The day dawned clear and sunny. The house was quiet. Radhya awakened Max with a light touch on his shoulder. He seized her arm and pulled her down on top of him.

“I’m sorry milady,” he apologized scrambling to his feet. “I thought you were an intruder.”

He lifted her to her feet. She held up a hand as he started to apologize again.

“After exercise, breakfast in the kitchen. Tell Aninya,” she told him.

Fulfilling the requirements of her body, she clattered down the stairs to the second floor. At Noel’s room, she tapped softly. 72 opened the door. His face was pinched and bruised with wild and haggard eyes. Noel lay exactly as she had left him, still panting in pain. His larynx was strained from screaming; he could not even speak. He looked at her, eyes dull with misery. She checked out the alteration.

“Very good progress,” she commented lightly. “Now you had the liquid exactly on time?”

The slave 72 nodded vigorously.

“Everything should gradually shrink to its permanent size and the pain should lessen. Have any of you slaves ate or slept?” she asked with narrowed eyes.

“Milady, we can’t leave milord Barone,” 72 replied in a whisper.

“Nonsense. If you collapse, I’ll have to care for him and no thank you. Now divide into two shifts. First shift stays here. Second shift follow me.”

Three slaves sorted themselves from the bunch and followed Radhya downstairs. She strode straight to the slave’s galley and sat at the head of the table. Aninya approached with fruit and cheese which she set in front of Radhya. The slaves looked uncomfortably at each other.

“Thank you,” Radhya said to Aninya, and to the slaves, “sit. Are there any eggs Aninya?”

“Yes, milady, over two dozen this morning.”

“Cook up a bunch for this crew. They look like they are starving to death.”

“Yes milady,” Aninya replied. “They are all excessively thin.”

She left the room.

One of Barone’s slaves summoned courage and spoke. “I’m 97 milady, and if milady pleases, a bowl of gruel for us to share is what we’re used to, or sometimes, a bowl of rice. Eggs is too fine for us. Lords and Ladies eat eggs, not slaves.”

Padr ascended the stairs in time to hear the slave’s final remark.

“Here slaves eat better than most freedmen, but don’t let that fool you. Milady Death knows a well-fed, healthy body works longer, harder and faster. Not to mention without disease. Lady Death hates disease,” informed Padr.

Will, Amlina, and D’Bara came up the stairs behind Padr, and seated themselves at the table where Radhya was eating.

“I’m not pleased to feed you gruel. Only sick horses get gruel; healthy horses eat better than that. Amlina, I want to see you after lunch, in the med lab. D’Bara help Jemelina with the cleaning,” Radhya commanded the slaves.

“What?” shrieked D’Bara. “You want me to clean house?”

“D’Bara, you are my slave. You do as you are told!” stressed Radhya.

“I was told I’d be your personal maid, not some housekeeper.”

Radhya smiled sweetly, “I choose where and when you work, not some mysterious person who told you that you would be my personal maid. Since housecleaning is not to your liking, I’ll find you another job.”

D’Bara smiled arrogantly around the table.

“Padr,” continued Radhya, “escort D’Bara to Li. Tell him I said to give her M duty.”

“Yes milady,” Padr answered.

Aninya came, bringing breakfast for everyone. Max followed right behind, sniffing eagerly at the food.

“Oh, I see Max was the man in your bed last night. I guess you needed to reward him for turning Rada down,” sniped D’Bara bitingly.

Radhya slammed her hands on the table and rose.

“When D’Bara finishes her work at suppertime, give her KP. Then she can clean out the litter boxes for Singha, Ringha, and Kung. After that I want her to scrub and disinfect the entire slave’s quarters, walls, ceilings, floors, toilets all of it. If she doesn’t do it, or is reluctant, use the prod.”

Radhya stamped from the room. She went straight to Geo’s room where he was just finishing his tray of breakfast.

“Your will is finished, my dear. It needs only your endorsement,” he greeted her.

Radhya did that immediately.

Geo continued, “The offshore retreat on Spa Island is complete. It just needs a staff, and I am moving the crew to the big Island, Africa, to start the hunting preserve.”

“I completed all the plants and animals for that a month ago,” sighed Radhya. “Do you think it will be necessary now that Princess Felina is speaking up for me to hold the review?”

“For all her influence, Lady Felina, rank 5, still does not have the final say as to where the review is held. She can only influence her mother and father. Stick to the plan,” was Geo’s advice.

Radhya nodded. “Something Puzzles me. The Chandrans said Will, Max and I were Selflicn or some such word. It means about to be bonded. What do you think that means, Geo?”

“You know much more about the Chandrans than I do Radhya. Are you upset because Padr wasn’t there?”

“No, I’ve given up on Grandpa’s dream of a more human race. I’m just curious about this bonding bit.”

“The Chandrans are simply confusing you and your friends with their patterns of life. Doesn’t every mother have three or four males join with her to make up a family unit? They are mixing up human patterns with their own.”

“Thank you, Geo. Your good sense is my most valuable asset. And thank you for the other night. I guess I didn’t realize exactly how much Padr resents my authority over him. I think he could have killed me.”

“Well,” the old man paused, looking embarrassed. “I think you might feel better if I explain. You see, Padr had a bad reaction to the fidelity stick. You, ah, shorted out his brain for a while.”

“Geo, what exactly are you telling me?”

“I gave him a good beating. I did it without checking anything. He scared me when he attacked you. I ran the scanner over him when it was over to make sure there was no serious damage, and the reaction showed up. He is allergic to one of the components in the fidelity stick. He was not attacking you; he was reacting to the medication. I reversed it of course, but I left the bruises. I thought they were a good lesson for the arrogant young pup.”

“Does he know about this?”

“No, I never told him. I believe he thinks he lost it and almost killed you. It has quieted him down quite a bit.”

“But that is not fair. If he wasn’t responsible, he should know about it.”

“Do you think that he could still fall in love with you?”

“No, old friend, I know very well he only has eyes for Petra, well Petra pretending to be D’Bara pretending to be Debra. I won’t stand in the way of what he thinks will make him happy.”

“He rejected her the other night.”

“What? Tell me about it.”

“You know I keep a close eye on the slave quarters when they are all in there. It was when she woke up. He was sitting on his bunk, doing something with string. Over she comes, naked as you please and sits down beside him. He just ignores her at first, but then she’s all over him; you know her style. Anyway, she tries to reach in his pants, he grabs her wrist and just says “no.” He did this flip thing, and she ended on her bare bottom on the female side of the room. Then she spent the rest of the night calling him names and talking dirty. He just ignored her.”

“That’s just the fidelity stick. He knows it will make him sick.”

“Radhya, I had to neutralize that. Padr isn’t under that influence anymore. He could do whatever he wished, and there would be no effect.”

“If he thinks it’s there then it’s almost as good as being there.”

She smiled broadly. “This doesn’t matter anyway. Let’s just get the slaves of the Commonwealth on the road to freedom and then I can work on my love life.”

Radhya kissed the old man on the forehead and hurried from the room. She returned to lab one, checking the simulation one more time, then she moved to lab two to formulate it. While Padr exercised, Will and Max worked on the DNA unzipper. Padr came in quietly and helped them work on the rezipper.

At lunchtime, Aninya brought them steaming bowls of soup.

“Milady, do you think I could have Amlina for the kitchen, to help me? The girl is a wonder, and she loves working with food,” Aninya trailed off.

“Yes, you may, but not until I’m done with her, maybe a week. Then she’s all yours.”

“Thank you milady,” Aninya bowed and left.

When they finished eating, they went to the med lab. Amlina crept timidly up the stairs, and when they caught sight of her, Padr took her arm and escorted her to the lab.

“Amlina,” began Will, “you have a serious brain cancer.” The girl nodded. “We, well Lady Kirbyson, has created a cure. It will be painful, and it will take about a week. Do you want to try it?”

Amlina looked at them with her large, pale blue eyes. It was as if she couldn’t speak. Finally, she nodded assent.

Max was the timer. Amlina took her first pill. Will led her to the gurney in the corner, where she lay down. Shortly she was sweating profusely. Exactly two hours later Amlina took the capsule. She squirmed in pain as her code was rewritten, but she never opened her lips, never uttered a sound.

Radhya, Will, Max, and Padr took turns with her during the long hours that followed. Radhya checked to make sure Noel’s slaves changed shifts, and the other shift was fed. The rest of the time, they spent caring for Amlina. Exactly twelve hours and thirteen minutes later, they gave her the rezipper. Her pain subsided, and she fell asleep. Padr approached Radhya when it was her turn to watch.

“I uh, I wanted to say how sorry I was about the other night. I don’t know why I went berserk like that. I didn’t want to hurt you,” he muttered with his head down, feet shifting uncomfortably.

“Don’t worry about it. It wasn’t your fault,” she replied changing the compress on Amlina’s head.

“No, I had no right to hit you like that. I’ve never done anything even remotely like that in my whole life. I am ashamed.”

“Padr,” she replied turning to him, “it wasn’t your fault. You had a reaction to the medication.”

Staring at the floor, he whispered, “I know you are just saying that to make me feel better. You always do that; try to make people feel better.”

Radhya went to the comp. Scrolling back through the readings, she found the one Geo had taken.

“See here. That is your histamine level that night. Here is what it is supposed to be normally.”

“You mean this proves I had a reaction?”

“Yes, Padr you did. You might not have survived if Geo hadn’t reversed it either. I didn’t think it was that serious. In addition, yes, you can kiss D’Bara and nothing will happen, you are a free agent in that respect. I just hope you won’t.”

“Don’t worry. I was there when you blew her cover. I do not want anything to do with someone with that much hate and venom in her. Besides, we have to get the slaves on the road to freedom don’t we?” he smiled.

She punched him in the arm, “Right you are.”

“Radhya, I’m curious about your Grandfather.”

She moved to check Amlina again, changing the warm cloth for a cool one.

“What do you want to know?”

“Experimentation on human embryos has been illegal for thousands of years. How did your Grandfather get away with helping us?”

“Grandpa never did experiments on human embryos. He ran comp models to find the optimum combinations. Then he ran eggs and sperm separately through certain processes and allowed them to combine. He worked like that with animals for years. In vitro is illegal, but in the main part, the Proctors look the other way, especially with freedmen. Anyway, Grandpa developed his technique to the point where it could be done in a living body. Mom and Dad drink a potion, engage in sex and presto, the desired child is conceived. That‘s where we come from. Nice and normal, just like everyone else, except for our potential.”

“Can you do the same thing?”

“No. First, I wouldn’t do anything right now that could be interpreted wrongly. Second, I don’t know how. I told you I was an idiot savant with genetic things. So was Grandpa. I keep very good, detailed notes. He didn’t. When he died, the process died with him.”

“So what was he trying to accomplish?”

“Humans don’t use their full potential. He was trying to help us access more humanness. He noticed that there are good aristocrats and bad ones. Statistically, it goes in the classic Mendelian twenty-five seventy-five split. That led him to think that this trait might be genetic. Caring about people and being altruistic seem to have been his major goals. He surmised it was inborn, not necessarily learned. So here we are. Just as human as anyone else.”

“You mean I’m bred to care.”

“Yes, I guess that is what it means. Anyway, it’s your shift now, and I am going to lie down. Night.”

Max was watching Amlina when he noticed something strange. She was crying big, slow tears in her sleep. One would gather at the corner of her eye glittering in the faint light. It rolled down her cheek to the pillow, staining it vermilion. Max woke Will.

Will stared at the strange phenomenon a while and then he caught several tears on a glass slide and scanned them. Immediately he hit the panic button and sealed the lab completely. Radhya and Padr woke with a start.

“Radhya, this is unbelievable, unimaginable! Don’t touch Amlina! Padr, Max, Radhya get into contamination suits!”

Will was shrugging into one as the others scrambled to obey. When they were all isolate, Will handed them the printouts.

“The cancer was a screen. They knew you would try to cure her, so they planted nanos so small they don’t register on a normal scanner. These are molecular nanos. Touch one, and it will burrow into you and create the same sort of cancer. In six months, we’d all be dead. In addition, it would spread to everyone we touched or who touched us.”

“Not me,” said Radhya; “I’m immune to cancer. So are the three of you. I used our immunity as a pattern to create Amlina’s cure. Nevertheless, we could contaminate everyone else. Can you figure out how to destroy them?”

Will was thoughtful for a moment. Then he started taking inventory in the lab. About an hour later, he held up a concoction. In the meantime, Max worked feverishly modifying some equipment to scan for the minuscule devices.

“I hope this will rid us of them; it should dissolve their connections.

Amlina stopped crying. Max scanned her very carefully.

“Her clothes are crawling with them.”

Radhya undressed the semi-conscious girl and wrapped her in a clean, sterile sheet. Max scanned her again. Using microforcepts, he plucked a machine from her ear. After making sure Amlina was clean, they scanned the rest of the room. They were meticulous, scanning the room four times and destroying every device they found. On the fifth pass, they couldn’t find anymore. Radhya slipped from her contamination suit. Max scanned her, but she came up clean. Padr and Max unsuited and were likewise clean.

Will, however, had two. One they easily removed, but the other had burrowed. Will stared at the death sentence he carried in his arm.

“Don’t despair,” said Radhya cheerfully, “you are just going to be very sick.”

She unsealed the lab and went quickly to lab two, returning with a bottle containing a liquid, glowing lime green. The label said metal purge.

“Get some basins,” she commanded. “Get ready for fireworks. Padr and Max take care of Will. I’ll care for Amlina.”

Radhya had Will drink the entire bottle. Within two minutes, Will was sicker than he had ever been in his life. He threw up so continuously he could not breathe. At the same time, he had diarrhea without any possibility of control. Sweat poured from him in sheets. When the nano was expelled in the sweat, Max picked it up and destroyed it.

“Got it!” He yelled in triumph.

Radhya produced a hypospray. She injected Will in the arm and slowly his symptoms subsided.

“Go to bed,” Radhya told him quietly. “Padr, help him to shower, please, then put him to bed. I guess you are on guard duty again Max. Padr, when you are done with Will, you can sit with Amlina. Oh, have D’Bara clean the med lab and disinfect it in the morning would you?”

Padr turned from helping Will to give her a wicked grin.