by Paul Kenyon
He bowed. "Of course."
She strode past the rows of cages with their pampered hunting dogs. The kennel master did not offer to see her out. At her back, she could feel the eunuch, hurrying to keep up with her.
She stopped under a tamarisk tree. Ebrahim stopped with her, puffing.
"Where's the Emir now?" she said.
"He is tending his birds at this hour. He does not allow himself to be disturbed. Tonight you will join him and Professeur Le Sourd for dinner."
"Le Sourd? A Frenchman?"
The eunuch's turbanned head bobbed up and down. "A Nazarene," he said. "But in the service of Allah."
"What does he do here?"
But Ebrahim was looking past her, at the man who was approaching them down the twisting tiled path. The Baroness looked around. He was a youngish, slender man in European clothes, moving with easy grace. He smiled at her out of a handsome face that reminded her of a faun. She wouldn't have been surprised to find pointed ears under his boyishly tousled chestnut hair.
"You must be the Baroness," he said in the most beautiful voice Penelope had ever heard. Professeur Octave Le Sourd, at your service."
7
The Baroness gave Le Sourd one of her brilliant party smiles. He was worth it. His own teeth, small, pearly and perfect, smiled at her in return.
"We're having dinner tonight, I understand," she said.
"Yes, it was the Emir's wish that I be there," he said in that marvelous, organ-rich voice: deep, resonant and superbly modulated.
She was struck by the irony of his name. Literally, it meant "the Deaf One."
For Le Sourd's boyish good looks were marred by his affliction; there was the ivory plug of a hearing aid in both of his ears, with wires trailing into the two breast pockets of his silk sports shirt.
He turned his head in sudden annoyance toward Ebrahim. "Be off with you now, Ebrahim," he said.
"Yes, master," the eunuch said. He sashayed down the tiled path, high-assed, the red pantaloons ballooning in the breeze, flabby shoulders held back.
"Ebrahim says you're a Nazarene," she said, "but in the service of Allah."
He laughed. "Yes. I'm the Emir's pet infidel."
"What do you do for him?"
"I'm a geologist. I prospect for oil."
"You're not one of the Emir's toys?"
He laughed again. "No, there's no clockwork in me. I'm really a geologist."
"I'd have thought that the major oil fields in this part of the world had already been pretty well mapped by the big companies."
"I've developed a prospecting technique that they don't have."
"Oh? What's that?"
He hesitated. "Ultrasound."
Something clicked in Penelope's head. The same something warned her to go slow. "Ultrasound?" she said in her flightiest voice. "Is that the same as supersonic?"
"Ultrasonic," he corrected. "Sound at very high frequencies. Too high for the human ear to hear. Bats use it to locate their prey and keep from bumping into things in the dark."
"Bats! Ugh!"
"Bats are very interesting little creatures," he said tolerantly. "Très jolies."
"And you use them to find oil?"
He became very patient. "No, no. Certainement non! Bats have nothing to do with my technique. I use a very large ultrasonic generator and beam ultrasonic waves at very high frequencies deep into the earth. I listen for the echo with some very sophisticated equipment. The returning signals are sorted out by computer. The computer constructs an image from the billions of variations in the signal and displays them on a TV screen. I can see through solid rock, just as if it were thin air. If there is a pool of oil underground, I see it."
"How interesting," she said with an air of forced politeness.
He smiled and took her by the arm. "But I'm boring you," he said. "Beautiful women should not have to listen to technical descriptions. Let me show you around the place."
She got away from him a couple of hours later, after a tour of the gardens, the courtyards, the public chambers, the various salons with their fabulous decorations — carved and painted and tiled square inch by square inch with utter disregard for the millions of hours of hand labor it must have taken. She didn't get to see the stables.
When she got back to her suite, she sat down at her dressing table with her makeup kit. Inga came in, dressed in a starched white uniform, and began to do her hair.
Under cover of grooming, she put the electronic pearl in her ear and pasted the Band-Aid throat microphone in place.
"Tommy?" she subvocalized.
The tiny answering voice in her ear was jubilant. "I've got it, Baroness," it said. "That hint of yours about not getting hung up on electronics gave me the clue."
"Ultrasonics?"
The miniature voice was crestfallen. "How did you know?"
She told him about her conversation with Le Sourd.
"It fits," he said from wherever he was. "Your entire suite is flooded with ultrasonic waves — at about a hundred thousand vibrations per second. That's at the upper limit of a bat's range. I was able to rig up a detector from a couple of the miniature mikes from my collection of bugs and the quartz timer from the scrambler."
"Where's the source?"
"On the other side of the wall. There's no hardware inside the suite that we could have detected. And the signals are very weak. It would take a computer setup like the one Le Sourd described to you to reconstruct an image."
"So we're on television? All the time."
"I'm afraid so. And three-dimensional television at that."
She gave a silent laugh. "I just thought of something. Tommy, you know that they use this kind of ultrasound image reconstruction for medical purposes. Sort of an X-ray view of the interior of the body, at whatever depth you dial the computer to. Professeur Le Sourd and the Emir must be getting a dandy view of my appendix. Or even choicer tidbits."
"And all our luggage, piece by piece. Thank God there're no recognizable shapes. The Spyder follows the contours of the hair dryer, and the only gun we have is your Bernardelli. That's inside a metal cigarette case."
Inga was setting her hair. She made several ostentatious passes over the Baroness' scalp with the nozzle-head of the Spinneret. Her voice sounded in the Baroness' ear, transmitted by Inga's own Band-Aid microphone.
"Dan Wharton was very clever. There's a very expensive Italian hair-setting device that has the same shape as this gadget."
The Baroness spoke to Tommy with her larynx mike. "Can you do anything about it, Tommy?"
His voice hesitated. "I'm working on it. It's going to be very hard. Not like microwaves, or a microphone or a TV eye, where you can feed in a false signal. I'm going to have to alter the nature of Le Sourd's sound waves. And I don't have the equipment. I've set up a little workbench in a closet that's out of range of the ultrasound wave front. I'll see what I can do."
"Do it, Tommy. We've go to buy some margin of time free from surveillance."
Inga spoke aloud, for the benefit of the hidden watchers. "Shall I get your dinner gown now, Baroness?"
"Yes, please, Inga. The slinky one by Halston."
She stood up and removed the criss-crossed bandannas of her halter top. Her magnificent breasts stood free. She spoke silently into her throat mike. "I hope Le Professeur is getting a good view. This is the first time I've ever been peeped at by an ear."
* * *
She swept into the state dining room, the flimsy black gown clinging like oil to her every contour. The top, bouncing with her long strides, was a pair of billowing triangles beginning at the waist and hoisted into place by spaghetti straps. The only ornament in the vast cleavage was a magnificent rope of Bahrain pearls, also swinging as she walked. Her abundant black hair was piled high on top of her head, for coolness and for effect. It left her creamy shoulders and long alabaster neck bare and free.
The Emir and Le Sourd were sitting on cushions at the far end of the room, at a low table cove
red with a damask cloth and piled with gold and crystal bowls and dishes. An army of servants scurried back and forth. The place was dim, lit by candles and by two retainers — living lamps — who stood motionless against the far wall holding flickering torches.
There was music coming from hidden loudspeakers: the Ravel quartet in the most glorious hi-fi she'd ever heard.
The Emir's beady eyes almost dropped out of their sockets when he saw the black gown. He kept his eyes on the swinging pearls, like someone watching a tennis match. The Baroness turned her attention to Le Sourd. He'd stood up as she approached, a slender, graceful figure in a silk shantung suit, holding his napkin in front of him like a miniature bullfighter's cape and gazing at her with a slightly ironical expression.
"Charmant," he said as she sat cross-legged on a puffy tasseled cushion. The skirt of the evening gown stretched tightly across her thighs.
"Merci," she said.
The Emir turned to her with a smile that looked as if he'd been sucking a lemon. "Messàkun. Welcome to my poor table. All I have is yours."
She looked around at the table. "I'll have a martini, then," she said.
The Emir looked distressed. Le Sourd leaned over and said gently, "The Prophet forbids wine."
"He didn't say anything about gin, though, did he, love?"
"It's impossible," Le Sourd said.
"Oh? If we're going to be strict about it, I suppose I should put on a veil." She looked down at the deep cleft between her breasts. "And a chadori." She moved as if to get up.
The Emir looked even more distressed. Le Sourd gave her another of those ironic glances and clapped his hands for a servant. The servant leaned over, and Le Sourd whispered in his ear.
"You can tell him to leave out the vermouth, darling," Penelope said. "That ought to satisfy the Prophet."
The martini arrived on a silver tray. It was cold, very dry, and with a perfect twist of lemon peel. Penelope took a slow sip. Le Sourd busied himself with his sweet tea, looking envious.
After an interval, the Emir stirred and said, "I have a surprise for you, my dear Baroness."
She gave him a bright smile. "I love surprises."
He clapped his hands, and a servant hurried over with a silk cushion. He presented it to the Baroness. On it were the two dog collars that had been removed from the borzois.
The bugged rhinestones were gone. In their place were what looked like real jewels. Rubies and emeralds.
"How nice," she said, taking the collars in her hands. "Your Highness is too kind."
He inclined his head slightly. "A poor gift from an admirer." His eyes dipped into her cleavage.
"You needn't be shy about looking at my face, your Highness," she said. "I don't mind. Veil or no veil."
He dragged his glance upward, flushing.
Le Sourd said, "The Emir had the royal jeweler send the old jewels up to your suite. Perhaps you might find another use for them."
"How thoughtful."
"De rien."
The food arrived then, great steaming platters of rice and gravy and mashed chick peas and heaping mountains of some small fowl. The pièce de résistance was an entire boiled sheep, brought in on an enormous brass tray by four servants who staggered under its weight. It was placed in front of Penelope, the woolly, bedraggled head staring directly at her. The Emir reached over and plucked out an eyeball. He presented it to her proudly, with a flourish. She got it down, somehow, and took a hasty sip of her martini. The Emir's hand was in the sheep's mouth now, exploring the tasty morsels around the gums. Penelope was just steeling herself again, when the Emir twisted around on his cushion and held the strip of flesh out to the leather-hooded shape on the stand behind him. The bird grasped it greedily in one scaly claw and began tearing at it with its beak.
"Eat, my darling," the Emir cooed. "Bil harm."
"What an unusual bird," Penelope said. "I've never seen a white falcon before."
"This is Hakim. He is my love, my treasure. His greatgrandfather was a Greenland falcon, very rare. I bred the line myself."
The hawk continued to tear at its obscene morsel. The Emir smiled indulgently and fed it another piece when it was through.
"The kennel master tells me that they're trained to hunt with your salukis. Is that true?"
Le Sourd lifted his head, a piece of mutton halfway to his mouth. "Yes," he said. "It's traditional in this part of the world."
"I've seen it in Lapland. They hunt wolves with dogs and eagles. What do you hunt here?"
The Emir's mouth was full of rice and gravy. He said, in a spray of rice grains, "The gazelle. The fox. The ibex. The panther."
Le Sourd said. "Gazelle abound in this area. That's how the Emir's kingdom got its name."
The Emir grew animated. He said, "That's what we'll do tomorrow. I'll organize a hunt!"
"That sounds fun," she said. "What will we hunt? Gazelle?"
The Emir gave her a sly look. "No, not gazelle. You will see. It will be a surprise."
"Ibex?" she persisted.
He chuckled. "Not ibex. A more interesting game. Something you have never hunted before."
Hakim stretched his wings and uttered a harsh, ugly cry. The Emir soothed the bird and fed him the sheep's other eyeball.
"Darn!" Penelope said. "I thought you were saving that for me!"
The Emir looked genuinely abashed. "Forgive me. I dote on Hakim too much. I'll have them boil another sheep for you."
"No, no!" she said hastily. "This is fine! I'll just struggle along with this one!"
Le Sourd's cool, amused eyes were on her. In spite of herself, she felt a twinge of pity. With his handsome, sensitive face and his classical head, he looked like a Greek god. But it was spoiled by the tragedy of those two hearing aids.
He was fiddling with them now. "Listen," he said. "Here's the last movement of the Ravel. Like velvet!"
The Emir leaned forward. "Professeur Le Sourd is a musician. He played the violin in the Paris Opera in his youth. Of course, he had to give it up because of his affliction. But music's loss was science's gain, eh, Professeur?"
Penelope couldn't help glancing at the hearing aids again. How ironic, she thought. A deaf musician. Like Beethoven.
Le Sourd caught her glance. "I'm not deaf," he said.
"Oh?"
"Far from it. In fact, my hearing is too sensitive. Exquisitely sensitive."
"But…"
"The hearing aids?" He laughed. "I designed them myself. They screen sound out. I find loud noises physically painful. Like Mozart. Do you know that when Mozart heard a trumpet for the first time, he fainted?"
"Is that why you gave up music?"
"I fainted during a performance of Manon. A cymbal crash did it. I quite disrupted the performance. But I'd already been in trouble with the concertmaster. I played too softly, for one thing. And it was agony for me to hear the other musicians. They played beautifully in the range that they could hear, of course. But they had no control over the upper partials, beyond the normal human range. All I could hear was a terrible, rasping, scraping cacophony."
"And yet you seem to be enjoying the Ravel?" She tilted her head toward the hidden loudspeakers.
"These instruments that you thought were hearing aids do more than lower the decibels to a bearable level for me. They also screen out all the harsh overtones. I find sound most sensuous, provided I can mold it to my requirements. More sensuous than the ordinary person, in fact."
"So I'd imagine. Tell me, Professeur, does the human voice grate on your ears the way music does? Mine, for instance?"
"Some do. But yours is quite nice. Sensuous, in fact."
There was a choking sound from the Emir. His face bad grown quite dark. He coughed, and spit a piece of mutton into a napkin.
"Hanee-an!" he said, ending the meal. He stood up abruptly, and servants scurried to the table with finger-bowls and wet towels.
Le Sourd got up too, dabbing at his lips with a napkin, the ironic expression
on his face again.
"Allah yehunik," he said, completing the formula.
"Tomorrow," the Emir said. "Tomorrow we hunt," and stormed from the room.
* * *
She came awake all at once, not moving, not changing the slow, even rhythm of her breathing, not even opening her eyes.
There was someone in the bedroom with her.
Whoever it was hadn't made a sound, but she knew. Her body's largest sense organ told her. Her skin.
She lay motionless and loose between the silk sheets, sorting out her sensory impressions. The great palace was silent. There was a faint scent of frankincense drifting in through the open window from the garden below.
And there was the body heat of another person, standing beside the bed, impinging on the nerve endings in the skin that acts as infrared detectors. The primitive sense that lets most people instinctively know when someone is standing close behind them was more highly developed in the Baroness, with her superbly sensitive skin and special training. Now it told her the approximate distance, position and size of the intruder.
He was big. She could feel it.
There was a whisper of movement from him, and it was time to act.
She sprang naked out of bed, rolling to the floor, hitting him below the knees and toppling him. Her fingers imprisoned a thick wrist and forced it behind him, up between his shoulder blades. There was a gasp of surprise from Mm, and she was leaning over the bulky, kneeling figure, her other hand raised to chop him under the ear in what would have been a death blow.
A whimpering sound came from him.
"Please, khanom, don't hurt me!"
It was a woman's voice, or a child's: high, sexless and without resonance.
She let him go. "Get up, Ebrahim," she said. She switched on the bedside lamp.
He struggled to his feet, a glistening hippopotamus in gold vest and turban. He smiled at her ingratiatingly. "You are not angry, khanom?"
She put on a robe. The eunuch's sexless eyes on her naked body somehow bothered her more than if he'd been capable of lust. It was hard to understand why; after all, naked female bodies were his stock in trade and, besides, in this place she was just as naked with a bare face as a bare torso.
