Yelena relaxed, her head between Marya's thighs once more, feeling her own thighs clamped around Marya's, the heat of their mutual cunnilingus and orgasms receding now, leaving Yelena released from the control of the drug, for the time being.

This was Marya's favorite nighttime position now. They'd slept three of the last six nights this way.

Yelena, while still hating that they could make her do this, nevertheless found some comfort in it. She felt peaceful with Marya's inner thighs cushioning her ears, like warm, smooth, soft pillows, shutting out the outside world.

"Hélène?" Marya's soft voice, slightly muffled against Yelena's sex.

"Yes, Hélène darling?"

"Are we going to be doing any more shows?"

Yelena hesitated a moment, wondering where this was going. Since they'd arrived back in the room, they hadn't talked about the show just completed. Yelena still had pangs of worry about the effect it had had on Marya. "I don't really know for sure, dear. Do you want to?"

Marya was silent a moment, then said, "It was fun, being with you and showing how much I love you. But I don't think I want to do it again. I will if they want it, because we both owe them so much. But I hope we don't."

Not quite the nuance Yelena was expecting. "Why's that, dear?"

Marya seemed to gather her thoughts. "Well, it was just kind of weird. I don't know why somebody would write that. I mean, a girl wanting to have sex with her own mother. That's just not... normal, you know?"

Yelena stifled a gasp. She could read the tone of Marya's voice, with the experience of both an actress and a mother. There was no joking in it, no sarcasm, no hint of irony. Marya was delivering a sincere judgment.

Joy washed through Yelena. Marya may be off in a world of her own, she thought, but it's stable! With all the forces pulling her away from it, trying to remind her she was Yelena's daughter, she had resisted, seemingly without effort, and remained Hélène.

And they will never know! thought Yelena. Dimitri won't know! He won't be able to tell. Dimitri, the general, the doctor, all of them, their eyes will only tell them what they want to believe is true, that Marya's terror of the snake pit has trapped her, made her pretend, made her behave in a way that sickens her, that agonizes her, and they'll never catch on that she's doing what she's doing because it's what she wants, it's what makes her happy. Only I will know how their punishment is a failure.

Marya stirred just slightly, sighing softly, getting herself comfortable for the night. Yelena felt Marya's heels nudging the back of her head. The position had evolved gradually, Marya bending more at the waist, making her sex more available, and bending her knees sharply, her heels pressing against the back of Yelena's head to push her in closer as she licked. Yelena had copied what Marya was doing, similarly pushing Marya's head into her crotch from behind. Their orgasms that way had grown more intense.

Yelena felt sleep beginning to steal over her. She knew she'd be awakened in the morning by a tongue licking her sex, like a kitten lapping at a bowl of milk. A happy, contented kitten.

Take that, Dimitri, she thought before she drifted off.

General Karozki felt a flash of annoyance flow through him as he approached the last turn towards the infirmary, remembering the last time he'd been here. He almost felt out of breath again, as he had last night, trying to keep the impetuous doctor from killing the Simonina girl. He still wasn't sure how the Preston bitch had talked the president into saving that one, but had no intention of asking. "Right this way, Mr. President." The general gestured around the corner. The president's two bodyguards followed as unobtrusively as men of their size could.

The president seemed excited. "The doctor has begun the process? I must be returning to the capital this afternoon, but I am eager to see something of what is involved."

"I have avoided disturbing him, but it is my understanding he is working on it now, yes." The general hoped to God the doctor hadn't started on something else. The odds were against the doctor just happening to terminate another useful inmate, and the general hoped the doctor understood now he must always double-check before killing any more of the girls.

A white-coated assistant met the general's party at the infirmary door, speaking in a hushed voice. "Doctor Tourachev is in the lab," he gestured at a closed door to the right. "He understands you're coming, but let me make sure he's ready." The assistant went to the door and pushed a button on the wall adjacent to it.

The general heard no sound from within the lab -- he had assumed the button would ring a bell. The assistant caught the general's look. "A light inside flashes briefly. The doctor says it disturbs him less than a sudden noise."

The door opened suddenly, and the doctor stood in the doorway, beaming. "Everything is going well so far. No adverse effects from the first administration of the joint drug."

The president glanced through the door, blinked at the sight from within the lab and backed away, signaling irritably to the doctor to follow him. Some distance from the door, he said in a near-whisper to the doctor, "I thought you said the transition from the conference room last night to the moment they awaken in my office would go by in the blink of an eye, to them."

It was the doctor's turn to be surprised. "Yes, exactly. I assure you again that is the case."

The president craned forward to look through the door again, to make sure he'd seen correctly. Still very quietly, though the doctor had answered him in a normal tone, the president said, "But they're awake now! They're sitting up on their examining tables eating breakfast, or something."

The doctor grinned, with an "Ah, I see the problem" expression. "At present, I am using the same drug that I used for a time on your daughter..." He caught the president's annoyed look. "Apologies, your former daughter. These women are unable to form permanent memories at present. In the beginning phase of their treatment, it is convenient to have them able to take care of their physical needs on their own -- eating, exercising, disposing of wastes, and so on. Much less work for us than doing all of that for their unconscious bodies. Later in the treatment, they will be unable to move on their own, and we will then keep them unconscious. But here, come and see for yourself." The doctor ushered the president into the lab, closing the door after the two bodyguards had followed him in.

The girls, as the president had seen, were sitting side by side on one paper-covered examining table, both eating from bowls using their fingers. As the president came around in front of them, he saw that they both had vacant expressions, staring straight ahead as they chewed their food. Slowly each girl's eyes turned towards him, though there was no obvious recognition or emotion in their gazes. He walked past them, and their heads turned to follow his movement.

He said to the doctor, "They see me."

The doctor nodded. "Yes, they are awake, and aware of their surroundings. Watch." He took a tennis ball from a shelf, and very lightly tossed it towards the American girl, Preston. Languidly but efficiently, she raised the hand not holding the bowl and caught it. Then she dropped the ball negligently on the floor and continued eating.

The president frowned. "And she really won't remember this?"

The doctor smiled. "The memory drug isn't my own creation. It's a time-tested substance with very well-documented effects. Right now they are both operating on instinct, their deeper cognitive processes suppressed." He stepped towards the American girl, and said in English, "What is your name?"

She answered in a flat voice, "Rachel Preston." She resumed eating, making no effort to build her response into a conversation. Beside her, the smaller girl turned to look when the American girl spoke, then went back to her own meal.

The doctor went to a cabinet at the side of the room, drew down two syringes with very long needles, and filled them with the contents of a small glass bottle, identical in appearance and labeling with a shelf full of others. Moving back towards the girls, he fixed his attention on the larger one's right shoulder, and said quietly, "Please don't speak for a moment, Mr. President." He saw no reason to bother extending the same request to the bodyguards.

Very carefully, the doctor jabbed the needle into the tall girl's shoulder, his eyes fixed and unblinking as he let the needle sink in to sufficient depth before depressing the plunger.

He stood back, satisfied, made a mark on a chart on a nearby table, and looked at the president.

The president assumed the look was an invitation to speak once more. "What does that do?"

"Over time, the injections will replace the fluid in her joints, in this case the right shoulder joint, with a substance that the body will accept. The substance will perform all of the necessary tasks of the natural joint fluid, except that it will be much more resistant to movement. This one single shot will not be sufficient by itself, and it will take weeks to accomplish the necessary replacement in the joint. And of course, there are quite a lot more joints. That is the main reason the treatment takes so long."

"When it is done, if you move her limbs for her, is that painful for her?"

"Sadly, no. Not as far as I can determine by monitoring the brain's pain centers."

"The effect is permanent?"

The doctor shook his head. "No, but it will be much easier to maintain it at the proper level than it is to establish it to begin with. Maintenance can be done by a general intravenous infusion rather than having to attend to each joint individually. Maintenance of the other drug will be done the same way."

"Other drug?"

"Yes. This first one makes the joints extremely hard to move. The second drug, which I will introduce starting in about a week, interferes specifically with the network of nerves operating the body's voluntary muscles. To these women, it will be as if the communication between brain and muscle has become disconnected. Their sense of touch is unaffected -- they can feel anything done to them. But they cannot operate the muscles. When the two drugs are used in combination, it will simply be far beyond their ability to move any part of their bodies."

The president frowned. "How can they breathe?"

The doctor smiled. "Different kind of muscle, different nerve structure. The involuntary muscles are built differently, perform differently, are affected differently by the nerve drug. The lungs will continue working, the hearts beating. They will even blink, involuntarily, as we all do constantly, yet be unable to open or close their eyes by choice. Different muscle groups."

"You said you can train a team of my own people to take care of them?"

The doctor nodded. "The time for that would be near the end of the process, so your people can learn to work with the girls as they will be then. I believe one week of training would be sufficient. Well, two or three days, really, if you can send me people who already have some medical training."

"Nurses, say?"

"Yes, that would be ideal."

The president nodded. "I can arrange for that. My preference would be to have an all-female support team." He smiled. "Men, in that situation... well, you know how that would turn out."

The doctor rolled his eyes and grinned. "Just so."

Behind him, the women had set down empty food bowls and picked up glasses of milk. After draining them, they sat silently, motionlessly, not appearing to have any independent volition.

The president smiled. "Well, I shall look forward to progress reports..." He trailed off.

Each woman had, for no obvious reason, moved to take the other's nearer hand in her own, each interlacing her fingers with the other's. To the president the motions seemed simultaneous -- he hadn't perceived one hand moving before the other. The gesture was taken no further. They both appeared content to sit like that, holding hands.

The president frowned. He had followed the doctor's explanations, he believed, and they didn't seem to account for this. He pointed. "Why would they do that?"

The doctor shrugged. "It wouldn't be a conscious decision. They are not capable of that. There is a pre-existing bond between them. General Karozki has told me that the Simonina girl was useful as a check on Miss Preston's behavior."

The president raised his eyebrows. Karozki never told me that, he thought, irritated.

He shook his head at his own thoughts. It doesn't matter, he told himself. I'm glad I know it now. I may decide to use them a little differently.

He smiled, thinking back to the conversation with Preston. He understood now what she had done. Well, he thought, another thing she can feel sorry about later.