“In my judgment there is no likelihood that this hypothesis is in any way—”
“Wait. Wait. More. Do you know that he’s one of Jolanda’s lovers? The night I first met all these people, Carpenter was with her. He took her back to his hotel that night.”
Farkas was startled by that unexpected thrust. But he covered himself as well as he could.
“What of it? She doesn’t seem to be famous for her chastity.”
“Jolanda was in on this plan before you and I were,” Enron said. “It was she who brought me in, do you realize that? So now she has brought her friend Carpenter in as well, because he is at loose ends and she wants to help him. Jolanda knows that Kyocera is one of the factors behind this coup, and then Jolanda finds out that her friend Carpenter’s balls have just been cut off by Samurai as a favor to Kyocera, and she sees a way for him to get them back again. So she arranges the little dinner party where you meet him and very obligingly take him into your confidence and affiliate him with our project Can it be that she has maneuvered you into doing just that, precisely in order that her dear Carpenter can sell you and me and Davidov—who also have been her lovers, of course, but what does that matter?—to the Guardia Civil, and by so doing regain his career with Samurai?”
“You make her sound like a devil,” Farkas said.
“Perhaps she is,” said Enron. “Or perhaps she is in love with Carpenter, and the rest of us are simply toys for her.”
Farkas gave that possibility some consideration.
He felt profoundly uneasy. Enron seemed to be jumping to a whole host of conclusions. But the more Farkas thought back over this affair, the more clearly he saw that he might well have been maneuvered by Carpenter’s friends into a position of doing something useful for the fallen Samurai man. What reason had he had for embroiling Carpenter in the plan, anyway, if not to win points with Jolanda? She had all but asked him directly to do something to help Carpenter get back on his feet. Well, he had, in that wild moment of spontaneity at Jolanda’s party; and by so doing, he had needlessly made them all—himself, Davidov, Enron, the Company itself—terribly vulnerable.
Could it be, Farkas wondered, that this schoolboy infatuation of his with the overexuberant California woman’s silken thighs and glorious breasts had led him into catastrophic foolishness?
“I think I should talk to Jolanda,” he told Enron.
She and Carpenter were sitting in the bar: on opposite sides of the table, nothing very compromising about that. As Enron and Farkas appeared, Carpenter rose and excused himself, and headed off toward the washroom.
“A good idea,” Enron said. “Will you order a Scotch and soda for me, Jolanda?”
Farkas slipped in beside her as Enron went in the direction that Carpenter had taken. In a low voice, as though Enron might be able to hear him even from halfway across the bar, he said, “Stay with me tonight?”
“I can’t. You know that. Marty would be furious.”
“Are you married to him?”
“I’ve been traveling with him. We’re sharing a room here. I can’t just go off with you like that.”
“You want to,” he said. “I can feel the heat coming from you.”
“Of course I want to. But I can’t, not with Marty here. Especially not tonight. He’s tremendously nervous that something is going to go wrong.”
“As a matter of fact, so am I,” Farkas said. Her refusal angered him; but it meant he would have to try to find out what he needed to know in just the few moments that remained before Enron and Carpenter returned. He hoped that Carpenter would take his time, or that Enron would find some way to delay him. “What worries me is your friend Carpenter,” he said.
“Paul? Why?”
“What do you know about him? How trustworthy is he, really?”
He could see Jolanda’s emanations changing: she was growing wary now, radiating higher up in the spectrum, a jittery ultraviolet signal. She said, “I don’t understand. If you didn’t trust him, why did you bring him in?”
“You asked me to.”
She went farther up the spectrum at that.
“I suggested that you might know of an opening for him with Kyocera,” Jolanda said. “I wasn’t expecting you to invite him into this.”
“Ah. I see.” Still no sign of Carpenter returning. “Do you think we’re at risk, having him here?”
“Of course not. Why are you suddenly so suspicious of him?”
“Nerves, I suppose. I have nerves too.”
“I never would have imagined.”
“All the same, I do. Tell me, Jolanda: how well do you know Carpenter, anyway?”
“A friend of a friend, actually.”
“That’s all?”
“Well—”
Color rising on her face. Farkas could feel the infrared output.
“I’m not talking about bed, now. How long have you known him? A year? Three years?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that. I met him a few months back, when I was out for dinner with Nick Rhodes and Isabelle and Marty. He had just come to San Francisco from somewhere up north and Nick asked me along as a blind date for him. That’s about all there’s been, just that one evening.”
“I see,” Farkas said. “Just that one evening.”
He felt a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. You have let this foolish woman make an even bigger fool out of you than you realized, he thought bleakly.
“But I certainly don’t think,” she said, “that he’s any kind of risk to us at all. Everything I know about him leads me to think that he’s an extremely intelligent and capable—”
“All right,” Farkas said. “That’s enough. He’s coming back.”
The plan was that they would eat in separate groups that night, Enron and Jolanda together, Farkas and Carpenter by themselves, Davidov with the others of his mysterious Los Angeles crowd. As they were splitting up Jolanda drew Carpenter aside in the hallway and said in a low voice, “Watch out for Farkas.”
“What do you mean? Watch out for what?”
“He doesn’t trust you.”
“He got me involved in this in the first place.”
“I know. He’s having second thoughts. Perhaps Marty said something to him about you.”
“Marty? He’s got no reason to think I’m—”
“You know how Israelis are. Paranoia is their national hobby.”
“What do you think is going on?” Carpenter asked.
Jolanda shook her head. “I’m not sure. Farkas was asking questions about you just now. Whether I think it’s risky having you as part of the group. How well I know you. He said it was just nerves. Maybe so, but I would be careful of him, if I were you.”
“Yes. I will.”
“Watch him like a hawk. He has no morals at all, and he’s terribly quick and strong, and he can see in every direction at once. He can be dangerous. I know what he can do,” she said. “I went to bed with him once, just once, and I’ve never been with anyone like that. So quick, so strong.” Jolanda reached into her purse and drew out three little octagonal yellow tablets. “Here. Take these and keep them with you. If you find yourself in any trouble, these may help you.” She pressed them into the palm of Carpenter’s hand.
“Hyperdex?” Carpenter asked.
“Yes. Have you ever used it?”
“Now and then.”
“Then you know. One will be enough for ordinary circumstances. Two, if very unusual.”
Carpenter said, “Are you sure Farkas is thinking bad thoughts about me? Or are you having an attack of nerves too?”
“I might be. But he was asking questions about you a minute ago. Do I trust you, and things like that. It didn’t sound good, but it might be nothing. Just keep on guard, is all.”
“Yes.”
“Your nerves? They aren’t bothering you?”
“No,” Carpenter said. “I don’t give a damn about anything, any more. I think my nervous system must have shorted out sometime bac
k” He grinned at her and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Thanks for the pills,” he said. “And the warning.”
“Don’t mention it.”
An early dinner, alone, at his hotel. An evening of watching videos in his room, by himself. Then to bed. Tomorrow was the big day. Early to bed, early to rise.
I know what he can do, Jolanda had said. I went to bed with him once, just once.
Just once. Surprise, surprise. She got around, that girl.
Well, Carpenter thought, tomorrow would tell the tale.
27
carpenter dreamed that night that he was out at sea, sailing a yacht of some sort in a solo voyage across the Pacific from California to Hawaii. But it was in a better time, a better world, because the sky was clean and blue and the sea breeze came fresh to his nostrils, with the exhilarating tang of salt in it instead of the musty tang of nitrogen oxide, and the surface of the water was pure and clear, no drifting red globs of writhing mutant algae, no phosphorescent jellyfish clumps, no floating ribbons of fossilized twentieth-century tar.
All he wore was a pair of ragged cutoff jeans, but he went out on deck every morning in no fear of the sun, which rose unhaloed by any murk of greenhouse gases and shed a soft, gentle, almost delicate light on the sea. He listened to the wind and set his sails, and did his shipboard chores and was done with them by midmorning, and sat reading or strumming his guitar until noon. And then he tossed the safety line overboard and went overboard after it, and had himself a little swim, paddling alongside the boat through the clear, sweet, warm, unpolluted water. And in the afternoon—
In the afternoon he saw an island sitting all by itself in the sea, a small one, uncharted, three palm trees and a patch of green shrubbery and a lovely white beach. A tall voluptuous dark-haired woman was standing in the calm translucent surf waving to him. She was naked except for the merest scrap of red cloth around her loins. Lustrous bronzed skin gleamed in the bright tropical light, heavy breasts, strong thighs—
“Paul?” she was calling. “Paul, it’s me, Jolanda—come ashore and play with me, Paul—”
“I’m coming,” he called, putting his hand to the tiller. And went to her, and tossed down his anchor in the shallows, and swam toward her waiting arms—and—and—
And the telephone was chiming.
Wrong number. Leave me alone.
Wouldn’t stop, either.
Fuck off. Can’t you see I’m busy?
On and on, relentless, remorseless. Finally Carpenter reached out with his toe and activated it.
“Yeah?”
“Time to get up, Carpenter.”
Victor Farkas’s nightmare face was looking at him out of the visor.
“What for?” Carpenter said. “It’s—what, not even six in the morning, right? I don’t have to get down to the terminal for hours yet.”
“I need you now.”
What the hell was this? A change in the plan? Carpenter was fully awake in an instant.
“Anything wrong?” he asked.
“Everything’s smooth,” said Farkas. “But I need you. Get your clothes on and meet me in half an hour. The town of El Mirador, on Spoke D, at a cafe called La Paloma, which is in the middle of everything, right on the plaza.”
I would be careful of him, if I were you. Watch him like a hawk.
“Do you mind telling me why?”
“Olmo is going to meet me there. We’ll be discussing important things, as you know. I want a witness to our conversation.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to ask the Israeli to be your with—”
“No. He’s the last person I’d want to be there. You’re the one I want. Hurry it up, Carpenter. El Mirador, Spoke D. Half past six at the latest. It’s about halfway from the hub to the rim.”
“Right,” Carpenter said.
There was no way of refusing. The sudden alteration of the program was strange, yes. If Farkas wanted him along with him for his chat with Olmo, he should have told him that last night. But they were a team; this morning was the critical time; aside from Jolanda’s uneasiness, Carpenter had no reason to believe that the man who had recruited him for this enterprise was summoning him now to some sort of betrayal. Farkas said he was needed; Carpenter had no option but to go.
Still—even so—
He has no morals at all, and he’s terribly quick and strong, and he can see in every direction at once. He can be dangerous.
Carpenter showered and dressed quickly. He felt alert and keyed up, now, but before he left the room he swallowed one of Jolanda’s hyperdexes. The stimulant would make him that much sharper: give him a little extra edge, if anything unusual began to happen. Carpenter tucked the other two pills into his shirt pocket. He had brought a light sleeveless woolen vest along on the trip, because he had heard that the air on a space habitat was kept at a temperature cooler than he was accustomed to; he pulled the vest on now, not so much because he was chilly as to keep the pills from falling out of his pocket if he leaned forward.
The only way he knew of getting to Spoke D was to go down to the hub, change spokes, and ride the elevator back up. It seemed to him that there were connectors in midspoke, but no one had told him anything about how to use them.
At this hour the Valparaiso Nuevo day was already in full swing. People were bustling around everywhere. The place was like a gigantic airline terminal, Carpenter thought, that knew neither day nor night, and functioned under artificial illumination twenty-four hours a day. Except the main source of illumination here wasn’t artificial. It was supplied by the adjacent solar body, which also functioned twenty-four hours a day, hanging right up there in the sky available for use at all times.
The up-spoke elevator was marked with exits. When the one labeled EL MIRADOR came up, Carpenter stepped off and looked around for the central plaza. Signs directed him. He came in a few minutes to a curiously quaint cobblestoned expanse, with open-air cafes lining its border. It was all like fairyland, this place, an unreal world. But of course it was an unreal world. Or an artificial one, at least.
Carpenter caught sight of Farkas at once, across the way, standing out from the others in the plaza like an elephant in a herd of sheep. He went to him.
Farkas was alone.
“Olmo not here yet?” Carpenter asked.
“We are having our discussion with him in the outer shell of the satellite,” said Farkas. “It is the only safe place to talk of such things: entirely outside the pickups of the Generalissimo’s sonic detection system.”
That sounded very odd to Carpenter, a conference in the outer shell. He began to worry again. Perhaps an even finer edge would be a good idea. As Farkas led him toward a doorway in the wall behind the cafe, Carpenter reached under his sweater, pulled out another of the hyperdex pills, and popped it into his mouth.
He crunched it between his teeth and forced himself to swallow it. Carpenter had never taken a hyperdex that way before, straight, no water: the taste was amazingly bitter. He had never taken one hyperdex right on top of another before, either, and he felt himself lighting up almost immediately, entering into an almost manic mode. He wanted to run, to leap, to swing from treetops. That was a little frightening, that sense of becoming unhinged; but he felt, along with it, a potent sensation of heightened awareness, of quickened reflex, such as was completely new to him. Whatever surprises Farkas might be planning for him in the space satellite’s outer shell, Carpenter was confident he would be ready to deal with them.
“In here,” Farkas said.
He opened the door in the wall, and beckoned Carpenter to go ahead of him.
Carpenter peered through the door into a realm of darkness.
“I won’t know what I’m bumping into in there,” he said. “You’re the one with the trick vision, Farkas. You go first.”
“As you wish. Follow me, then.”
They entered the shell. The bright and cheery plaza of El Mirador vanished behind them. They were in the dreary behind-the-scenes cara
pace of Valparaiso Nuevo now, the dark, secret skin of the satellite.
Once inside, Carpenter realized that the place wasn’t entirely dark: there was a narrow catwalk just to his left, illuminated in a sparse way by a row of antique-looking incandescent bulbs set into the low ceiling, giving the merest possible glimmer of yellow light. As his hyperdex-augmented vision adjusted to the dimness, Carpenter saw piles of black slag, ballast of some sort for the satellite, he supposed, heaped here and there, and what looked like golf carts, probably for the use of maintenance people. Beyond was a zone of complete blackness, dark as space itself.
There was barely room for Carpenter to stand upright. Farkas appeared to be maintaining a half-crouching posture. Deeper in, the ceiling seemed even lower.
He and Farkas were all alone in here.
“Where’s your friend Olmo?” Carpenter asked. “Late for our little appointment?”
“He is just ahead,” said Farkas. “You don’t see him? No. But with my trick vision, as you put it, I have no difficulty making him out, standing right over there.”
There was no one in here but the two of them. Carpenter was totally certain of that.
So there was going to be trouble. He took the third hyperdex from his shirt pocket, conveyed it to his mouth, chewed it and swallowed it.
It was like a bomb going off in his head.
Farkas said, “What are you doing?”
“I don’t see Olmo,” said Carpenter. “Or anybody else.” His words came out slurred. His voice sounded to him as though he were speaking in an echo chamber.
“No. In fact Olmo isn’t here.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Indeed,” Farkas said. “It is just you and me, here. Tell me something, now. You are still in the pay of Samurai Industries, are you not, Carpenter?”
“Are you crazy?”
“Answer me. You are spying on us for Samurai, yes or no.”
“No. What kind of bullshit is this?”
“I think you are lying,” Farkas said.
“If I were still working for Samurai,” said Carpenter, speaking terribly slowly, sounding as slow as a robot whose charge was running down, making an effort to keep his voice intelligible as the third hyperdex unloaded its full impact on his nervous system, “would I be mixed up in a wild scheme like this one?”
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