Robot Blues (8 page)

The Adonians
succeeded. They created a species of human noted galaxy-wide for extraordinary
beauty. Males and females were so wonderfully attractive that the term “gorgeous
as an Adonian” passed into popular usage. But it seems that the Creator demands
a price for tampering with His creation. The more beautiful the Adonians became
on the outside, the less beautiful they grew within, until at this time in
their history, they were noted as being a society completely devoid of morals.

The Adonians are
not immoral. Immorality implies that one has a sense of the difference between
right and wrong. The Adonians lack this. For example, Adonians have passed laws
stating that it is legal to “refuse to sustain” a child if it is born ugly. To
them, this is mercy killing. The Adonians care about nothing except beauty and
pleasure—in any and every form.

Following this
line of thinking, one might assume that the home world of Adonia would be a
cesspool of iniquity, a den of vice. This is not true.

The Adonians
believe that their planet must be beautiful, in order to suitably showcase the
beautiful populace. If planet and inhabitants are beautiful, people in the rest
of the galaxy will come visit and enjoy, admire and emulate, and—of paramount
importance—spend money. Since most methods of earning money (factories,
offices, and such) tend to either smell bad or look disgusting or cause
wrinkles, the Adonians banned these from their world, which left them with only
one major source of income. What they live for—pleasure.

Adonia became a
hedonistic paradise. The Adonians have only one entry requirement: You must
either be at least passable in appearance or agree to wear—at all times—a mask
so that your looks will not offend any of the more sensitive in nature.

As Darlene rode on
the Adonian shuttlecraft—one of the most luxurious she had ever encountered—she
found herself growing increasingly nervous. The thought of having to pass
through customs, of being deemed “unacceptable” in appearance, the possibility
of having to wear a mask, was unnerving. Bothered her far more, she was
startled to realize, than the thought of an assassin stalking her.

“I’m being silly,”
she argued with herself. “What do I care what a bunch of vapid, ignorant,
egotistic, prejudiced people think of my looks?”

Nevertheless, she
did care. Perhaps it was being in such close proximity to so many Adonians on
the shuttle, staring at them in awe, listening to them talk about shampoo and
cosmetics, the latest fashions, the most exotic perfumes. Darlene caught
herself pulling her hair to the back of her head in a vain effort to hide the
split ends, and wishing that she’d taken Raoul’s advice as to her makeup.
Several Adonians glanced at her and hastily averted their eyes.

Raoul himself was
in a state of bliss not to be approximated by artificial stimulants. It had
been three years, he told Darlene, since he’d returned to his home world for
Hedonist Days and he had missed it dreadfully.

“Mummy and Daddy
made so much of it,” he said during the shuttle trip. The tears of childhood
memories glistened in his eyes. “Baking the phallic cookies, setting up the
condom tree, mixing the hallucinogens for the punch. That was
my
special
job. Then planning the party games!”

“Your parents are
dead, are they?” Darlene asked, watching Raoul make a delicate swipe at his
nose with a lace handkerchief.

Raoul was forced
to pause to think about this. “No, I don’t believe so. I’m sure I would have
heard.... Yes.” He confirmed this in his mind. “1 would have undoubtedly been
informed.”

“Did you have an
argument?”

“Oh, no. We are on
quite good terms. At least we would be, I’m sure, if we ever met.” Raoul smiled
at her confusion. “You see, my dear, my parents’ job of caring for me ended
when I reached the age of majority, which—on Adonia—is sixteen. At that age,
state payments for the upkeep of children ends. I was expected to go out and
make my way in the world. Mummy and Daddy gave me their blessing and a
ten-setting adjustable curling iron and we haven’t seen each other since.”

“You refer to
child-raising as a job?”

“What else would
it be?” Raoul returned complacently. “Most children are products of test tubes
anyway. I refer to my parents as ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’ but they’re probably not,
biologically. The state pays parents to rear children and they receive a bonus
if their children turn out well. Which I did,” he added, smoothing his hair and
contentedly contemplating his own reflection in the mirror, of which there were
many on the Adonian shuttlecraft. “My parents made quite a tidy sum off me.”

“There’s no
affection,” said Darlene, hesitantly. “No parent-child bond. That sort of
thing?”

“Not necessary,”
Raoul assured her. “Quite detrimental, in fact. People like you—no offense,
dear—have complexes brought on by hating your father and loving your mother or
vice versa. Those complexes lead to all manner of sexual problems, which lead
to more complexes. We have none of that here. You were a woman trapped in a man’s
body. Recall how you suffered in your society! On Adonia, such a mistake would
have been discovered and corrected by the time you were twelve!”

Darlene’s cheeks
flushed. She didn’t mind talking about herself or her past with her friends,
but she wished Raoul would keep his voice down. Several Adonians— who had
before turned away from her—were now regarding her with marked interest.

“What about
affection?” she asked, hurriedly changing the subject. “Love?”

“Messy emotions!”
Raoul sniffed, banished them with a flutter of his handkerchief. “I am happy to
say that, for the most part, we have eradicated them.”

“I wouldn’t say
that eradication has been entirely successful in your case,” Darlene said with
a smile.

The Little One,
enveloped in the raincoat, his face covered by the hat, was sound asleep, his
head pillowed on Raoul’s lap.

Raoul glanced down
at his slumbering friend. “1 do have some flaws,” he admitted, mortified.
Sighing, he comforted himself with another glimpse at his reflection. “Fortunately
they are only internal. They are not apparent on the surface. Which reminds me.
I must change prior to landing.”

Raoul gently
shifted the Little One to a more comfortable position, cradling his friend on a
nest of soft cushions, then left. Raoul had already changed clothes twice, once
before leaving the space cruiser to go to the shuttle, once after having
arrived on the shuttle, and now once again, in order to disembark.

Darlene was
accustomed to shuttle rides in which everyone sat glumly, silently in their
seats, anxious to land, anxious to end the wearisome traveling and get on with
their lives. Not the Adonians. The shuttle ride developed into a party, a blur
of motion, color, and activity, all awash in heady perfume.

Adonians were
constantly leaving to change their clothes or arrange their hair or change their
hair and arrange their clothes. A sumptuous banquet was served aft. Live
entertainment was for’ard. Stewards poured champagne into crystal glasses. The
shuttle had a heated pool on board, a masseuse, a sauna. Also a recreational
area. Watching the couples (with the occasional threesome or foursome) enter
the rec room and later emerge flushed and invigorated, Darlene guessed that the
Adonians weren’t playing shuffleboard.

“People became so
restless on shuttle flights,” Raoul explained when he returned. He had changed
from a mauve jumpsuit with golden epaulets on the shoulders and matching gold
boots to a long flowing pink caftan with billowing sleeves, encrusted with
embroidery and glittering with sequins.

“Restless! The
flight’s only two hours!” Darlene protested. “Why couldn’t you just ... read a
book?”

Raoul laughed so
much he had to leave again to repair the damage done to his eyeliner.

When he returned,
he regarded Darlene with a contemplative frown. “Now, do let me
try
to
do
something
with your hair!”

While Raoul fussed
over her—murmuring despairingly beneath his breath—Darlene studied the other
passengers onboard the shuttle, trying to ascertain if any of them might be
shadowing her—although, she admitted to herself ruefully, spotting a tail would
be a difficult task on an Adonian shuttle. What with all the comings and goings
and clothes changing and appearance altering, she probably wouldn’t have
spotted her own mother.

Was the drop-dead
gorgeous Adonian blond woman seated across the aisle from her the same
drop-dead gorgeous Adonian redhead who had occupied that seat on departure?
Darlene wasn’t sure. She had the dim notion that the woman wasn’t a woman at
all. Darlene was beginning to think Xris had been right. This trip was a
mistake.

But there was
always the Little One. The telepath, having awakened, reported through Raoul
that no one was thinking about Darlene at all.

“Not surprising,
with this hairdo,” Raoul muttered. He gazed sadly at Darlene. His voice had the
tragic note of a surgeon telling the nurses to pull the plug. “I’ve done all I
can conceivably be expected to do, given the circumstances.”

The shuttle
landing took forever, the craft settled down very slowly and very gently. “It
would never do to jostle the wine,” Raoul explained.

When the doors
were at last opened, the Adonians rose gracefully, bade good-bye to newfound
shipboard romances, and glided toward the exits on waves of rose and musk and
violet. The smoke of hookahs lingered in the air. The few off-world passengers,
feeling—as did Darlene—frumpy, dowdy, repressed, inhibited, and, most of all,
ugly, slumped down in the seats and wished they’d never come.

Raoul was eager to
leave, however, and insisted that Darlene come with him. Walking off the
shuttle in company with the glittering, beautiful Adonian, she understood now
why the Little One chose to envelop himself in the raincoat; she envied him his
fedora.

Shrinking into
herself, conscious of all eyes on her (disparagingly, it seemed), Darlene
Mohini picked up her computer case and her shabby overnight bag and prepared to
be thoroughly and deeply humiliated in customs.

She would have
almost rather been shot.

So clomb this
first grand thief into God’s fold . . .

John Milton,
Paradise Lost

The shuttle
landing on Pandor was considerably more jarring to its passengers than the
shuttle landing on Adonia. No champagne had been served on the flight; the
fragrances in the air were a mixture of disinfectant, boot polish, and machine
oil. No swimming pools; the passengers considered themselves lucky to have
toilets. The seats were benches, with worn and cracked vinyl cushions. The
passengers made no complaint about the discomfort, however. They were all Army
personnel, they’d all been in worse places, and there was a full-bull colonel
onboard, who was heard to remark to his aide that this landing was soft as a
baby’s bottom compared to the drop-ship landings he’d made during his days with
special forces.

After that, of
course, the other passengers—two privates and two lieutenants—dared make no
complaint, could only nurse their bruised tailbones and suffer in silence.

As a matter of
fact, Jamil’s own tailbone hurt like hell, but he knew how a colonel was
expected to act. He’d seen more than his share during his years in the Army.

When the shuttle
landed, the door opened to blinding, glaring sunshine. The flight attendant—an
especially attractive woman who’d been solicitous to Jamil’s wants and needs
all during the flight (to the glum envy of the two lieutenants and the sardonic
amusement of the two privates)—turned to announce that passengers could now
disembark.

The privates and
the lieutenants all looked at Jamil. It would be the colonel’s privilege to
leave first, keep them waiting—if he chose. He smiled, waved magnanimously.

“You gentlemen go
ahead,” he said. “The captain and I will wait.”

Standing, he
straightened his uniform, adjusted his cuffs, smiled and glanced at the flight
attendant. She smiled back. He’d forgotten the effect of a uniform on some
women.

The others left
hurriedly, the two privates endeavoring to avoid catching the eyes of the two
lieutenants. All four grabbed their onboard luggage, which had been stowed in
the back, sidled past the colonel and his aide, and hastened toward the door.
Jamil could almost see them exhale with relief when they made it out safely. He
felt a twinge of regret for the old days.

Xris, in his guise
as captain and aide-de-camp, left his seat, next to Jamil and stood aside to
allow the “colonel” to pass.

Jamil strode out
into the aisle.

“Check to see if
the staff car is waiting, Captain.”

“Yes, sir,” Xris
replied, and started off.

“Captain!” Jamil
barked.

Xris turned.

Jamil held out his
carry-on bag. “And see to the rest of the luggage, will you, Captain?”

Xris blinked,
recovered. Returning, he took the bag. “Yes, sir, Colonel, you bastard,” he
added under his breath. “Don’t get used to this.”

Jamil grinned,
tugged on his cuffs, and walked forward to pass a few pleasant moments flirting
with the flight attendant.

Through the plane’s
window, he watched Xris retrieve the luggage, carry it down the stairs to the
tarmac, broiling in the Pandoran sun. Jamil chatted as Xris supervised the
unloading of the large crate which contained the visual aid materials the
colonel would be using in his lecture, saw it deposited safely on the tarmac.

It must be hot out
there, Jamil thought, observing Xris sweating in his heavy uniform as he stood
at the bottom of the ramp, waiting to make his report.

Jamil relaxed a
moment more in the cool comfort of the cabin, joking with the shuttle pilots
and enjoying a chilled glass of orange juice. The flight attendant was writing
down her phone number.