Warstrider: Jackers (Warstrider Series, Book Three) Read Free

orgasmic pleasure, and their dark counterparts, the kurushimi-zo , for which simply existence was unending agony.
    This one, obviously, was in pain. Kawashima stared into those pleading eyes—their irises were pale blue—and shuddered. It seemed as though he was looking into twin wells of bottomless, endless horror.
    "I am very proud of that one," Munimori said at his back. Kawashima started. He'd not heard the admiral's return.
    "It is . . . most interesting. . . ."
    "One of Tsuru's finest masterpieces."
    "Ah." Dr. Masanori Tsuru had been one of the greatest of all Nihon's geneshapers, artists who used DNA as canvas and paint to craft living art forms of flesh, blood, and brain. "If this is one of his, my lord, it must be very old."
    "Almost ninety years. Still, I'm told it might live for centuries more. I hope so. I find it a most personal statement about Man's eternal suffering beneath the Great Wheel." Paternally, he laid a hand on the thing's hunched and headless shoulders. Kawashima saw the flesh crawl and tremble beneath his touch. "Over ninety percent of this one's genotype is pure human. Its nervous system has been tuned to transmit constant pain, something roughly on a level, I understand, with being burned alive except that the pain never overloads the organism's brain and senses and never dulls. Its brain is fully functional, and according to its papers it was link-educated so that it could, ah, fully appreciate its predicament. That adds so much to the work's meaning, you know. It is not simply a live sculpture, somethingpretty to look at, but a thinking, knowing soul trapped in a living hell."
    Kawashima felt dizzy, and the pale walls of the sparsely furnished room seemed to be closing in around him. Why? he wanted to ask, but to demand an explanation for this twisted horror would be to insult his host.
    "Can . . . it speak?"
    "Oh, no. No lungs, no voice box. The mouth is purely art. I have to provide it with a special nutrient each day, watering it like a plant, or it would lapse into a coma and die. The ears are functional, however. It can hear us and understand what we say. Beautiful, is it not?"
    "Remarkable, my lord."
    "Actually, I suspect that after ninety years, it must be quite mad. But just look at those eyes. Mad or not, it still feels , after all this time! Occasionally I speak to it, promising release for it, one day. I don't know if it believes me or not, but I permit myself the small conceit that it must continue to hope , through year after year of unendurable agony. Tell me, Chujosan . Do you believe in the transmigration of souls?"
    The sudden change of topic left Kawashima off-balance. "I . . . I have never thought about it, Munimorisama . I have never considered myself a religious man. I am not sure that I believe in souls."
    "So. A practical, pragmatic man, neh? Well, I believe. I have seen too much not to believe. I sometimes wonder if, by providing the gene-tailored shells of the inochizo , we are not providing homes for the spirits of truly wicked men, men being punished for unimaginable sins in past lives." He slapped the bare flesh with a meaty smack, and it writhed soundlessly as his hand lifted. "Perhaps after a small eternity of suffering here, of providing us with spiritual instruction, the way will be clear for this one's final translation to Nirvana. Perhaps some pain here and now will be accepted later with joy, once the Great Wheel's cycle is broken."
    Kawashima tried to formulate a polite response andfailed. He felt trapped by those shifting, pain-filled eyes that begged him, soundlessly, for what he could not give, for what Munimori refused to grant. What kind of mind, he wondered, found fulfillment and contemplation in such a sight?
    "I have two orders for you, Chujosan ." Munimori's tone was brusque now, all business. "One for general circulation, the second for you alone."
    Stiff-armed, Munimori held out two message disks. Bowing, Kawashima accepted them. Pressing the first