“Anything I can do? Want me to see if I can get you out of there? I know a few people.”
He shook his head. “No. Thank you, though. They gave me the choice of an out-and-out priority draft or a contract. I just want to get it over with and back to living my way.” He stared at the papers in his hand with unseeing eyes.
“Is it the low energy particles that’s giving them the trouble?”
He nodded. “Exposure over a long period of time is the problem. There’s a sudden metabolic shift that’s disastrous. Unless we can lick it it will limit the time man can be in space.” He held up a thumb-size node. “I think this might do it, but I’m not certain. It’s the prototype of a Full Scale Molecular System I designed.”
“Can you get a patent?” I asked automatically.
He shook his head and scratched his face with the node.
“Anything I design is theirs. It’s in the contract. You see, the trouble isn’t in this FSMS unit, but in the damned sensing and control systems. First you gotta find the particles, then you gotta get their attention. Christ, if I could just shunt them into subspace and get rid of them, I’d . . .” His voice trailed off and he stared at the bulkhead.
After a moment or two he shook himself and grinned at me.
“Sorry. Listen, let me give you a call later on. I just had an idea.”
“Artistic inspiration?” I grinned.
“Huh? Yeah, I suppose so. Excuse me, huh?”
“Sure.” He slapped the control and I was staring at static. I didn’t see him again for five months, then I took his call patched through from the Sahara base to my Peking hotel. He said he couldn’t talk about the Guardian Project but he was free to take me up on the Sikinos offer, if it was still open. I sent him straight up to the island and two more months went by before anything more was heard. I received a pen drawing from him of the view from the terrace at the villa, with a nude girl sunbathing. Then in late August I took a call from him at my General Anomaly office.
“I finished the cube on Sophia. I’m in Athens. Where are you?
Your office was very secretive and insisted on patching me through to you.”
“That’s their job. Part of my job is not letting certain people know where I am or what I’m doing. But I’m in New York. I’m going to Bombay Tuesday, but I could stop off there. I’m anxious to see the new cube. Who’s Sophia?”
“A girl. She’s gone now.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“Neither. I’m at Nikki’s, so come on over. I’d like your opinion on the new one.”
I felt suddenly proud. “Tuesday at Nikki’s. Give her and Barry my love.”
I hung up and punched for Madelon.
2
Beautiful Madelon. Rich Madelon. Famous Madelon. Madelon of the superlatives. Madelon the Elusive. Madelon the Illusion. I saw her at nineteen, slim yet voluptuous, standing at the center of a semicircle of admiring men at a boring party in San Francisco. I wanted her, instantly, with that “shock of recognition” they talk about. She looked at me between the shoulders of a communications executive and a fossil fuels magnate. Her gaze was steady and her face quiet. I felt faintly foolish just staring and many of the automatic reflexes that rich men develop to save themselves money and heartbreak went into action. I started to turn away and she smiled.
I stopped, still looking at her, and she excused herself from the man speaking to her and leaned forward. “Are you going now?” she asked.
I nodded, slightly confused. With great charm she excused herself from the reluctant semicircle and came over to me. “I’m ready,”
she said in that calm, certain way she had. I smiled, my protective circuits all activated and alert, but my ego was touched.
We went into the glass elevator that dropped down the outside of the Fairmont Tower Complex and looked out at the fog coming over the hills near Twin Peaks and flowing down into the city.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Where would you like to go?” I had met a thousand women who attached themselves to me with all the apparently natural lust, delight, and casualness possible between a poor girl and a rich man. Some had been bold, some subtle, some as subtle as it was possible for them to be. A few had frankly offered business arrangements. I had accepted some of each, in my time. But this one . . . this one was either different or more subtle than most.
“You expect me to say ‘Wherever you are going,’ don’t you?”
she said with a smile.
“Yes. One way or another.” We left the elevator and went into the guarded garage directly. Entering your car on a public street is sometimes dangerous for a rich man.
“Well, where are we going?” She smiled at me as Bowie held the door open for us. The door clicked shut behind us like the safe door it nearly was.
“I had been contemplating two choices. My hotel and work on some papers . . . or Earth, Fire, Air and Water.”
“Let’s do both. I’ve never been to either place.”
I picked up the intercom. “Bowie, take us to Earth, Fire, Air and Water.”
“Yessir; I’ll report it to Control.”
The girl laughed and said, “Is someone watching you?”
“Yes, my local Control. They must know where I am, even if I don’t want to be found. It’s the penalty for having businesses in different time zones. By the way, are we using names?”
“Sure, why not?” she smiled. “You are Brian Thorne and I am Madelon Morgana. You’re rich and I’m poor.”
I looked her over, from the casually tossed hair to the fragile sandals. “No . . . I think you might be without money, but you are not poor.”
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
San Francisco rolled by, an old but dignified city reluctantly keeping up with the modern world, and often besting it. We turned a corner and saw a small riot ahead, near one of the governmental offices. Bowie blanked out the windows, and turned toward the waterfront. He hit the brakes as he started into the turn and I heard the rattle of rocks on the hood and windshield.
“Hold on,” Bowie said over the comm, and the car thundered into reverse. There was the crunch of something under the tires, then we slammed forward through a hail of rocks and other thumps. I glanced at Madelon, who was holding onto a strap and looking alertly in every direction, even though the opaqued windows were featureless. “Bowie will handle it,” I said, but my hand was against one of the secret panels behind which was a Smith & Wesson Rioteer, with four big shot cartridges, and the exterior tear gas controls. The car stopped suddenly, then reversed, throwing us forward against the safety belts, and with a squeal of tires we drove forward up over something, probably a curb. I heard a loud thump, a cry, and we were going fast and straight.
In a few moments Bowie brought back the cityscape and we rolled down one hill and up another. “Anyone hurt?” I asked.
“One zongo with an iron bar bounced off a fender, but I saw him get up and try to chase us. I’ll have to take it in tomorrow to be pounded out, Mr. Thorne.”
“Thank you, Bowie,” I said.
“Does this sort of thing happen to you often?” Madelon asked. I shrugged. “Frustrated men need targets,” I answered. “A chauffered car, a beautiful woman . . .” I shrugged again. I couldn’t always blame them. “You don’t want to hurt anyone, but you don’t want to be hurt, either.”