abelia lying beside him on the bed. Such easy acceptance gives him pause for thought; in a year or two she'll have breasts of her own.
Laurus considers he has worn well in his hundred and twenty years, treating entropy's frosty encroachment with all the disdain only his kind of money can afford. But the biochemical treatments that keep his skin thick and his hair growing, the gene therapy to sustain his organs, cannot work miracles. The accumulating years have seen his sex life dwindle to practically nothing. Now he simply contents himself with watching the girls. To see Torreya's innocence lost to the skilful hands of Camassia and Abelia will be a magnificent spectacle to anticipate. It won't take that long for his technicians to solve the mystery of the candy buds machine.
«I know about the islands,» he tells her expansively as Camassia takes the tray from her. «My company supplies the coral kernels for most of them.»
«Really?» Torreya flashes him a solar-bright smile.
Laurus is struck by how lovely she looks now she's been tidied up; she's wearing a lace-trimmed white dress, and her hair's been given a French pleat. Her delicate face is aglow with enthusiasm. He marvels at that, a spirit which can find happiness in something as elementary as sunrise. How many dawns have there been in his life?
Camassia carefully measures out the milk in Laurus's cup, and pours his tea from a silver pot. If his morning tea isn't exactly right everyone suffers from his tetchiness until well after lunch.
Torreya rescues a porcelain side plate as Abelia starts to butter the toast. There's a candy bud resting on the plate. «Jante and I made this one up specially for you,» she says, sucking her lower lip apprehensively as she proffers it to Laurus. «It's a thank you for taking us away from Longthorpe. Jante's daddy said you should always say thank you to people who're nice to you.»
«You keep calling him Jante's father,» Laurus says. «Wasn't he yours?»
She shakes her head slowly. «No, I don't know who my daddy was. Mummy would never say.»
«You have the same mother, then?»
«That's right. But Jante's daddy was nice, though. I liked him lots.»
Laurus holds the candy bud up, her words suddenly registering. «You composed this last night?»
«Uh huh.» She nods brightly. «We know how much you like them, and it's the only gift we have.»
Under Torreya's eager gaze, Laurus puts the candy bud in his mouth and starts to chew. It tastes of blackcurrant.
Laurus used to be a small boy on a tropical island, left alone to wander the coast and jungle to his heart's content. His bare feet pounded along powdery white sand. The palm-shaded beach stretched on for eternity, its waves perfect for surfing. He ran and did cartwheels for the sheer joy of it, his lithe limbs responding effortlessly. Whenever he got too warm he would dive into the cool clear water of the bay, swimming through the fantastic coral reef to sport with the dolphin shoal who greeted him like one of their own.
«You were dreaming,» Camassia says. She is stroking his head as he sits in the study's leather chair.
«I was young again,» he replies, and there's the feel of the lean powerful dolphin pressed between his skinny legs as he rides across the lagoon, a tang of salt in his mouth. «We should introduce dolphins here, you know. Can't think why we never did. They are to the water what Ryker is to the air.»
«Sounds wonderful. When do I get to try
one?»
«Ask Torreya.» He shakes some life into himself, focusing on the daily reports and accounts his cortical chip has assembled. But the candy bud memory is still resonating through his mind, twisting the blue neuroiconic graphs into waves crashing over coral. And all Torreya and Jante have to go on is what she reads.
«Laurus?» Camassia asks cautiously, sensitive to his mood.
«I want you and Abelia to be very nice to Torreya, become her friends.»
«We will. She's sweet.»
«I mean it.»
The dead tone brings a flash of fear into the girl's eyes. «Yes, Laurus.»
After she leaves he still cannot bring himself to do any work. Every time he considers the candy buds another possibility is opened.
What would it feel like if Torreya was to inscribe her sexual encounters into the candy buds? His breathing is unsteady as he imagines the three girls disrobing in some softly lit bedroom, their bodies entwining on the bed.
Yes. That would be the ultimate candy bud. Not just the physical sensation, the rip of orgasm, any cortical induction can deliver that; but the mind's longing and adoration, its wonder of discovery.
Nothing, but nothing is now more important than making Torreya and Jante happy; so that in a couple of years she will slide eagerly into the arms of her lovers.
He closes his eyes, calling silently for Ryker.
The eagle finds Torreya on the south side of the estate, busy exploring her vast new playground. He orbits overhead as she gambols about. She's a fey little creature, this untamed child. She doesn't walk, she dances.
Jante is sitting in a wicker chair on the patio outside the study, and Laurus can hear him whooping encouragement to his sister. Occasionally the boy lets out a squeal of excitement at some new discovery she makes for him.
«Stop! Stop!» Jante cries suddenly.
Laurus looks up sharply, wondering what the boy is seeing through the affinity bond, but he's smiling below his neat white bandage.
Ryker spirals lower. Torreya is standing frozen in the middle of a shaggy meadow, her hands pressed to her cheeks. A cloud of rainbow-hued butterflies is swirling around her, disturbed by her frantic passage.
«Hundreds,» she breathes tremulously. «Hundreds and hundreds.»
The expression on the face of both siblings is one of absolute enchantment. Laurus recalls his trip through Longthorpe, its soiled air, the stagnant puddles with their scum of dead, half-melted insects. She has probably never seen a butterfly in her life before.
His cargo agents are instructed to scan the inventory of every visiting starship in search of exotic caterpillars. The estate is going to be turned into a lepidopterist's heaven.
Today Torreya is all rakish smiles as she brings in Laurus's breakfast tray. He grins back at her as he takes the candy bud she holds out to him. This is going to become a ritual, he guesses.
«Another one?» Camassia asks.
«Yes!» Torreya shouts gleefully. «It's a fairy tale one. We've been thinking about it for a while, so it wasn't difficult. We just needed yesterday to make it right. The butterflies you've got here in the estate are beautiful, Laurus.»
Laurus pops the candy bud in his mouth. «Glad you like them.»
«I would have loved to see the forest Laurus talks about,» Camassia says wistfully.
Laurus notes a more than idle interest in the girl's tone.
«Why didn't you say?» Torreya asks.
«You mean you've still got one?»
«Course. The machine keeps growing them till Jante tells it to stop.»
«You mean you don't have to fill in each one separately?» Laurus asks.
«No.»
He sips his tea thoughtfully. The strange machine is even more complex than he originally expected. «Do you know if Jante's father transcribed a candy bud about how the machine was built?»
Torreya screws her face up, listening to some silent voice. «No, he didn't. Sorry.»
Laurus accepts that it isn't going to be easy, he never thought it would be. He will have to assemble a team of high-grade biotechnology experts, the most loyal ones he can find. They will analyse the machine's components and genetics to discover its secrets. Such research will have to be done circumspectly. If any hint of this breakthrough escapes, then every laboratory on Tropicana will launch a crash project to acquire candy-bud technology.
«What are we going to do today?» Torreya asks.
«Well, I've got a lot of work to do,» Laurus says. «But Camassia and Abelia are free, why don't you all go out for a picnic.»
In his youth, Laurus had been a prince of the Eldrath Kingdom, back in Earth's dawn times when the world was flat and the oceans ended in infinite waterfalls. He lived in a city of crystal spires that was built around one of the tallest mountains in the land. The royal palace sat atop the pinnacle, from where it was said you could see halfway across the world.
When the warning of marauders reached the citadel, he led his knight warriors in defence of his father's realm. There were thirty of them, in mirror-bright armour, flying to war on the back of their giant butterflies.
The village on the edge of the Desolation was besieged by trolls and goblins, with fires raging through the wattle-and-daub cottages, and the harsh cries of battle echoing through the air.
Laurus drew his silver longsword, holding it high. «In the name of the King and our Mother Goddess, I swear none of this fellowship shall rest until the Rok lord's spawn are driven from this land,» he shouted.
The other knight warriors drew their swords in unison, and shouted their accord. Together they urged their steeds down on the village.
The trolls and goblins they faced were huge scarred brutes with blue-green skin and yellow poisonous fangs. But their anger and viciousness made them cumbersome, and they had no true sword skill, just an urge to maim and kill. Their wild sword swings were always slow and inaccurate. Laurus weaved amongst them, using his longsword with terrible accuracy. A quick powerful thrust would send his enemy crashing to the ground, a dark yellow stain bubbling out of the wound.
The battle raged all day amid the black oily smoke, and flames, and muddy cobbles. Laurus eluded all injury, although the enemy directed their fiercest assaults against him; enraged by the sight of his slim golden crown denoting him a prince of the house of Eldrath.
Night was falling when the last goblin was dispatched. The village cheered their prince and his knight warriors. And a beautiful maiden with red hair falling to her waist came forward to offer him wine from a golden chalice.
Laurus could not forget the sensation of flying that incredible steed, with his long black hair flowing free, cheeks tingling in the wind, and mighty rainbow wings rippling effortlessly on either side of him.
And he's still flying. The three girls are below, resting in the long grass under the shade of a big magnolia tree. There's a little lake twenty metres away, tangerine-coloured fish sliding through the dark water.
Ryker glides to a silent halt in the branches above the girls. None of them have seen him.
«I was frightened at first,» Torreya is saying, «especially at night. But after a while you get used to it, and nobody ever came into the factory site.» She's reciting her life, listening to Camassia and Abelia recounting tall tales. All part of making friends.
Laurus listens to the giggles and outraged groans of disbelief, longing to be a part of the group.
«You're lucky Laurus found you,» Camassia says. «He'll look after you all right, and he knows how to make the most from your candy buds.»
Torreya is lying on her belly, chin resting on her hands. She smiles dreamily, watching a ladybird climb up a stalk of grass in front of her face. «Yes, I know.»
Abelia jumps to her feet. «Oh, come on, it's so hot!» She slips the navy-blue dress from her shoulders, and wriggles out of the skirt. Laurus hasn't seen her naked in daylight before. He marvels at the bro
wn skin, hair like ripe wheat, perfectly shaped breasts, strong legs. «Come on!» she taunts devilishly, and makes a dash for the lake.
Camassia follows suit; and then Torreya, completely unabashed.
For the ability to transcribe this scene into a candy bud, Laurus would sell his soul. He wants it to stretch for ever and ever. Three golden bodies racing across the ragged grass, laughing, vibrant. The shrieks and splashing as they dive into the water, sending the fish fleeing into the deeps.
This is where it will happen, Laurus decides. In the shade of the magnolia blooms, her body spread open like a star, amid the moisture and the heat.
He's not sure he can wait two years.
Laurus has instructed his staff to set up the machine in the mansion's coldhouse conservatory, where it is sheltered from the sun's abrasive power by darkened glass and large overhanging fern fronds. Conditioners are whining softly as they maintain a temperate climate. Spring is coming to an end for the terrestrial plants growing out of the troughs and borders. The daffodils are starting to fade, and the fuchsia flowers are popping.
Two flaccid olive-green elephant ear membranes have been draped over a metal framework above the seed beds, photosynthesizing the machine's nutrient fluids. A tube patched in to the overhead irrigation pipes supplies water to the internal systems when they run dry.
«Does it snow in here?» Torreya asks.
«No,» Laurus says. «There are frosts, though. We switch them on for the winter months.»
Torreya wanders on ahead, her head swivelling from side to side as she examines the new-old shrubs and trees in the brick-lined border.
«I'd like to have some people take a look at your machine,» Laurus tells her. «Will you mind that?»
«No,» she says. «What is this tree?»
«An oak. They'll duplicate it for me, and I'll sell the candy buds the new machines produce. But I'd like you and Jante to stay on here. You can earn a lot of money with those fantasies of yours.»
A Second Chance at Eden nd-7 Page 23
