Part 14 (2/2)

”And when still nothing came, no demands or attempts to blackmail or bargain, I realized that she must be dead or the prisoner of The Gray Organization, which is as good as dead.”

Janja, who knew very well that Daura was a prisoner of TGO, continued to hold her silence and let him talk.

Since then, he told her easily, he had had many women. All, all of them were pale of skin and hair, slender of body. He had used skindye and even celldye to adjust the hair and skin of some likely candidates. But none of them was the Daura he was helpless not to seek, and he decided that none could take her place.

”I thought it was the judgment of the G.o.ds,” he said, to the ceiling. ”I was to be punished by being forced to 181.

live without her . . . and never to find with another woman what I found with her.”

”Which G.o.ds?” Janja asked, lying beside him on her back as he was, gazing up at their nude reflections in the mirrored ceiling above the gigantic airbed with its sheets of dark lavender satin. The room was carefully temp-controlled to make such ridiculous cold-conducting sheets pleasant.

He waved a hand, letting it drop to her thigh. ”Any G.o.ds. All of them, or none of them. Is it possible to believe in G.o.ds, unless one needs to, in spite of intellect? But all of us believe in some sort of justice, some sort of overriding force and purpose, Purpose with a capital letter, whether we need G.o.ds or admit to belief or not. So ... belief in an overriding Force, a universal Purpose, is a form of belief in.G.o.d or a G.o.d or G.o.ds.”

”Uh. And what had you found with her?”

”Peace. Partners.h.i.+p. Joy. Comfort. Happiness, Jansa-with my own sister,” he added, for he must torture himself. ”In every way. She was the perfect partner -intelligent and ruthless! More ruthless than I. On the other hand I knew that I could trust her. She was the perfect s.e.xual partner for me, too.”

His fingers tightened in the superlatively firm flesh of Janja's thigh. He stroked and kneaded it.

”I just said 'was,' twice,” he mused aloud in a wondering voice. ”I used the past tense about Daura! Hmm.”

”And the others?” she asked. ”All those subst.i.tutes you brought here or had brought here since her disappearance ... what of them?”

”Merely females,” he said. ”There was one with a brain . . . and unfortunately more avarice than I have ever encountered in anyone, anywhere. Two did possess, umm, inordinate abilities in bed. One of them had 182.

no mind whatever. And the other, the Franjese girl with the ability to ... to squeeze with her v.u.l.v.ar sphincter, like masturbating a man within her body . . . she was merely insipid. And of course false. Painted and dyed, all over hair and body.”

Janja closed her eyes. His hand had wandered. It was his left, crossing his body to hers as she lay on his right, and his thumb was probing. She moved on it, just a little, by tightening first one b.u.t.tock beneath her and then the other. His hand made her want to grasp or seize her breast, to worry the nipple, and she forbore.

”I asked,” she said quietly, ”what of them?”

”They were returned to whence they came,” he said in his often oddly formal way; at times he spoke the Galactic language-Erts-as if it were as new and alien to him as it was to Janja. ”Most of them. All are better off than they were; naturally I saw to that. Two are far better off, financed so that they can and are using what abilities I saw that they possessed. s.h.i.+vita, the avaricious one, is dead.”

”I won't ask more about them. Will I be returned to the Gotoh.e.l.l Bar? Where is my s.h.i.+p? ”

”Your s.h.i.+p is here,” he said.

”Here? On your planet?”

”On Janat,” he confirmed.

He spoke the word, the name he had given this world, as if it meant ”home” rather than ”Garden of Paradise,” its true meaning. Yet it did mean home to Ramesh Jageshwar, in a very real way. Janat was his. Janat was unsettled and otherwise unpopulated. ”Garden of Paradise” or no, Janat's air was about as breathable as that of a planet he had studied, called Mars. Oxytanks and -masks were needed, and what need had Galactics to colonize a world whose air required that they cover their faces with such devices? On 183.

the other hand, it was perfect for the headquarters of Ramesh Jageshwar. It was not unusual, he had told her, that ”Jansa” had never heard of Janat. It was known only by numbers, an unsuitable planet. He had named it.

The atmosphere and temperature within his keep were artificial and controlled. Janat's defenses were his. The fantastic defenses ringing this citadel high on its cuesta perch were his; the power systemry that made living here possible-all were his. He and his people had constructed it all, to his design. Below, within Janat, the keep of Ramesh Jageshwar sprawled in the manner of a good-sized town. That was for the benefit of his employees here.

Ramesh Jageshwar was a recluse. Like the barons of ancient Homeworld/Urth, he lived here, high in this aerie that he seldom left. Unlike those ancient n.o.bles, he lorded it over no peasants below, fawning or rebellious or otherwise. Here, guarded from ground and air and s.p.a.ce, almost fantastically defended by automatic systemry and cybers and humans as well, he presided over his empire, his business. His domain, which extended from here throughout the Galaxy.

Here, in a big technologically-sophisticated-unto-su-perior command center whose interior Janja had never seen, he was in contact with s.h.i.+ps and planets and cities and individuals all over the Galaxy. Reports flowed in constantly. They were taken and compiled and tested and compared by his cybernetic systems and by his secretariat of four, who pa.s.sed most on to Durga Jhond, who pa.s.sed them to his employer. (Communications coded URGENT were in the hands of Kshatriya almost instantly.) Ramesh trusted Durga and Durga trusted the secretaries. (They lived extremely well, though they never left Janat. Neither did Durga, and Ramesh almost 184.

never did.) Because of their widespread comm-net and various check-lines, the secretaries did not have to trust anyone. They were able to test and compare, compile and report to their employer with certain knowledge that every comm had been sent by one of his people, somewhere.

Durga Jhond lived his own way. His personal business, Ramesh said, was no concern of his, and had not been since he had decided he was Sure of the man, nine years ago.

Long and lean and austerely severe in manner and appearance, Durga kept a harem of nine or ten women and girls, replacing one now and again. Durga Jhond's sadism did not interfere with his work or the mental state of Ramesh or the secretariat. His women were m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.ts or at least so inclined. Durga Jhond was something that Ramesh could not be: a s.a.d.i.s.t, yes, but also an administrator, a laborious, pedestrian compila-tor of information and a.n.a.lyses and shrewd insights included as marginal notes, verbally presented with his reports. And he was wholly dirigible-steerable or manageable-for there had been many brilliant men in the history of the Galaxy who could not have run their own operations and recognized that fact and so became the confidants of kings and popes and entrepreneurs; the executives of executives.

And of course Ramesh was what Durga could not be: a genius. A genius who needed the other man with his mandarin moustachioes and pointy black beard-which he wore, he did not hesitate to admit, because of their satanic appearance and connotations. (Janja looked up ”Satan.” The entry windingly led her to the puterbank entry headed ”Fu Manchu.”) ”I need Jhond because genius is often ingenuous as well as ingenious,” Ramesh Jageshwar had told her.

185.

Because he had no stomach for the millions of details necessary to the prodigious operation he had created and kept alive, by his own genius and personality. Nor could any sort of computer or puter systemry handle all that Durga Jhond did, as Durga did; a very special human was necessary. Engaged in a business that many would call egregious-with a shudder-Ramesh thus could not afford to be concerned with Jhond's off-duty habits and predilections-which Ram Jageshwar found emphatically and grievously deplorable.

Like many geniuses before him, whether they had masterminded the operation of the Roman Empire or the Holy Roman Empire or the British Empire or the PanAsian Accord or TAI-or TGO, perhaps-Ramesh worked for the love and joy of it, and he worked hard, many hours daily. And like those other geniuses, he was possessed of a superabundance of s.e.xual desire and energy. And loneliness.

Some things, many things, he could not share with Jhond. A genius-entrepreneur had no peers, Janja knew, any more than had a pope or a king or a president-even semicompetent ones without genius. Those who had shared had generally been mistaken in having done so; weakness led them to lower the barriers and take others into their confidence. Ramesh Jageshwar understood that, as to an unusual degree he understood himself.

”Some men like me have taken their wives into their confidence and some have not. Some individuals in each group have been proven wrong in one way or another. But my sister . . . For years, before our marriages and after the dissolution of those unfortunate alliances . . . and the re-establishment of the alliance of our teens, I was fortunate in having a true confidante, Jansa. I could trust Daura not only to keep my secrets but to 186.

discuss and suggest and a.s.sist; to share rather than to serve me-as Jhond does. As prime ministers and chancellors so frequently have served, only partially sharing if at all-until and unless they themselves seized or a.s.sumed the power of lesser men.”

”Or overly trusting men,” Janja said, and had to add, ”and women.”

”Pos. But they never succeeded in seizing the power of conquerors,” he said.

”And you are a conqueror, Ram,” she said, and knew that she spoke truth.

He turned directly to her and stared into her eyes with those piercing ones of his. ”So are you a conqueror, Jansa.”

She looked into those eyes, and met his lips with hers.

In the almost six weeks since she had come here, a raped captive sent for and fetched to be questioned, chastised, perhaps killed, Janja had replaced the woman she resembled. Because she was herself, and because of what had been taught her and done to her by Ratran Yao and TGO, she resembled Daura both outwardly and inwardly.

No woman, no honest person could fail to respect and admire the perpetually-generating dynamo that was Ramesh. Like other such men, he radiated confidence with his competence; he radiated power. Sent here in disguise, as a trickster to gain his confidence and destroy him, Janja had become as caught up with Ramesh Jageshwar as she knew he was with her.

Now she had asked, not quite seriously, what would be done with her and where her s.h.i.+p was; and he had told her that her Hornet was here on Janat. He rose on one elbow to look down at her.

”Would you like to see your nice little Hornet!”

”I have been a prisoner here for over five weeks,” she 187.

said. ”I welcome the opportunity to go outside, for any reason.”

He stared down at the supine woman with hurt and sadness in his eyes. ”Oh Jansa! Are you a prisoner?”

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