Звезда Пандоры

When they’d gone he went back out onto the roof garden. Mellanie smiled at him with the simple happiness of the totally devoted.

“So was she murdered?” the girl asked.

“They don’t know.”

She twined her arms around his neck, pressing her still damp body against him. “Why do you care? It was centuries and centuries ago.”

“Forty years. And I’d care very much if it happened to you.”

Her lips came together in a hurt pout. “Don’t say that.”

“The point is, time doesn’t lessen a crime, especially not today.”

“Okay.” She shrugged, and smiled at him again. “I won’t run away from you like she did, not ever.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He bent forward slightly, and started kissing her, an action that she responded to with her usual eagerness. Her youthful insecurity had been so easy to exploit, especially for someone with his years of life experience. She’d never known anyone as urbane and self-confident, nor as rich; the only people she’d ever dated were nice first-life boys. By herself, she wasn’t brave enough to break out from her middle-class conformity; but with his coaxing and support she soon began to nibble at the forbidden fruits. The publicity of their affair, the arguments with her parents, it all played in his favor. Like all first-lifers she was desperate to be shown everything life could offer. And as if by a miracle, he’d appeared in her life to fill the role of both guide and paymaster. Suddenly, after all the years of discipline and restrictions she’d endured to reach national level in her sport, nothing was outlawed to her. Her response to the liberation was a very predictable overindulgence.

Mellanie wasn’t quite the most beautiful girl he’d ever bedded, her chin was slightly too long, her nose too blunt, to be awarded that title. But with that lanky, broad-shouldered body of hers trained to the peak of gymnastic fitness, she was certainly one of the most physically satisfying. Although, truly, it was her age that excited him in a way he’d never reached with any of his Silent World encounters. Even in this liberally-inclined society, a rejuve seducing a first-lifer was regarded as being over the edge of civilized behavior—which simply added intensity to the experience. He could afford to ignore the disapproval of others.

This was what he was now, one of the rich and powerful, rising above the norm, the mundane. He lived his personal and professional lives in the same way, if there was something he wanted in either of them, he got it. Empire building became him, allowing him to thrive. Compared to his first mediocre century he was truly alive now.

“Go in and get changed,” he told her eventually. His e-butler summoned the dresser and the beautician to help get the girl ready. “Resal is expecting us on the boat in an hour. I don’t want to be too late, there are people coming that I need to meet tonight.”

“It’s not all business, is it?” Mellanie asked.

“Of course not, there’ll be fun people there as well. People your own age, and people older than me. Now please, we need to get moving.”

“Yes, Morty.” Mellanie caught sight of the two women waiting for her, and turned back to him. “What would you like me to wear?”

“Always: something that shows you off.” His virtual vision was displaying recent clothing purchases the dresser had made. “That gold and white thing you were fitted for on Wednesday. That’s small enough.”

She nodded eagerly. “Okay.” Then she hugged him again, the kind of tight reassurance-seeking embrace a child would give a parent. “I love you, Morty, really I do. You know that, don’t you?” Her eyes searched his face, hunting for any sign of confirmation.

“I know.” His older, earlier self would probably have experienced a twinge of guilt at that adulation. It was never going to last. He knew that, even though she would never be able to see it. In another year or so some other stray beauty would catch his eye, and the sweet heat of the chase would begin again. Mellanie would be gone in a flood of tears. But until then…

He gave her bum a quick gentle slap, hurrying her back into the penthouse. She squealed in mock-outrage before scampering in through the wide doors. The two women followed her in.

His e-butler brought up a list of items that he hadn’t finished working on during the day. He surveyed them all, taking his time to add comments, demand more information, or approve them for action. It was always the way; no matter how complex the management smartware a company employed, executive decisions were inevitably made by a human. An RI could eliminate a whole strata of middle management, but it lacked the kind of creative ability that a true leader possessed.