Gateway To Xanadu (29 page)

“What you look like reflects on me,” he answered at once, doing a good job of covering up, the flicker in his black eyes showing he’d picked up on the goof. “I don’t care to have people looking at you like that and then looking at me. Take it off at once.”

“I don’t have to take it off,” I told the black-eyed sternness coming down at me, trying to send him a

“back off” stare. “Greg said I could do anything I pleased, and this is it. He told me I’m as much of a guest as you are.”

Mentioning Greg had made Val stop and think the way I’d wanted him to, but the sudden frustration in his eyes said he didn’t want to back off. I could see he didn’t know what I was up to and didn’t even particularly care if I’d done what I had with a purpose in mind; he didn’t like it and wanted it changed.

His narrowmindedness narrowed his eyes as well, but before he could say anything, another voice interrupted.

“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I said anything,” Greg put in as he came up, flinching theatrically when I turned my face to look at him. “I appreciate your efforts in trying to pretty up for me, but I have a much better idea. ”

He took my arm and guided me away, ignoring Little’s impressed surprise and Val’s silent anger in the same way he was ignoring my feeble protests. I let him drag me away, but I was mad enough to curse for five minutes straight in as many languages, because it was suddenly clear that Greg had been watching me play dress-up with the make-up, and had really moved to get to me before I left the vessel.

That the bathroom had turned out to be less private than guests were led to believe wasn’t the point that bothered me; I hadn’t expected any privacy on that world, so being watched in the bathroom didn’t come as a crushing shock. What got to me was that my instincts had been right, and if I’d been able to disembark looking like payday Patty, Greg Rich probably would have faded back into the landscape, to save face if nothing else. The main thing that had kept that from happening had been Val’s failure to stay in character, delaying me long enough for Greg to catch up to me. I’d have to remember to thank Val for that bit of help-him and his narrowmindedness together.

I wasn’t given more than a few steps worth of time to think my furious thoughts; Greg headed me right back to the bathroom I’d come out of, and before I knew it I was inside again, but this time with company. The hand on my arm steered me straight over to the wide sink to the left of the sliding panel, and the mirrored wall behind it fed us our reflections when we stepped in front of it.

“Now let’s get that mask washed off,” Greg said briskly as he studied my reflection with half-veiled amusement. “I like my women natural-looking, and right now you look anything but. If I have to sit through breakfast staring at that, I’ll starve from lack of appetite.”

“I don’t want to wash it off,” I told his own reflection, immediately deciding to play stubborn. Having fun in bed is all well and good, but most men don’t consider having to deal with a balky teenager fun. If I could get him annoyed enough, he’d walk away and forget the whole thing. “I put this make-up on because I wanted it on, and I don’t want it off. If you don’t like the way I look you can just go back with this boat the way you’re supposed to, and then you won’t be bothered. If you stay, you’ll have to stay with me looking like this.”

“Which you don’t expect me to do under any circumstances because of what Little told you,” he said, anger showing briefly in his eyes. “No one cares about you so you don’t care about anyone, and you’re ready to prove it. Well, I think I’ll do a little proving of my own.”

His big hand came to the back of my neck, I was bent forward over the sink, and despite my squawks of protest the soaped water was turned on and quickly slathered over my face. It was no surprise that he knew I’d used the water-soluble stuff instead of the permanent kind that had to be taken off with a special solvent, but something else had been a surprise, and a nasty shock as well. He had talked about my conversation with Little, and he hadn’t been guessing: he’d known what had been said, and that meant he’d listened in, but my earrings hadn’t warned me. That in turn meant their eavesdropping equipment was a good deal more sophisticated than I had expected it to be, and my bug-warning earrings were absolutely useless. And I’d thought they hadn’t bothered checking because of procedural sloppiness!

Greg Rich ignored my yowling and struggling and did a thorough job of face-washing, then pulled a towel out of the sink-counter slot and stuffed it at me. I wiped the rinse-water away fast so that I could glare at him properly, but when I lowered the towel I found a wide grin meeting my glare.

“You have no idea how much better that is,” he said with a chuckle for the outrage in my expression, folding thick forearms over a broad chest as he looked down at me. “Hurry up and finish drying, and we’ll go and get some breakfast. ”

“What n-sakes you think I want to have breakfast with you?” I demanded, deciding to see if I could get rid of him by walking away in a huff. “You had no right doing that to me, and I don’t like being treated like a baby! Why don’t you go and have breakfast with somebody, you like just as she is?”

“That’s exactly what I’m going to do,” he answered, his grin softened into a smile. “I don’t know what it is about you, Jennifer, but every time I see you with your uncle and that Little character, I get the urge to stand in front of you. I’ve never felt like that about a female before, and I’ve decided I like the high it gives me. You’re having breakfast with me because I want you to have breakfast with me, and. if you’re not dry and ready to go in the next thirty seconds I’ll take your sarong away and make you go to breakfast in that towel. Then everyone will be able to see what a lucky man I am.”

His smile had grown into a grin, but that didn’t mean he was kidding. The towel he’d given me was about eighteen inches square. just fine for drying a face or hands, not so fine for using as a sarong substitute.

As a nudist I couldn’t have cared less, but Jennifer wasn’t a nudist and she was the one he was talking to.

I produced a blush that set him chuckling again, then resignedly went ahead and did as I’d been told.

Val and Little were no longer outside the door when we came out, and Greg seemed to be expecting their absence. He took my right arm and wrapped it around his left, then led me to the vessel’s exit amid a thin stream of other departing guests. The gangway to the dock was softly carpeted, a beautiful, blue-skied day was just starting above us, and the sleek, clean, floating outdoor restaurant we were docked near was designed to lift the spirits, but none of it was able to do much to lighten my mood. A soft, warm breeze fluttered my hair as we stepped onto the smooth, easy-on-the-feet flooring of our landing, and happily Greg was too busy pointing things out to me to notice that I was holding my expression neutral to keep it from going sour.

After Greg’s speech in the bathroom, it had finally come through to me that I’d been operating under a set of mistaken beliefs. I’d thought the attraction I held for Greg was entirely physical, but physical actually had very little to do with it. From what he’d said, he’d played the gallant hero for a young, helpless female for the first time in his life, and he’d discovered that he enjoyed being protective.

Working on Xanadu he couldn’t have had much opportunity before I came along; after all, not many young, helpless female-types show up there as guests. He must have had buried and suppressed sympathies for the slaves around him, but hadn’t been able to externalize them until he met me. It helped that poor, little Jennifer was exceptionally pretty and somewhat talented in bed, but lid been considering that the major motivating factor involved, and it wasn’t. Which brought up the fascinating question: how long would it take for the man to get bored with heroing? He was watching every move I made and listening to every word; how was I supposed to get around that to reach Radman? I didn’t know the answers to those questions, and what was worse, didn’t even know how to find out.

Val and Little were already seated at a table among the others from our vessel, food and drink is front of them, a servant hovering nearby in case they wanted or needed anything else. There were quite a few servants around, and every one of them was dressed in less than the guests they served, which is to say, nothing at all. They may well have all been slaves, but not necessarily so; lots of people are willing to work without clothing if they’re paid well enough, and pay wasn’t a problem in the Pleasure Sphere.

Greg nodded pleasantly to Val as we passed within ten feet of my partner’s table, then led me to a table of our own.

“I think we’ll find this meal more pleasant if we share it only with each other,” he said as he seated me with my back to Val and Little, then went around to sit opposite to me. “Are you hungry?”

“I suppose so,” I answered with very little enthusiasm, wondering how you turned off a man who was determined to protect you. “Is this really the Pleasure Sphere everyone’s always talking about’? It doesn’t look like that much to me.”

“That’s because this is only the gateway to the Sphere,” he answered with a smile, gesturing over one of the servants with the food. “The real Sphere begins once you go through the gateway, which will happen this afternoon after you’ve passed your physical. I think we’ll manage to impress even someone with your refined tastes.”

“Physicals?” I echoed, having forgotten about that aspect of Sphere regulations. “What kind of physicals do you have to pass? And what happens if you don’t pass’?”

“If you don’t pass, you’ll be thrown to the carnivores in the arena,” he said with heavy, phony menace, then chuckled at his little joke. “Don’t worry, little girl, you’ll pass, and if you don’t, I won’t either.

Whatever happens will happen to both of us, so we’ll be able to keep each other company. The physicals are more of a weeding-out process, to make sure you don’t leave with anything you didn’t bring. Those who have picked something up in their travels are guided through the Sphere in a slightly different direction, but they don’t miss out on anything, and aren’t restrained in any way, except by being kept apart from other guests. Some of them leave here without even knowing they were separated out.”

He flashed me a quick grin, then gave all his attention to the food that was being put on the table between us, totally untouched by the sickening implications of what he’d just said. If a guest came to the Pleasure Sphere and was found to have venereal disease, he or she was not turned away. As long as they could pay for their fun time they were given whatever they wanted-by slaves who had no choice but to become infected. That was bad enough in itself, but I had the feeling most of the infected slaves weren’t put through one of the cures afterward; after all, why bother when they would just be infected again the next time? I poured myself a cup of coffee and took a cigarette from the dispenser on the table, wondering about Talla and the rest of the slaves from the vessel that had brought us. They all had to have started with a clean bill of health, but what would be done with them if they served a guest who was later found to be infected? Would they be given one of the cures-or would they be sent to serve in the areas that catered to the contaminated? Did they know what they had been set up for and accept the situation as unavoidable, or did they find out only afterward, when their bodies showed them the shocking truth? It was impossible to imagine living like that; my mind flatly refused to consider the possibility; even as an alternative to death.

“You aren’t feeling chilly, are you, Jennifer?” Greg asked, drawing my eyes to him over my coffee cup rim. “I thought I saw you shiver, but the sun and air are too warm to cause that. ”

“No, I’m not chilly,” I answered, using sips of the hot coffee to melt the remains inside me of the lie I’d told. “How can you stuff your face like that so early in the morning”

“A good breakfast makes all the rest of the day go right,” he answered with a grin, secure in the knowledge that he had nothing to worry about even if he had picked up something from me. The cure would be his for the taking any time he wanted it; that was one of the benefits in being a member of the ruling class. On Xanadu the Management ruled, and I was beginning to understand just how tight the fist was that they ruled with.

A lot less time was spent on breakfast than had been spent on dinner the night before, and by the time we were through eating most of the tables around us were empty. I finished the last of my coffee and stood up to join Greg, who was already on his feet and waiting to put an arm around my shoulders.

“The physical won’t take long, and after they’re finished with you we’ll go some place to have fun until lunch,” he told me, letting his palm slide up and down my arm. “After lunch we’ll be ferried over to the far bank, and then you can decide which part of the Sphere you want to see first. It’s been a couple of years since the last time I took the tour, so I’m looking forward to it.”

He was leading me across the open eating area as he spoke, toward a pink door I’d seen the departing women guests going through, and when we reached it we stopped. Val and Little had gone through the light blue door to the left of the pink one some time earlier, and it had looked as though Radman’s assistant had had to really struggle to keep Val from stopping at the table Greg and I were eating at. My partner hadn’t actually done anything out of character, but he’d come close enough to make me sweat on the inside, and I’d breathed silently in relief once he and Little had disappeared through the door. It was obvious something was eating on Val, but since I was doing a lot better than we’d thought I would, I couldn’t imagine what it was.

Greg pressed his lips to mine as his hand patted my backside, and then I was being urged through the pink doorway into a featureless hall that led off to the right. With the near-silent hiss of the door closing behind me my only company I started up the hall, impatient to get through their requirements and make an opportunity for a few private words with Val. He had to know about the surveillance we were under, and I had to know what was bothering him. That he didn’t like Greg Rich was no excuse for unprofessional behavior, and that was something I would make him know.