To Live Again

  “Is there any specific destination?” the robopilot asked.

  “Just keep going east till I tell you to go somewhere else.”

  Roditis closed his eyes. Instantly there came flooding into his mind the renewed presence of Paul Kaufmann. Just that tiny tantalizing taste of Kaufmann’s persona had been enough to leave Roditis unalterably convinced that the old man must be his. It was more than mere desire now. It was destiny.

  What if Santoliquido should rule against him?

  That was hard to imagine. Roditis knew of no one else who could handle the high-voltage mind of Paul Kaufmann. Of course, Santoliquido could take the coward’s way out, and simply leave Kaufmann in the storage vault, as he had hinted he might do, as he seemed to be doing with that mathematician, Schaffhausen. But Santoliquido was a man of honor. He could not expose himself that way to shame. He would have to allot Paul Kaufmann to someone.

  What if, at Mark’s prodding, Santoliquido found some innocuity and impressed the persona on him?

  Roditis smiled. Instantly a dybbuk would be created. His investigators would demand the penalty of the law. Erasure would be imposed. Kaufmann would go back into the soul bank, and Roditis could reapply.

  On the other hand, Roditis reflected, suppose Santoliquido discovered a person who was strong enough to cope with the Kaufmann persona?

  That would be awkward, but it could be handled. Roditis saw that in that event it would be necessary to arrange a discorporation. There would be an accidental death; Paul Kaufmann and his late host would both revert to the soul bank; Roditis could begin the quest anew. One way or another, he would obtain that persona. Having tasted it, he could not now relinquish his need.

  He opened his eyes. The small hopter was far out over the Atlantic now. Though spring had formally arrived, the water far below was gray and ominous. High waves surged like mobile mountains, rising and crashing. Through the audio Roditis picked up the sound of that baleful sea. He ordered the hopter to dip low, skimming no more than three hundred feet above the water. The vehicle was meant for short-haul transport, and it was unsafe to have come out here, alone, in such a fragile craft, but Roditis felt soothed by the dangers. The fusion pack below his seat could power the hopter all the way to Europe, if he chose.

  On the face of the water the dull tubular bulk of a whale appeared suddenly. Roditis studied the fleshy mass, observing the gray-white spout of water that flumed abruptly from the broad forehead. There was strength! There was power! The tail came up; the flukes lashed the waves. The whale sounded and was gone. A Paul Kaufmann of the seas, Roditis thought. A watery titan.

  “Return to New York,” he ordered the hopter.

  Stormy winds sped the craft landward. As he neared shore, Roditis put through a call to Noyes and found him, tense and knotted, in his apartment.

  “It was no good,” Roditis said. “Santoliquido still hesitates.”

  “But Elena said—”

  “Elena is a worthless slut. Santoliquido is terrified of Mark Kaufmann, and Mark still refuses to let me have the old man. We’re stuck. Santoliquido was willing to give me any persona in the place, except that one. Even a woman.”

  “You’re joking, John!”

  “I could have had Katerina Andrabovna. That’s how panicky he is.”

  Noyes bowed his head. He muttered, “I was sure it was all fixed up. Elena was positive too.”

  “Santoliquido promised to make a decision by May 15,” said Roditis. “He didn’t promise that the decision would be favorable to me. If it goes some other way—”

  “It won’t, John.”

  “If it does, there’ll be work for you to do. We can’t let that persona slip away. Do you know, Charles, he let me sample the old man! I saw into that mind. I would do anything to have it now. Anything.”

  “Perhaps I should talk to Elena again,” Noyes ventured.

  “It can do no harm. But probably little good, either.”

  “I’ll try. I’m in this as deep as you are, John. I’ve got a lot staked on success. I’ll speak to her and get her to put the screws on Santo all over again.”

  Roditis nodded. He made a dismissing gesture. The screen went blank.

  Behind him an ocean storm was rising. He felt the winds buffet his hopter, and ordered the craft upward to safer altitudes. It was late in the afternoon when he landed. He went at once to his nearest office, mind churning with half-conceived ideas. The storm broke in full impact, and, as he looked from his tower window, it seemed to him that he saw the gigantic and powerful figure of Paul Kaufmann raging in the dark sky.

  10

  “Where is Risa today?” Elena asked.

  “Chasing about Europe,” said Mark Kaufmann. “Doing some detective work on behalf of her persona. Last I heard of her, she was in Stockholm, but that was a few days ago.”

  “You don’t worry about her?”

  “She can look after herself. Besides, I have her under surveillance.”

  Elena laughed. “How typical of you! In one breath you tell me that she’s self-reliant, and that you’re having her watched anyway. You never leave anything to chance.”

  “I have only one daughter,” Kaufmann said quietly. “My dynastic urge won’t allow me to leave Risa’s welfare to chance.”

  “Would you have wanted a son?”

  He shrugged. “The name won’t die. Only my line of it. And I’ll be right there, watching the future unfold.” Kaufmann got easily to his feet. They were lying on the resilient tile beside his private swimming pool, a hundred feet beneath the Manhattan streets. Warm pinkish light filtered down. “Shall we swim?”

  “I’ll watch you from here,” said Elena languidly.

  Leaping into the pool, he swam three lengths in some sudden furious haste, then, more calmly, let himself drift back and forth across the width. The pool had been designed for Elena’s tastes. The water contained a fluorescing compound, so that his body left vivid streaks of gold and green as he sliced through it. Below, sparkling globes of captive living light glowed on the pool’s floor. The sides of the pool were studded along the waterline with silicaceous thermotectonic gems. The entire installation had run him into many thousands of dollars fissionable. Elena rarely used the pool her whims had created; she was content to be naked beside it, soaking up warmth from the battery of overhead lamps. Kaufmann disliked the decorative effects, but he humored her.

  He surfaced. His hand came up over the margin of the pool and seized her thigh, inches from her groin. He began to draw her to the water. Elena shrieked. Her buttocks bounced and skidded over the tile, and her free leg poked futilely at him.

  “Mark!”

  He tugged her in. She landed with a radiant fluorescing splash and came up sputtering and blinking, her ebony hair in disarray, her tanned skin shining. “Birbone,” she muttered. “Scelerato!”

  “Sticks and stones will break my bones.” He pulled her to him and kissed her, standing upright in the shallows of the pool. Her body resisted him stiffly for a moment, but only for a moment, and then she flowed against him, and her rigid nipples drew a tickling line across his chest. When he released her, she was pouting with what he knew to be mock rage. He watched the sparkling water stream from her skin as Elena hauled herself out of the pool and flounced to a vibrator to dry. She stood with her back to him, combing out her hair. His eyes followed the supple line of her spinal column downward from her long neck through the widening hips, the delightful dimples, the fleshy blossoming of her rump.

  “I’ll get even with you for that,” she told him. “I’ll make Santo give your uncle’s persona to an Arab.”

  “Better that than to Roditis,” Kaufmann said.

  Elena stared at him over her shoulder. “I almost believe you mean that. You’d have Paul saying prayers to Mecca before you’d let him into Roditis.”

  “Yes. Yes, I’m sure of that.”

  She finished at the vibrator and sprawled on the tile again, well out of reach of his grasping hand. He remained a
t the edge of the pool.

  She said, “Shall I do a three-dollar frood job on you, Mark? I’ll tell you why you hate Roditis so much.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s so much like you.”

  “What do you know about Roditis? Have you ever met the man?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I have,” Kaufmann said. “He’s a little thick coarse fellow with big muscles and no grace of soul. He’s a walking bank account. He dreams money day and night, and if he’s got any other interests they don’t show.”

  “He gave more than a million dollars to a lamasery in San Francisco a few weeks ago,” Elena pointed out. “The same one your uncle used to give so much to.”

  “And for the same reasons, too. You think Paul was a Buddhist? You think Roditis gives a damn about karma? He’s looking for publicity, and maybe he’d like the guru to lobby for him with Santoliquido. I’m surprised you’re taken in.”

  “And I’m surprised that you underestimate him so much,” said Elena. “He’s not quite the ugly dollar-chaser you say he is. One of his personae is the sonic sculptor Kozak. Roditis is a connoisseur of the arts. He collects rare books. Do you know, he’s got an entire building full of editions of Homer?”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I’ve been reading about him. I mean, he’ll be practically a member of the family soon, and so I thought I’d better—”

  Kaufmann was out of the water instantly. He rushed toward her, knowing that he must look absurd in his angry dripping nakedness. He dropped down beside Elena and shouted, “What’s that? A member of the family?”

  “After he gets your uncle’s persona.”

  “There’s no chance of that!”

  Elena smiled sweetly. She appeared to be enjoying his discomfiture. She placed one hand flat on the tile at either side of her, leaned back, inflated her lungs to give her breasts maximum display. Coolly she said, “I talked to Santo about it. Santo expects to award the persona to Roditis any day now.”

  “No,” Kaufmann said. “Impossible! I’ve talked to Santo also about this. He promised—”

  “What did he promise?”

  Kaufmann hesitated. “Well, perhaps not exactly a promise. But he indicated he didn’t want to see Paul go to Roditis, any more than I did.”

  “That was some time ago. Santo is discovering that there’s no other qualified recipient. Roditis is clamoring for the persona, and without a valid reason for denying it, Santo is going to have to give it to him. He’s holding back only because he’s searching for some way to break the news to you.”

  “No, no, no, no!”

  “Yes, Mark!” Elena’s face was strangely animated. “You’re jealous, aren’t you? Roditis is going to get him, and you want him yourself! You can’t bear to see anyone else have Paul Kaufmann persona.”

  “Stop it,” he said.

  “I offered you the three-dollar frooding. Take the ten-dollar job instead. It’s as I said: you and Roditis are practically alike. The same drives, the same hungers. You have ancestry and he doesn’t; that’s the only difference. He came out of the dirt and you were born to the Kaufmann billions. Now he’s going to grab himself a Kaufmann, and everything will be even. You can’t bear that thought.”

  Kaufmann slapped her across the face. She jumped back, the meaty mounds of her bare breasts leaping toward her chin. Trembling but not in tears, she glowered at him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said after an endless moment. “You pushed me too far.”

  “Was I wrong in what I said?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” He crouched on the tile and pressed his forehead against his knees. Looking up, he said, “How does it happen that you’ve been discussing all this with Santoliquido? And why are you suddenly so fascinated by Roditis?”

  “Strong men have always interested me, Mark. I shouldn’t need to tell you that. And I’ve neglected Roditis up till now. I should have paid more attention to him while he was on the way up. Now it’s clear to me that he’s the coming man.”

  “And so you’re preparing to make the hop from my bed to his,” Kaufmann said. “Eh?”

  “That’s an overstatement. But I mean to know him better. And I hope you’ll bring yourself to get over your hatred of him. The two of you, working together, could control the world. Particularly with your Uncle Paul guiding him.”

  “I should have Uncle Paul.”

  “But you can’t, Mark. So let him go to Roditis, and then make terms with them. Are you afraid you’ll be outnumbered? Aren’t you a match for Roditis and Paul together?”

  “No,” said Kaufmann. “No man ever born could be a match for those two in one mind.”

  “All the more reason for you to make peace,” Elena told him. “He’s going to get that persona, and if you haven’t come to terms with him, he’ll try to break you. Don’t be stubbornly proud, Mark. Don’t let anger get in the way of common sense. As of now you’re richer and stronger than Roditis, but not by much, and the balance is going to tip.”

  “You sound so sure of that, Elena. Exactly what did Santo tell you, anyway?”

  “You’ve heard it already. It’s inevitable that Roditis will get your uncle’s persona.”

  “I’ll block it.”

  “You can’t,” Elena said in exasperation.

  “I’ll speak to Santoliquido! I’ll—”

  “Santo’s been having a terrible enough time over this thing as it is, Mark. And you’re the cause of all his trouble. Let him alone! It’s not proper for you to interfere this way. He’s trying to look at things objectively, and here you are in the background, throwing your weight around as a Kaufmann, threatening, cajoling—”

  “I can’t let Roditis do this,” said Kaufmann stubbornly, feeling more and more like a blind, obstinate fool, but unable to let himself turn back from his chosen course.

  Elena yawned prettily. “I’m tired of this discussion. We’re at a dead end. You’re giving me a headache. Come swim with me.”

  “You don’t like to swim!”

  “What of it?” She sprinted past him, reached the rim of the pool, catapulted herself out into space. For an instant she seemed to hang there, for at her request Kaufmann had lowered the gravity of the room they were in, and he watched the heavy mounds of her breasts extend themselves into downward-pointing cones. Then she slipped sleekly into the water, leaving a bright streak that outlined her nudity in an appealingly sensuous way.

  He went diving after her. She eluded him for several moments as they crisscrossed the pool. At last he caught her, and she struggled playfully in his arms. He pulled her toward the shallow end of the pool. His lips descended into the hollow between her cheek and her shoulder.

  Panting, she slipped away and sprang from the pool. She went only a few paces, turning, going to her knees, then reclining to await him. Tense and uneasy, Kaufmann came after her. She drew him down against the soft cushion of her flesh, and he entered her quickly, fiercely, and together they shuddered out their ecstasies.

  He was calmer afterward. He lay beside her, caressing her, apologizing for his loss of temper, for his shouted words, for the slap.

  His busy mind prepared new plans.

  He had no reason to doubt Elena’s statements. He knew that she had been spending time with Santoliquido lately, both at the beach party at Dominica and in New York. It was no secret to him that she had seen the Scheffing administrator on several occasions. He had not objected, partly because he was not possessive toward Elena, and—he admitted to himself now—partly in the unconscious hope that Elena would influence Santoliquido in his favor. It appeared that Santoliquido inclined in the opposite direction. Kaufmann had sensed that, too, from the recent nervousness of Santoliquido in his presence. And he did have to concede that a rational, impartial verdict would award the disputed persona to Roditis.

  It was time to stop fighting the inevitable.

  There were other ways to keep abreast of Roditis’ ambitions. He had
tried subtle agitation, and it had failed. Now he would have to go beyond the law, or else he was lost.

  Risa spent three days in Monaco before she learned anything of the fate of Claude Villefranche’s persona. There were worse places to be hung up, she realized; but yet it was bothersome. Ancient traditions of secrecy interfered with her quest. She could not simply pick up a data line and demand the information she needed. She had to go through channels, and the channels were not always clear.

  In late April the weather here was mild, almost balmy, bringing an advance taste of summer. Purple bowers of bougainvillea blossomed on the ramparts of Monte Carlo. The sun was dazzling against the white towers of the tiny principality. She stood in the princely cactus gardens and looked out across the blue Mediterranean, and it seemed to her that she could see Africa slumbering in the hazy horizon. Risa had never been here before. Of course, Tandy had, many times, and she was Risa’s guide.

  Little had changed in Monaco since the grand days of the nineteenth century. The Hotel de Paris still dominated the waterfront, with the baroque magnificence of the Casino alongside. Pavilions of feathery palm trees swayed in every breeze. Here were dandies and belles cast forward into time, as though this were some pocket of the preserved past. Some of these buildings had been continuously inhabited for more than five hundred years.

  At the Hall of Records Risa learned quickly enough of Claude’s death, confirming the story Stig had told. On December 18 last, he had been caught in a tidal surge on the Great Barrier Reef and swept out into the open sea. His body had not been recovered. Meat for the sharks, no doubt.

  Who had received his persona?

  Nothing in the records about that. So far as the principality was concerned, the story of Claude Villefranche had ended on December 18 through accidental discorporation. If his persona had moved on by now to a new carnate existence, it mattered not at all, officially; carnates paid no taxes, did not vote, held no passports. In the United States it was possible to obtain details of a persona’s migration from body to body, but not here.

  “What will we do?” Risa asked Tandy.