Читать книгу Operation Isis - E. Hoffmann Price - Страница 10

Chapter 7

When Azadeh faced Garvin and Flora from the videophone screen, the women did most of the talking until he backed away from the transmission receptor to display the large color blowups, a few of which were thirty-four by forty-six centimeters, card mounted. At times he got in a few words, such as, “If you could only see this in 3-D, or better yet, the real thing.”

Azadeh, never forgetting that she still was Number Two Wife, maintained animated attention, offered intelligent comment when it was in order, and all the while remained amiably passive until Flora had made all her points. All, that is, except the one she had used at the very last to make Garvin the trained seal. Either she had forgotten, or she saw no great use in mentioning that Felix would benefit. Finally there came the pause that Azadeh recognized as invitation to comment on the entirety. Her career of making Sudzo internationally famous had left her accustomed to acquiescence. Flora’s business manager had never been able to make a meaningful comparison between Sudzo royalties and the payments made by manufacturers of duplicates of the panties laundered in the course of the show: Several contingents were quite evenly divided between pink, with forget-me-nots in an unforgettable area or blue with roses appropriately positioned.

“This leaves me quite off balance!” And Azadeh looked and sounded, for her, a bit fluttery, which left Garvin groping and a shade off balance. He recalled phoning from the Asteroid to tell her that the riffraff crew of the Saturnienne had caused so much trouble for the natives that he was about to destroy the cruiser and all records, to protect the people of that cozy little planetoid against the treasure-hungry rabble that would follow if the Saturnienne and her crew ever returned to Terra. Far from telling him that she had given birth to their son, Toghrul Bek, Azadeh agreed that he was quite right in thus protecting her kinfolk, regardless of his and her personal loss.

And then Garvin sensed that for Azadeh this was nothing that required iron in the soul, such as had the time when Flora, convinced that she was in fact not a space widow, had gone to Mars to confront Azadeh with more than a bluff:

“You were working in communications when the Saturnienne radioed from the Asteroid that she had landed for minor repairs. Rod gave a glowing account of the planetoid’s unusual density, which kept it from losing its atmosphere. And no more transmissions of the cruiser’s logbook. And gaps in the talks you had with the natives. You had to translate when Rod’s skimpy knowledge of the language failed.

“Then that tremendous flash that was reported by the Martian observatory as a nova. In the asteroid belt. And then the report was denied. They declared there never had been any such report. But I have some facts: The flash was a nuclear blast, and the spectrum indicated that the shell of the Saturnienne had been atomized.

“So there is a plan to cruise the asteroid belt and fire nuclear shells at high-density, high-albedo planetoids. A way to find the heavy ores, platinum-iridium, that make the extreme density. And your kinfolk will be destroyed. Along with members of the crew who weren’t caught in the explosion.

“So you’d better tell us what you have been holding out when you censored the reports you translated into English.”

Garvin recalled that long-ago pillow talk when, after six years, he and Azadeh were reunited in Maritania. And he had never forgotten her words: “Better have them decently destroyed by nuclear bombing than be invaded by North Americans. Your people, many of them, say, ‘Better red than dead.’ We say ‘Better dead than swamped by you barbarians.’”

No threat had made Azadeh waver.

But that sales talk?

“Now that you two are together again, and I can take off to see my cousins, and everyone’s homesickness is cured...”

The words were not iron, nor was the music of her voice.

“... and when you two have had a comfortable fill of France and North America, and I’ve learned that I’ve been craving something that never existed...”

Garvin was scraping bottom: Well, she’s not fumbling it the way I did... And that thought bounced to hit him between the eyes, as if he were a bumbling pelota player knocked out by his own ball: He had been hoping that Azadeh would pull him out of ensorcellment. Move over, Merlin, make room for a fellow horse’s arse....

Azadeh paused for a moment of beatific glowing. “We’ll decide whether to meet in Bayonne or in Maritania, Flora, darling, after each of us is fed up with what was craved so long. After my quickie wartime glimpse of Terra, a longer look might make me fall in love with the place and the people. So just let’s keep in touch, and it was sweet of you to call me.”

She cut the connection.

Simple as pouring bran out of a boot.

Genghis Khan became emperor of all mankind, but he could never have managed the twelve-girl whorehouse that made number thirty-four rue Lachepaillet, the finest street of Grande Bayonne, justly popular in song and story. And this thought started the sprouting of new wings for the Governor-General.

Garvin recalled that small-town girl who quit school at the sixth grade and within a couple of years became First Lady in charge of 124 female chocolate-dippers in a village candy factory. She retired forty years later, sane, sparkling, and in good health.

There are jobs that are not a man’s work.

When they came to the darling little Guiletta Veloce, Flora handed him the keys. “Skip the Devil’s Bridge and that restaurant. I’ve had it.”

Whether this was letdown after victory or falling apart after staking all that she had, leaving her helpless in the hands of destiny, was an open question but one that needed no answer. There were times, Garvin thought, when the right woman was more helpful than a division of armor. Two such women, however, could at times complicate matters slightly.

Back at the villa, Flora remained sufficiently herself to slip into the ultimate of sleeping gowns, but that garment did not offset her weariness. It could not keep her awake.

Garvin was good as new. Azadeh had transferred something across a gap of some 65 million kilometers. He looked at his watch. He counted on his fingers. Then, after a bit of mental arithmetic, he made for the library, where he seated himself at the escritoire. Even allowing for the time difference between Bayonne and “The City That Nobody Wanted,” the approaches to which Alexander I had defended to his death, it was a gruesome hour for a phone call.

Nevertheless, he put through a call to five-star General Dennis Kerwin, Emeritus Chairman of the Consortium of Warlords, the rulers of the Limited Democracy of North America. He was going to have a few things decided before the Flora-versus-Azadeh contest took total command.

Getting Kerwin out of bed before reveille would be good for the Warlord’s soul, and it would be a first for Garvin.

“What the hell’s on your feeble mind?” Kerwin grumbled. “Do you have to make it a night problem to tell me you are in Bayonne, shacking up with thirty three and one-third percent of your wives?”

“You’re off base! She is fifty percent of my wives. And I didn’t have to do it this way, but she does talk in her sleep, and this way I’ll not be interrupted. They have been debating whether I should retire in Maritania, where I can keep an eye on the Water and Air Synthesis Project—WASP, we call it—or retire in Bayonne.”

“You, retire? Goddammit, Rod, I’m still semiactive and doing as much as three of you young punks on supposedly active duty!”

“General, if you ever had two wives simultaneously and they started wistful wailing—”

“All right, all right! What is all this crap?”

Garvin explained.

“So,” Kerwin finally said. “Now you’re reduced to only two wives and you’re getting old and dependent! And to make it worse, you have a teenage son who uses a four-letter word when referring to women. Tell him to learn Arabic or Latin—also, that there is a three-letter word for it in French! Simpler is you just kick his goddamn prat till his nose bleeds, and then when you have got his attention—”

“When you get to the lecture on child psychology, give me a chance to tell you I am weary and worn out. I have not been sitting on my arse, swirling mint juleps and every so often telling an aide de camp, ‘Archie, take the son of a bitch away and have him shot, and don’t bother me with trivialities.’”

“Rod Garvin, I wish you had my job!”

“How about you taking my job and see how you like preparing Martian meadows to feed an overpopulated Earth that should have started mandatory and universal abortion four generations ago.”

Garvin was glad but not amazed when Kerwin finally said, “I’ve got to have some rest before breakfast and golf with—oh, hell, I can’t even think of his name, but he is important!”

“And I’m not waiting for either. I am hauling out before Flora wakes up and starts all over!”

“See me at my headquarters, and we’ll negotiate a few details. Unless you go wild with perks and allowances, it’s all yours, but there is one important proviso. There is a special task that no one but you can accomplish. Do not mention names.”

“I can just about guess what it is going to be.”

“Make it and write your own ticket.”

“One thing I’ll need. Got a pencil handy?”

“Have got. Well, my memory is tricky.”

“So is mine,” Garvin said, and gave him a code number. “Get that to Barstow, in the Mad Scientist Section, Biological Department. Maritania. Top-secret it, ship immediately. If no cruiser is scheduled for departure within three days, get one going, an express run.”

That did it.

“Over and out.”

Garvin wrote a few lines for Flora:

Darling, my life has been a series of leave-takings. My retirement is subject to my undertaking one task. Confidential but not hazardous. Should not require much over a year. Don’t pressure Azadeh. Make no promises. You and I have had another one of our Nights of Truth. Everything has been so clear for so long that I could not see it. And this time there will be no reason for not stopping in Bayonne.

Old custom had prevailed: One suitcase awaited, packed for immediate departure with handgun and other basic necessities. Whatever else he might need he would do without or get from the ship’s slop chest.

Garvin set out afoot. It was less than two kilometers to the city hall and the two rivers.

Bayonne remained an enchanted city, even though Flora’s siren voice was not with him to make it so. Perhaps after a couple of years of WASP he would feel like retiring, until Azadeh loathed Bayonne or elsewhere. And she might love that which had been prized ever since the first Roman legion made its palisaded camp not far from the spring of St. Leon and Parc des Sports. Presently, crossing Pont de Mayou, he paused to salute the statue of Cardinal Lavigerie on the redoubt. Once on the right bank of the Adour, he made it downstream to the docks until he came to the Semiramis, berthed and perhaps waiting for him to pay up the demurrage she had been accumulating.

He was greeted at the gangplank by the man on watch. “Monsieur, a long and hefty young fellow who paid for transportation to Savannah is aboard. He says he is your son. If this is a fraud, we’ll put him ashore.” Garvin then knew that his blundering methods paid off better than had Merlin’s wisdom. He fished one of those multicolored, hectare-size Banque de France notes of impressive denomination from his wallet and folded the man’s fingers about it. “Tell the skipper right away that I apologize for disturbing him at this gruesome hour. Tell him that if he shoves off as soon as reasonably possible, it would be as profitable to him as to me.

“While you are disturbing monsieur the skipper, let me talk to that young man immediately. If he is not who he claims to be, I’ll boot him over the side myself.

“If anyone, such as a hysterical woman or the police, comes with inquiries, please assure them that neither Monsieur d’Artois nor his son is aboard. His mother does not know that he is taking this cruise with me. Before we go down the river, she may realize that he is not at home where he should be. Such might make her emotional, irresponsible.”

“Monsieur d’Artois, remain tranquil.”

“I am, but she often is not.”

“That is understood. I, too, am married.”

“And something else: Chevigny et Cie, on rue Pont Neuf, I ordered three cases of cognac and four of Istavan Palugyay Tokaija.”

“The king of wines and the wine of kings! It is in your stateroom. To prevent accidental breakage, we did not put it in the hold.”

Garvin went to his stateroom. Hungarian wines varied, but Tokaija ruled a kingdom all its own. Among the rarities that had blessed Garvin’s shopping was at least one that Lani, the undercover Imperatrix of North America, might never have tasted.