"Without the picture?"
"You know about that too? There must be a peeper in the house."
"Two of them. Her social secretaries. People like you are their job."
"What about that picture, Mr. Reich? I've got fifty credits riding on the line.
You ought to know what a bet means. You're a gamb---I mean, financier."
"Glad I'm not a peeper, eh? Never mind. I'm not insulted. See that arch? Go
straight through and turn right. You'll find a study. The walls are lined with
Maria's portraits, all in synthetic stones. Help yourself. She'll never miss
one."
The boy leaped up, scattering food. "Thanks, Mr. Reich. Some day I'll do you a
favor."
"Such as?"
"You'd be surprised. I happen to be a---" He caught himself and blushed. "You'll
find out, sir. Thanks again." He began weaving his way across the floor toward
the study.
Four, sir; three, sir; two, sir; one!
Reich returned to his hostess.
"Naughty lover," she said. "Who've you been feeding? I'll tear her eyes out."
"The Chervil boy," Reich answered. "He asked me where you keep your pictures."
"Ben! You didn't tell him!"
"Sure did," Reich grinned. "He's on his way to get one now. Then he'll take off.
You know I'm jealous."
She leaped from the couch and sailed toward the study.
"Bam," said Reich.
By eleven o'clock, the ritual of dining had aroused the company to a point of
intensity that required solitude and darkness for release. Maria Beaumont had
never failed her guests, and Reich hoped she would not fail tonight. She had to
play the Sardine game. He knew it when Tate returned from the study with concise
directions for locating the hidden D'Courtney.
"I don't know how you got away with it," Tate whispered. "You're broadcasting
bloodlust on every wavelength of the TP band. He's here. Alone. No servants.
Only two bodyguards provided by Maria. @kins was right. He's dangerously
sick..."
"To hell with that. I'll cure him. Where is he?"
"Go through the west arch. Turn right. Up stairs. Through overpass. Turn right.
Picture Gallery. Door between paintings of the Rape of Lucrece and the Rape of
the Sabine Women..."
"Sounds typical."
"Open the door. Up a flight of steps to an anteroom. Two guards in the anteroom.
D'Courtney's inside. It's the old wedding suite her grandfather built."
"By God! I'll use that suite again. I'll marry him to murder. And I'll get away
with it, little Gus. Don't think I won't."
The Gilt Corpse began to clamor for attention. Flushed and shining with
perspiration, standing in the glare of a pink light on the dais between the two
fountains, Maria clapped her hands for silence. Her moist palms beat together,
and the echoes roared in Reich's ears: Death. Death. Death.
"Darlings! Darlings! Darlings!" she cried. "We're going to have so much fun
tonight. We're going to provide our own entertainment." A subdued groan went up
from the guests and a drunken voice shouted: "I'm just one of the tourists."
Through the laughter, Maria said: "Naughty lovers, don't be disappointed. We're
going to play a wonderful old game; and we're going to play it in the dark."
The company cheered up as the overhead lights began to dim and disappear. The
dais still blazed, and in the light, Maria produced a tattered volume. Reich's
gift.
Tension...
Maria turned the pages slowly, blinking at the unaccustomed print.
Apprehension...
"It's a game," Maria cried, "called `Sardine.' Isn't that too adorable?"
She took the bait. She's on the hook. In three minutes I'll be invisible. Reich
felt his pockets. The gun. The Rhodopsin. Tension, apprehension, and dissension
have begun.
"One player," Maria read, "is selected to be It. That's going to be me. All the
lights are extinguished and the It hides anywhere in the house." As Maria
struggled through the directions, the great hall was reduced to pitch darkness
with the exception of the single pink beam on the stage.
"Successively each player finding the Sardine joins them until all are hidden in
one place, and the last player, who is the loser, is left to wander alone in the
dark." Maria closed the book. "And darlings, we're all going to feel sorry for
the loser because we're going to play this funny old game in a darling new way."
As the last light on the dais melted away, Maria stripped off her gown and
displayed the astonishing nude body that was a miracle of pneumatic surgery.
"We're going to play Sardine like this!" she cried. The last light biinked out.
There was a roar of exultant laughter and applause, followed by a multiple
whisper of cloth drawn across skin. Occasionally there came the sound of a rip,
then muttered exclamations and more laughter.
Reich was invisible at last. He had half an hour to slip up into the house, find
and kill D'Courtney, and then return to the game. Tate was committed to pinning
the peeper secretaries out of the line of his attack. It was safe. It was
foolproof except for the Chervil boy. He had to take that chance.
He crossed the main hall and jostled into bodies at the west arch. He went
through the arch into the music room and turned right, groping for the stairs.
At the foot of the stairs he was forced to climb over a barrier of bodies with
octopus arms that tried to pull him down. He ascended the stairs, seventeen
eternal steps, and felt his way through a close tunnel overpass papered with
velour. Suddenly he was seized and a woman crushed herself against him.
"Hello, Sardine," she whispered in his ear. Then her skin became aware of his
clothes. "Owww!" she exclaimed, and felt the hard outlines of the gun in his
breast pocket. "What's that?" He slapped her hand away. "Clever-up, Sardine,"
she giggled. "Get out of the can."
He divested himself of her and bruised his nose against the dead-end of the
overpass. He turned right, opened a door and found himself in a vaulted gallery
over fifty feet long. The lights were extinguished here too, but the luminescent
paintings, glowing under ultra-violet spotlights, filled the gallery with a
virulent glow. It was empty.
Between a livid Lucrece and a horde of Sabine Women was a flush door of polished
bronze. Reich stopped before it, removed the tiny Rhodopsin Ionizer from bis
back pocket and attempted to poise the copper cube between his thumbnail and
forefinger. His hands were trembling violently. Rage and hatred boiled inside
him, and his death-lust shot image after image of an agonized D'Courtney through
his mind's eye.
"Christ!" he cried. "He'd do it to me. He's tearing at my throat. I'm fighting
for survival." He made his orisons in fanatical multiples of three and nine.
"Stand by me, dear Christ! Today, tomorrow, and yesterday. Stand by me! Stand by
me! Stand by me!"
His fingers steadied. He poised the Rhodospin cap, then thrust open the bronze
door, revealing nine steps mounting to an anteroom. Reich snapped his thumb-nail
against the copper cube as though he were trying to flip a penny to the moon. As
the Rhodopsin cap flew up into the anteroom, Reich averted his eyes.
There was a cold purplish flash. Reich leaped up the stairs like a tiger. The
two Beaumont House guards were seated on the bench where he had caught them.
Their faces were sagging, their vision destroyed, their time sense abolished.
If anyone entered and found the guards before he was finished, he was on the
road to Demolition. If the guards revived before he was finished, he was on the
road to Demolition. No matter what happened, it was a final gamble with
Demolition. Leaving the last of his sanity behind him, Reich pushed open a
jewelled door and entered the wedding suite.
5
Reich found himself in a spherical room designed as the heart of a giant orchid.
The walls were curling orchid petals, the floor was a golden calyx; the chairs,
tables and couches were orchid and gold. But the room was old. The petals were
faded and peeling; the golden tile floor was ancient and the tesselations were
splitting. There was an old man lying on the couch, musty and wilted, like a
dried weed. It was D'Courtney, stretched out like a corpse.
Reich slammed the door in rage. "You're not dead already, you bastard," he
exploded. "You can't be dead."
The faded man started up, stared, then arose painfully from the couch, his face
breaking into a smile.
"Still alive," Reich cried exultantly.
D'Courtney stepped toward Reich, smiling, his arms outstretched as though
welcoming a prodigal son.
Alarmed again, Reich growled: "Are you deaf?"
The old man shook his head.
"You speak English," Reich shouted. "You can hear me. You can't understand me.
I'm Reich. Ben Reich of Monarch."
D'Courtney nodded, still smiling. His mouth worked soundlessly. His eyes
glistened with sudden tears.
"What the hell is the matter with you? I'm Ben Reich! Ben Reich! Do you know me?
Answer me."
D'Courtney shook his head and tapped his throat. His mouth worked again. Rusty
sounds came; then words as faint as dust: "Ben... Dear Ben... Waited so long.
Now... Can't talk. My throat... Can't talk." Again he attempted to embrace
Reich.
"Arrgh! Keep off, you crazy idiot." Bristling, Reich stepped around D'Courtney
like an animal, his hackles raised, the murder boiling in his blood.
D'Courtney's mouth formed the words: "Dear Ben..."
"You know why I'm here. What are you trying to do? Make love to me?" Reich
laughed. "You crafty old pimp. Am I supposed to turn soft for your chewing?" His
hand lashed out. The old man reeled back from the slap and fell into an orchid
chair that looked like a wound.
"Listen to me---" Reich followed D'Courtney and stood over him. He began to
shout incoherently. "This payoff's been on the fire for years. And you want to
rob me with a Judas kiss. Does murder turn the other cheek? If it does, embrace
me, brother killer. Kiss death! Teach death love. Teach Godliness and shame and
blood and---No. Wait. I---" He stopped short and shook his head like a bull
trying to cast off a halter of delirum.
"Ben," D'Courtney whispered in horror. "Listen, Ben..."
"You've been at my throat for ten years. There was room enough for both of us.
Monarch and D'Courtney. All the room in time and space, but you wanted my blood,
eh? My heart. My guts in your lousy hands. The Man With No Face!"
D'Courtney shook his head in bewilderment. "No, Ben. No..."
"Don't call me Ben. I'm no friend of yours. Last week I gave you one more chance
to wash in decency. Me. Ben Reich. I asked for armistice. Begged for peace.
Merger. I begged like a screaming woman. My father would spit on me if he were
alive. Every fighting Reich would blacken my face with contempt. But I asked for
peace, didn't I? Eh? Didn't I?" Reich prodded D'Courtney savagely. "Answer me."
D'Courtney's face was blanched and staring. Finally he whispered: "Yes. You
asked... I accepted."
"You what?"
"Accepted. Waiting for years. Accepted."
"Accepted!"
D'Courtney nodded. His lips formed the letters: "WWHG."
"What? WWHG? Acceptance?"
The old man nodded again.
Reich shrieked with laughter. "You clumsy old liar. That's refusal. Denial.
Rejection. War."
"No, Ben. No..."
Reich reached down and yanked D'Courtney to his feet. The old man was frail and
light, but his weight burned Reich's arm, and the touch of the old skin burned
Reich's fingers.
"So it's to be war, is it? Death?"
D'Courtney shook his head and tried to make signs.
"No merger. No peace. Death. That's the choice, eh?"
"Ben... No."
"Will you surrender?"
"Yes," D'Courtney whispered. "Yes, Ben. Yes."
"Liar. Clumsy old liar." Reich laughed. "But you're dangerous. I can see it.
Protective mimicry. That's your trick. You imitate the idiots and trap us at
your leisure. But not me. Never."
"I'm not... your enemy, Ben."
"No," Reich spat. "You're not because you're dead. You've been dead ever since I
came into this orchid coffin. Man With No Face! Can you hear me screaming for
the last time? You're finished forever!"
Reich tore the gun out of his breast pocket. He touched the stud and it opened
like a red steel flower. A faint groan escaped from D'Courtney when he saw the
weapon. He backed away in horror. Reich caught him and held him fast. D'Courtney
twisted in Reich's grasp, his face pleading his eyes glazed and rheumy. Reich
transferred his grasp to the back of D'Courtney's thin neck and wrenched the
head toward him. He had to fire through the open mouth for the trick to work.
At that instant, one of the orchid petals swung open, and a half-dressed girl
burst into the room. In a blaze of surprise, Reich saw the corridor behind her,
a bedroom door standing open at the far end; the girl, nude under a frost silk
gown hastily thrown on, yellow hair flying, dark eyes wide in alarm... A
lightning flash of wild beauty.
"Father!" she screamed. "For God's sake! Father!"
She ran toward D'Courtney. Reich swung quickly between them, never relaxing his