Part 4 (1/2)

”I'll be very special, won't I?” she mused, half to herself.

”Very special,” Kort agreed.

”Do we have a word for a Taya that's special?”

”No. We've never needed one before because there's only ever been one of you. Maybe we should have.”

”How about 'queen'?” Taya suggested. ”That's a nice word. Could a queen be a Taya that's eight years older than anyone else, and who knows more things and has to teach the others?”

”I don't see why not,” Kort said.

”So does that make me a queen?”

”Well, not really, because there aren't really any others yet. But you will be in five days' time.”

”I want to be special now. Can't we have another word that means somebody who isn't a queen yet, but who will be in five days' time?”

”Sure we can. Let's say that somebody like that is a . . . 'princess.'”

”That's a nice word, too. So am I a princess right now?”

”Right now,” Kort confirmed. ”I've already written it into the dictionary.”

Taya looked down at herself, and after a few seconds raised a disappointed face toward the watching robot. ”I still don't feel special,” she said in a thin voice.

”How did you expect to feel?”

”I'm not sure. But there should be something different about being a princess. I still feel like a Taya.”

”I'll tell you what we'll do,” Kort said. ”We'll make a rule that says the princess must look different from everybody else. Then everyone will know who she is, even if they're still small and not very good at remembering things yet.”

”How will we do that?”

Kort unfolded her red cloak, draped it around her shoulders, and fastened the clasp at her throat.

”There,” he announced. ”Only the princess will wear a red cloak.”

Taya stepped back and looked happily down at herself as she spread the cloak wide with her arms.

Then she twirled round and around, causing it to billow out in the air. ”I feel like a princess!” she laughed.

”I'm really special already, aren't I?”

The robot bowed low and offered his arm. ”Come, little princess, we must go now. Scientist has work to do here.”

Taya climbed onto Kort's arm and clung to his head as he straightened up and turned toward the door.

”Will you make me some shoes that are silver, like yours?” she asked. ”I think a princess should wear silver shoes, too, don't you?”

”A princess should have anything she wants,” Kort replied.

The door closed behind them, cutting off the yellow glow. The robot and the princess moved away along the gla.s.s-walled tunnel, toward where the capsule was waiting to carry them home.

Afterword, May, 1999 The original version of this story appeared in Destinies, (Vol. 1, No. 5), published by Ace Books, in late 1979. Jim Baen was the editor at Ace at that time, and our intention was to follow up further with two or three stories of similar length, set at ten-year intervals, telling of Merkon's arrival at whatever destination it is heading for, and the culture that eventually emerged from these strange beginnings. Perhaps, we thought, they could all be packaged together as a series of stories linked by the common theme of whatever longer-term picture unfolds. Jim left Ace to form his own company, however, and the idea went into cryogenic storage.

It's strange how these things come around a full circle. With this reissue of Minds, Machines, & Evolution, here we are, publis.h.i.+ng the original story together again. It generated some appreciative mail in its previous appearances, so Jim and I thought we'd thaw out the expanded project too while we were at it. The volume, ent.i.tled Star Child, published in June, 1998, comprised four stories set at intervals through Taya's life, ”Silver Shoes for a Princess” being the first.

INSIDE STORY.

It was like something out of one of those old-time spy thrillers or private-eye movies. I waited on one side of the parking area near the Was.h.i.+ngton Monument, wearing a light-colored raincoat and holding a folded copy of Time magazine as ”George” had instructed. He arrived to pick me up in an aircab at exactly seven o'clock. It was a drizzly December night, and the parking lot wasn't well lit. All I could see was a dim figure in an overcoat, sitting hunched back in the shadows with a hat pulled low over its face.

He murmured for some identification, and I showed him a press card that stated I was Lou Chernik, senior reporter with the Was.h.i.+ngton Post. George used a penlight to examine the photograph, shone the light up at my face, then opened the door for me to get in. We flew over the Potomac and landed at the rear of a motel in Crystal City. George paid the cabbie, then led me up some outside stairs and along a balcony to one of the suites. I'd come across this kind of thing in stories, but nothing like it had ever actually happened to me before. I guess George and I must have read the same books.

I'd a.s.sumed there would be just the two of us, since George hadn't mentioned anyone else when he called Melvin Pearce, the Post's editor-in-chief, a day earlier to set up the meeting. I was wrong. The woman waiting for us in the motel suite was an eye-opener, with a satiny, lilac-colored, body-clinging dress, jet-black hair falling halfway down her back, and the sultry-eyed, full-lipped kind of face they always pick for the lead role in Cleopatra movies. Straightaway, something about her set little warning bells ringing inside my head. It was the kind of feeling you get when a girl with that certain aura slides onto the empty seat next to you at the bar and sends your hormones into a head-on collision with your brains: you know that one way or another, an arm and a leg would be just a down payment on the price of getting too closely acquainted.

George introduced her as Vicki. He didn't say if she was his wife, girlfriend, mistress, or what, and I didn't ask. When he took off his hat and overcoat and hung them in the closet along with my raincoat, I saw that he was in his late forties, a little on the heavy side, and had one of those pink, fleshy faces that look as if they ought to be wheezing for breath all the time. His hair was beginning to thin, and his eyes had that distant but intense fixation that you see a split second before you walk into a biblical harangue from a sidewalk evangelist, or on the faces of you-name-it nuts wherever you go. His necktie, s.h.i.+rt, and cuff links were pricey and stylish, but they didn't go with the suit he was wearing, which had gone out of fas.h.i.+on and was showing signs of combat fatigue. His general appearance suggested a pretty recent attempt at a remodeling job carried out on an inadequate second mortgage. George was just beginning to find out about that down payment, I decided.

The suite had a lounge area between the door and the bedroom, and George and I sat down at the table by the window while Vicki fixed some drinks. Preliminaries weren't necessary. An allegation of a top-down government conspiracy aimed at destroying the nation's technological development-and perhaps that of the entire Western world-wasn't something that a senior reporter would forget in a hurry.

George was nervous but trying not to show it. He took a quick gulp from his gla.s.s and looked across at me. ”What do you know about the DOB?” he asked. He'd told Pearce that the Directorate of Bureaus was where the supposed conspiracy was being masterminded.

I shrugged and gave the answer that anyone would have given. ”It's a federal government department.

Isn't it supposed to 'coordinate' a whole bunch of other departments, whatever that means? I'm not sure. Probably it's just a dump for deadwood bureaucrats that n.o.body wants but n.o.body can fire.”

George nodded. ”That's what most people think.” His voice dropped ominously as he leaned across the table. ”That's what they're meant to think. But that's a cover. In reality, the DOB is the nerve-center of a carefully orchestrated operation aimed at undermining the social structure of the United States and reducing it to a neo-feudal order run by a privileged elite. It's happening right now, under our noses, and some of the most powerful people in the country are involved.” George looked at me expectantly while Vicki sat down and watched over her gla.s.s.

Reporters hear something like that at least once a week. ”That's an interesting suggestion,” I said. ”If it's true, it's not the kind of thing they'd want many people to know about. How come you know?”

”I work there-at DOB,” George answered. ”I've been there for over six months now. I've seen what goes on. I can name all the names and substantiate everything with doc.u.mented facts. You want a story that'll blow the roofs off half of Was.h.i.+ngton, Mr. Chernik? I've got it.”

That was enough to raise anybody's eyebrows. ”Okay, I'm interested,” I told him. ”Shoot.”

Vicki held up a hand before George could answer. ”Just a minute,” she said. ”What kind of a deal might we be talking about? If this turns out to be the way George says, how much would it be worth to your paper?” At least she believed in coming straight to the point. I told her I couldn't answer that. It would depend on how big the management thought the story was. ”George has given you an idea of how big it could be,” she said. ”Maybe you should get some kind of ballpark figure before we go any further. I mean, how do we know you won't steal it if we give you more without any kind of an understanding at all?”

She was trying to sound hard-nosed, but it wasn't quite working. Instead it told me that she was as new to this game as George was. Now I could see the pieces beginning to fit. George had stumbled on something that Vicki thought might be worth money, and she had latched onto a possible ticket toward life's better things. I had the feeling that she wouldn't be staying around for very long after the ticket was either cashed or proved a dud. . . . But that was George's problem.

”Look,” I told her, ”any newspaper that worked like that would have gone out of business long ago.

There has to be some trust in any deal, never mind what the lawyers tell you. n.o.body can start talking prices until they know what they're being asked to buy. Now whatever this story is, you'll get what it's worth. Okay?”

Vicki sipped her drink and fell quiet. George s.h.i.+fted his eyes back to me. ”Do you want to know the truth about Climaticon?” he asked.

”Who wouldn't?” I answered.