Frank Herbert - The Eyes of Heisenberg

“You don’t protest?” he asked.

Svengaard tried to swallow. His throat felt full of dry cotton. He looked at Harvey, measuring the bulk of the man, the corded muscles. He remembered the excessive male protectiveness in Harvey’s nature, the gene-error that made him a slave to Lizbeth’s slightest need.

“Why should I argue,” Svengaard asked, “when much of what he says is true and when he’s already made up his mind?”

“How will you do it, Durant?” Boumour asked.

“How would you like me to do it?” Harvey asked.

“Strangulation might be interesting,” Boumour said, and Harvey wondered if Svengaard, too, could hear the Cyborg clinical detachment in the man’s voice.

“A simple snap of the neck is quicker,” Igan said. “Or an injection. I could supply several from my kit.”

Harvey felt Lizbeth trembling against him. He patted her arm, disengaged himself.

“Harvey!” she said.

He shook his head, advanced on Svengaard.

Igan retreated to Boumour’s side, stood watching.

Harvey knelt behind Svengaard, closed his fingers around the surgeon’s throat, bent close to the ear opposite his audience. In a whisper audible only to Svengaard, Harvey said, “They would as soon see you dead. They don’t care one way or another. How do you feel about it?”

Svengaard felt the hands on his throat. He knew he could reach up with his bound hands and try to remove those clutching fingers, but he knew he’d fail. There was no doubting Harvey’s strength.

“Your own choice?” Harvey whispered.

“Do it, man!” Boumour called.

Only seconds ago, Svengaard realized, he’d been resigned to death, wanted death. Suddenly, that wish was the farthest thing from his desires.

“I want to live,” he husked.

“Is that your choice?” Harvey whispered.

“Yes!”

“Are you talking to him?” Boumour asked.

“Why do you want to live?” Harvey asked in a normal voice. He relaxed his fingers lightly, a subtle communication to Svengaard. Even an untrained person could read this.

“Because I’ve never been alive,” Svengaard said. “I want to try it.”

“But how can you justify your existence?” Harvey asked, and he allowed his fingers to tighten ever so slightly.

Svengaard looked at Lizbeth, sensing at last the direction of Harvey’s thoughts. He glanced at Boumour and Igan.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Boumour said. “What are you discussing with our prisoner?”

“Are they both Cyborgs?” Svengaard asked.

“Irretrievably,” Harvey said. “Without human feelings—or near enough to it that it makes no difference.”

“Then how can you trust them with you wife’s care?”

Harvey’s fingers relaxed.

“That is a way I could justify my existence,” Svengaard said.

Harvey removed his hands from Svengaard’s throat, squeezed the man’s shoulders. It was instant communication, more than words, something that went from flesh to flesh. Svengaard knew he had an ally.

Boumour crossed to stand over them, demanded, “Are you going to kill him or aren’t you?”

“No one here’s going to kill him,” Harvey said.

“Then what’ve you been doing?”

“Solving a problem,” Harvey said. He kept a hand on Svengaard’s arm. Svengaard found he could understand Harvey’s intent just by the pressure of that hand. It said, “ Wait. Be still. Let me handle this.”

“And what is your intention now toward our prisoner?” Boumour demanded.

“I intend to free him and put my wife in his care,” Harvey said.

Boumour glared at him. “And if that incurs our displeasure?”

“What idiocy!” Igan blared. “How can you trust him when we’re available?”

“This is a fellow human,” Harvey said. “What he does for my wife will be out of humanity and not like a mechanic treating her as a machine for transporting an embryo.”

“This is nonsense!” Igan snapped. But he realized then that Harvey had recognized their Cyborg nature.

Boumour raised a hand to silence him as Igan started to continue talking. “You have not indicated how you will do this if we oppose it,” he said.

“You’re not full Cyborgs,” Harvey said. “I see in you fears and uncertainties. It’s new to you and you’re changing. I suspect you’re very vulnerable yet.”

Boumour backed off three steps, his eyes measuring Harvey. “And Glisson?” Boumour asked.

“Glisson wants only trustworthy allies,” Harvey said. “I’m giving him a trustworthy ally.”

“How do you know you can trust Svengaard?” Igan demanded.

“Because you have to ask, you betray your ineffectiveness,” Harvey said. He turned, began unfastening Svengaard’s fetters.

“It’s on your head,” Boumour said.

Harvey freed Svengaard’s hands, knelt and removed the bindings from his feet.

“I’m going for Glisson,” Igan said. He left the room.

Harvey stood up, faced Svengaard. “Do you know about my wife’s condition?” he asked.

“I heard Igan,” Svengaard said. “Every surgeon studies history and genetic origins. I have an academic knowledge of her condition.”

Boumour sniffed.

“There’s Igan’s medical kit,” Harvey said, pointing to the black case on the floor. “Tell me why my wife was sick.”

“You’re not satisfied with Igan’s explanation?” Boumour asked. He appeared outraged by the thought.

“He said it was natural,” Harvey said. “How can sickness be natural?”

“She has received medication,” Svengaard said. “Do you know what it was?”

“It had the same markings as the pill he gave her in the van,” Harvey said. “A tranquillizer he called it then.”

Svengaard approached Lizbeth, looked at her eyes, her skin. “Bring the kit,” he said, nodding to Harvey. He guided Lizbeth to an empty pad, finding himself fascinated by the idea of this examination. Once he had thought of this as disgusting; now, the idea that Lizbeth carried an embryo in her in the ancient way held only mystery for him, a profound curiosity.

Lizbeth sent a questioning look at Harvey as Svengaard eased her back onto the pad. Harvey nodded reassuringly. She tried to smile, but a strange fear had come over her. The fear didn’t originate with Svengaard. His hands were full of gentle assurance. But the prospect of being examined frightened her. She could feel terror warring with the drug Igan had given her.

Svengaard opened the kit, remembering the diagrams and explanations from the study tapes of his school years. They had been the subject of ribald jokes then, but even the jokes helped him now because they tended to fix vital facts in his mind.

In his memory, he could hear the chant and the uproarious burst of laughter.

Svengaard bent to his examination, excluding all else but the patient and himself. Blood pressure… enzymes… hormone production… bodily secretions…

Presently, he sat back, frowned.

“Is something wrong?” Harvey asked.

Boumour stood, arms folded, behind Harvey. “Yes, do tell us,” he said.

“Menstrual hormone complex is much too high,” Svengaard said. And he thought, “ Cling to the wall…”

“The embryo controls these changes,” Boumour sneered.

“Yes,” Svengaard said. “But why this shift in hormone production?”

“From your superior knowledge, you’ll now tell us,” Boumour said.

Svengaard ignored the mocking tone, looked up at Boumour. “You’ve done this before. Have you had any spontaneous abortions in your patients?

Boumour frowned.