The VMR Theory (v1.1) (7 page)

“Oh, we have our ways, Mr. MacKay. You may even enjoy tee experience.”

After he let me leave a note telling Catarina I’d met Blok and not to wait up, his men drove me to Special Secret Police headquarters, which turned out to be your typical dull, featureless, underground fortress of steel and concrete.

“Quite a place you have here,” I commented. “It reminds of the DMV back home.”

“Bare concrete is so reassuring to tee eye,” Wipo quipped. “How do you like our sign, ‘Abandon hope all you who enter here’?”

“Yup, it’s the DMV.”

“I understand you play bridge.”

“On occasion.”

“An exquisite game. I often play when my duties permit.” In the dim light his eyes glowed. “Perhaps we will have time to play a few hands. Do you know, I once had a partner who declared on weak red suits? I eventually had him shot, of course.”

He led me downstairs to the lower dungeon level, where he pointed to a square hole in the floor and a ladder leading down. “Our VIP suite. Tee ladder is mounted on a cantilever to allow us to pull it up after you descend, and tee trapdoor has a one-way mirror to enable us to observe your movements.”

I peered down the hole and saw a sleeping pallet in one comer, a sink and Turkish toilet in another, and dust bunnies everywhere. “I’d hate to see the two-star accommodations.”

Wipo smiled. “In you go!”

In I went. Several hours later six or seven guards prodded me awake. “It is time. Take off your clothing. Come with .us,” one of them said.

“This is how people catch colds,” I mumbled. “Can I keep my shorts?”

The guards looked at each other and apparently decided that was all right. They took me down the corridor to a small room, strapped me to a chair, and took up positions on either side.

While I waited for the whips and rubber hoses to appear, I snarled, “All right, coppers, you got me, but you’ll never make me talk!”

Privately, I decided to give Catarina time to make it back to the ship before spilling my guts, and to faint a lot if the circumstances warranted.

A cheery voice behind me said, “How melodramatic!” A perky little female Macdonald with large oval eyes and a slightly silver cast to her skin leaned over my left shoulder. “Hello, Mr. MacKay. May I call you Ken?”

She was wearing a flimsy pink robe and had the kind of personality you associate with aerobics instructors, which aroused my suspicions. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

“My name is Xuexue,” she trilled. “But you may call me ‘Trixie.’ “

For some reason, this did not sound promising. “Ah, excuse me for not getting up.”

She held her hand to her mouth and tittered, “I quite understand.” Then she turned to the officer in charge. “Please leave us.”

The officer bowed, and he and the guards departed. Gracefully hopping up on my lap, she tapped me on the nose. “T’ey would just be in tee way.”

“Now that they’re gone, you wouldn’t consider turning me loose as a gesture of universal galactic friendship?”

“No.” She pushed a button on the control panel beside the chair, which stretched me out flat. Then she planted an elbow in the middle of my chest and leaned over to contemplate my predicament. “How are you feeling?”

“Like the cockroach at a chicken dance, although I can think of several people who would pay serious money to switch places with me right now. You wouldn’t, by chance, have some extra clothes that one of the two of us could wear, would you?”

“Sorry.”

“Your English is very good.”

“ ‘Tee Spain, in main, stays plainly in tee rain.’ “

“To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“I am to obtain information from you.” She stretched and switched elbows. “You see, I read minds.”

I tried to look impressed. “I can’t say that I’ve ever met a mind reader before, I wouldn’t think there would be much call for your specialty. Most of the folks I run into don’t have a heck of a lot to read.”

“Tee Special Secret Police have use for me, unfortunately. ft makes me dangerous. And so I will be married off as secondary wife to some minor nobleman to preserve my genes and will spend my days and nights eating kumquats and growing fat.” She tittered. “I was kidding about tee kumquats.”

I got the impression that even by admittedly lax local standards, she was one sick puppy.

She tweaked my nose. “Naughty, naughty! Now you are t’inking I am crazy.”

“Would you watch where you’re putting your other hand—thank you!—and, ah, how does this mind-reading thing work?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” she asked coyly. “Absolutely.”

“It’s something only females can do.”

“That figures.”

“We can only read men’s minds.”

“That also figures.”

She stroked my brow. “Our lateral line can detect slight changes in bioelectrical fields. By interpreting t’ese changes and scenting pheromones, t’ose of us who possess tee gift can understand t’oughts.”

“And some of you can do this with humans?”

“Just little me,” she said proudly.

“Do you have to sit in my lap?”

Little Miss Mental Health and Hygiene giggled and crooned, “The bioelectrical currents are
so
weak. I have to be very, very close to detect t’em. Poor little vampire, don’t you want to bite my neck?”

“To be truthful, no.”

She sat up and clapped her hands together. “Well, we will just have to t’ink of somet’ing else fun to do!” She snapped the waistband on my underpants. “And what are t’ese cute little animals on your clot’ing?”

“Those are baby bunnies, and I would rather not discuss them.” I crossed my eyes. “While I’m thinking of it, what do Wipo’s boys have me tied up with?”

“It is called
kwisti.
It is made from a plant.”

One of the real pleasures in being a vamp is the allergies, which included, as I was rapidly beginning to discover,
kwisti
fiber. It was causing me to break out in a body rash. I sneezed, and Trixie delicately wiped my nose.

“I guess the first question you’ll want to ask is whether I’m a secret agent,” I said, thinking the words “NO. NO. NO.”

She tittered again. “Don’t be silly. We already know t’at.” She pulled a lever on the control panel beside the chair so that I could listen to a taped recording of Bobby Stemm’s voice saying, “I just can’t believe that the Powers That Be would send someone as inept as MacKay to spy on the greasers.”

“We have his office beetled,” she announced triumphantly.

“You mean bugged.”

“Oh. Yes. Bugged. How cute.” She tittered again, which was becoming monotonous. “Now let us see what our silly security people want to know from you. Here is a nice question: Are you working for Navy Intelligence?”

“No!”

“T’at means yes! T’is is so much fun. Next, does your mission here have anyt’ing to do wit’ warships? Anot’er yes! Of course it does! Oh, you are squirming so!”

“This stupid rope itches like crazy.”

The next half-dozen questions on her list were about Earth’s politics, which required yes or no answers. She ran through them impersonally and came up with one yes, one no, and a bunch of darned-if-I-knows.

“Here are some vampire questions! Do you drink blood?”

“No.”

She gave me a startled look, but wrote it down anyway. “How long do vampires live?”

“That’s a silly question. Even people who write life insurance sometimes miscalculate how long someone will live, and Fm making a mental note to add to my policy.”

“Have you used names other t’an Ken MacKay?”

“No,” I said hastily. Until I was five, my great-aunts used to call me things like “Binky.” Apparently, my subconscious gave me away.

“Ha!” she said.

Her questions were beginning to get a little too close to sensitive subjects for comfort, and so was her left hand, so I tried thinking about mathematical tables.

“How many names have— Ah! Naughty, naughty! You’re not concentrating!” She pinched me in a rather private place.

“Excuse me. Do you have to do that?”

“Aren’t you getting your money’s worth, sailor?” she coaxed slyly. “Come tell Auntie Trixie what you are t’ inking.”

I was thinking that if I managed to get out of this in one piece, Catarina was going to tease me about it unmercifully for months. Or years. Or longer. “Ah, how did a nice girl like you get mixed up in a racket like this?”

“Oh, but I’m a very naughty girl. It is kind of fun, really. Males have such dirty minds! Poor little vampire, would you like to take me home wit’ you?”

To tell the truth, I was beginning to feel a little sorry for her. “Well, if you ever want to get out of here, we have a spare bunk down in Stores.”

Something about my reaction surprised her. Her eyes slitted. “You just want me to read minds for you!”

“Uh, no.” Unfortunately, I seem to have acquired a good dose of religion from Catarina, which manifests itself at inopportune moments. “Your technique is a little, ah, indecorous, and besides, most of the folks we dicker with have enough trouble not gyping themselves. Can you cook?”

“T’en you just want me for my body!”

I was beginning to figure out why mind-reading never caught on with human beings. It’s extremely difficult to carry on intersexual communications if you have to stick to the whole truth and nothing but the truth. “Well, no. There’s my partner Catarina to consider. One weird relationship I can deal with, but two would be pushing it.”

“But you would still risk yourself to help me escape?”

“Well, yeah, I suppose, but you know, I’m beginning to think that this stuff about rescuing damsels in distress isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

I was also seeing two of her and beginning to fade in and out of the conversation as my glands began pumping things into my system to deal with my allergic reaction to the stupid rope.

The last thing I heard her say was, “Poor little vamp.”

I woke up in a double bed. Catarina was sitting at the far end. “Are you alive yet?”

I looked around the room, which had chartreuse wallpaper. “If this is heaven, I want my money back.”

“Ah, you are awakened, Mr. MacKay.” A little Oriental guy in a white coat was standing next to Catarina with his hands folded. “I am Dr. Ye, the embassy primary care physician. After conferring, Miss Lindquist and I have decided to have you fixed.”

I blinked my eyes rapidly a few times. “Excuse me, but I thought that was something people did to unruly house pets.”

“I meant restored to health.” Ye turned on his heel and left.

I asked Catarina, “Why are you here, and where is here anyway?”

“The Spe’cial Secret Police have seized our ship. We’re in the embassy. Your friend, Supreme Agent Wipo, shipped you here after I convinced him that you’d probably croak without better medical attention than he could provide.” She gestured toward the little refrigerator in the corner. “He left a bottle of the local
vin ordinaire
to show that there’s no hard feelings on his part, but you’re out on loan, so to speak. The ambassador has promised to return you to Macdonald custody as soon as you’re well enough to travel.”

“I suddenly feel very, very sick. It may be months.” She coughed delicately. “Gwen has been in here three times to see you.”

“Nothing like a miraculous recovery. Suddenly, I feel great.” I ran my fingers over the welts on my arms. “What was the good doctor in a snit about?”

“You’ll be up and about in another day, which touches on a problem he alluded to. Technically, you’re not on the government payroll, and he isn’t authorized to accept your health insurance.”

“I ought to call Lydia and make her cough up enough funny money to cover it.” I reflected for a second or two. “Of course, that might also be hazardous to my health.”

“Bunkie and I worked out a deal. To ask a very intimate question, how do you feel about donating your body to science after you’re finished using it?”

“Nothing like having a doctor who won’t get paid off if I get well.”

“Oh, nothing that crude. Currently, the betting line is two-to-one against your surviving more than a week, but I understand that Mickey managed to get about a thousand down at four-to-one.” She handed me a tray with a fruit plate and several servings of chocolate mousse. “Here, eat something. Doctor’s orders.”

“Thanks,” I said, opting for dessert first. “This isn’t what the embassy dining room is serving, is it?”

“No, they’re serving ethnic food tonight—meat loaf a la Des Moines, with green beans Dubuque and instant mashed potatoes. I’m told the ambassador has declared next week health food week, so we’d better lay in a stock of provisions.”

I repressed yet another shudder. “How’s our crew?” I asked between mouthfuls.

“Bunkie and Clyde came down when the Macdonalds took the
Scupper
into custody. I assigned Bunkie to keep an eye on Mickey and Minnie, who are like two cute little sticks of dynamite. Rosalee and Harry have both disappeared, leaving behind a swath of destruction. Harry left Wyma Jean with the impression that we dispatched him on a secret mission, so she’s not real happy with us. I got your note. So why did Dr. Blok finger you?”

I quickly outlined our conversation. “So as near as I can tell, he’s looking for proof that vampires have benign intentions. For the record, after meeting Blok, I think that Lydia ought to think about employing a better class of agent.”

“I’m sure that she would agree,” Catarina replied with a straight face. She shook her head. “How much did you tell Wipo?”

“Nothing about Blok. More than enough about other things. They know I’m an agent.” I ran through Trixie’s interrogation, omitting the low points. “If Blok knows about Trixie, his turning me in makes even less sense.”

Catarina shut her eyes and pondered this. “Are you sure it was Bobby Stemm’s voice you heard on Trixie’s recording?”

“New England accent, weevily whine. Yeah, it was Bobby.”

“And this Trixie—she can actually read your mind?”

“Like a book.”

Catarina nodded solemnly. “I guess it made you see read when she made you an author you couldn’t refuse.”

I made small, growling noises in my throat.

“Think of it as a new chapter in your life. I meant to ask, were you wearing—”