Free Slant by Greg Bear Page B

Nussbaum turns and glances down at the body. "Nano heat?" She stands and walks to the tables. All of the arbeiter surgeons are slack, powered off. They could still function in this cold if they had been left with power and logic on. "They must have abandoned the.., women, and fled. But first they turned off the surgeons. The women weren't supervised.., something was going wrong." "They're just as the first team found them," Nussbaum says. Mary catches
    50 GREG BEAR
    The clitorises on the cheeks. To give her a cousinly safe kiss.., never have that. Everything sex forever. Fuck ja'k fuck. And suddenly, for Mary that aspect fades like a wrong note. She is numb, but her well-trained defenses go to work, letting the distressed strawboss of her consciousness have a moment's rest. She checks the bottles of nano on a nearby shelf. Supplies of nutrients; delivery tubes, dams and nipples; a new regulator still in its box, not yet installed, )n the shelf beside the nano it is made to supervise; memory cubes on a small folding table; scraps of plastic like shavings, blood drops brown as gravy on the the floor. Mary picks up a bottle, reverses it to read the label. All the labels have been turned to the wall. She knows why. The label confirms her suspicions. Somebody had a small remnant of conscience, or did not want the subjects, the victims, to know. "This isn't medical grade," Mary says. "It's for gardens." "Gardens?" Nussbaum asks, and leans to see the label. "Christ. Distributed by Ortho." "Any real expert could reprogram it," Mary says. "Apparently, they didn't have a real expert." "Gardener's nano," Nussbaum says. "Sweet Jesus H. Christ. Mary, I'm sorry. You can't possibly understand this any more than I do." "No need," Mary says flatly. "Things started going wrong and the bastards left them here to cook," Nussbaum says. "So very, very sorry." Behind the plastic, his face is milky and drawn. Mary does not know to whom he is apologizing.
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    6 RAZOR DANCE
    Jack Giffey thinks about getting some food at the Bullpen in downtown Moscow just as the republic's office workers decide to end their lunch break and take a few minutes of sun. The air is still cold and a little snow fell earlier, but now, at one, the sun is bright and the blind blue of earlier in the morning is more intense and cheery. Giffey walks between ranks of folks dressed in loggers--padded vests, denim pants, plaid or checkered shirts. Nobody is more into the Sour Decades than Green Idaho, and among the republic's workers, they're practically a religion. After all, the eighties and nineties bred the root troubles that led to the Weaverite Insurrection and the Green .Idaho Treaty. And Green Idaho government workers are among the higtiSt paid and most protected in the nation. Giffey blows his nose and