It had taken Lessing months as the Mulders’ houseguest-patient to discover that what the pair saw in one another must forever remain a cosmic mystery. Herman Mulder displayed all the dazzle of a wad of wet newspaper, while Alice — that was her given name, though nobody used it, not even her husband — lavished affection and enthusiasm upon the world like a child slathering marmalade on toast.
No one knew their story, but it was clear that the Fairy Godmother cared very much for her stodgy, practical, and kewpie-doll-plump husband, with his odd friends and odder causes. He, in his own way, was just as devoted to her. Time had not been evenhanded, however: as Herman Mulder’s exterior grew softer, doughier, and less hirsute, so did his inner personality harden, toughen, and become more adamantine. His wife retained both her girlish looks and her trust in the goodness of the universe.
The Fairy Godmother flourished a sequined, chiffon sleeve. Someone else might have thought she was embarking upon the mating dance of the ruby-throated hummingbird, but Lessing knew better: he waved back, twisted the rheostat on the wall beside him, and watched the fountain in the center of the room shift from lustrous turquoise to warm amber. The mobile sculpture at his end of the chamber changed from indigos and violets to oranges, reds, and yellows. Overhead, the crystal chandeliers metamorphosed and became an imperial blaze of diamonds and gold. The fabric of the chairs and settees darkened subtly from forest green to oaken brown.
The fountain, the statuary, and the chandeliers were holograms, computer-controlled to produce whatever color scheme and decor their owner chose. The fabric of the furnishings was a new synthetic that changed its tint according to the lighting. This salon was one of seven such rooms here in Mulder’s Virginia mansion. He owned at least five similar houses around the globe.
Lessing pointed toward the hologram fireplace in the middle of the interior wall, and Mrs. Mulder undulated back at him. A touch of a dial transformed it from the blackened stone hearth of a medieval castle to a delicate French fireplace that Louis XIV would have loved for Versailles. Other settings switched it from Colonial to Provincial to Hollywood to ultra -modem chrome and glass. If you could figure out the user-unfriendly instruction manual, a concealed panel of buttons would design further fireplaces to your taste.
Holograms were the greatest boon to interior decoration since the invention of paint. The fireplace was actually a blank-walled niche. It had an attachment that gave off heat and the sound of crackling flames, but it couldn’t be touched: a hand passed right through it. The latest holograms were mobile. You could have anything from waving palms or fish swimming in the air to a lifesize Las Vegas chorus line doing the shimmy across your living room rug!
Another of Mulder’s toys was a hall as big as a football field in which the entire Austro-Hungarian court, circa 1890, whirled around the floor to the strains of Strauss waltzes, the women gorgeous and gowned like princesses, the men bearded, bemedalled, and bedecked in sashes and gold braid. The ultra-high-fidelity, multi-speaker stereo system faithfully reproduced the rustle of silks and satins as they swooped past, and the touch of a button filled the air with the scents of wine, food, perfume, cigars, and the warm, waxy smell of candle smoke. A further investment would buy a hologram of Susan Kane herself gracefully gyrating among the rest, just as she had appeared in The Emperor, a year before Pacov had ended her dancing forever while on a goodwill tour to Leningrad.
The fireplace became a bank of glowing coals. Lessing added no more than a hint of heat; the August evening temperature outside was still in the eighties. He waited for Mrs. Mulder to dust, brush, and flitter her way up to him.
“You’re eating with us tonight,” she warbled.
“I’ll make do in the kitchen. I’m not much for parties.”
She patted her dazzle-silver coiffure. “No. Herman wants you to meet Colonel Koestler. I think he’s Army, from somewhere up north. Then there’re Wrench, Jennifer, Hans Borchardt, and Bill Goddard… oh, I know you don’t like him much, but he’s really nice… and Grant Simmons, and some friends from the West Coast ” She trailed off. “Lots of lovely people.”
The Fairy Godmother had not mentioned the one name that would have tempted him: Liese. He had seen little of her after his return from Russia. She had been busy at the Party’s western headquarters in Seattle while he had been here under medical and psychiatric care. He had not called her, nor she him. Somehow he knew that he must be certain he had all his marbles back before he approached her. If they did share a real spark, he didn’t want it to blaze up until he was sure he wasn’t tying her down to a mental basket-case. She, in rum, with her fear of men and her oddly skittish shyness, needed time to adjust to Lessing’s return to the living. Patience was in order.
“The kitchen,” he said. “I can never swallow while wearing a necktie.”
Mrs. Mulder trilled with laughter. “You’ll join us, Alan. For me.” Control came easily to a Fairy Godmother; she didn’t even need a wand. Lessing gave in with reasonably good grace.
Mulder had become the Party’s host par excellence. Tonight was especially heavy duty. There were at least sixty for dinner. This was no longer India: no barefoot company cooks in turbans and frazzled, white uniforms, no informal soirees in shorts and sport shirts over beer and curry under slowly revolving fans. The cuisine was elaborately French; the servants were immaculate; the sommelier looked like a charter member of the House of Lords; hunkish young men in elegant Party uniforms were available to accompany unescorted ladies; and lissome maidens would liven up the evening for single (or not-so-single) male guests.
The food was wonderful; the company wasn’t Lessing’s style at all. Afterward, he watched the party from the mezzanine balcony above the reception hall, itself big enough to be the rotunda of a state capitol building.
“Delightful,” Bill Goddard’s voice rumbled from behind him, “but boring.”
Lessing balanced his tiny coffee cup on the marble balustrade and turned around. “Rich is usually boring. Where would you rather be? Off thumbing lib-rebs in California?”
Goddard fingered the weal on his skulclass="underline" a red furrow ploughed through grizzled underbrush. A Vizzie assassin had creased him in San Diego, and he was as proud of it as a Prussian aristocrat with a brand-new duelling scar.
He eyed Lessing’s white dinner jacket with superior good humor. His own costume was much prettier: the brown uniform of PHASE, short for Party of Humankind Administrative Security Echelon,’ sported braid-draped shoulderboards, a high collar, polished boots, a crossbelt with an embossed buckle, and a holstered pistol. The Party now issued its own medals too: long service, wounded in action, marksmanship, loyalty— the lot. The only one Goddard couldn’t earn was the ribbon they awarded for giving birth to five children.
“Damned right!” the man answered Lessing’s question. “Better than hanging around here. Now the war’s started in earnest, we know where our enemies are and what to do about ’em.”
“Any fresh news?”
“Not a helluva lot. The lib-rebs’re holding us off in California, but we’re kicking ass in Oregon and Nevada. And we’re about to call on you, Lessing, to lead a heroic personal assault on L.A.” He snickered.
“Fat chance. My mere days’re over.” He didn’t want to discuss his future.
Goddard waved to Jennifer Caw below him, a vision in lambent sea green and silver. Her dark-aubum hair, loose over bare shoulders, flashed with tiny, sparkling gems. She stood with studied poise so that one tanned thigh showed through the slit in her floor-length gown.