action. The long wait was about to end.
* * *
For their part, the Dillians, knowing nothing of this, waited to see what the disreputable clinic might have done to poor Alowi.
The answer, at least from their point of view, seemed to be nothing more than what had been claimed. Alowi seemed more content with herself and more confident and no longer seemed troubled by runaway inner drives.
No one, of course, was more nervous about this than Alowi herself. Becoming a guinea pig possibly at the hands of one's enemy was an act of desperation but reasoned action nonetheless.
At first she simply felt, well, normal, and for a while that was enough. Those inner urges, those bouts of losing control, of nearly sick cravings, seemed to vanish while leaving little in their place. This was not, of course, normal to an Erdomese, but it seemed normal in almost any other context. She felt, well, much like Tony and Anne Marie seemed to feel, or Mavra. She was simply herself, but in complete control, not needing anything just to remain sane. Free. Free to study, free to learn, free of any thought of returning to Erdom. Yet when she looked at herself in the mirror, she liked what she saw. If anything, she liked it more than she had, felt more comfortable about the person who stared back at her. Although those urges and emotions had at times been overwhelming and omnipresent for what had seemed forever, it now was difficult, even impossible, to remember what that had felt like. She felt every bit a female, no less than before; certainly she didn't feel sexless or frigid or an "it." And yet, well, those things she'd gathered around or made or picked up in the markets that were so obviously phallic now seemed pretty silly. She wasn't quite sure just what sort of change other than allowing her independence the doctors had wrought, but if this was the extent of it, well, it was something she could surely live with and might have died without.
Tony came back from the city with what she hoped was an answer to Anne Marie's report of only a few days before. Anne Marie, at least, was excited. "This is the first time they ever sent a reply to one of our reports! And so quickly, too! Perhaps they've found something out! Play it!"
Tony removed the cube and pressed her thumb firmly on the one side that had an inlaid red surface. The cube took a few cells of skin, compared them with the genetic code it carried, seemed satisfied, then said in a voice that came through as a soft and pleasant woman's voice, "Please do not play the rest of this inside your home. Take it to an open area well away from any others, particularly natives, and repeat the process. The cube contains a small zonal scrambling device that will cover an area about three meters square, so be close to it. The message will play only once, erasing itself as it plays, so pay close attention. When done, burn the cube in any open fire. The message will now pause until you take these precautions, and you will not hear this preamble again." "My goodness!" Anne Marie exclaimed. "Sounds rather serious, doesn't it?" "It certainly sounds as if something, at least, is going to happen," Tony agreed. "Let's take the precautions and go down to the jetty and see what they have to say." She paused a moment and had a puzzled look. "I wonder why that many precautions. Surely they do not think that even this tent is bugged-could they? I mean, who would bug us?"
"Someone who is certainly near death from boredom," Anne Marie responded. "Still, let's do this cloak and dagger business by the rules, dear." They all left the tent and went down perhaps two hundred meters to the jetty, where the gentle ocean water, softened by far-off undersea reefs, lapped against the sides. It was a nice, bright day, warmer than usual and with a gentle wind. There was nobody else around close enough to