CYNTHIA SEELHAMMER

GENTLE HORSES


Diane slowed the electric car and examined the calm yearlings grazing in the
paddocks that bordered the drive leading to Equigenics stable. Most were bays or
chestnuts, clean-lined and healthy looking if a little eerie in their stillness.
She was impressed and a bit surprised to find that this relatively new genetic
engineering operation included nearly a hundred acres of irrigated fields and
pastures as well as the modern stable and arenas.

Her first job interview, by vidphone, had left her with the impression that
Equigenics was little more than a start-up business, just a riding academy with
maybe an old barn, a lab in the garage and a handful of horses. The director,
Len Malcolm, had emphasized the need for someone willing to do "hands-on dirty
work." He needed someone to run the stable and manage riding lessons, but he
wanted someone who knew the science as well. It sounded exactly like what she
needed: way too much work and responsibility, enough to absorb her completely
and force her to forget everything else. And, better yet, it would be a return
to the world of horses. It seemed that most of the recent wrong turns in her
life had started when she left that world for university research. That turn in
the road of life, like her marriage, had led to a dead end. So now, after three
months of unemployment, Diane was determined to get this job.

She parked the car, stepped out onto the gravel lot and squinted in the sharp
sunlight. She shaded her eyes and watched an impatient-looking woman urge two
little girls wearing riding clothes into the back seat of an expensive propane
sedan. The sight made her smile a little wryly, it was so familiar. How many
hundreds of times had her mother shuttled her to riding lessons? For a time it
had seemed as if she might follow her mother's example and be the one doing the
shuttling. But not anymore.

As the sedan drove away, Diane followed it with her eyes, watching it disappear
behind the low, rolling hills where the mad curved back toward the wealthier
suburbs of the city. The green of the fenced fields and the tan of the distant
hills calmed her. She took a deep breath and headed for the office.

Len Malcolm in person was as abrupt and no-nonsense as he had been on the
vidphone. He was clean shaven and his dark hair was trimmed short. He wore very
plain clothes. He shook her hand with precisely the appropriate amount of
pressure; this was a man used to control. She felt her own emotions rise a notch
in response and had to squelch the desire to say something outrageous. She
doubted that this man had any sense of humor.

Len did not look at her when he spoke. Instead, he seemed to talk just past her
head, never making eye contact. He acted as if he were irritated by her very
presence. Diane tried to ignore it. After some brief, uncomfortable small talk
came a tour of the facility. They would continue the interview when they
returned to the office, Len said.

In the arena, two of the advanced students were practicing jumps. They rode
grays with identical programming -- and it showed in the way the horses
approached each jump. Diane recognized the physical type of the horses from some
of the cataloguing she had done at the university: a common Irish hunter line.
The source of the viral programming was not familiar to her. But then that was
the specialty of Equigenics --tailoring programming of knowledge with viruses.

She and Len leaned against the arena rail and watched the grays canter, each
hoof kicking up a puff of dust, the horses grunting when they jumped. One of the
riders was less skilled than the other; when she sat too fast, she threw off the
balance of her horse and there was a loud thunk as the left rear hoof knocked
off the top rail.

On the walk back, Diane saw grooms distribute alfalfa cubes to the box stalls of
the breeding stock. Three stalls were empty, the horses turned out into paddocks
while their stalls were cleaned. The odors of the feed and manure brought back
memories. It smelled like home.

Len narrated the tour in abrupt announcements of fact. He pointed out things
that anyone who had spent any time at all in a stable would know. Diane nodded
politely.

"Arion is the center of the current research," Len said as they turned the
corner toward the most isolated of the box stalls. For the first time, his stony
face showed some expression: a combination of pride and something else,
something like lust. When he noticed her watching him, the expression vanished.
But she had seen it and it reminded her of her exhusband when he used to speak
about the mindgames he played on those who competed with him for research
dollars.

Diane followed his gaze. The stall had reinforced bars and an industrial
strength door. At first she could not see into the gloom behind the bars.
Something moved in that dark, something breathed, but she could not make out a
shape until her eyes adjusted.

The stallion was taller than was usual, at least eighteen hands. He stood in the
far corner and watched them, crunching the hay cubes, his finely boned head
tilted to one side so he could watch them with one too-intelligent eye, both
sharp-pointed ears straining forward to catch Len's voice.

Arion was black. Very black. Not dark bay, not a coat that faded to gray or seal
brown or that would fade in the sun, but so black that the light reflected from
his coat looked blue; a fantasy color that immediately identified him as a
designed horse. The horse snorted and took the few steps to the door, lifting
his nose to the grate. Diane moved forward, pressing her palm on the other side
and gently blew into the horse's nose, trading breath. The stallion snorted and
backed up. Diane turned and looked at Len. "Nice."

Len narrowed his eyes. "You have no idea." He walked back toward the office.

Diane felt a stab of embarrassment, quickly squelched by anger. "So tell me,"
she said, walking fast to catch up with him. "I can't appreciate what I don't
know."

"He is not just some pretty genetic package. He is programmed at championship
level," Len said, slowing down slightly.

"Okay. So where's he competed?"

"He hasn't -- yet. I plan to start him in the fall. When I find the right
rider." He stopped and turned toward her. "Listen, I think you've seen enough.
I'll call you if I want to talk to you again."

Diane felt as if she had been dismissed. She stopped walking. "Wait just a
minute," she said. "That's it? That's the interview?" She felt herself grow
tense with rage. "What kind of a..."

A crash interrupted her, then a horse's scream. "Arion," Len shouted and ran
back toward the stall, Diane one step behind him.

The stallion stood trembling at the back of the stall, one rear leg still in the
air, ready to kick. There was a gouge in the wall from an earlier kick. He shook
his head and bared his teeth, crashing both rear hooves at the stall wall, the
impact so severe it shook the wall.

A groom ran to Len with a med kit and a palm-sized trank gun. Len shoved him out
of the way, yanked open the big latch on the stall door and shouldered his way
in. Arion paced in tight circles, pawing straw and striking the wall with rear
hooves. Len slid the heavy door closed behind him.

Diane watched through the door's metal screen as Len whispered to the horse. The
stallion was backed into a comer now, head high, nostrils flared, white foam of
sweat along his arched neck and wide chest. The groom cursed in Spanish behind
her. He called Arion a devil horse.

Whatever Len was doing seemed to be working; Arion lowered his head and calmed
his breathing.

"Diane." Len spoke in the same calming tone, but he gestured slowly toward her
without turning his head. She slid the door open enough to squeeze into the
stall and walked up behind Len. Arion snorted and jerked his head up; she froze.

"Talk to him," Len said. "He's the most important part of this operation. He's
going to be your responsibility, if you're good enough."

"I'm good enough," she said. "I have years of experience in training and stable
management, and I just left a research position.... "Arion snorted again, rolled
an eye, and began to shift his weight.

"Shut up," Len said in the same soothing voice he'd been using on the horse.
"Just shut the fuck up and talk to the horse. Tell him what a beauty he is, what
a technological wonder, how you will ride him, how he is going to make us all
famous. He doesn't give a shit about your degrees or experience."

Diane felt herself blush, a heat that crawled up her neck to her face. She was
about to turn and leave when Len added "...or aren't you good enough, after
all."

She took another step forward and began to prattle in a calm tone, words from
lullabies, sound that ran from her toward the stallion. She reached to touch the
horse and he let her caress his neck. She felt something like electricity
between them; it flowed up her arm and she knew she had the stallion's complete
attention. He stretched his big head toward her and sniffed loudly. She blew
into the wide nostrils. He was a beautiful animal and all her thoughts focused
on his large, dark eyes. She forgot about Len except to notice he was no longer
in the stall. She talked to the stallion until he was completely calm and his
head leaned against her shoulder. By then it was dark outside.

That should show the bastard, she thought as she slipped out of the stall.

She moved into the empty apartment above the stable the next day. And she got
the pay she asked for.

The next week, the night that the two new breeding mares arrived, Arion had
another episode. The mares were in the box stalls as far from Arion as possible.

But that night the stallion could smell them, hear them nicker to him, feel
their heat, sense their raised tails and winking vulvas. When he started to kick
the walls, the crashing woke Diane. She ran out of her apartment in her
night-clothes to find Len already at Arion's stall.

Len moved the mares one at a time to pens just outside the barn, disappearing
into the night as soon as he stepped outside. Diane stood in the stall next to
Arion's, talking soothing nonsense in the gloom, fingers hooked into the steel
screening. The stallion's frustration came in waves, an invisible heat flashing
across her skin. Then Len walked up behind her and she could sense him, just as
Arion had sensed the mares. She heard the crisp sound of crushed new straw as he
approached. Arion was suddenly still. She didn't turn toward Len, didn't even
think; he put one hand over hers on the screen, the other around her waist. She
felt his weight, heavy as the silence, and his breath on the tender skin between
her collar and hairline. She pressed into Len, all of her back and hips curved
against him. Len pushed his face to her neck, nipping her with soft lips. She
turned toward him and lifted her arms. He held her and rocked gently back and
forth. She twined a leg around him and he lowered her to the deep straw, lay
beside her and lowered his head to her breasts. She ran her fingers through his
hair in short, hard motions.

The rest of the horses were oblivious to their movements in the straw, but Arion
breathed in harsh, nervous gasps. A small voice in Diane's mind objected, but
she was so filled with longing that she only gasped, matching the sound of the
stallion. She fumbled with the snaps of Len's shirt and felt him tense and pull
away from her. He pushed himself to his feet and walked from the stall fast, his
boots clicking on the flooring of the alley. Diane sat up and wondered what the
hell had happened.

Her mother called too early that morning, awake and cheerful in another time
zone. What had happened in the night with Len came back to Diane with a rush. He
had all but run away from her.

"You sound tired," her mother said.

"It's four A.M.," Diane growled.

"Is it? I always forget how that works. Your father's in Rio with his latest
'friend.' He says hello and congratulations on your first real job, but he
wishes you would have let him find you something better. He could have helped
you get something permanent at the university, you know. How are things?"

"I don't know yet," Diane said, thinking how she would never again put up with
the politics at the university, politics she had failed at. And she hoped she
would never have to ask her father to pull strings for her. But what could she
tell her mother about this place, or about Len? Not a thing.

"It's really busy here, Mom," she said. "Everyone wants foals born just after
the first of the year, so all the mares are being implanted now. And we still
have to run all the riding lessons."

"Are you sure this is the right kind of job? I know you feel you need to prove
something after the trouble at school, but..."

"Mom. You promised."

"Well, I can't help it. You had every advantage here and you just .... Divorce
is not the worst thing in the world, you know. And the loss of that research
project was not your fault, you were just the one easiest to blame. None of that
matters. But you sound sad. I can't believe you don't have a vidphone. What kind
of place is that?"

Diane thought about what she could possibly say that would reassure her mother.
"It's a start-up, Mom. My boss is...brilliant. But I don't really know him at
all."

"What's his name?"

"Len Malcolm."

"Malcolm? I don't know any Malcolms. It's not like he owns the place, is it?
Your father said it's a corporate operation."

"It's not corporate -- yet. This is just a little place with a couple of
investors. But Len's got some corporation interested. He owns the stud that's
going to be used as a source. He helped design him. If this new line makes it,
he'll be able to have his own place. It's a big risk."

"Then he should be careful. I always told your father to be careful. He never
listened to me though. If this Malcolm succeeds, he won't need you anymore,
right? Maybe you can come home then, and settle down."

"I'm not moving back there, Mom. And if he succeeds, maybe I'll be part of the
success." If I can stick it out, Diane thought. If I don't go crazy.

That night, after a long day of work with grooms and teaching staff and watching
the progress of little girls in pigtails, Diane stopped in the office to look
through the e-mail. She half hoped Len would stop by so they could talk, but he
stayed in his lab, as usual. Later, on the way to her apartment, she was drawn
to the stall of each of the motionless brood mares. She touched their velvet
muzzles, the prickle of whiskers like the stubble of an unshaved lover. She
pushed forelocks from deep brown eyes, scratched around ears, and whispered into
the long, smooth necks, inhaling the smell of spring grasses, salt, and autumn
straw.

Len found her with the mare nearest Arion. He stood behind Diane and reached
over her shoulder to run his hand down the marc's smooth withers and across the
intricate whorl of hair along a flank. With his other hand he stroked the back
of Diane's head, the arch of her neck, and brushed salty fingers gently across
her lips. She wondered, just faintly and for a fleeting moment, why she was
doing this, why Len, why they had not spoken of it. Arion snorted and pawed with
a forefoot, sharp punctuation to his ragged breathing. Then all her conscious
thoughts vanished, replaced with longing, desire, need.

The next morning, except for the bruises on her hips and the fragment of straw
in her hair, Diane would have thought she had dreamed it.

"While I'm gone, stick to the schedule."

Len was packing his briefcase for a shuttle to Dallas to judge a weeklong
dressage competition. There was talk that one of the contenders was worth
considering for sourcing. Len wanted to check him out and compare him to Arion.
"Make no changes, got it? And keep an eye on that Cunningham kid."

Diane had been called into the office for this briefing. It was the first time
they had talked face to face since the interview. He usually just left her
e-mail and locked himself in his lab with orders not to be disturbed.

And when they met at night, there was no talk.

"That kid could be trouble," Len said. "She's on some kind of scholarship and
the other students don't like her."

"I thought she was doing okay, that we had all the right horses and right
programs for all the riders."

"She's riding fine, but keep her away from Arion. I caught her at his stall this
morning when I went to exercise him. I told her to stay away, that he could be
dangerous. He's not like the mares she rides."

"Maybe she's just curious."

Len looked up from the briefcase for a second, eyes a startling and angry flash
of blue, then back down. He pushed a handful of folders into a side pocket. "I'm
serious. I don't want her, or any of the others, near him. Only you."

"She's dropped off here really early and she stays all day. If the other
students don't like her she probably gets bored. Why are you so touchy?"

Len shrugged. He zipped the briefcase shut.

Diane wanted to scream Why won't you look at me? Talk to me? Instead she took a
deep breath and said softly: "Is it this trip? What's wrong?"

"No, this trip is important. The Texas breeders are important. It's the timing
of it. Keeping everything constant is essential. You're sure you're ready for
the vital transfers?"

"All I do is run the programs, right? It's not a big deal. Don't worry."

"I always worry," he said. "That's one of the secrets to success in this
business."

Five horses walked nose to tail along the rail of the indoor arena, moving in
and out of dusty pools of light cast by spots hidden in the high ceiling. Little
girls, backs very straight, hands held low, sat atop them. The horses moved at a
regular, patient gait, gazing straight ahead. Two were bays, one with a cropped
mane; one gray; one chestnut with white pasterns and a blaze; and the last was
spotted, a black-and-white paint. Except for the rhythmic motion of legs and
bobbing heads, the horses and small riders could have been from an old-fashioned
carousel, spinning in slow motion with no music.

Beginner classes require patience, Diane thought as she watched the students and
their teacher. Not patience on the part of these pampered girls in their jewel-
and pastel-colored clothes, sitting so high up the backs of such immense
animals. The teacher, standing in the center of the ring, turning to watch the
riders, needed the patience. There was no possibility of any unexpected action.
The mares were walking wombs, nothing more: perfect practice mounts, so placid
there was sometimes a risk that health problems would be overlooked. Making sure
nothing was overlooked was part of Diane's job.

Diane's thoughts drifted. What did these students feel? Diane tried to remember
from her early lessons but she realized it didn't compare.

Confident. That's how they would feel. Confident that they looked good and would
soon learn enough to try one of the horses programmed with a more complex riding
program. In a couple of years they would own their own top-of-the-line mounts,
bring home ribbons and trophies enough to fill fireplace mantels, and fulfill
parental expectations and financial investments. Then they would move on, train
in dressage or jumping, or lose interest in riding and study etiquette or
gymnastics, prepare for the cotillion, the grand tour, the next season's
coming-out event.

The monied class was grasping at past symbols of privilege, staying "pure," as
if doing so would stop change in the world. The families of these girls guarded
them every bit as much as they did their homes with their interactive security
systems and their walled, guarded communities. After these lessons, and other
rites of passage, these girls would make the financially correct marriage,
conceive the appropriate number of heirs, and nurture the next generation of
monied little girls to take riding lessons. Diane realized that the girls might
not be that different from the very gentle mares they were riding. After all,
they were bred and programmed for one purpose, weren't they? Maybe that was
unfair. The same thing could have been said about her.

The difference was that she had managed to escape and build her own life. Or at
least she was trying to, even if it meant a false start or two.

Besides, her history was not quite the same as that of the little girls'. Yes,
she came from the same class and background. But the horses Diane learned to
ride hadn't been programmed at all. How had she felt when she rode? Excited.
Knowing that the thousand-kilo animal she was learning to control had a mind of
its own and could choose to obey or not, to throw her off and run away, or to
execute the turn she was trying for, making her look as if she were the one in
charge.

The teacher clapped her hands and the five horses stopped and stood still, not
even an ear twitching. The girls dismounted, four from tiny English saddles,
slithering off as if from a playground slide. The fifth, on the paint, swung her
right leg over the back of the horse and dropped from a western saddle. She was
much taller than the others and wore creamy buckskin chaps, a fringed shirt and
bolero. The other four girls wore brilliant jodhpurs with silk tops, soft black
knee-high boots and velvet-covered hard hats. Two carried riding crops.

Once they stood in the sand of the ring floor, these four began to chatter among
themselves; they took the reins and led their horses out of the ring into the
main part of the barn. Two of the girls were so small they could almost walk
right underneath the horses. Their voices were chirps in the immense arena,
distorted and lost in the soft sand and high, dark ceilings. The horses followed
the girls with careful, patient steps.

Diane watched the four who rode English. The girl in the chaps trailed behind.
She was Vita Cunningham, but Diane could never remember which of the other four
girls was which. She thought of them by the horses they rode, using the mares'
code names or file numbers from their lip tattoos. The horses' histories,
bloodlines, tailoring and programming she knew in exact detail. They were the
purest of traditional strains, no crossgenre or constructs here.

The two bays were Beta 8 and 9, genetically identical, a combination of the
Dublin and Kodaka lines, considered state-of-the-art six years ago, now rumored
to be susceptible to colic or founder toward end of term. Diane had notes to
watch them closely when the time came. The gray Cosmo came from a knock-off
Arabian splicer and she was old, but had a good record. The chestnut Gusto 24
was carrying her first foal and had no record, but others with similar
combinations had good reports. The paint was Navajo, some kind of personal
preference of Len's, Kodaka genes wrapped in Indian pony coloring. A horse from
his northern Arizona ranch childhood or something. He never explained anything.
All five were programmed for maximum stability, basic brood mare traits, and
beginner riding lessons.

Diane followed the black-and-white paint down the immaculate alley and turned
right, toward the box stalls, to do a visual check. One mare stood in a comer of
its stall, chewing hay cubes from a feeder. The others hung their heads over the
stall door into the alley, the flutter of eyelashes and breath from nostrils
their only movement, eyes black and motionless. The girls groomed their beginner
mares, each horse cross-tied in front of its stall. Diane stopped to watch the
girls as they stretched and ducked, using soft brushes and hard currycombs to
groom their horses.

"You have to finish intermediate, then you can ride a jumper," Diane heard the
girl from the gray say. She was brushing a foreleg. "It took my sister two
years."

"Some people go faster," Vita said. She stood near the paint's head, fiddling
with the bit on the bridle. Her hair hung down to hide her face. Her hands were
large, nails chewed short. "If you have the right program and the right horse,
you can learn faster."

"That's stupid. You still have to learn all the levels. And as you advance, you
change horses to one with more advanced programming."

"Yeah, and if you want to compete, you have to prove you did them all," said the
girl from the chestnut.

"I heard that it used to be if you rode the same horse all the time, you got so
good you could read each other's mind."

"That's stupid, too. If you rode the same horse all the time then both you and
the horse would have to learn everything and it would take twice as long." She
looked around at Diane. "Right, Ms. Newton?"

Diane thought about how she learned. "It used to take a long time," she said.
"People lost interest, it took so long. It was dangerous too."

"But that's the way you learned." Vita tilted her head so her hair fell across
one eye. "With just one horse."

"Yes. A thoroughbred gelding." She remembered the sense of victory when she'd
finally gained control of him, making him do just what she wanted when she
wanted.

"Could you read his mind?" There was longing in Vita's voice.

"No." Not really, no matter how much she had wished for it. "But when you ride
well, it looks that way." Felt that way, too.

"Staying with one horse would be boring anyway," said the girl with the gray.
Diane left them and went to Arion's stall.

The stallion was near the door, looking through his screen which was closed so
he couldn't put his head out. Couldn't risk having some student getting bitten,
after all. The barred window on the far wall painted a square of morning
sunlight onto the golden straw and black lacquer of Arion's chest and forelegs.

When he saw Diane, the horse shook his head, black mane tumbling from one side
of his long neck to the other, and took a step back out of the sunlight. For a
second she felt a flash of fear. Any stallion was unpredictable. Arion stretched
his neck toward the screen, nostrils wide, breathing with a huffing sound. She
thought of Len, a quick stab of heat in her belly. She pressed her palm against
the screen. "Hey, boy, it's okay, shhh." Arion's nose nearly touched her hand, a
fine soft gray blending to black. There would be parties in Dallas, and trade
shows with corporate breeders.

What would Len be doing tonight? Arion jerked his head back. He pawed the straw.
Why did she care? Diane walked off toward the office.

That evening Diane spent a frustrating half-hour in her apartment trying to
reason on the phone with the mother of one of the riding students, a woman who
was convinced that her daughter was a genius and should progress faster than the
others. The call had interrupted dinner. The stir-fry cooled and her appetite
sank as her anger rose. When she hung up the phone, after agreeing to meet with
the woman later in the week, she accidently kicked the saddle stand, tripped,
and fell onto the couch. She pounded her fists on the couch cushion in
frustration.

Crashing sounds from the stable interrupted her fit of temper. She raced down
the stairs, headed straight for Arion. As she neared the stall, her heart
pounding, the screen above the door flew open with the sound of shrieking metal.
Arion continued to kick, using both back feet, making strangled noises of rage.
Diane thought about using the intercom to call some of the grooms from their
trailers. Someone would get hurt if she did, she knew it. She scuttled along the
alley as far from Arion as possible and went to the lab for the trank gun.

Len woke her early in the morning, calling from Dallas, his voice lost in the
noise of a party.

"How is everything?"

"What?" Dreams of flight still clouded her mind, images of deserts, skies the
color of flame. Her legs tangled in the sheets. She had slept so soundly she had
trouble waking.

"How is Arion acting?"

"Fine, everything is fine." She yawned and tried to remember what she had meant
to tell him.

She heard laughter and shouting. Music blared loud and faded again.
"...revolution," someone said. A woman's shrill voice said, "They'd pay
millions!" Len said nothing.

"Where are you? It sounds like a party." Diane asked.

"It is, sort of. It's the investors. I have to go but I wanted to make sure
everything was okay. We might have some important visitors when I get back."

"Everything's fine," Diane said. "Good luck."

The conversation ended. She realized as she hung up that he'd said nothing to
her, not really. He'd just been checking in with the office.

At dawn, when she got up despite a foggy headache, she realized she had
forgotten to tell him about Arion and the smashed stall door. She pulled on
jeans and a soft, warm shirt, and walked down the stairs to the stable, through
the tender sounds of the mares sleeping, their dreams as blank as their eyes.

In the lab she made a cup of very strong coffee and looked through the latest
readouts. Test results showed an anomaly in the hormone levels of the two Beta
bays. She checked the file cabinet for copies of their levels from last year,
but she couldn't find them. She wondered if Len had them in his lab. As she
headed in that direction she felt a stab of guilt. She ignored it. After all, he
had never exactly ordered her not to go into the lab.

The place was smaller than she remembered from the brief tour. A computer
console and a row of file cabinets lined one wall. The rest of the space was
taken up by the thermo-cycler on a table in the center, the walk-in refrigerator
and shelves of carefully labeled beakers, flasks and milk bottles. She headed
for the file cabinet. All the drawers were locked.

She was about to leave when she noticed the row of bound printouts stacked next
to the console screen. The comer of a file folder stuck out beside one of them.
She slid it out and found it filled with clippings and hard copies about the
stable.

She looked through the clips, reading things she already knew about the
operation. Others were about Len Malcolm: his scholarships and research awards
when he was young, his work with Kodaka on the Falk hunter. One clipping from a
small town paper in Arizona described his graduate degrees. She read that with
interest. One early thesis was titled Exploration of Recessive Nature of
Sensitive Traits Among Highly Trained Performance Horses. Another was Field
Observations of Stallion Dominance in Wild Mustang Herds. Another was Marketing
Progressive Lessons Through the Use of Incremental Program Changes.

She closed the file and started to slide it back where she had found it. She
paused and pulled open one of the bound printouts. Records of some experiments,
she noted. Careful descriptions of the effect of various dosages on test
subjects. The dates were recent and it looked as if a new subject had been
added. She knew some horses required drugs to be made susceptible to programming
with viruses. She could not tell which horses were the subjects of these tests;
the names were in some kind of code.

Diane sighed, put the book back and left the lab. She made a note to herself to
talk to Len about the mare's hormone levels and about these tests. If one of the
brood mares was being dragged, she needed to know it.

Arion was quiet when Diane checked him, an hour before the beginner class. Vita
was peering over the stall door at him, but she disappeared around a corner as
soon as she saw Diane approach. The stallion stood in the center of his stall,
legs braced outward and head hanging toward the straw. He reminded Diane of the
brood mares. She ordered the door repaired and reduced his feed. That might help
keep him calm.

Len returned with contracts secured for most of the unborn foals. He had
arranged preliminary distribution rights with the new dressage source. He should
have been jubilant, but he was distant. Diane had reports on fetal development
and hormone levels waiting for him, but he didn't even look at them.

"How is Arion?" was his first question.

"He was almost unmanageable a couple times, but he's fine now. I changed his
feed."

"What?" His face hardened and he stared at her with narrowed eyes.

"I reduced the calories. There's no need for him to be hyped up all the time
now."

"I told you -- no changes while I was gone. Change it back. Kodaka is sending a
team here to look at him. They're bringing a mare too. I want him like he was
before I left, right on the edge, ready for breeding. This is important."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

The Kodaka mare arrived in the night; Len took care of settling her into a stall
himself. This visit had to be kept very quiet, Len told Diane; too many students
were around and information traveled way too fast. Diane never saw the people
who brought the mare, but when they left, Len went with them.

That night Diane dreamed of roaring sounds, twisting motions, burning flames,
and woke to find herself visiting the mares again. She'd been asleep but now she
stood barefoot in the straw. She could hear Arion squealing. She longed for
something, fought desire, felt waves of heat. She forced herself back to the
stairs and up to her apartment. She sat on the floor, back against the door,
knees curled to her chest, waiting for daylight. She could not define the
turmoil she felt, did not know what she needed. She suffered passion soaring and
falling. But there was fear most of all.

At dawn Diane dressed slowly, her hands shaking as she pulled on her boots. She
went down the stairs to the stallion's stall, her steps loud in the quiet.

Vita stood in front of the stall door, on tiptoes, fingers curled into the
screen. Arion faced her, making low, rough sounds. The girl did not move.

There was a sound from the stall across from Arion and Diane saw the new mare,
black as cinders, circling, rubbing up against the door and screen of her stall.
No placid brood mare, she snorted and struck out, turning fast. Vita turned too,
first to one side, then the other, pressing herself against the stall door. The
mare pawed the straw. Vita moaned.

Diane felt the heat from all the nights, frustration and longing filling her
mind, stretching into her soul. She took a step forward. The stallion rumbled.
The mare squealed. Vita echoed the sound, thin and sharp.

No, no, this is wrong, Diane thought. I am in control, you obey me. She
remembered the gelding she first learned to ride, his sly movements, testing
her. She remembered the feel of Len pressed against her, the feel of the sharp
blades of straw against her back. The mare squealed again, turning to kick at
the stall door. Vita cried out.

Diane realized she was panting. She wrapped her hands around the handle of the
nearest stall door, her nails digging into the wood.

Len had done this. This was the secret, the horse to replace all the programmed
steps, the horse that would change the industry. One horse, not just programmed,
but linked to its rider. So closely linked that when Arion was tranquilized, she
had felt tranquilized too. But who would be in control? He had experimented on
her, testing Arion's abilities, observing them just like he'd watched the wild
mustangs, noting dominance and control. She took deep breaths, focused on her
anger. Arion whirled in his stall, facing her. The window glowed behind him,
soft light silhouetting his head and neck. He shouted a challenge, head up,
leaping a stiff step forward.

She felt her anger grow, her legs relax. She sidled past the stalls, step by
step, headed for the lab. The trank gun was there, and the other things she
would need. She would be in control.

Arion shrieked another challenge behind her. She felt her anger grow and used it
to fire her determination. She began to count loudly inside her mind, blocking
out all emotion. One, two, three... She carried the gun back to the mare,
pushing Vita aside as she did so. The girl stumbled and fell.

Diane set the gun to the highest level, aimed through the grill, and shot the
mare three time. She kept counting in her mind, four, five, six... The mare
grunted, then grew still, and collapsed like a string puppet into the straw.
Diane felt the tension fall, as if a window had closed. Then she sensed fear
from Arion, then rage.

There was a choking sound from Vita. The girl was scrambling to her feet,
growling in fury, seven, eight, nine... Diane set the gun to its lowest level
and shot Vita, the dart hitting the girl in the front of her thigh. Vita
stumbled, leaned against the stall door and slid to the floor, ten, eleven,
twelve...

Diane stood and looked at the stallion. He was so enraged that he shuddered as
he stood. This was no horse, this was a mind-controlling evil. This animal had
no right to exist, to dominate the minds of people around it. He was the
pinnacle of Len's research, but he was wrong, all wrong. All the breeding and
programming, it was a mistake. It had to be ended.

She tucked the trank gun into the oversized pocket of her jacket. But still, all
that programming, all the pain she had been through... Would it all be wasted.?
No. She headed for the tack room to collect bridle and saddle. Before Arion was
destroyed, she would ride him.

She grew calm with the certainty. She visualized herself saddling a calm horse
and concentrated on the image. She carried the tack toward the now silent stall
where the stallion stood waiting for her.

She opened the stall door and left it open, stepping into the straw. She avoided
looking at the horse's head. I have no emotions but calm, she thought as she
mechanically lifted the saddle onto the stallion's back. He flinched, but did
not step away. I have no emotions, just steady progress, she thought to herself
and began to again count in her mind, one, two, three... She reached under his
belly for the cinch and pulled it tight in one swift movement, four, five,
six... Then she took the bridle from her shoulder and, without making eye
contact, slid the bit into Arion's mouth and the leather over his ears, buckling
the strap under his jaw, seven, eight, nine...

She put her hands onto his withers and with one jump, she was on her stomach
across his back, ten, eleven, twelve... She swung her right leg over and
searched for the stirrups with her feet as she ducked her head and directed the
horse out of the stall. She felt Arion tremble beneath her, sensed his
confusion. She visualized the paddock in front of the stable. She concentrated
hard and turned the horse toward the door, one, two, three...

The door opened and Len stepped inside. Arion stopped dead. Diane forgot what
number came next.

"What the hell are you doing?" Len shouted.

Arion began to tremble violently. He tried to turn his head but Diane corrected
him with a jerk of the rein.

"Get out of my way," Diane said, suddenly more angry than afraid, feeling her
emotion begin to mix with that of Arion.

Len ran a few steps toward them. The horse took a fast step back and hopped to
the side. Len grabbed for the rein, but the horse shied away.

"Get off! Right now, get off!" He grabbed again for the rein, but Arion took two
fast steps backwards. Diane had sensed the move and was able to keep her
balance. She felt the horse as if he were an extension of her own body.

For a second she imagined herself with Len, at night in the stall. She viewed
the scene, and herself, from above and behind.

She sensed the control that Len had used on her, feeding his lust to the
stallion. And hadn't she been full of desire? But it had not been real. It had
not been her choice. She looked down at Len, red-faced and shouting as he again
reached for the rein.

Still watching from above, she saw herself shift her weight and she felt the
strength of the stallion as he reared. She sensed the feel of the kick, the
stretch of the full extension as the horse lashed out at Len, hitting him full
in the chest and knocking him back against the wall. She felt the perfection of
the controlled spin as the horse pirouetted 180 degrees, then bucked, hitting
Len again with both back hooves. She watched herself and the horse sidestep,
then two more strikes with the forefeet, before a leap toward the door. She did
not turn to look at the crumpled and bloody body as she lunged into the dawn.

As she galloped onto the gravel she felt herself expand, to move higher, to
watch from farther above. She sensed a fury from the stallion, a desire to flee,
to escape the fight. It matched her own emotions. She loosened her control, both
physical and emotional. She focused her thoughts on the trank gun tucked in her
pants, and the horse slowed, hesitating for a fraction of a second before
extending his stride and racing faster. She could feel his heart pumping, hear
the rush of his breathing. Her mind was filled with the steady motion of the
horse, the feel of the wind. Arion surged forward, stretching to a faster
gallop, down the road and toward the dusty hills.