Lutt gave her a pecking kiss on the cheek and, carrying his untasted drink, went back up the stairs. Where would L.H. be? In his study, most likely.
He found the study door slightly ajar and pushed it quietly. L.H.’s high-backed chair was turned away from the door, the top of his head visible above the back. The old man’s prosthetic eyes lay on the desk behind him.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Lutt said.
There was no response.
Lutt put his drink on the desk and went around it to look down at L.H. The senior Hanson sat leaning back into a corner of the chair with his eyes closed.
Lutt, he is not breathing, Ryll intruded.
Lutt put a hand to L.H.’s cheek. The skin was cold. He lifted an eyelid and saw emptiness there.
So this is how it happens, Lutt thought. He found a chair and sat in it facing the body. L.H. looked more peaceful than Lutt had ever before seen him.
“We never did have that real man-to-man talk,” Lutt said. He glanced around the room, seeing the eclectic collection of L.H.’s memorabilia.
Lutt stared at a dented red and white hard hat hanging on the wall beyond the body. “I always thought this room suited you better than that damned office in the MX complex. Remember how you used to let me play with that hard hat from your days as a space docker?”
Lutt, he is dead, Ryll objected. He cannot hear you.
You don’t know that.
This is macabre!
So leave me alone! He was my father for better or worse.
I do believe you’re actually feeling grief.
Maybe I am.
Lutt’s attention went to the prosthetic eyes on the desk and he slowly became aware that they were weighting a sheet of paper with something written on it. He leaned over and captured the paper, reading in his father’s familiar scrawl:
“I know this is the end, Lutt, and I hope you get this. It’s all yours now. I can’t—” Whatever his father could not do was lost in a trailing line of ink.
“So it’s all mine, is it?”
Lutt stared at the paper, feeling the upswelling of blind rage. “You think that’s a big joke, don’t you, Father?”
He glared at the peaceful face. “You’re laughing! I know you are!”
Lutt waved the piece of paper. “Okay, but I’ll have the last laugh! With this in my hand, I’m going to rule the roost! You see if I don’t!”
“Lutt! Please don’t raise your voice that way. We can hear you all the way down to the party.”
It was Phoenicia standing in the open doorway.
Lutt folded the paper containing his father’s last words and put it in his breast pocket. He felt icy calm.
“He’s really done it this time, Mother. He’s really done it.”
She tried to grab his arm as he brushed past her but he shook himself free.
“Where are you going?” she demanded.
“To my house where I can get out of this monkey suit and then to his office. That’s where I’m supposed to go now.”
***
You have all seen these old John Wayne movies and I want you to use them as a pattern. Each of you must be strong and silent in your Legion guise. Silence will protect you. Strength will make you feared.
—Jongleur’s instructions to his Dreen volunteers
Nishi heard Lutt come slamming into the house and she retreated to her room where she locked the door, clutching the key in one sweaty hand. A window beside her showed lights still bright at the main house and an odd underwater glow from the lake directly in front of it.
The noises of Lutt moving around the house had a savage sound, doors slamming, shouts for Mrs. Ebey, curses. She heard him pounding up the stairs finally and the doorknob turned. A fist slammed against the door.
“Nishi!”
She forced herself to speak calmly. “What is it, Lutt?”
“Open this door!”
“I will not do that, Lutt.”
“Come on, Ni-Ni! My old man’s just died and I need to talk to you.”
“Your father is dead?”
“It just happened. Come on, Ni-Ni! We have to talk.”
“I am very sorry about your father, Lutt, but we can talk through the door.”
“Open the door or I’ll get Mrs. Ebey to do it.”
“I have the only key, Lutt.”
The door rattled and there was quiet for a moment, then: “This is stupid, Ni-Ni! Open the door.”
“I will not do that, Lutt.”
“If you don’t, I’m going to eat some basil and put Ryll out of action!”
“That may be difficult for you to do, Lutt.”
“Just open the damn door!”
She remained silent, staring at the dark panel. Would it withstand him, as Mrs. Ebey said, if he tried to break it down?
“I just want to talk to you.”
“Are we not talking, Lutt? What is it you wish to say?”
“I need you, Ni-Ni.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“This is a helluva way to show you love me. Didn’t you hear me say my father just died?”
“I grieve with you, Lutt, but I will not open this door.”
“I’ve got to go to his office.”
“Was that what you wished to tell me?”
“No, dammit! You’ve got me all confused. I love you and now my mother’s trying to marry me off to a society idiot!”
“But your mother and I have an agreement. She says she will approve of me.”
“That’s typical! Well, she’s just been pushing this Eola VanDyke on me.”
“What’s an Eola VanDyke?”
“That’s the mindless twit she wants me to marry!”
“Are we not engaged to marry, Lutt?”
“Sure we are. Now, open the door.”
“You may enter my bedroom only when we are married.”
“Damn you, Ni-Ni! Open this door or you’ll be sorry!”
“Good night, Lutt. I will say a novena for your father.”
“Say your damn novena! And I hope it satisfies you!”
She heard him slamming down the stairs. The outer door banged but she did not unlock her door.
A stair tread squeaked. Lutt returning? Something scratched at her door. “You all right, honey?”
It was Mrs. Ebey.
“I am well, Mrs. Ebey.”
“Did I hear him say the old man’s dead?”
“That is what he said.”
“Whatta ya know? I’m rich!”
“Mrs. Ebey? What is this you say?”
“I’m in his will, honey! A few months in his bed and now I’m rich.”
There was the sound of Mrs. Ebey clattering down the stairs.
Nishi went to the window and stared at the lights in the main house. There no longer was the underwater glow from the lake but the house was even more brilliantly illuminated and she could see movement at windows.
What an extraordinary family, she thought.
***
Buy one hundred pounds of dried basil. Break it into one-pound packages. Put five of them in my office. Send five more to my shop with orders that Sam hold them. Put a package in each of our limos and send the balance to my house.
—Lutt Hanson, Jr., VODG memo to Enquirer comptroller
This may be my one chance for a heroic gesture, Luhan thought. He had smarted for years under Mugly’s control, aware the elder Dreen held him in low esteem, knowing he would never attain a position in the Elites because of his deformity, the extruded arm that refused to shape itself to Dreen normality.
But Luhan’s Earther guise displayed no deformities. Clad in jungle camouflage, he crouched with five similarly garbed Dreen companions beside a woodland road near Seattle, waiting for the darkness that would come in about an hour.
Exotic smells of the place assailed his nostrils—wet duff from a recent rain, pine needles, Earther-modified excitement hormones from his companions.
The road beside
them led down into a shallow swale, over a forested ridge and along the rear fence of the Hanson compound.
Luhan’s orders were deceptively simple: “Get your team in there and capture Hanson himself. At all times, remember you are dealing with a merged Dreen-Earther.”
A disgusting idea! Luhan thought.
In accordance with Jongleur’s instructions, the six Dreen volunteers for this mission presented a familial resemblance. All had assumed craggy Earther guise, lean, muscular bodies, sharp features, lush brown hair, penetrating eyes, grim mouths that seldom opened. The speech patterns they had practiced were terse—mostly melodramatic shouts and cries such as:
“For the Legion! Death to the enemy! Never surrender! Heathen swine! I spit on your grave!”
As a contingency, they had memorized responses sure to bring admiration and strike fear into opponents. Luhan especially liked “Legionnaires don’t cry.” And he wondered if he would ever have the opportunity to say “I’ll die before I talk!”
The films and lectures from which he and his companions had gathered these mots filled Luhan with a gung-ho attitude, A derring-do abandon had replaced Dreen conservatism.
“We’ve never met these Earthers with the force they deserve,” he muttered. “Letting our people be captured by that damn Zone Patrol! How could we send such weaklings?”
Deni-Ra, crouched beside him, asked, “What’d you say, podner?”
Of Mugly’s aides who had volunteered for this sortie, Deni-Ra struck Luhan as the poorest choice. She might appear male now but she was still female. Battle was the wrong place for a woman. The Legion never hid behind skirts!
“Be dark soon,” Luhan said. “Then we’ll show these scumguts what we’re made of.”
“Ah guess that’s why we’re here,” Deni-Ra drawled.
It galled Luhan that Deni-Ra’s accent was nearest those copied for this mission. There was no doubt she had the tones and emphases correctly memorized. He had only to close his eyes and listen to her; the figures they had seen on the screen came alive.
“You jes’ follow my orders an’ ever’thing’ll be fine,” he said.
“Wall, Ah’m proud to do jes’ that,” Deni-Ra said.
“To the last man if necessary,” Luhan muttered.
“They ain’ gonna see mah back,” Deni-Ra said.
“Stop that!” Luhan snapped.
“Stop what, podner?”
“Showing off!”
“Jes’ practicin’,” Deni-Ra said, but she fell silent.
Luhan looked over her head at the others. Good men, all of them. The best. Whatever happened here tonight, the enemy would know the Dreens had sent their best. If only Mugly had allowed him to reject Deni-Ra. Luhan felt responsible for her. She complicated the mission.
“Deni-Ra,” Luhan whispered, “you stay to the rear and if things get tight, you get yourself out of here. You get back to Dreenor and tell them we did our best.”
“Ah guess Ah’ll have t’cross that bridge if n Ah sees it,” she said. “Now, don’t you worry none, podner. Ah’m not afeard of these here scumguts.”
“I told you to stop that!” Luhan rasped. “Jongleur put me in charge. You’re to obey my orders!”
“Gotta prepare mahself in case Ah’m captured,” Deni-Ra protested.
“You just obey orders and you won’t be captured.”
Deni-Ra lapsed into sullen silence.
Luhan glanced at his watch. He felt a tightness in his stomach. It’d be dark enough soon. Just down this road and over that ridge. He wished Jongleur had permitted weapons.
A rocket launcher, at least. Or even knives. The Legion was famous for its infighting with knives.
But no! Jongleur had permitted only wire cutters and pry bars for breaching the fence.
“You may defend yourselves if attacked, but only with your hands and your superior Dreen responses and muscles.”
What good were hands against real weapons?
Earthers had all the advantages except for Dreen tradition and the esprit de corps copied from the Legion.
Night fell and he heard movement in front of him, people stirring, the clank of metal against metal. Damn them! They were supposed to wait for his orders! He thought of barking a command for them to be quiet, but that would not be strong and silent.
“It’s dark,” Deni-Ra whispered. “Shouldn’t we be moving out?”
“I was just about to give the order,” Luhan said. He raised a hand and gestured forward, then realized no one could see this in the darkness.
“For the honor of the Legion!” he said. “Let’s go. Stay close until we hit the fence.”
“You tell ’em, Sarge,” Deni-Ra said. “Oopsah!”
This last came as she tripped over Luhan and sent them both sprawling.
“I ordered you to stay to the rear!” he rasped, extricating himself.
Once more, he headed down the dark road, but he heard movement ahead of him.
“Wait up!” he husked and collided with a figure stopped in front of him. “Join hands until we get to the fence,” he whispered.
“Oui,” the figure touching him said.
Should we be speaking French? Luhan wondered. No! We must not let the enemy know our origins!
“Speak English!” he ordered. “They must not learn we are the Legion.”
“He’s right,” someone on his left said. “Remember what the general said. Death before dishonor!”
The general? Luhan wondered. And whose voice was that? It did not sound at all familiar.
The hand he held felt roughly calloused and something metallic bumped against Luhan’s side. The wire cutters?
“There’s the fence,” someone ahead of Luhan said. “Stay down while we set the charge.”
Set the charge? Luhan felt utterly confused. I am supposed to be giving the orders!
But there was the fence below him visible in the faint glow of bioluminescence built into the top strands of barbed wire.
Someone thrust Luhan strongly in the shoulders, forcing him to lie flat, “Sarge says to stay down!”
Luhan looked around him as his eyes adjusted to the gloomy illumination from the fence below them. There were far too many figures, many more than his little Dreen contingent. What was happening?
A monstrous explosion cut these thoughts short.
“For the Legion!” It was a concerted shout, hoarse and exultant.
Luhan found himself hauled upright and thrust forward in a wild charge through a wide gap blown in the fence.
***
Are the fumes from this boiling pot not the headiest stuff you’ve ever inhaled? Look at them jumping around after L.H.’s money and power!
—Raj Dood to Osceola
Lutt sat on the steps in his father’s office, reading the one page he had found beneath the dome in the Listening Post.
Bright light from the MX complex poured in the window behind him. It was night up on the surface but his father had seldom let it get dark in here.
“Final Words.” That’s what it said at the top of the page, written in the old man’s cramped script, but Lutt doubted he would ever encounter the absolute “Final Words” from his father. The old man had made sure of that on this page.
Lutt still felt himself coming down from the emotional high of braving the booby-trapped pathway into the sanctum. But the controls on the cane he had found leaning against the wall beside the office door had performed without exploding, thanks to his observations of how L.H. had used them. Doors opened, the escalator carried him up without incident, and the dome opened to his identification—producing his father’s hand-written page.
“You know you’ve always been my favorite, Lutt, and your brother is a devious, deadly type who will not balk at any crime to achieve his ends. That, however, is what Hanson Industries needs to survive. Your problem has been an internal fight, a constant rebelling against what I know is best for you.”
He thought Morey more devious than you? Ryll asked.
You sure fooled him!
Lutt ignored the interruption and went on reading: “I have discussed this with your mother. She will support Morey’s bid to control The Company. And maybe he will win out.
“You’ll take over only if you beat Morey at his own game. That would make you the best director The Company has ever had. If you fail, Morey will do well enough and it will go to the next generation. Maybe I can count on you to produce a proper heir.
“I don’t know what happened in your accident, but it hid you from the Listening Post. Yes, I’ve spied on you and Morey. Since you’re reading this, it means you were first into the Post. Morey’s instructions were to destroy this note by a method I explained. I do not give you that privilege. But the Listening Post is all yours and yours alone. That’s your advantage.”
What’s he mean? Lutt wondered. His other note said it was all mine now. Confused, Lutt continued to read:
“Your mother will have my will read immediately. You won’t be able to break it so don’t waste your time. My advice to you: Be tough and don’t trust women.”
Lutt folded the paper and put it into his breast pocket with the other “Final Words” from his father.
What had L.H. meant by “all” and would those scrawled words found beside his body change the old man’s estimation about whether his will could be broken? Nearness of death was said to make the mind perform in odd ways.
Why would he think you might want to break the will? Ryll asked.
I’m afraid I’ll find out soon enough. And that note beside his body wasn’t signed, dammit.
Lutt looked up at the passage to the Listening Post—still open, still available to him.
Well, I know a thing or two about booby-traps!
Once more, Lutt braved the lonely pathway to his father’s sanctum and, when he emerged this time, he was smiling. Let Morey try to get in there now! Lutt sealed the doors to the escalator and turned to survey the office.
There was Morey! He stood in the entry doorway, obviously stopped by his fears.
“You’d be wise not to come any farther!” Lutt called. “I found the key to safe passage but I’ve changed it and added some of my own touches. You wouldn’t survive three steps in here.”
Man of Two Worlds Page 32
