“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that. They do, after all, send me all sorts of proclamations and manifestos. I have leafed through some of them and so their general aims and ... He paused, looked up, and blinked. “Jove, who’s that bloke with you, Gwenny?”
The plump blonde had returned from the villa in the company of a large gunmetal robot clad in a checkered suit. “I think you’ll find this most interesting, Miss Dent,” she said. “This mechanical chap’s just now delivered this most interesting snapshot to me.” She moved over to Natalie’s chair to hand her a small three-dimensional photo.
Somewhat blurry, it showed Natalie and Gomez walking arm in arm along a wintry Paris thoroughfare. “Oh, yes, this is my fiancé and I,” she said, dropping the picture to her lap. “He doesn’t, I’m the first to admit, take a very flattering photograph. Actually, as Sidebar will testify, he—”
“Nonsense, my dear,” cut in Gwenny. “That odious little Latin you were recently hobnobbing with in France is a well-known shamus. An operative for the Cosmos Detective Agency—and someone who’s intent on causing us no end of trouble and grief.”
Natalie nodded at her robot cameraman, but before Sidebar could produce a weapon the robot in the check suit fired a disabler at him.
Sidebar stiffened, then dropped to the patio stones and hit with a resounding bong.
Arthur jumped up, scowling from the fallen cameraman to his wife. “I say, old girl, what the deuce is the meaning of all this?” he asked, perplexed. “It rather, I mean to say, plays the devil with my interview, now doesn’t it?”
“Oh, Arthur dear, do be still.” Gwenny took a stungun out of her pocket, aimed it at Natalie, and fired.
34
OCEAN SPRAY HIT GOMEZ in the face as his watertaxi zoomed over the glittering blue sea toward Lazarus Cay. It was, all in all, a very believable illusion.
As the taxi docked, its voxbox said, “Have a nice day.”
“I intend to.” Gomez, still wearing the Newz blazer, climbed up the yellow neowood steps to the impressive white beach.
On a pedestal a few yards off stood a larger-than-life android replica of the entrepreneur Sunny Lazarus. “Hi there, fella,” called the android. “Welcome to my island. I’m Sunny Lazarus.”
“I didn’t realize you were this tall,” commented Gomez as he approached the figure on the pedestal.
“What sort of fun did you have in mind?” The android was nearly eight feet tall and had blond wavy hair, a deep tan, and a spotless white suit. “Would you like to try an exciting and scrupulously honest game of chance in my entirely refurbished posh casino? Or, if gaming isn’t your cup of tea, there’s the gala Lazarus Follies in the grand—”
“Actually, I’m on a more serious mission. Which way is the cemetery?”
“Hey, you’re absolutely right. It isn’t all fun on Lazarus Cay. No indeed,” said the android. “I also offer the best-equipped crematorium in the universe and one of the loveliest cemeteries. Are you, I imagine, paying a visit to a loved one?”
“I’m just anxious to browse around. I’m getting along in years and I decided it’s time to start contemplating my own final—”
“A wise move, fella, a very wise move. And I can promise you we’ll come up with a purchase plan that’s just right for your pocketbook.” The big android pointed to his right. “What you want is Pathway 3. Should you have any questions along the route, why, there are plenty Sunny Lazaruses around to help you out. I may be a very important and wealthy man, yet I’m never too busy to lend a hand.”
“Much obliged.” Gomez took the indicated path, which wound through a dense simulated jungle.
Midway along the wide pathway he encountered another Sunny Lazarus on a pedestal.
“Hi there, fella. Feeling gloomy, I’ll bet.”
“I am, sí. Talking to too many andies in a row always does that to me.”
“Hey, no, fella, you’re missing my point. I was being sympathetic because you’re obviously on the way to our impressive, well-maintained cemetery. Not a happy occasion, and thus—”
“Truth to tell, I’m visiting the crypt of an uncle who died and left me several million dollars. I’m happy as a clam.” Smiling, he continued on his way.
The cemetery stood in a well-groomed three-acre clearing. Pausing at the high, wrought-iron gateway, Gomez scanned the place. Then, nodding, he started along a graveled path that led to a sparkling fountain.
Hunched up on a white bench amidst the gravemarkers sat a small, frail man bundled up in a heavy plaid thermocoat. “You took your sweet time getting here, Gomez.”
“I rushed here soon as I got your message, Chill.” He sat next to the informant.
Frowning at the plashing fountain, Chill Kaminsky said, “I been freezing my ass off out here.”
“I had a similar experience in Paris recently,” confided Gomez. “Although, if you don’t mind my saying so, the Caribbean Colony strikes me as being a bit on the warmish side.”
“You know I got a tricky metabolism.”
“Sí. Now, where’s Dr. Danenberg?”
“That’s the problem, isn’t it? That’s why I buzzed you, Gomez,” he explained. “I tailed the lady to that big floral shop over there by that row of tombs. She went in about two hours back but she never came out.”
“And she isn’t still within?”
“Naw. I went in finally to price some gladiolas,” said Chill. “Not a trace of her, and I nosed around thoroughly.”
“I’d best wander in and see what I can learn.”
“Pay me first so I can get home and warm up.”
Gomez passed him two $100 Banx notes. “Gracias, Chill.”
The informant got up, buttoned the thermocoat up to his chin, and went shuffling away across the green fields of the Lazarus Cay Cemetery.
Rising, Gomez brushed at the Newz crest on his breast pocket. He went strolling along a path that led to the domed flower shop.
He pushed through the opaque plastiglass door and was surrounded by the powerful scent of hundreds of unseen flowers. “Howdy, I’m a roving reporter with Newz and I think there might be a dandy human interest story in ... But perhaps not.”
He’d noticed that the burly clerk behind the counter had drawn a lazgun.
He didn’t feel as good as he usually did.
Usually, whenever he was alive again, the Richard Lofton android felt just fine. He’d concentrate on breathing in and out and everything was great. It was almost as though he’d never died at all.
Down here now, deep in the bowels of the Caribbean Colony, he didn’t feel all that happy. Sure, he’d been doing his job very well. The stupid wig Marj had made him wear and the expensive tourist suit had fooled everybody.
No one had looked at him funny. He’d checked into a nice hotel and then set about his business.
So far he’d only had to use his stungun on one person. That was the stupid woman who managed this Central Computer Room way down here. He hadn’t been able to con her the way he had the others.
But he’d fiddled with the secsystem in a way his sister had taught him, so nobody would suspect anything was wrong for several hours.
What he was unhappy about was that his sister had had to fool around with Jake Cardigan.
He wasn’t exactly jealous, but he just didn’t like the idea.
Shaking his head, he walked along a metallic corridor and into the small room that housed the main computer for the entire colony.
“She didn’t have to hop in bed with the guy,” Richard said to himself as he glanced around the cold, gray-walled room. “We’re smart, Sis and I. We always find them.”
He seated himself at a screen, massaging his knuckles while he studied the keyboard.
If you asked the computer the right questions in the right way, you could find out anything.
And Marj had drilled him, over and over, on just exactly how to ask the questions.
He sat there, smiling faintly, breathing evenly in and out
.
This computer was going to tell him, sooner or later, just where Bennett Sands was hiding here on the satellite.
That made Richard feel a little better, but not as good as he ought to feel.
35
THE FIRST PIRATE WORE a dirty eyepatch over his left eye socket and a tattered headrag. With a wicked knife gripped in his jagged, stained teeth, he came clumping across the floor of the chill, stone-walled room in pursuit of the pale blonde young woman in the frilly eighteenth-century frock.
She stumbled, crying out, and fell to the gray stones.
Two more pirates dashed into the room, each waving a cutlass. One of them had a thick, tangled red beard.
The girl screamed as the eyepatched buccaneer touched the tip of his knife to her throat.
The plump woman standing next to Jake on the balcony overlooking the scene remarked, “Well, I think it serves her right. She’s been flirting shamelessly with him.”
Nodding, Jake moved toward the edge of the group of seven tourists who were taking this Pirate Castle Tour with him.
“Those of you who don’t want to watch the grisly climax of this authentic holographic re-creation of life in piratical times,” announced Elisha Clover from the edge of the group, “can go down into the dungeon, using Staircase 5 on your left. The torture sequence will be re-created there in exactly seven minutes.”
Clover was a small man of forty, his hair a pale shade of blond. On the left lapel of his sky-blue suit was a litebadge that flashed—tropics inn tours.
While two of the tourists headed toward Staircase 5, Jake eased up close to the hotel manager. “It’s simply wonderful the way you conduct these tours yourself, Mr. Clover,” he said. “When I heard that, why, I was truly impressed and I knew I had to sign up.”
“The personal touch is what’s so darned important in this, or any business.” Clover was watching the trio of rough pirates start to tear the authentic clothes off the helpless young woman below. “There are, as you no doubt are aware, several excellent hotels up here in the Colony, yet our Tropics ... awk!”
“That’s a stungun poking in your side,” explained Jake quietly. “Just start up Staircase 3 if you will.”
“But I’m obliged to conduct these people to—”
“Folks ... Jake, his body masking the gun, turned toward the group. “A small emergency has come up, meaning that Mr. Clover and I will have to leave you for just a very few minutes,” he told them, grinning. “We’ll all meet again down in the dungeon.”
Two more prods with the gun barrel persuaded the hotel man to commence climbing.
When they were in a small, shadowy room off the stairway, Jake asked Clover, “Where have they got Dan Cardigan?”
The blond man shuffled backwards until he bumped into a carved pirate chest. “Really, sir, I’m afraid I have no idea what—”
“He’s my son.”
“You’re Jake Cardigan. Damn, I should have—”
“Where?”
“You don’t seem to understand, Cardigan.” Clover sank down and sat on the chest. “I couldn’t possibly betray the people I—”
“What happens if you do?”
“I’ll be reprimanded. Probably they’ll have me worked over, and I really can’t tolerate physical pain or—”
“How do you feel about death?”
“Eh? How’s that?”
“If you don’t tell me where my son is,” said Jake evenly, “I’ll kill you. Here and now.”
The hotel manager blinked, swallowed. “You can’t kill anyone with a stungun.”
Tucking the gun into its holster, Jake moved ahead. “With my bare hands, Clover.”
He swallowed again, glancing up at the stone ceiling. “Very well,” he said after a moment. “I’ll tell you how to get to them—your son and the girl.”
“Thanks,” said Jake.
The flower shop clerk had crinkly orangish hair, and a multitude of freckles dotted his broad flat face. His suit was of a brilliantly colored floral pattern, and the lazgun he held pointed at an important portion of Gomez had an intricately filigreed barrel. “Hoist the mitts, palsy walsy,” he suggested.
“I can understand why you might not care to be interviewed by Newz.” The detective smiled and started walking up to the plastiglass counter. “But there’s certainly no need to pull—”
“Stop right there,” ordered the clerk. “And—no kidding—get those paws in the air.”
Gomez halted near a man-size plaz statue of an angel. There were three others around the place. “Okay, we can scratch the interview,” he offered amiably. “I’ll just buy a bunch of posies and be on my—”
“Dr. Danenberg warned us about you, Gomez.”
“Warned? Nay, surely she meant to tell you that I ought to be allowed free ... Excuse me.” He paused, then sneezed violently. “Allowed free access to all the facilities hereabouts and ... excuse me.” He sneezed again.
“What the hell’s wrong with you anyhow, buddy?”
Eyes squinting, shoulders hunching, Gomez nodded at his surroundings. “Didn’t Dr. Danenberg mention that ... Oops!” He sneezed twice, swaying, tottering nearer the angel. “Mention that I’m allergic ... Oh, boy!” He sneezed three times and ended up standing just to the right of the large statue. “Allergic to flowers.”
“We don’t have any real flowers here, jerk,” the clerk informed him as he moved his gun to keep it trained on him. “Our stock is all plaz and holographic.”
Gomez pointed upward with one of his raised hands. “It’s all those ... oops!” He sneezed twice, then twice more. He put an arm around the angel’s waist to steady himself. “All those floral perfumes you’re piping in here.”
“Yeah? They are kind of sickly sweet now you mention it ... but I never saw anybody have a fit before.”
“Allergies are ... Gomez sneezed vigorously three more times. He clutched the statue with both arms.
All at once the angel was falling forward, heading right for the counter and the clerk.
“You dimwit!” The freckled man took a protective jump back out of range as the heavy statue came slamming down onto the countertop.
Gomez was in motion, too.
He ran, leaped clean over the shattering counter, and landed on the clerk before the orange-haired man could get his gun aimed again.
Gomez took hold of the man’s gun hand by the wrist and smacked it back against the wall. The freckled fingers let go of the filigreed weapon.
Two sharp jabs to the chin dropped the clerk to the flower shop floor.
Stepping over him, Gomez very carefully opened the door to the back room. He had his stungun in his hand when he crossed the threshold.
There was no one there.
The room contained several tables covered with vases holding imitation blossoms.
There was another doorway at the far side of the room. It led to a ramp that slanted down to a belowground tunnel.
Gomez started along the ramp.
36
DAN WAS SEATED AT a small portatable near the suite window, absently staring out at the simulated sea. A tray of food rested on the table. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he was saying.
Nancy was seated at a similar table nearby, ignoring her meal. “No, everything makes sense,” she said, “eventually. Sometimes, though, you have to think about it for a while.”
“I don’t know—for a long time now I’ve had the feeling that there was something that my father wasn’t telling me,” he said. “Maybe he’s known that my mother, if what you say is true ... He trailed off, pushing back his chair and standing.
“I’m afraid it is true, everything I told you, Dan.”
“But that means she’s been lying to me.” He stood close to the window, forehead almost touching it. “Lying about why we came to England, about what she’s doing ... Shit, about everything.”
“Most parents lie. Ours, it turns out, happen to be especially good at it.”
The door to t
he suite whispered open. Jake came in, dragging a stungunned guard. “Dan, are you okay?”
Dan remained where he was, mouth open. “Dad, how’d you get here?”
“I used my wits ... and when that didn’t work, I used a stungun.”
“I was hoping you’d find us.”
“We have to get out of here quickly,” said Jake as the door closed behind him. He propped the unconscious man against the wall. “I’ve been damn lucky so far, but we better move now. Detailed explanations can come later.”
“I figured you’d come looking for me.” Running across the room, he hugged his father.
Jake hugged back. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Nancy has to come, too.” His son stepped back. “She isn’t—”
“I can’t stay here, Mr. Cardigan.” She had left the table. “You have no reason to trust me, I know, but—”
“We’ll thrash that out later,” he told her. “Right now we have to leave.”
The door slid open again. Kate Cardigan came into the room. Her face was pale, frowning. “None of you is going to leave,” she told them. In her right hand she held a lazgun.
Natalie awakened.
Directly in front of her, taking up nearly one entire wall of the large room she found herself in, was a vast animated painting of the original King Arthur. The handsome, bearded monarch was seated at his Round Table with a sampling of his knights.
The reporter was seated in a metal chair and her right arm hurt. Standing beside her, she noticed now, was Hilda Danenberg.
The doctor was holding a hypogun. “Don’t try to stand for a few minutes,” she advised. “I just gave you an injection to revive you. That silly woman had her stungun set far too high. You’d have been unconscious for a good day at least.”
“How long,” asked Natalie, her voice slurred and not quite her own, “have I been out?”
“Oh, not very long.”
Across the room Natalie spotted Sidebar. He was lying immobile, flat on his back and not functioning. “Why’d you revive me so soon?”
“I wished to talk to you,” explained the doctor. “And so does Mr. Pettiford.”
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