Approaching Oblivion Part 18

The side-boys numbered three this time. Sometimes Lady Effim had six, sometimes eight, sometimes a squad. Never less than three. This time there were three.

One was obviously a twinkle: fishtailed hair parted in the middle, tinted blue-black like the barrel of a weapon, giving off the warm odor of musk and jasmine. Very slim; hands delicate and skin of the hands so pale Neil could see the calligraphy of blue veins clearly outlined; large nostrils that scooped air so the twinkle's chest rose and fell noticeably; skintight weskit suit with metal conchos and leather thongs down both sides; heavy on the jewelry.

"Neil, I'd like you to meet Cuusadou..."

The second was some kind of professional student: his like were to be found in the patiently seated waiting lines of the career bureaus, always ready to file for some obscure and pointless occupation- numismatist, dressage instructor, Neurospora geneticist, epitaphologist, worm rancher. His face was long and horsy; his tongue was long and he could bend its tip back on itself; he wore the current fas.h.i.+on, velvet jodhpurs, boots rhodium manacles with jeweled locks, dark wraparound gla.s.ses. He had bad skin and his fingernails were long, but the quicks were bitten and b.l.o.o.d.y down around the moons.

"...and Fill..."

The third was a killer. He made no movement. His eyes stared straight ahead and Neil perceived the psychotic glaze. Hedid not look at the third man for more than a second. It was painful.

"...and Mr. Robert Mossman."

She invited him to join them, and Neil took the empty formfit where the domo had set his chin- chin. He settled into the chair and crossed his legs. "How've you been?"

Lady Effim smiled a long, thin smile of memories and expectations. "Warm. And you?"

"All right, I suppose."

"How is your father?"

"Excellent. He sends his best."

"That was unnecessary."

Neil laughed. "Less than an hour ago I said the same thing to someone. Excuse me; I'm a little cranky tonight."

She waved away his apology with a friendly, imperious gesture. "Has the city changed much?"

"Since when?"

"Last time." That had been six years earlier.

"Some. They turned the entire fourteenth level into crystal cultures. Beautiful. Peculiar. Waste of s.p.a.ce. h.e.l.luva controversy, lot of people making speeches, the screens were full of it. I went off to the Hebrides."

She laughed. The crepe texture of her facial skin made it an exercise in origami. Neil gave it a moment's thought: having s.e.x with this creature, this power, this force of nature. It was more than wealth that kept three such as these with this woman. Neil began to understand the attraction. The cheekbones, the timbre of her voice, ice.

"Still vanis.h.i.+ng, Neil?" She said it with amus.e.m.e.nt. "You're playing with me."

"Only a little. I have a great affection for you, darling. You know that. You amuse me."

"How are things in Australia?"

Lady Effim turned to Fill. For the answer.

"Cattle production is up two hundred percent, trawling acreage is yielding half a million barrels of lettuce a month, t.i.thes are up point three three over last year at this time, and Standard & Poor's Index closed up eight points today."

Neil smiled. "What about all the standard poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who were wiped out when the tsunami hit two weeks ago?"

Everyone stopped smiling. Lady Effim sat straighter and her left hand-which had been dangling a gold-link chain and baited fish-hook in her jeroboam snifter of brandy in an attempt to snag the Antarean piranha before it bellied-up-the hand made a convulsive clenching movement. The killer's eyes came off dead center and snapped onto the thief with an almost audible click: the sound of armaments locked into firing position. Neil held his breath.

"Mr. Mossman," Lady Effim said, slowly, "no."

The air began to scintillate around Neil.

"Neil," said Lady Effim.

He stopped. The air settled. Mr. Robert Mossman went back to rigidity.

Lady Effim smiled. It reminded the thief of an open wound. "You've grown suicidal in six years, Neil darling. Something unpleasant is happening to you; you're not the sweet, das.h.i.+ng lad I used to know.

Death-wish?"

Neil smiled back, it seemed the thing to do. "Getting reckless in my declining years. I'm going to have to come visit your continent one of these days, m'Lady."

She turned to the twinkle. "Cuusadou, what are we doing for the company peasants who were affected by the disaster?"

The twinkle leaned forward and, with relish, said, " An absolutely splendid advertising campaign, Lady Effim: squawk, solids, car-cards, wandering evangelists, rumors, and in three days a major holo extravaganza. Our people have been on it since almost before the tide went out. Morale is very high. We've established compet.i.tion between the cities, the one that mounts the most memorable ma.s.s burial ceremony gets a new sports arena. Morale is very high." He looked pleased.

"Thank you, darling," she said. She turned back to Neil. "I am a kind and benevolent ruler."

Neil smiled and spread his hands. "Your pardon."

It went that way for the better part of an hour.

Finally, Lady Effim said to Fill, "Darling, would you secure the area, please." The professional student fiddled with the jeweled lock on the right-wrist manacle, and a sliding panel in the manacle opened to reveal a row of tiny dials under a fingernail-sized meter readout window. He turned the dials and a needle in the meter window moved steadily from one side to the other. When it had snugged up against the far side, he nodded obsequiously to Lady Effim.

"Good. We're alone. I gather you've been up to some nasty tricks, Neil darling. You haven't been teleporting illegally when you were off-s.h.i.+ft, have you?" She wore a nasty smile that should have been on display in a museum.

"I have something you want," Neil said, ignoring the chop. She knew he was breaking the regs at this very moment: "I have to go out for a while."

His father looks up. Their eyes meet.

"No. Nothing like that," he lies. His father looks away.

He rubs and rubs till his palm is b.l.o.o.d.y. Then he vanishes, illegally.

"I'm sure you do, Neil mon cher. You always do. But what could I possibly have that would interest you? If you want something you go to the cornucopia and you punch it up and those cunning little atoms are rearranged cunningly and there you have it. Isn't that the way it's done?"

"There are things one can't get..."

"But those are illegal, darling. So illegal. And it seems foolish to want one of the few things you can't have in a world that permits virtually everything."

"There are still taboos."

"I can't conceive of such a thing, Neil dear."

"Force yourself."

"I'm a woman of very simple tastes."

"The radiant."

It was only the most imperceptible of movements, but Neil Leipzig knew the blood had stopped pumping in Lady Effim's body. Beneath her chalky powder she went white. He saw the thinnest line of the biting edges of her teeth.

"So you did it."

Now the smile was Neil Leipzig's.

"A thief in a time of plenty. So you did it. You clever lad."

Her eyes closed and she was thinking of the illegal Antarean drug. Here was a thrill she had never had. Farewell to ennui. She would, of course, have it, at any cost. Even a continent. It was a seller's market.

"What do you want?"

She would have it at any cost. Human lives: these three, his own. His father's.

His mother's.

"What do you want, Neil?"

His thoughts were a million miles away. A lie. They were only arcology levels above and across London.

"You! What do you want?"

So he told her.

He would have preferred the other three not be there. The look of revulsion on their faces-even the zombie Mr. Robert Mossman's-made him defensive.

Lady Effim sneered. It did not become her. "You shall have it, Neil. As often as you care to go, G.o.d help you." She paused, looked at him in a new way. "Six years ago...when I knew you...were you..."

"No, not then."

"I never would have thought-of all the people I know, and you may be a.s.sured, dear boy, I know oddnesses beyond description-of all I know, I would have thought you were the last to..."

"I don't want to hear this."

"Of course not, how gauche of me. Of course, you shall have what you need. When I have. What.

I. Need." "I'll take you to it."

She seemed amused. "Take me there? Don't be silly, dear boy. I'm a very famous, very powerful, very influential person. I have no truck with stolen merchandise, not even any as exotic and lovely as soul- radiant." She turned to the killer. "Mr. Mossman. You will go with Neil and obtain three tubes from where he has them secreted. No, don't look suspicious, Neil will deliver precisely what he has said he would deliver. He understands we are both dealing in good faith."

The twinkle said, "But he's..."

"It is not our place to make value judgments, darling. Neil is a sweet boy, and what he needs, he shall have." To Mr. Robert Mossman: "When you have the three tubes, call me here." To the thief: "When I receive Mr. Mossman's call, Fill will make the arrangements and you'll receive very explicit instructions where to go, and when. Is that satisfactory!"

Neil nodded, his stomach tight, his head beginning to hurt. He did not like their knowing.

"Now," Lady Effim said, "goodbye, Neil.

"I don't think I would care to see you again. Ever. You understand this contains no value judgment, merely a preference on my part."

She did not offer her hand to be kissed as he and Mr. Robert Mossman rose to leave the table.

The thief materialized on the empty plain far beyond the arcology of London. He was facing the gigantic structure and stared at it for minutes without really seeing it: eyes turned inward. It was near sunset and all light seemed to be gathered to the ivory pyramid that dominated the horizon. "Cradle of the sun," he said softly, and winked out of existence again. Behind him, the city of London rose into the clouds and was lost to sight. The apartments of the Prince of Wales were, at that moment, pa.s.sing into darkness.

The next materialization was in the midst of a herd of zebra, grazing at tall stands of deep blue gra.s.s. They bolted at his appearance, shying sidewise and boiling away from him in a ma.s.s of flas.h.i.+ng lines of black and white. He smiled, and started walking. The air vibrated with the smell of animal fur and clover. Walking would be a pleasure. And mint.

His first warning that he was not alone came with the sound of a flitterpak overhead. It was a defective: he should not have been able to hear its power-source. He looked up and a woman in torn leathers was tracking his pa.s.sage across the veldt. She had a norden strapped to her front and he had no doubt the sights were trained on him. He waved to her, and she made no sign of recognition. He kept walking, into the darkness, attempting to ignore her; but his neck itched.

He vanished; to h.e.l.l with her; he couldn't be bothered.

When he reappeared, he was in the trough of a dry wash that ran for several miles and came to an end, when he had vanished and reappeared again, at the mouth of a cave that angled downward sharply into the ground. He looked back along the channel of the arroyo. He was in the foothills. The mountains bulked purple and distant in the last fading colors of dusk. The horizon was close. The air was very clear, the wind was rising; there were no sounds but those of insects foretelling the future.

He approached the cave mouth and stopped. He sat down on the ground and leaned back on his elbows. He closed his eyes. They would come soon enough, he was certain.

He waited, thinking of nothing but metal surfaces.

In the night, they came for him.

He was half-asleep. Lying up against the incline of the arroyo, his thoughts fading in and out of focus like a radio signal from a transmitter beyond the hills. Oh, bad dreams. Not even subtle, not even artful metaphors. The spider was clearly his mother, the head pink and heavily freckled, redheaded, and slanting Oriental cartoon eyes. The Mameluke chained between the pillars was bald and old and the face held an infinite weariness in its expression. The Praetorian with the flame thrower was himself, the searing wash of jellied death appearing and vanis.h.i.+ng, being and being gone. He understood. Only a fool would not understand; he was weary, as his father was weary, but he was no fool. He burned the webbing. Again and again. Only to have it spring into existence each time. He came fully awake before the cone-muzzle of the weapon touched his shoulder.

Came awake with the web untouched, covering the world from horizon to horizon, the spider crawling down the sky toward the weary black man hanging between the pillars.

"You were told I'd be coming," he said. It was only darkness in front of him, but darkness within a darkness, and he knew someone stood there, very close to him, the weapon pointed at his head.

He knew it. Only a fool would not have known. Now he was awake, and he was no fool. The voice that answered from the deeper darkness was neither male nor female, neither young nor old, neither deep nor high. It sounded like a voice coming from a tin cup. Neil knew he had been honorably directed; this was the place, without doubt. He saluted Lady Effim's word of honor with a smile. The voice from the tin cup said, "you 're supposed to giving me a word, isn't it?"

"The word you want is Twinkle."

"Yeah, that was to being the word. I'm to your being took downstairs now. C'mon."

The thief rose and brushed himself off.

He saw movement from the comer of his eye. But when he turned to look, there was nothing.

He followed the shadow as it moved toward the cave mouth. There was no Moon, and the faraway ice-chips of the stars gave no heat, gave no light. It was merely a shadow he followed: a shadow with its weapon carried at port arms.

They pa.s.sed into the mouth of the cave, and the dirt pa.s.sage under their feet began to slope down sharply almost at once. There were two more shadows inside the mouth of the cave, hunkered down, looking like piles of rags, features indistinct, weapon barrels protruding from the shapeless ma.s.ses like night-blooming flowers of death.

One of them made a metallic sound when it brushed against the wall. It. Neither he nor she. It.

Neil Leipzig followed the shadow down the steep slope, holding on to the rock wall for support as his feet sought purchase. Ahead of him, his guide seemed to be talking to himself very, very softly. It sounded like a mechanical whirring. The guide was not a domo.