S.T.A.R. FLIGHT (18 page)

“If we can find him,” she said.

Chung Hoo smiled.

“You know where he is,” she accused. “You’ve known all along. Where is he?” she demanded. “Where?”

“With Hilda Thorenson,” he said quietly. “Shall we join them?”

The swimming pool was the same, the sun, the naked luxury. The inflated duck still bobbed in the water, watching, but this time the woman wasn’t nude. Red nylon held her curves in taut restraint, a barrier to passion, a promise of pleasures to come. Pleasures, thought Preston dispassionately. Things of the flesh. Bribes to buy a boy.

“I still can’t believe it,” said Hilda Thorenson. “You actually succeeded. Tell me.” She sat very close. “Tell me all about it. Everything.”

Preston shook his head. “First things first,” he reminded. “There was talk of money. A lot of money.”

“Two million units,” she agreed. “From Oldsworth. But he’s dead.”

Preston raised his eyebrows.

“Killed,” she said. “I don’t know by whom.”

“From STAR then. I didn’t work for nothing,” he insisted. “The sum was agreed. One million for the secret of the Gates. Another for the secret of the longevity treatment. I can provide both.”

“To the highest bidder?”

“Perhaps.”

“Sell the secrets to me. I will give you the two million. Three, if you like.” Her voice was tense with excitement. She moved like an animal, the golden hairs of her body shining in the sun. The velvet of her pelt covering fat and muscle and brain shifted, begged to be touched, to be kissed. “I helped you,” she pointed out. “I told you what to do. You
owe me your success.”

He looked at her, his face bleak. “How old are you?” he demanded. She smiled into his face. “I want to know,” he insisted. “How many years did you study to become a surgeon? How many years to gain practice? And,” he added, “where did you obtain your degree?”

“The medical school of California,” she said evenly. “You can check.”

“I did.”

“Tell me about the Gates,” she said. “I want to know.”

“You have a wonderful apartment here,” said Preston. “I didn’t know that you owned the building.”

“A company owns it.”

“And you own the company.” He looked at her. “I checked that too,” he said.

“The Gates!” She was impatient. “Tell me about the Gates!”

“It’s in here,” he said, “All of it.” He touched his skull. “Locked in tight but ready to come out at the right time. Plans, details, circuits, everything. With our technology we’ll be able to build the first Gate within a year. With our production facitilites we’ll be able to turn them out one a minute. More. The Kaltich,” he said, watching her eyes, “are finished.”

“Not yet,” she said.

“No,” he agreed. “Not yet. Not while I hold the information. Not when I can be killed.”

“Exactly,” said Hilda Thorenson. “Martin, you are so right!”

Preston looked up as a roaring came from the sky.

The helicopter dropped to hover at the side of the pool. In the downdraught the inflated duck bobbed like a thing alive. The rotors slowed as Chung Hoo and Cherry Lee stepped from the cabin. A signal and it lifted to drone a waiting circle.

“Martin Preston,” said Chung Hoo. “Believe me, it is a pleasure to see you. Allow me to introduce myself. Chung
Hoo. A humble servant of all nations.”

“UNO!” snapped Hilda Thorenson.

Chung Hoo bowed. “Precisely, my dear lady. So you see,” he said to Preston, “you have nothing to fear.”

“Get off my roof,” said Hilda Thorenson. “At once!”

Chung Hoo shook his head. “I must remind you that UNO has precedence over the activities of STAR. We could, if you wish, make an issue of it. No? I thought not. You are being wise.” He turned to the girl at his side, demure in normal clothing, innocent with absence of paint. “Preston, this is Cherry Lee.”

“We’ve met,” he said curtly.

He was thinner, thought Cherry Lee. His face more finely drawn, the eyes burning in their deep sockets. His mouth showed a certain relentlessness. He’s matured, she thought. Become harder than what he was. Once he looked a killer and now he really is.

She looked at Chung Hoo. What does he intend doing? she wondered. Why are we here?

“The secret of efficient government,” said Chung Hoo to no one in particular, “is to let people believe that they govern themselves. Also,” he added, “to let them do the things that are necessary of their own volition. Every age needs a crusade,” he mused. “A cause. Yours, Preston, was gaining the secret of the Gates. Did you succeed?”

“Don’t answer him,” said Hilda Thorenson quickly.

Preston nodded. “I did.”

“And now you expect your reward.” Chung Hoo was bland as he spread his hands. “There is nothing wrong in that. The labourer is worthy of his hire. UNO has sufficient funds and would be willing —”

“The information belongs to STAR,” interrupted Hilda Thorenson. “We can extract if from his head. We can use it. We know how best to bargain with the Kaltich for the right to share their alternates. We —” She broke off. “That is —”

Preston slapped her across the face.

“I owe you that,” he said grimly. “For the beating I took. Seven lashes of a major whip. For the interrogation. For being shot and killed. For having to watch a friend die. And,” he added, “for your latest attempt to murder me.”

“But —” Cherry Lee fell silent as Chung Hoo clamped his hand on her wrist.

“Daler was your man,” continued Preston. The words were bullets fired from the guns of his anger. “I called you, told you where I was, asked you to send me money. Instead you sent Daler. To kill me. But he was careless. I was already suspicious and I got him first. The Kaltich taught me that,” he said. “To kill before getting killed. You bitch!” he stormed. “You damned renegade!”

She whitened beneath his anger.

“You are fond of wearing red,” he said. “Each time I’ve seen you you’ve worn red. A fault,” he pointed out. “You’re a Scandinavian blonde and red isn’t the colour which suits you best. It makes you look like a tart,” he said spitefully. “A cheap tart. But would an alpha think of that? Or,” he added, “someone who’d been conditioned to believe that red was the prime colour?”

She glared at him like a cat. “One day,” she said thinly, “I shall kill you. It will not be an easy death.”

“I’ve been killed,” he said, calmer now. “I know what it is to die. To be tortured,” he added. “And for what? So that you could test the security of the Gates. You must have laughed at STAR. Amateurs playing at conspirators, not realising that we were rotten with spies. UNO agents,” he said looking at Chung Hoo. “Raleigh and maybe King. And what of the other side? The Kaltich aren’t fools. They must have their own intelligence network. In a world with a technology as high as ours they wouldn’t dare do otherwise. Locals eager and willing to work for them. Some of their own people. Like Daler, for example. He was careless. He knew how it was that I came through the London Gate instead of the one at New York. An accident, but I’m betting that it saved my life. And he was ignorant. He
claimed to have worked the Maracot Deep. He may have done — but never in this world. But he thought he could afford to be careless. He’d been sent to kill me. To shut my mouth,”

Hilda Thorenson stirred where she sat at the edge of the pool. Her cheek showed the red welts left by Preston’s fingers. She touched them. “Surmise,” she said coldly. “Lies.”

“Truth. You made a slip,” said Preston. “More than one if you want to count. A moment ago you mentioned alternate worlds. Alternates, you called them. How did you know that?”

He waited for her answer, shrugged when none came.

“But that wasn’t your biggest error. You found a delta, Leon Tonach. I took his place. You searched his mind for information but the one fact he must have known you didn’t tell me. He knew the Kaltich travelled between alternate worlds. He must have known. That means you knew also. Why didn’t you tell me?”

She rose, tall, beautiful, eyes blazing with contempt. “You thing of filth! Yes, I am of the Kaltich. What do you intend doing about it?”

“Nothing,” said Preston. “Nothing at all. You can be escorted to the New York Gate this very moment if you wish.”

“No,” said Chung Hoo. “Not that. Not yet.”

“She won’t go,” said Preston. “I killed an alpha,” he said to the woman. “You realize what that means? An alpha, the next thing to God. How do you think your friends will thank you for what you’ve done? You did do it, you know. If you hadn’t sent me into the Gate that alpha would still be alive. It was luck,” he admitted. “Good for me but bad for you. Very bad. The one thing you could never have predicted. You thought that I’d be trapped at the Gate. That I’d do all I could to get through and thus show up any weakness. That your people would catch me and deal with me as they did Lassiter. But an alpha died,” he said grimly. “You will be
blamed for his death. Would you like us to escort you to the Gate?

Cherry Lee stared thoughtfully down at the penthouse as the helicopter climbed into the sky. “What will happen to her?” she wondered.

Chung Hoo tucked his hands in the sleeve of his jacket. “She will die,” he said calmly. “Shot or killed in some other way by her own people. They dare not leave her at large,” he explained. “She dare not go back to excuse herself. As Martin pointed out, a caste system such as that of the Kaltich must always punish those who injure a member of a higher caste.”

“But if she’s an alpha?”

“She isn’t,” said Preston. He shifted a little but not too much. The cabin of the helicopter was roomy enough but, somehow, Cherry Lee had managed to press herself hard against his chest. It was the most natural thing in the world to drop his arm around her shoulders. “An alpha would never consent to physical work and Hilda Thorenson has had to work, and does work, really hard. She also allows limitation on her personal freedom and that’s another thing no alpha would ever tolerate. She wears red, true, but only because of a subconscious desire to improve her status. She has money, agreed, but so has every Kaltich.”

“You know,” said Cherry Lee. “I could almost feel sorry for her.”

Preston remembered the seven lashes. “I’m not.”

“What’s going to happen now?” asked Cherry Lee. She moved, letting Preston’s arm slip from her shoulders to her waist, pulling it tight with shameless abandon. “Are you going to get the plans from his mind? Build the Gates?”

“Yes,” said Chung Hoo.

“Right away?”

“Yes.”

“How long will it take? Getting the plans, I mean.”

“A day. A week. I cannot be sure.”

“And after?”

“Paradise,” breathed Chung Hoo softly. “For everyone.”

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2: Derai (
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3: Toyman (
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4: Kalin (
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5: The Jester at Scar (
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6: Lallia (
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7: Technos (
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8: Veruchia (
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11: Zenya (
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12: Eloise (
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13: Eye of the Zodiac (
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14: Jack of Swords (
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15: Spectrum of a Forgotten Sun (
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16: Haven of Darkness (
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17: Prison of Night (
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18: Incident on Ath (
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19: The Quillian Sector (
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20: Web of Sand (
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21: Iduna’s Universe (
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22: The Terra Data (
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23: World of Promise (
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24: Nectar of Heaven (
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25: The Terridae (
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26: The Coming Event (
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27: Earth is Heaven (
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28: Melome (
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29: Angado (
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