We saw horse carriages and a costumed Mickey and Minnie. The streets were crowded with people; shops were busy. And a carnival fragrance filled the air: popcorn and sawdust, fried dough and cotton candy, and an animal smell that was not wholly unpleasant. Children had photographs taken with Mickey, and Paula and I looked for addresses above the shop entrances.
1225 Whisper Terrace was a corner bookshop with a large green awning over the front door. Twin windows lined either side of the corner, and we stepped inside and glanced around the shop.
When he approached us, I quickly realized that Ernst Krönard was not what I expected. He wore a cowboy hat, boots, jeans, a button-up shirt, and dark sunglasses.
“May I help you folks find a particular book?” he said.
I glanced at his nametag, then up into the black windowless lenses of his sunglasses.
“Ernst Krönard?” I said. “My wife and I spoke with an associate of yours about travel books.”
I could see his eyes glance at both Paula and I, but he didn’t miss a beat. He said, “Right this way. We just got an order in.”
He led us through a saloon-style swinging door at the back of the shop, down a hallway that was lined with books, and into his office.
“Have a seat,” he said.
Paula and I took two chairs on the visitor’s side of his desk. Krönard closed the door behind us.
“I hope you’ll pardon my wearing these sunglasses,” he said. “I have difficulty with the artificial daylight.”
He smiled and took a seat opposite us at the desk.
“Now, tell me,” he said. “How might I be of service to you?”
Paula said, “We need to get back to Earth.”
“How soon?” he said.
“The sooner the better,” I said.
“What is it you’re carrying?” he said. “Drugs, jewelry?”
“A gene sequence,” Paula said. “A valuable gene sequence.”
Krönard looked at her through his sunglasses. He leaned forward and folded his hands gently on his desk. I felt a warm pulse wash over me. Krönard looked more like a Colorado trail guide than a bookstore owner.
“Tell me about this gene sequence,” he said. “What does it do?”
Paula glanced at me. Then she said, “Today, if you’re lucky, you’ll live to be ninety years old. I’ve developed a protein inhibitor aimed at Chromosome Four, the chromosome associated with aging; if you regularly take this protein inhibitor, eat well, and exercise regularly you could live to be a hundred and forty, maybe a hundred and fifty years old.”
“I see,” he said. “That’s quite a vitamin.”
“It’s not a vitamin,” she said. “It’s a protein inhibitor.”
“And you need transportation back to Earth, why?”
I glanced at Paula and saw that she, too, realized something was strange about Krönard.
“There are people here who want us dead,” I said. “There’s only one or two places where we’re safe--on Earth.”
“Mr. Krönard, we need to get back to Earth,” Paula said, “where we can wait this out until all this blows over.”
“I see,” he said. “Independent spaceflight is not cheap.”
“But you know someone?” Paula said.
He nodded. “I know a few people. They’re not going to do this cheap.”
“Give us a ballpark figure, Mr. Krönard,” Paula said.
“Two million,” he said. “Per person.”
“You must be crazy.”
“That’s just for the flight,” he said. “My fee as travel agent in this little transaction would be two hundred thousand per person. I’ll arrange the flight for you.”
“We don’t have that kind of money,” Paula said.
“Then, what are you wasting my time for?” He started to rise up from the desk.
“Hold on, Mr. Krönard,” I said. “We may be able to get that kind of money. It would be risky, and we’d need your help.”
“Explain yourself.”
“The people who want us killed,” I said. “They offered us twenty-three million Worldmarks for Paula’s research. We refused; that’s why they’re after us.”
I looked at Paula. She nodded and said, “Tell him about the timepiece.”
I reached in my shirt pocket and removed the timepiece. I placed it in front of Krönard. The countdown had reached 32:25.08. He glanced at it.
“That timepiece is counting down to zero,” I said. “It’s at thirty-two hours, twenty-five minutes. I was told that if we sold the research, we would be given the number of a slot machine.”
“A slot machine?” Krönard said.
“When the timepiece reaches zero,” I said, “a ten-second window opens up, and that slot machine is going to pay out twenty-three million Worldmarks. You have ten seconds to spin. After that, the machine no longer pays out the twenty-three million.”
“There’s only one casino inside LunaWorld,” Krönard said. “There can’t be that many machines with a payout that high.”
“If you acted as an intermediary,” I said, “we could negotiate with these people.”
“You want me to sell them the research?” he said. “Why not just take a gamble? I’ve got people I could have on every machine in the casino with a twenty-three million payout.”
“I don’t know that it will still pay out,” I said, “because we’re no longer friendly with these people. They want us dead. They may have turned off the machine.”
“I see,” he said. “So, you want me to contact them to tell them that you’re willing to sell the research for the twenty-three million?”
I glanced at Paula. “If you’re asking four-point-four million to get us home,” she said, “dealing with these people is the only way we could get the money.”
“These people don’t sound like the negotiating type,” he said. “It sounds like they’d just as soon kill anyone who gets in their way. My fee would be high if I have to act as your representative.”
“How high?” Paula said.
“Half the twenty-three million.”
I looked at Paula. I looked at Krönard. I said, “You’d do it for that? You’d agree to deliver the research to them and get us home?”
“For half the twenty-three million?” he said.
Paula said, “We need total secrecy traveling back to Earth. Once they get the information, they’ll kill everybody.”
“I see,” he said. “They’ve got quite the cleanup.”
“It’s what they’ve done already,” she said. “It’s what they’ve done before.”
“I get the picture of who I’d be dealing with. It would be a one-time shot, and then we’d have to clear out.”
“Exactly.”
Paula said, “You would want to make arrangements. You wouldn’t want to stay here.”
“Once they get the research,” I said, “they’ll kill you, too.”
“Like I said, I’m beginning to get the picture of the kind of people I’d be dealing with. But you know that they’re here?”
“I think so,” I said. “We saw them searching for us when we entered the resort. We were disguised.”
“Umit’s friend?” he asked.
Paula and I nodded.
• •
“He was a precog,” Paula said. “Did you notice?”
We walked along the crowded sidewalk away from the bookshop. We could see the monorail terminal up to our right.
“I did,” I said. “He searched me. I could feel it.”
“You hear about them in the news, but I’ve never met one.”
“It’s why he was wearing the sunglasses.”
“So, do you think he believes us?” Paula asked.
“Does it matter?”
“How do you mean?”
“Think about his motivations, Paula,” I said. “Even if he didn’t believe us about the gene research, he would still be willing to work with us if he believed that Banks believes in the gene research.�
��
“If he is a precog,” Paula said, “that could be useful.”
We crossed the street and headed up the stairwell to the loading platform. I glanced back down at street level and saw two strange men following us. They stood on the corner. One held a stuffed animal. They looked out of place among the tourists.
They crossed the street behind us, and Paula and I entered the crowd up on the monorail platform.
“We’ve got company.”
She glanced back but did not see them. “Where?”
“Never mind. We’ll take a cab. Through the crowd. Come on.”
We pushed our way through the crowd standing on the platform and found another stairwell back down to street level. We crossed the crowded street, and I looked back up at the monorail terminal. I saw the two men searching for us among the crowd. Paula flagged a cab.
We climbed in just as one of the men looked down at street level and saw us.
“The Rainforest Hotel,” I said to the cabbie. “Step on it.”
The driver wheeled the taxi around and raced up the street. I glanced out the back window. The two men were down at street level. They were trying to hail a cab, but we quickly raced out along the lake away from Whisper Terrace.
“That was close,” Paula said.
• •
When we reached the hotel, the countdown was at 29:12.22. Paula and I crossed silently through the lobby. We took the elevator up to our room. A message awaited us.
“It’s Krönard,” I said. “Take this down.”
Paula grabbed a pen and paper from the table.
“He wants to meet first thing in the morning,” I said, “at the Lakeview Bar and Café.”
“What time?” Paula said.
“Six-thirty.” I held the receiver to my ear. “It’s in the south quadrant.”
“Did he leave a number?”
I placed the phone on the receiver. “No number,” I said.
“What did he say? Did he talk to Banks?”
“He didn’t mention his name,” I said. “He said to bring the research.”
“He said to bring the research?”
“Yes,” I said. “He thinks he can make a deal. It’s what he said.”
“Where will that put us time-wise?”
We glanced across the room at the clock on the night stand.
“Six-thirty is like twelve, fourteen hours,” I said.
Paula looked at me. “That’s cutting it close, Roger,” she said. “That’ll give us less than fifteen hours to complete this transaction, find the right slot machine, and clear out.”
I felt my heart flitter in my chest. Fifteen hours didn’t seem like much time. I didn’t feel prepared at all.
“What should we do?”
“What can we do?” she said. “We give Krönard the research and pray that the deal comes through.”
I looked anxiously into her eyes. “We’ll be fine,” I said.
Paula stared at me. She said nothing.
• •
14:57.12
Krönard was at a table on the second-story deck of the Lakeview Bar and Café. He drank coffee from a white cup and gazed out at Moon Lake from the hillside. Paula and I entered through a courtyard around back. We climbed two flights of stairs to reach the deck. He was the only person on the deck, and shopkeepers down on the street below were just beginning to open their stores for the morning’s first customers.
“You wouldn’t even know we were on the Moon,” he said, “to look at all of this.”
Paula and I looked at one another. Krönard hadn’t even acknowledged that he’d seen us, but we took a seat at the table next to him. He gazed out at the lake from behind his dark sunglasses.
“Only man could take something as naturally beautiful as the Moon,” he said, “and change it into this.” He finally looked at us. He said, “You have the research?”
Paula slid a disk across the tabletop. “Half the research is on that disk,” she said.
“Half?”
“Banks gets the other half once the slot machine pays out. That’s our plan.”
I looked at the timepiece. “In less than fifteen hours.”
“Nine-thirty tonight,” Krönard said, “in the casino.”
“Right.”
Paula asked, “You spoke with him?”
“I have an associate who has an associate who made Banks aware that we’re willing to deal. The slot machine is still on; the timepiece is still good. We only need to deliver him the research.”
“You tell Banks,” Paula said, “that he gets the second half of the research when Roger and I are back on Earth. Safe.”
“We don’t have a lot of time with which to work, and I’m not dealing directly with Banks. It’ll take a few hours.”
“Make it happen, Krönard,” I said. “Paula and I want to see our flight arrangement.”
“The name of the ship is the Altamont. It’s a point-to-point cargo shuttle that’ll deliver you to Earth.”
“Down to the surface?” I asked.
“Mojave, California,” Krönard said. “After that, you’re on your own.”
Paula looked at me. I saw green speckles in her brown eyes. She turned to Krönard and said, “We can do that.”
• •
I stared at the television screen, fidgeting, nervous, afraid to stand up and leave the room. Paula had gone down to the hotel lobby. She had arrangements to make. I was so nervous, I felt like I was going to have a heart attack.
Five hours had passed, and we hadn’t heard from Krönard. I was afraid the whole deal was going to fall apart. It wouldn’t work. We’d be stuck; we’d have to turn ourselves over.
I looked at the timepiece in my left hand: 09:52.12.
Ten hours left.
Every minute I grew more and more uneasy, more and more unsure of myself. I couldn’t make my mind truly believe that I’d be able to get away with this. At best, I could get lucky. At worst, I could get killed.
I decided to take a hot shower to calm my nerves.
• •
Two hours later, Paula returned to the room. I was cleaned and showered, and I lay on the bed, dressed and ready to go. She came into the suite wearing jogging shorts and a T-shirt.
“Everything is set,” she said. She peeled out of her T-shirt. Her skin shined with sweat. She pulled her hair out of the ponytail and crossed to the bathroom. She unhooked her bra and looked at me. I stared at the vid screen.
I said, “Everything?”
She nodded. “Where are we on the clock?”
I glanced at the timepiece: 07:34.22.
“Seven and a half hours,” I said.
She turned on the water in the shower. “I say we go have dinner,” she said. “It’ll do you good to get out of the room.”
I nodded my head. She turned, stepped out of her shorts and into the shower.
• •
05:42.32
“If I’m going to die,” Paula said, “I want to look good doing it.”
She held her evening gown up and appraised it. We were both in better spirits after dinner. I looked across the suite at her. She looked radiant. She picked up an earring, held it to her right ear and looked in the mirror. She frowned.
“It doesn’t look like anybody’s going to die tonight,” I said. “I think Krönard has lost our number.”
“Don’t worry,” Paula said. “Everything is going to work out according to plan.”
At just that moment, the phone rang.
Paula looked at me wryly. She said, “See.”
I picked up the phone and said, “Hello.”
It was Krönard.
“We were just talking about you,” I said.
He talked for a while.
“I see,” I said. “And you have both numbers?”
I wrote down two numbers on a pad of paper atop the night stand. Paula looked quizzically at me. I nodded.
“Okay,” I said. “Great. We’ll see you then.�
�
I hung up the phone.
“Two numbers?” Paula asked. “What was that all about?”
“Banks’ people have decided to make this interesting,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Because we’re only giving him half the information up front, they’re only going halfway.”
“What?!”
“He’s given us two numbers.”
“Two numbers?” Paula said. Her gown was on the bed; she motioned for the notepad. I handed it to her.
“Eight ninety-six,” I said. “And four seventeen. Two different slot machines. Both have a payout of twenty-three million. Only one is going to pay out.”
“That’s not good,” she said. “We have to choose?”
“It gets better,” I said. “One of the machines is wired to a bomb.”
“A bomb?”
“A bomb,” I said. “Pull the lever on the bad machine and ka-boom. Travel arrangements won’t be necessary.”
“Both have the same ten-second window?”
I nodded.
“The bastard,” Paula said.
“Banks told Krönard that if we want to improve our odds, we’ll have to give him the rest of the research.”
“What should we do?”
“If we give him the rest of the research, they’ll kill us both,” I said. “As long as they need us, we stay alive.”
“Unless we pick the wrong slot machine.”
I looked at her, and I looked at the gown on the bed.
“Well, at least you’ll look good doing it.”
• •
01:14.32
We took the monorail to the casino. I did not feel as nervous as I thought I would; I felt confident. It was strange, but my mind was clear and everything just felt right about it. We didn’t need disguises. We didn’t need guns. All we needed was to be ourselves, and either we would or wouldn’t live through the next two hours.
“Well, you ready?” Paula said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
We stepped off of the monorail onto the loading platform. We could see the casino across a parking lot packed with cars, and one woman came staggering toward us. She was drunk, and Paula said, “That’s so sad.”
The Kiribati Test Page 10
