“Good. We’ll see about Elena’s conference with Santoliquido in a little while. Come take exercise with me, now.”
“I’m a little tired, John. The flight from New York—”
“Come take exercise with me,” Roditis repeated. “If you kept in shape, you wouldn’t be worn out by a little thing like a flight from New York.”
They entered the house, passing through corridors lined with smooth white stucco walls, and descended to the cool basement where Roditis had installed a gymnasium. Quietly he adjusted the gravity control to a boost of ten percent. That was unfair to Noyes, but no matter; Roditis had little desire to waste his exercise session by imposing an insufficient challenge on himself. Usually he boosted the pull by twenty percent or more. When things went badly, he had sometimes worked under double grav, straining every fiber, pushing heart and lungs and muscles to their limits for the sake of extending those limits another notch.
Stripping, Roditis said, “Would you like to recite a mantra of exertion, Charles?”
“I’m not sure there is one. “Give us a pious phrase or two, at any rate. Then get out of your clothes.”
Noyes said, “When, by the power of evil karma, misery is being tasted, may the tutelary deities dissipate the misery. When the natural sound of Reality is reverberating like a thousand thunders, may they be transmuted into the sounds of the Six Syllables.”
Roditis belched. “Om mani padme hum. Excuse me.”
“It’s all nonsense to you, isn’t it, John?”
“Western Buddhism? Well, it has its place. I’ve studied the arts of right dying, you know. I mean to leave a well-prepared persona for my next carnate trip.”
“How will it feel, I wonder, being a passenger in someone else’s brain?”
Roditis stared levelly at Noyes. “I won’t be a passenger for long, Charles. You must realize that, of course. I play the game to win, all the time. If I can’t win trough to dybbuk, I don’t deserve rebirth.”
“I pity the man who picks your persona.”
“He’ll live comfortably enough. He just won’t be supreme in his own body, is all.” Roditis laughed boomingly. “All this is sixty, seventy years away, though. Right now we’re here for exercise, not speculation on my discorporate existence. Om mani padme hum. Wake up, Charles!”
Roditis activated the vertical trampolines. They were two flexible screens, mounted upright about fifteen feet apart and moving in a flagellatory oscillation on their mountings. He stepped between them and jumped diagonally against the left-hand screen, keeping his ankles pressed close together. The screen batted him away, and he pivoted neatly in midair, directing his feet at the other screen, striking it squarely, rebounding, pivoting again. For twenty cycles he let himself be shuttled back and forth between the screens, never once touching the floor despite the enhanced pull of gravity. Then he resisted the elasticity of the screens by tensing his body, and dropped lithely to his feet at his staffing point.
“Your turn,” he said to Noyes. “John, I—”
“Come on!”
Noyes looked dubious. He stepped between the pulsating screens and leaped. His feet touched the center of the webwork to his left, and the screen hurled him away, slamming him shoulder-first to the floor. He stood up, rubbing himself.
“Again,” said Roditis. “You’re growing fat, Charles. Sleekheaded, and you sleep o’nights. Let me have men about me with a lean and hungry look.”
Noyes leaped again, angrily. As he struck the screen, he flexed his knees, trying hard to achieve the correct propulsive effect that would send him arcing toward the opposite screen. But his feet came in contact with the screen a fraction of a second apart from one another, and he gathered no momentum. Instead he trickled to the floor, striking his cheekbone and the side of his lower lip. He was bruised and bleeding when he arose. “I’m sorry, John. I’m simply not in shape for this kind of thing, and by the time I get in shape it’ll probably kill me,” he said thinly.
“I’ll make it easier for you.” Roditis seized the gravity control and cranked it to half level. Beneath the floorboards there was a rumbling sound as the straining magnetodynamic field made the adjustment, and shortly Roditis felt the pressure lift.
“Try again,” he said. Noyes moved into position and jumped. In the suddenly lighter gravity, he hit the screen too high, but it made no difference; he was hurled across to the facing screen, landing belly first, bounced back, made another cycle, all the time floundering, kicking his long legs about, waving his arms desperately, like a giant Sancho Panza tossing on his blanket. Roditis watched for more than a minute as Noyes slammed back and forth through the air. Then, feeling irritated and amused all at once, he restored the gravity to normal plus ten, and Noyes dropped heavily to the floor. He was slow to get up this time. His face was reddened and his chest heaved.
“Enough of that,” said Roditis mercifully. “Should I call an ambulance, or will you try other exercise?” Noyes shrugged. Roditis picked up a medicine ball and gently tossed it to him, underarm. Noyes caught it and flipped it back, and for a few minutes they played catch, Roditis surreptitiously stepping up the force of his throws until the heavy ball traveled with considerable velocity. At last Noyes’ trembling fingers failed to hold it, and the ball rocketed into the pit of his stomach, rolling away while he gagged and retched. Roditis did not smile.
They played power-shuffleboard, which Noyes found more to his liking. They swam. They climbed ropes. Roditis took another turn on the trampolines. Then he relented, and they went upstairs to dress. Lunch followed.
Roditis was in a restless, surging mood. His business enterprises were going well; but the one thing that was of highest importance, the Paul Kaufmann project, seemed stalemated and stagnant. He wished he did not need to act through intermediaries in gaining Santoliquido’s favor. Especially intermediaries he did not even know, such as this woman Elena Volterra, famous for her beauty and for her promiscuity as well, an unlikely ambassador indeed. He had sent Noyes off to Dominica to make contact with Santoliquido; instead, Noyes had reached this Elena. Perhaps she would serve him well, after all, if Noyes’ tortuous reasoning had any merit to it. But Roditis itched to be handling the deal himself. The groundwork had been laid; now was the moment to fly to New York, corner Santoliquido in his den, and make full, formal, and final request for the transplant of the Kaufmann persona. Time was passing. It was unreasonable of Santoliquido to withhold his decision any longer, and Roditis did not know of any other qualified applicant. Possibly Mark Kaufmann had the capacity to handle the persona of his uncle, but Mark was barred by law and the old man’s direct wish from taking it. Which leaves only me, thought Roditis.
That afternoon he closed the power transaction with the Mexicans. His computer produced the final specifications for the transmission pylons; the Mexican computer produced the final estimates of allowable cost. There was brief negotiation between the computers, and by three o’clock the contract was ready for signing. Roditis affixed his thumbprint, the chairman of the Mexican Power Authority delivered an eloquent speech in confused English, and substantial quantities of tequila were served.
An hour later, Roditis was eighty thousand feet in the air, bound for New York.
The world had become a strange and infinitely complex place for Risa Kaufmann in the eight days since she had acquired the persona of Tandy Cushing. At a single stroke, her stock of life experiences had been more than doubled; her perceptions of human relationships had become more intense; her attitude toward herself, her father, and the world in general had grown more tolerant. The presence of the persona had provided her with a sense of parallax. She had two viewpoints from which to observe events, and that made a vast difference.