But he knew that no society in history had ever had a man such as Elson deBloise at its helm. Where others had failed, he could succeed.
A few years ago such thoughts would have been idle fantasies, but now the actual means to achieve them was in his grasp. It was all so exhilarating, almost intoxicating, that even the prospect of today’s departure for his homeworld couldn’t take the edge off his mood. He checked the chronometer on the wall: he had another hour to kill before his orbital shuttle left the spaceport.
He flagged the bored bartender and indicated his need for a refill. The man dutifully complied and then returned to the far end of the bar. He had tried in the past to strike up a friendly conversation with deBloise – the Sentinel Club paid him well to add the human touch to bar service – but had been ignored each time. So now he kept his distance from Mr. deBloise. And deBloise in turn studied his fingernails as the glass was filled; if he’d been interested in socializing with the likes of the bartender, he would have had his drinks out at the spaceport bar.
He didn’t need the extra drink – he’d already had two before leaving Anni’s – but decided to have it anyway. The next few days would be spent aboard a Federation liner. The passenger list would contain the names of many elite and no doubt interesting people, some of whom would surely be from his homeworld. And thus he’d be duty bound to play his role of Elson deBloise, sector representative and leader of the Restructurist movement, to the hilt.
The role became trying after a while. That’s when he would miss Anni. She was an excellent mistress, socially and sexually skilled, he could let down his guard with her. Yes, he’d miss her the most. Not sexually, however. With the final stages of the Haas plan fast approaching, he’d found himself unable to perform without the use of drugs. The plan dominated his thoughts every hour of the day, sapping his strength and sorely trying his patience.
He smiled again, wondering what the reaction would be if it became generally known that he kept a mistress on Fed Central. A respected sector representative… and a family man, too! It was a common practice in the Assembly and no one paid it too much mind in the cosmopolitan atmosphere here. But it would be difficult for those provincial clods at home to swallow; they were all firm believers in faithful monogamy, or at least pretended to be.
If it came out, someone would no doubt try to score some political points with it on the local level, and his home life would be disrupted for a while; he’d deny it all, of course, and before too long it would all be forgotten. Voters have always had short memories.
No, there wasn’t much he could do short of a violent crime or a public obscenity that would significantly erode his support among the yokels back home. He had led the sector into the Restructurist fold with promises of economic rebirth; they expected him to deliver on those promises… someday. Until then, he was the local boy who’d made good and they would follow him anywhere.
But there were always dues to pay. His wife and children remained at home; he wanted it that way. There was, after all, the children’s education to think of – it wouldn’t do to have them hopping back and forth between worlds – and besides, his wife would help to keep his presence felt on the homeworld when he was off on Federation business. Still, he had to return on a regular basis. The yokels expected it. He had to be seen among them, had to appear at certain local functions, had to play ombudsman for the sector.
And it was all such a bore, really, listening to their petty complaints and trivial problems when there were so very many much more important things that required his attention… like the Haas plan. But, noblesse oblige.
There was another reason he disliked going home: a little man named Cando Proska. By the Core, how that monster of a human being frightened him! And as sure as Fed Central circled its primary, he’d be calling at the deBloise office with a new demand. But enough of that! Such thoughts were disturbing.
Another glance at the chronometer showed that it was time to go. He pulled a rectangular disk from his pocket, tapped in a code, and his secretary’s face appeared. After telling her to send a flitter to the Sentinel Club to take him to the spaceport, he was about to blank the screen when he noticed that she seemed to be disturbed.
“Something wrong, Jenna?” he asked.
She shrugged. “One of the girls on the second floor came down with the horrors at lunch.”
DeBloise muttered his condolences and faded her out. The horrors – he’d almost forgotten about that. The plague of random insanity that had started before he was born and continued to this day was something that everyone in Occupied Space had learned to live with, but it was something that was rarely forgotten. New cases popped up daily on every planet. Yet the Haas plan had pushed it almost entirely from his mind.
He rose to his feet and quickly downed the rest of the wine. The juxtaposition of Haas and the horrors in his thoughts was unsettling. What if Haas got hit by the horrors? The whole plan would have to be scuttled. Worse yet: what if he himself were struck down?
He didn’t dare think about that too much, especially since The Healer, the only man thus far able to do anything about the horrors, had seemingly vanished a few years ago. And as each succeeding year passed, deBloise became more firmly convinced that he had been responsible for precipitating The Healer’s disappearance.
It had happened on Tolive. DeBloise had traveled all the way to IMC headquarters to talk to the man, to convince him gently to see things in a light more favorable to Restructurism, and had wound up threatening him. The Healer had only smiled – an icy smile that deBloise remembered vividly to this day – and departed. No one had seen or heard from him since. He was probably dead, but there was still this nagging suspicion.
A light flashed above the bar, indicating that someone had a flitter waiting, and deBloise hurried to the roof as if to escape thoughts of the horrors and enigmatic men who could not be bullied or cajoled into line. Thank the Core there weren’t too many of those around.
As he took his seat, the flitter driver handed him a coded message disk. He tapped in a combination that only he and a few of his closest associates knew, and five lines of print began to glow on the black surface. The words would remain lit for fifteen seconds, then would be automatically and permanently erased. There could be no recall.
The lines read:
Haas had two visitors today.
Young female named Josephine Finch.
Older man unidentified as yet.
Both from IBA. Any instructions?
There had obviously been a leak, but that was not what occupied deBloise’s mind at that moment. It was the name Finch. It seemed to mean something to him… and then it came, rushing out of the past.
Of course. Finch. How could he have forgotten?
An uneasy feeling settled over him and he couldn’t shake it off.
Finch.
There couldn’t be any connection, could there?
Of course not. Just a coincidence. Just an awful coincidence.
Easly
EASLY RAN THE FINGERS of his right hand up and down the middle of Jo’s bare back and wondered idly how she continued to have such a disconcerting effect on him.
Not when they were out in public, of course. Then everything was always cool and professional. They both had their roles and played them well – lived them well. She was mistress of a respected business advisory firm; he was master of an information-gathering service. They’d meet now and then for a game or two of pokochess and, if time permitted, perhaps a light meal afterward. They were two self-sufficient and self-reliant individuals who enjoyed each other’s company on occasion, but otherwise led separate personal lives. That was in public. And he could handle that easily enough.
But when they were alone, especially like this – in bed, skin to skin, tangled limbs and breathless afterglow, communicating in the tiniest whispers, barely moving their lips and eyes – at times like these he found himself bewildered at the emotional bond that had grown between them. He’d nev
er known a woman like Jo.
And he’d never expected to become emotionally involved with a client. But, then, virtually all of his clients had been male until Jo.
Until Jo. So many things these days seemed to start and end with that phrase.
It seemed like only just the other day that he’d received her message requesting a meeting about a possible assignment. He had hesitated then at the thought of taking her on as a client. He had never dealt with a woman on those terms, and if her last name had been anything other than Finch, he might well have turned her down.
He was glad he hadn’t, for he’d found her delightful. Expecting a staid, middle-aged matron, he discovered instead a bright, vivacious creature who could sparkle with the best of them and yet had a laser-quick mind, strong opinions, and unquestionable integrity. Before long he found himself looking forward to their meetings, not just for the intriguing assignments that often developed, but for the stimulus he derived from her company. He would search for ways to increase the frequency of their meetings, and to prolong them once they were together.
Eventually, they met for other than business reasons and quickly graduated to the sexual intimacy of lovers. Here, again, Jo surprised him. For one so cool and seemingly detached across a pokochess board or a dinner table, she exhibited a passion and a lack of inhibition between the sheets that to this day continued to leave him gasping.
An enigma, this woman. Easly couldn’t decide whether she was a core of steel with a woman’s exterior, or a vulnerable little girl hiding behind a metallic patina. Sometimes she seemed one, sometimes the other. He was forever off balance, but delightfully so.
One thing was certain: this woman was a friend. She was a companion; she complemented him, rounded him off, made him feel somehow more complete when he was with her than when he was not. Especially at a time like this when they had each other totally to themselves.
She was a friend, and he wasn’t used to having friends who were women. Until Jo.
He had told Jo that once, and she’d haughtily called him a typical product of the outworlds. On the surface, he resented being called typically anything, but inwardly he was forced to admit she was right. His view of women had been typically and rigidly stereotyped: they were frail, lovable creatures, good for homekeeping and bedwarming, requiring affection, protection, and occasionally a good swift kick; their capacity for original thought and practical behavior in the outside world was strictly limited.
He’d never verbalized these concepts, of course; he owed himself credit for that. But he also had to admit to being surprised whenever a woman exhibited prowess in any field of endeavor outside the home, thus eminently qualifying him for the title, “Typical Product of the Outworlds.”
Until Jo.
In the past his relationships with women had been fleeting and superficial. Intentionally so. Women were for huddling with, for satisfying mutually urgent physical needs, but not for spending serious time with. There were more important, more intriguing, more demanding things calling him.
Until Jo.
Easly knew he would never be the center of her life; nor she the center of his, for that matter. They each had “the business” as the major recipient of his or her attentions. It was a subject that had never come up in discussion and probably never would. It was understood. Neither of them was the type of person who lived for other people.
Yet they were close – as close as each could be to another person. But despite that emotional proximity, Easly was aware that there was an important part of Jo closed off to him. Somewhere within her psyche he sensed a hot, high-pressure core of… what? Something raging and ravenous there, locked away from the world and, perhaps, even from Jo herself. There were times in the too few nights they could spend together when he’d awaken and find her rigid beside him. She’d be asleep, her eyes closed, but her teeth would be clenched, her hands would be squeezing his arm, and every muscle in her body would be straining as if against some invisible force. Then she would suddenly relax and a thin film of cool perspiration would sheen her skin.
“What’s your secret?” he whispered to her.
“Mmmh?” Jo lifted her head and opened her eyes.
He shook her playfully. “What dark mystery is enshrouded within you? C’mon… tell me!”
She rolled onto her back and threw her right forearm across her eyes. She was naked, quite unselfconsciously so.
“Sacre bleu! Tu es fou!” she moaned, lapsing into Old French, the second language of Ragna. After a moment or two of silence, she uncovered her eyes and rose up on one elbow. “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”
Easly nodded, holding her eyes with his.
“Some nerve!” she snapped. “You’ve never even told me what planet you were born on, and don’t tell me Ragna ’cause I know you weren’t born here.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“You don’t speak French.”
“Maybe I just pretend I don’t.”
“Maybe you pretend a lot of things, Larry. Maybe that isn’t really your name. But before you try your deductive powers on me, better do a little talking about yourself!”
Sitting up, Easly leaned his shoulders against the headboard and reached for a cigar. He favored the dry-cured type, toasted crisp in the ancient Dutch method. He picked a torpedo shape out of a recess in the wall behind him, squeezed the tip to ignite it, and was soon puffing away. Regarding the white ash, he said, “Nice aroma. Reminds me of a story. Want to hear it?”
“I’m ready to settle for anything by now,” Jo replied sharply. “Stop fooling with that foul-smelling roll of dried leaves and start talking.”
“Soon as I get comfortable.” He drew his legs into the lotus position and leaned back, puffing leisurely. “Can’t do this in that float bed of yours,” he remarked. Easly used to have a deluxe, anti-gravity float bed with laminar air flow and all the other accessories. But he’d found himself waking every morning with a stiff back.
“Okay. Where shall I begin? How about the name of the planet on which the story takes place?”
“Good start!” came the sarcastic reply.
“The planet is Knorr and the story concerns a love triangle of sorts. The woman’s name was Marcy Blake and the man’s was Edwin – Eddy – Jackson – typical names for Knorr since most of the original colonists there were of English extraction. Marcy was young, beautiful, and had inherited a personal fortune of a couple of million Knorran pounds. She was unattached, too; which might seem strange, considering her appearance and wealth. But anyone who knew her personally did not think it strange at all: besides being of borderline intelligence, Marcy’s personality was totally obnoxious. She was an incredibly boring woman whose voice and manner always managed to set people’s teeth on edge.
“Eddy Jackson was as handsome as Marcy was beautiful, as crafty as she was stupid, and as poor as she was rich.”
Jo interrupted: “And so he decided to marry her, have her killed, and inherit her fortune. What else is new?”
“Just have a little patience, my dear. You’re jumping way ahead of me.
Eddy toyed with the idea of marrying her but never quite had the courage to take the plunge – which will give you an idea of what Marcy’s personality was like. He did keep company with her now and then, however, just to keep his options open. And he noticed that she made a few visits to the neurosurgical center in Knorr’s capital city. A little bribe here, a little bribe there, and he learned that Marcy had a unique, idiopathic degenerative disease of the central nervous system. The prognosis was death in two years or so.
“Then he decided to marry her, especially since Knorr’s common law provided certain advantages in the area of survivor’s rights. Eddy figured he could put up with anything for two years, after which he would be a bereaved but wealthy widower.
“So he figured. But marriage seemed to have a beneficial effect on Marcy’s condition. Two years passed. Then three. By the time their fifth anniversary rolled aro
und, Eddy was near the breaking point. Marcy had controlled the purse strings for those five years, keeping Eddy on a strict allowance, and talking, talking, talking. He finally confronted her physicians, who informed him that the disease seemed to have undergone a spontaneous remission. If her progress continued at its current rate, she would probably have a normal lifespan.”
“That’s when he decided to kill her,” Jo stated confidently, but Easly shook his head.
“No. That’s when he decided to leave her, money or not. He took what money he had saved out of his allowance and traveled to the city to see what kind of luck he’d have in the casinos. He was sure he could parley his winnings into a good-sized stake, and then he’d say good-by to Marcy.
“Naturally, he lost every cent and had to return home in disgrace. And then, a miracle – or what seemed like one. Eddy entered the house and noted the faintest aroma of cigar smoke; it was particularly strong in the bedroom. Cigar smoke! Neither he nor Marcy smoked at all, and few of their friends did since tobacco wasn’t plentiful on Knorr. He asked Marcy if anyone had stopped by over the weekend and she very innocently said no… too innocently, he thought.
“Eddy was flabbergasted. Incredible as it seemed, Marcy was cheating on him! Infidelity, as I’m sure you know, is the rule rather than the exception on the Sol system planets. But on outworlds like Knorr, it remains scandalous. Not that he cared – it was just a question of whom. The why of it was conceivable: she was undeniably attractive and, he supposed, bearable in small doses.
“He decided to learn the identity of her lover and even went so far as to tip a rookie flitter-patrol cop to watch the house and see who came and went when Eddy wasn’t there. He planned to threaten Marcy with exposure and disgrace once he had his proof, and allow her to buy his silence with a nice chunk of her fortune.
“But the patrolman reported nothing: no visitors to the Jackson home. Eddy’s allowance wouldn’t cover the expense of a detective, so he resigned himself to the unhappy conclusion that Marcy’s affair must have been a one-time thing – after a single intimate meeting, Marcy’s lover had probably come to know her well enough to know that he didn’t want to know her any more.”