The alien approached the restaurant patio, clutching something rectangular and silver in his tiny hand.
“It’s Fhen,” I said. “Dortmund’s aide.”
I looked back at the car and as I did so the remaining figure in the back seat leaned towards the window and stared out. It was Dortmund himself.
The Elan stepped onto the patio and approached our table. A silence fell as the other diners stopped eating and stared at the alien.
His long, thin lips were stretched in an imitation of a human smile. “Friends,” he said in his fluting voice. “Mr Dortmund instructed me to give you this. A formal invitation.”
He passed the envelope to Maddie, who was closest to the alien, and she opened it. “Darius Dortmund”, she read, “extends an invitation to Mr Matt Sommers and friends to attend a Sunday Soirée at Ocean Heights, beginning at two tomorrow.” She looked around at us. “The invitation extends to staying the night. Well,” she went on, smiling at the alien. “Isn’t that nice? I’m sure Matt will be delighted.” I smiled at the irony in her tone. “Matt and I will be going◦– how about the rest of you?” Blindside of the Elan, she put on a comically pleading face.
I looked at Hannah, who nodded. “We’d love to,” she said.
“Hawk, Kee?” Maddie prompted.
“Well, seeing as the rest of you…” Hawk began.
“Excellent,” Maddie said, and turned to the waiting alien. “Please tell Mr Dortmund that we’ll be delighted to come.”
The alien performed an odd little bow and hurried back to the limousine. He climbed into the back seat and relayed our acceptance; a second later Dortmund leaned towards the window and gave an effete wave.
Moments later the limousine wafted away.
Hawk suggested another round of beers but I declined the offer. “I promised Hannah a trip to see the waterfalls,” I said. “See you all tomorrow. I just hope Dortmund’s hospitality extends to lavishing us with plenty of alcohol.”
Hannah hit my shoulder as we moved away from the table.
I drove through the foothills of the inland mountains, heading south-east out of Magenta Bay towards Mackinley. Half an hour later we had climbed to four thousand feet and beside me Hannah gasped as she looked to her right at the precipitous fall of the land towards the straits.
“Oh, David, it’s so beautiful!”
“Wait till you see the falls and the lagoons.”
She leaned her head on my shoulder as I took the looping bends, heading ever higher. Ten minutes later I turned off the main road, which would have led, eventually, through the mountains towards the golden column, and took a twisty minor road south.
Minutes later the silver and crystal townscape of Mackinley came into view far below, hugging the scalloped coastline. To our left a great silver waterfall tipped itself into a circular lagoon, the spray scintillating in the sunlight.
The overflow from the lagoon fed into a smaller, rock-encircled lagoon beneath, and it was to this lagoon that I was taking Hannah. I parked the car beside the waterfall, took her hand and led her through a thicket of greenberries, down a precipitous slope, and around a shola tree to the calm, quiet lower lagoon.
Hannah gasped. “It’s… Oh, it’s idyllic, David.”
She stood at the edge of the escarpment, where this lagoon overflowed into the one below, and so on until they reached the coast. Below us several villas owned by the planet’s seriously rich◦– holo stars and politicians◦– nestled behind stands of shola trees.
Hannah pointed. “Isn’t that the place where Dortmund is staying?”
I made out a terracotta tiled villa in extensive lawned grounds, complete with swimming pools, tennis courts and a skyball pitch.
“I read that he’d taken the place for a month,” she said. “There was a picture of the villa in the paper. And look, it seems he’s getting ready for the soirée.”
I laughed. “Well, his flunkies are.” A dozen liveried servants were erecting a silver mylar marquee on the front lawn and setting up laser barbecue pits nearby. Others were arranging trestle tables before the villa’s open French windows.
“Looks like he’s planning some do,” I said.
Hannah walked to the water’s edge, knelt and peered into the brimming depths. “Hey, there are little fish here.”
I joined her. The water boiled with tiny darting slivers of silver. “They’re called picayne. They nibble dead skin and dirt from you◦– Chalcedony’s own natural cleaning agent.”
“Well, I think I’ll have a little dip,” she laughed.
“But you haven’t brought a…”
But she was already stripping off. In seconds she was naked and dancing with high-steps into the lagoon. My heart thudding, I stared at her startling nakedness, her slim back, her perfect bottom.
Knee-deep in the water, she turned and smiled at me. “What’s wrong, David? You never seen a naked lady before? Take off your clothes and come in!”
She smiled and held out her arms.
— FIVE —
That weekend was a period of blissful happiness. A wonderful woman had miraculously fallen into my lap and I was surrounded by true friends; there was nothing to suggest that the halcyon days should not go on forever.
Hannah stayed over at the Mantis with me on the Saturday evening and we slept late on Sunday morning, slumbering in each others arms as the sun slanted in through the dorsal viewscreen. I was constantly on the verge of laughing out loud at my good fortune, and I could tell that Hannah was pretty damned happy too.
I cooked a late breakfast and we ate on the balcony overlooking the beach and watched the world go by.
Around noon we set off for Dortmund’s villa, Ocean Heights, stopping off at Hannah’s apartment in Mackinley so that she could change and pack an overnight bag.
As I drove from the town and into the hills, Hannah curled beside me and said, “I wonder why Dortmund’s throwing the party? It seems out of character. He’s been the personification of cold since we met him, and now he’s invited us to what looks like being a lavish do.”
I smiled at her. Wind whipped at her blonde hair, and her green eyes twinkled at me. “Maybe it’s to do with his ego,” I suggested. “He’s not bothered about us having a good time and enjoying ourselves◦– all the reasons you normally throw a party. He wants to put on a show to prove that he can do it, that he has the money and the wherewithal.”
She tapped my arm with a long finger. “Or maybe you’re too nice a person to divine his true motives?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, he’s invited us so that we’ll all be together when he performs some stunning and malicious party trick, proving himself right and the rest of us wrong…”
“You mean something regarding Matt’s exhibition?”
She shrugged. “It’s only a thought. Considering what I know of Dortmund, and judging by his behaviour so far, I don’t think we’re in for a particularly relaxing stay.”
“Well, we’ll soon find out,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road ahead and wondering if Hannah’s astute psychological insight would be proved correct by the time we made our way home on Monday morning.
Approached from the road, Ocean Heights seemed an even grander abode than when we had seen it from the falls yesterday. It was surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, as anachronistic as it was ugly, and patrolled by security guards. A dozen pitched terracotta roofs showed above the surrounding shola trees and fountains played prismatically over immaculately groomed lawns.
A surly-looking brute scanned our retinas with a handheld device, somehow elucidated we were on the guest list, and activated the swing gates. We drove into the grounds and left the car among a phalanx of other, grander vehicles.