Raga Six (A Doctor Orient Occult Novel) (20 page)

They began discussing the technique, talking softly, Pia’s curiosity trying to comprehend the scope of Orient’s work. When the conversation hit on Project Judy, Orient found himself talking about the trouble with Ferrari openly, with no trace of self-consciousness.
 

"What it amounted to was that Doctor Ferrari claimed complete jurisdiction over my work. He called it certification," Orient explained. "When I disagreed, he broke our agreement and published the results of Project Judy."
 

"And you left?" Pia seemed surprised.
 

"That’s right."
 

"But you’re continuing your work. Actually, you can continue it anywhere. You certainly don’t require certification."
 

"That’s true," Orient said. "But it’s not always possible, like right now, to catalogue each step to each result. The purpose of research is to enable someone else to build to further discovery."
 

As he spoke a doubt crossed his mind. Right now he was unable to catalogue his work or shoot his film tape. He wondered if he’d ever find a way to equip his work properly.
 

They left the cabin and went into the lounge. The red sunset fight slanted through the windows, highlighting Pia’s yellow hair with flaming orange tints. Her skin glowed with a pink freshness.
 

In spite of his doubts, Orient felt good as he watched her curl in her chair like a leopardess. The experiment had been a success. Despite Pia’s inability to communicate fully, she was days ahead of any of his previous pupils. Perhaps he could alter the technique to make allowance for her sex.
 

"We’ll go over it again tomorrow if you like," he said.
 

"Just what I was thinking," Pia smiled. "I’ve been going over the possibilities. They’re endless. Imagine," she pulled the black fur coat closer around her neck, "I can read your thoughts."
 

Orient was just about to answer when Raga came into the lounge. She saw Pia and came toward them. "Alistar has been looking everywhere for you," she said as she approached. She moved slowly, the reflection of the lowering sky casting soft blue streaks through her silver hair, her hands white and composed against her green velvet dress. "I’m afraid Janice is becoming weaker," she said calmly, when she reached Pia’s chair. She adjusted the wide silver wire belt around her waist. "He wants to move Janice into the empty cabin."
 

Pia’s face didn’t register any emotion, but her body uncoiled immediately and she stood up. "I’d better see if she needs anything," she said. She walked quickly to the passageway.
 

Raga sat down in Pia’s chair and smiled. "Of course you understand, Doctor," she said. She took a cigarette from her pocket.
 

"She suffers from anemia." Raga lit her cigarette and blew out the flame. She sat back in her chair and looked out the window. "Alistar thinks it’s serious."
 

"Does she need a transfusion?" Orient asked.
 

"I don’t know, Doctor." The dimming light shaded her pale smile with purple. "Alistar doesn’t discuss procedures with me." She turned her head and looked at him. "Pia is magnificent, don’t you think?"
 

"Yes," Orient said. He thought he heard the cadence of an accent under her husky voice. The same accent he had detected in her husband’s speech.
 

"I find her to be the most delightful traveling companion I’ve ever encountered," Raga went on. "Alistar is usually so absorbed with his work. And I need someone with new ideas to distract me."
 

"Are you from the islands, Raga?" Orient asked. "The Caribbean?"
 

Raga smiled. "Why, how very clever, Owen. Yes. Martinique. You must be very familiar with the Caribbean."
 

"A short stay in Haiti."
 

Raga’s eyes flashed. "Sun worshiper?"
 

Presto ambled into the lounge. When he saw them he stopped, raised the camera slung on his chest, adjusted the lens and took a photograph. "You get the last one on the roll," he said as he began to rewind his camera.
 

"Thank heaven for that," Raga exclaimed. "I can’t bear to be photographed this early in the day."
 

"Tell me," Presto asked, squinting shrewdly at her, "are you the same Raga Six who had the modeling agency in New York?"
 

"One and the same," she said.
 

"Is Pia one of your models?"
 

"Was," Raga corrected. "I’m going to open an agency in Rome and Pia is going to assist me on the business side. Doctor Six will be working in Italy and I want to keep myself busy."
 

"Then I suppose there’s no sense asking you if we could make a deal for Pia’s time," Presto said casually.
 

Raga shook her head. "I don’t think you’ll have much luck with Pia," she said. Her smile was remote. "She absolutely hates cameras now."
 

She looked at Orient, two bright points of light in her yellow eyes flickering with amusement. "Anyway, I think that Pia is more interested in yoga these days," she said evenly.
 

The dinner bell rang before Orient had a chance to reply.
 

He didn’t see Pia again until the next evening.
 

In the morning he prowled about the ship restlessly, waiting for her to appear. At lunch time her table was almost empty. Jack and Alice Crowe joined the Wallets, not disposed that afternoon to eating by themselves. The luncheon conversation was dominated by speculation about Janice’s illness. Especially in the light of the absence of Six and his wife, and Pia. Jack Crowe announced that the ship’s doctor had told him that the girl was very weak. Doctor Six, Raga, and Pia had to stand by constantly in case she needed an emergency transfusion.
 

Crowe turned to Orient, his narrow face pinched with curiosity. "You’re a doctor," he said. "What do you make of it?"

 
"I know that Doctor Six is in charge," Orient said. "I don’t know any of the history of Janice’s illness."

 
"You speak Serbo-Croatian," Greta Wallet suggested. "Perhaps you could get the ship’s doctor to give you some definite facts."
 

Orient smiled. "That would be very unprofessional."
 

Greta looked at her husband. Wallet said nothing, his face impassive behind his beard and blue-tinted glasses. "I guess it would be like ambulance-chasing," Jack Crowe agreed. "Best just to wait." Orient went out on deck. Outside, the sky was covered with iron gray clouds, and the sea was a cold black. The dark water was calm and there was a stillness about the ship that was emphasized by the steady drumming of the engines. Orient looked at the horizon and saw jutting points of waves that looked tiny in the distance but were large enough to leave distinct outlines against the sky.
 

The decks were empty of passengers. As Orient went back to his cabin, he wondered how serious Janice’s illness was. When he reached the lower deck he paused for a moment as he half-decided to go to Pia’s cabin and find out if he could be of some assistance. Then he changed his mind and took the passageway to his own room. If Pia needed him, she would call.
 

He spent the rest of the afternoon reading. As he lay on his bed he felt the motion of the ship deepening. By dinnertime the boat was pitching sluggishly. Orient skipped dinner and continued to read. In a few hours the furniture in the room was creaking ominously with every heave of the boat, and rain lashed against the portholes.
 

Then he felt Pia.
 

Her quick caress of silken pleasure at the base of his brain followed by the picture. The prow of the ship shearing through a froth of water. A confusion of movement. As the image receded, his mind savored the quality of the message. It was strangely bitter.
 

"You going out in this weather, Owen?" Presto said incredulously as Orient started putting on a trench coat.
 

Orient shrugged. "Just a little rain squall," he said.
 

It was an underestimation.
 

The rain was whipping across the water, driven relentlessly by the wind. The boat was moving slowly through the high, chopping waves, rolling steeply and shuddering as it met each flat wall of water.
 

Orient stood in the small circle of light at the edge of the passengers’ deck peering into the darkness. There were long, heavy creaks as the shadowy crates groaned against their cables on the rearing deck.
 

Pia was waiting across the darkness, on the other side of the long, shifting maze of heavy cargo. He remembered the bitter taste of the image. The forced, decayed quality. A chaos of impressions instead of harmony.
 

He began moving slowly across the deck.
 

He crouched between the machinery, feeling for cables and lifting his feet carefully as he inched forward through the shadows. The wind was a high, gusting whine above him and he had to keep his hold on the wet cables to maintain his balance on the slick, rolling deck.
 

The cargo gave him some protection from the wind and, halfway across, his eyes began to get used to the dim light from the mast high overhead. Then the silken haze stroked his thoughts and he started moving faster as the pleasure intensified and threaded down his spine like a ribbon of liquid satin.
 

The rain spattered hard against his face and he realized he was clear of the cargo. The prow lifted and Orient saw Pia clinging to the rail, facing directly into the booming onrush of wind-swelled water, the long black coat flowing back from her shoulders.
 

As he crossed the deck, she turned and ran lightly on her bare feet toward him.
 

She was naked under the coat and the rain matted her hair and ran down her face; streaking across her breasts and flat belly and trickling down her long thighs. "You heard me," she called out triumphantly. "You heard my call."
 

"The cabin," Pia’s mouth brushed against his ear. "Come."
 

He followed her, ducking under cables and over struts; moving through the mass of crates that strained and squeaked as the boat rose and fell in the wind.
 

Pia went ahead of him on the passengers’ deck. She went into a door and padded down the passageway, her bare feet leaving wet tracks behind her. When she reached her cabin she opened the door. She turned on the small light near one of the beds as Orient entered. Then she opened a drawer, took out two large towels, and held one of them out to him. "Why don’t you dry your hair and go to bed?" she whispered. "I’m going to take a shower." She kissed him and her lips were wet and fresh against his mouth. "And turn out the light," she said softly as she turned to go. "I’m shy."
 

Owen’s heart pounded in the darkness as his body slowly warmed the cool sheets. His only thought was a pleasure-coated sense of Pia, her wet skin, her eyes, her mouth, the sensual texture of her energy constantly brushing his awareness.
 

She was a silhouette across the slash of light as she opened the door, then it was dark again and he could only hear her feet coming across the carpet.
 

Her skin was cool and smooth against his as she slipped into bed beside him, and her reaching hands sent small chills of sensation rippling through his body. He felt her tremble with recognition as his desire-charged fingers touched her. Her breath became a convulsive sob, rising in intensity against his throat as he lifted her and pressed into the icy hot wetness of her thighs. She twisted under him, raking her nails across his back, her sounds of unrestrained delight vibrating his senses as her body beat against his.
 

Afterward the room was quiet except for the heavy sound of their breathing and the rocking-chair creak of the walls as the ship leaned in the wind. Orient lazily stroked her shoulders, a thin film making her skin slick and supple under his fingers.
 

The door opened, sending a shaft of light across the floor. Someone entered, closed the door, and came through the darkness to the bed.
 

"I’m here, Owen," a girl whispered.
 

Orient switched on the light over the bed. Pia was crouching next to the pillow, her wet hair dark against her breasts. Orient looked down at the girl in his arms.
 

The woman nestled against his chest had silver hair. Raga had taken Pia’s place. His momentary confusion numbed his reaction.
 

He turned and Pia’s warm body was sliding against him, the voluptuous fabric of her consciousness massaging his confusion; dissolving it with its insistence.
 

As Pia kissed him, Raga stirred and began moving her cool hands over his stomach. Pia licked at his chest, sending wave after wave of soft electric pleasure across his skin. Raga’s mouth was velvet against his ear, her lush, imploring voice igniting his brain as Pia lifted and slowly descended on him, guiding him into the warm, honeyed deepness of her. And then his senses exploded his awareness into a shower of sizzling particles that took hours to consume...
 

At dawn Raga left the cabin before the breakfast bell awoke her husband. As Pia softly massaged his neck, Orient became aware that the rain had stopped and the movement of the ship had become steady and gentle.
 

"I enjoyed that, didn’t you?" she murmured. "It was delicious."
 

"Kind of a surprise."
 

Pia’s tongue flicked against his ear. "It’s much better that way."
 

Orient nodded and yawned. He swung his feet to the floor and reached for his shirt. "How’s Janice?" he asked. "Better?"