Dancers in the Afterglow (15 page)

"And when I went out into society, I discovered I was the center of everybody's world. Heads turned and stared at me. Strangers, both men and women, smiled, and cast looks of dreamy awe and envy."

She paused, smiling at the memories and her own self-image, then continued. "I was different—and I loved it. The product of the best genetic engineering money could provide. I was the perfection others fantasized for themselves. Men worshipped me. Women reacted in much the same manner. I had no need of money, no worries of any kind. Legions always protected me without being asked; anything I wanted I had merely to mention and people would fight for the honor of getting it for me.

"Until this awful camp, my life was an endless series of beautiful places, beautiful clothes, beautiful people— although none so beautiful as I. I was designed for it, created for it, and I have loved it."

Ponder looked grim and slightly ill, although his eyes had pity. "And all of this innate superiority—people, all other people, are merely objects to you, aren't they?" he asked in a low, cautious tone.

"My superiority was designed, and proved by the way others reacted to me," she responded coolly.

"Well, maybe we should simply make beautiful sculptures, eh?" Ponder replied bitterly. "Lifelike replicas of perfection, so everyone could worship at their feet. And, you know what? They'd be better than you. They wouldn't
hurt
the people they came in contact with, and they would have just as much inside of them, in the human part, where it counts, as
you
do! NOTHING!" He screamed the last word.

"I don't hurt people," she fired back. "I bring glamour into their drab lives."

"Glamour!" Ponder almost spat the word out. "All you do is hurt people. You have never considered the feelings, the needs, of another human being in your whole life!" The charge didn't seem to faze her.

Ponder continued his attack. "And what's worse, in always regarding other people as objects, as things, as toys, you
never once
considered that that was all you were—a robot, a thing, a creature made in a factory for the express purpose of being everybody's plaything. You were not designed as a woman,
you were designed as a living sculpture by your artist father!"
That last hurt her. She looked at him strangely, but said nothing. Now Ponder moved for the
coup de grace,
while she was off-balance, defenses lowered as she considered the proper response. "You're like so many good-looking people," he told her. "You're all exterior. Nothing inside. No humanity. No warmth. No compassion. No regard for others. But—take away those beautiful looks and you're nothing. No, you're less than nothing, since everyone else is used to surviving as ordinary-looking people, while you—you have nothing!"

He reached behind him, and, with surprising strength, picked up a two-meter mirror and held it up to her on the stage.

"Look at yourself now!" he almost yelled at her.
"Look at yourself, Nothing!"

At first she wouldn't look, stared down at the stage instead. But, slowly, under Ponder's taunts, as the rest of the group started egging her on, her head came up. She saw herself.

Her mouth flew open, and stark terror came into her face. She raised her right hand to her face, feeling it. The image in the mirror did the same. Slowly the hand traced her new, squat, muscular form, while her mouth remained open, her eyes unable to break contact with the eyes of the image in the mirror.

"Nooooo!"
she shrieked, almost howled, like a wounded animal caught in a leg trap. "Nooooo!" And then she rushed at the mirror, struck it, and continued to hit it, over and over again, screaming "No! No! No! No!" with every futile blow.

Ponder, who supported the mirror, seemed to have no problem keeping it up, showing surprising strength since Moira at this stage could probably bend an iron bar.

The mirror was made of plastine, a material that was fairly light but structurally almost as strong as steel. Her blows dented it, pushed it in like so much tinfoil.

Finally, Moira collapsed. She just sank against the mirror, and down, onto the stage, head down, tears streaming. Then, slowly, ever so slowly, her head raised a little, and she looked out at the stunned audience with hollow eyes.

I'm like them, now,
her mind told her. She fought against it, but the truth of the thought refused to go away, just like the image in the mirror.

Slowly, without even realizing it, she curled up into a tight little ball, and stuck her thumb in her mouth. Her expression reminded them all of a baby's, and she whimpered softly.

Ponder sighed and put the mirror down. He went over to her, touched her. At first she flinched, then she let him stroke her tenderly, as a father would stroke his daughter.

"Nice Moira, pretty Moira," he soothed, over and over.

She sniffled, then smiled. "Yeth, Da Da," she responded.

He looked at the rest of the people, feeling as well as seeing their pity for the stricken woman.

"We'll take a break," he told them. "Go on outside, leave her to Ponder. Go out and laugh and touch one another, hug one another, kiss and love one another, reach out to each other as this poor woman never reached out to anyone."

They filed out in silence, and, once out in the diamond, they
did
come together. They wept together for the poor soul of Moira, and they touched, and hugged, and knew in that moment that
they
loved, and cared, and would never be alone.

Back inside, Ponder sighed. He hated this part of the work. His work and mission was changing these people; changing them, he knew, for the better. He was committed to that.

But some people could only be destroyed.

He turned from Moira and opened his medical kit.

It was a large locker, one of those he'd brought with him. Several vials contained or had contained the drug for the orange drink, but there were vials for other drugs as well.

He took a vial and slipped it hesitantly into his injection-gun. Another drug from human psychotherapy, rarely used. He wouldn't have used it if there had been more time, but his orders were clear. In the case of Ondine, it was the only drug to use in these cases.

At least she'll be happy, he thought sadly. And she'll cause no more misery in others.

He leaned over, hesitated a second, then injected it into her rump. She jumped a little, but didn't otherwise protest.

He waited. A minute. Two. Five. Now he began to see some changes in her. She was more relaxed, smiling. She closed her eyes for a few seconds, then they opened briefly and stared blankly into space, before finally closing again. She sighed, and was limp.

Ponder gently picked her up and placed her in a depression at the back of the stage and covered all but her face with a blanket. Then he called the others back in.

They came in as one organism, smiling, eager, most of them holding hands. But, after they were all in, it occurred to them that Moira wasn't around.

"Where is she?" many said almost in unison.

Pander's expression was grave. "Still here. Sleeping. She'll waken in a little while. No, don't worry, we won't disturb her." He sighed. "But, in one sense, she is truly gone. We ran some tests on her, and treated what we could, but she was just too fragile once her armor was stripped away. She cannot survive mentally without it."

"Do you mean," two or three people asked, "she's become that little child?"

Ponder nodded. "Probably forever. I've fixed a few things. She'll remember nothing of her past, nothing of what she once was. She'll speak as a child, act as a child would act. She'll be a child as long as she lives." He didn't mention that this was more a function of the drug than anything else. Had she gone catatonic, she'd have been an automaton, following any order without thought. As a regressive she'd still be open to suggestion.

He saw the sadness and pity on their faces.

"Don't be so sad," he told them, trying to sound cheerful. "After all, which among us would not love to be a child? She'll be a happy child, a good child, an obedient child, and she'll need constant love and care which you—which all of us—can provide. We can't all be perpetual children—else, how would the technology function, the comforts and care be provided? But she can, and will be." He looked up quickly.

"Will you accept her that way? Will you adopt her? Will you make her the loved and wanted child of all of you?"

And as he fired the questions they responded in unison, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" He felt better.

"Very well, then. There is no need for sadness, only for joy and love. Now, let us expose the last of our demons," he told them.

The few remaining were more of the same, with no real differences. The one thing they had all learned was how similar their emotional anguish was, if not in cause then in effect. It bound them together. A good group, Ponder thought, pleased. No suicides, excellent reaction, and only one mental breakdown.

And then, finally, it was Genji's turn. The last to speak, he was nervous, awkward, He'd changed a great deal, too. Filled out, become muscular, thick and tough, with little physical trace of the scrawny little man he'd been.

"I'm Genji," he told them needlessly. "Genji DiMorda. I was born in a tenement in Romanch, on Traggatalia. I was never much to look at—hell, I couldn't beat my own-shadow. But, boy! Could I talk! Bigmouth, loudmouth, that was me. I could argue anybody out of anything. It's the way I stayed alive.

"I talked myself into a reading and writing school. Well, sort of. One of the instructors took pity on me after I gave her the snow job and taught me after hours. I guess the combination of the mouth and the pitiful look got to her.

"Well, anyway, I look at the fancy dudes and how they live. I look at the beautiful men and women that everybody makes over, and I say, 'Hey! That's for me!' But what can I do? I can't become one of 'em. That's what my mom and two dads tell me. Ya gotta be a millionaire to get redesigned, and there weren't many places you could do that anymore. Hell, I was smart, but no genius.

"So then I see that the beautiful people, have some not-so-beautiful people workin' for 'em. The only way in was the back door, since I had no way of even knowin' how you got in those jobs. I mean the drivers and attendants and such. The big shots had real people waitin' on 'em, not machines. Class.

"So, anyway, I find these two dames that fix models' dresses. I play up to 'em, the whole sympathy bit. Well, the combination of my big mouth and the impulse of people to mother me pays off. They take me in to do their own housework. Not much, but I can read and write and am pretty good with figures, and pretty soon I've got a job writing copy for their agency. I got myself attached to one client after another, a year or so each. Some men, some women." He paused, sighing sadly. "Didn't make no difference for me that way.

"See, they were all beautiful. Fantastic. Doors opened for 'em. The best food. The best hotels. Travel. Parties. And right there with 'em was good old Genji, stayin' in the same hotels, eatin' the same food—important, you know? Because I was other little people's only way to the biggies.

"Then came Moira. I fell hard for her. Everybody did. She took me on, and played with me. Knew it was torture for me to see her make out with other people, even twerps as nobody as me. But never me. Even here, in the camp, it wasn't different. When I saw her change, her looks go, no longer so damned perfect anymore, I thought, maybe, maybe now she'll come to me."

He looked out at them, eyes showing his inner pain.

"But she never did. And," he concluded softly, "I guess she never will—now. I never knew. Never woulda believed. I couldn't imagine that
she
would ever crack, not like that."

"And what are your feelings about her now?" Ponder asked gently.

"I pity her. I really do." He turned and looked at Ponder. "It isn't fair. People should have insides to match their outsides."

Ponder nodded. "That's what all this is about. Life— life under the old culture—wasn't fair. But if we make the
inside
the same, and we make it something beautiful, then the rest doesn't matter, does it?"

They all nodded. It was the key to the group.

"And you," Ponder continued, pointing at Genji. "Look at what you accomplished! Up from nothing, from the dole! An education! A job you got by your wits and improved by being good at it. You have more to be proud of, more solid accomplishment, than any hundred of those people you admired, yet you continued to consider yourself inferior to them. Now that you've seen their shallow fragility, and you're still here, still standing tall, you should know your true worth!"

Genji smiled appreciatively and stepped down. The others nodded and murmured sentiments similar to Ponder's.

The old Machist sighed, and faced them.

"Well, it's over. In these interviews, and in our follow-up discussions, we've learned about each other, our pains, sorrows, joys, hopes. We know more about each other than any human group back in the Combine. We understand. We empathize with each other."

He went over to the electronic console.

"Now," he continued, "we must use that knowledge to take the last great step, the step all groups must take sooner or later. The melding of you into one, into a . single organism. Each of you with different tasks, but of one mind. A mind so common to all that you will be able to enter civilization with others and know that they, too, are all of that oneness." He flipped on the console, illuminating myriad dials and switches, and a keyboard.

"We will help. We will continue to help. The final step, though, you must do yourselves." He fiddled with the dials, then continued.