Getting out of her antique wedding dress wasn't as difficult as getting in, but it was still a job for at least two people, and Bianca was glad that Crystal was still around; she wasn't ready to face Simon yet, and had asked him to wait in another room while she changed. "I think I've just discovered how medieval knights must have felt. Thank Christ they don't expect me to wear it on the plane."

Crystal, who was none too comfortable in her bridesmaid's dress, laughed. "At least you'll never have to wear it again."

"No, but I'm already feeling sorry for my daughters. Ahhh!" She took a deep breath as Crystal unlaced her corset. "What's the point of making a dress that only gets worn once, anyway? Do you think we could give it to a museum?"

"Not while your in-laws are alive. What else did they give you, apart from the honeymoon?"

"Barrington House."

Crystal's face fell. "Oh, Gods. Do they expect you to live in it?"

"You've seen it?"

"Simon took me there, once. The place is a museum, and they won't let you change any of it. Sleeping in a slave-owner's bed is one thing--but they won't even let you have a cat, for fear it might scratch the furniture, and honey, trying to cook in an antebellum kitchen... You can't persuade Simon to ask for a transfer?"

Bianca shook her head as she struggled to remove her panty-girdle. Simon had studied and schemed too long to be given his position in R&D, and wasn't about to give it up. "It'd be like begging to be disinherited. Besides, he couldn't take you."

"Yeah, well..."

"And I'd miss you, too." She looked at the clothes draped over the bed. "You know, it's hard to believe anyone except Jack the Ripper ever hated women enough to design shit like that. It wouldn't do any good, Crys. The family, the company--they own all of us."

"They don't own me."

"They own your work, and what're they doing with it?"

Crystal looked at the crossed Civil War (War Between the States, she corrected herself automatically) cavalry sabres on the bedroom wall, and grimaced. "Touche. Did they give you anything else?" she asked, hoping to change the subject.

"A GeneSafe. It's being put in tomorrow."

A second hit; Crystal bit her lip. The GeneSafe was Sanderson MedTech's profitable spin-off from the money-losing nanotech-based AIDS cure she'd helped develop. It was rapidly becoming a traditional wedding gift or sixteenth birthday present among the few wealthy enough to afford it; it was programmed with the genetic codes of the person in whom it was implanted, and usually one other--in most cases, the recipient's husband. Nanomachines would then constantly scan the body (except for the digestive tract) for foreign genetic material, which would trigger a very visible immune response. Reprogramming was possible, but required minor surgery. It served as a smart contraceptive, and was as effective against sexually transmitted diseases as condoms but without the inconvenience to the male.

Crystal remembered the lecture she received after she'd designed her prototype machine. Society, her supervisor had told her, wanted a HIV vaccine, not an AIDS cure; transmission by blood transfusion and organ donation had been stopped so long ago that all those unfortunates were dead, and all new AIDS cases were regarded as self-inflicted. If they were to be cured, the diseased should at least be made to pay for the privilege. Crystal had looked into his face, and resisted the urge to spit in it. "By 'society'," she said, sweetly, "I presume you mean that elite group that you and I will never be permitted to join?"

Her super, Adams, had flushed visibly despite his dark skin. "That 'elite' has paid for your work, babe, and has yet to get any visible return for that. You're lucky Old Man Sanderson believes in basic research, even if his spawn don't."

"That's because he's the only one who's lived long enough to see how it pays off," Crystal retorted. "How much has the company made out of the new lie detectors? That wouldn't have happened if they hadn't sponsored Elzanowski's pheremone research, and--"

"I know, I know," Adams had replied, wearily. It was an old argument for him, and he was usually defending the other side. "Your work will pay off eventually, and not just financially. Old Man Sanderson wants something that'll eat cancers, clean his lungs and livers and arteries, let him live the way he wants but for twice as long. That's what nanotech is going to give him, what you're going to give him... but that doesn't mean you're indispensable. There's a genius born every day somewhere, babe, but people with the money to pay for this sort of research--they're real rare."

Crystal snapped out of her reverie. "Anything else?" she asked Bianca, weakly.

"Not from Simon's parents. The rest of the family gave us--what did they call it in The Lord of the Rings? Something like mammoths?"

"Mathoms," replied Crystal, with a faint smile. "You'll probably get mammoths for your anniversary." Sanderson MedTech had managed to clone mammoths from frozen remains, but the embryos were still in the freezer pending a decision on who owned the copyright. The Siberian government needed the money and was expected to settle out of court eventually, but it seemed to enjoy making Americans wait.

"Albino ones, most likely," Bianca grumped. "Big hungry white elephants with perfect pedigrees. Jesus, Crys, almost everything they gave us is a registered antique, as though they expected me to try to sell some of them and run. The only new and remotely practical thing was a set of kitchen knives from Simon's grandparents. Good ones, sharp as scalpels, but isn't it supposed to be bad luck to give knives as a wedding present?"