Scott Westerfeld - Evolution's Darling

But a grim hour with the lawyers had convinced him otherwise. Apparently, there were laws about having purchased another human being, especially an induced-psychosis killing machine from the twisted and barbaric NaPrin so-called culture. But the little creature had paid for itself already. The expression on Darling's face alone had almost been worth it! And now, sole access to the new Vaddum.

Perhaps it lacked imagination, this enforcer routine, compared to his original scheme to use the Warden as an artwork. But it had certainly gotten the job done. And the rumors that would spread once Darling returned to the HC and started complaining! Don't cross Duke Zimivic, he'll crush you like some poor criminal on NaPrini. No bad reviews for his shows, you'll wind up sentenced to a standard decade of covering fashion shows on the Outer Rim!

Zimivic imagined the sentences he could impose. That fat bastard Reginald Fowdy, sentenced never to look at a statue of a naked man again. Hah! Or his lackey Leao Vatrici, a month without AI assistance might do her some good.

But, of course, the lawyers were right: keep the Warden out of the Home Cluster. Strictly legal. But everyone must know that it's somewhere, waiting for orders. The unseen weapon is feared the most.

A muted chime came from the door.

Champagne, at last! And after twenty minutes—a fair excuse not to bother with a tip.

Zimivic strode to the door and clapped once. It slid open.

The woman wasn't dressed in hotel livery. Perhaps a manager here to apologize for the delay. His eyes scanned her reflexively: small, heavy breasted. A bit of fun like he might have brought along for company if the Warden hadn't required a cabin. Passage for three all the way Out here would have been far too costly. And the bastard shipping company wouldn't let him plonk the Warden in cargo. Were they afraid of hurting its feelings?

"Well, where is it?" he demanded. "Do you know how long I've been waiting?"

She stared at him coolly. Her hair was wet. There was an almost vacant expression of exhausted pleasure on her face, as if she'd just fucked and had a shower. Very alluring.

"I believe this is yours," she said, and reached to one side. She pulled a hunched, stumbling figure into the doorway, propelled it into the room.

"What is the—" Zimivic started.

The figure smelled of piss and sweat and excrement. Its clothes were caked with patches of blood, some dried, others still dark and shiny. Where skin was exposed, the creature bore marks of torment: the crude gouges of fingernail wounds, the straight, bloody lines of razor strokes. The figure fell to the floor, splaying across the white carpet like a bundle of laundry come undone. It turned its head toward him, made a mewling noise like a wounded cat. I Only then—through the puffing of dark bruises, through layers I of blood crusted and fresh, and despite a single revolting strand of mucus connecting its nose to the carpet—did Zimivic recognize it.

It was the Warden.

"My god," he said. The money he'd spent on the thing.

He turned to the woman for sympathy. But her face didn't hold the concern of a local official bringing home the victim of some terrible crime. Quite the contrary: she was smirking.

Zimivic got the nervous feeling he often did when dealing with someone who was not an employee, functionary, or social inferior.

"That," she said, pointing at the crumpled figure on the floor, "had these." She threw a pair of disks at Zimivic.

He fumbled for them instinctively, dropped one and secured the other. Looking down, he realized they were the tickets he'd intended for Darling. Steerage class to Parate; a Chiat Dai agricultural ship full of atmosphere-treating lichen. High O2 concentrations: no smoking and flash suits required full-time.

"I suggest you make that ship, Mr. Zimivic."

"I will certainly not!" he shouted. He bared his teeth and put one finger to his right temple to activate a direct interface.

No connection occurred.

She pulled the Warden's black laquered box from her robe, shaking her head.

"You're welcome to call the cops when I leave, Mr. Zimivic. But I remind you that you don't know who I am or where I came from."

She threw the box in the air, caught it. There was a strange precision to her movements, a little like the Warden's: a combination of mechanical efficiency and animal grace.

"All you know," the woman continued, "is what I did to your highpriced killing machine…"

She let the sentence end with a strange, empty tone in her voice, as if she wasn't quite finished. Zimivic found himself anxious for the rest.

"… for fun." She sounded almost sad.

But she smiled at Zimivic, and her eyes travelled slowly down his frame, as if marking a hundred loci of torture, planning an agenda of agonies acute and slow, sliding him into some inquisitor's category of victimhood organized by long experience. It was the coldest look he had ever endured.

And then she was gone.

Zimivic didn't waste much time thinking. He shouted for his valet drone, which was hovering impatiently about the crumple figure as if waiting to clean the carpet underneath it. The little robot flew into action, splitting into five discrete elements to gather the clothing, knick-knacks, and souvenirs Zimivic had scattered about the suite. The man himself packed the few artworks that he traveled with, pausing in his panicked rush to place them carefully in their special cases.

He looked at his watch. Plenty of time. It's the middle of the night; the birds are light and I can take a flyer.

Zimivic summoned a luggage carrier and limousine, and sat down to wait.

The Warden's breathing filled the silence of the suite. It had a raspy, liquid quality, as if someone had poured a thick, sweet liqueur into the creature's lungs. He struggled occassionally, as if to rise. Finally, the broken man turned his head and caught Zimivic's spellbound eye.

"She cores…" the Warden gurgled.

Zimivic turned his head away. But he was too much an aesthete, his eye too fascinated with extremes. And the wasted thing bleeding into the white carpet was in its way beautiful: a perfectly abject remainder of a man.

There'd been a one-legged woman, twice his age, who'd lived with Zimivic's family when he was young. Zimivic was a child of poverty, and any number of borders had passed through their crowded flat. At sixteen, he'd become fascinated with the woman's fleshy stub. He would catch a glimpse through the crack of a hinged door, or in dim moonlight in that glorious month they'd shared a room. Since then, he'd never been able to take his eyes from an amputee. A homeless and legless beggar on the metro, the sculptor Byron Vitalle with his missing fingers, the Chiat War veteran who whirred past his gallery every noon like clockwork. Guilty pleasures.

His eyes were drawn to the Warden by that same terrible power.

The thing was exquisitely horrible.

"She's care…" it said.

The entry chime sounded again.

Zimivic jumped to the door, then opened it with trepidation. He shuddered with relief to see the luggage carrier rather than some new and fantastic invasion. The machine collected the bags, which he'd coded with the name of the Chiat Dai vessel. Its dull intelligence ignored the man on the floor. He looked at his watch again. Plenty of time.

As the limo flew through the dark buildings of Malvir, Zimivic's panic began to subside, and the madness of what had happened surged into his mind. The Vaddum had been only a dozen hours from being his. His victory over Darling, Fowdy, and that bitch-dyke Vatrici had seemed complete. And suddenly, that strange, terrible woman with her sickening smile had delivered defeat to his door.

This was insane!

He began to breathe heavily. The antiseptic smell of the rented limousine seemed laced with a choking, cloying incense. The money he'd spent. Passage to Malvir, the tickets for Darling (a foolish, expensive joke, sending him back to Parate), the Warden…