It is said that the universe is an infinite gallery where God presents the most spectacular ideas of His creation to His creatures - but without any doubt there are more pleasant sights than the bewildering shimmer of hyperspace. Even after the shuttle had left the Levi tunnel far behind, Jerome still kept his eyes closed.
    "Will you stop giving me a once-over after every transit, Messina," he grumbled when the ship started to check his vital functions.
     "Not as long as your neuro-feedback's within the critical range," the on-board AI replied. "The Tyi hold me responsible for your security."
    "If you want to do something useful, then give me 10 milligrams of Aequarizin for my vertigo."
     "Sorry, Mr Cobb, but that would have an extremely negative effect on your consciousness."
    "I can fly you in my sleep, you know."
     "I would have accepted that with a 96 per cent rating from a Superior. However your credibility quotient is only 31 per cent."
    "It's nice to know you're trusted." Jerome reduced the approach speed. "The Genides have eclipse visors, the Tyi reflective irises - and you don't even have tinted windows."
     "Send a letter of complaint to THALES AMMOTEC SYSTEMS. That's where I was constructed."
    Jerome rubbed his face. "What's our status?"
     "We are in orbit round Mona. Distance to the surface 1577.2 kilometers. Estimated arrival at the station in 149 seconds."
    "Thanks, Messina."
     "Glad to be of assistance."
    "I'm afraid I'm going to have to deactivate you now."
     "That's a stupid idea, Mr Cobb, I'm your life insurance."
    "That I don't doubt, but it's necessary."
     "At least open your eyes."
    "As soon as the dizziness has gone. We'll hear from each other again in a few hours' time."
    He put the AI in sleep mode before she was tempted to break off the the approach. When she reported to Spire flight control later on she would list enough complaints and infringements to land him in disciplinary proceedings again. Jerome was already used to being sent to do extra duty in the Supervisor control room as a punishment.
    In order to train himself to operate all the instruments on Oberon blind, he'd spent weeks practicing in the Spire hangar. Evening after evening he'd sat blindfold in a cockpit to commit every movement to memory, every shape, every sound and every position. Now he could operate the navigation as intuitively as a virtuoso pianist his keyboard, he had a feeling for the instruments and the on-board system as if they were his own limbs. Only in that way was it possible for him to head for his destination after leaving a Levi tunnel without being able to see it.
    The transit between Triamon and its little volcanic moon took hardly more than half a second. It was over even before the human brain could adjust to the sight of hyperspace. For the visual cortex it was like seeing a supernova explode in slow motion, even though inside a Levi tunnel little more was to be seen than a space-time shimmer that the brain interpreted as a dull gray. On short stretches of less than 1 AU a flight through hyperspace was like unexpectedly falling from a low height: you were already hitting the floor as the panic struck. If you were lucky, all that was left after the transit was a dizzy spell that soon passed. Jerome, however, still often felt like a drunk with hypotonia an hour later. He had long since given up trying to get used to the transition from three-dimensional to four-dimensional space and back.
    After he had opened his eyes slightly, he kept his brain amused with the visual processing of Mona's glowing lava flows. At the sight of its satellites, observers of Triamon's night sky often resorted to crude clichés such as "heaven and hell" or "fire and ice", very few used the names of the two moons: Mona and Azar. While the latter corresponded to the astronomical phenotype of a cold satellite, Mona was like no other moon. Astronauts suspected the cause was a collision with a relatively large heavenly body which had melted its thin crust away when the collision transformed its whole kinetic energy into thermal energy. However, no traces of such a collision had ever been found on Triamon or Azar. Some scientists assumed the catastrophe could have taken place in slow motion and that the corona might possibly consist of remains of the ice-crust that had been blown off. They suspected that the cause of Mona's arrhythmia and the forces pulling at it were to be found deep within it - a planetoid as core inside a white-hot, molten mantle. The cosmic foreign body left its mass in a state of imbalance, thus preventing the surface from solidifying again.
    The Babylon Health Club was in a safe orbit above the oceans of lava. The most striking thing about it, apart from the flickering slogans for special attractions such as ATOMIC DUSTBUNNY, PUSSY GALORE or GALAXY CHEST, was its flamboyant advert. Beamed a hundred meters out into space from projection pylons, it rotated round the astrobrothel in the form of huge hologram walls. The club could even be seen from the surface of the planet as an frantically flashing star. When the station was above the side of Mona that was away from the sun, almost the whole of the moon appeared as a shining pair of gigantic puckered lips, criss-crossed by a network of lava channels and glowing fissures in the its crust. One particular visual attraction of Babylon was a huge, dome-shaped holo-acquarium, in which shoals of mermaid-like creatures gamboled, casting their spell over the pilots in their fighters and shuttles. Apart from the countless red-light sectors, visitors could amuse themselves in casinos or malls, strictly segregated into Tyi, Genide or Sapiens areas.
    When Jerome contacted the club, a brief, frenzied advertising clip flickered across the screen, then an exotic beauty with the tattooed forehead of the Guild of Pleasure-Clones appeared and said in a husky voice, "Welcome to the Babylon Health Club. Come once and you'll keep on coming. I'm Monique 19, responsible for membership development and client care. This seems to be your first visit here. To be admitted to the Connoisseur Section you must have experienced our exclusive On-Board Service at least once. If you would like more intimate details I would be happy to send you our catalogue of holo-model downloads. Or would you like to land and hire love-gondola? Flordelis 8 or Isabella 11 can hardly wait to pick you up in a panorama cabin…"
    At the sight of the hologram Jerome frowned. "I'm looking for the White Rabbit Bar."
    The lascivious tones cooled a degree or two. "Well you're hardly going to find it out there. What kind of pleasure are you after exactly?"
    "A meeting with a contact in order to exchange important information."
    "Oh, impregnation then?"
    "No, a completely non-erotic private conversation," Jerome explained.
    "Are you here for the position of stripper that was advertised? The deadline for applications was last week."
    Jerome remained silent.
    "OK, I understand, you just want a talk, no petting. I'm afraid that's outside my competence. I'll put you through to the management. Perhaps it's your lucky day and Madame Vynn will listen to you."
    For some minutes all that was to be seen on the communication display was the club's Penthouse logo to a background of dreadful android lounge music. Finally a statue appeared on the screen showing an attractive middle-aged woman.
    A digitalized voice rang out from the ship's loudspeakers: "Welcome to Babylon, the realm of delight. Unfortunately I am very busy and cannot deal with your request personally. However you can leave a message for me after the orgasmic cry. You have six seconds to convince me of the relevance of your application. If that's too short, I'm sorry, but I've no time for charities, missionaries or windbags. If I am convinced by your request, I will get back to you as quickly as possible and with the greatest of pleasure."
    Jerome flinched as a shrill scream was heard. He turned all sound frequencies down to bass and let the vibrations massage his eardrums, then he cleared his throat and said, "For someone who survived the Tarras genocide you look pretty good, Ma'am…"
    For a few seconds there was a leaden silence, then Vynn's attractive stand-in was wiped out by interference. After a short period of darkness, a stocky shadow finally appeared on the screen, sitting in front of a dazzlingly bright background. Since its features could not be made out, Jerome could only assume that it was the genuine Violet Vynn.
    "When I was your age, laddie, Tarras was still a blood moon of the Genides," said an old but surprisingly sonorous voice which Jerome suspected was the result of vocal chord implants. "Over the last 120 years I've seen more that two million people die, so no more stupid jokes about the genocide or I'll see to it that in the next hundred years neither you nor the rest of your bloodline will see an astrobrothel from the inside." She paused for a moment to let this sink in, then asked, "What do you want?"
    "Spire Station Defense. I'm meeting an informant in the White Rabbit Bar."
    "Do as you like, but not without a Club ID card. One of my Moniques will be delighted to give you a day pass."
    "Sorry, Ma'am, but that would be obstructing an ongoing investigation."
    "Then send your warrant card to the lobby. Without official authorization you can continue your enquiries in the cockpit."
    "No problem, Ma'am - if the corridors to the bar aren't wide enough I'll be happy to sort that out with the scattergun.'
    An amused laugh came from the loudspeakers. "I like you, son. I just hope there really is something inside those trousers and that you didn't get your stupid wisecracks out of fortune cookies. OK, how about this for a deal: you get a specially reduced rate for the sections from the goods entrance to the White Rabbit - and you do a little delivery job for me afterwards."
    "If that's all…"
    "Right, now get your ass in gear. Hangar 2, Sector C. Have yourself X-rayed and deactivate the plane's AI so we can park your shuttle in the security bay. Once you've got your reduced-rate day visa, a navigation bot will accompany you to the White Rabbit - along the delivery and maintenance lanes, avoiding the pay-zones, of course."
    "Thanks, but I can do without a tin bug."
    "And I can do without you, kid. My club, my rules. Is it a deal?"
    "You're the eighth plague of Egypt, Ma'am."
    "I've been called worse. I hope you'll have time for a quick tour of the establishment, my girls won't bite - at least not unless you want them to. And now off you go to Hangar 2 before the navbot starts getting impatient."


Less that twenty minutes later Jerome was prey to destructive urges as he went along empty corridors, following a hip-high robot that wouldn't stop yakking.
    "The club has a unique range of high-class facilities catering for the varying wishes and preferences of our clients, who come from all walks of life," the electronic page-boy gushed. "You can choose from fun-baths, dry-ice beds, anti-gravity love-elevators, low- and high-pressure cabins as well as thirty-eight Satyria simulators, all programmed by species and model. Customers will also enjoy a visit to our fitness centers, clinics, night bars and eros centers. For the inexperienced there is an interactive course for beginners: Learning by doing it ten times successively, and for the shy a program, under psychological supervision, designed to release inhibitions: Don't hide it, provide it! To experience the full variety of our services, which change on a weekly basis, we recommend a month's subscription.
    "The establishment was founded in Exon 333 by Violet Vynn, a survivor of the Tarras Prime genocide. Initially it was housed in a disused refinery for noble gases, which, with the help of some friendly androids, was converted into the first interstellar red-light station. Through continuous expansion and modernization over the last eighty years it has developed into an oasis of enjoyment and relaxation with a unique ambiance which is unequalled in the colonial sphere. Madame Vynn still manages the business today even though after her hundredth birthday twenty-one years ago she has largely withdrawn from public life."
    The bot halted by a levitator stop and called one of the lifts. As the cabin arrived, it started up its patter again. "As well as its exclusive on-board service, Babylon can offer special packages for the half-day or part-time swinger. Our unique panorama cable railway with beds in glass love-cars is available to exhibitionists, nudists and registered voyeurs. There are both express and slow services so the customer can decide whether to book for a quickie or an extended session."
    The navbot floated into the lift. Jerome put his arm in, pressed the button for the bottom floor and stepped quickly back as the doors closed. The robot's voice came out of the elevator shaft, fading as it descended: "Unsupervised presence in the establishment without valid customer ID contravenes the terms of the company's business license. I am forced to alert security…"
    "And you too," Jerome muttered, once the hum of the cabin had faded, and looked round. To his right the corridor ended in a bulkhead, to his left in a door with the hologram of a mermaid-like being writhing and stretching in front of it. Jerome went over to the control desk by the bulkhead and examined the panel. The writing was in Genide symbols which he could at best make a guess at. After studying it for a few minutes, he decided on a green square, which he assumed was the sensor for opening the door. For some seconds nothing happened, then a synthetic voice could be heard announcing, "At the next orgasm it will be eighteen hundred hours, four minutes and eighty-six seconds." A scream of pleasure rang out in the silence, making Jerome start. Frenziedly he pressed the surrounding squares to stop the program he'd called up.
    "The employment areas for Sapiens include mud-wrestling, topless bull riding, fat girl sumo wrestling and final clean-up," a second voice explained as Jerome helplessly clapped his hands to his head. "In addition there are various vertical, horizontal and diagonal services for individual clients. The agreed minimum monthly salary is 2000 Nova Kwanza for Superiors, 1500 for androids and 1000 for Sapiens."
    "Close program!" In disgust Jerome kept pressing squares all over the window, as if he were squashing bugs.
    "From Tyi applicants we require a detailed curriculum vitae together with a production-class certificate for their implants, for Genides the quality-class seal of their breeding-dome colony as well as a genetically coded whole-body photo. Sapiens are requested to send us a curriculum vitae with their home colony, place of birth and certified reason for birth."
    "Oh do shut up."
    "Thank you for your attention." The program ended with the sound of a bell.
    "You're wasting your time," said a voice behind him. That's an information pillar with no AI."
    Jerome turned round. At first he thought the woman facing him was standing in a diphor force field for protection if he should become aggressive. Only when he looked again did he realize that it was transparent towels she'd wound round her body like a wrap-around dress.
    "D'you like what you see?" she asked with a sarcastic undertone which just didn't go with the Babylon pleasure-clones. "If I were you, I wouldn't try to go through that door - unless, that is, you can hold your breath in a vacuum long enough to get out of this hangar. From all I've heard about Sapiens' physiology, the extreme pressure in your lungs would burst your epiglottis open after 1.4 seconds at most…"
    "You must be a Tyi," said Jerome.
    "It would be difficult to deny something so obvious."
    "Not really," said Jerome as he looked her up and down. "You don't have any Jadd tattoos, you're too short to be a Genide and too perfect for an androidess.'
    "Gynoid," she said, correcting him. Then with a glance at the notice on the door. "I presume your Ginesh isn't up to much…"
    "There are less complicated alphabets than this Genide gobbledegook," Jerome admitted.
    The woman nodded, "To go by your dialect, you must come from Nara."
    "I'm Jerome. And you?"
    "Call me Meeara." She pointed over her shoulder. "I'm on my way to the zero-G-sauna. D'you feel like coming too?"
    Jerome glanced over her shoulder. "Do you work here?"
    Meeara puckered her lips in amusement. "Only when the situation demands."
    "The financial situation?"
    "Political."
    "Another nice euphemism." He took a step towards her and studied her eyes. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"
    "If you do, it'll be my twin sister, not me."
    "President Celeste?"
    A gleam of amusement flashed across her face. "No, my other twin sister."
    "How many twin sisters do you have?"
    "Seven."
    "Wouldn't it be appropriate to talk of octuplets, then?"
    "No. Originally there was just one set of twins - but it was cloned three times."
    Jerome could not conceal his amazement. 'But they say the Tyi are forbidden to reproduce."
    "Do they now?" Again the derisive smile. "Before the Second Diaspora there were over nine billion people living in the solar system - but more than half of them were not aware that their home planet needed 365 days to orbit the sun," Meeara explained. "Not because of lack of intelligence, but because they just weren't interested. They were fully occupied with themselves and the demands of their simple life. Today, almost 400 hundred years later, a large proportion of the Sapiens still living are no longer even aware that it was their ancestors who created the Superiors. Out of sight, out of mind. Your species is brilliant at repressing such elementary facts. Wouldn't you like to come with me? We could get to now each other a little more… closely."
    'Next time perhaps." He watched as she went over to the lift. "The Genides say intimate relations with a Tyi woman is like sex with a cryogenerator."
    "That's sheer jealousy," Meeara replied coolly, almost amused. "If you had gone about creating your lackeys on Sabiador with a little more sensitivity and had shown a tad more logic and foresight, you would have been spared the First Species War - and all the humiliation that followed."
    "How do you mean?"
    For a few seconds Meeara stood between the lift doors as they opened, then she turned round and came a little closer as the cabin went up without her. "Have you ever heard of a Genide woman giving birth to a child?" she asked. There was something provocative in her tone of voice and also a touch of repressed irritation. "Before you rehash other people's prejudices, you should deal with the misdeeds of your own species, Mr Cobb."
    "How come you know my name?"
    "For the moment that's neither here nor there. When breeding the Genides, your forefathers on Sabiador created exceptional intelligence but didn't bother wasting their time on the means that would allow them to reproduce naturally. Their purpose was to open up new worlds, do the pioneering work, the dirty work. Uncontrolled multiplying was not part of the plan. No one buys a cleaning android to find ten in the house when they come back from a business trip because the automata have discovered the delights of uncontrolled reproduction. They're there to keep the house clean, not to start an invasion." Meeara came up close to Jerome, so close he could feel the warmth of her body. "As soon as feelings take over," she whispered in his ear, "any kind of predetermined functions take a back seat. And feelings can have great power, Mr Cobb. Superhuman power."
    "You still haven't answered my question."
    "The Tyi only clone the number of fetuses that will fit in a female uterus. Perhaps the Genides do that as well, but only once they've made a uterus sixty times the size by biogenetic means. And unlike them we give birth to our offspring physically. Have you ever been inside a Genide breeding dome, Mr Cobb?"
    "No."
    "That's a gap in your experience you definitely ought to fill. It will blow your mind. An area the size of the hangar behind that door is covered with a thirty-meter-high bio-merase consisting of gigantic uterus macroplasias synaptically linked with each other, fed by a twelve-ton placenta and surrounded by a thick covering of cell tissue and artificial blood-circulation systems. A network of highly transparent plastic corridors several kilometers in length allows the Genides to check the development of the embryos directly from inside the merase. Under every breeding dome is the throb of a gigantic, electronically controlled monstrosity of a womb with nutrient plasma, tissue, mucus and shit."
    "Sounds pretty traumatic for you," Jerome commented.
    "Let's put it this way, Mr Cobb: the more of the opposing side's internal matters one knows, the more of the enemy's secrets one learns, the stronger one's loathing and hatred become. The Genides pass it on as heredity, we implant it. The result is the same." She raised one hand and gave a faint wave in the direction of the lift, at which the call button lit up. When she saw Jerome's questioning look, she said, "Endogenous implants are a blessing, don't you think? It's time to make up your mind, Mr Cobb. This is the universe of the Superiors - and as a Sapiens you're doomed to fail miserably."
    "What do you mean by that?"
    "The obvious." She brushed a strand of hair off his forehead. "However much a sheep may wish it, it will never be a wolf, even if it wears a wolf's skin, speaks its language, fights with its weapons and really feels as strong as a wolf. It will be defeated in its first fight with real wolves and as it dies it will realize that it was only a sheep that imagined it was on the same level of evolution as the wolves."
     "We were't the ones who started the First Species War,' Jerome protested.
    Meeara raised her eyebrows a little. "But you did everything you could to end it. At the Athebathos conference there were only two possible alternative ways of punishing you for your arrogance and your crimes: humiliation or annihilation. The decision was taken by mutual agreement - and in your favor, but it couldn't have been closer."
    "By whose mutual agreement?"
    "Ours and the Genides', of course. The Sabiador Chronicles make it sound as if the Genides were dragging their feet, but that wasn't the case. Before you decide to fight each other, it's advisable to pass sentence on your common enemy. The decision to go to war is taken by a handful of people. Five per cent of the population fight each other in armies and navies, a further five per cent join in as collaborators or profiteers. The remaining ninety per cent wait to see what will happen and ultimately accept their fate. That's the way things are."
    A harmonious signal sounded, then the doors of the lift opened for a second time behind Meeara. "Goodbye, Mr Cobb," she said. "Perhaps the next time we meet you'll have thought about what I said and have come to a decision. Homo homini lupus, your primitive forefathers on Earth knew that already." She gave him a cold smile, then disappeared as the doors slid to.

Continuation page: Extract 2



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