Georgia on My Mind and Other Places Read Online Free PDF Page B

persistent voice remained, moving closer to whisper intimately into Gilden’s ear.
    “ When, I know already. How , you have been wise enough to describe to me. Now I must know why . Why would the world’s leading electronics designer and miniaturist throw away career, bright future, and life itself? What compulsion would lead him to work night and day for a full year, at a level of ingenuity marveled at by all who have studied the process, with a level of risk great enough to intimidate the boldest, to attain such a momentary and apparently trivial gratification? Look again. And tell me why .”
    The scene began as the ant-sized voyeur threaded its way toward the Mentor Presumptive’s bedchamber. It crept along precomputed hair-thin curves, following a path where the monitors’ sensing fields did not quite overlap. To learn the position of those curves, Gilden had thwarted a dozen elaborate and ingenious computer security systems. (And now he was not alone in paying for his skill. Twenty guards, if the Teller could be believed, had been sentenced to a lifetime of labor in the ice-world quarries of Decantil, for their failure to detect the voyeur as it insinuated itself into the Mentor Presumptive’s sanctum.)
    The Presumptive’s new bride had been drugged during surgery and the elaborate preparations that followed, but before leading her into the bedchamber the physicians had followed instructions. All drugs and sedatives were sluiced from her body. She lay now, dark-skinned, naked, and slightly trembling, on a great circular bed sheeted with blue satin. The Presumptive stood by the bedside. He was humming softly to himself as he removed a belted robe of dark crimson. Beneath it he was naked. The sensors of the voyeur zoomed to take in the Presumptive’s facial expression as he moved rampant onto the bed and gripped the woman’s quivering thighs. There was a long moment, a pause for savoring and anticipation. At the moment of entry the voyeur expanded its field of view to include the woman’s face.
    This time the surgeons had done a good job. The afferent nerves linking sex organs and hindbrain had been channeled and enhanced, but not too much. The bride’s ecstasy during lovemaking took her close to the point of death, but after the Mentor Presumptive’s climax she was still alive.
    The display changed, turning to show continuing muscle spasms in the bride’s inner thighs. The view moved slowly up her body, to pause at a slack-lipped mouth and at eyes where only a sliver of iris showed between whites and upper lids. At last the display moved again, halting at the Presumptive’s flaring nostrils and full lips.
    “You and I have watched this many, many times.” The calm voice of the Teller cut into the recorded sound of the Mentor’s heavy breathing. “Your resting pulse rate is fifty-seven beats a minute. Your current pulse rate is one hundred and sixteen. Would you like to tell me why?”
    “I explained.”
    “You explained indeed. In response to my stimuli you explained too much. First it was your stated intention to sell copies of this, the recording of a most secret and sacred element of the Mentor Presumptive’s life. But while you have dozens of other illegal recordings in your quarters, there is no evidence that you have ever attempted to sell any one of them—or indeed that you would know how to undertake this or any other illegal enterprise. I reject that explanation. Next you explain that you intended to use the recording to blackmail the Mentor Presumptive, or even the Mentor himself. A preposterous suggestion indeed, since the first hint that such a recording had been made would lead to your arrest and death—as indeed it did and will. You then explained to me that you considered this a final test of technique for your new sensor. If it could penetrate this innermost and highly protected sanctum, it could penetrate anywhere. True, perhaps, but a dangerous notion indeed for anyone who wishes