Hansen's eyes were slitted when he burst into Plane Five on the examination stand of Ritter's laboratory, as though what he couldn't see clearly had not really happened. He was too numb to realize that he carried a hundred-and-fifty-kilo body, almost double his own weight.
The laboratory should have been empty. Instead, a woman waited. "Is he—" she called.
The smell was as sickening as it was familiar to Hansen. "For god's sake, Penny!" he shouted. "Don't look!"
He placed Ritter on the stand. The engineer's left forearm was burned to a stump. His ribs were showing, except where lung tissue had bubbled out through the gaps, and he no longer had a face.
Penny screamed as she stumbled toward the men. That was good, because otherwise Hansen would have had to scream for himself.
Ritter went into convulsions. The blast had seared open his esophagus. His dying breath wheezed through the gap, blowing out charred flecks of cartilage as the engineer's muscles contracted in their final spasms.
"Get away from him," Penny said.
Hansen looked up. "Penny, we can't—" he said.
Can't bring the dead to life. Can't modify events embedded in the Matrix.
Can't change the will of a woman named Unn or a man named Ritter, though a god's powers could have forced their bodies into any slavery the god desired. . . .
"Get away from him, Hansen," the woman said as she knelt beside the body. "Or I'll kill you. If I have to collapse the Matrix to do it."
Hansen nodded and backed away. He knew the feeling too well himself to doubt the truth of her words.
He hadn't noticed Penny's appearance when he entered the plane; now she wore her own form. Her body was naked except for the jewel hanging between her breasts.
She lifted Ritter's head onto her thighs, ignoring the blood and ash which smeared her skin:
Penny turned her head. "Will you leave us, please, Hansen?" she said in a cold, regal tone.
Hansen looked at her. Penny had the face and body of a teenage girl, but her eyes were as old as death.
"I'm sorry," he muttered.
There's nothing you can say, but you've got to say something.
Hansen let himself slide into the Matrix. The icy terror of the transition was almost pleasurable, a bath to wash away the stench of death and failure.
For a time, Hansen watched the scene from the observation room of his dwelling. He'd thought Penny would immediately carry the body of her lover back to her palace. Instead, she remained in the darkened workroom until Ritter's assistants entered at dawn to receive instructions for the day's work.
Penny set her jewel on the corpse's ruined chest, but the engineer had no mind to direct its activities. The body remained as life had left it, cooling slowly and congealing.
Penny kissed it repeatedly, though her lips touched only blood and charred bone.