Gateway To Xanadu (37 page)

The image on the screen continued to flicker for a few seconds, and then it settled down to show a bedroom, but a terribly frilly, feminine bedroom. Lace and ruffles hung all around in a dozen shades of yellow, on the windows, on the walls, on the wide bed, on the delicate dressing table. Gold cushions were thrown around on the ruffles and lace, cuddly dolls sat neatly arranged on some of the cushions, and looking at the scene gave the viewer the impression that the air was filled with flower perfume.

Everything was neat and pretty and just where it belonged, and then a door opened to admit two figures.

One was black-haired and black-eyed and really large, and the other was red-haired and even larger.

Both figures were male and the black-haired one was impressive, but the redhead was absolutely awe-inspiring: he was as much bigger than the black-haired one as Val was bigger than me. The redheaded mountain had a giant hand around Val’s arm, and didn’t turn him loose until they both stood in the middle of the room.

“From now on, this boudoir is yours,” the redhead said with a gesture at the room, watching as Val rubbed his arm where it had been held. “Be sure to keep it perfectly in order, or you’ll find yourself well punished. Now give me those rags.”

“Rags?” Val echoed, looking down at the white shirt and slacks he wore. “These aren’t rags, they’re perfectly good clothes. ”

“You weren’t asked for your opinion, boy,” the redhead answered with impatience, snapping his fingers.

“Give them here and be quick about it.”

“If you can wear them, so can I,” Val answered, glancing at the same whites on the redhead before turning away to look around the room. “And I don’t like this-‘boudoir.’ Why can’t I have a normal room?”

“You young ones are so much alike you make me tired,” the giant grumbled, completely put out. “You know nothing, not even how to behave properly, but you think you know it all. Well, before I’m through with you you will know it all, and it’s time for your first lesson.”

Val turned back to him fast at that, the look on his face showing he intended defending himself against whatever came, but there’s a saying about the best laid plans. The giant came up to him, took him by the arms and lifted him off the floor, then put him down on his back on the pretty yellow carpeting. Val fought and struggled to get loose, but the giant knelt across him and began undressing him, ignoring his struggles the way he usually ignored mine.

When the giant had Val stripped he took the whites and got to his feet, then grinned down at his furious victim.

“If you learn to behave yourself you’ll be given something else to wear, boy, but you’ll have to earn that something else,” he said. “In the meantime we’ll just enjoy the sight of that pretty body of yours, and hope you don’t learn to be too good too fast.”

Val’s fury increased as he climbed to his feet, but all the giant did was chuckle at the sight. He’d already proven Val couldn’t hurt him, and didn’t mind throwing the fact in Val’s face. He stared at Val for another few seconds, just about daring him to try something else, then turned away to walk to another door and open it.

“The boy is here and ready for you, Highness,” he said to someone out of sight. “Do you wish to see him?”

“Oh, indeed I do,” came the laughing answer, clearly a female voice. “I’ve been waiting for him to be brought.”

The giant stepped back from the doorway and opened the door wider, and Val’s jaw dropped at sight of the woman who strode through. She was nearly as tall as the giant, which meant she towered over Val, but she was very, very thin. She had no hips to speak of and her breasts were little more than bumps, and her see-through gown hung on her like flesh on a long-dead corpse. She had very long blond hair and a very long, thin face with no make-up on it at all, not that makeup would have helped. The most it could have done was cover up what was there. She stopped in front of Val and looked him over with a crooked-toothed grin, then turned her head to the giant.

“He’s as pretty as you promised he would be, but I thought you said he was ready.” She giggled, putting one hand on a nonexistent hip. “If that’s as ready as he can get, I think he’s still too young.”

“He’s a boy and therefore shy, Highness,” the giant said with a glance toward two carbon copies of himself who had come into the room behind the woman. “A boy’s shyness must be overcome with coaxing. May we prepare him for you?”

“Oh, yes, please do.” The woman giggled, looking down at Val again, but he was no longer looking up at her. All his attention was on the three monsters who were walking toward him, and if he didn’t pale, he came pretty damned close. He began backing away from their advance, the look on his face determined, but I could have told him how much determination means in the face of greater strength and/

or numbers. They caught him before he could launch himself through the glass of the double window, let him waste most of his strength fighting uselessly against their strength, and then they got down to cases.

They all laughed and chatted among themselves as they “prepared” him, and from their comments it suddenly came to me that the woman wasn’t the only one who would be using him. That didn’t sound like any standard capture sequence to me, and I had to find out what was going on. I turned my head to Greg, and put a hand on his chest.

“Greg, something’s gone wrong,” I said, trying not to sound worried. “Shouldn’t that sequence . . . .”

“Nothing’s gone wrong,” he interrupted me with warm assurance, squeezing me gently with the arm around me. “You’re too softhearted is all, but I took care of it. This will be a sequence he’ll never forget.”

The took on his face was downright feral, and I didn’t have to wonder if he’d relent and change his mind; if he did, it would only be to make things worse. It looked like he wanted to hurt Val in a way that was worse than physical, and all because Val had tried to keep him away from me. It didn’t seem to matter to Greg that I was ignoring Val and seeing him anyway; he wasn’t about to forgive the fact that Val had dared to tell him what to do. When Greg was the good guy trying to protect the poor little girl from her mean old uncle everything had been fine and acceptable, even being put down by Val.. As soon as Val changed to the one doing the protecting, though, Greg had slid into what seemed to be an old groove, a getting-even-at-any-price groove. I’d been right when I’d told Val not to mess with Greg, but Val hadn’t listened any more than he ever did. It would serve him right if I left him to take his medicine, but as far as I was concerned, the punishment was too extreme for the crime.

Greg and the tech were completely intent on the screen, where the four giants were playing with their new toy, just about licking their lips. I could see I didn’t have much time, but I wasn’t completely sure I could stop the fun and games. If the equipment behind us was what I thought it was we were home free, but if it wasn’t . . .

Borrowing trouble never pays, so I pushed my doubts aside and concentrated on slipping away from the arm around me. Earlier Greg had tightened his hold in order to reassure me, but the doings on the screen were holding him so attentively that his grip had loosened, giving me the chance to turn out of the circle of his arm. Rather than noticing I was gone he reclaimed his arm and stepped closer to the screen, and one glance showed me why he was so rapt. The giants were getting ready to give Val a chance to work off the problem they’d given him; they were going to make a Val sandwich, one that set them all drooling, and the look in my partner’s eyes was so close to madness that I couldn’t stand it. I turned away from the screen fast, ran silently to the machinery against the pavilion wall, then started looking for what had to be there.

I don’t know whether the Lord of Luck was in my corner or Val’s, but there was no doubt he was there somewhere. The equipment used by the Sphere was adapted but standard, the sort that was built to be handled by the numbers. I was no expert but I did know how to turn it on and off, processes made purposefully simple by the manufacturers of the equipment. Number-one switch disconnected all outside contacts, number-two switch stopped the program, and number-three switch purged the program entirely, and that’s the way the switches were meant to be closed, one, two and then three. As I hit the first switch I wondered how many people knew what I did, but it wasn’t something to wonder about long; as I hit the second and third switches simultaneously, I knew there would soon be lots of people sharing the secret.

The first switch immediately cut the contact with Val, but the exclamations of protest from Greg and the tech were hardly out of their mouths before the fireworks started. The machinery was doing some protesting of its own over the simultaneous closing of the second and third switches by beginning to short out in pretty blue crackles and static, a thing the manufacturers warned would happen if those switches weren’t closed one at a time. The shorts grew more violent as they spread through the machinery, smoke began rising in dark, angry wisps, and backing away from it all brought me smack into Greg.

“You stupid little fool, what have you done?” he demanded in a shout, pulling me around by one arm to face him. “Don’t you know you’ve ruined everything?”

His handsome face was twisted with fury and livid with rage, and somehow I didn’t think he was talking about the machinery I’d trashed. It hurt to see him so angry with me, hurt more than I’d expected it to, but I’d already noticed that love turns people stupid.

“Greg, let me make it up to you.” I tried with some difficulty, really wanting him to know I was sincere.

“Let’s forget about this and go back to my pavilion, and then we can…”

The slap cut my words off the direct way, sending me staggering to my right, and then he had me by the arms again, and was pulling me back to face him.

“I almost had, him and you want me to forget about it?” he growled, digging his fingers into my arms as he shook me like a rag doll. “You don’t have to worry about making it up to me, Jennifer. I’ll take care of making it up to myself, you wait and see if I don’t.”

He pushed me hard as he let me go, sending me down to the floor of the pavilion, and by the time I was able to sit up and turn back, he was gone from sight. The tech was busy with a smother extinguisher, putting out the handful of small fires that had started, and the people who had come crowding into the small room didn’t pay the least attention to me as I got to my feet and made my way out of the place. I looked around to see if I could spot some sign of Greg in the darkness but he had disappeared completely, and the cool wind of the night had stiffened considerably. I shivered in the thin, foolish little shorts outfit I was wearing, then began looking around for Val’s pavilion.

With the help of a guest list and directions from one of the Sphere people patrolling the camp. I eventually found Val’s pavilion. The three slaves were gone, their job over and done with, and Val lay on the low, square bed, tossing in semiconsciousness and struggling to come out of it. I removed the contacts from him, lessening his struggles considerably, and then decided against bringing him awake the way I’d originally intended doing. Whatever sleep he’d be able to get would not be wasted, and I could bring him up to date in the morning as easily as right then. I straightened to standing, looked around at the silver and gray bedroom with appended mirrors, then went back out to the front room of the pavilion.

My body ached a little when I lowered it to the carpeting, but it wasn’t anything worth paying attention to. What took more of my attention was the memory of how angry Greg had been, and how well that anger fit in with the same sort of anger I’d had to face in the past. They all started out attracted and pleased, but then came the time I did something that had to be done and all the attraction and pleasure disappeared. They never wanted to understand, never could understand, and just because what I felt for Greg wasn’t real didn’t mean it hurt any less. I’d given up getting involved in that sort of thing a long time ago, and it didn’t help that this time I’d been forced into it without wanting any part of it. Curling up on carpeting is never better than curling up in the arms of a man you feel something deep for. It’s only safer.

“D-Jennifer, what happened?” a blurry voice demanded from behind me, and then I heard the sound of a body sitting down. “What are you doing here?”

“Just making sure there was no burnout on this end,” I told him in the trade language without turning.

“Did that sequence -get -ended before things went too far?”

“Damn-I remember now,” he said the same way, and a faint sound came as though he were running a hand through his hair. “That woman and those monsters- They were just about to- How the hell did you know about it?”

“You may not have noticed, but I have a knack for being in the right place at the right time,” I answered, moving my head around on my arm. “In case you’re interested, this isn’t over yet. Greg was faintly annoyed that his present to you wasn’t delivered in its entirety, and has promised to make another stab at it in the near future. Whatever that turns out- to be, though, you can bet he won’t make the mistake of telling me about it beforehand again.”

“So you were the one who stopped it,” he said, his voice both stronger and softer as his hand came gently to my arm. “And I can see how faint his annoyance was by these marks on you. How badly did he hurt you?”

“Don’t be silly,” I said with an odd smile only I knew about. “Haven’t you learned yet that nothing can hurt me? Too uncaring and too unfeeling-remember?”

“Too thickheaded is more like it,” he growled, suddenly less pleased than he had been. “If you’d listened to me and stayed away from him, you wouldn’t be sporting that set of bruises now. If I ever catch you near him again, I’ll put you on a leash.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I asked, turning to my back to frown at him where he sat, almost on top of me. “If I hadn’t been there you’d be sandwich ,meat now, complete with mustard and relish. I don’t know how partnerships work where you come from, but around here we usually try to keep things like that from happening to our partners. You would have preferred if I’d simply stood to one side and just watched?”