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"What's the point? Sluthor here says she don't talk and is like some brain
damage case. Besides, it's gonna be a while before we can use those docs again
no matter what."
Campos nodded. "I know. But she's unchanged, and I know from the other that
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the weed will work particularly well with that kind. Make her an addict, put
her on a leash, walk her around like a pet ... It would be very satisfying."
"Yeah, well, get that out of your head now. No personal vendettas while we got
bigger trouble. Besides, you already got a pet. That big ugly bird, right?"
"No, I gave her to the zoo," Campos told him, suddenly nervous that two and
two would be assembled in the room. "They are quite rare, and the zoo is
going to breed her."
Fortunately, it never occurred to the gang leader to consider that the process
didn't always create monsters or sterile mules, either. "Yeah, well, no more
of that. We got enough trouble from this missing pair if we're guessin'
right. All we need is a third to vanish and we may have to bury ourselves,
and I do mean bury."
"I wouldn't dream of doing anything without your permission, Genny. You know
that."
"And you better hadn't, not anymore. Still, bad as it is, we got a few days to
play with here;
let's not panic. Ain't no raiding army in Clopta yet-they couldn't keep that
from me. Figure if they didn't find their friends in the complex, then this
is where they'll head, though. Take 'em a few days to sweat the details, a
few more to get here by boat, a few more than that to set up things so's they
can move here. We got at least a week. If they got away, them docs should be
in before that, so we may get a jump on the law in finding that missing pair.
Also send out the word. Anybody who remembers them when they was in the
complex or being seasoned, they tell us just what they are and where they
might have gone. Get on it!"
There was a chorus of "Yes, sirs!" and it was clear that the meeting was over.
Campos remained for a bit, wondering if Taluud had anything else for her and
hoping to get more information, but the boss dismissed her. "Get lost, doll.
Go home, pack, and stay close to the phone. I got calls to make." She turned
and walked out.
By the time she emerged at street level from the private elevator, she'd
already started to think about things on her own. What if somebody remembered
that she had been there for the whole process? What if the doctors had backup
records or clear memories of just what they had done?
Taluud was no dummy; he would figure out that she'd been holding out on him
and already knew the information he wanted. Then life would get really
unpleasant. But she didn't want to turn them over, particularly not Mavra
Chang. Campos wasn't fooled by the drooling servile act, not now that she
knew that the bird bitch wasn't even addicted anymore and had never let on.
Chang in the zoo or under her control was one thing: Chang with a voice and a
mind was something else, even if she stayed a bird. There was something too
familiar, deep down, about that bitch. Given the chance, Mavra Chang would
spare nothing to arrange a similar fate for Juana Campos. But why was the
council, the kind of United Nations of this world, so worked up about Chang
and the Erdomite?
The Erdomite was just somebody with that news crew; he couldn't be important
in the long run to anybody. But Chang-that "goddess" stuff, playing jungle
Indian high priestess ...
She had been pretty damned sophisticated when she had gotten here. Those
Indian bitches had thought that she was immortal, that she'd been there like
forever. Stupid superstition from the dumb-ass Stone Agers? It had seemed so.
But what if ...
What if those rumors of her being some kind of creature who could work the
whole damned Well
World had been true? They'd recalled the wanted bulletins, said she was just
a minor player for the guy they were really looking for. but maybe that was a
blind.
First they said she was some kind of real god if she got inside, then they
said she wasn't really. What if the first story had been true? What if Mavra
Chang could somehow get inside whatever ran this world and do pretty much
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whatever she liked to everybody and everything? And they got afraid that
somebody else, somebody like Genny, would snatch her and somehow make her do
what Genny wanted when she was there ...
That would explain everything that had happened, wouldn't it?
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