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“You want me to serve as a go-between, passing Roditis’ messages?” He colored. “You put it very bluntly.”

“We are on the island of truth, Charles. This is what you want from me, is it not? To push Roditis’ case with Mark?”

“Yes.”

“And perhaps even to talk to Santo?”

“Yes.”

“Is there anything else you want from me, Charles?” He could barely look at her. The carniphage flask throbbed against his breastbone. He felt bitterly ashamed that she would humiliate him before Kravchenko this way. But he had asked for it.

“There’s one more thing I want,” he said. “Name it.” He touched the warmth of her shoulder. “An hour with you in the bedchambers of the inner level.”

“Certainly,” she said, as though he had asked her to tell him the correct time.

They left the cocktail lounge and passed through a hail of gaudy nightmare fantasies, and crossed an arena in which the products of teratogenetic surgery performed a grotesque dance, and rose on a circular ladder leading beyond a pool of slippery cephalopods engaged in a stately ballet, and at length they came to one of the blocs of bedchambers that were scattered at frequent intervals through the galleries of Jubilisle. For fifty dollars he rented an hour’s use of a room.

Within, Elena activated a device that cast a kaleidoscopic pattern on the ceiling above the circular bed. Then she disrobed. Beneath the scaly gown she wore only an elastic strip around her hips, and another that bound her breasts, thrusting them upward and close to each other. His hundred-dollar bill was wedged in that deep cleft. She snapped the elastic strips; her massive breasts tumbled free, and the banknote fluttered to the floor. Ignoring it, she faced him, displaying her nudity for his inspection, and without a word arranged herself on the bed.

—Your big moment, Kravchenko told him. Furiously Noyes dug into the darkest corners of the persona to learn the secrets of unlocking Elena’s passion. The information was all there: the proper zones, the proper words, the timing. Kravchenko had most diligently done the research for him years ago.

Noyes joined Elena on the bed. Their bodies met. Their flesh touched and exchanged warmth.

He made the rewarding discovery that she was easily aroused and that she was satisfying in her frenzy. At the climactic moment she dug her heels into the backs of his legs and shivered in authentic ecstasy, but then, amid the stream of wordless syllables of joy that issued from her lips, it seemed to Noyes that he heard her saying, “Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim!”

Chapter 8

John Roditis listened with flickering patience to all that Noyes had to tell him. They sat at the edge of a wide veranda overlooking Roditis’ Arizona ranch; before them stretched an infinite acreage of harsh brown turf, tufted here and there by grayish-purple islands of sage. Roditis had been in Arizona all week, supervising the preliminary negotiations for a power project encompassing the region south of Tucson and well over the Mexican border. He had had Noyes fly to him that morning, four days after Noyes’ interlude with Elena Volterra.

Noyes said, “Elena will speak to Santoliquido on your behalf. Probably she’s spoken to him already.”

“Is she his mistress?”

“She’s everybody’s mistress, sooner or later. Mainly she lives with Mark Kaufmann. But she spends time with Santoliquido too. She’s quite intimate with him.”

Roditis knotted his thick fingers together and peered past Noyes into the cloudless, harsh blue sky. “Is Kaufmann aware that Santoliquido is trifling with his woman?”

“I imagine so,” Noyes said. “Neither of them bothered to conceal it much. And Mark’s no fool.”

“Has it occurred to you, then, that Kaufmann has deliberately winked at that relationship-so that by lending Santoliquido Elena, he can influence the destination of his uncle’s persona?”

“You mean, making Elena the price for Santoliquido’s cooperation in keeping Paul Kaufmann out of your clutches, John?”

“Something like that” Noyes took a deep breath. “I’ve considered it, yes. But I don’t think it’s the case. What’s going on between Elena and Santoliquido isn’t happening at Mark’s instigation, any more than Mark had anything to do with what took place between Elena and me. And I believe that Elena will serve your interests in dealing with Santoliquido.”

“Why should she?”

“Because I asked her to.”

“How much money did she want?”

“Elena’s not interested in money,” said Noyes. “At least, not in any realistic sense. She’s got all she needs, and any time she wants more she can get it from Kaufmann just for the asking. What fascinates her is power. She likes to be close to strong men. She likes to be at the core of intrigue.”

“She’s not unique in that,” Roditis remarked. “Elena wants to meet you, John. I suspect that she wants to become your mistress. And she knows that the best way to make an impression on you is to help you get the one thing in the universe you most want and can’t obtain by yourself, which is Paul Kaufmann’s persona. So she’ll use her influence with Santoliquido to get it for you, and then she’ll try to cash in by throwing herself into your bed.”

“It would infuriate Mark Kaufmann if I took away both his woman and his uncle, wouldn’t it?” Roditis said quietly.

“It would madden him.”

“I’m not sure I want to madden him that much,” Roditis said thoughtfully.

“You want the persona, don’t you?”

“Of course.”

“Elena will help you gain it. What happens after that between the two of you is entirely up to you.”

“Why are you so confident that Elena will cooperate?”

“I’ve explained,” Noyes said. Rising, he stepped off the veranda and scuffed at the desert sand beyond its margin. “There’s another reason that I haven’t mentioned yet.”

“Go on.”

“Elena knew Jim Kravchenko very well. They were lovers in Italy five or six years ago.”

“Yes,” Roditis said. “So?”

“Elena was very fond of Kravchenko. She wants to please him, now that she’s found him again inside me. She believes that by helping me win status with you, she’ll be doing her old friend Kravchenko a good turn.”

“That’s an intricate line of reasoning, Charles. Kravchenko’s dead. If she’s reaching through you to him, she can’t have a very high opinion of you.”

“She doesn’t. She hates me. And this is how she shows it.” Roditis spat. “There are times when I wonder why I work so hard to get involved with you society people. You’re nothing but beasts, really. You disembowel one another like ballet dancers with tusks, and you find the most complicated possible reasons for doing what you do.”

“Inbreeding, perhaps,” Noyes suggested. “Yes, that. And more. Mere money doesn’t interest you; your great-grandfathers have made enough for the whole tribe. Mere status is of no importance; you had that before you were old enough to be housebroken. You inherit power and rank. So you turn your lives into a kind of Byzantine intrigue to keep from going crazy with boredom. Rebirth makes it all the more interesting. You can switch back and forth across the generations, opening old wounds, keeping ancient feuds alive, scarring each other, using sex like a dagger.” Roditis’ eyes glittered. “Let me tell you something, Charles. I’m a real Byzantine. I don’t practice intrigue for intrigue’s own sake. I’m looking to put it to practical ends. And so while the whole bunch of you go on backstabbing and clawing, I’m going to move right in and take everything over. Just the way my ancestors moved in and took over Rome. By and by, the language of the Roman Empire was Greek, remember? That’s how a Byzantine works. Watch me.”

“I’ve never stopped watching you, John.”