The Gentle Seduction (5 page)

I dressed, and slipped down to the bar. I knew I would not sleep again for a long time.

Today, four more people would die.

I had only started to admire the sparkle of the glass in my hand when a platoon of news-types, minicams and microphones in hand, spilled into the lounge. There was the abrupt sound of a lady's laughter, and in a burst of color such a lady forced her way through the reporters to a middle table, where she coiled easily into the molded chair.

The colors of her dress dazzled the eye. They were meant to distract the viewer's concentration from any betraying facial expressions: I had seen this kind of performance before, and even though I entered a drunken stupor, I was not deceived.

I looked up, into her almond-shaped eyes. They were hard eyes, swift but cynical. For a moment I felt sorry for her; she too had been scarred by encounters with a reality too terrible to be a part of a rational universe. The body she wore was older, with the skin tightening across her cheeks. Wrinkles radiated from her eyes when she smiled.

Yet when they asked her their first question, her smile made me smile. Her voice carried clearly above the din: "Of
course
I'm going to lower the people's tuitions, yet raise the funding grants. That's what every Chairman for the past decade has promised, and a Chairman would
never
abrogate on a promise, would he?"

There was a subdued pause; the reporters weren't sure whether she was being sincere, or whether she was just joking!

For a moment, her cynical eyes lost their bitterness; she was laughing, a laughter no one in her audience could note or appreciate.

Her eyes met mine; for that moment, we shared the secret joy.

No, not again! I was in love.

I should have left the bar. When I looked at this bitter woman, I could feel myself teetering on the edge of a pit; this lady could hurt me, scar me, and walk away.

But I could not leave. I lacked the will power. I have never had the discipline that springs unaided to those who do what they should do, just because they know they should. For me, strength of character has always needed an outside crutch: always I have leaned on the woman I loved.

I don't think I was a clinging vine. Yet without the sense of love and being loved, I had always been a bit broken inside. The beginnings of lifetimes had always been painful transitions for me, for my life was always loveless then. But none of those transitions had been raw hells like
this
.

Since I lacked the discipline and wisdom to leave, I did the opposite: I approached the lady. A bodyguard-type male calmly moved to intercept me; I calmly tipped him off balance and tossed him to the side.

I fear the toss was too blatant to go unnoticed; everyone turned to look at me. I poised myself before my new love, and bowed in the Victorian manner. "We must share more moments, my lady," I offered.

Her laughter seemed a bit strained. "Heavens! I've never been propositioned so elegantly before!" She turned to a bank of minicams. "Should I have an affair with this man?" she asked. "He seems nice enough." She eyed me carefully, "Though perhaps a bit inebriated."

One of the men leaned over a radio/calculator device. In a moment he looked up and shook his head. "I think the voters prefer their leaders to be virgins," he said with a smile.

My lover-to-be sighed. "It's tragic, the frequency with which I must turn down my admirers."

Three bodyguards moved in on me this time. I could have taken them all, but it would have been noisy, and probably of no avail. My lady seemed trapped by the cameras. I accompanied her boys out of the bar, with effusive apologies (and a tip for the one I had accidentally caused to slip earlier) I asked them what was going on. "Did somebody really vote on whether or not we would have an affair?"

"Yeah, man. Don't you know who that is in there?" He stuck a meaty thumb over his shoulder. "That's Rainbow Dancer, the Chairman of Springform!"

"Rainbow Dancer? Sounds like a race horse," I commented.

"Huh?"

I waved my hand. "Just a joke." No one on Forma had ever seen a race horse, I realized. I stood as if stage struck. "My God, the Chairman!" I whispered.

The big man laughed. "Yeah. You're lucky she likes people, otherwise I'd've knocked your head in." His tone changed. "So long," he said with more meaning than the words denoted.

"Right." I walked back to my room with my mind spinning. The whole universe seemed to spin with it. I didn't know what sense to make of my own mind, much less what sense to make of the universe.

Was I just falling in love with every woman I saw? That couldn't be it. I hadn't fallen in love with Wendy, for example. Still, I was clearly unsane.

The planet Forma seemed equally unsane. Why would the Chairman of Springform ask for a
vote
on whether she had an affair?

I turned on the video screen again, and soon
that
question was answered: Springform was run by a full- fledged, purist videocracy. The citizens voted on everything, constantly. Politicians literally belonged to the people; they were powerless beyond their ability to persuade the people to vote their way on each individual issue; the Chairmanship could (and had, at times in the past) change on a daily, or even an hourly, basis.

I felt much saner, seeing that much raw insanity. I fell back on the couch. In a manner, I slept. I did not dream.

Soft lips brushed my cheek; "Rainbow," I murmured. Popping open one bleary eye, I saw a blurred being before me. It was Wendy.

"Rainbow, huh?" she asked. "Did you spend the night with the Chairman of Springform?" She giggled at her own joke.

"Yes, I did," I explained.

Wendy stared at me in disbelief. "Rainbow Dancer?"

"Is there another Chairman?" I asked. "The Chairman was in this motel last night."

"You're joking." She pointed a finger at me. "Stop trying to pull my leg."

"Have it your way." I shrugged.

The buzzer rang on our door. I stepped over and opened it.

"Gibs." A woman swept into my arms. She was warm and beautiful and—she was Rainbow!

I pulled back in amazement. "What are you doing here?"

As I stepped back, Rainbow stepped closer. My mouth was full of cotton, my chin was covered by a stubble of beard you could use to grind an axe blade, and I had slept in my clothes. She didn't seem to mind. "I came to find the only man I've ever met who could
understand
me," she explained.

Wendy peeked around the corner. "Who is it, Gibs?" she asked.

Rainbow stopped short. "Goodness. You certainly didn't lose much time finding a soft shoulder to cry on last night, did you?" Her face flushed. "Or, when you told me that we just had to 'share more laughter together,' did you mean a threesome?"

"Wait." I talked fast, a terrified machine gun. "This is Wendy Levitine, a friend from Fallform who—"

"Friends. Right." Rainbow turned on her heel and walked out.

"You're not being fair!" I yelled through the door. That had no effect, so I ran through the door myself. Rainbow was already rounding the corner. "I love you!"

She disappeared.

I pursed my lips. She had done it, as I had feared— she had hurt me, and walked away.

When I turned back into the room, Wendy looked at me with big wide eyes. "You really did spend the night with Rainbow Dancer!"

I choked back a violent reply. "Yeah." I looked at Wendy with an appraising eye. I guess I could understand why Rainbow had jumped to the wrong conclusion; Wendy certainly didn't look like the maid. "What do you want for breakfast?" I asked.

The videoscreen was lit, but I scarcely paid attention. I sipped at my orange juice, watching Wendy eat. "Wendy, tell me something. When I was talking with Sharyn," my voice faltered, "she told me that Fallform and Winterform had been at war even before the Sirians arrived. What were they fighting
over
?"

"The Howard radiation belt."

"And what is a Howard radiation belt?"

"That's the radiation belt around Forma. You need them for SEEPage."

"Seepage?"

"Yeah. Stimulated Emission of Energetic Particles. You can control the descent of charged particles into the atmosphere using Very Low Frequency radio waves. A lot of the weather manipulation techniques depend on controlling the SEEPage from the Howard belt into the atmosphere."

"Using radiation to control the weather?"

Wendy shrugged. "Sure. Radiation is an important weather factor. There're a couple of natural examples, like the Aurora Ocularis, and the Lightning Polaris."

I nodded. I had heard of the Lightning Polaris, the staggering electrical storms that flared occasionally near the Pole.

"SEEPage can be used to form and break up clouds as well." She stopped eating. "You know those clouds that the Fallform ships dived out of? I think they were created by SEEPage."

"What about blizzarcanes?"

Wendy nodded. "Of course. A blizzarcane couldn't
possibly
occur naturally."

I suspected this discussion would fascinate the Sirians.

"Anyway, the radiation belt is not infinitely big. There're just so many particles out there to SEEP. And we don't dare use them all up, because they're part of our protection from the sun."

"How delightful." As usual, war was consuming the very resource over which the war was fought.

The videoscreen distracted me: in a stark scene of burning trees, the camera zoomed, and lo! I beheld an image in my own likeness.

The anchorman droned on, "We believe this to be the Sirian mindshifter/assassin, imaged shortly before Fallform's attack on the rebel base. Responsible authorities believe he may be somewhere in Springform."

I took Wendy by the hand. "Let's roll," I said.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Back to my ship, for a quick change of costume." Did the Springform authorities think they could catch me just by knowing my face? Given a few minutes aboard Glitter, I would give them the surprise of their lives.

I stepped out of the dressing room to see Wendy talking quietly to Jester, the long Vegan climbvine growing around my bar.

"I would offer you a drink," my new voice said, "but I left all the good stuff at home." I struck a pose; Oberon would have been proud.

Wendy stared for a moment, then drew back. "Who are you?"

It wasn't a standing ovation, but I had clearly been effective with my audience. I opened my arms. "It's me, Gibs. The man with whom you just dodged three police cars, the man who almost got you killed again."

She stepped forward. "Really?"

I frowned. "Really. I
told
you I wouldn't be the same person, didn't I? A disguise wouldn't be very useful if it didn't make you look different, would it?"

Wendy shook her head. "But you
sound
different, and you
walk
different. It's incredible!"

I ran my finger across my mustache. "Yes." I turned to a mirror on the wall, and for a moment let my natural vanity run wild.

For all intents and purposes, it was as if I had had Transfer to another body. Of course, I hadn't—a mindshifter can't perform his own mindshift—but he can use the finest surgical technology yet devised to perform plastic surgery. My skin was darker, my musculature heavier, my forehead a tad lower, and my nose much more aristocratic.

And my movements matched. I moved more carefully, in some ways more gracefully. I walked with long, assertive strides. Even my height seemed different. I stood straighter now all the time: My revised body begged its wearer to play heroic roles. I had played heroic roles before; today I would play one again.

"What are we going to do?" Wendy asked, almost in pain. "I thought we were going to get ready to kill the Playmaster."

I lowered my head. "We'll find the Playmaster. But first I must find my love."

Wendy just stared at me.

I blushed. "I'm not a very strong man. Or rather, I'm never any stronger than the bond I have with the woman of my life." I cupped Wendy's face in my hands. "I wish that
you
were the woman of my life. But you're not. Only Rainbow Dancer can give me that strength."

"She's
evil
, Gibs! Didn't you see how cruel she can be?" We had discussed the effect Rainbow had had on me before.

There were tears in Wendy's eyes. "She won't help you, she'll destroy you."

"Perhaps. But I have been a psychologist, too, you know. Rainbow is damaged and hurt, as I am. Perhaps I can cure her, as she cures me." I confess, I didn't understand why I loved Rainbow either. I had never before fallen in love with a woman who was, at the core, cruel and uncaring. Keara and Sharyn had threatened my life because they
did not
understand me; Rainbow would threaten me because she
did
understand. For a moment I considered the possibility that somehow the Playmaster had drugged me, to fall hopelessly in love with this most dangerous woman.

Mentally I shrugged; even if it were true, I couldn't do anything about it. I still loved Rainbow. Love was still my master.

I picked up my duffel bag. "You stay here. I'll be back as soon as I can." I smiled. "This should only take a day or two. Watch the video broadcasts; you'll love it."

I confess I felt like whistling as I left. It had been a long time since I had stalked a lover clothed in disguise, though I had done it often enough. More than once in the course of my lifetimes my lovers-to-be hadn't recognized love at first sight. More than once, I had screwed up my relationships with them so badly that I needed to start from scratch, with a new face, a new name, and a new personality. Eventually, each of my loves had learned to live with
me
, but introducing me in graduated doses had often been necessary to prevent disaster.

Clearly, my relationship with Rainbow needed smaller doses.

I found her near a memorial, surrounded again by the charming newscasters. "Here is a permanent monument to our children, those who died in the attacks of Bardon."

She was good. The audience was her plaything, to mold as she chose. "As you know, until recently I had believed that violence was wrong." She clenched her fist. "But our children! We must not let Bardon kill again!"