Frederic) and who had shown him that be did have at least the minimal talents of a musician. He fought down an urge to wave and looked back at the girl He swallowed hard, felt his Adam's apple bobble in his throat like a trapped animal Had he been expecting a hunchback like Rosie? A warped mutant, another error in the gene juggling chambers? But she took his breath away with her beauty, burned his already sore throat with a strange longing he could not quite define.
She is magnificent
, Guil thought.
Rosie smiled.
Beautiful. Five foot three, slight but awe-inspiring. She was dressed in a wine-colored leotard suit and matching slippers. The suit clung tightly, too tightly to the sweet contours of her body. Long and stunning legs for so short a girl, flaring hips of perfect breadth, a tiny waist that looked as if hands might encircle it, pert and upthrust breasts, and her neck, a hand-carved polished curve of nut brown. Her face was delicate as fine Chinese embroidery, framed with a burst of black hair and punctuated with two eyes as blue-green as those of a cat Even from across the arena, her face shone with a radiant loveliness that stirred his nerves into a frustrated dance. Surely, the genetic engineers had been performing contrition for past mistakes when they had formed this shinning girl-woman,
"She's… she's…"
"Isn't she?" Rosie chuckled.
The duo reached the Bench and halted—Tisha with her feet drawn together, her back arched, very pert and very pretty, old Franz stooped and looking weary but game nonetheless. The litany progressed, and the crowd sucked in a collective breath that must have drained half of the air from the room when Franz said that—being her tutor and being proud of what she had accomplished under him—he recommended her for a Class I. It had been daring enough a request on Rosie's part, but to ask for Class I seemed to be pushing it further than the bounds of decency.
The judges looked skeptical too.
However, Guil thought, it would probably be better to win a Class I than a Class IV. He could see that if Tisha won a Class IV station, the ridicule heaped on other Class IVs from those higher in the social order would lead to much unrest and bad feelings: "Why, even a woman can win one of your damn Class IV’s!" So it had to be the top or nothing. Reluctantly, the judges agreed to let her try for it. They had committed themselves to Rosie. Besides, there was the almost positive assumption that she could only fail.
But she did not die.
She performed perfectly against more horrors than Guil had had to face, using her weapons expertly—an array of fourteen that a Class I had to understand and master. For half an hour, she calmly took whatever was thrown at her, using bolo-sonics, sound rifles, and sonic tropic dart systems. It was plain that the judges intended to balance the weight against her, that the test masters behind the Bench would force her to confront twice as many specters as any other Class I candidate would have to endure.
She slew the wolfmen that spewed from a shower of wriggling worms.
She disposed of the scorpion-tailed dragonflies that rose from the corpses of the wolfmen.
When at last the test masters could not decently continue tests without publicly admitting they were stacking things against her, and when the tests were finished, she received a shallow spatter of applause, mostly from the Ladies in the stands. The men were too busy ruminating on what all of this would mean to them. She was escorted to the platform where she hugged Rosie and kissed Guil on the cheek because Rosie had called him his only friend.
At last, it was time for all but Rosie to face the Pillar of Ultimate Sound. Guil led Tisha from the platform, dust puffed a bit at having her arm for even this brief moment.
Then, moaning from a sudden break in the floor, came the Pillar of the Ultimate Sound…
As the swirling, umbrageous column towered above them, humming with a bleak and ugly
She is magnificent
, Guil thought.
Rosie smiled.
Beautiful. Five foot three, slight but awe-inspiring. She was dressed in a wine-colored leotard suit and matching slippers. The suit clung tightly, too tightly to the sweet contours of her body. Long and stunning legs for so short a girl, flaring hips of perfect breadth, a tiny waist that looked as if hands might encircle it, pert and upthrust breasts, and her neck, a hand-carved polished curve of nut brown. Her face was delicate as fine Chinese embroidery, framed with a burst of black hair and punctuated with two eyes as blue-green as those of a cat Even from across the arena, her face shone with a radiant loveliness that stirred his nerves into a frustrated dance. Surely, the genetic engineers had been performing contrition for past mistakes when they had formed this shinning girl-woman,
"She's… she's…"
"Isn't she?" Rosie chuckled.
The duo reached the Bench and halted—Tisha with her feet drawn together, her back arched, very pert and very pretty, old Franz stooped and looking weary but game nonetheless. The litany progressed, and the crowd sucked in a collective breath that must have drained half of the air from the room when Franz said that—being her tutor and being proud of what she had accomplished under him—he recommended her for a Class I. It had been daring enough a request on Rosie's part, but to ask for Class I seemed to be pushing it further than the bounds of decency.
The judges looked skeptical too.
However, Guil thought, it would probably be better to win a Class I than a Class IV. He could see that if Tisha won a Class IV station, the ridicule heaped on other Class IVs from those higher in the social order would lead to much unrest and bad feelings: "Why, even a woman can win one of your damn Class IV’s!" So it had to be the top or nothing. Reluctantly, the judges agreed to let her try for it. They had committed themselves to Rosie. Besides, there was the almost positive assumption that she could only fail.
But she did not die.
She performed perfectly against more horrors than Guil had had to face, using her weapons expertly—an array of fourteen that a Class I had to understand and master. For half an hour, she calmly took whatever was thrown at her, using bolo-sonics, sound rifles, and sonic tropic dart systems. It was plain that the judges intended to balance the weight against her, that the test masters behind the Bench would force her to confront twice as many specters as any other Class I candidate would have to endure.
She slew the wolfmen that spewed from a shower of wriggling worms.
She disposed of the scorpion-tailed dragonflies that rose from the corpses of the wolfmen.
When at last the test masters could not decently continue tests without publicly admitting they were stacking things against her, and when the tests were finished, she received a shallow spatter of applause, mostly from the Ladies in the stands. The men were too busy ruminating on what all of this would mean to them. She was escorted to the platform where she hugged Rosie and kissed Guil on the cheek because Rosie had called him his only friend.
At last, it was time for all but Rosie to face the Pillar of Ultimate Sound. Guil led Tisha from the platform, dust puffed a bit at having her arm for even this brief moment.
Then, moaning from a sudden break in the floor, came the Pillar of the Ultimate Sound…
As the swirling, umbrageous column towered above them, humming with a bleak and ugly
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