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  EMERALD EYES

  A Tale of the Continuing Time

  DANIEL KEYS MORAN

  This is a work of fiction. None of the characters in it are real people and any resemblance to anybody, living or dead, is a coincidence.

  It is the author's intention that this work should be freely downloadable, copyable, and shareable in electronic format. It may not be reproduced, shared, or transmitted for a fee by any party to whom the author has not contractually granted permission. The author retains all other rights.

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  Emerald Eyes Copyright (c) 1987

  by Daniel Keys Moran

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  The Star Copyright (c) 1998

  by Daniel Keys MoranDedicated to

  The Tales of the Continuing Time are dedicated to a whole bunch of writers - everybody I ever read, according to one reviewer. That seems fair.

  This book is dedicated to Amy Stout-Moran. She was the editor at Bantam Books who first bought this novel; she is the mother of my sons and the love of my life.

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  EMERALD EYES

  A Tale of the Continuing Time

  The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so cannot…. If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can but will not, then they are not benevolent. If they are neither willing nor able, they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent.

  Epicurus, 300 BC

  The Ancestors

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  2029-2053 Gregorian

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  1.

  You will have heard the story of Carl Castanaveras; of Suzanne Montignet and Malko Kalharri; of our ancestors. They made plans for they were human, as you and I; and the universe, which cared no more for them than for us, struck them down. Its tool was nothing less than a pair of Gods of the Zaradin Church, one of them myself, fighting a battle in a war that was ended nearly sixty-five thousand years before they were born.

  I have told this story before, and I shall someday tell it again, in a different fashion; but for Now, know the story so:

  Darryl Amnier was a man without a title.

  A title makes one knowable.

  "Tell me about them," he said.

  "Oui." Amnier's assistant was French; a depressingly large number of Unification employees were these days. "The director's name is Suzanne Montignet. She is French born, but arrived in the United States in 2015. It is thought that her parents were fleeing the European theater of the War. She was fourteen then. We do not have accurate records for her after leaving France; she arrived in America a year before the Unification War reached that continent. Her parents were killed, apparently by Americans, after the War began. One would have expected this to turn a young girl against the country in which she found herself, but obviously not. When next we have accurate records of her, beginning in 2018, she studied under a scholarship at the College of the Camden Protectorate, in New Jersey. She had by then, and retains today, a substantially American accent. Though she spells her name 'Suzanne' she had further taken to pronouncing her name 'Susan,' in the American style, a habit she also retains. In 2024 she graduated with high honors; two years ago, her work in genetics led to her current position with the United Nations Advanced Biotechnology Research Laboratory in New Jersey, this 'Project Superman.' "

  "Don't use that name. It's not correct."

  After a pause Amnier's aide continued. "The Ministry of Population Control has granted her an unlimited parenting license. She seems apolitical, aside from her personal habits."

  "By which you mean?"

  "Monsieur, she lives in Occupied America, among a proud people who have been, hmm, conquered? Conquered. An apparent distaste for the United Nations might be expedient."

  "Not when dealing with the United Nations purse strings."

  "As you say."

  "What of Malko Kalharri?"

  "What of Kalharri?" Amnier's aide seemed to find the question amusing. "Sir, I think there is little I can tell you that you do not already know about Colonel Kalharri."

  With a shower of gamma rays I came into existence at the fast end of time.

  A wind was raised with my appearance in the empty corridor. Had there been any to observe they would have heard the sharp crack created as air was moved aside at greater than the speed of sound, and might have felt a brief warmth. Those with sharp eyes might have noticed a shadow in the fraction of an instant before I moved away from the spot of my appearance. They would not have seen more of me. Even at my end of time they would have seen little to note: a human dressed all in white, from the boots on my feet to the white cowl that covered my head. Even with the visual distortion that is unavoidable when time is sped so drastically, men of their century would have found the lack of focus upon the surface of a white shadow cloak a striking thing.

  Of course they were not in fast time, nor could be.

  I began trudging through the air, toward my destination. The corridor was nearly dark; flashes of ultraviolet light marked the passage of X-rays, each flash illuminating the corridor like a small lightning. The normal visible spectrum was shifted too deeply into the radio to be of use to me.

  I was in a hurry, pushing through the resisting atmosphere, and I unaccustomed to hurrying; but I was being closely followed by an enemy who had promised to cut my heart out and eat it--and I believed Camber Tremodian would do it, given the chance.

  I did not intend to give him the chance. At the fast end of time I hurried through the slow air.

  Wednesday, December 12, 2029; the United Nations Advanced Biotechnology Research Laboratories, in New Jersey.

  He arrived from Capital City just before eight o'clock; security let Darryl Amnier into Suzanne Montignet's office more than two hours early. They were uneasy, doing it.

  But they did it nonetheless.

  He sat behind her desk, in her chair, with the lights dimmed. A small man, with paper-white hair and wrinkles around his eyes and mouth that made him look far older than he was, he found Montignet's chair slightly too high for his taste. He did not readjust it. Her office had no window, which pleased him to the degree that he ever allowed himself to be pleased. A crank with a rifle was that much less likely to bring three quarters of a million Credit Units' worth of research grinding to a halt with a single shot.

  The decor was standardized, little different from what Amnier had seen in over twenty other research installations in the last four months. Amnier was not certain whether that surprised him. From a woman of such exceptional skills, one might reasonably have expected anything--

  The same might be said of Malko Kalharri, the lab's director of security.

  An Information Network terminal, left turned on and connected to the Mead Data Central medical database, sat at attention immediately next to her desk. Amnier made a note to find out what sort of bill they were running up on information retrieval. An ornamental bookshelf against one wall held reference works in too excellent condition. There were no holographs, not even of Colonel Kalharri, who was reputed to be her lover. Nor were there paintings. The desk was locked. Amnier considered picking it, and decided not to. There was unlikely to be anything inside that he would either understand or find incriminating, and whether he opened it or not, Montignet was certain to suspect he had--which was the whole point.

  The empty corridor in which I appeared connected the sterile genegineers' labs with the showers that led to the un-sterilized outer world, on the first floor of the New Jersey laboratories of the United Nations Bureau of Biotechnology Research. The entrance to the genegineers' labs was through a small room with sealed doorways at both ends. They were not airlocks, though the technology of the day was su
fficient to allow the use of airlocks; indeed, at the interface between the showers and the rest of the installation airlocks were in use. But it was cheaper to keep the laboratories under a slight over-pressure; when the door opened, the wind, and contaminants, blew outward.

  The door swung wide, and a pair of laboratory technicians in white gowns and gloves strode through. The resemblance between their garb and mine brought the ghost of a smile to my lips.

  As they left, I, the god Named Storyteller, entered.

  Suzanne Montignet stopped by Malko Kalharri's office on the way to her own. The lights in his office had not yet been turned on. Entering the room from the brightly lit hallway, Suzanne found it difficult to see Kalharri at first. "Malko?"

  "Yes?" The office lacked a desk; the man who was sprawled loosely on the couch, one oversized hand wrapped loosely around a steaming coffee cup, continued to watch the holotank in the corner of his office. Kalharri did not resemble his name, which he had received by way of his grandfather; he was a big blond man with a tan. The channel light glowed at 335; S-STR, the political news station.

  "What's happening?"

  Malko Kalharri had been a soldier for too many years; he did not move quickly when the situation did not warrant it. After a moment he said, "The Unification Council is 'discussing'--well, this is the word they have used all morning for the screaming and threats--the feasibility of adding an amendment to their damned Statement of Principles, to allow the Secretary General to hold office for more than three four-year terms. Sarah Almundsen must be turning over in her grave; the first amendment ever proposed to that brilliant piece of writing being a tool to keep one of her more foolish successors in office for another term." He shook his head. "It's not going well; SecGen Tenerat didn't think this one through, silly damn frog he is." He paused a moment and without looking at her added, "No offense meant."

  "None taken," she said dryly.

  "Not that the opposition has prepared for it either. The Unification Councilor for Sri Lanka opened the floor for discussion on the subject and so far this morning that's been the most coherent thing anybody's said."

  "I see."

  Kalharri turned his head then to look at her. He grinned broadly. "I've been watching this damned box all morning. I tried turning up the brightness control earlier--"

  "Didn't work."

  "Afraid not." He turned back to the screen.

  "Amnier's here."

  Kalharri took a sip from his coffee before replying. "Guards told me. You're supposed to believe that he's going through your documents. He's been there for an hour already; he knows you don't usually get in until 9 am, and he'll be expecting you to come charging up to your office as soon as you learn he had himself let in to wait."

  "Wheels within wheels. What do I do?"

  "Command," said Kalharri, "bring coffee." Acknowledged blinked in the lower right hand corner of the 3D tank. He lowered his voice slightly. "Amnier's appointment isn't until ten o'clock."

  "So?"

  Filled cups and condiments appeared on the floor next to the couch; memory plastic raised itself up from the floor to become a table at Kalharri's right hand. Kalharri took his cup and sent the table gliding across the floor toward Montignet. "I don't like surprises. Darryl's the same way. Right now he's expecting you to blow through your door any moment, pissed off. So, have a seat," he said cheerfully, "drink your coffee and watch the politicians, and make the bastard wait."

  The door slid aside at 10 am.

  "What the fuck are you doing in my office?"

  Suzanne Montignet was, Darryl Amnier thought in surprise, an astonishing beauty. The holos in her files did her no justice. Her blond hair was tucked up under a net that reminded him of the hair net the Sisters had worn at St. Margaret Mary's, the Catholic school he'd been taught at as a child. She stared at him, waiting for an answer. He wondered at her anger; forty-five minutes ago it had undoubtedly been real. Now it was simply a mask stamped across features that were, perhaps, slightly too delicate. It seemed to Amnier that she was undernourished as well; she must have lost five kilograms since the most recent holographs of her had been taken.

  Darryl Amnier rose belatedly from behind Montignet's desk, removed his hat, and sketched a bow. "I am M. Amnier, here for my appointment." It was his best French.

  Suzanne Montignet looked him over as though he were something unpleasant she'd found in her salad, and shook her head in a tired motion. She dropped the pile of folders she'd entered with on her desktop. "Lights," she said in English. The fluorescent lamps came up bright, and Darryl Amnier realized that the odd gray of her eyes, that he'd assumed an error in her holo reproductions, was their true color. "I know who you are. Do you usually pop into people's offices two damned hours ahead of time?"

  Amnier found himself caught in the challenge of her gaze. He found his posture straightening. "Mademoiselle, only when I wish for the person with whom I am meeting to be ill at ease." He shook his head. "In this instance, I regret the use of the technique--and have for the last half hour."

  Suzanne Montignet looked him over, and smiled wearily. She held out her hand. "I have," she said softly, "been looking forward to meeting you, Mister Amnier." He took her hand, and was not surprised at the strength in her grip. "As has Colonel Kalharri."

  Someday I will tell you of the life of Jorge Rodriguez. It is the least one can do for a man one has killed.

  It is the truth that I killed Jorge Rodriguez.

  Like all truths it is susceptible to interpretation. I had taken all the precautions available to me that my visit to this time might not cause more damage than good; but it is never possible to know all of what may come from a course of action. This is as true of a God of the Zaradin Church as of any other sentient.

  Jorge Rodriguez entered the small room with two doors only moments after his fellow technicians had left through the other. The doors were so designed that they could not both be open at the same time. I waited patiently as the man came through the door leading to the laboratories proper. There was time for me, despite the poor quality of ultraviolet light, to puzzle out his name badge, which was mounted on a piece of dark plastic with a strip of a clear film upon it. He entered as the door had just opened, and then stood in the doorway, preventing my passage, as the door slid shut again. It should not have been a problem; he would continue through the next door, and I would open the door to the laboratories after he was gone. It would appear to those inside as if the door had slid aside of its own accord; unusual, but given the relatively primitive stage of their technology, not be so strange as to cause excitement. A glitch, they would call it.

  But Jorge Rodriguez did not leave immediately. As long minutes fled by on my personal time scale, Rodriguez slumped back against the door to the laboratories. With excruciating slowness he reached inside his coat and withdrew a small cylinder, which he placed within his mouth. As far away as the small room would allow me to get, I paced slowly back and forth to prevent my image from flickering into an instant of appearance. It must have raised ever so faint a breeze.

  Rodriguez puffed on the cylinder, his back to the door through which I desperately needed to pass. It was likely tobacco or marijuana, two preeminent inhalants of the period. I could not recall how long a typical cylinder of either inhalant should have taken to be consumed, but it was soon apparent that whatever the period was would be far longer than I had available.

  I came down into Time.

  It was instantaneous for me; for Rodriguez I appeared as a frozen statue for most of a second. His eyes were opened wide in a surprise that would soon be terror, and he was drawing in air to shout. I reached past the rising wave of fear, into his forebrain, and sent him into sleep as gently as I was able. His body sagged and his breath exhaled in a loud sigh as he fell. I caught him before he had struck the ground, and carried him out through the door into the corridor. In Time I erased his memories of me, and in Time I returned to the small room where I had killed Jorge Rodriguez. I touc
hed the pressure pad that opened the door into the laboratories, and as it opened I ascended into fast time once more.

  The small badge Jorge Rodriguez wore had turned from clear to black while he stood in that room with me. I had lived a thousand times as fast as he; the heat of my body had struck him as gamma rays for more than long enough.

  "A remarkably impersonal room, this." Amnier stood in front of her bookcase, ran one finger down the spine of a text by de Nostri on fine neural structure. "No paintings, no holos..." He watched her as he spoke. She held herself like a man, shoulders squared back.

  Montignet moved by him, to seat herself behind her desk. She pressed her thumb against the lock and slid open the filing drawer. "I'm rarely here. I generally work downstairs at the lab. I have a desk there, and there are cots for when we draw night duty." From the filing drawer she took two folders, and closed the drawer again. The drawer locked automatically. "The books are mostly gifts." Amnier turned back to her. "The de Nostri was from de Nostri; the man's an incredible egotist."

  "Ah," said Amnier, and Suzanne had to repress a grin at how eagerly he leapt upon the opening, "an egotist, yes, but a successful egotist."

  Suzanne Montignet did smile then, and watched as her smile struck Amnier. His features grew still. So he was not, as Malko thought, attracted only to boys. "I would not say that our work here has been a failure."

  "But neither has it produced a clear success. De Nostri has--children, if that is the correct word--who are nearly two years of age."

  "Children," said Suzanne Montignet with some anger, "is not the correct word. Mister, any fool can produce monsters. Mixing variant gene sets is not so very difficult. Slapping together genes from humans and leopards, among reputable scientists, that's known as playing mix and match. What we're doing is more difficult, and you know it. The foeti we have designed here, from the ground up, are human. They will be human children."