Hot Sky at Midnight

16

for farkas, the hotel that the unfortunate Juanito had found for him proved to be a satisfactory home base for him during the period of slow, idle days that he allowed himself after his return to Valparaiso Nuevo. The town of Cajamarca, nicely situated out along the rim on C Spoke, was quiet and attractive and agreeably distant from the hectic commercial activity of the hub communities. Farkas went out early every day, strolling the same path, stopping at the same cafe at the upside end of the town for breakfast, and at a different cafe down the other way for lunch. For dinner he would go to one of the towns on some other spoke of the satellite, never the same one twice.

Everyone in the immediate neighborhood of the hotel quickly got used to the way he looked. The cafe owners, even the android waiters. His strangeness didn’t bother them any more. It took only a couple of days. After that he was one of the regulars, just didn’t happen to have any eyes, smooth blank space above his nose right up to the top of his forehead. Leaves good tips. Place like this, you get to see all kinds. Everyone very tolerant, very cognizant of everybody’s privacy. That was the most important commodity for sale here, privacy. Privacy and courtesy. The social contract, Valparaiso Nuevo style. “Good morning, Mr. Farkas. Nice to see you again, Mr. Farkas. I hope you slept well, Mr. Farkas. A cup of coffee, Mr. Farkas?”

He enjoyed the scenery, the big sky, the dazzling stellar display, the spectacular views of the Earth and the moon. To Farkas, the Earth was a massive involuted purple box with heavy dangling green tassels, and the moon was a dainty, airy hollow ball filled with jagged orange coils, packed tight within it like little springs. Sometimes the sun would strike a neighboring L-5 world in just the right way and set off a brilliant shower of light, both reflected and refracted, spilling across the darkness like a cascade of million-faceted diamonds, a waterfall of glittering jewels. That was very pleasant to watch. This was the most enjoyable holiday Farkas had had in a long time.

Of course, he was supposed to be working as well as resting, here. But he could hardly post a sign on the town bulletin board requesting information concerning plans for coups d’etat. All he could do was tiptoe around, listen, watch, try to pick things out of the air. Gradually he would make connections and find out what the Company had asked him to learn. Or, on the other hand, perhaps he wouldn’t. It wasn’t something that could be forced.

On the fourth day, as he was having lunch at the usual place—a garden restaurant dominated by no less than three portrait busts of El Supremo looming down out of vine-covered walls—Farkas became aware that he was the object of a conversation off at the periphery of the place. Someone who looked like an arrangement of scarlet zigzags and spirals with a big shining oval patch right in the middle—bright blue and very glossy, the way Farkas imagined an eye might look—was discussing him with the headwaiter.

They were both looking his way. There were gestures, not hard to decode: the zigzags-and-oval was requesting something; the headwaiter was refusing. And now a gratuity was changing hands. Farkas suspected that the pleasures of his solitary lunch were soon to be intruded upon.

He remembered, after a moment, who the zigzags-and-oval was: a certain courier named Kluge, one of the kids who hung out at the shuttle hub and offered to provide services for newcomers to Valparaiso Nuevo. Juanito had pointed him out to Farkas, somewhere in the early days of his visit, as one of his competitors. Juanito had spoken of Kluge with some admiration, Farkas remembered.

The headwaiter—three gleaming white rods bound with thick red twine—came over. Struck a posture of deferential attention. Cleared his throat.

“Begging your pardon for disturbing you, Mr. Farkas—a person wishes to speak to you, and he says it’s extremely important—”

“I’m eating lunch,” Farkas said.

“Of course, Mr. Farkas. Terribly sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Farkas.”

Sure he was. He got to keep the tip, whether or not he could deliver Farkas to Kluge.

But maybe there was something useful here—an opening, a lead. Farkas said, as the three white rods began to retreat, “Wait. What’s his name?”

“Kluge, sir. He’s a courier. I told him that you didn’t need any couriers, but he said it wasn’t that, he wasn’t interested in selling you anything, but—”

“All right,” Farkas said. “Tell him I’ll talk to him.”

Kluge approached and hovered nearby. The central eye-like structure of him turned a deeper blue, almost black, and the glossiness gave way to a matte finish. Farkas interpreted that as profound uneasiness being held under tight control. He warned himself to be careful not to underestimate this Kluge. That was one of his few weaknesses, Farkas knew: the tendency to be condescending to people who were put off by his appearance. Everyone was put off by his appearance at first, and had to fight to control a reaction of repugnance. But some of them were dangerous even so.

“My name is Kluge, sir,” Kluge began. When Farkas offered no immediate response he added quickly, “I’m right over here, to your left.”

“Yes, I know that. Sit down, Kluge. Is Kluge your first name or your second?”

“Sort of both, sir.”

“Ah. Very unusual.” Farkas went on eating. “And what is it you want with me, exactly? I understand you’re a courier. I’m not in need of hiring one.”

“I realize that, sir. Juanito is your courier.”

“Was.”

A little beat of silence went by before Kluge said, “Yes, sir. That’s actually one of the things I would like to ask you about, if you don’t mind.” The big blue central eye was really black now, the look of space without stars. The scarlet zigzags and spirals were coiling and uncoiling like thrashing whips. There was real tension here, Farkas saw. Kluge said, “Juanito’s a good friend of mine. We do a lot of work together. But nobody’s seen him around for a while, now, and I wondered—”

He didn’t finish the sentence. Farkas gave him some time to do it, but he didn’t.

“Wondered what, Kluge?” he said finally. “If I know where he is? I’m afraid I don’t. As I indicated, Juanito doesn’t work for me any more.”

“And you don’t have any idea—”

“None,” Farkas said. “I employed your friend Juanito only for a few days. Once I had my bearings here, I had no further need of him, and so I discharged him. It became necessary for me to make a short business trip to a nearby satellite world, and when that was finished I came back here for a brief holiday, but there was no reason for me to hire a courier this time and I didn’t do so. I think I saw you at the terminal when I arrived the second time, and perhaps you noticed then that I chose to go through the entry procedures unaided.”

“Yes, actually, I did,” said Kluge.

“Well, then. I assume Juanito has taken himself off on a vacation somewhere. I paid him very well for his services. When you do see him again, please give him my thanks for the fine work he did on my behalf.”

Farkas smiled, the kind of smile that offers an amiable termination to a conversation. He looked toward his plate and with great precision he cut a neatly triangular slice of meat and conveyed it to his mouth. He poured a little wine from his carafe into his glass, and put the glass to his lips. He took a slice of bread from the breadbasket and covered it with a thin, meticulously applied coating of butter. Kluge watched the entire performance in silence. Farkas smiled at him again, a different sort of smile, this time as though to say, I see quite well for a blind man, don’t you think? and Kluge’s coloration registered perplexity and dismay.

Kluge said, “He isn’t much of a traveler, Juanito. He just likes to stay right here on Valparaiso Nuevo.”

“Then I’m sure that that’s where he is,” said Farkas. He cut another triangular slice of meat. Smiled another smile of dismissal. “I appreciate your concern for your friend and I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful than this. And now, unless there’s anything else you’d like to discuss—”

“Yes, actually, there is. The real reason why I came up here to Cajamarca today to see you. You had dinner in Valdivia last night, didn’t you, sir?”

Farkas nodded.

“This is a little unusual. The woman I’m working for right now happened to have dinner at the same restaurant last night. She’s from Earth, from California, traveling through the L-5 worlds. She saw you at the restaurant and asked me later if I could arrange it for her to meet you.”

“For what reason?”

“Your guess would be as good as mine, sir. But I think— you know—it might be something social.”

Interesting, Farkas thought. A woman.

He had indeed noticed a woman in the restaurant last night, a very impressive woman, substantial and conspicuous. She had walked past his table at one point, giving off a distinctive carnal emanation, a great ambient cloud of hot female force—bright waves of heat, violet shot through with deep azure streaks—that had immediately caught his attention, automatically drawing from him an instant though brief surge of hormonal flux. He had caught her attention, too—he had not failed to take in the little quiver of surprise in her aura, the tiny flinch of surprise, as the fact of his eyelessness had registered on her—and then she had moved along.

It would be a cheery coincidence if this one turned out to be the same one. Farkas had been feeling a little horny for several days, now. His sexual drive was a thing of distinct periodicity, long stretches of eunuchlike indifference punctuated by piercing episodes of wild lustfulness. One of those episodes might be coming upon him, he was beginning to suspect. If Juanito had still been around, the kid could probably have arranged something for him. Of course, Juanito wasn’t around. How providential for this Kluge to turn up, then.

“What’s her name?” Farkas asked.

“Bermudez. Jolanda Bermudez.”

The name meant nothing. And asking Kluge to describe her to him would serve no useful purpose.

“Well,” Farkas said. “I suppose I can spare a little time for her. Where can I find her?”

“She’s waiting in a cafe called the Santa Margarita, a short way up-spoke from here. I could tell her to come down here in half an hour, say, when you’re finished with your lunch.”

“I’m just about finished,” said Farkas. “Let me settle up and you can take me to her right now.”

“And about Juanito, sir—you know, we’re all pretty worried about him. So if you should happen to hear from him—”

“There’s no reason why I should,” Farkas said. “But I’m sure he’s fine. He’s very resourceful, your friend Juanito.” Farkas keyed in his lunch bill. “All right. Let’s go.”

The cafe where Jolanda Bermudez was waiting was no more than a five-minute walk from the place where Farkas had been eating lunch. He felt vaguely suspicious. It was all too neat, Kluge tracking him down like this, the woman stashing herself so close at hand. It had some of the earmarks of a setup. And yet this would not be the first time that some strange woman traveling in a remote place had become enamored of the smooth eyeless dome of his forehead. What Farkas thought of as his deformity had a distinct and potent appeal for a certain type of female personality. And he was indeed feeling horny.

This was worth checking out, whatever slight risk there would be. He was armed, after all. He was carrying the spike that he had taken from Juanito.

“There she is,” Kluge said. “The big woman at the front table.”

“I see her,” Farkas said.

She was the one he had seen last night, all right. Those waves of violet heat were still radiating from her. She looked to Farkas like three rippling curves of silvery metal emanating from a blocky central core that was of notable size but tender and vulnerable in texture, a custardy mass of taut cream-hued flesh marked down its center by a row of unblinking eye-like scarlet spots. It was an opulent body, an extravagant body. Hot, very hot.

Farkas went to her table. When she saw him she reacted as she had the night before, with that equivocal mixture of titillation and fright that he had observed so many women display at the sight of him: her whole color scheme shot up the spectrum a discernible number of angstroms and there was a quick wild fluctuation in the heat intensity of her emanation, up-down-up-down-up. And then up and up.

“Jolanda Bermudez?”

“Oh. Yes. Hello! Hello! What a pleasure this is!” A nervous giggle, almost a whinny. “Please. Won’t you join me, Mr.—?”

“Farkas. Victor Farkas,” he said, sitting down opposite her. The warmth that was coming from her was strong and insistent, now, almost dizzying, erotically aggressive. Farkas was rarely wrong about such things. That was one of Dr. Wu’s little gifts, his ability to read a woman’s erotic temperature. But nevertheless this seemed just a little too good to be true. Farkas watched her shifting position like a skittish girl, fluttering this way and that. “Your courier Kluge said you wanted to meet me.”

“Indeed I do. I hope you don’t think this is terribly presumptuous of me, Mr. Farkas—I’m a sculptor, you see—”

“Yes?”

“My work is usually done in abstract modes. Mainly I do bioresponsive pieces—you know what bioresponsive sculpture is, of course?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” He had no idea at all.

“But sometimes I like to get back to basic technique, to classical representational sculpture. And—I hope you’ll forgive me if I’m putting this too crudely, Mr. Farkas—when I saw you last night, your face, your very unusual face, I said to myself that I absolutely had to sculpt that face, I had to render its underlying structure at least in clay and perhaps in marble. I don’t know if you have any artistic leanings yourself, Mr. Farkas, but perhaps you are capable of understanding the intensity of such a feeling—the almost compulsive nature of it—”

“Oh, quite. Quite, Ms. Bermudez.” Farkas beamed pleasantly, leaned forward, let his whole sensorium drink her in.

She went gushing on, a torrent of words coming from her. Would he consider posing for her? He would? Oh, wonderful, wonderful. She understood how unusual this must be for him. But his face was so distinctive. She would never be able to rest until she had transmuted it into a work of art. Of course she needed to obtain sculpting materials—she hadn’t brought any of her tools with her—but she was sure that that would be possible somewhere on Valparaiso Nuevo, it would probably take her no more than an hour or two, and then perhaps he could come to her hotel room, which would have to serve as an improvised studio—she would need to take measurements, to study the contours of his face with great care—

The level of the heat radiation that was coming from her went on steadily rising all the while she spoke. This talk about sculpting him seemed to be genuine—Farkas was willing to believe that she dabbled in the arts in some fashion—but the real transaction that was shaping up here was a sexual one. He had no doubt about that.

“Perhaps tomorrow morning—or any other time, whatever would be convenient for you, Mr. Farkas—this evening, maybe—” Hopeful, eager. Pushy, even.

Farkas imagined himself sculpting her. He was no kind of artist at all, had never given such things any thought. How would he go about it? It would be necessary for him to learn the curves of her body, first, with his hands. Discovering by touch the true shape of all that he was incapable of seeing directly: translating the distorted geometric abstractions that he perceived into the actual rounded forms of breasts, thighs, buttocks.

“The sooner the better,” Farkas said. “I’m free this afternoon, as it happens. Possibly the thing to do would be for you to make your preliminary measurements of my face today, even before you’ve purchased the materials you need, and then—”

“Oh, yes! Yes, that would be splendid, Mr. Farkas!”

She reached across the table, gathering his hands into hers and clasping them tightly. Farkas hadn’t expected her to abandon the pretense that this was solely an artistic venture quite so quickly; but despite all his innate caution he was caught up now in her fervid sensual impatience. He had his needs, too. And it had long ago ceased to bother him that for some women it was his very weirdness of appearance that was the chief focus of attraction.

But then came an interruption. A man’s voice, a ripe booming basso, crying, “There you are, Jolanda! I’ve been looking all over for you! But I see you’ve made a new friend!”

Farkas turned. From the left, a figure approaching, shorter than average, dark. To Farkas he had the form of a single rigid column of glistening black glass, tapering from a narrow base to a broad summit. An unmarred surface, slippery-looking, perfect. Farkas knew instantly that he had seen this man before, somewhere, long ago, and he went tense at once, aware now that all of this must have been staged.

Or had it been? He heard Jolanda Bermudez gasp in consternation. She had drawn her hands back from Farkas’s, quickly, guiltily, at the first sound of the voice. Obviously she wasn’t expecting this intrusion and was upset by it. Farkas saw her emanations fluctuating wildly. She was making small brushing motions, as if telling the man to go away.

These two must be traveling together. Farkas remembered now that the woman had had a companion with her at her table the night before; but Farkas had seen no reason to give him any regard. Had the woman sought Farkas out on her own, though, or had the two of them carefully set him up?

“I know you,” Farkas told the man calmly, with his left hand resting on the spike in his pocket. The weapon was tuned to stun intensity, just one level down from lethal. That ought to be enough, he thought “You are—” Farkas reached deep into his memory. “Israeli?”

“Right. Right! Very good! Meshoram Enron. We met in South America, years ago. Bolivia, I think.”

“Caracas, actually.” It was coming back, now. The little man was a spy, of course. “The conference on seawater mineral extraction. —Victor Farkas.”

“Yes. I know. You are not easy to forget. Are you still with Kyocera?”

Farkas nodded. “And you? A news magazine, am I right?”

“Cosmos, yes. I am working on a feature now about the L-5 worlds.”

“What about you?” Farkas asked benignly, looking toward Jolanda. “You are assisting Mr. Enron with his magazine article, is that it?”

“Oh, no, I don’t have anything at all to do with magazines. Marty and I met just yesterday, on the shuttle coming up from Earth.”

“Ms. Bermudez makes friends very quickly,” Enron explained.

“So I have been discovering,” said Farkas.

Enron laughed. It was a precise, measured sort of laugh, Farkas decided, very carefully rehearsed for use on such occasions as this.

“Well,” said Enron. “I won’t disturb you two any further, then. But we must get together for a drink, eh, Farkas? How much longer are you likely to be staying up here?”

“I’m not sure. Several more days, at the least.”

“A holiday, is it?”

“A holiday, yes.”

“Wonderful place, isn’t it? Such a contrast to poor old sad Earth.” Enron began to move away. “Listen, you will give Jolanda the name of your hotel, yes? And then I’ll call you and we can set up a date.” To Jolanda he said, softly, proprietarily, “See you later, all right?”

So they are traveling together, Farkas thought The sculptress and the spy. That was worth thinking about. None of this had been any accident. Obviously Enron had seen him in the restaurant last night. This meeting today had been deliberately engineered by him. Using the woman as a cat’s-paw, though? Farkas wasn’t sure. They are traveling together, yes, but are they working together? And if so, on what?

Enron was gone. Farkas reached for Jolanda’s hand again, and she gave it.

“Now,” he said. “About this afternoon—about your taking the measurements you need for this sculpture, this portrait of me that you tell me you want to do—”