She heard a crunch of boots in thin crusts of snow. Sun Dancer raised his dripping muzzle from the pond and looked around, whinnied softly. The riderless chestnut answered.
"Hello?" Rona said cautiously.
Someone walked toward her out of the trees, backlighted by the brightening sun. She recognized the flat-crowned hat.
Rona stepped nearer her horse and the .30-.30 rifle sheathed behind the saddle.
"Oh, dear. I've startled you. I'm sorry."
A lightweight voice; he sounded gay.
"Who are you?"
When he spoke again, his voice had changed: it sounded as if he were mimicking her. Rona's blood simmered in annoyance.
"But how could you not know?"
"Why don't you just stay right where you are?" Rona said, a hand on the familiar nicked stock of the carbine.
"Oh! Oh, my God! What
happened
? The eyes. Oh! No no no! Our beautiful face! Who
did
this to us?"
Rona trembled from shock, as if an earthquake had rumbled beneath her feet.
"I said, who are you?"
"Oh, don't try to sell me
that
. You know very well."
A gloved hand came up and swept off the flat-crowned hat. Then the other hand went to work, busy, busy, unpinning the tightly bunned hair. A shake of the head to settle the ash-blond tresses around the face.
"That's better. Now you simply mustn't tease any longer by pretending that you don't
know
." A stylish sideways move, turn of the head, face finding the light of the sun and taking on a basking glow.
"I'm
you
," the assassin temporarily known as Rona Harvester said, waving both gloved hands prettily, prancing a little on the snow-crisp ground. "And you're me, except for those awful bruises. And the two of usâ" He danced closer to Rona. "We're ...
wheeeeee
!"
Rona had the rifle out of its fringed leather scabbard and was lever-cocking it as she turned back to the apparition with her faceâso faithfully and uncannily reproduced. Something hit her solidly in the chest, a flat rock from the heft of it; she was knocked backward and sat down through the ice at the edge of the pond.
"
Mustn't
," the assassin chided as he sprang toward her and twisted the carbine from Rona's gloved hands. Rona gasped for breath, turning cold to the roots of her hair. The assassin stepped back and emptied the rifle, twinkling brass falling to the ground. "Now if you'll just change that tune, I'll be happy to
tanggg-go
."
"Get away . . . from me you . . . fuckin' freak. Help! Help! Somebody! Help me!"
The assassin took off his riding gloves. Displayed his shapely painted nails.
"Like 'em? I went through
reams
of magazine articles and finally telephoned one of the R Team to find out the
exact
shade to use."
"Fuck you fuckyoufuckâ"
"Oh, darling, if only I could, I would be in
bliss
forever. Unfortunately, and this is just between we, it's so
small
it hangs out the back. Now what do we think? Honest opinion, please. Have we
ever
seen us done up so beautifully? No, no! Now you must stop that screaming." The assassin gave Rona a long thoughtful look. "It is time to embrace the facts. Because, realistically, there can only be one of us. So I'll leave it up to . . . you . . . to choose . .. who."
He seized Rona by the shoulders and dragged her a few feet along the pond to where the ice still formed an unbroken reflective surface. He turned her, a hand gripping the back of her neck, pushed her down close to her sad discolored image on the ice.
Then the face she'd had before her nose was shattered appeared over one shoulder like the moon rising past a dusky bluff. A double image of Rona Harvester registered in her shocked mind. Before. After.
"I know it hurts you to look," he said soothingly, his breath in her cold ear. "But don't you worry. I shall do everything I can to perpetuate our legend. Too bad you can't be there to see itâ" The position of his hands changed. One hand gripped her chin. The other was pressed flat against the side of her head away from him. "When we make our debut in Vegas."
Rona Harvester heard a hawk cry out. She felt the tension building at the top of her spine. But this couldn't happen! He/she didn't look strong enough toâ
She heard her neck snap. It was the last sound she heard as a red the color of blood lit up her eyes. Followed, almost instantaneously, by eternal darkness.
SHUNGWAYA â¢LAKE NAIVASHA, KENYA ⢠OCTOBER 6 ⢠1410 HOURS ZULU
E
-mail message
Betts Waring to Eden Waring
Good morning! Or, I guess, while it's still sleepytime here must be afternoon over there. The videotapes were, as always, wonderful. I look at the new ones every night, not without a few tears I have to admit. I know, I have my tickets already and I can't stop flappin' my wings. I've handed over my patients to Zan Fortner, the legal stuff is almost concluded. I've already packed your diploma. About all the animals. Giraffes and zebras and even those cheetahs that come around at night I can take in stride. But isn't it just a little dangerous, hippos grazing so close to the house? Does the colobus monkey you seem to be wearing on your shoulder in most of your close-ups have a name? He looks unsettlingly like my late uncle Norbert. Maybe there is something to transmigration.
You know that Africa was always Riley's dream destination. Wouldn't be surprised if he wangles a weekend pass from the Gatekeeper and drops by while I'm there. If he does, I'll know somehow.
E
den looked up from the E-mail printout she was reading on the veranda of the lakeside house that, apparently, was forever going to be under construction and wiped an eye, gazed for a few moments at the blue folds of the low mountains across a mile of lake. The screech of a fish eagle sounded above the racket of hammering and sawing on the guest wing of the house. The construction crew was sheathing the framework in Kenyan cypress. The copper for the roof had just arrived on a lorry and was being unloaded. Up to her to do the supervising, while Tom Sherard was in Nairobi visiting his physical therapist and Bertie was in Mombasa on a shoot for the Spanish
Vogue
.
There were servants at Shungwaya to look after her, and an assortment of large dogs for protection, but she had been lonely the night before, missing Betts and everyone else, staying up late to read Dinesen's
Shadow on the Grass
and something by Joy Adamson, an epitaph for a beloved lion that spoke poignantly of Africa's true magic:
The wind, the wind,
the heavenly child,
Softly going over the stone,
It strokes and kisses the lonesome night
In which a deep secret lies bewitched.
Eden sniffed back tears, felt a tiny buzz inside her navel. She frowned and chopped a hand sharply through the air.
I'm busy. Not now
.
She resumed rereading Betts's E-mail.
N
o, not a sign of or a word from Geoff McTyer, but then he wouldn't dare, would he? Don't know why you still give him so much as a passing thought. As time goes by memories of last May grow fainter here in Innisfall. Not to say you've been forgotten. The legend, or myth, or whatever you want to call it, continues to grow. The pitiful ones still come around, stand in the road and stare at the house. Some leave notes asking for miracles. A few have tried to come over the fence, but the Blackwelder people put a quick stop to that activity.
And sometimes there are watchers of a different kind.
They keep their distance, but I see a flash of sun off a lens, I hear helicopters in the night. They find ways to get into my office when I'm not there. If there truly are Malterransâbut I know this makes you cringe. I'll get off the subject.
Meg Pardo is still hurt because I won't give her your E-mail address, but I told her it's best under the circumstances if I pass on any messages. Meg has been as good a friend to me as she is to you. Helped me get through some difficult nights. Sorry sorry sorry. Don't want to burden you. Let me remind you again, none of it was ever your fault.
Better go now. Ten days before I board that plane at SFO, and lots to do. Can't wait, truly. I'll be a gibbering mess soon as I lay eyes on you, but I promise to shape up fast.
Cheerio, dear one.
"What are you bawling about?" Eden's doppelganger asked. She was sitting on a railing of the veranda letting Eden's pet monkey nibble a piece of fruit from her fingers.
"I'm not bawling. I just got a little homesick for a while. I don't need you right now."
"
Sure
, that's why I'm here, in the flesh. Can I borrow some clothes?"
"I can see you, and nobody else around here needs to."
"Old monkeyface sees me too." She chucked the black-and-white colobus under the chin, and he stood up, chittering, long tail forming a question mark. "So Betts is coming for a visit. Are you going to introduce me?"
"And scare her into a coronary?"
"She's read your dreambooks. She knows I exist. Betts would like me. How's this for an idea? I could spend some of my lonely downtime in California keeping Betts company while you're busy organizing the Psi Resistance. You'll have Tom and Bertie looking out for you."
Eden flicked a crawling insect like an emaciated beetle off her wrist, careful not to damage it, which would raise a caustic blister on her skin. Africa, or that part of Kenya she'd become familiar with, was close to heaven. Except for the
dudu
. A bull giraffe went striding by, ten yards from the veranda. They were seeing more giraffes lately in the game preserve; she needed to make a note of it for Tom.
"By the wayâdo you know who he is? The one who keeps showing up in your dreams these days?" The dpg dropped her a significant look.
Eden glanced at her own face. Better than having a mirror, sometimes. She could see that she needed to trim her hair, which had grown out in its natural color.
"No. I don't know who he is. What are you doing poking around in my dreams?"
"He's on your mind when you're awake too. Good-looking guy. Know what I think? He could be
your
Robin Sandza. I mean, Robin before they destroyed his sanity at Psi Faculty."
Eden got up from her cane rocking chair, shouldered the AK-47 she carried everywhere because of the
Shifta
, Somalian gangs of poachers who sometimes infiltrated the Naivasha Preserve. The Kenyan Wildlife Service rangers lately had been doing a good job of patroling their area, and Tom Sherard had his own security force utilizing two fast helicopters, but disturbing incidents of violence throughout the country were reported every day. Eden could shoot very well and wouldn't hesitate. That was something new in her heart, and in her face.
"Where're you going?" the dpg asked as Eden strolled away.
"I want to retrieve some film, find out if the leopard that's been leaving pug marks in the
lugga
showed up again last night. Also I need to get away from the hammering. It's giving me a headache."
"
Us
a headache. Want some company?"
Eden hesitated on the steps. "Sure. Glad to have you. If you don't mind the dogs."
She put two fingers in the corners of her mouth and whistled shrilly.
"Dogs?!"
Two of Tom Sherard's mixed-breed watchdogs appeared on the run, then took off ahead of Eden. She turned and grinned at her doppelganger on the porch.
"Nothing to worry about. We both have the same, uh, body odor, so they probably won't even notice you."
The dpg fidgeted, then lifted her chin and said with a touch of defiance, "Name's Guinevere. I've decided. Or Gwen for short."
"Not yet it isn't. I still need you. Just the way you are."
"A bitter disappointment." Nonetheless her doppelganger joined Eden in the yard. They were followed by the colobus monkey, begging for the security of a shoulder to ride on. Eden paused and scooped him up. "I'm sorry to bring this to your attention," the dpg continued, "But your life expectancyâI get chills thinking about it. Here you are, walking around in shorts and sandals with wild beasts everywhere. Jeez, what are those over there with the tusks going every which way?"
"Some kind of warthog. They leave potholes all over the place but otherwise they're no bother."