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  He set his drink aside and looked down at Goliath lounging lazily over his feet, his eyes half-closed. “Our argument agitated the cats, particularly Caesar. One moment he and I were shouting at each other, the next Caesar had Mark’s arm in his mouth. I dare say the bastard deserved it, considering what he had done to Caesar, but I knew that in the end it would be Caesar who paid for Mark’s crime. Despite what Mark had done to him, they would blame Caesar. They would put him down. So I intervened.”

  He stopped then and grinned his nasty, self-effacing grin and traced his mangled cheek with one finger. I shuddered as my imagination ran away with me. “So you see, my rose, no good deed goes unpunished.”

  “What happened to Mark?” I asked.

  “What do you think? What is your personal opinion of his fate?”

  I thought about that. “He ran away.”

  “Are you sure, Ben?” Richter said accusingly. “The others believe I let Caesar at him.”

  I thought about that night we made love in Richter’s playroom. He’d been rough but tender. I remembered him stopping when he was inside me as he waited for my signal to continue, how he seemed to fret over harming me in some way. I thought about him with his cats, with Goliath, and I told the truth, “I don’t believe that. I don’t think you would do that to Mark. Or to Caesar. I think you love your cats too much.”

  Richter’s eyes softened in that moment and he whispered, “Come here, Ben.”

  I took a few tentative steps toward my lover.

  “Would you like to touch Goliath?” he asked.

  He gave Goliath a command in German and the cat jumped to his feet. Richter took my hand and guided it over Goliath’s soft, warm ruff, his lightly striped fur. I was frightened at first, but then Goliath made a low burr of excitement in his throat and bumped me, then rubbed himself against my legs. “He likes you, Ben,” Richter said, rubbing his hand over mine and staring at me so intently my heart quickened in my chest. “He likes you and my cats are very good judges of character.”

  I was about to say something to him when Goliath suddenly stiffened and we both heard the deep, troubled bellows of the other cats out in Building A. A cry followed, a human one filled with terror, and within seconds Richter, Goliath and I were hurrying out to the cats’ enclosure.

  When we got there, we soon discovered the door was unlocked, jimmied by an intruder, and that the cats had cornered a man in their enclosure. He was backed against the wall, with just the manmade lagoon separating him from the ligers padding angrily back and forth. Richter stiffened beside me and said, “You,” in his iciest, most unfriendly voice. “What are you doing here, Mark?”

  His former protégé, an older version of the man in the picture in his drawing room, tried to draw himself up before addressing Richter, but one of the cat stiffened and let out a deafening roar that left my ears ringing and the ground faintly vibrating under our feet. “Come on, Karl,” he laughed, never taking his eyes off the cats. His terror had driven him to the brink of hysterics. “Is that any way to greet an old friend?”

  Richter smiled nastily. “Indeed.”

  One of the big males started pacing nervously around the lagoon, moving closer to the trapped man.

  Mark looked at Richter with horror, hate, love and fear imprinted across his face. “Call them off, Karl. Come on.”

  “You call them off,” Richter said. He narrowed his burning blue eyes and folded his arms across his chest. “I trained you how to do it, Mark. Or don’t you remember?”

  “I put some shit in the water, man. They’re not going to listen!” he shouted and one of the cats roared at the hysterical sound of his voice, which only made Mark tremble more violently against the wall of the enclosure.

  “Mark,” Richter said in the coldest, steeliest voice I had ever heard, “that is not my problem.”

  The largest of the male ligers pawed closer to him, ears flat, two-inch canines fully bared, and a white-face Mark turned to me for mercy. “Look, you gotta get Karl to call down the cats, man.”

  I thought about what Mark had done, all the damage he’d caused. I had no dog in this race, but I couldn’t bear the idea of Richter’s magnificent cats being destroyed, or Richter himself going to prison for this crime. “Call off the cats, Richter,” I finally said.

  “Why?” Richter suddenly shouted, gesturing wildly so the cats flinched and became even more agitated. “He’s broken in here! He’s the one poisoning my cats!” He grimaced at Mark, looking for a brief moment just like one of his angry beasts. The rage coming off Richter’s strong, rangy body reminded me of deadpan heat pouring off the hellish desert floor, and I had no doubt in my mind that Richter could truly kill this man. “You destroy my life, my career, my face, and my cat…and then you dare return? You dare try to destroy what I have left?” He moved toward the enclosure and gripped the bars of the cage, his eyes fixed on his former partner. “This seems like a fitting punishment, Mark, don’t you agree?”

  Richter was probably right, in a way, but I still couldn’t allow this to continue. I was just as frightened as Mark, but I knew I had to do something before Richter made the worse mistake of his life. Setting my medic bag down, I took a deep breath to steady my rampaging heartbeat and then ventured a few steps into the enclosed space, closer to three ligers brimming over with rage and amphetamines.

  Richter’s mood changed dramatically in those first few seconds. “Ben…Ben, what the hell are you doing?”

  I took a few more baby steps, and the three agitated ligers in the enclosure finally noticed me. They pinned me with their tiny, rage-filled eyes. The one stalking Mark stopped and turned its full attention on me. I felt their rage and primitive hungers washing over me like an electrical current. I swallowed, took a few more steps, trying to concentrate on my breathing and not screaming in terror or passing out on the spot.

  “Call them off, Richter,” I said in a panicky little whisper.

  “Ben, stop!”

  Another step took me further into the enclosure, closer to the ligers growling, pacing, and preparing to pounce. One slipped behind me, smooth as creek water, and suddenly I was surrounded on all sides by gigantic, rage-filled beasts that wanted to tear me to bloody ribbons. Blood pounded in my ears and I had to work to fight back the frightening darkness slipping into the corners of my eyes. I slowly turned to face Richter, my lover, and gave him my full attention. “Call them down,” I told him. “You’re the only one who can.”

  Something passed across Richter’s face, something I had never seen before. It was only there a second, but I could have sworn it was terror. He was afraid of losing me, of me being hurt. Suddenly he barked something in German that made all the ligers retreat to the far corner, allowing Mark to slip like the coward he was out of the enclosure.

  The darkness finally caught up to me and I stumbled and almost crashed to my knees. Richter caught me in the last moments and I rested gratefully against his shoulder as he led me out of the enclosure and to safety.

  * * *

  Mark Meyer didn’t get very far. Like the cat he had poisoned all those years ago, he managed to evade capture for just under a week before the State Police picked him up trying to cross the border into Mexico. A search of the hovel he had rented under an assumed name had turned up plenty of paraphernalia to implicate him in the drugging of Karl Richter’s cats. He had been stalking Richter for years, it turned out, keeping scrapbooks about the man’s life like the good little psychotic he was, but when he learned that Richter planned to re-launch his show, it had sent him over the edge, and he’d hoped by drugging his cats with amphetamines, they would turn on him once more and destroy the man he blamed for destroying his life.

  The day I heard the news about Meyer’s arrest, I drove out to Richter’s place. Since he’d started training his cats for his new show in Vegas, he’d been allowing field trips to his ranch so the local schools could learn more about ligers. I stood outside the safely double-gated grounds surrounding Building A wit
h about two dozen children and watched Richter lead the ligers through a serious of complicated exercises. He made them climb from one platform to another, stand up and “wave” to the children, and jump through gigantic flaming hoops.

  When it was all over, the children got back on their school bus and the assistants that Richter had hired to watch and care for his cats started putting them down for the night. Richter, dressed in one of his sexy Vegas costumes that showed off his fantastic physique, and carrying an extra-long bullwhip, walked over to me and unlocked the gate.

  “I only stopped by to tell you that the police caught Mark and they’re committing him to an institution for the criminally insane. Considering his mental state, he probably won’t serve any time, but they do plan on keeping him institutionalized for a long, long time.”

  Richter crossed his arms over the impressive muscles of his chest and his lips curled up on his good side into a smile. “Putting Mark behind bars—even if it is a mental institution—seems like a fitting punishment for him.”

  I nodded toward Building A. “How are the cats doing?”

  “They’re much easier to train whilst not on amphetamines, if that’s what you mean.” Goliath padded up behind Richter and rubbed his cheek against his master’s leg. It made me want to do the same. Richter reached down and patted his ruff. “They should be ready by year’s end.

  I leaned down to scratch at Goliath’s ruff, trying to hide the disappointment in my eyes. “I guess that means you won’t be staying here anymore.”

  “I may keep the ranch, but with the show in Vegas I won’t be staying here in Texas, no.”

  Why were my eyes suddenly wet? I patted Caesar goodbye and then took up my medic bag. “I’m glad things are working out for you, Richter,” I said and turned to walk swiftly back to my truck before I completely lost it. I climbed inside and sat there a long moment, my hands on the wheel and my face resting on my hands, wondering what was happening to me, how something like this could affect me so badly.

  I was so lost in my own miserable thoughts that I didn’t notice Richter standing by my truck until I heard him rapping his knuckles on my window. I rolled it down and he said, “Are you having car trouble again, Dr. Bellerose?”

  I thought of about a thousand things to say in that moment, but what came out of my mouth was, “I know what we had was casual sex but, Jesus, don’t you feel anything at all?”

  “I feel a great many things,” Richter told me with a quirk to his lips. “For instance, right now I feel I should like you to step out of your truck.”

  I got out, and the moment I did, Richter pushed me against the side of the flatbed, cupped the back of my head, and kissed me in that long, unhurried, all-consuming way he had. He slid his tongue over my teeth and bit at the side of my neck while his body held me pinned to the truck. He was rock hard against me and he rubbed that hardness insistently against my body until I felt myself melting inside, becoming all his. He licked my ear and said, “You didn’t think you would actually get away from me?”

  This time my excitement was tinged with sadness. “But if you go to Las Vegas, how do you ever expect whatever we have to work out?”

  “Worried your master will leave you behind, my rose?” he said, playfully biting my ear. “You must come with me, monitor the health of my cats. If you wish, I will even train you to handle them. Have you ever dreamed of being a lion tamer, my beautiful rose?”

  “You would train me?” I said with a trill of excitement. “You trust me with your cats?”

  “My rose, I trust you with my heart,” he answered. He took up my hand and kissed the knuckles, a strangely old world gesture that had me wanting to do anything he asked. “Your training begins immediately.” And taking me by the hand, he led me toward the house.

  “I thought we were going to see the cats?”

  Mr. Richter slid the cool length of the bullwhip around my neck and said with a tug and an evil grin, “My rose, your first lesson takes place upstairs. In my playroom.”

  * * *

  SNOW

  By Madeline Apple

  “Ship’s log, date: 5513-01-14. En route to extrasolar planet Osiris,” William said clearly into the auto-communicator pinned to the collar of his lab coat. He swiveled in his chair and picked up his medical tablet before getting to his feet in his personal flight quarters. “Dr. William Hunt reporting. We are twenty-seven days out and closing in on jump star 00067. We expect to rendezvous in approximately 72 earth hours. Checking on Subject BL-009-8123 in medical bay 11.”

  He navigated the twist of sterling white corridors, passing a few hard-faced guardsman along the way, until he arrived at the proper bay. Normally, medical staff were expected to take a guardsman in with them as escort whenever they performed an exam, just as a precaution, but this far out into space, with so few corporate suits from Home Office to look over their shoulders, the guardsman who worked for Helix Laboratories had a tendency to become lax in their duties.

  Not that William minded. He was a large man who had never required any kind of bio-mechanical augmentations. He’d spent a decade in the military medical field. He was more than capable of subduing a subject when he must. And anyway, the clones produced at Helix Labs were programmed to be docile as befitted their purpose.

  He punched in his security codes and the door irised open to let him enter. Subject BL-009-8123 lay in a stasis capsule full of amniotic fluid, another reason a guardsman was completely unnecessary. The clear glass of the capsule was indestructible, and the subject easily programmed through her DNA. Right now, the computer had rendered her immobile and the creature watched him approach with a wide, uneasy gaze.

  William took a moment to examine the notes on his medical tablet, then went over to the capsule to read the display that hung overtop it. The computer had already begun a full diagnostic of the subject, everything from blood pressure and heart rate, to brain and body scans. Even her DNA was on display, running in sharply defined numbers and figures across the lower half of the display. She was in excellent health and had obviously been well taken care of in whatever Helix nursery she had been developed in.

  She was also exquisite, one of the finest specimens he had ever lain eyes on—the obvious product of expensive craftsmanship. She was long and lean and almost perfectly white by genetic design, without a normal pink blush to be found anywhere on her body.

  Instead, her flesh bore the pale bluish tint of milk as requested by the Helix Lab patron who had commissioned her design. He thought it should make her look cold and dead. Instead, it made her a creature of extreme contrasts, like a young pin-up girl rendered in black and white, hair so black it looked blue, skin so white it looked ghostly, eyes almost perfectly black, and lips as red as extinct roses. Her eyes were huge and rimmed in thick black lashes that looked like clippings of her amazing hair, and her face was as dear and exquisite as china. As he had the computer drain the tank and the glass folded back for his examination, he admired her naturally pouting lips, smooth-as-ceramic skin, and full rounded breasts, tipped with pale blue nipples that stood at proud attention.

  She even smelled good, a light, loamy fragrance mixed with roses. The scent alone aroused him, made him feel slightly drunk, as it was designed to. He ignored the tightening of his trousers and said, “My name is Dr. William Hunt. You were brought out of stasis three days ago. Do you know your name? Do you know how to speak?”

  The girl lay there immobile, staring up at him, unaffected by his words or her own nudity. Her eyes flitted over him and her lips parted, but otherwise she was silent.

  He knew it was idiotic to talk to a sex toy, but he couldn’t help himself when they were designed to look so human. He much preferred the Bunnygirls, Catgirls and Foxgirls he normally examined, human DNA expertly mixed and combined with whatever animal the patron favored to produce exquisite humanoid women with elongated ears, whiskers, tails. But this toy, like all the rest, had been developed without a prefrontal cortex—the part of the human b
rain that was involved in planning complex cognitive behaviors, personality expression, and decision making skills. She was a blank personality incapable of higher thinking. He had to remember that. She could not reason, she had no identity, and like a household pet, she could only communicate in the most primitive of ways.

  He watched her tremble as her muscles bunched and released as she attempted—unsuccessfully—to move, struggling against her own programming.

  “I know you don’t understand what’s happening,” he went on, “but you’ll soon be able to move again and I promise you no one will hurt you…”—he checked his chart—“…Snow.”

  The girl made a little moaning sound in response.

  Had he spotted recognition of her name in her eyes? But no…that was impossible. She had been manufactured only a few weeks ago according to her patron’s design, and then packaged and suspended for transport to Osiris. Even if the nurses and guardsman who had brought her here today had used her name, she would not have been exposed to it long enough for her to recognize it.

  To be sure, though, he checked her brain scan. There was nothing there to indicate that she understood anything at all. But the idea continued to bother him as he went about his physical exam of her. He scanned her DNA to make certain it was sound, then checked her all over for signs of injury or bruising during her transport.

  He knew the patron, whoever he or she was, would not appreciate damaged good—or a slipshod exam that failed to discover those damages. And when he bothered to check the patron’s details, he instantly became even more nervous. It would seem Her Majesty Queen Maria Lucretia Grimhilde III, the reigning monarch of Osiris, had commissioned the girl’s design. The woman was a legendary perfectionist. William had spent just one evening dining with the arrogant, overbearing Queen and her entourage on earth, and he was determined to never repeat that nightmare again.