Mythmaster, page 10
Starson tossed a Token up to her. She pulled her dangling legs up and scrambled to her feet. She deftly caught the Token as it spun up to her. ‘Granny gives good bargains. Just take your pick, handsome. How about his one? Or this?’
‘None, Granny,’ Starson called up to her. ‘I would have picked you, old dear, but the years have cheated you in their Passing.’
‘May the Devil himself be your darling, then, handsome,’ crowed the old woman. ‘Why don’t you tumble that pretty one beside you? Give her a good thrusting for old Granny!’
Reba laughed happily. The old woman grinned down upon them as she went on sucking her sugared skull. Juice slid down her chin from the sweetmeat as the bored bodies about her postured and posed, moved on, and never looked down.
When they arrived at Hangtree Square, they found the Beautyspot in the middle of the block. A huge sculptured figure of a woman reclined, forming the building’s façade. Giant plaster feet splayed out on the sidewalk. Far above them were the bent knees. Through the door between the sculptured legs, they went, and found themselves in a purple-and-gold salon heavy with the scent of a mild aphrodisiac.
A young man, ageless, and smooth of face and limb, came towards them. He wore only a satin codpiece and polish on his toenails that caught the light and glinted golden. ‘May we serve you all? Or is it to be just you two gentlemen? The lady?’
‘She wants clothes,’ Shannon replied.
‘Monstrous!’ exclaimed the young man, puckering his lips and holding his face between his distraught hands as he gazed at Reba’s grey coveralls in evident dismay. ‘Off! At once! Take them off!’
Reba, thoroughly amused, zipped open her coveralls and stepped out of them.
‘Ah!’. the young man sighed. ‘Now, if you’ll just sign this waiver, which will allow the staff to touch you, we’ll set you right in a moment or two!’ He handed Reba a paper, and she signed it.
‘Now, let me see.’ He cupped his chin in his hand. ‘Fireworms, I think. Yes. And a Sirian scent. Oh, dear, you are such a total challenge! You’re so perfectly lovely to begin with! It’s really hardly fair!’ He lapsed into a pout.
‘I’ll be back shortly,’ Reba said to the two men at her side.
‘Fireworms?’ Starson whispered in her ear, a mock frown on his face.
‘They just might be charming. You mustn’t be so provincial.’ She laughed aloud, and he seized her hand and swooped to kiss it. She danced away from him and after the young man, who began shooing her into the rear room that was half-hidden from sight by a shimmering curtain of sentient Andromedan crystals that were chiming polyphonically.
“CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘Starson,’ Shannon said, as they waited for Reba to return, ‘we’ll attack Outerupperdenver while we’re here.’
‘You’ve got another contract?’
‘Yes. With the Epicureanites in Garth’s Galaxy.’
Starson. frowned. ‘Their tastes, I’m told, are odd. “Bizarre” would probably be a better word.’
‘That may be so, but —’
‘You know damned well it’s so.’
‘This time we have certain specifications to meet, so we’ll use the cloning technique instead of random selection of fertilised eggs like last time. You and the rest of the crew will locate suitable subjects, and Rawley will do the cell surgery. We’ll need one hundred.’
‘What are these specifications you refer to?’
‘Relatively simple. Fat people. Men or women, it doesn’t matter to the Epicureanites. We shouldn’t have too much trouble, since Outerupperdenver has an Epicureanite Branch Hostel.’
‘You’d sell them their own members?’
‘They won’t know or care where the clones came from. And in the event that they should find out, they’ll be in no position to complain to the authorities. Not when you consider the use to which they intend to put the clones.’
Starson went to the whispering curtain of Andromedan crystals. He touched it, and the melodious murmuring grew louder. He said, ‘There’s nothing you wouldn’t do, is there, Shannon?’
Shannon looked up at him in very real surprise. ‘No, nothing.’
Starson shook his head slowly from side to side as he turned and stared at Shannon, trying to decipher the nature of the mechanism that was the man.
‘Something wrong, Starson?’
‘No, I guess not. It’s just that your plan comes as a surprise to me.’
‘You’d better sit down before you fall down under the weight of all those scruples you’re carrying around with you like excess baggage.’
‘Let me tell you something, Starson. Long ago I decided to dispense with the concepts of right and wrong. They can confuse a man, slow him down, even immobilise him. I believe that what works is what’s right, and what doesn’t is wrong. That’s my utilitarian philosophy for getting on in life.’
‘I said once before, Shannon, that you were a simple man.’
‘And I agreed with you. Starson, come on! Think about it. Man, use your head! The Epicureanites want clones that will develop into fat babies. Where would you be liable to find hosts from which you could clone with some guarantee that the developing individuals would be fat?’
‘The Epicureanites themselves.’
‘Precisely. So…’
‘So we’ll raid the Epicureanite Branch Hostel and… all’s well that ends well.’
Starson fell silent.
Shannon closed his eyes and then quickly opened them as he heard something silken stirring nearby. A black panther was padding towards him. He remained motionless. The panther stopped six inches from his outthrust legs.
‘Come, Caligula,’ said the woman who appeared in the outer doorway. She repeated the name a second time, and the panther’s lips parted, and a low growl, more of a moan issued from its throat. It backed away from Shannon, its muscles rippling beneath its pelt, the fire in its eyes roaring.
The woman passed through the crystalline curtain. The panther followed her, pawing at the lowest of the crystals.
‘What the hell is keeping Reba?’ Starson complained.
Starson, Shannon thought. Another panther. Sleek, and in his way, as deadly as the one that had just vanished. ‘A woman dressing is like the building of Rome, Starson. She cannot be hurried, and she must not be cheated of her growing glory. Like Rome, she will emerge when the time is right and all the omens salubrious.’
Starson laughed. ‘I’d prefer it, I think, if a woman dressing were more like Old Faithful. Predictable and dependable.’
‘You’d give up the pleasure of anticipation? A mistake, I assure you.’
They sat and continued to wait for most of another hour as customers came and went, glancing now and then in their direction with speculative eyes and calculating expressions on their faces. Were they potential customers for death, for odd desires, or perhaps the fruits of certain technological witcheries unavailable to the subdued citizens of the Uppercities? Would they want to touch the heart of an ion activator which was said to provide a thrill akin to a Blavatskian migration of the soul? But Shannon and Starson gave no indication of interest, and only the slightest show of curiosity. The customers came and went. The crystals sang their sibilant song.
The woman with the panther came back through the curtain. She was no longer pink and rosy. Where her skin had been, there now lay a sleek artificial pelt that matched that of the panther’s. The panther’s ears had been set with gleaming simstones.
Reba came through the curtain a few minutes later. Shannon almost sprang from his chair at the sight of her, but managed to restrain himself. The only sign he gave of being impressed with her remarkable appearance was the way his body seemed to quiver, resisting the ministrations of the chair in which he sat.
‘Fireworms!’ Reba declared, raising her right hand.
Tiny flashes of light swarmed around her hand, winking like multicoloured jewels. She raised her other hand, and more jewels blazed. ‘Look.’ She held up the first finger of each of her hands and wiggled them with obvious pleasure. ‘Two of their queens are trapped inside these rings. See how they all swarm when I move my fingers!’
She was wearing a necklace that lay low on her throat. From it, light waves of varying spectral intensities cascaded. They blended to produce new tints and combinations of hues. Occasionally they revealed the nakedness of her body beneath them, which had been dusted with yellow petitpaint and touched at strategic locations with droplets of condensed Sirian scent. Her hair was arranged high on her head, a lustrous nest for the sun of itself.
She was an avalanche of sensuality. The Sirian scent, faintly aphrodisiacal, provoked. The fireworms sparkling about her hands made her every gesture a jewelled symphony. And the light cascading from the necklace at her throat gave her the appearance of being constantly in motion.
‘Two thousand Tokens,’ she said.
Shannon was staring at her in undisguised awe and admiration.
Starson reached into his pocket and handed her the Tokens. She took them, disappeared, and then returned a moment later from beyond the crystal curtain. She was holding out her hands and smiling brightly. ‘I’m quite ready now — for anything. Shall we go?’
Shannon got up at once and started for the door.
‘Wait!’ she cried out to him. ‘Come here, Shannon. You too, Starson.’
When they were beside her, she directed them both to bend their heads. They did, and she poured a catalytic agent from a tiny vial upon their hair. At once the strands of hair on their heads separated, came together, and separated again. In their serpentine writhing, they gave off a golden electrical glow that was visible even in the bright light of the room in which they stood. When they raised their heads, Reba pointed to the large mirror on the wall. They gazed into it and saw their reflections.
Reba said, ‘You both look like saints with your halos. Which one of you will lead me to the Promised Land?’
Starson, grinning, bowed her to the door. ‘Not saints,’ he corrected. ‘We look, I think, more like archangels. I shall be Michael. And Shannon… well, you do look a bit like Lucifer. After the Fall.’
They linked arms and went out into the chaos and cacophony that was Underdenver.
Shannon changed places with Starson so that he could walk on the side of Reba that would leave his right arm free to wield the electronic eel. As they strolled up the street, he used it to clear a path for them through the throng of beggars that materialised from nowhere and descended upon them. The beggars whined and wheedled and cajoled and cried. They displayed their wounds and their running sores that were the obvious products of cosmetisurgery and asked for alms. As Shannon whipped them away, the beggars shouted consonantal curses at them.
‘They turned the corner and confronted a spectacle that might have been designed for a warped child. A woman, neither young nor old, neither lovely nor ugly, gyrated before them in a sad parody of grace. Around her neck was a thick collar to which was attached a long leather leash. Holding the other end of the leash and jerking it cruelly to stifle the demented woman’s shrill and wordless cries was a crouching baboon.
They walked past the scene, and as they did so, Starson dropped a Token in the tin cup the woman was banging on the pavement at his feet. They entered an alcove that led to a brightly lighted restaurant. A man with a bald head and dark scowl met them and escorted them to the banks of aeroautos parked in the lobby. They got in the nearest one, and it lifted under Shannon’s guidance and soared up past the aquatic tanks and the cages and the hydroponic compartments from which they would select items for their meal.
Reba chose a young rock python that lay coiled somnolently under the intense artificial light above it. She ordered fermented marsh grass and selected a liqueur from a bubbling vat. Her choices, punched into the panel of the aeroauto, were recorded on the master grid in the restaurants kitchen.
Shannon selected a large lobster that had been mutated to eliminate its exoskeleton and increase its fleshy mass. He told Reba, ‘I don’t like the look in its eyestalks, so I’ll put it out of its misery.’
Starson announced that he wasn’t hungry, and Shannon glanced covertly at him, suddenly remembering the hours Starson was accustomed to spending alone with the mice in the cargo hold.
They took seats in an intimate rotunda, and twenty minutes later their meals were served by silent androids. The python appeared, spiced and sauced, in the form of lean flank steaks. Reba declared, after her first mouthful, that it was indeed delicious.
Shannon ate as much of the lobster as he could manage, but found that it was considerably larger than it had appeared in its tank. More than half of it remained on his plate when he declared himself no longer hungry.
Throughout the meal, Starson drank heavily. He emptied several small bottles of rouge nuit and then called for a keg of sera febbre. He raised his glass to Reba and said, ‘To yesterday.’
She looked at him with a faint trace of apprehension on her features.
‘Reba,’ he persisted, ‘a toast.’ He held his glass high. ‘A toast to all our ended yesterdays.’
Reba reached for her glass, and the fireworms glittered about her fingers. She touched her glass to Starson’s. ‘No, to tomorrow.’
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘a woman of probabilities. You would rather dream of tomorrows than regret your yesterdays.’ He drank, coughed, and wiped his lips. ‘Shannon, how shall we toast you? What was it that you told me before? That what works is what’s right, and what fails is what’s wrong? Do you hear that, Reba? That philosophy makes me think of corpses lying in the streets. In it, I hear the wailing of love betrayed and —’
Shannon said, ‘Shove it, Starson!’ His fists had formed bastions on both sides of his plate.
Starson widened his eyes in an expression of mock surprise, raised his glass, and drank again. ‘Love betrayed. Now, there is a subject to redden the eyes of sleepless poets, wouldn’t you agree, Shannon? Reba, tell this man, this Master of Myth, about love betrayed and of the betrayers. Go on. Tell him. Let the bell of your voice toll in his ears, and never mind the fact that it tolls for all of us.’
Shannon started to rise, but Starson quickly caught his arm. ‘So early an end to our lovely evening, Shannon? Why, the fun is only just beginning. We can visit the Casinos, where a man may win or lose his life. There are bound to be suitable games available here in Underdenver for even a player as sophisticated as you.’
Shannon shook his arm free of Starson’s grip. He glanced at Reba, saw her nod, hesitated, and then sat down.
Starson held out his keg of sera febbre to Shannon, but Shannon covered his glass.
‘Serra febbre,’ Starson murmured. ‘Evening fever.’ He paused. His next words were breathy, barely audible. ‘I burn with it.’ He looked across the table at Shannon. ‘Fever brings strange dreams. As the Mythmaster, Shannon, what would you suggest I do about these dreams, these solitary myths of mine?’
‘Deny them,’ Shannon said flatly.
‘What? Become Judas? Did you hear that, Reba? He would have me deny my dreams. Ah, so sly, this Mythmaster. As sly and as full of defences as a Space Patrol ship. So be it, then. I deny you, Shannon. I will no longer dream you. And, Reba, I now vanquish you from my dreams as well.’
‘You can’t,’ Reba said.
Her words seemed to irritate Starson. He drew back his lips in the manner of a predator approaching his prey. The emerald in his front tooth flashed. He said, ‘Too many others have stolen me, and too many others have defeated you. No, Reba, we are no longer the nearly innocent children we once were.’
‘But love does not die,’ Reba said quietly. ‘It grows old, true, but it increases in value as it does.’
Shannon watched her face and saw the real pain welling in her eyes as she spoke to Starson.
Starson’s voice was harsh when he spoke again. ‘You talk like a broker speculating in capital markets. “It increases in value.” ’ He gave a bitter laugh. ‘No, Reba. Love merely grows old, and it sickens and becomes pale, and its breath turns foul. It’s eyes are clouded, and where once it walked, it limps.’ He drank. ‘I loved you, Reba. I did. Can you remember our yesterday?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what about you, Shannon? Tell us of your yesterdays and of the women you loved. Then explain to us why you are all alone today.’
‘I am alone because I choose to be alone. I came into the world alone, and all the rest is merely chance encounter. It is easy to be with someone. All a man must do is to lie skillfully and always.’
‘Now it is revealed!’ Starson crowed, but there was no merriment in his voice. ‘Now we see the myths that the Master himself employs to sustain himself.’
‘Starson,’ Reba said, ‘stop wanting what doesn’t exist.’
‘The day I stop the wanting, I will die. Don’t you see that it is the wanting that matters? It isn’t the object wanted that is important. As you suggest, what I want may not exist, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting it. No, I am not yet ready to die.’
Reba leaned over to Shannon and whispered, ‘You could help him. And without really hurting yourself.’
‘Let him make love to me? Is that what you mean? You would have me cheat him that way?’
‘Lie to him, Shannon. It would be a kindness.’
‘He would know it was a lie.’
‘Yes,’ he would. But Starson has had long practice in pretending. He would willingly believe your lie.’ Reba stood up quickly and walked around the table. She put out a hand, and Starson took it, looking up at her in surprise. The fireworms swirled around their linked hands as Reba led him out to the Low-G area, where they danced in a buoyant, nearly weightless state.
When they returned to the table, Shannon did not catch their words, but he did recognise the urgency of Reba’s tone. Starson seemed about to raise an objection to whatever it was that she had said, but by then they were at the table.
‘Shannon?’ Reba stood beside him, waiting.
He rose and followed her into the Low-G area and felt the effects of the reduced gravity at once. He began to feel lighter in mind as well as body as Reba floated above him, and he rose up to her while the music sidled out and surrounded them, and they touched lightly and then embraced, rolling pleasantly, almost giddily, in the air above the floor that seemed so far below.
