Kaspar's Box

VI: THE ORDER OF SAINT PHINEAS

The maglev train, with no sound to speak of and no obvious driver, pulled into the station and came to an equally silent stop and opened its sliding doors.

“Is it alive?” Mary Margaret wanted to know.

“Of course not!” Sergeant Maslovic responded, sounding amused. “You’ve never seen a train before?”

“We’ve never seen nothin’ before,” Irish O’Brian responded, looking as nervous as the others at the prospect of actually getting inside the thing. “Just pony carts and horses and the occasional spaceship. Stuff like that.”

“C’mon, girls, just step aboard and take a seat!” Murphy urged. “This won’t wait forever, and I want to get into town.”

Chung was already on, and Maslovic and Murphy helped each of the young women to come aboard even though there was no step and no gap. It was just now striking even the old captain just how fish-out-of-water these girls were. He’d been going back and forth in his mind, calling them “girls” but knowing that they were older and more experienced in one way than the name implied, but it worked here more than anywhere else as a truthful term. They were mere children in most experiences.

Even though they’d pulled an amazing fast one on the navy and actually partly taken control of a sophisticated craft, they really didn’t know what they were doing or what even they were seeing. They were being fed, led, or controlled when they did that. In actual fact, none of the trio had ever been off Tara Hibernius before, and the world in which they’d been born and raised had been kept deliberately backward and primitive, more nineteenth century than twenty-third. It was one thing not to have seen an elephant before; few had who hadn’t been on one of the very few worlds where they were a part of the culture. It was quite another to consider that none of the three had ever seen a train, a taxi, even a paved road or sidewalk. Now here, everything was new and scary and mysterious. No matter what powers they had, without the mind behind those necklace gems or the minds here they were pretty much helpless, not to mention clueless.

The trains were extremely fast as well as being isolated from just about all bumps and grinds, and if there hadn’t been several stations between the spaceport and the city, they would have been there in just a few minutes. As it was, they reached the downtown section of Port Bainbridge in about twenty minutes.

“We might as well get off at this stop,” Maslovic told them. “This is the center of the main commercial district. I don’t know where else would be better.”

They all exited at the stop, and as the train closed its doors and floated silently away down its maglev track, Murphy turned to Chung and Maslovic and asked, “So, now what?”

“What do you mean?” the lieutenant responded.

“I mean exactly that,” the old captain explained. “We’re in the middle of town in what looks like the middle of the day and these three sweet things can’t even get a cup of tea on their own. They stand here basically clad in the navy’s bathrobes helpless as babes. I know where I have to go, but what of them?”

“What about them?” Chung asked him. “We’re free of responsibility to you and to them at this point. We’ve landed you successfully at the nearest inhabited and interconnected colonial world. We have naval business here, and then we are on leave until our ship comes insystem. Our responsibility to you is done.”

Murphy looked like he was about to have a stroke. “But—but—you can’t do this to me! I got me own business here and then I want off! I can’t be saddled with the three of ’em indefinitely! I mean, I ain’t even been paid yet!”

“I’m afraid they are your problem, Captain,” Maslovic put in. “I mean, when we intercepted you, you were in the process of smuggling these three here, or at least bringing them here. Three very young, underage in fact, pregnant teens without the permission of any of their family or even that family’s knowledge. That can result in some pretty serious stuff if it were to come to that!”

“Oh, c’mon! You know they was runnin’ fer their lives!”

“So you say. Well, you also said you were being paid to bring them here. They’re here. We didn’t stop that. Now they’re your problem. You’re lucky we don’t turn you in, or at least charge you for the robes.”

Murphy’s face was beet red and he began to sputter. “But we ain’t even due here for another week! What do I do with ’em until then?”

“If we didn’t have other things to do, we’d be quite curious to find out the answer to that,” Lieutenant Chung said to them, trying to keep a totally blank expression on her face and not quite making it. “Farewell, Captain. Farewell, young ladies. Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Let’s get on with our business,” she said, and the two of them walked crisply away from the other four and were quickly gone down the escalator at the far end of the station.

Although there were some informally dressed commuters around waiting for the next train, they were otherwise alone on the platform.

Irish O’Brian asked innocently, “Where do we go now, Captain?”

Murphy sighed. “I’ve half a mind to just leave you here on the platform meself,” he muttered in reply, “but then I might not ever get paid and you’ll pull some of that blasted witchcraft and the locals’ll all be comin’ lookin’ for me to blame and pay damages.” He sighed in resignation, and the color began to go back to almost normal. “All right, ladies. Follow me.”

The fact was, while he knew he had some credit left on Barnum’s World, which was, after all, one of his regular stops, he nonetheless wasn’t certain that he had enough to cover four people, three of whom would need practically everything, for a full week each. They were not too charitable here when it came to folks who ran out of money, and the last way he wanted to wind up was out on the street begging or stealing with these three in tow. He wished right now that he could access their power, whatever it was, as easily as whoever was on the other side of those damned gemstones did.

Well, there’s a thought, he considered as he led them to street level and then down the walk towards the hotel area. Either whoever that is on the other side of them things better damned well pony up or we’ll hock one of ’em little sons of bitches. Should bring a tidy sum, particularly on the black market here. Real Magi stones. Not bad.

He stopped at an information kiosk on the street and checked his credit. It was better than he thought, but no retirement stipend. If it was more than a week here, or anything unexpected came up, he might well be in some trouble getting started again without going on the grift. Not that he hadn’t done that many times, but he was getting too old for that shit, and it would have to play out here, on a world he’d just love to get off of as quickly as possible.

The fancier the place, the more real humans you dealt with. Not that they were much better than machines, but at least they made you feel like it mattered.

“Your—daughters, sir?” The clerk tried mightily not to sound dubious.

“Aye, can’t you tell by the accents?” he asked the man. “What do you take me for? A dirty old man? Hell’s bells, man! You can see that they already been knocked up, all three of ’em!”

The clerk looked embarrassed and tried clearing his throat. “Oh, yes, sir. Please don’t think I was suggesting something untoward here. I apologize.” Money was money and, in fact, the clerk probably didn’t give a damn if Murphy was a dirty old man and the father of all three forthcoming children. Barnum’s World was used to the unconventional; indeed, it had been settled by and, outside the more structured city environment, still was inhabited by some of the least conventional people humanity had left. So unconventional that if the old man had introduced them as his wives or companions there would have been less of a surprise. There was always a kind of reaction to robbing the cradle, though.

“Luggage, sir?”

Murphy chuckled. “We was just dropped here cold by them damned navy tax police. They even charged us for the clean clothes! It’s only good luck that I have credit accounts here that them bums can’t touch! No, no luggage. But I hope to heaven we’ll have some goin’ out! Me, I’ll be here only a few days, until me daughters’ families come pick them up.”

“They are local here, sir?”

“No, but they’re here now. Nosy sort for a spaceport concierge, ain’t you? Are ye a hotel man or a cop?”

The hotel rep was looking nervous and uncomfortable. “Oh, I work for the hotel, sir! Just making idle conversation while the room is checked.” He looked down at a panel in front of him and seemed visibly relieved. “Ah, yes! It’s ready now, sir. Just a moment and I’ll take you up to your room and show you the features.”

“No, I know the features. Just tell me which room and we’ll go up and let you know if it ain’t suitable,” the captain told him. The fellow probably was just hotel personnel, but he wouldn’t blink twice at feeding some tidbit of information to the local cops or maybe even the local crooks if it was worth his while. Murphy knew the type. All the fancy clothes in the world couldn’t disguise a grifter. In some ways he preferred this type. More his kind of people, and sure a lot better than the ones who were part of some damned religious group. Those types made him nervous.

They went up to the room, which was also keyed to his right index finger and right eyeball patterns, and it was a very nice room. Almost too nice, Murphy thought, looking around. With a bedroom and spacious furnished parlor, he felt that a level of privacy might be maintained here while not interfering much with comfort. Even the couch seemed luxurious when compared to those shuttle hammocks.

The women, too, seemed to like the look of the suite, and investigated every square millimeter of the place and all the buttons and voice command gadgetry available. Most popular was the huge bathroom, with its whirlpool-style tub and huge well-stocked vanity. He let them have their fun; he suspected that soon they’d find things more drudgery and sleepless nights, and they might as well enjoy this while they could.

For some reason, he felt tired, almost drained of energy, in spite of having spent so many days doing nothing at all. Some might have suggested that it was the copious amount of whiskey he’d consumed during that period that might have been catching up with him, but his old Irish soul rejected that as somehow unmanly. Still, this pretty room was costing a fortune and it seemed criminal not to use it, particularly since he was stuck until he could unload the girls. In the meantime, they seemed so taken with the bath and such, and so lively and awake, he thought he could take the opportunity to simply crash on top of that big bed with the satiny spread while they played their games. Kicking off his shoes, he went into the bedroom and plopped down on top of it. The sensation was so wonderful he was asleep in less than a minute.

He didn’t know how long he slept, but he awoke suddenly, sitting up on the bed wide awake as if cold water had been splashed on his face. He was surprised to find that he was actually in the bed, and that the covers had been pulled up over him, but he was much more startled to see that it was almost dark.

And silent.

Pushing off the covers, he got up and walked out into the parlor, suddenly worried about what those girls were up to while he’d slept. The lights came on as he walked through, and what was most disturbing of all was the fact that nothing seemed to be out of kilter. Everything was as fresh and undisturbed as when they’d entered, and although the sumptuous bath had been clearly used, there was no sign of the ones who’d used it.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” he swore aloud. “Them girls is out in this town in nothin’ more’n bathrobes and sandals and no experience with the denizens of civilization at all!”

He immediately left the room and took the lift down to the reception area. No sign of them there, either, nor of the concierge who’d checked them in, but hotel reception people were there. None could remember seeing three young women of those descriptions or any other descriptions pass through the area since they’d been on duty, and some had been there all afternoon.

Damn them! They pulled another one of them witch vanishing acts again!

He started to go out into the shopping district, which was just coming to life with its lights and glitzy signs and exotic smells, when he suddenly stopped and just stood there in the hotel entrance, staring.

What the hell could he do? He had no more chance of finding them than anyone else, and if they were in that invisible mode or whatever it was they could pull, then nobody else would have noticed them, either. At least that situation would help defend against the nasty people and things around the city, and they were unlikely candidates for much in the sex side of things right now, so he couldn’t do much except sweat a bit and wait them out and hope that they came back.

He turned, went back up to the room, cleared off the parlor table, and called room service for a good dinner. While waiting, he decided to see if anyone of interest might be in the city directory.

Computers were very good at figuring out what you wanted and finding it for you, but he hated having a dialog with a machine. He called up a holographic screen with a print listing and sought some information.

Phineas… Phineas… Nope. Wait! Not Phineas! Saint Phineas, wasn’t it? Yes, let’s see…

There was nothing in the commercial or institutional directories that seemed to fit what he was looking for, but the plain contact listings, without the three-dimensional super ads and special effects, did show an Order of Saint Phineas. Not much of a description, but it was in the southwestern suburbs, a residential area mostly, but easily reached by mass transit.

“Research,” he said to the screen floating in front of him. “Expand on any cross-references on directory entry highlighted.”

“St. Phineas, Order of, rel., frat., priv. Chapel, grounds, residences. Members only. No visitors unless invited. Strictly enforced. Security A five.”

That was interesting. A security level like that might be expected at banks and dealers in art and precious gems or the like, and higher-level government offices. Rather unusual for a religious order, which is what the thing also said. Of course, if the girls really meant it when they said they were Satanists, then any such order might well have that kind of security and more.

He sat up, frowning. “Information, can you find me anything on Saint Phineas?”

“No information on Saint Phineas is in my records,” responded a pleasant and human-sounding female voice. “However, there is an Order of Saint Phineas listed in the communications directory.”

“Never mind.” That was going in circles.

He probably was one of those obscure Catholic saints, of course. There was one for just about every name or combination of syllables in the known universe, or so it had seemed when the religious calendars came out when he was growing up. Not likely to bother having all of those on a secular world’s directory like this one. Not much of Vaticanus here, that was for sure. More likely here would be Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems, Baptists, that sort of thing.

And all of a sudden it hit him like a bolt of lightning from the heavens themselves. Where was he sitting, anyway? Those rascals! Those damned scoundrels! People after his own heart, most likely.

“Information,” he called again. “Phineas Barnum, please.”

“No listing for a Phineas Barnum.”

“Not a listing. Who was he?”

“Barnum, Phineas Taylor, lived eighteen ten to eighteen ninety-one, Old Earth calendar system. Established museum of curiosities, later created a traveling circus called the Greatest Show on Earth. Descendants of the circus, merged many times and split among many units, perform to this day on established appearance circuits, with some periods of interruption. Credited with the saying, ‘There is a sucker born every minute.’ Barnum was also a politician and mayor of a major city at one time in his career. He—”

“That’s enough!” As the signal bell sounded indicating that dinner had arrived, he sat back and laughed heartily to himself. Phineas Taylor Barnum. A sucker born every minute!

It made perfect sense. Nobody paid anything to see robots battle or holographic shows that did the same things time after time, and even if you could walk right into a virtual reality game and battle gladiators in ancient Rome, there was some prurient interest and even some artistic appreciation for those folks of the old school who could still perform the old acts, live, in the ways you couldn’t.

There’s one born every minute… He almost choked on the steak, good as it was, because of his inability to suppress chuckling spasms.

This was a scientific reserve, but it was more than that. Lots of genetics work was done to order here, and lots of preservation and even resuscitation of extinct plants and animals from preserved DNA and stored encoding sequences were done here as well. It was also one of the few places where, for some substantial fees, you could do some special-order genetics on humans as well. Not well publicized, and in the old days before the Great Silence it was never advertised, but it was done here. What better place for breeding controlled mutations if that’s what you wanted to do? Lots of museum and performer types here as well, because of the laid-back attitudes. And even universally condemned activities might be done here, no questions asked.

And that was what he’d been doing for them all this time. They had their performers who might even get around now and then to out-of-the-way worlds like Tara Hibernius. Who would look twice at them? Such a backward nontechnological society would be a natural for live performances.

So you dropped by and you already carried the seeds of the project, whatever it might be, and thanks to the strict claustrophobic society there would be a lot of teen rebellion, perhaps against both church and society, so you had a seemingly unthreatening underground organization that attracted some of the young. The best prospects might be impregnated with the project seed, and then good old Murphy comes along delivering atmospheric purifiers and super fertilizers and he picks up the impregnated ones who also have been chosen as ones who really wanted out or else and deposits them here. Who would notice? Even if something in the chain blew, it wouldn’t look like any kind of illegal genetics work, it would just look like what it seemed, with the Satanic stuff thrown in for an even smellier bundle of red herrings.

Still, somebody had gone to a lot of trouble and expense for what seemed easy to do right here in a compound out in the bush. Why go to all that trouble, and for so little result? Three engineered babies you could grow in test tubes?

No, he had some of it, but not all of it, not yet. He was certain of that.

It was well into the night before the girls returned, much to his relief. Not that he was so terrified for their welfare, of course, but he had to get paid, after all.

His relief was short-lived, though, when he saw that they were under no apparent spells but dressed quite differently, and followed by a robot cart carrying a ton of packages. They themselves had on loose but rather colorful one-piece dresses, wide, floppy brim hats, fancy designer sunglasses, and nice-looking sandals. They also appeared to have discovered the application of makeup, were wearing earrings and finger rings, wearing painted lips and painted nails.

“Good god! How’d you get all that?” he asked nervously. “You didn’t spend every single bit of credit I got, did you?”

“Oh, of course not!” Irish laughed, sounding tired but happy. “We didn’t spend nothin’ at all for these!”

Murphy frowned. “Then how…? I mean, they got print and retinal checks and you need the money or else here! Or did you just walk out with it while makin’ nobody see you or somethin’ like that?”

“Oh, nothing like that,” Mary Margaret laughed. “We just did like everybody else. We picked what we wanted, we gave ’em our finger and looked through their eyepiece or whatever it is, and it said we was okay. Worked every place we went.”

He sat back down, a bit dumbfounded. “Heh! Best damn security system for payment and credit I know, and you girls just breeze right past it ’cause the machines all think they know you and want to make you happy! Sweet Jesus! As hard as I had to work to steal things over me many years!”

“We didn’t steal,” Irish O’Brian insisted. “We just did what everybody else did for payment and it was good. So who loses? The shops got paid, right? So if there’s no money there, it’s the government’s own fault for giving it to us!”

“I wanta try on that stuff but I’m beat,” Mary Margaret McBride put in.

“Me, too,” chipped in Brigit Moran.

Irish came over to the old captain and kissed him on the forehead. “So can you be a dear man and put them things someplace here for us? I think it’s bedtime.”

You didn’t argue with these gals, that was clear. He let them go in, get their showers, and stake out their bed places and get settled, then he quietly made certain that the connecting door was completely shut and went back to the comm console.

“Manual mode. Keyboard, please,” he said quietly.

In front of him a holographic keyboard appeared. Few could read and write these days, or needed to do either, but there were times when that was a real advantage for someone who could.

With his index finger he tapped out, “Order of Saint Phineas, Dir.” The same listing came up as before. This time, however, he input, “Call. Low volume.”

A weak electronic signal buzzed on and off several times. Then a woman’s voice answered, “This is the main number of the Order of Saint Phineas. Leave your message and contact information and someone will get back to you.”

He waited for the tone, then said softly, “Captain Patrick Murphy, Hotel Aden, suite five five four. I am in early with cargo for you. Please contact me and arrange delivery or pickup. Message ends.”

He suspected that they already knew he was here, and probably just about all that had happened, via those stones or whatever they were, but it never hurt to go through the motions. Now there was nothing left to do but to wait for contact.

Truth be told, he almost would miss the girls. If he could get them to trust him with that power of theirs, there was no limit to what they could do, and the fantasy of a man his age with three very pretty companions wasn’t at all unpleasant to him. Still, they’d probably get him in more trouble than he’d ever been in in his whole life just by being their own sweet ditzy selves and, besides, it was beginning to look more and more like the very last folk you’d want to cross would be these Phineas people.

Still, all the previous deliveries had been a bit older, a bit smarter, and generally just one or two at a time. He really wondered what the future held for these girls, or if they had one once he delivered them. Clearly it wasn’t the trio that this Order was interested in, it was what they carried in their bellies. This was a huge, mostly wild, and very unpopulated world where folks could disappear forever and never be missed, in spite of all those state-of-the-art police controls. Once relieved of their babies and their fancy gem gadgets, they were just three pretty, helpless, far-too-young girls, fit for cleaning up the place or making bushmen a bit less lonely or, if all else failed, providing a nice dinner for some of them creepy crawly types out in the wild.

He began to feel depressed. Not so much at their fate, but at the very clear evidence that, after all those years and all that shady living, he was somehow developing at least an embryonic conscience.

The communicator rang softly. He jumped, startled at the sound, then said simply, “Murphy.”

“Ten hundred tomorrow morning,” said a woman’s voice, not the same one as in the message. “Tanzania Park. North entrance, then to the Great Apes pavilion. Bring your delivery.”

“How will I know your person?” he asked.

“They’ll know. And we know you.”

There was no use in going any further; the line was definitely dead. He sighed. Well, it was more cloak-and-dagger on his part than he was used to in these things, but at least it would be over.

He wished he had some way to work out with the girls some kind of signal so that, if they got into trouble or didn’t like where they wound up, they could contact him or someone else for help, but it didn’t seem likely he could do it without also giving the same information to these clients of his. The girls weren’t about to take off those Magi stones, and not being able to read, there just was no other way to get private.

In a way, that made him feel a bit better. If he couldn’t do anything, then he could hardly be guilty of any serious breaches, right? Nobody, not even he, could blame him if it all went wrong for them. Not so long as they had that power and also wanted to go.

He decided to let them be for this last night and go down to the hotel pub and relax with the best it had, at least until he really believed that himself.

Tanzania Park looked and even operated very much like a metropolitan zoo. It charged an admission, had the usual amenities, and allowed people to see ancient animals, mostly Old Earth species, some long extinct from that planet even before the Great Silence, in a kind of natural habitat recreation, but that wasn’t its primary purpose.

Like its aquatic, arctic, and other planetary biome zoos, it was a place where the old species were born and bred until strong enough to be released into the wild, and trained as much as possible to be self-sufficient out there. It was also where injured animals came for treatment, was used for research on animal biology and behavior, and as a transit point for outgoing orders as well.

The three young women loved it.

Murphy had done his best to brief them that this was it, that they’d be meeting the people they were supposed to meet and going away with them from the park, but that seemed to be the farthest thing from their minds this nice morning. The only thing they’d asked, when he told them earlier at the hotel what was going to be going down and where, was how they were going to get the bulk of their brand-new purchases to wherever they were headed next. Murphy assured them that he’d have all that sent over, and that seemed to be the end of that.

The cab didn’t look any different from the others waiting outside the hotel and probably wasn’t; if he was bringing the “merchandise” to them, why bother?

The north entrance was imposing, consisting of giant prefab stonelike columns carved with ancient tribal symbols, colors, and designs that matched the original long-ago land of these creatures. His finger paid their admission, but he had to work hard to keep the trio from immediately heading for the souvenir shop. It was already almost ten, and the map said they had about two kilometers to walk to get to the Great Apes area. Murphy realized that whoever they’d be meeting probably had them in sight the whole way now and he didn’t want to be perceived as deliberately dawdling to miss the appointment.

There weren’t a whole lot of people in the park, or so it seemed, but there were small hordes of children running about here and there, often being chased by nearly exhausted teachers or nannies, and now and again there were groups of twos and threes looking like business people killing time or people there on zoological business. A few families, yes, as well, and the occasional, but rare, individual.

It was already hot and growing hotter and about as humid as air could be without suddenly turning to rain, and the walk in full gravity was hard even on him. He couldn’t understand how the three girls were handling it so well considering their condition; most women he knew that far advanced had backaches and could barely waddle a hundred meters without getting winded or, even more likely, seeking a bathroom. Not them. They looked well enough along, but acted almost as if their condition had little or no effect on their energy, aches and pains, or general mobility. How anyone could seem that energetic carrying a watermelon between their legs was beyond him; it wasn’t at all natural.

It was further proof that, in spite of their primitive and humble native world, these ones had been designed by someone specifically for this purpose. No wonder they’d all gotten knocked up so young and so easily; their entire design was towards pregnancy as a natural condition. These were baby-making machines, designed not to simply continue evolution but to control it.

Walking slowly but effortlessly down the path, the trio entered ape country long before their titular guardian got there.

It was almost as if they were expected. As they came around a corner through the dense jungle on the artificial track carved out for visitors, they suddenly found themselves quite close to a whole colony of large hairy apelike creatures sitting on a pile of rocks above and around a small pool of water.

The apes seemed nonthreatening and quite pleased for the company. It didn’t take more than a minute for anyone to get the impression that, from their point of view, they were sitting there waiting for the attractions to come and parade by the waiting colony. To the apes, the people were the animals.

“Jeez! They’re like little hairy people!” Mary Margaret exclaimed.

“Some of ’em ain’t so little,” Irish responded, gesturing to an area behind and to the right of the ape colony. Up in the trees some really huge apes with bright orange fur and really dumb-looking expressions watched the whole world go by. They seemed very slow and almost to flow rather than merely move between positions, when they moved at all, but there was no question that they were aware of everyone and everything around them.

“Look! That one’s preggers!” said the blond Brigit Moran, pointing to one of the nearer apes in the group.

“Yeah! Wow! I think a couple of ’em are,” Irish said, looking at each in turn. “I wonder if they talk?”

“That’s dumb!” Mary Margaret shot back. “They’re, like, animals. Animals don’t talk!”

“I had a hog once could grunt ‘Danny Boy’,” Irish insisted. “They ain’t all so dumb.”

“Yeah, well, maybe. I mean, we’re the ones had to pay to see them, right? And then we got to walk all this way to parade past them. Maybe you’re right at that,” Mary Margaret said thoughtfully.

Murphy by this time had caught up, although he was a bit winded and his calves were already threatening revolution. He spotted a comfortable-looking bench under the jungle canopy and made for it, sinking down onto the seat and feeling blessed relief. This was where they were instructed to be, and by his watch they were within a couple of minutes of being on time, so he was satisfied at that.

“Can we go over and pet them or somethin’?” Mary Margaret wondered.

Irish shook her head. “Don’t think so. I bet there’s some kinda wall we can’t see around. Remember, just ’cause they kinda look like us don’t mean that they wouldn’t like to beat the livin’ shit out of us. We all know more human animals that’d do that, don’t we?”

The other two nodded seriously and made no attempt to get closer to the pool and its colony of large chimpanzees.

Murphy looked at the apes, both the chimps on the ground and the orangutans in the trees, and wondered if they weren’t a lot smarter than they were supposed to be.

You’re gettin’ paranoid, Murphy, he chided himself. But who wouldn’t be after a week or two like he’d just had with those three?

Truth was, he wondered if they could possibly be as airheaded as they let on. Could they really match wits against those apes over there? And which group would win the intellectual battle?

He also wondered why anybody bothered to keep great apes around and preserved in their natural habitats like this. What good were they? Kind of like keeping a prehistoric virus around because it was the ancestor of pneumonia. Just because people and apes shared a family tree didn’t seem to him sufficient reason for some folks, some civilizations, to actually pay not only for their preservation but also for real live pairs or colonies of them for some distant colonial worlds who would find better use for those resources making sure that they came through the upcoming economic and social train wreck everybody knew had to be coming.

He thought he heard someone come up in back of him. Turning while not getting up, he found himself staring down an enormous black-pelted gorilla not three meters from the back of his head.

That made him move faster than he dreamed he was still capable of moving.

The gorilla didn’t try and lunge, and seemed almost amused by his reaction, like it had deliberately crept up behind him just to spook him and see what he would do.

“So, you big muscle-bound beast,” Murphy called to him, “think you could catch Murphy in a panic, eh? Well, here I am!”

The gorilla, on all fours but seeming more massive for all that, looked up at him, seemed almost to smile, snorted loudly in the captain’s direction, then turned and vanished back into the forest.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Murphy swore aloud. “Why the hell would anyone want to make sure a brute like that survived and prospered is beyond me!”

He turned to see how the girls were taking his sneak attack and suddenly realized that he was alone in the glen. Alone as far as humans went, anyway. The chimps and orangs were still watching and they seemed highly amused.

“Girls! Where are you?” he shouted out as loud as he could, causing the chimps at least to start jumping up and down and screeching at him in obvious mockery of his genuine concern.

He walked slowly towards them, almost ready to grab one and make it tell him where the girls were hiding, but just beyond the edge of the track he felt the solidity and crackle of an energy barrier.

He tested it out, and it seemed to go the length of the track as far as he could see in either direction. Okay, so they didn’t go that way, at least not unless they were using that infernal power stuff again.

He walked back to the bench, then around it, and immediately hit the same sort of barrier on the bench side as well.

Thinking that they might have gone towards the exit, he walked back up the track for a hundred meters or so, all exhaustion forgotten, until he could actually see almost to the north gate. People, yes, in increasing numbers, but no sign of the girls.

He quickly whirled and walked back down past the chimps and around the curve where, he found, he had almost as good practical visibility to the next area. A young couple seemed to be walking slowly and close together, hand in hand, enjoying the day, and there was a maintenance robot moving towards him to his right, apparently collecting trash and checking the status of the energy barrier as well.

He doubted that the girls were trying that invisibility or not notice trick; that seemed to require a long period of time chanting together to get themselves in synch. And while they did have some level of hypnotic abilities, they weren’t all that clever and no good at all at preplanning, so he doubted if they were biding their time and then controlling his mind so that he wouldn’t notice them going. Not that they’d have to. He’d been having enough concerns with that gorilla.

He went back over to the bench and sank back down onto it. Most likely simple diversion. They might have put the gorilla up to it somehow, but he doubted it. Easier to just wait until his attention was fully somewhere else and then move. If it hadn’t been the gorilla, it would have been something or, eventually, somebody.

After a half hour he was convinced that it wasn’t any trick of the girls that had caused it, either. They would have come back and lorded it over him by now.

He felt kind of empty, almost, and it surprised him. As much as he wanted to be rid of them, they’d been the closest thing to family he’d had in fifty years.

Slowly, suddenly feeling the weight of his years, he walked back up to the nearest entrance to the park and looked for a taxi, settling instead for the maglev about two blocks farther down. It was cheaper, and he wasn’t in any hurry any more.

When he got back to the room he half expected them to be there, but when the door opened, it revealed a suite so immaculate it seemed as if nobody had ever stayed in it. Everything had been made up, and it seemed sterile, empty. It was another minute or so before he realized that the packages the three had brought in last night were also nowhere to be seen, nor was the mess in cosmetics, bath oils, and the like they’d littered the bathroom with even that morning.

He looked over and saw that the holographic plate was pulsing, indicating that there was some sort of message for him. He went over, sat down, and said, “Communications, replay message for Murphy, Patrick.”

“Message is nonverbal,” the comm reported.

“Really? Well, put it up on the screen.”

It was from his local bank. It showed a massive infusion of real cash into that account. Convertible cash, useful for transfer as well as just sitting there.

More than enough for passage first class almost anywhere he wanted to go, for buying another junker of a freighter, plus sufficient funds for several weeks of one damned huge and wondrous bender.

It was more than enough, and it wasn’t nearly anything he particularly wanted right now. It was more than a credit statement, it was a message from the Order of Saint Phineas and those behind it.

Payment due on acceptance of the delivery of the ordered merchandise.

Damn their dark souls!