Problem was, after a fifteen-minute conversation where Anna Gabarron read off the diagnosis from the printout, Raya Turnienko told them, “I’m sorry, Director. We have nothing similar to your patient’s symptoms in our experience. I don’t know what we could do if you sent him here. But, if I could make a suggestion? You have labs on the Pod. Test the boy for Donovanian TriNA.”

“And if he tests positive?” Gabarron asked.

“You’ll just have to monitor him, keep him hydrated. So far we have no way of purging the blood and tissues once they are infected. We’re all off the map when it comes to this stuff.”

40

Dek came awake, staring up at the seeming eternity of his familiar bedroom ceiling. He lay flat on his back in his great bed in Taglioni Tower high in Transluna. The intricately laid layers of crystalline glass gave the illusion of staring up through a cascade of prismatic light. That it seemed to rise to a translucent infinity was an illusion created by refraction through elongated bars of cut glass; the effect was mesmerizing. With a mental command through his implants, he could change the colors, shift the patterns into an endless display of hues and visual spectacle.

His giant antigrav bed dominated the middle of the room where it rose from the shimmering interactive floor with its programmable imaging. Gossamer sheets, like a caress of air, fell away as he moved. On the bed beside him, the woman stirred, groaned, and reached up to flip thick red hair back from her face. Klea Morena. Dek started, wondering if this was real . . . and then, through the fading drug haze, he remembered.

He grinned, flopping back onto the shimmering sheets as colors of red, blue, and gold ran through the hollow-fiber’s sheen. And Dek didn’t need to see the stains on the sheets to remind him; they’d had quite the night.

Amazing what a good dose of eros would do for a man and woman.

Even at the thought a tingle formed at the root of his penis.

“What am I . . . ?” Klea’s horrified green eyes fixed on Dek’s, a moment of shock registering before a weary acceptance blanked her expression. “Good morning, Dek.” The words were bright, springy. The woman was an actress after all. Didn’t matter that she was one of the hottest women on holovid, or that her current dramatic adventure show was streamed by billions, here she was in Dek’s bed.

“You’re better in person, you know,” he told her. “I always thought you and Tiggerson weren’t right for each other.”

“Tiggerson’s a character,” she told him. “So’s Eunice Iverson. What you see on the show? That’s just acting. I can’t stand the guy in real life.”

Dek chuckled, slapping his naked thigh. “Bet, despite all those scenes, Tig never gave it to you as good as I did last night.”