Part 2 (1/2)
”Close enough to touch.”
”Sheer extravagance.” Nguyen shook his head ruefully. ”I would expect nothing less from you. That puts us down onto the flat, which is where we'll need your expertise, Liz. How far will the s.h.i.+tdogs range?”
”Impossible to predict,” I said. ”While they rarely go more than a couple of kilometers from the working pile, one of the Australian s.h.i.+tdogs made a doc.u.mented run of over eight kilometers. Plus we don't know where they'll decide to start the next pile or how many they'll eventually build.”
”Which means we may have to abandon the fixed base concept. If the s.h.i.+tdogs were to eat his base generator, Wetherall here would find himself taking an untethered balloon ride on the prevailing winds. In the unlikely event that he made it over the Wasatch Mountains, he almost certainly would come to grief in the Southern Rockies.”
”What if we bury the base?” said Wetherall.
”Expensive, but worth considering-although you still run the risk of having the s.h.i.+tdogs destroy your access. Liz, suppose a s.h.i.+tdog is in a hurry. How fast could it run?”
”Well, we haven't exactly been able to clock them in a race. But in short spurts, as fast as a man, maybe faster. Say thirty-two kilometers an hour.”
”So a mobile base similar to my truck down there should be able to outpace a charging s.h.i.+tdog?”
”One s.h.i.+tdog is no problem. But if you were trying to escape a pack of them, there might be trouble.”
”I didn't think they traveled in packs,” said Wetherall.
”They did on the way here,” I said.
”Here is my proposal.” Nguyen waved at the hologram and it winked out. ”Wetherall, I think we should begin design of your lifthouse immediately, using Laputa as a model. That part of the project ought to go forward, regardless of the final base solution-even if we decide to build you an airs.h.i.+p. In the meantime, I'll be moving Laputa to Stateline to survey the site. Liz, I'd like you to come with me. We need to do some experiments.” Nguyen pushed back from the table and walked across the room. ”We'll have to make a more precise determination of the s.h.i.+tdog's tolerance of incursions. What sort of activities and/or structures get their attention? What's the deepest they've dug underground? Exactly how fast do they move? What is the likelihood of cooperative behaviors?”
”I'll have to take a leave of absence.” The idea would have been unthinkable a few hours earlier. Now I contemplated it with some enthusiasm. I guess I'd joined the team. ”And the kind of research you're asking for is going to cost. . .”
”Don't worry,” said Wetherall. ”That'll be taken care of.”
Nguyen opened a cabinet and brought out three crystal gla.s.ses and a winebell of Pommery & Greno. ”We are agreed then?” He popped the cork, grinning. I wondered what he was so happy about. The design? The commission? The chance to a.s.sociate himself with Wetherall?
”To our mysterious visitors,” said Nguyen, raising his champagne.
”And their jewels.” I touched my gla.s.s to his.
”To solitude.” Wetherall drained his gla.s.s, set it back on the conference table, and glanced at his datacuff. ”Excuse me, but I've got to be in Munich, Islamabad and Cornwall, Connecticut in about fifteen minutes.”
The pix on the back of the door of my room-or rather, my suite-at The Zones informed me that the fire escape was seven doors down the hall to my left. I asked it the nightly rate: eight hundred thirty dollars. I had once spent a week at Sebago Lake in Maine for eight hundred fifty dollars, but then the camp I'd rented hadn't come with a waterfall, a Steinway, or a bed the size of the District of Columbia. The room looked like a set for a gropie of The Thief of Baghdad.
When Wetherall had checked me in, he'd said he'd call later, that we'd have dinner. It was only after he'd left that I realized I didn't know what later or dinner meant to a billionaire. It seemed a safe a.s.sumption that we'd be going out somewhere, except that Wetherall clearly had an aversion to being seen in public. And I had no idea how long he'd need to honcho his avatars through their meetings. Would we be dining at eight? Ten? Midnight? Should I order room service in the meantime? Did I have time to go down to the casino, skim a couple of hundred off Wetherall's card and gamble? I kicked off my shoes, vaulted onto the bed and bounced.
I freely admit that jumping on beds that don't belong to me is a childish habit that has persisted far too long into my adulthood, but it helps settle me down when I'm on the road. Besides, I liked it that this was something no one knew about me.
Everything was happening so fast. I was probably going to get my picture in Eye with Wetherall. Although that kind of publicity would doubtless ruin my reputation in the department, I enjoyed picturing Saintjohn's reaction. That's right, Dr. Matthewson, I skipped the Curriculum Committee meeting for this. And freshmen don't need chip implants-they should be reading books. By authors.
Then there was the problem of carrying my course load with the fall semester already three weeks old. Wetherall would probably have to build an addition to the library to make up to the university for that. Meanwhile, I had just agreed to move to Stateline, Nevada with Nguyen O'Hara and his sly smile. Where was I going to stay? Stateline had no Sheraton.
It was a good bed for bouncing on.
Wetherall's avatar called at eight. I could tell it was the avatar by its witless smile.
”Hi, Liz. Are you hungry yet?”
”I could eat.” I casually motioned for the hairdresser to stand in front of the coffee table, blocking the avatar's view of the Peking ravioli I'd ordered from room service.
”I've made reservations for eight-thirty. Is that all right?”
”I'll have to check my calendar. How dressed are we getting?”
”As you see.” It was wearing a high-collared white s.h.i.+rt and a blue suit. It hit me that Wetherall wasn't bad looking, in a boyish way. ”Can you be ready in twenty minutes?” It didn't wait for an answer.
The hairdresser was looking at me in awe. ”That was Ramsdel Wetherall.”
”Actually,” I said, offering her Wetherall's cash card, ”it was an array of electrons with an att.i.tude.”
She stared at the card and then back up at me.
”If you're thinking glamorous, you've got it all wrong,” I said. ”He's-strange.”
”I've heard that,” she said. Standing behind me, she lifted the hair from the back of my head and sighed; her eyes met mine in the mirror. ”You know, there's no reason for you to use your own hair. I can give you a smartwig.”
I eyed the brown pageboy bob I had worn since grad school. ”Thanks, but no thanks.”
”Still-”
I shooed her away with a hundred dollar tip. There was nothing wrong with my hair and even if there was, I didn't need to know about it. I undressed, swept through the scanner in the closet door and activated the virtual Ragusa in the clothes processor.
A few minutes later I emerged in a long-sleeved black velvet gown that grazed my ankles. It had light boning and back smocking. The sweetheart neckline was just off the shoulders. I'm told I have good shoulders.
There was a knock at the door.
I paused in front of the mirror. So I might've looked better if I'd had an Arpels necklace dangling to my decolletage, but for short notice this would do. I was a professor, not a runway model. And the dinner was actually an appointment with a chill-crazed eccentric with a fear of heights, people, and who knew what else?
But to the world it would be a date with Ramsdel Wetherall. I wondered about the women he normally dated. Did any of them wear their own hair?
When I opened the door I was greeted not by Wetherall, but by a severe, angular man in a charcoal suit that looked like it cost more than my car. He tried to smile but didn't seem to have had much practice at it. ”Good evening, Dr. Cobble. I'm Murk Janglish, Mr. Wetherall's lawyer. Perhaps he's mentioned me to you?” He slipped through the door like a watermelon seed. ”I hope you don't mind my doing a security check before we go down.” He took out a wand and, craning up and down on his knees like a human ironing board, ran it over the length of my body. Then he inspected my irises and hands.
”Do you want to check my teeth?”
”Your teeth are fine. Nice dress.” He c.o.c.ked his head to one side. ”I don't know about the hair, though.”
I let that go. ”I take it Wetherall sent you to pick me up?”
”Actually, he overlooked it. Details are not his strength-that's why I'm needed.”