"I haven't had the opportunity."
"I mentioned you to Fong Hui, who has just rocketed in from Hong Kong. He'd like to meet you. Fong is the only Oriental Central Committee member, though there are candidates from Japan, India, and Indonesia."
"When did he wish to see me?"
"This morning." Sheila Duff-Roberts touched a button on her TV phone.
Almost immediately, a door leading to the back opened and a girl bustled through. She was a tiny thing, smaller than Lee Garrett and absolutely dwarfed by the Junoesque Sheila. She was a bit on the plump side, which didn't detract from her vivacity.
Sheila said, "Lily Palermo, Lee Garrett. Lee is to be my new secretary, Lily darling, to replace Pamela. But you girls can get to know each other later. Right now, I'd like you to take Lee to Fong Hui's apartment. The old fuddy-duddy's expecting her."
"Right away," Lily said. And to Lee, "My, you must have spent a fortune on that hair."
Lee came to her feet and said to Sheila, "See you at the party, then."
"Good-O, darling," Sheila said, already back at her work.
As they started down the corridor, redundant with art as everywhere in the Palazzo Colonna, Lee said, touching her hair, "Believe it if you will but it's my own and I do it myself."
"It's lovely," Lily told her and giggled. "You should have been at tüepartous last night. You would have been the hit."
Lee made a moue. "Group sex turns me off," she said.
The other looked at her from the side of her eyes. "I'm surprised that Sheila is taking you for her secretary then."
Lee shrugged. "It was rather thrown at me, without my having much to say about it, though frankly, this whole World Club thing has its fascinating aspects."
"Oh, it's the most wizard job you can imagine. You're right in the middle of the most important goings on in the world. You're really on the inside."
Lee said idly, "Whatever happened to Pamela, the girl I'm taking over from?"
"I don't know. She was awfully nice. Kind of a little serious, even more dedicated than most. Irish, and she still talked with that soft brogue they have."
"What was her last name?"
"McGivern. She wouldn't take anything from anybody, not even Sheila. They'd argue hammer and tongs."
"Maybe that's why Sheila let her go."
The little girl was silent for a moment, as they rounded a turn in the wide corridor. Then she said quietly, "Sheila never fires you from any of these jobs. She might transfer you to some other position, somewhere else. But she'll never fire you."
"Why not?"
The other wasn't quite happy at the question. "Well, I suppose if the computers selected you in the first place, you have more than usual ability, and the Central Committee doesn't want to waste it. Besides…" she hesitated for a moment "… you're in on so many top-secret matters that they wouldn't like you to blab them around." She rolled her eyes. "I can just see somebody who once worked for the Central Committee sitting down and writing a book about it."
Lee thought about that. She already had several new things to think about this morning. For one, she had gotten the damnedest impression that Sheila had already known about the attack on Jerry Auburn before she had told her. But then, it was Sheila's job to know everything that happened pertaining to the Central Committee members.
Lily brought them up to an imposing door, similar to that which opened into Sheila Duff-Roberts's salon. Once again, there was no identity screen. She knocked briskly, then reached down for the bright brass knob.
She smiled brightly at Lee, said, "See you later, dear," turned and tripped briskly away.
Lee entered, closing the door behind her. She blinked in surprise at the large room's decor. She had stepped from a Roman Renaissance corridor into a chamber which should have been eight thousand miles away, in a Chinese palace or mansion of the Ming dynasty. One had no doubts whatsoever that all of the exquisite furnishings, all of the art, and even the rugs, were genuine antiques. The whole room belonged in a Chinese museum.
There were two occupants—an old man behind an intricately carved ebony desk, and a girl, certainly not over twenty, wearing a sleek, long, yellow, high-collared cheong-sam. She was kneeling upon a dais, plucking a thin Mandarin melody from a jong resting on the floor before her. Her slim fingers played over the instrument as though caressing a lover.
The old man was frail with a wisp of a white beard and a bald head poised forward on his long neck with great natural dignity and grace. He wore the red-tasseled, crystal-topped cap and the navy-blue gown of the scholar.
Lee said formally, after bowing, "May I trouble your chariot? My name is Lee Garrett."
His aged eyes took her in for a moment, then the slightest of smiles appeared on his yellowish parchment face. "My chariot is untroubled. Pray take an honored chair."
"I am totally unworthy."
"The unworthiness is mine," he told her. "My office is favored by your visit."
Lee sat across the desk from him and said, "It is a poor woman's delight."
"The office shrinks in humble shame before your footsteps." Fong Hui shook hands with himself, keeping his delicately tapered fingers well within his long loose sleeves.
The Chinese girl who had been playing the jong stood and trotted toward a rear door. She turned without speaking, bobbed several bows, and left.
Fong took Lee in again, the faint smile still in his eyes. "I suspect that you would have been capable of going through the formal greeting of years past in the original Mandarin."
Lee Garrett acknowledged the compliment. "Only awkwardly, Mr. Fong. My father was a diplomat. When I was a young girl he was stationed for two years in the People's Republic in Peking. He was an ardent linguist and always insisted that the family study the language of the nation to which we were posted."
"Such talents will be welcome in the position Ms. Duff-Roberts tells me you are to occupy." He smiled faintly again and let his eyes go about the room. "Undoubtedly, you are surprised at both my office and my attire."
"I have always been a great admirer of the art and culture of the Celestial Empire, Mr. Fong."
His thin voice held a touch of exasperation. "And I have long been displeased by the increasing domination of the Western culture. But I wage a losing battle. The culture of the West sweeps everything before it—its modes of dress, its food, its manners and mores. An accident of history gave the European and North American powers domination over the world for at least the present, so that the habits of the West have prevailed to the detriment of other cultures, not neces-sarily inferior. As to dress, without doubt the Chinese cheong-sam and the Indian sari are far more flattering to the feminine figure than the awkward garb of Europe. And throughout the world now, all cities are beginning to look like Cleveland, Ohio, while such architectural gems as Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Kyoto in Japan are now no longer anything but museums on a grand scale."
Lee said, "I agree with you, Mr. Fong. Even Rome now has its seven hills surrounded by sky-high condominiums and high-rise apartment buildings for the antlike existence of the proles, the slums of the welfare state."
He was obviously enjoying her company. "My dear," he said, "you seem wise beyond your years. Perhaps some evening, after adjusting to your new atmosphere, you will honor me with your presence at dinner. My chef is from Shanghai."
"I am overwhelmed, Mr. Fong. I consider Chinese cuisine the world's finest."
The old man touched his wisp of white beard and said, "And now, my dear, tell me: what are your impressions of the World Club?"
She said hesitantly, "I am somewhat overwhelmed. Its scope is much greater than I had thought. I am inclined to wonder whether it has bitten off more than it can chew. The problems seem insoluble to me."