"Do you want this ring?" she asked Marcello. "It's fire opal. From Australia. Prince Bonfigliori gave it to me. See how it catches the light."
Marcello stood over her. He wore only his jeans. His skinny torso shone. "What are you talking about, Chantal?" he said, anger in his eyes, "what the freak are you talking about? What's happening here? I feel like a complete…like a complete dweeb."
"Nothing is happening here, Marcello. Nothing has ever happened here."
"Last summer, and the summer before that, something happened all right, something pretty damn…"
"Marcello, you used to call me 'the scarecrow with no tits.'"
"That was a long time ago."
"Not so long."
Marcello stalked back to the shadows. He was shivering. He might be crying. Italian men were so emotional. By contrast, she supposed, she was so…so what? Swiss? She locked her jewel box and stood up.
This evening she wanted to use the house's terminal. She could interface with Father O'Shaughnessy through a safe link in Singapore if she got the satellite window right. And she had been developing some of their theoretical work on Limited Artificial Intelligences. He had promised to name her as co-author on his next paper, and she was keen to put in the background research to earn the credit.
"Marcello, would you go downstairs and make us some tea. I want to get changed now."
He laughed nastily. "Changed? Chantal, you don't need to get changed. You're a completely different person. Since your father died…"
She slapped him. "Tea, Marcello. Ice, lemon, please."
He bunched his fist, but thought better of it. Even as children, he had been the loser.
"Ciao, Chantal," he said, taking his shirt and sandals from the floor. "Ciao forever."
"Goodbye," she said, in as many languages as she knew how, continuing long after her bedroom door had closed and she knew Marcello had left the house.
It was as near to tears as she had been since the day they buried her father.
She was at her terminal in good time, snaking her way through subsidiary corporation accounts, matching the cyberlabyrinth codeword for block. When she got through to Singapore, Father O'Shaughnessy was waiting for her.
VI
SAN FRANCISCO, USA. 1993
"Chantal…"
She hadn't been so tense since she had taken her final vows. She tried to find her centre. Her muscles remained tight.
"Chantal…?"
Mother Kazuko Hara bowed.
"Mother…" Chantal bowed, and backed away.
The first blow came high, striking her thigh.
The Japanese woman, a foot shorter than Chantal, kicked again, catching her waist this time. Chantal took Mother Kazuko's ankle, and pushed back, hoping to unbalance her, but she twisted and was out of her grasp.
"Good," Mother Kazuko said, striking with the flat of her hand at Chantal's forehead.
Chantal ducked under the blow, and lashed out with her fingertips, pushing into Mother Kazuko's ribs above the heart.
"Very good," the Mother said.
The fought on, matching each other skill for skill, switching fighting styles at whim. The two nuns went through Karate, Fisticuffs, Baritsu, Savate, all the major sub-groups of Wushu—The Five Animal Styles of the Shaolin Temple, Choy Li-Fut, Drunken Style, Eagle Claw, Hsing-I, Hung Gar, Mad Monkey Kungfu, Phoenix Eye, Praying Mantis (an especial favourite), Shuai Chiao, Tan Tui, White Crane, Wing Chun— Jeet Kune-Do (The Way of the Intercepting Fist), Hapkido, Graeco-Roman Wrestling, Kickboxing, Aikido, Amis, Jujitsu, Ninjutsu, Streetfighting, Arm-Wrestling and Tae Kwon Do.
Chantal knew that if her opponent—whom the students called Mother Gadzooks O'Hara—didn't pull her punches, she would have been dead within ten seconds of Mother Kazuko's fust bow.
Her weak spots were beginning to ache. It wasn't necessary to win this bout—no one had bested Mother Kazuko since the St Matilda's Dojo was opened—but Chantal had to keep in the fight for a full quarter of an hour.
It wasn't an official examination. The fight was taking place in a private gymnasium, with no assessors in attendance. But Chantal knew that without Mother Kazuko's say-so she wouldn't be advanced within the Society of Jesus.
The only thing she really had over her master was height, and so she used it as best she could, trying to keep the other woman at the end of her toe-points as she used balletic high kicks, and tapping her head with fingertip blows.
It wasn't enough, but it was somedung.
At last, it was over. Chantal's leotard was a shade darker with perspiration, but Mother Kazuko, who fought in loose white pajamas, was unaffected. She seemed never to sweat, like a lizard.
They bowed to each other, and Chantal wiped the sweat off her face into her hair and collapsed against the climbing frames on the wall. Mother Kazuko steadied her.
"It is all right to be tired, Sister," she said, her English still thckly accented, "but it is sometimes necessary to conceal your fatigue."
Chantal straightened out, and put her hands on her hips. She breathed deeply. Her pains went away, slowly.
Mother Kazuko smiled, exposing rabbit-teeth. "Good. Remember, the Calling of the Jesuit is much like the Path of Ninjutsu, the Way of Stealth."
There was a sound like a gunshot. Chantal turned in its direction, assuming a fighter's crouch, knee flexed to launch a kick.
The sound was repeated. It was a slow handclap, gradually building into applause. A priest came out of the shadows, clapping steadily.
Chantal recognized Father Daguerre, and ran to his arms.
"Sister, how you have grown."
"Sanskrit."
Father Daguerre tried to smile. "No, Sister Chantal. We are grown-up now. We must be wary of wasting our God-given abilities on show."
"She is young," Mother Kazuko said, "she is still learning."
Father Daguerre kissed Mother Kazuko's hand. "She has learned much already, Mother Superior. You have taught her well."
"I have merely brought out what the Lord put inside her."
They left the gymnasium. A troop of postulants were doing Tai Chi exercises in the courtyard. Two young priests in shirtsleeves and shorts were standing, checking instruments, by a helicoptor whose blades were circling lazily.lt was a sunny day. The choir were practicing. The dojo was giving the St Matthew Passion with the Philharmonic this commencement.
Inside the PZ, Sao Francisco was a pleasant city.
"It's been too long since you visited me, Father Daguerre. How is my momma?"
"As ever. She sends her regards."
"How long are you staying?"
"Not long. This is not a visit in the proper sense. I've come from Papa Georgi."
Chantal stopped walking. Since Georgi ascended the Throne of St Peter she had only seen him in public audiences. He bad withdrawn to some extent from his old friends. She had thought he was avoiding her.
"I am to take you to the Vatican. A mission has been found, which requires your…special skills."
A cloud passed over the sun. Suddenly, in her damp leotard, Chantal felt chilly.
"The helicopter will airlift you to SFX. I have a Vatican jet waiting there. Will it take you long to get packed?"
"I've been packed for five months, Father."
"It is good."
At last, Sister Chantal had a mission.
VII
Chantal's first mission was a simple matter of plugging an infoleak from a church in Turin. It turned out that the Pan-Islamic Congress had a sleeper virus going around that was creating APOSTATE programs, and that the Ayatollah Bakhtiar was using the Turin hole to infiltrate the UEC Several leading Greek Exiles, active in the Macedonian Liberation Movement, had been killed by "invisible" men, assassins who didn't register on the datanet. She solved the systems breakdown simply, with some patchwork reprogramming, and traced the Ayatollah's undercover man by his palimpsest computer signature. She had wanted to bring him in for questioning, but he had suicided rather than face the interrogators of the Opus Dei. In the ruins of his hotel room, she had read the last rites over the man, praying that his God would recognize her ritual.