The Seeds of Time by Kay Kenyon Read Free Book Online Page A

will save us?”
    Clio gave up on his back; it would never unbunch. She sprawled on the bed. “Sure. Better stuff. Stronger stuff. Stuff that can handle a little UV without crapping out. Sure we will.”
    “Clio, Clio. Why don’t we just save what we’ve got? Too simple for you?”
    “What do you want, to put me out of a job?”
    “Jesus, Clio.” He killed the program, sat staring at the darkening screen.
    “Hillis. Somebody doctored up a lab report to show a blood sample for me, from Crippen.”
    “Looks like you got a friend in high places.”
    “Yeah, but who?”
    “Probably Brish. He needs you to Dive, and besides, he wants into your pants, right?”
    “God, Hill. That means he knows I take medicine.”
    Hillis glanced over at her, frowning. “Maybe some technician phonied up the report. Couldn’t find your sample, thought he’d get in trouble, and faked it.” He was in a good mood; why ruin it with her worries?
    She crept around to sit beside him. “Yeah, maybe. Let’s get some sleep. We got a busy day tomorrow.”
    Clio climbed into bed, suddenly weary. Hillis turned off the computer and the lights and crawled in beside her.
    “We’ll take Zee with us tomorrow, all right with you?” Hillis asked.
    “Zee?”
    “He’s staying here. Just down the hall.”
    “Sure. Zee’s all right.”
    Hillis reached out, found her face, and rubbed his fingers into her scalp, tousling her hair. An affectionate gesture, a way to say goodnight, thanks for the backrub.
    My pleasure
.

CHAPTER 4

    Clio hit the brakes, almost impaling their rental car on the swordlike fins of the car in front.
    “Jesus, Clio.” Hillis snapped on his safety belt.
    “Sorry. Been a while.”
    They were crawling along in a tight pack of cars eight lanes wide. Had been for an hour. The traffic panel on the dash showed a block-and-search up ahead.
    Off to their left the sun tried unsuccessfully to shoulder up the night sky; an orange blister seemed to swell for a moment on the horizon, then ebb as the curtain of night and pollution sank back into place. Zee was asleep in the backseat of the Ford Green Beret.
    “How can he sleep with that much coffee in him?” Clio asked, riding the clutch to another rolling slowdown.
    “Astronomers always stay up all night drinking coffee and then sleep all day,” Hillis said. He was doodling in his notebook, furiously, as though in a hurry to finish.
    They crossed under two decks of freeways, each heading in a different direction, each jammed and moving even more slowly than their own procession. A thin dawn began to soak through the darkness. As if in response, traffic picked up speed, and the knot they had been traveling with dissipated. The panel showed the block-and-search had been lifted up ahead.
    Zee’s head popped up in the backseat. “Guess they caught them.”
    “Caught who?”
    “The Greenies. Or whoever. Caught them before they executed a few more cars.”
    They passed a long, low, carrot-orange convertible with a splash of fresh black graffiti across its flank, reading, YOUR CAR, YOUR COFFIN .
    “Block-and-searches are illegal,” Hillis said. “But nobody cares. We’ll just drive ourselves to extinction. Lock the troublemakers up so we can kill ourselves off in peace.”
    “No politics,” Clio said. “We’re on vacation.”
    Four days was all they had. Four days Earthside, then back to Vanda; Biotime was tight on leaves. Can’t risk the company property, not Earthside, anyway. Earth was too risky. Simple things like breathing, having sex. Too risky. But they had four days—enough time to see some sights, and, for Hillis, stop by the transition farms east of the city to see how the alien green was doing.
    They were well out of the city now, with the day heating up toward ninety-five, and the land spread out in every direction in a broad valley, as though too exhausted to raise itself up. Now and then, a shadow flitted across the fields, a cloud of piranha nymphs. It was the