The Writers' Circle

8. Aluna

The canteen that Marek had told her about was a large hall dotted with supporting pillars of stone.  Down one side a trickling waterfall of natural ground water played between the ferns that had grown in the permanent light, whilst the other side was a maze of tunnel entrances heading off in all directions.  The canteen was full of breakfasting scientists and their many and varied support staff, but at the very heart of this crowd a section of tables remained vacant around Lana.  

Having failed to impress on her first encounter with a group of three other young women, she was staring disconsolate at the grain of the wooden-topped table, with her flowing red-brown hair caught up in a hand that propped her head over a mug of coffee.  She was also trying to ignore the eighty or so visibugs that were sat in serried rings around her, and remember instead the soft warmth of Tigoli's comforting arm, which though it had been just the other night now seemed a lifetime ago.  

Into the sea of observing bugs around her a lean man of average height, whose African colouring struck a violent contrast with his gleaming white lab coat, stepped; audibly muttering in a mild but well-educated Sitaali accent; "excuse me", "thank you", "if I may", and "can you just...", until he found a series of temporary foot holes through their throng, like stepping stones across a pond to the island that was Lana.

'I see you killed one, then?' He cheerily directed this last comment at Lana.

Lana raised her head, looking somewhat startled at being addressed so directly.  No one had so much as looked at her since the other girls left her sitting there alone.

'Is that why there are so many?' she asked looking up at her visitor's handsome face and judging him to be a C-line of some type.  She wondered which of the five founders his inner being was based on, and mused that she might well end up talking to another version of herself without realising it.  There was no reason why the ISC couldn't give the clones of their founders alternative sexual identities and psycho-sexualities, as easily as their new and fashionable physical features.  She wondered if doing so would cause two differentially altered clones of the same founder to be attracted to one another as companions through the similarities of their basic instinctive thought processes.

Her head dropped again, but she took her elbow off the table and sipped her coffee, while he carefully extricated a chair from a tangle of visibug limbs and sat down opposite.

'Ouch - stung you did it?'

His unexpected touch on the outer side of her right forearm made her flinch.  He'd reached out to delicately entice her to show him her hand, which was wrapped in a makeshift paper towel bandage.

'I needed to go to the bathroom,' she explained in a whisper, 'In private!'

'Even so.  That's a pretty heavy price to pay.  Did you get your privacy?'

Though it seemed an odd way to start a friendship, she didn't imagine that anything in this place was very normal. 

'...Eventually,' she said a little hesitantly.

He grinned.

Lana looked at him again, smiling tentatively back at him this time.

 'Neil,' he said, almost throwing his name at her and offering her a chocolate coloured hand to shake.  'Neil, Blackmoor - no pun or joke intended - that's just my name, lady.  It comes from one of the oldest and largest families in Sitaali.'

As if she didn't know, but most of them were lawyers or bankers.

'Lana - Lana Anderson, but you can call me Lana.'

She accepted the offered shake of hands as an automatic response, and with no thought of the encumbrance of the paper towel.  Lana looked down at what she had done, and then caught her breath, since instead of waiting for the other hand to be offered, he took advantage and gently clasped the ends of her fingers then delicately lifted the edge of the towelling to peep beneath it.  Her eyes smarted with the pain.

'Shshsh-Aaah!' She winced, breathing in on the first of those quiet sounds of objection.

Neil shook his head and tutted.

'Sorry Gorgeous - that's a bad one.  You need to see a doctor.'

'The doctor? Is he one of them, or one of us?'

He shook his head vigorously and chuckled that he should dare to even think of making her go to them for sympathy.

'No Gorgeous, she, is one of us.'  He winked.

Lana pulled a face and corrected him.

'Lana.'

'I had a dog called Lana, and "Gorgeous" suits you better,' he shrugged amicably and smiled down at the table, making a show of mock bashfulness and allowing her to withdraw her hand.  The word sounded so friendly the way he said it with his big round-vowelled words and deep warm voice.

'Jess should be along for breakfast in a minute or so, so we might as well sit here and wait for her to come to us, rather than go all over the place looking and miss her completely.'

Lana shrugged.  It made no difference to her.

'Marek didn't warn you about the bugs then?'

'No.  Not about the stinging aspect, he didn't.'

'D'you mind if I ask... um... how exactly did it happen?'

'Why?'

'Oh, just curious.'

Lana laughed.  He didn't know what else to talk about with her, but really what else was there to talk about, assuming none of the residents would really want to hear about how things were going in the Citisphere from Lana's point of view, which wasn't a kindly one right now.

'Well. I noticed last night that they prefer the shadows, so I left the bathroom light on and turned the rest of the lights off, then started walking slowly around the apartment in a habitual fashion, because I've also noticed that they get bored and sit and watch instead of walking backwards and forwards all the time, which means that if you keep it up for long enough there are less of them actively following you.'

'...so you can dive in the bathroom - of course!'  Neil finished with a chuckle as if this was the very first time anyone had ever been so inventive and intuitive. 

Given the presumed genius level intellect of most of the laboratory occupants Lana doubted it, but carried on and gave up trying to be discrete.  No one else seemed to be listening anyway, and the bugs already knew what she'd done.

'...So I dived in the bathroom and slammed the door, and at first I thought it had worked, until my eyes adjusted to the light and I could see the sentry they left behind, standing guard on top of the cistern.'

A rye smile indicated that this was normal behaviour.

She continued, warming to the task as she did so. 

'I couldn't, you know, do the business, you understand - even though I was bursting.'

Neil's face shuddered violently in agreement.

'Course not!' 

He sounded like a shocked old granny.

'...So I knocked it into the bowl, which is when it got me on its way down.'

'You touched it?'

'I didn't know they could sting, till after the fact.'

She remembered peering down the bowl at the frantically struggling bug and pulling reams of paper from the roll.

'I threw a large handful of loo paper after it - then I slammed the toilet lid down.'

Neil rolled his lips together to stop himself from laughing.

'...That didn't work either - it was quite literally hopping mad -I mean - it was jumping up and down and banging the underside of the lid - I had to sit on it to hold it down!'

A deathly hush had fallen around the canteen.  Anxious to hold Neil's interest she ignored it and continued.

'...It stopped eventually. But just when I thought it might have drowned there were these odd little scratching sounds and then something touched the back of my knee.'

'You have another burn?'

'No - but I screamed and leapt away - and then I saw it squeeze out from underneath the seat as quick as a rat from a bin, and skitter across the floor in my direction, all plastered in drippy loo roll and blind as a bat.'

Neil's eyes flashed wider, showing like beacons in his darker face.

'What then?'

'I stamped on it.'

'Stamped?'

'They bite!'

'Oh yes, they do that all right... but stamp!'

'I spiked it with my stiletto - my comfy shoes - and then I kept stamping... and stamping - sheer panic, you understand - an automatic reaction.'

Neil's brows met in the middle, mocking sympathy for the ill-fated bug.

'Well, you have to understand, I was desperate to go, and it had just burnt me - by the way... was that an electric shock?'

He nodded.

She omitted the part about nearly wetting herself and carried on.

'It wasn't dead, though, because once I was sitting... you know... on the throne... it slowly started dragging itself away from me off into the corner by the tips of its two remaining legs, where it, sort of, heaved one last convulsive shudder and finally lay still.' 

Neil, who's mind had filled out the tale with images, suddenly burst out laughing, and though the story didn't seem all that funny to Lana, she smiled at his mirth.  It was comforting to know that someone who had been here a while could still laugh at the silly things of life.

When his laughter began to subside she was never-the-less surprised to see that he had tears running down his cheeks.  Was it really that funny?  She hoped there were more interesting things to do and talk about, especially if she never found a way out.

Neil was suddenly distracted by someone approaching them from behind Lana, and started beckoning.  

Lana glanced over her shoulder and saw an older woman, vaguely Afro-Chinese, her head framed by a mass of beaded plaits and plumes that were arranged about her fine-boned face and shoulders so as to look both haphazard and fabulously sculpted.  She had once been incredibly beautiful, and was even now a splendid sight.  The woman held her head at a haughty angle like someone of very great importance who was pleased at being recognised and being called across by one of her adoring crowd of fans.

'Jess, I'd like you to meet Lana,' Neil said as their visitor stopped just short of the visibug ring.

Jess nodded slightly at Lana with a perfunctory smile, and then she looked straight back at Neil as if Lana was of little consequence.

'She's got a bug-burn on the back of her hand - a bad one.  Can you help?'

Jess nodded again and waded straight through the bugs, causing them to scatter to avoid being stepped on.  Lana stared at her feet.

'How did you do that?'  She exclaimed.  'They won't move for me.'

'Presence.'  Jess replied in a husky voice deepened by maturity.  She held out an upturned and flat-palmed hand that protruded from a long armful of beautiful gold and polished hardwood bangles of so many different sizes and designs that Lana was reminded of a treasure chest.  Her clothes, beneath the obligatory lab coat, were simple drapes of cotton and silk, printed in elaborate Earth coloured patterns with dots and splashes of electric blue and mauve.

'Let me see it then.' Keeping the first hand waiting patiently for Lana to present her injury, with the other Jess pulled out a chair and sat down, straight backed.

Lana extended her arm for inspection.

'Are you a doctor?'

'I'm a herbalist and homoeopathist.  People come to me first and only seek official medical help if I can't give them a working remedy.'

The injury in all its puffed up red and black glory and missing the top layers of skin over half the back of her hand, where rinsing had sloughed it off earlier, was suddenly revealed to all three of them, causing Neil to flinch and turn his head the other way and Jess to peer closely at it as if she had just discovered something deeply interesting.

'Mmnn,' She pronounced, as if it was a most terrible condition and let Lana go.  'You'll have to come down to the lab.  I haven't got anything for that right here.'

She stood up again.

'We'd best be doing it now than leaving it any longer - Fred can you get me some buttered toast and a glass of orange juice please, and bring it down?'

Her question was aimed at a skinny and rather aged white man who had sat down to wait for her at the next table.  He was already staring down at a paper.  'Yes love,' he said without looking up.

With that they were off.  

People in the corridor, including Marek, stood aside for their little parade; Jess in the lead, Lana stumbling to keep up with the unexpected speed of their passage, and a clattering horde of bugs trailing them along the walls and ceiling.

Lana held her head up and tried to summon what "presence" she might, breathing out and looking down her nose disdainfully at Marek in passing, whilst noting with great pleasure that by wearing those same murderous but favoured stilettos she was a fraction taller than him.

'You'll get it with age, Lana, presence comes with age,' Jess smirked back at her as if she had seen the look that Lana gave Marek, 'Though beauty sometimes has it early.'

They left the canteen behind quickly but the pace slowed after that and Jess dropped back to walk beside Lana, offering her some firm but friendly advice. 

'The things you don't talk about in here are the past, the future or anything whatsoever to do with escape - don't even think about it.  Those other girls?  The ones you went to sit with?  That's why they abandoned you so quickly - you asked them if anyone had ever escaped, didn't you?'

Lana hesitated, wondering how Jess would know.

'I thought they just didn't like my visibug fan club.'

Jess shook her head.

'Most people have lost someone through a failed escape attempt.  Its a grisly business.  The bodies are openly brought back to the lab for remembrance ceremonies, so everyone knows what getting outside really means, and no one has ever succeeded in eluding Flo for more than 24 hours.'

'Flo? Is she the leader of the Recovery Squad?'

'Their commanding officer.'

Lana stared unhappily at the floor for the next several paces.  Though she had been drugged and incapable of making much sense of what was happening to her at the time, now that her head had completely cleared she kept having unpleasant little flashbacks of a blonde-headed fury pinning her down on her back and hissing like a cat as something was jabbed in her arm...

She took a faltering breath and changed the subject for herself.

'Am I allowed ask why we're all here?'

Jess stopped dead and stared hard at Lana, and Lana frowned back at the flabbergasted face she was pulling.

'You don't know why you're here, yet?' She exclaimed, as if she found the news astonishing.

'No.'

'My God! Child - wake up!  Aluna, its all about Aluna.'

The name stuck in her head like the sombre ringing of a bell that went on long after the clanger had struck.  Tigoli had said he came from a place by that name.

'Where is Aluna?' she ventured.

The look on Jess's face hardened, but Lana could see the anger was neither about her nor directed at her.  This was the accidental expression of an inner disquiet that someone had completely failed to brief Lana on the matter where they really should have done, and this someone was in a lot of trouble of some kind now that Jess had indirectly found them out.  She hoped it was Marek - Marek and his cold fish attitude regarding her plight. 

'It's a planet,' said Jess bluntly.

She expected Jess to explain by naming a constellation, or a star a few hundred light years away, but was completely taken aback by the more detailed explanation.

'On its way to us right now.'  She added.

'Er... a planet coming into this solar system?'

'Don't look so surprised, Lana.  This kind of thing happens quite a lot we've discovered - as a result of smaller inner worlds being ejected by passing gas giants caught in a decaying orbit of the home star.  Didn't you do astrophysics at uni?'

'Well, yes but it was a supplementary course. I did Applied Micro Genetics and Molecular Biology - in preparation for the clinic job.'

'I assume you understand the reasons why the planets of this system orbit in different planes and have elliptical orbits instead of nice round ones?'

'Because other bodies passing through the system alter their original orbits?'

'Correct.'

'And this Aluna...  its coming quite close?'

'Joining the system.'

'That's a hell of a coincidence - I mean to cross the interstellar void and then come right through our solar system and then be captured by the gravity of our sun rather than miss and end up somewhere else.'

'Not a coincidence, Lana - we made it so.'

'What?'

'We made it happen - we brought it here to replace the Earth when it dies, just like the Earth replaced Mars when it died.'

'"We", as in the scientists working here at Lab Seven?'

Jess shook her head.

'I mean the Mengat.'

Lana didn't know what to say.  "We" and "Mengat" were apparently synonymous terms to Jess, though she looked human enough.  

'The Mengat... came from Mars?'

'Yes.'

'And were responsible for life on Earth?'

'Yes.'

'And now want to move to a third planet?'

'Yes - Aluna.'

'Are the Mengat piebald?'

Jess cocked her head on one side and gazed a moment too long at Lana.

'No - why would you think that they are?'

'Oh, nothing.'  Lana turned to continue their journey, taking the first step to encourage Jess to set off again.

'Isn't it just a bit dramatic - bringing a whole new planet into the solar system? I mean, couldn't we work on Venus instead?'

'Venus is too far away from the sun for the time being, though one day when the sun becomes gradually hotter it will be in the right place.  For that reason we should leave it where it is and find a stepping stone between the two worlds, which is where Aluna comes into the equation.' 

Jess turned at a major crossroad junction to head left and down a long shallow door-less slope.

'But this isn't possible, is it.  I mean, I don't see how anyone could spot an unlit planet in the depths of interstellar space, analyse it's worth and then manipulate it to make it come right here.  And I don't see why a planet from somewhere else would be better than one of those we already have relatively close by - I mean what's wrong with the Earth that we can't just stay here till it's time to move to Venus?'

'The planets of this solar system are all of a certain age.  Their cores are solidifying.  Mars was the first to go, and the Earth will be next despite the gravitational massaging and heat generating friction caused by the moon.  Once the core dies there won't be any magnetic field left to prevent the solar wind from blowing the atmosphere away.  What happened on Mars will be repeated on the Earth.  That's what's wrong with the Earth.'

'But you just said that Venus would be fine, one day.  Won't it's core solidify before that time?'

'Venus has an atmosphere fifty times deeper than the Earth's.  By contriving an impact, perhaps with one of Jupiter's moons if we can managed to dislodge it, we can combine the job of reducing the atmosphere and rekindling the core heat.  If we do it right we'll end up with another moon in orbit of Venus to keep it going - much like the Earth's moon.'

The passageway levelled and Jess drew to a halt outside an open doorway between two labs marked "Astrophysics".  She ushered Lana through into the kitchen where she instantly flicked the switches on five very full kettles and pulled a drawer open to rummage among the bottles and tubes of paste that were strewn liberally among bits of paper, rolls of disposal bags and hand-wound bits of string waiting to be re-used. 

She found a bottle, opened it, poured some of the contents onto a freshly opened dry swab, grabbed Lana's hand and hesitated.

'Are you allergic to anything, Lana?'

'Peppermint, but nothing else that I know of.' 

Jess pressed the swab none too gently onto the wound.

Lana opened her mouth to cry out and found her fingers caught in Jess's vice like grip as she flinched.  Then, magically, all the pain just disappeared.  Her shoulders slowly dropped back down to a normal resting position, and her eyes unscrewed.  She blinked and took a deep refreshing breath of steam into her lungs.  Jess released the pressure and then continued to touch up the initial application by almost tenderly dabbing more of the lotion onto any bit that seemed to be drying too fast.

 'Earlier you said "we" and "Mengat" in the same context...'

'I'm surprised, Lana, that you didn't realise I was talking about what happened to Mars from experience sooner, but then I'm also surprised with myself at how easily I've talked with you - a mere human.'

'You're a Mengat?'

Jess stopped and stood quite still.  

'I'm as Mengat as you're human - a Mengat with just enough added human genes to be able to survive your world unaided.  The Earth is bigger than Mars, you see, and the gravity significantly stronger here.  I also have a Matsuda immune system just like yours to protect me from the myriad microbes of the Earth, which are altogether completely different to the ones we had at home, never mind the war.'

Lana saw her roll her lips in against one another in a moment of deep thought.

'You really want to know, don't you.'  Jess whispered softly in response to Lana's unspoken question, then she turned and grinned broadly at her, revealing that her outer appearance, while quite acceptably human, hid a double row of rather frightening looking teeth that were normally hidden by her lips.  And then as if that wasn't enough to set Lana quivering with shock she opened her mouth and lifted a remarkably cobalt blue tongue to show it off.  When she shut her mouth again she smiled gently at Lana like a mother would, keeping her teeth carefully hidden behind her lips.

'I can't let you remember any of this, of course.'

'WHAT?' Lana squeaked.

'You need to know all the stuff about Aluna and why it matters, to be able to accept why you're here and to do your stuff, but the whole thing about knowing what I am has to go.'

Lana gasped.

'I'm really sorry about this, Lana.  You're a clever girl, and you could have been a friend, but.'

The flat of Jess's other hand shot forwards to Lana's face and stopped just millimetres from it.   

She never flinched.   

					*

The kettles troubled her.

'Why do you have five kettles boiling?  Do you make tea for the entire complex?'

Jess laughed.

'No, that's just one way of getting the VBs off your back for a few minutes at a time.'

Lana looked up and around at the walls and ceiling of the kitchen.  The bugs were strangely still.  Most of them weren't even moving their eye stalks around.

'The steam condenses on their relatively cold glass eyes and in their joints, rendering them blind and it throws their senses quite a bit.  Since they're only quite simple things really they have to concentrate their remaining powers on keeping hold of whatever their standing on.  I've had them drop clean off the ceiling before and lie on their backs on the floor with their legs wiggling like upturned crabs.'

Lana giggled and noticed the tray had three cups of tea.

'Is one of those for me?'

'Why yes, I wouldn't drag you all the way down here and not offer you a refreshment of some kind.'

'Oh, thanks.' She followed Jess back out into the corridor and then into one of the adjoining labs, where large posters of constellations, nebulas and stars adorned nearly every inch of the walls, and ranks of the larger static form of flexcreen lined the room sat on uniformly untidy desks.  There was data everywhere, and in the centre where Fred had come back with Jess's canteen tray of toast and orange juice there were another four tables with an equally large amount of paperwork piled chaotically high.

Fred sat up and took his feet off the table, pressing his glasses further up his nose to take a better look at her.

'Lana - Lana Anderson.'

She offered her newly and professionally dressed hand to shake.

'Very pleased to meet you Lana,  I'm Fred.' He smiled at her with his lips just parting, as if conscious of the many teeth she glimpsed but never really saw in his narrow-gauge and predatory jaws.  'Are you staying long?'

'Er... here in this lab you mean.'

'No, silly, at the house?'

'The house?'  Lana searched Jess's face for clues, but Jess was staring in alarm at Fred before she noticed Lana's plea for assistance.  She flapped a hand dismissively in Fred's direction implying he was harmlessly out of his mind.

Lana then couldn't help herself but watch with disgust, as Fred slowly and quite deliberately stuck his finger up his nose to pick something out of it as he continued to speak to her.

'I do hope you have time to come down for dinner, you know, we're having Baa Baa tonight.'

'Baa Baa?' Lana's words came out very slowly, and her injured hand discretely wiped itself on the side of her lab coat.

'Yes, Baa Baa - roast on a spit, you see, in honour of a very lovely young guest - yourself as it happens.'

The finger found something and kinked slightly to catch hold of it.  Withdrawing slowly it trailed a line of grey-green slime that he examined before deftly popping it into his mouth.  He sucked and swallowed.  'Hmm, very tasty.'

Lana felt her stomach convulse.

'Listen, I'm sorry to have to disappoint you, Fred, but I really have to go now.  I'm late.'

'Late, whatever for, the coach?'

'Er...'

Jess was shaking her head emphatically and then waving her hands about and pointing to the fourth finger on her left hand.

'...er... my ring, I mean my engagement, no... yes, my wedding - yes, that's it, my wedding.'

Jess gave her the thumbs up and nodded.

'Oh good lord, you mustn't keep poor old Lord Basil waiting Penelope - off you go now.'

'Thanks... and bye.'

'Bye my dear.'

Lana escaped the lab and stood for a moment with her back against the wall just outside, wondering what Jess must think of her for being so rude.

Jess followed her out and whispered to avoid being overheard.

'I'm sorry, Lana, he's not having a good day, I should have warned you really.'

'What's wrong with him?'

'Captivity Syndrome.'

'What's that, I mean, how does that happen?'

'We're not sure.  It's not a proper diagnosis, which is why you won't have heard of it before, but its what we call the thing that happens to people who are caught trying to escape before they manage to get right out of the complex.'

'What happens to them?'

'Flo does something, but we don't know what.  Only Fred and others like him will ever know, but he's not going to tell us, and even if he did the rest of us wouldn't be able to separate the truth from the fiction.'

'Jessie darling?'

Jess glanced at the open doorway then back at Lana.

'You hurry on now and get yourself busy - find a lab to work in as quickly as you can and don't look back.'

'All right, I'll try, thanks Jess.'

Jess caught her arm as she turned and Lana saw a fearful look in her eyes.

'Lana, I know he's revolting and sad, but... I couldn't live without him, my dear.  Somehow I've managed to make sure that no one else has realised he's sick - you won't tell anyone about this will you?'

'No, no I wouldn't.'

'Thank you.'  Tears were brimming in Jess's eyes.

'See you around then Jess.'

Lana departed quickly.

Jess relaxed and sloped back into the lab where Fred was sitting once again with his feet on the table reading his paper.  He cleared his throat.

'Well?  How did I do?'

'Magnificently, my dear.'

'You're right of course - she is a phero-harmonic - nearly caught me right off guard.  Marek's not doing his job properly.'

The paper was shaken with irritation.

'I understand that Flo's due to put that little mistake right by the end of today.'

'Good.'

					*

Lana started wondering on her lonely path back to the canteen, lonely that was apart from the visibugs, who seemed determined to crowd her in ever greater numbers.  There were more of them now than there had ever been at breakfast.  She was afraid to stop, and afraid of moving too fast and attracting even more of them.  Now that she knew and understood the seriousness of her plight as a captive her feelings started heading downhill, and tears were starting down her cheeks once again.

The canteen was ghostly empty and closed till lunch - another couple of hours away.

With nothing better to do, and not wanting to go knocking on any strange lab doors for fear of meeting another CS affected team before she had planned a few get-out phrases for herself, she found a chair facing the waterfall and sat alone among the empty tables with an inferior plastic cup of coffee from the machine in the corner cradled in her hands.

She was alone, alone apart from the visibugs, one of which dared to approach her directly across the table top, raising each leg and placing it very cautiously just a fraction closer to her like a hunting spider might.  She felt like it was deliberately warning her of the painful consequences of touching it by waving its limbs around that way.

'Leave me alone!' she groaned, and hid her face by irritably pulling her hair forward and bowing her head.

She thought she would wait there in her own personal tent of privacy until some one else arrived - hopefully Neil again.  

In the silence confusing memories of Tigoli and that one bright and exciting evening she had shared with the Hogans came back to her - the Hogans who Tigoli claimed were from a world that was currently dead and travelling through the waste of deep interstellar space.  Just how far back in time had they come to be here, and what was it that they needed her to do for them?  He had mentioned a choice - a choice to give her life... but for what?  Had he meant it the traditional way, or did he just mean that she should focus herself on something in particular?  And why would she anyway - why would she do anything for time travellers who left her there without any warning, presumably fully aware of what was about to happen to her?

Lana was about to take herself back to her room and curl up to sleep, when someone, several someones in fact, arrived quite suddenly around her and waited for the noise of scattering visibugs to abate before speaking.

'I'll re-set the bug level, if that's what's bothering you, princess.'

It was Flo.  

A small plastic tube was pushed under the umbrella of Lana's hair.

'We know your a phero-harmonic.'

'What?'

'Oh come now - you know what it means, Lana - how could you not know - being a brilliant eugenic engineer?'

Of course she knew what it meant.  It meant that her parents, most likely her father, had paid ten times the normal fee as a back-hander to the engineer who created her to have her modified such that she automatically produced artificially high levels of otherwise natural female pheromones.

It was an illegal practice that had been identified fifty years earlier as the result of the exposure and collapse of a prostitution blackmail ring, but which had been going on for much longer than that throughout the sex industry.

'We suspect your father thought you would enhance his ability to disarm any male business rivals, but what it means in practical terms down here in a closed atmospheric system, is that you are now a problem.'

Why was it that she didn't feel surprised?

'All you have to do to get yourself a little privacy in the bathroom when you need it, princess, is start taking these - one an hour, equally spaced.'

She didn't need to ask what it was, since the faint trace of its powerful odour escaped the tube in such close proximity.

'Peppermint...  I can't!'

'So?  You want to keep stirring everyone else up do you?'

Of course.  How better to negate the problem she would be causing them all than by having her take the poison so that no one else had to worry about taking it to protect themselves from the effects.

'We'll only try to help you once, princess.'

'Go away - just. go away.'

'Pitiful - just look at yourself - the presumably improved clone of an ISC original - the original already having been designed by the best, to be the best.  The best what, though?  The best cry baby?'

Flo's mockery was rendered all the more sinister by the calm way in which she delivered it.  Somewhere in herself Lana found the vestiges of the will to resist.

'Leave me alone.'  She lurched from her chair in a single fluid turning movement and tried to leave Flo sitting, but found her way blocked by a wall of a man who grabbed her, pinning her arms instantly to her sides and leering disconcertingly at her with those same cat-like eyes.

'Shh, easy,' he oozed at her, as if he was purring to an unsettled horse.

'Let go!'

Was that what it was?  Where these people part cat?  Was that what the ISC had done to them - consigned them to the fate of permanently prowling the lab looking for some poor little bird like herself to play with.

'SIT!'  Flo hissed unexpectedly, making Lana flinch and blink.  

Her captor pushed her backwards away from himself at arm's length, then turned her by the shoulders and moved the chair back in place for her with his foot.  Lana noticed the faces of five others as she span and felt her knees buckle to avoid the edge of the chair into which he pressed her back down.  She saw Flo flick the lid off the peppermint tube with a dextrous long nailed finger and tap one out onto the table in front of her.

'Take it.'

Lana was shaking her head with dread.

'I'll be ill - they make me feel sick - I'm allergic...'

'Come now, we both know it's not an allergy - now that we know the truth about what your father did to you.'

It was true.  Peppermint inhibited the phero-harmonic process and caused nausea.  It wasn't a true allergy, just a reaction to a sudden change in body chemistry.

Flo sat with her elbows on the table, both hands folded into a tidy and graceful temple on which she briefly rested her deceptively delicate chin before quietly uttering the name of her chosen team member.

'Parma!'

'Yes, sir.'

He was the one stood directly behind Lana - the one who had pushed her back into her seat.

'Have I ever shown you the correct way to force feed a very naughty science drone - without damaging it too much, that is?'

'No, sir.'

Lana stared at the white horror sitting there on the table in front of her, and then grabbed it as Flo's hand moved slowly towards the same goal.  She lifted it to her lips and closed her eyes on the tears of fear and dismay.  The mint stung icy cold on her tongue, and was gone in an instant; it's poison dissolving and entering her bloodstream directly.  The rush was unpleasantly like turning into cold wet clay.

'That's better,' Flo purred victoriously at her through a slight but fleeting smile.  She got up and leaned over Lana again just like she had in the tent, muttering into her face as Lana, freshly white in the face, grey in the lip, and wavering weakly, sat blearily staring at the waterfall rocks through the dishevelled strands of her hair.

'Now, listen to me you little madam.  You have everything your clever little mind could possibly want down here - every test tube, flexcreen, laboratory gismo, brilliant colleague or mentor. everything a young scientist could ever dream of, hope for, pay, or pray for.  You have only to ask for something and it will be given to you.  So if I were you, I'd just get on with it girl.  And after a while you'd be surprised just how comfy this place can feel.  If this were a free world, who would pay for your work but the ISC anyway?  And these inconsequential little things?'  Flo delicately moved the small pot of mints back in front of her.  'Perhaps it would help some if you saw them as the terms and conditions of the contract - your mark of respect and gratitude to the ISC for everything that has already been, and will be given to you so that you can fulfil the natural scientific instincts you were born with.' 

Her squad melted away behind her. 

'Such a small price to pay for living your dream, girl.'  She added, and turned to vanish like a spirit, leaving Lana completely alone within a matter of seconds - alone to cope with her freshly poisoned mind and the knowledge of the purpose for which her father had intended her - the reason why her marriage to Dorian had so upset him.

This time, and despite the instantly honoured promise in the reduction of the numbers of visibugs around her, Lana crumpled into her arms on the table top and wished herself already dead.