"I believe you wished to talk to me," Moonchild said coolly.
Belew nodded crisply. "This just came in. You and Mark might be interested in it Mark especially."
Eyeing him sidelong, which was not her usual style at all, Moonchild accepted a sheaf of printout from Belew, began to flip the pages up.
"There's still not much concrete in there," Belew said. "No surprise; the money that flows into your pal's coffers from the faithful will buy a supertanker load of Third World justice of the blind variety, if you catch my drift. What's significant is that as much shows up as does.
"Especially since in India, frankly, they're pretty casual about sex with children. Holy men have near carte blanche. And at least Hosenose generally goes for early teens, not eight-year-olds. Have to give him that."
Moonchild glared at him. She tore the document in two with a petulant flip of her wrists.
"With a little practice," Belew said, watching the torn sheets flutter to the marble floor, "you'll work your way up to the Manhattan phonebook."
When his eyes found hers again Moonchild's anger was gone, replaced by sadness deep as arthritis. "I would not have believed it of you, Major Belew," she said softly. "But perhaps I should have expected it. Your fascist tendencies have finally gotten the better of you."
"Fascist?"
"To resort to such slander, simply because you feel threatened by Guru's antimaterialism." She shook her head. "There is much good in you, I still know that. Yet, as Mark might say, once a fascist, always a fascist."
She turned and vanished back into her audience chamber. Belew stood staring at the door for perhaps a minute. Then he laughed at himself for standing there like an adolescent left on the stoop without so much as a good-night kiss, and went up to bed.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
Morning in the garden. Sprout stood on an inch of air. Her golden hair was caught in a ponytail. Her cheeks glowed like dawn.
"What I do, little miss," Ganesha was saying, "is create a layer of air beneath the soles of your lotus feet. Only it is not quite air, but something more substantial. And this do I add to, layer upon layer, until you, my little pretty one, are levitating." He knelt beside her on the white sand of the little path.
She smiled and nodded. Also fidgeted. She didn't really see the point to this. But her Daddy had taught her always to be nice, and Unca Neesha was always nice to her. She would play along for now.
"Sometime, perhaps, you would care to play in the evening," Ganesha said. "We could go somewhere outside the Palace - "
"Oh, I always go to bed at - " She briefly consulted her fingers. " - at eight. Daddy doesn't make me. But it makes him happy."
Ganesha rose with a soft grunt of effort. "You are a dear child, to serve your father so well," he said. "Yet sometimes, well - what he does not know does not hurt him, don't they say, after all?"
"Learning to fly, Leaf?" a voice asked from behind them. The guru stiffened.
"Oh, Unca Bob," Sprout said. "You know my name's not Leaf. I told you."
J. Robert Belew slapped the side of his head with hand's heel. "Guess I forgot. Must be getting old." He grinned at her. "Feel like riding a horse, or would you rather hang there in midair?"
She clapped her hands together. "A horsie, really?" He nodded!
"'Bye, Unca Neesha!" Sprout jumped down from her invisible pedestal and ran toward the soldier, who took her by the hand and led her away.
Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles, looked darkly after. Tiny malformed things appeared in the air, and flew buzzing around his vast-eared head.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
For the next few days Belew stayed well out of Mark's way. He didn't stay out of Ganesha's. Whenever the guru contrived to get Sprout alone Belew appeared out of the woodwork with some new game or diversion.
J. Bob gave her a toy train and a six-foot panda. She enjoyed both gifts with a child's single-mindedness. But Belew, who was not as proud of the job he had done raising his own two children as he was of most things in his life, perceived that he could not bribe her.
On the other hand ... it was clear that, throughout her life, she had never had as much of a father as she might have wanted. That was not to say that Mark was a failure as a father or a man; far from it. For all his hippie ways and New Age outlook, for all the fact that the first obstacle course he ran would be his last by reason of gasping death, Mark was a real man to J. Bob, who had an unfashionably archaic view of such things.
More, he was a real father. Mark had given everything for his daughter's sake that a man could give and still be able to draw breath. It was more, candidly, than J. Robert Belew had ever done in the role.
But like many another parent who would give anything for his or her child's welfare, Mark had never entirely known how to give himself to her. He loved her, cherished her. But he had never really learned to spend time with her.
Belew had never known how to spend time with his own children. But he wasn't too old a dog to learn.
As often as he interrupted Ganesha, he found himself observed by the surly yellow robed sannyasi who haunted the Palace. Let them look, he told himself. Nothing they see will bring much comfort to old Hosenose.
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
"Master."
The yellowrobes had been chased from the ballroom. The maya splendor was still intact, save for the Apsarases, who had been sent packing back into immateriality. This was a private occasion.
"Yes, my son."
"I - I would become your disciple. I would take dik-sha, and have my mantra from you."
"And do you understand what this initiation entails?"
"Renunciation, Master."
"And do you realize what you must renounce?"
"I must renounce the world, and my will."
"That is not all, my son. To become my disciple truly, you must become a sannyas. You must become celibate. You must give over choice and preference."
"I am prepared."
"You must give over the becoming what you call your 'friends.' You must put them all aside, and put them all from your mind."
Mark hesitated, hearing a defiant chorus in the back of his head. "And will I - will we all win freedom by my doing that, each of us to work out his or her own karma?"
"You shall."
"And I shall receive forgiveness? And ... forgetfulness?"
"All these things."
Mark bowed his head. "I am ready to receive my mantra, Master."
"Tomorrow."
Mark started to raise his head. The guru wagged a chubby finger. "No, no. You are surrendering your will entirely to God, through me. Remember?"
Mark nodded.
"Tomorrow it shall be."
"Tomorrow."
"And now, my son, there is something else I must speak with you about, something of the gravest concern."
The guru's high, musical voice seemed to catch. Mark looked up at him in wonder and dismay.
"It is with great sadness that I must speak to you of your friend J. Robert's unnatural and unholy interest in your virgin daughter, Sprout...."
♥ ♦ ♣ ♠
"Sprout. Sprout, now, settle down." The girl in the garden writhed and wriggled and laughed aloud at Belew's efforts to disloge her from his knee. "Sprout, this isn't dignified. And anyway, you're heavy."
"Am not. Am not. Unca Neesha says I'm slender as a willow branch. Whatever that means."
It means he's a disgusting tentacle-faced old pervert, Belew thought
"Sprout," Belew said, trying not to be aware himself of the long, slim bare legs straddling his lap, or the full breasts bouncing around inside her sweater like puppies in a sack. "Sprout. You're a wonderful child. I - ouch - I understand that part of being a wonderful child is to be a brat sometimes, inasmuch as perfection is boring. But still, if you don't climb off Unca Bob's lap right now, Unca Bob is going to turn you over and tan your behind."