“Good morning, Mr. Klein.”
Simon focussed his eyes and realized that he was in a bed of proportions almost as extravagant as those of the stage in his dream. It was a canopied four-poster bed with curtains all around. The curtains at its foot were being held apart by the gorgeous creature who had spoken. She could not have been much over twenty, her face was classic perfection, and her long hair was like faintly tarnished silver.
“Good morning, blessed damosel,” Simon murmured.
His poetic greeting was not entirely due to romanticism or his admittedly muddled head. His mind, clicking rapidly back into action like a computer centre after a power failure, was recollecting the circumstances that had brought him here. He wanted to stall the girl while he woke up more thoroughly and took stock of the situation.
“I hope that’s nice,” she said.
“What?”
“What you said: blasted...”
“Blessed?” Simon offered.
“Blessed dam... what?”
“Blessed damosel. It’s a kind of angel, you might say. I never was completely clear on it myself. She looked out from the gold bar of heaven, it says in the poem. They must have some pretty fancy pubs there.”
The girl allowed herself to smile as she opened the curtains on either side of the bed, flooding it with morning sunlight.
“That does sound nice,” she said.
She wore a sleeveless white top and skin-tight stretch pants of a kind of pink iridescent silken material. Her figure was positively baroque in its voluptuousness, and her swinging movements around the bed did a great deal towards lifting the Saint’s metabolism back to normal.
“I suppose it would be too much to guess I’ve gone to heaven?” he said. “Not that I haven’t earned it, but I never thought heaven could be so... tactile.”
He was feeling the silk sheets of his bed, but he was looking at the girl.
“You’re not dead, Mr. Klein,” she replied, “but in a sense you might say you’ve gone to heaven.”
Simon looked past her out the open window of his spacious room at the wide lawn and brilliantly flowering garden beyond.
“Looks more like Sussex than heaven,” he said. “I hate to be so unoriginal, but where am I?”
“You’ll hear all about that in a minute. I’m not suposed to discuss anything except your comfort and pleasure with you.”
The Saint nodded.
“You’re a specialist, then, I take it.”
She gave him a dazzling smile.
“I hope so. Are you comfortable?”
“Supremely.”
“Do your pyjamas fit?” she asked. “I had to guess the size.”
“A perfect guess, Miss...”
“You can call me Galaxy.”
“Galaxy? As in Milky Way?”
“Of course. Galaxy Rose. From your novel, remember? Volcano Seven.”
She turned towards the closed door on Simon’s left as he sat in bed.
“Wait,” he said. “I’d like to...”
“Oh, I’m not leaving you, Mr. Klein. I’m here to serve you... with anything you want.”
She opened the door and drew in a wheeled table laid with white linen, crystal, and silver serving dishes. There was a single rose in a slender vase. Simon, at the sight of the breakfast, discovered that his appetite had not been hurt in the least by whatever had happened during the night. He got out of bed, Galaxy helped him into a robe, and he took a seat at the table.
“Comfy?” she asked, pouring his coffee.
“Absolutely.”
“The London papers,” she said.
Simon put the newspapers aside and applied himself to the coffee.
“Very thoughtful, but I don’t think the news I’m interested in would be in the papers.”
“What news? If you’re thinking of your... ah... friend, or secretary, or whatever she is, she’s in the room next door. She’s still asleep, and she’s fine.”
“I’m glad to hear that. And secondly, then, I’d like to know whether you’ve kidnapped us or rescued us. In either case I can’t say I’m terribly unhappy at the moment, but it might affect my long-range view of things.”
Galaxy Rose was serving him honeydew melon in its nest of ice.
“I hope you like melon,” she said. “From now on you can order anything, but this time I had to do it for you.”
“That’s great, but back to my question...”
“You’re in a private house, in the country,” the girl said evasively.
“Whose private house?”
She looked at her watch.
“For that information, you’ll have to wait thirty seconds. I already told you I can’t answer those kind of questions. Would you like a bath or shower before you get dressed?”
“Shower. What happens in thirty seconds?”
“Look up there.”
She pointed to a wooden panel on the wall to the right, on the opposite side of the room from the door through which she had brought Simon’s breakfast.
“Fascinating,” he said.
“You’ll see,” she told him. “I’ll go see that everything’s ready for your shower when you’ve finished.”
She left through a door next to the wooden panel. The instant she was out of sight, Simon started to get to his feet, but at the same time an almost imperceptible buzzing sound called his attention back to the panel. It was sliding up, revealing a television screen that flickered with featureless light. Then the face of a man appeared. He was a plump man, and he looked absolutely delighted with himself and the world. He was staring directly at Simon, smiling broadly.
“Good morning, Mr. Klein, and welcome!” he boomed.
His countenance produced inevitable thoughts of Mr. Pickwick, the Wizard of Oz, and Father Christmas. At the same time, there was something small and piggish and strange about the opaque darkness of his eyes. He was also capable of producing recollections of such mad and unsavoury gentlemen as certain Roman emperors who were given to killing their friends and relatives in moments of pique, and whose delusions knew no bounds.
He licked his thick lips and went on: “Firstly, I must apologize for my rather forceful method of bringing you here, but when it became obvious that you were not going to cash my cheque, I had to force the issue.” He paused for effect. “Yes, Mr. Klein... I am Warlock.”
Judging from the intensity with which the man who called himself Warlock seemed to be looking at him, Simon decided that he actually could be seen. There was undoubtedly a television camera — probably more than one — scanning the room in which he was being served such a well-prepared breakfast. He went back to enjoying it, waving a piece of toast at Warlock’s image in cheerful salutation.
“No doubt you are wondering what this is all about,” the speaker continued. “I shall explain only briefly now, for we shall have ample opportunity to discuss details in the days to come.”
Warlock clasped his hands, took a happy sigh, and looked very much like a man about to distribute toys to a roomful of orphans... or like Caligula, with a laurel crown of thinning hair rimming his bald head, about to set in motion some monstrous battle between Christians and crocodiles.
“This is your imagination brought to reality,” he said, extending an upturned palm on either side. “I’ve long admired your books. They’ve given me more pleasure and stimulated more dreams than you would ever have believed if you had never come here. Yes, I am Warlock, and you are in the headquarters of S.W.O.R.D. Everything is exactly as you described it in your books. Not one detail is missing... though I must flatter myself in telling you that in transforming an author’s fantasies into reality, however thorough and brilliant the author may be — as you most certainly are, Mr. Klein — one nevertheless discovers that some details have been overlooked in the books and must be supplied by the practical man.”