eavesdrop on what their business partners might say before negotiations began. . . .
Suspended in his harness, Olaf loved to leer, letting his imagination run wild. Eduard laughed at his ineffectual work partner. “So save up your credits, rent yourself the body of a stud, and go date one of those women.” Olaf balked. He was stingy with his money and preferred imaginary conquests to risking actual failure. With a bemused smile, Eduard went back to work.
One day Olaf had hung in his harness next to Eduard and didn't seem to want to talk, offering only occasional surly comments. Finally, Eduard said, “Either tell me what's wrong or leave me alone.”
“Facial surgery. Dental prosthetics. I have to get three teeth replaced.” Grasping the harness with the crook of his arm, Olaf jabbed his fingers along his left jawline. “In here. They're going to laser-cut some molars and install organic prosthetics. Too much enamel damage, easier to replace than to fix.”
“So?”
Olaf fretted in the harness. “I don't like the idea of somebody cutting up my mouth . . . taking pieces of me out.”
To Eduard, minor surgery didn't seem a terribly pleasant prospect, but nothing to be terrified about. “Are you worried about the operation itself? Or is it that you just don't want to be there when it's happening?”
Olaf moaned. “I want it to be all over with, and not have to sit through it and feel what they're doing to me. What if it . . . hurts?”
Eduard looked over at his partner as they both swung high, high above the streets. He began to smile as an idea crystallized in his mind. “Hey, how many spare credits do you have?”
Olaf looked suspicious. “You need a loan, eh? I don't lend money.”
“As a
payment.
You pay me, and I'll swap with you. I'll sit through your dental surgery for you. No fear, no pain. You won't feel a thing.”
Olaf stuttered, swinging in the harness. “I don't think so. I couldn't ask that of you. . . . Uh, how much would I need to pay?”
“A thousand credits,” Eduard said, making up the number.
“What? I can't afford that!”
“Yes you can. Besides, if you swap into my body, you don't need to miss a day of work. I'll do it for you. No problem.”
Olaf looked sorely tempted, but torn. Eduard found this amusing and said in a teasing tone, “Hey, maybe you'd rather sit there all alone while they go into your mouth with their lasers, chopping up your teeth, ripping them out. Have you ever smelled burning blood? Smoke drifting from your mouth and into your nose?”
“I can spare you five hundred. That should be enough. It's only going to be a few hours.”
“For five hundred,
you
can put up with it for a few hours. Or, for nine hundred, you won't have to feel a thing until it's all over.” He flashed a winning smile.
Sweat broke out on Olaf's brow despite the cool breezes. In Olaf's bleary eyes Eduard could see that the other man desperately wanted to make the deal, and Eduard refused to haggle further. Nine hundred credits. Finally Olaf agreed.
The next morning, Eduard swapped with him, spent the afternoon in a stainless-steel polished office with all the high-tech surgery necessities: anesthetics, quiet music, scent-synthesizers that masked medicinal odors, and a competent dental surgeon with robotic assistants. It wasn't so bad.
When it was over, after he'd been paid and they hopscotched back into their home-bodies, Eduard didn't have the heart to tell Olaf that he hadn't felt a thing. The nerve deadeners had worked perfectly, the surgery went exactly as planned, and Olaf still had to endure the miserable throbbing pain as his body healed. . . .
Afterward, Eduard realized the possibilities. He went by himself to Club Masquerade and stared at the complex Swapportunities Board, reading down the want ads, the requests for alternate bodies or partners.
Eduard simply listed himself and his services, and word got around.
8
Daragon had not set foot on the mainland in six