Pearl Of Patmos rb-7

by Джеффри Лорд

  Again she shook her head. «I think not. I’ve changed my mind about that.»

  Blade scowled, not altogether in jest. «I never read that Diana was a tease.»

  She laughed, eyes green slits, and splashed at him. «Oh, but she wasl She was a terrible woman, in many ways. Cruel, when she wanted to be. When she was angry, Didn’t she change some poor man into a stag and have her dogs tear him to pieces? Just because he watched her bathing?»

  «I don’t know.» He sounded sulky, and was. The whole bit was becoming jejune. She was putting him on, this strange little bitch from nowhere, and he had been cooperating all too readily in making a fool of himself.

  She moved closer. «Hercules is losing his temper,» she gibed. «We don’t want that. I suppose I had better relax the rules a bit.»

  Her body was against his. She put her arms about his neck and her mouth close to his ear. Her breasts, buoyant in the sea water, flattened against his chest.

  She whispered in his ear. «Hercules may kiss Diana if he wishes»

  «He wishes.»

  They clung together, half-floating, half-treading water, their mouths together. «Let’s swim out a little farther. There might be someone watching from the cliffs.»

  Blade saw no point in this, but did not demur. At the moment he could not have cared less about peepers. His massive body was crammed with lust for her. He towed her along, feeling her sleek wet thighs against his, caressing her sleek tan hide, watching her rosebud nipples turn into pink needles. He swam out another hundred yards, then a hundred more. Neither was in the least winded or tired. She might, he thought, be nearly as good in the water as he was. Blade could swim twenty miles without breathing hard.

  «This is far enough,» she breathed. They kissed. She put her hand down into his breech cloth. «Hercules,» she murmured. «Hercules indeed.»

  Still holding him in a firm grip, squeezing and stroking, she arched her back and bowed a little away from him. Mischief danced in the narrowed green eyes and in the little smile.

  «People have told me that this is impossible. You know-that you can’t really do anything underwater.»

  He was finished with nonsense. He tugged at the black pants. He said, «People tell you anything. Now, Diana, will you please shut upl»

  «You shut me up. Fill me up.»

  He closed her lips with his own and she stopped his mouth with her tongue. She kept her eyes tightly closed as she twisted and helped him strip off her pants.

  «Don’t lose them. I-«

  «Be quiet. Too late, anyway. They’re gone.»

  «I don’t care. To hell with them. Where are you, darling?»

  Blade thrust stongly between her welcoming thighs. Her hand found and guided him. «Oh, yes. Yes. I thought I had misplaced you. Oh, yes. There. Just there.»

  Without taking her mouth from his she gave a little leap and pinioned his waist in her long thighs. Blade slid easily, deeply, into that moist undersea cavern. She locked her ankles behind him, squeezing and tugging with amazing strength. After a moment she bit his ear and whispered, «I want every bit of you. Every bit!»

  A minute passed in which they did not speak. Their bodies spoke, and her sighs and Blade’s breathing, but no Words came.

  Then she said: «I hope you can tread water for both of us, my love. I shan’t be much help. Oh, dear God!»

  Blade, frantically exploring the long and narrow grotto that clasped him, that was at once victor and captive, longing to surrender, to be subjected, felt himself near to climax.

  As was she. She murmured in his ear. «I shan’t be long. Not long.»

  He somehow managed the words, «Breathe deep,» barely coherent above the tortured rasp of his breathing. She nodded and clung to him in a fast-rushing last frenzy. They sank beneath the pale blue water.

  Downward. Slowly. Turning and twisting and drifting. Through liquid luminescence into growing darkness. Her eyes were closed, her hair a trail of brown kelp, her nose and mouth pinched shut and pressed close to Blade’s face. Down and down, both shuddering, convulsing, two intertwined coral statues, two drowned and yet living things. And then not two creatures, but one. Fused. Welded. Sharing the volcanic experience.

  The floated upward in gentleness, limbs locked. They surfaced and saw the sun with surprise. Nothing had changed. Eternity had lasted less than a minute.

  For a minute or two they floated lazily side by side, silent, each content and harboring secret thoughts that would remain secret. Blade held her hand, small and cold, and at last said, «There is always the killjoy, the practical character, who must drag the balloon down to earth; I guess I’m elected. We are.in something of a pickle, Diana. We have lost your pants.»

  Somehow he had expected her to laugh. When she did not, when she said nothing, he swirled in the water to see her face better. She was regarding him with languor, her misty eyes still remembering ecstasy. Blade put his cheek against one of her breasts. She stroked his sleek damp head, but after a moment pulled away from him.

  «No matter,» she said. «I still have my frock. And my car is.parked in a lane near the cliffs. I’ll be all right.»

  Blade saw a solution. «I’ll go in first and bring your frock out to you. I don’t suppose water will ruin it?»

  She did smile then, and traced her fingers over his face. «No. I have hundreds of frocks. You’re making too much of it. There is something else-l must go. Now. This instant.»

  He was not surprised. Had been half expecting it. He glanced at the beach. They were at least a quarter of a mile out.

  She read his look «I’ll be fine. The distance is nothing.

  You you won’t try to follow me? To find out who I am-or anything?»

  Blade shook his head. «Not anything. The forsaken merman promises. Goodbye, Diana.» He would have had it otherwise, but under the circumstances perhaps it was just as well.

  «Goodbye, Hercules. rll never forget you. Or this day.»

  Their glances met and lingered. Her eyes were as green as when he first gazed into them, but the glacial ice had melted.

  «Neither of us,» Blade said, «is likely to forget this day.»

  She kissed him lightly on the mouth, said goodbye again, and was gone.

  He floated, treading now and then, watching her slim body cut the water with an expert eight-beat crawl. He scanned the cliff tops and made out a tiny figure wandering along the path. Old Professor Wright. Even at that distance Blade’s hawkish vision could make out the cape and the deerstalker hat. Today the old man had a butterfly net with him. After specimens. Blade shook his head and grinned. The Professor was a specimen, no doubt of that, but harmless. He could hardly see beyond the end of his nose. No trouble there.

  He saw her leave the water and race to where her dress lay on the sand. She did not look out to sea. Blade began to swim with slow powerful strokes. She was making for the cliff stair now, running easily and with a coltish grace. Blade allowed himself regret. Damn, anywayl It would have been nice, fun, to come to know this lovely stranger. He had been rather at odds with life since he had lost Zoe Cornwall. Apart from his duties, the computer forays into Dimension X, life had been on the bleak side. There were personality changes induced by the restructuring of his brain cells, not all of them for the better, and for a time booze had been a problem. After that it had been women, as he sought, or so J advised him, a surrogate for Zoe. Show girls, barmaids, ladies, and tramps, West End debs and Cockney tarts, Blade had tried them all. None brought him more than temporary surcease. J had voiced concern and alarm and even Lord Leighton, the old rogue, had begun to tch-tch-a bit.

  It had ended at last. Since his last trip through the computer Blade had been living in virtual seclusion in the Dorset cottage. Now this girl from nowhere. Gone back into nowhere.

  He saw her on the rim of the cliff. She was in silhouette against an apple green sky. She raised a hand and waved once. Blade did not wave back. She lingered for a moment, motionless, and he sensed those green eyes on him. Sh
e turned and walked back out of sight.

  When he came out of the sea a few minutes later there were only her footprints to prove that it had been no dream, no fantasy. A fantastic experience, but no fantasy. As he went about gathering his things, smoking a cigarette, he again wondered where he had seen her face before this day. He was sure now that he had never met her in person. But he had seen that face. Where?

  The path along the cliffs was deserted as he made his way to the cottage. The phone was ringing as he entered and he did not hurry. It would only be J checking on him. Wanting to be assured that all was well. Tomorrow the computer. A journey to hell or paradise.

  Blade reached for the strident phone. Between rings he heard, could have sworn he heard, the muffled roar of a high-powered sports car pulling away in low gear.

  Blade grinned. He hoped that Diana would go straight home, wherever that was. If not, he hoped she would be very careful how she sat, or bent over. He was still laughing when he picked up the phone.

  CHAPTER 2

  J had asked Blade to stop in at Copra House. It was from this antique structure, on Bart Lane near Thread needle Street, that J ran the affairs of M16A. Here he had a suite of dingy cubicles that were offices only in a symbolic sense. J, as Blade entered, appeared to be his placid, pipe-smoking, tweedy self. Upper-class, understated, civil servant.

  Blade knew better. J had aged considerably since the computer experiments began. J was nervous at times now, where BTG-Before The Computer-J had had ice water for blood. Blade could understand. His own nerves were not what they had been.

  J greeted Blade with a casual wave of his pipe toward a chair. «Good morning, Richard. You are looking extremely fit.»

  Blade shrugged his big shoulders. «I am. I should be. I awoke this morning to blackbirds singing and honeysuckle on the vine. Pippa passing and all that rot.»

  J sucked on his pipe and gave Blade a meditative look. «Methinks the lad doth protest too much. To be direct, Richard, I don’t think you’re too happy about going into Dimension X again.»

  Blade grinned at the older man. «I’ll level with you, sir, as the Yanks put it. I could pass this cup. Not that I will, naturally. It’s my job. I’ll do it.»

  J nodded as he knocked pipe ash into his palm, spilling it on his vest. «Of course, my boy. Of course you will. But it needn’t be forever, you know. That is, er, rather why I asked you to stop past before you go to the Tower.»

  Blade left his chair and wandered to one of the grimy windows. He looked down into Lothbury Street. A newsboy was standing in a doorway, out of the rushing city throng, holding his placard on high. Blade read the large black letters without much comprehension: LADY DIANA DUCKS DAVID

  Blade smiled at the labored alliteration and turned back into the room. He was far from a snob, but the truth was that he had never read the News of The World in his life. A lively paper, and not too fastidious about the truth. Yet as he faced J again he could not help wondering who the unfortunate David was, and why Lady Diana had ducked him.

  «I think you have a right to know,» said J, «that Lord L and I are trying to find a replacement for you. It is not easy, I assure you. His Lordship has been running cards through his computers like mad. So far he hasn’t come up with anything much. We do have, er, some likely candidates. About twenty odd who measure up in a superficial sense, at least. Out of the lot there may be one who will measure up. If we have the luck.»

  Blade slouched back into his chair and crossed an ankle over a knee. He smiled at J. «Going to sack me, eh? Work not up to snuff? You think I’m past it?»

  For a moment J thought he was serious. He began, «My dear fellow. You know better than-«He stopped, gave Blade a reproachful look, then continued, «I am perfectly serious, Richard. Absolutely. The pitcher can go to the well too often and that mustn’t happen. In any case it is only good sense, good science and good technology. The Americans, for instance, are very careful about overdoing it with their space people. One trip to the moon is usually the limit, two at the most. Strain, nervous tension, even fear-and we all have that-these things can be cumulative and they take a toll.’,»

  Blade regarded his chief with wry amusement. «You don’t have to sell me, sir. I’ve been out there six times and I am ready to quit. As of now. Would you like me to write out my resignation?»

  J looked miserable. «I only wish it were as easy as that, Richard. It isn’t, of course. Lord L is waiting for you now.»

  Blade stood up, his sinewy bulk making the room appear even smaller than it was. His dark hair nearly touched the ceiling. He winked at J.

  «Then why are we wasting time here? Let’s get on with it, sir. Who knows-this might be an easy one.»

  It would not be, of course. As always there would be death and terror lurking out there in Dimension X.

  They left Copra House by a side entrance and came into Lothbury Street. The newsboy was still placarding his black headline. Blade nodded toward the man and said, «Who in the hell do you suppose David is?» It was in the nature of a rhetorical question. J was the last man to be au courant with London’s various subcultures.

  J surprised him. He glanced at the placard and then smiled at Blade. «You’re rather out of things down in Dorset, I see.»

  «True. I like it that way. And if I did have.a paper brought to the cottage it wouldn’t be News of The world.

  J raised a finger to a taxi. It ignored them. J joined Blade again on the curb. «You mustn’t be smug, Richard. Admittedly the paper is an abomination, a penny dreadful, but it does have a certain zest and life to it. Vulgar, yes, but alive.» J made a prim mouth. «There are moments when I think the Times could do with a little vulgarity.»

  Blade did not hear him, not really. He was staring across the busy street at the newsboy. LADY DIANA DUCKS DAVID The newsboy was holding up a paper, quarter folded, and Blade could see that there was a picture, a three column `cut,’ beneath the screaming headline. The photo was of a woman, but even Blade’s eyes could not make out details at that distance.

  J signaled another taxi and was again ignored. Blade crossed the street and bought a paper, giving the man a shilling and not staying for his change. He recrossed to where J stared in surprise, glancing at the picture as he nimbly dodged a lorry.

  It was she. His Diana. Diana of the beach. It was incredible, impossible-yet there she was smiling out of the page. It was a posed studio shot, a still. The caption beneath it said: Lady Diana as she appeared in her most recent film, «No More Camelots.»

  Of course. That was where he had seen her. In the flicks. In scores of magazines and papers.

  As he rejoined J on the curb the old man said, «You must be very curious indeed, Richard. Risking traffic like this for a thruppenny paper.»

  Blade grinned at his chief. «I get these spells, sir. Worse than any cat.» He affected a Cockney accent. «Cor, mate, it comes over me all sudden, it does. If I don’t know who David is I’ll blow me flipping lid.»

  J missed hailing an empty taxi and muttered a genteel curse. «I could have told you that, my boy. Sir David Throckmorton-Pell. The lady’s husband.»

  Blade kept an impassive face. He glanced again at the picture of Diana. Lady Dianal The minx. She had used her right name.

  «I’ve heard of Sir David, of course. The judge. The one who sits in the Old Bailey? A pretty savage old boy, from all I’ve read.»

  J had his own sense of humor. He said, «That’s the one. They call him `The Rope,’ I hear, and I hardly suppose it is because he likes to tie knots-unless they are hangman’s knots.»

  Blade hardly heard him. He was staring at the picture and remembering. The blue sea. Green eyes. Sinking down and down until…

  «Richard-Richardl Good grief, man. Are you in a trance?»

  Blade glanced up. J had snared a taxi and was already ensconced, the door open and waiting, the driver looking impatient. Blade folded the paper and thrust it into his jacket pocket. «Sorry, sir. Wool-gathering again.»

 
J directed the taximan to the Tower and then gave Blade a sharp glance. Blade avoided his eyes and stared out at the traffic. It was clotted like stale jam. They would be a time getting to the Tower.

  J said, «Why the interest in Lady Diana’s peccadilloes? Do you know the lady?»

  Blade avoided a direct lie, but only just. «Not really know her,» he said. «I’ve seen her in films.»

  He did not really know her. He thought of the old joke about sexual congress not constituting an introduction, and had difficulty in repressing a smile.

  J leaned forward and spoke sharply to the driver. «Can’t you go a little faster, man?» Lord Leighton would have the computer ready and His Lordship did not like to be kept waiting.

  They were trapped in — a endless maze of traffic. The driver scowled in his mirror and said, «If I ‘ad wings, Gov, I could maybe fly over this blinkin’ mess. But this ‘ere cab didn’t come equipped with no wings, so we waits. Yer can always walk, Gov.»

  J settled back in frustration. Blade took the paper from his pocket and began to skim through the story about

  Lady Diana. J craned to see the picture. «Quite a lovely girl, isn’t she?»

  Blade nodded. «Beautiful.» And passionate. Fey. Certainly amoral-somehow he could not think of her as immoral-with a hard core of honest lust and a sweetness to temper it. All of this he must keep to himself.

  J began to stuff his pipe, resigned now to the long wait and the fact that they would be late and Lord L would be angry. Helmeted bobbies appeared and began to sort out the traffic amid an unholy din of squawking horns.

  J, reading over Blade’s shoulder, said, «She has run away from the old boy again, eh? Not the first time, either. Not much news in that, really, but of course they have to puff it up. Make what they can of it. A pity, really. For both of them. Of course they should have known better-these May and December things never work Out.»

  By this time Blade had finished the story. The Lady

  Diana was a sometime film actress, a member of the Jet

  Set, of the Now and Beautiful people, and she had an in dependent fortune. That mini-dress she had so raffishly tossed on the sand it had probably cost a hundred pounds.