Even If You Dream

He took a full ten minutes, then shut the water off, frowning upon discovering that his braid was stuck to his wet back. He had forgotten to undo it. He shook it loose and reached for his towel, patting himself off and stepping back into his room.

Time to get dressed, he thought.

He put on his black bodysuit first. A remarkable invention, not just because of the style, either. The suit was a layered crystalline armor that was as light and flexible as fabric but was in point of fact some of the toughest armor on the market.

He eased into his blue and red pants and slid on his black and white boots, securing the kneepads as he did so. He stretched his arms wide. He honestly felt a little tired, and Earth was still ten hours away.

He pulled on his black gloves, pulling them all the way up to his biceps, then securing them, wiggling his fingers to make sure it was skintight. He didn’t want to lose any dexterity, and given the nature of his mission, he'd need it.

He looked down at his table and saw he still had his gloves to put on, but not before he taped up his hands. He sat down in his chair and looked from the table to the bed.

Ten hours, he thought. No hurry.

* * *

"Day Two, personal journal, Reficul, S.G." Reficul said, speaking into a small device he was holding in the palm of his hand. "I can’t believe how close Gora's work was to Sandoval's and myself. These Marionettes are a work of art. Despite their mechanized endoskeletons, these machines have the ability to sustain biomass to such precise degree that they have skin temperature, perspiration, they even react to sudden changes in temperature.

"Truly, they are a work of art. Nowhere near as complex and self-sufficient as Sandoval's Neo-Human model, but well above my own limited work on the subject."

He looked at them again. He had spent most of the day downloading library computer information directly into their brains. Upon activating them, he had discovered they were quite eager to learn, like a child thirsting to be taught.

And they learn fast, Reficul thought. Day One they mastered walking, seventeen complex gymnastic routines and the proper placement of 30 pieces of silverware from 129 different races. Their brains have to be at least six times the speed of a human's cognitive process and twice as fast as my own.

Reficul put down his recorder and stared at them.

I'll do as he asks, Reficul thought ruefully. But I'll take the Marionettes as payment. They'll allow me to build on Sandoval and Gora's research. Let the Earthers have whatever scraps I pass along. The real prize will leave Ganymede with me.

* * *

Kienan's eyes snapped open at the sound of the alarm. He rolled quickly out of bed, and out of the room, grabbing his tape, his gloves, and his gunbelt as he exited. He buckled his gunbelt around his waist as he made his way up the stairs to the bridge. The buckles for the holsters clinked and hung loose as he walked up the stairs.

The Silhouette came out of Space Drive on the edge of Pluto. The main thrusters kicked back in as Kienan set course for Jupiter. He lit a cigarette as he transmitted his code to the listening post on Charon for clearance and headed for Ganymede.

He let the cigarette dangle from his lips as he taped his wrists. One of his many mentors had taught him the value of the practice. For one thing, it saved you from arthritis if you were an acrobat, for another, it saved your knuckles for those unfortunate times when things got violent.

And things always got violent in Kienan's line of work.