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her.
We divided our time between long sessions with the scientists and occasional
outings in the city. There were some minor problems, such as her outright
refusal to eat cooked meat in restaurants and her dismay at realizing that
there
wasn't anywhere she could go to kill her own fresh game. We had a bad moment
with someone's pet poodle in a park once, but after that, Tali resigned
herself
to eating the raw meat I brought home from the market. She liked the better
cuts
of steak, although she missed lapping up the warm blood.
What disturbed her most was the cacophony of human thought, especially in a
crowded city like New York. She didn't understand the crowding, either. She
failed to comprehend why anyone would want to live in such close quarters or
in
such a noisy, filthy environment. And human social interaction was a constant
fascination and a puzzle to her. Our communications systems were a source of
endless wonder to her and one of the first things that she had me do was put
through a call to Kami at The Pyramid Club in Tokyo.
The two of them hit it off at once and they talked for about an hour, which
astonished me because Kami was the least talkative person I had ever known.
She
wanted us to fly out to Tokyo and visit her on the Ginza Strip, but we
couldn't
get away from Coles and his researchers and Kami couldn't leave her gambling
empire with the Yakuza still trying to wrest control back from the bandit
gangs.
I wondered if the day would ever come when we all stopped fighting battles.
As fascinated as the scientists were with Tali, they were simply blown away
by
the two young ambimorphs that Breck had captured. They had built a special
maximum security lab for observing them, complete with a sealed clean room
with
a sophisticated environmental system in which the creatures were kept.
Microporous double airlocks were used for introducing food and other things
into
the chamber and every fail-safe system that anyone could think of had-been
built
into the lab. They showed it off to Breck and me and were proudly telling us
how
impossible it would be for the creatures to get out when they looked inside
and
saw to their horror that in spite of all the elaborate precautions they had
taken, the shapechangers had somehow managed to escape!
Alarms went off all over the place and sealed doors came down and everything
was
pandemonium until Breck asked them if the ambimorphs had ever left their food
uneaten. And, of course, they had eaten their food. They had merely assumed
its
shape in an attempt to fool their captors, which they very nearly succeeded
in
doing. It shook the smart boys up a bit, but it taught them that all the
fail-safe systems and security precautions in the world were only as good as
the
guy who controlled the on-and-off switch.
One of the first things they learned about the creatures was that they did
not
leave the sluglike slime trails in their natural form. The slime, which the
lab
boys were extremely curious about since they'd never seen it firsthand, was
thought to be part of the creatures' reproductive process. The xenobiologists
were all anxiously looking forward to the day when the shapechangers would
mature and divide into more shapechangers, slime and all. Their worst fear
was
that the ambimorphs would not reproduce in captivity. I had to laugh. Here we
were, trying to find ways to kill the creatures off, and the xenobiologists
were
anxious to breed more of them. I hoped to hell they knew what they were
doing.
They had all the requisite degrees, but I was always more impressed by street
smarts than by sheepskins. For now, they had their hands full with the
creatures
and the ambimorphs weren't even fully grown yet. Eventually, they'd tire of
changing into laboratory mice and rats and rubber balls and wooden blocks and
they'd grow large enough to take on human form. And then the scientists would
really get an education.
Higgins and Coles despised each other at first sight, though each had a
grudging
respect for the abilities of the other. Coles wanted Higgins on the research
staff and Higgins wanted badly to accept, but there was an obstacle to their
negotiations that at first seemed insurmountable. Higgins categorically
refused
to be implanted with a biochip and Coles would not have anyone around who
could
not be monitored. He was-not unreasonably, I suppose-terrified that
shapechangers would infiltrate his nerve center. They finally found a way to
reach a compromise. Permanent residential quarters would be set up for
Higgins
inside the maximum security Game Control nerve center-and Higgins would never
set foot outside. It astonished me, but he actually agreed to those
conditions.
"It's the work that matters, O'Toole," he told me, philosophically. "It's all
right. I'll be comfortable here."
"But, Jesus, Grover," I said, looking at his rugged outdoor complexion,
"you'll
never be able to go outside! You don't know Coles. He wasn't kidding. If you
so
much as set foot below the maximum security levels of this building, you're
out.
Finished. You'll never get back in again. He's so paranoid, he won't even
accept
it if Tali clears you."
"Actually, he knows damn well that if Tali vouched for me, I'd be okay," said
Higgins. "No ambimorph could fool a Nomad. That's not what this is all about.
This is an issue of control. He thinks I'll break down and accept a biochip
implant, but I simply will not allow anyone access to my mind."
"But that means you'll have to play by his rules," I said.
"Are they his rules?" said Higgins, smiling. "So long as I've got something
he
wants, he plays by my rules. Otherwise I just take the tube down to the lobby
and I'm out of here. I'm not a prisoner; I'm free to go if I choose. But
what's
on the outside for me? City streets? Residential towers? Pollution, traffic,
people?" He shook his head. "There's nothing out there I want to see,
O'Toole.
Coles and I have cut a deal. When I'm fed up with this place, he buys me a
one-way ticket to anywhere there's mountains and the animals haven't learned
to
run away from people yet. Meanwhile, he picks up room and board and provides
me
with the greatest scientific opportunity of my entire career. Believe me,
it's
not such a bad deal."
As for Purgatory, Coles kept his part of the bargain. The factories and waste
dumps were closed down and the human settlements were evacuated under
military
supervision. Purgatory Station became a military garrison manned by the
hybreed
soldiers of the Special Service and the Nomads worked with the commandos to
keep
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