Operation Isis. E. Hoffmann Price

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      Garvin recalled that long-ago pillow talk when, after six years, he and Azadeh were reunited in Maritania. And he had never forgotten her words: “Better have them decently destroyed by nuclear bombing than be invaded by North Americans. Your people, many of them, say, ‘Better red than dead.’ We say ‘Better dead than swamped by you barbarians.’”

      No threat had made Azadeh waver.

      But that sales talk?

      “Now that you two are together again, and I can take off to see my cousins, and everyone’s homesickness is cured...”

      The words were not iron, nor was the music of her voice.

      “... and when you two have had a comfortable fill of France and North America, and I’ve learned that I’ve been craving something that never existed...”

      Garvin was scraping bottom: Well, she’s not fumbling it the way I did... And that thought bounced to hit him between the eyes, as if he were a bumbling pelota player knocked out by his own ball: He had been hoping that Azadeh would pull him out of ensorcellment. Move over, Merlin, make room for a fellow horse’s arse....

      Azadeh paused for a moment of beatific glowing. “We’ll decide whether to meet in Bayonne or in Maritania, Flora, darling, after each of us is fed up with what was craved so long. After my quickie wartime glimpse of Terra, a longer look might make me fall in love with the place and the people. So just let’s keep in touch, and it was sweet of you to call me.”

      She cut the connection.

      Simple as pouring bran out of a boot.

      Genghis Khan became emperor of all mankind, but he could never have managed the twelve-girl whorehouse that made number thirty-four rue Lachepaillet, the finest street of Grande Bayonne, justly popular in song and story. And this thought started the sprouting of new wings for the Governor-General.

      Garvin recalled that small-town girl who quit school at the sixth grade and within a couple of years became First Lady in charge of 124 female chocolate-dippers in a village candy factory. She retired forty years later, sane, sparkling, and in good health.

      There are jobs that are not a man’s work.

      When they came to the darling little Guiletta Veloce, Flora handed him the keys. “Skip the Devil’s Bridge and that restaurant. I’ve had it.”

      Whether this was letdown after victory or falling apart after staking all that she had, leaving her helpless in the hands of destiny, was an open question but one that needed no answer. There were times, Garvin thought, when the right woman was more helpful than a division of armor. Two such women, however, could at times complicate matters slightly.

      Back at the villa, Flora remained sufficiently herself to slip into the ultimate of sleeping gowns, but that garment did not offset her weariness. It could not keep her awake.

      Garvin was good as new. Azadeh had transferred something across a gap of some 65 million kilometers. He looked at his watch. He counted on his fingers. Then, after a bit of mental arithmetic, he made for the library, where he seated himself at the escritoire. Even allowing for the time difference between Bayonne and “The City That Nobody Wanted,” the approaches to which Alexander I had defended to his death, it was a gruesome hour for a phone call.

      Nevertheless, he put through a call to five-star General Dennis Kerwin, Emeritus Chairman of the Consortium of Warlords, the rulers of the Limited Democracy of North America. He was going to have a few things decided before the Flora-versus-Azadeh contest took total command.

      Getting Kerwin out of bed before reveille would be good for the Warlord’s soul, and it would be a first for Garvin.

      “What the hell’s on your feeble mind?” Kerwin grumbled. “Do you have to make it a night problem to tell me you are in Bayonne, shacking up with thirty three and one-third percent of your wives?”

      “You’re off base! She is fifty percent of my wives. And I didn’t have to do it this way, but she does talk in her sleep, and this way I’ll not be interrupted. They have been debating whether I should retire in Maritania, where I can keep an eye on the Water and Air Synthesis Project—WASP, we call it—or retire in Bayonne.”

      “You, retire? Goddammit, Rod, I’m still semiactive and doing as much as three of you young punks on supposedly active duty!”

      “General, if you ever had two wives simultaneously and they started wistful wailing—”

      “All right, all right! What is all this crap?”

      Garvin explained.

      “So,” Kerwin finally said. “Now you’re reduced to only two wives and you’re getting old and dependent! And to make it worse, you have a teenage son who uses a four-letter word when referring to women. Tell him to learn Arabic or Latin—also, that there is a three-letter word for it in French! Simpler is you just kick his goddamn prat till his nose bleeds, and then when you have got his attention—”

      “When you get to the lecture on child psychology, give me a chance to tell you I am weary and worn out. I have not been sitting on my arse, swirling mint juleps and every so often telling an aide de camp, ‘Archie, take the son of a bitch away and have him shot, and don’t bother me with trivialities.’”

      “Rod Garvin, I wish you had my job!”

      “How about you taking my job and see how you like preparing Martian meadows to feed an overpopulated Earth that should have started mandatory and universal abortion four generations ago.”

      Garvin was glad but not amazed when Kerwin finally said, “I’ve got to have some rest before breakfast and golf with—oh, hell, I can’t even think of his name, but he is important!”

      “And I’m not waiting for either. I am hauling out before Flora wakes up and starts all over!”

      “See me at my headquarters, and we’ll negotiate a few details. Unless you go wild with perks and allowances, it’s all yours, but there is one important proviso. There is a special task that no one but you can accomplish. Do not mention names.”

      “I can just about guess what it is going to be.”

      “Make it and write your own ticket.”

      “One thing I’ll need. Got a pencil handy?”

      “Have got. Well, my memory is tricky.”

      “So is mine,” Garvin said, and gave him a code number. “Get that to Barstow, in the Mad Scientist Section, Biological Department. Maritania. Top-secret it, ship immediately. If no cruiser is scheduled for departure within three days, get one going, an express run.”

      That did it.

      “Over and out.”

      Garvin wrote a few lines for Flora:

      Darling, my life has been a series of leave-takings. My retirement is subject to my undertaking one task. Confidential but not hazardous. Should not require much over a year. Don’t pressure Azadeh. Make no promises. You and I have had another one of our Nights of Truth. Everything has been so clear for so long that I could not see it. And СКАЧАТЬ