An Evil Guest

GREAT TAKANGA

“I have questions,” Cassie said as the black hopper left the curb. “Do you have answers?”

“It depends,” Gideon told her. “Probably not. Try one and we’ll see.” He was watching the computer screen.

“Did you know the wolf would kill Scott?”

“Did he?”

“Yes. By which you mean you didn’t know he would?”

“I suppose. I admit it seemed probable.”

“If you had been sure he would, would you have tried to save him?”

Gideon glanced up. “That’s a hypothetical.”

“Would you?”

“By the time I learned the wolf had taken Scott — which was when you told me over dinner — he was almost certainly dead. Knowing that, and feeling quite certain Bill Reis had set everything in motion, I would have done nothing unless you asked me to.”

“Does your computer still make tea?”

“Certainly. Tea, please, for the lady you served last night. Prepared in the same way, I suppose.”

Cassie nodded.

“More questions? Would you like the grid coordinates for Kololahi?”

“No. Here come some tough ones. You’re still working for the government?”

“For the president, in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Correct.”

“They want you to... ?”

“Arrange for them to capture my employer, Bill Reis, alive or persuade him to give himself up.” Cassie’s tea had emerged, and Gideon handed it to her.

“You’re trying to do that?”

He nodded. “Yes to both.”

“Arthur whatshisname just shot Norma like you’d spray a fly. Couldn’t they do that?”

“Probably, although I don’t know with any certainty. I’m reasonably sure they’ve never tried.”

“Why not?”

“Because they want to learn what he knows. When I spoke to the president, he simply wanted to know how Reis had penetrated some supposedly secure research facilities. Nothing was said about invisibility, and I don’t believe they knew about it then. They do now, because I’ve told them.”

“Are we going where we went up from last night?”

Gideon grinned. “Is that one of the tough questions? Yes. If you know of a better place, tell me and we’ll go there.”

“I just wondered. It seemed like it.” Cassie sipped tea. “I’m not really going to put on one of those bikinis, you know. I’m too fat.”

“You have a question you’re afraid to ask. How’s your tea?”

“Like the questions. Almost too hot. Are you really trying to get Wally caught?”

“That depends on what you mean by trying. Twenty! Ten! Stop!”

The black hopper halted for a traffic light.

“Suppose you’d wanted to stop faster?”

“I’d have said it louder and twice.”

“You’ve been driving with your right leg. You said — ”

“I was wearing the wooden one. This is the modern prosthetic, metal and polymer, thought-controlled. I need to practice using it, too. That time I was thinking of something else, and talking was easier.”

“Can I ask what you were thinking of?”

“Certainly. What the question you’re afraid to ask is. Let me finish.” He touched the accelerator, and the black hopper glided smoothly through the intersection. “I’m not actively trying to get Bill Reis captured, because I don’t see a way to do it as things stand. He’s been out of the country pretty steadily, and by the time I learn he’s reentered, he’s gone again. I hope you’ll help me with that.”

Cassie said nothing.

“I’ve been trying to persuade him to give himself up, however, and trying to persuade the president to offer him better terms. I’m getting close there, or think I am.”

“What’s my next question?”

“What I’m doing for Reis. Pretty much the same thing. I keep him informed as well as I can about Washington and what the various agencies there are doing that bears on his operations. What the people who shot Norma are up to — when I know. What the CIA’s doing, and so on. The FBI feeds me a lot of that information because John and his friends don’t want their rivals to win.”

“But you’re spying on them, too.”

“Of course I am. Don’t think they don’t suspect it.”

They sailed through the last traffic light on green, and Cassie said, “I’ll be in the real South Pacific in just a few minutes? I can’t believe it.”

Gideon nodded. “I can do it, but I can’t make you believe it.” He hesitated. “I can’t make you go, either. Won’t. If you don’t want to go, just say so.”

“Wally will think you talked me out of it.”

Gideon shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“Then he’ll try to kill you. Since you’re working for him, it’ll be a snap. I want to go, Gid. Let’s not talk about that anymore.”

“I meant everything I said in my note.”

“I know you did.” Her lips brushed his cheek — and were gone. “A while back, you told me the president wanted to know how Wally disappears.”

He sighed. “Correct. It would be a grand tool for espionage, both international and domestic.”

“Doesn’t he care about the gold?”

“He certainly does. Even more than he cares about invisibility. He says he simply wants to stop Reis from making it, because he’s unbalancing the world market. The truth, I feel quite certain, is that he wants to make gold himself. He just won’t admit it.”

“None of this makes sense, Gid.” Cassie paused. “Did I just sound plaintive?”

“Very.”

“Good. I felt plaintive, so I thought I might. I have trouble with plaintive onstage, sometimes.”

“You’re the only one who’s noticed.”

“I’ll be a little bit better now if I can remember just how I did that.” Cassie sipped more tea. “What they really want from Wally is what he knows. Isn’t that right? They want to learn how he disappears and how he makes the gold.”

“Correct.”

“Well, why bother? If he found out how to do those things on that crazy planet — ”

“Woldercan.”

“If he found out on Woldercan, why don’t they go there and find out like he did?”

They had turned onto the abandoned highway as she spoke. Now Gideon braked to a stop and turned in his seat to face her. “You thought of that for yourself.”

“Sure. Anybody would.”

“Believe me, that’s far from true.” He seemed about to smile. “This is one of the things I love about you. You’re not at all intellectual — we intellectuals are, for the most part, fools — but every so often you show the most marvelous penetration.”

“You mean I’m right?”

“Certainly you’re right. I’ve been trying to persuade the president to appoint me ambassador to Woldercan. With the authority of the office behind me, I could go there and learn those things just as Bill Reis did. He doesn’t want to remove the current ambassador. He wants me to go there as his special representative or something of the sort — wants me to make his win cheap and easy for him, in other words.”

“Will you?”

“No. Absolutely not.” Gideon grinned. “Want to hear the secret of my success? Not that you need to.”

“You bet I do!”

“It’s cheap and easy. Never set yourself up to fail. Never!” He turned back to the road, and the black hopper glided forward again. “Do you have any more questions, Cassie? We haven’t long.”

THE air of Kololahi Aerodrome was warm and humid and stirred by a hundred breezes. They carried the salt tang of the sea, and soon had Cassie wondering what the airport at Springfield had smelled like. If it had smelled of anything but rain, she could not remember what it had been.

This smelled of salt waves and salt spray, and spoke of lazy mornings spent paging through fashion magazines under beach umbrellas.

She had brought three suitcases and a garment bag. After making sure that she had also brought money Gideon Chase found her a porter, a bronze-toned man somewhat larger than most refrigerators and somewhat smaller than most trucks. He crouched before her and kissed the ground at her feet, a mountain of rolling fat and bulging muscle; and by the time she had recovered from that, Gideon was gone and the black hopper rising into a cloudless sky. It shrunk to the size of a bird.

And vanished.

Seconds later, the faint boom of its vanishing reached her, and she was alone.

The porter rose. “Go hotel?”

Cassie nodded. “A good one, moderately priced, please.”

The porter shook his head. “You are high queen. High queen go Salamanca House.” He touched the name embroidered in red on his sleeveless white tunic. “Salamanca House most fine. I am Hiapo. I show you.” He hurried away and returned with a baggage cart on which was a folding chair.

At his insistence she accepted the chair on the cart. He stacked her suitcases behind her, draped her garment bag over one enormous arm, and pushed her slowly across the tarmac, down a narrow but well-paved road and along streets (in which tourists in shorts and big hats stared at her open-mouthed) to a sprawling and somewhat decayed white building of many spindly pillars and flourishing palms.

“Salamanca House!” he announced proudly.

Cassie thanked him and would have paid him, but he was already hurrying up a wide, white staircase with her bags.

She found him inside, speaking urgently to the girl at the desk in a language that was certainly not English. She tried to pay him again.

He backed away, managing to indicate by gestures and facial expressions that it was an honor to have served her, an honor that would be diminished were he to accept money for it.

“You are our queen,” the girl behind the registration desk whispered. This girl appeared to be about eighteen; she wore a hibiscus behind one ear and had huge brown eyes in a broad face of lighter brown. India Dempster would have looked small beside her.

Cassie cleared her throat. “I have no reservation, unless perhaps Dr. Gideon Chase made one for me? My name’s Cassie Casey.”

The girl smiled. “The royal suite has been prepared for you, O Queen.”

“I would imagine the royal suite is a bit more than I can afford.”

The girl looked shocked. “There is no charge for the royal suite, O Queen.”

“My bags — ”

“Have preceded you. Hiapo took them, O Queen. I will show you to the royal suite. Will you require one maid or two?”

The elevator was a large and luxuriously furnished cage of gilded, over-wrought iron. It appeared to be at least two hundred years old.

“We have not yet a private elevator for the royal suite,” the immense girl whispered. “We proffer abject sorrys for that. This is ordered, but a ship have not arrived that carry him. Very soon.” She let down a dully shining gate of twining iron vines with a scarcely audible clang.

Cassie said that was quite all right.

“You are most kind, O Queen. This we are told, and so it is. True? I am manager. I am Naylay. What you wish, O Queen, I have for you.”

“Nelly?”

“Yes.” The girl smiled. “Naylay.” She patted her ample chest, found a name badge that appeared to designate her right breast, and displayed it: Nele. “Will our high queen require both maids now?”

SHOPPING was not so much easy as ridiculous. Cassie exchanged five hundred American dollars for a larger sum in Australian dollars. After which, she visited four shops in which whatever she liked was given to her without charge.

Now these gifts were spread on the enormous bed in what had proved to be the hotel’s penthouse: five flowered gowns of gauzy material, a gleaming white purse amply large enough to hold her little automatic with much else, and two pairs of white sandals with low but distinct heels. Three of her five new gowns had plunging necklines; all had full skirts.

She had particularly liked the pale yellow one with the foliage and red flowers. After showering and drenching herself with Lily Delight she put it on and posed before the pier glass in her new boudoir. She did not look like a queen, she decided. Most especially, she did not look like the queen of a nation whose children rivaled linemen in the National Football League.

But she looked quite nice.

She had never used much mascara, and did not use much now. A little face powder and a touch of New Rose Number Ten. Her hair, she decided, needed a good brushing. The hand bell summoned Ku’ulai, who brushed it thoroughly and reverently.

“How should I wear it, Ku’ulai? I want to get it up off my neck.”

“I show.” Ku’ulai began to rearrange.

“Will the high king come for me?”

“Who can say, O Queen?”

“Not me, obviously. Not so long ago — it seems like years now — Gideon Chase wanted to know if I had any more questions. I said no, not having asked a one that I should have asked. But he probably didn’t know, or he would have told me.” Cassie glanced at her watch. “It’s evening now, where I came from.”

Ku’ulai giggled.

“Very late, and winter’s coming on. Here it’s what? A little past lunch, I suppose. I should have asked them at the bank.”

“Like eat?”

“Much too much,” Cassie told her darkly.

THE answers came slowly and from a variety of sources, but they came. The bank knew a little. The Office of Tourism probably knew a great deal more, but he (an elderly man who sat fanning himself slowly behind a desk piled with brochures) had difficulty understanding her questions, and she had even more understanding his answers. Nele was too polite to be particularly informative, and Ku’ulai was too provincial to understand why her high queen should inquire about things everyone knew. The tourists positively scintillated with information, much of it contradictory; even worse, they overflowed with questions.

After three days, she felt moderately secure with the following:

• There were seven (or six or nine) inhabited islands in the Takanga Group.

• No one knew exactly how many uninhabited islands there were. Inhabitation depended upon the availability of fresh water.

• Kololahi was on Great Takanga, the largest island.

• Kololahi was the only city in the Takanga Group; it was a bit smaller than Alice Springs.

• There were innumerable villages on the inhabited islands. Each was ruled by a king — occasionally by a queen.

• The nation was ruled by its high king. All of the people had seen him. None of the tourists had seen him. All kings were sacred, the high king most sacred; he had been chosen by God. Or by the gods. Or by certain gods.

• The high king ruled from Takanga Ha’i. It was the most mountainous island in the group, and could be seen from the top of Mauna Makani to the northeast.

• The high king ruled from the Island of the Dead, under the sea north of Takanga Ha’i.

• The high king’s wife was the high queen. She was very beautiful and mistress of many magics. Her head was on fire. (“I feel the same way sometimes,” Cassie told the tourist who told her that.)

• The people were Christians, belonging to a variety of Protestant sects.

• The people were pagans, worshipping many gods.

• When people became Christians, God came but the old gods did not go away. (This from Ku’ulai.)

• No one knew the names of the gods. They were called the Thunder God, the Blind God, the Shark God, the Volcano God, the Storm King, the Sun God, the Sea Goddess, and so forth.

• The names of the gods were too sacred to be pronounced.

• There was no ferry service to Takanga Ha’i.

She bought sunblock and a bathing suit. It was not as small as Gideon had suggested but was very small indeed. Salamanca House controlled a considerable stretch of beach and furnished its guests with beach umbrellas and beach chairs. The water was warm, hospitable, and very clear. There had been no shark attacks along that beach for two years Hiapo told her proudly. After that, she continued to swim but swam somewhat less.

On the fifth day, it occurred to her that it might be possible to reach the United States by cell phone. She found hers in a drawer and put it in her beach bag. On the beach a kind woman from Perth informed her that a good many people, herself included, called home often. There was a tower, she said, on a hilltop outside Kololahi. From it, calls were beamed to a satellite in Clarke orbit.

“Calling the States might be a bit costly, though,” the woman from Perth mused. “Dog charges, you know. Rover, or whatever they call him.”

“I don’t care,” Cassie said. “I’m going to call India.”

“Oh, you’ve friends in India?”

Somewhat later, Cassie did.

“Hello! Who is this?” India sounded testy.

“It’s Cassie. How are you?”

“Cassie? Ohmygod! I was just about to phone you. I’m sitting on the john.”

Cassie grinned. “So of course you thought of me.”

“No, no, no! I’ve been calling and calling. You’ve been out of service.”

“I turned it off,” Cassie confessed. “I turned it off and forgot it. What’s up?”

“We’re almost ready to go. Just about, nearly. The thing is, I want rocks for the second dream. Pfeiffer says they’ll get in the way of his dancers. I say dancers ought to be able to dance around a rock. I’d love to have you and Gil dance there for him. I don’t think Gil will have any trouble, even with his saw-log leg. Do you know where he is?”

Cassie decided that explaining “Gil’s” identity would be too complicated. “No idea,” she said. “I haven’t got him. Honest Injun.”

“Okay, do you know where you are?”

“Sure. Only I’ve got a feeling it would be better not to tell you. Wally wouldn’t like it, or I don’t think so. Ask him.”

“You haven’t got him either?”

“Huh uh. I’m waiting for him to ride up on a white horse. I’ve been waiting for a week.”

“In the middle of some swamp, I bet. Poor baby!”

“Not really.” Cassie grinned. “Luxury hotel. Great meals, great beach. Great big hunks. You know.”

“Holy snot, Wanton Woman, you must be suffering the tortures of the damned.”

“You’ve got it. I keep eating and eating and chugging piña coladas. I know darned well I’ll be way too fat to get into my costumes when I get back. Roast pork is the specialty here, and it’s to die for. The roast pork and the fruit. They bring me this whole big tray of fruit, all cut up and arranged to make it look like a sunrise, and the colors are so bright it looks like a tray of jewelry.”

There was only heavy breathing from the other end of the connection.

“The rest of it’s pretty ordinary except for marvelous seafood.” Turning away, Cassie stifled a giggle. “For my first two dinners I had rock lobster in drawn butter — ”

A soft click from the other end of the connection told her no one was listening.

She called Gideon Chase, and to her considerable surprise got him. “I’m at Salamanca House, Gid. That’s the big hotel here. They treat me like a queen. Wally hasn’t come for me, so why don’t you come and take me home? You did what he wanted and so did I. He left me high and dry.”

“Two reasons. No, three. First, because Reis may be waiting to see whether that happens. You’re being watched, Cassie. I guarantee that. I don’t know who the watchers are, but there are some.”

“India needs me.”

“She should talk to Reis. Not to you and certainly not to me. Second, because I’m in a ticklish situation. I know how it sounds, but everything could blow up in my face if I took a day — and it would require at least that — to access my car, drive it to a safe spot, hop, pick you up at your hotel, and all the rest of it. Third — ”

“Don’t bother. That’s enough.”

“Third, you may be of great value to me where you are now. If you were in Kingsport, I’d have to rely on Aaberg to outmaneuver the people who killed Norma. He’s good, but I’m not sure he’s that good.”

“I love you, Gid. Thanks for letting me drive your car.”

“I love you, too, Cassie.” He hung up.

ONE of the great big hunks she had mentioned to India seated himself on the sand next to her beach chair. He was, she decided, at least six foot eight and remarkably good-looking, but strictly local talent. She leaned back, closing her eyes behind large sunglasses she had been forced to accept by the hotel’s gift shop.

She swam in water that might almost have been blue air, the hunk beside her matching five of her strokes with one of his. A wall of coral rose to the right, coral of a hundred shades of rose and green; the fish that swam before it were yellow and electric blue, each hardly larger than a quarter but so bright they seemed to burn.

The hunk touched her arm, smiling, and pointed behind and below them. She turned to look, and the great white shark that swam there was larger than many fishing boats. She knew she should have been terrified — but knew also that the shark had come to protect them from a horror that stirred in darker waters far below. A horror that waited, that gathered its —

She woke with a start. Everything had changed except the hunk, who was still beside her and still smiling after having touched her arm.

“I — I...” She struggled to collect her thoughts. “You were there. You were with me.”

The smile became a grin; his teeth appeared to have been filed to points.

“We didn’t have scuba gear, but we didn’t drown. We didn’t need it.” Cassie paused, struggling now to catch her breath. “Wonderful! It was wonderful!” It sounded terribly inadequate even to her.

“I am Hanga.” He extended his hand, apparently unaware that men are not supposed to initiate handshakes with women.

She accepted it, and they shook. “I’m Cassie Casey, Hanga. Pleased to meet you.”

For a time they sat in silence, side by side, staring out at the sea. At last he said, “Which is more beautiful, Cassie Casey? Is it the sea or the land?”

“They’re both so lovely...”

He nodded.

“Which do you think, Hanga? You’ve seen more of them than I have.”

He chuckled, a deep and echoing chuckle like surf on a rocky shoe. “What I think is not important, Cassie Casey. I say after.”

“But what I think is?”

He nodded solemnly.

“All right. The sea is very, very beautiful. I just had a dream about it, the most beautiful dream I ever had in my whole life.”

He nodded again.

“I adore this sea. It’s the South Pacific, right? It’s like the sky, like the sky had a sister. It’s as beautiful as water can possibly be. But the land is my home. You’ve got to love your home best, because it’s home. Does that make any sense?”

“You are wise, Cassie Casey.”

“I’m not, but I’m smart enough to know I’m not. We had a puppy once. He wasn’t wise at all, but he knew he was just a puppy and he would beg me sometimes to take that into account. He had chewed my shoe, but he hadn’t known he wasn’t supposed to. Are you smart, Hanga?”

He shrugged. “There are many things few understand that I understand. There are many things many understand that I do not understand.”

“I’ve got it.”

“It does not trouble you that I am on this beach, Cassie Casey?”

“Heck no. Why should it? It’s your beach.”

The chuckle came again. “It is the hotel’s beach. The village people may not use it. The people of Kololahi may not use it. Only guests of the hotel. Only them, Cassie Casey. Not even those who labor for the hotel may use it.”

“Are you a guest?”

“No. They do not see me.” He sounded amused.

“And you’re afraid I’m going to tell them. I won’t. Honest Injun.”

“I am not afraid.”

“Good! You shouldn’t be. These are your islands. I’m here as a guest, Hanga. If you and your people don’t want us here, you have a perfect right to tell us to go home.”

The voice of the woman from Perth reached her, faintly but distinctly. “She keeps talking and talking.”

“I guess I do talk too much,” Cassie said. “You talk, Hanga.”

“Would you wish the hotel guests gone, Cassie Casey? All save you?”