“I noticed.” He stood up. “Just don’t get lost in it. Now that I’ve finally gotten you to come out to the mountain, I want to see you from time to time.”
“All you had to do was hire me,” she said, fitting easily into his arms. She hugged him, her hair smelling of patchouli. “Oh, Dan. Maybe it will work for us this time.”
“I always hope that,” he said, wishing they hadn’t both been worn down from five years of trying to tame their competing egos. “Come on. Let’s get below. There’s someone special I want you to meet.”
“Who?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
They took the ladder, then the elevator, down to the main deck, and walked along the gangway to the fantail, where they found Crane. Half-drunk, he was holding court near the hors d’oeuvres table, recounting a story from the 2016 Alaskan quake that had sent Anchorage sliding into Cook’s Inlet.
The fantail of the yacht was ringed with teev screens showing continuous feed on the tragedy of Sado, focusing often on Crane at the head of the cliff, presiding over the carnage.
Everyone wore clothing of the thinnest silks and rayons, putting as little between themselves and the night as they could. Dangerous daylight made night an obsession. Vice President Gabler was an empty suit, a ceremonial smiling face, his wife, Rita, giggling beside him as he took direction from Mr. Li, who, as always, had Mr. Mui at his side.
“There’s Kate Masters,” Lanie said, as Sumi slipped up beside her, thrusting a champagne glass into her hand.
Newcombe had already noticed. Masters was something else altogether. Chairman of the WPA, the Women’s Political Association, she was a powerhouse. In a fragmented America, she could deliver forty million votes on any issue at any time. The WPA was second in power only to the Association of Retired Persons, which also had a representative on deck, a man named Aaron Bloom. He was fairly nondescript. Masters was short, with long bright red hair and indiscreet green eyes. She wore a filmy lime-green dress that seemed to hover around her like an alien fog. As she moved, parts of her body would slip into view for a second, only to disappear in a wisp of green. She smiled wickedly in their direction, Lanie smiling wickedly back.
“I’ll bet she eats little girls for breakfast,” Newcombe said. Sumi hovered, his eyedropper raised above the champagne glass.
“Something special for the pretty lady?” Sumi asked.
Lanie smiled and held up three fingers. “Private stock?”
Sumi nodded. “For making your own earthquakes, eh?” he said, then narrowed his eyes, studying her with surgical precision. “You don’t like me, do you?”
“I don’t know,” Lanie said. “I’ve never met the real you.”
“Sumi’s the Foundation’s best friend,” Newcombe said, surprised at Lanie’s reaction to the man.
“So I’ve heard,” Lanie said, taking a sip of the synth and smiling at Chan as Newcombe watched Crane disappear into the cabin area. “What do you think of the success of the EQ-eco?”
“I think the Crane Foundation is very lucky to have Dr. Newcombe on staff,” Sumi said, staring at Newcombe. “He is helping to advance science at a critical point.”
“ ‘Critical’ is certainly the word tonight,” Newcombe said, regretting that he’d ever let Crane talk him into making one very special arrangement.
Sumi Chan smiled, then darted over to Kate Masters, who took an entire eyedropper full of dorph in her glass. Naturally distilled from the human’s own glands, dorph was pure and impossible to overdose on.
Lanie leaned against Newcombe, snuggling, his arms going around her immediately. The PEA had kicked in. He nuzzled her neck just as Crane walked to the center of the deck.
“Friends,” he said. “Thank you for indulging me in my secrecy by clandestinely traveling to Guam and boarding there. You are about to see why. But first I must ask that we meet a prearranged condition and shut down any and all transmission equipment.” Crane pulled himself to his full height. The moment was replete with drama, as he intended.
Lanie wriggled away from Newcombe. She was entranced, all her attention on the scene Crane was creating.
Crane tapped his wrist pad. “On my mark, Captain Florio.” His voice boomed through the ship speakers and all the aurals. “Now!”
Diatribe blacked, every form of energy on the yacht dying—all fifty teev screens simultaneously going dead, all the lights and the music and everything else clicking off at once. The people on deck reached into pockets and onto wrists, concurrently shutting down their own devices of endless transmission and reception. In a world where communication was everything, they had all gone straight back to the Stone Age.
Lanie turned off her aural. Suddenly, she felt distressed, almost frightened, and realized she was beginning to hyperventilate. She tossed back the near-full glass of dorph-enhanced synth in her champagne glass, wondering if the others on deck, bathed in moonlight and cloaked in silence, were feeling, too, such profound anxiety at being cut off. If so, they weren’t showing it.
“This is—this is so exciting,” she whispered to Newcombe, whose deep responsive chuckle only tightened the string of her nerves.
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” he whispered back.
Her sharp stare at Newcombe was deflected by the sudden movements of Crane. He’d removed a small scanner from his shirt pocket, turned it on, and was whirling around in a circle.
“Nothing,” he announced, stopping and smiling. “We’re alone. And now, I beg your indulgence yet again. There is one more guest on board, a participant you haven’t had the opportunity to encounter.”
A door to the gangway off which the cabins were located slid open, and everyone on deck was caught in a withering blast of charisma as a tall Africk stepped out.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Crane said, “may I present Mohammed Ishmael.”
A harsh collective gasp greeted the head of the militant Nation of Islam, outcast, fugitive, and some said, archcriminal and terrorist. Mohammed was well over six feet tall, and appeared even taller because of the black fez atop his head and the black dashiki that elongated his body in the shimmering moonlight. His stance was princely, the glance he swept over the participants majestic.
Riveted in place, the people on deck merely gaped, the silence astounding. But the tableau was short-lived. Turmoil erupted.
“My God!” Lanie exclaimed amidst the murmurs of outrage and surprise from the others, recovering now. “It’s him!”
Two burly Secret Servicemen threw themselves in front of Mr. Li, who appeared to be laughing. Was it from shock, Lanie wondered, or in glee over the surprise to which he might have been privy? Vice President Gabler was waving his arms and sputtering, while other participants milled and muttered, with Kate Masters’ throaty, nervous guffaws carrying over the sounds of all the others. Sumi Chan was, clearly, astonished, and only Mui Tsao of all the people on deck seemed entirely self-possessed.
Mui stepped forward. “I suggest a recess … a brief recess. Perhaps everyone could retire to his or her cabin?”
It wasn’t a suggestion, but an order, Lanie realized, glancing quickly to Newcombe. She drew in a sharp breath at the expression on his face. Three hundred years of the hatred of the shackled Africk gleamed in his eyes.
“I don’t believe it. You’re part of this,” she said.
He looked down at her, his expression softening. “I helped to arrange to get the good brother to attend, yes, and I helped to spirit him aboard, just shortly after we picked up all our other distinguished guests in Guam. That cutting of engines, the anchor drag, remember?”