An Evil Guest (30 page)

“I have questions,” Cassie said as the black hopper left the curb. “Do you have answers?”

“It depends,” Gideon told her. “Probably not. Try one and we’ll see.” He was watching the computer screen.

“Did you know the wolf would kill Scott?”

“Did he?”

“Yes. By which you mean you didn’t know he would?”

“I suppose. I admit it seemed probable.”

“If you had been sure he would, would you have tried to save him?”

Gideon glanced up. “That’s a hypothetical.”

“Would you?”

“By the time I learned the wolf had taken Scott—which was when you told me over dinner—he was almost certainly dead. Knowing that, and
feeling quite certain Bill Reis had set everything in motion, I would have done nothing unless you asked me to.”

“Does your computer still make tea?”

“Certainly. Tea, please, for the lady you served last night. Prepared in the same way, I suppose.”

Cassie nodded.

“More questions? Would you like the grid coordinates for Kololahi?”

“No. Here come some tough ones. You’re still working for the government?”

“For the president, in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Correct.”

“They want you to . . . ?”

“Arrange for them to capture my employer, Bill Reis, alive or persuade him to give himself up.” Cassie’s tea had emerged, and Gideon handed it to her.

“You’re trying to do that?”

He nodded. “Yes to both.”

“Arthur whatshisname just shot Norma like you’d spray a fly. Couldn’t they do that?”

“Probably, although I don’t know with any certainty. I’m reasonably sure they’ve never tried.”

“Why not?”

“Because they want to learn what he knows. When I spoke to the president, he simply wanted to know how Reis had penetrated some supposedly secure research facilities. Nothing was said about invisibility, and I don’t believe they knew about it then. They do now, because I’ve told them.”

“Are we going where we went up from last night?”

Gideon grinned. “Is that one of the tough questions? Yes. If you know of a better place, tell me and we’ll go there.”

“I just wondered. It seemed like it.” Cassie sipped tea. “I’m not really going to put on one of those bikinis, you know. I’m too fat.”

“You have a question you’re afraid to ask. How’s your tea?”

“Like the questions. Almost too hot. Are you really trying to get Wally caught?”

“That depends on what you mean by trying. Twenty! Ten! Stop!”

The black hopper halted for a traffic light.

“Suppose you’d wanted to stop faster?”

“I’d have said it louder and twice.”

“You’ve been driving with your right leg. You said—”

“I was wearing the wooden one. This is the modern prosthetic, metal and polymer, thought-controlled. I need to practice using it, too. That time I was thinking of something else, and talking was easier.”

“Can I ask what you were thinking of?”

“Certainly. What the question you’re afraid to ask is. Let me finish.” He touched the accelerator, and the black hopper glided smoothly through the intersection. “I’m not actively trying to get Bill Reis captured, because I don’t see a way to do it as things stand. He’s been out of the country pretty steadily, and by the time I learn he’s reentered, he’s gone again. I hope you’ll help me with that.”

Cassie said nothing.

“I’ve been trying to persuade him to give himself up, however, and trying to persuade the president to offer him better terms. I’m getting close there, or think I am.”

“What’s my next question?”

“What I’m doing for Reis. Pretty much the same thing. I keep him informed as well as I can about Washington and what the various agencies there are doing that bears on his operations. What the people who shot Norma are up to—when I know. What the CIA’s doing, and so on. The FBI feeds me a lot of that information because John and his friends don’t want their rivals to win.”

“But you’re spying on them, too.”

“Of course I am. Don’t think they don’t suspect it.”

They sailed through the last traffic light on green, and Cassie said, “I’ll be in the real South Pacific in just a few minutes? I can’t believe it.”

Gideon nodded. “I can do it, but I can’t make you believe it.” He hesitated. “I can’t make you go, either. Won’t. If you don’t want to go, just say so.”

“Wally will think you talked me out of it.”

Gideon shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“Then he’ll try to kill you. Since you’re working for him, it’ll be a snap. I want to go, Gid. Let’s not talk about that anymore.”

“I meant everything I said in my note.”

“I know you did.” Her lips brushed his cheek—and were gone. “A while back, you told me the president wanted to know how Wally disappears.”

He sighed. “Correct. It would be a grand tool for espionage, both international and domestic.”

“Doesn’t he care about the gold?”

“He certainly does. Even more than he cares about invisibility. He says he simply wants to stop Reis from making it, because he’s unbalancing the world market. The truth, I feel quite certain, is that he wants to make gold himself. He just won’t admit it.”

“None of this makes sense, Gid.” Cassie paused. “Did I just sound plaintive?”

“Very.”

“Good. I felt plaintive, so I thought I might. I have trouble with plaintive onstage, sometimes.”

“You’re the only one who’s noticed.”

“I’ll be a little bit better now if I can remember just how I did that.” Cassie sipped more tea. “What they really want from Wally is what he knows. Isn’t that right? They want to learn how he disappears and how he makes the gold.”

“Correct.”

“Well, why bother? If he found out how to do those things on that crazy planet—”

“Woldercan.”

“If he found out on Woldercan, why don’t they go there and find out like he did?”

They had turned onto the abandoned highway as she spoke. Now Gideon braked to a stop and turned in his seat to face her. “You thought of that for yourself.”

“Sure. Anybody would.”

“Believe me, that’s far from true.” He seemed about to smile. “This is one of the things I love about you. You’re not at all intellectual—we intellectuals are, for the most part, fools—but every so often you show the most marvelous penetration.”

“You mean I’m right?”

“Certainly you’re right. I’ve been trying to persuade the president to appoint me ambassador to Woldercan. With the authority of the office behind me, I could go there and learn those things just as Bill Reis did. He doesn’t want to remove the current ambassador. He wants me to go there as his special representative or something of the sort—wants me to make his win cheap and easy for him, in other words.”

“Will you?”

“No. Absolutely not.” Gideon grinned. “Want to hear the secret of my success? Not that you need to.”

“You bet I do!”

“It’s cheap and easy. Never set yourself up to fail. Never!” He turned back to the road, and the black hopper glided forward again. “Do you have any more questions, Cassie? We haven’t long.”

T
HE
air of Kololahi Aerodrome was warm and humid and stirred by a hundred breezes. They carried the salt tang of the sea, and soon had Cassie wondering what the airport at Springfield had smelled like. If it had smelled of anything but rain, she could not remember what it had been.

This smelled of salt waves and salt spray, and spoke of lazy mornings spent paging through fashion magazines under beach umbrellas.

She had brought three suitcases and a garment bag. After making sure that she had also brought money Gideon Chase found her a porter, a bronze-toned man somewhat larger than most refrigerators and somewhat smaller than most trucks. He crouched before her and kissed the ground at her feet, a mountain of rolling fat and bulging muscle; and by the time she had recovered from that, Gideon was gone and the black hopper rising into a cloudless sky. It shrunk to the size of a bird.

And vanished.

Seconds later, the faint boom of its vanishing reached her, and she was alone.

The porter rose. “Go hotel?”

Cassie nodded. “A good one, moderately priced, please.”

The porter shook his head. “You are high queen. High queen go Salamanca House.” He touched the name embroidered in red on his sleeveless white tunic. “Salamanca House most fine. I am Hiapo. I show you.” He hurried away and returned with a baggage cart on which was a folding chair.

At his insistence she accepted the chair on the cart. He stacked her suitcases behind her, draped her garment bag over one enormous arm, and pushed her slowly across the tarmac, down a narrow but well-paved road and along streets (in which tourists in shorts and big hats stared at her open-mouthed) to a sprawling and somewhat decayed white building of many spindly pillars and flourishing palms.

“Salamanca House!” he announced proudly.

Cassie thanked him and would have paid him, but he was already hurrying up a wide, white staircase with her bags.

She found him inside, speaking urgently to the girl at the desk in a language that was certainly not English. She tried to pay him again.

He backed away, managing to indicate by gestures and facial expressions that it was an honor to have served her, an honor that would be diminished were he to accept money for it.

“You are our queen,” the girl behind the registration desk whispered. This girl appeared to be about eighteen; she wore a hibiscus behind one ear and had huge brown eyes in a broad face of lighter brown. India Dempster would have looked small beside her.

Cassie cleared her throat. “I have no reservation, unless perhaps Dr. Gideon Chase made one for me? My name’s Cassie Casey.”

The girl smiled. “The royal suite has been prepared for you, O Queen.”

“I would imagine the royal suite is a bit more than I can afford.”

The girl looked shocked. “There is no charge for the royal suite, O Queen.”

“My bags—”

“Have preceded you. Hiapo took them, O Queen. I will show you to the royal suite. Will you require one maid or two?”

The elevator was a large and luxuriously furnished cage of gilded, over-wrought iron. It appeared to be at least two hundred years old.

“We have not yet a private elevator for the royal suite,” the immense girl whispered. “We proffer abject sorrys for that. This is ordered, but a ship have not arrived that carry him. Very soon.” She let down a dully shining gate of twining iron vines with a scarcely audible clang.

Cassie said that was quite all right.

“You are most kind, O Queen. This we are told, and so it is. True? I am manager. I am Naylay. What you wish, O Queen, I have for you.”

“Nelly?”

“Yes.” The girl smiled. “Naylay.” She patted her ample chest, found a name badge that appeared to designate her right breast, and displayed it:
Nele
. “Will our high queen require both maids now?”

S
HOPPING
was not so much easy as ridiculous. Cassie exchanged five hundred American dollars for a larger sum in Australian dollars. After which, she visited four shops in which whatever she liked was given to her without charge.

Now these gifts were spread on the enormous bed in what had proved to be the hotel’s penthouse: five flowered gowns of gauzy material, a gleaming white purse amply large enough to hold her little automatic with much else, and two pairs of white sandals with low but distinct heels. Three of her five new gowns had plunging necklines; all had full skirts.

She had particularly liked the pale yellow one with the foliage and red flowers. After showering and drenching herself with Lily Delight she put it on and posed before the pier glass in her new boudoir. She did not look like a queen, she decided. Most especially, she did not look like the queen of a nation whose children rivaled linemen in the National Football League.

But she looked quite nice.

She had never used much mascara, and did not use much now. A little face powder and a touch of New Rose Number Ten. Her hair, she decided, needed a good brushing. The hand bell summoned Ku’ulai, who brushed it thoroughly and reverently.

“How should I wear it, Ku’ulai? I want to get it up off my neck.”

“I show.” Ku’ulai began to rearrange.

“Will the high king come for me?”

“Who can say, O Queen?”

“Not me, obviously. Not so long ago—it seems like years now—Gideon Chase wanted to know if I had any more questions. I said no, not having asked a one that I should have asked. But he probably didn’t know, or he would have told me.” Cassie glanced at her watch. “It’s evening now, where I came from.”

Ku’ulai giggled.

“Very late, and winter’s coming on. Here it’s what? A little past lunch, I suppose. I should have asked them at the bank.”

“Like eat?”

“Much too much,” Cassie told her darkly.

T
HE
answers came slowly and from a variety of sources, but they came. The bank knew a little. The Office of Tourism probably knew a great deal more, but he (an elderly man who sat fanning himself slowly behind a desk piled with brochures) had difficulty understanding her questions, and she had even more understanding his answers. Nele was too polite to be particularly informative, and Ku’ulai was too provincial to understand why her high queen should inquire about things everyone knew. The tourists positively
scintillated with information, much of it contradictory; even worse, they overflowed with questions.

After three days, she felt moderately secure with the following:

• There were seven (or six or nine) inhabited islands in the Takanga Group.

• No one knew exactly how many uninhabited islands there were. Inhabitation depended upon the availability of fresh water.

• Kololahi was on Great Takanga, the largest island.

• Kololahi was the only city in the Takanga Group; it was a bit smaller than Alice Springs.

• There were innumerable villages on the inhabited islands. Each was ruled by a king—occasionally by a queen.

• The nation was ruled by its high king. All of the people had seen him. None of the tourists had seen him. All kings were sacred, the high king most sacred; he had been chosen by God. Or by the gods. Or by certain gods.