She tapped his knee again, gently interrupting him. “Please!” she said. “There’s interesting… then there’s really interesting…”
Finally a light was dawning somewhere deep in Hunter’s brain. He was having a hard time keeping his eyes off of her.
“And you know one from the other?” he asked her.
She seemed delighted. “You might be shocked to hear this, but I am here to make up for any amount of boredom my family has caused you today. You ran such a magnificent race, you deserve more than a ride on that very tacky Vegasus or a trip to stare at a big black box in the wilderness.”
Hunter sipped his wine. His hand was shaking. “What are you suggesting exactly?”
“I’m suggesting you let me take you to my favorite place… the place I think is interesting…”
“You? Take me?”
“That’s right…”
“Where?”
“Venus,” she said with a laugh.
“Venus? The planet Venus?”
“Yes, the planet Venus…”
Hunter tried to sip his wine again. But it was a no-go. He could barely bring the cup to his lips.
“When?”
She stood up. “Well, right now, of course.”
He looked up at her — she was absolutely gorgeous, in that regal sort of way. And he suspected her bodyguards were lurking just once dimension away. And it was probably not prudent to refuse the Emperor’s wife anything.
“How can I say no?” he finally replied.
She smiled again.
Flash!
17
Venus was the second body in the solar system that the Ancient Engineers had puffed. Only Mars had come first.
The morning planet had taken to its terraforming right away, completely transforming itself in a then amazing five hundred years. These days a planet could be made habitable in hours. Several thousand years ago, a five-hundred-year puff was considered absolutely speedy.
So Venus was no longer enshrouded in thick clouds and raining hydrochloric acid. Like Earth, its cloud cover was 30 percent at any given time. Also like Earth, it had one ocean that spread around the planet, pole to pole. This one surrounded two massive continents and several smaller ones. One of these was the island continent of Zros.
These days Earth’s sister planet served as a very exclusive getaway for the extended Imperial Family — even the Very Fortunates weren’t allowed here. The planet featured tens of thousands of summer palaces, seaside resorts, vineyards, and spas. Zros was the numero uno place to be, though.
Sitting just north of the equator in the middle of the western part of the ocean, its irregular shape looked not unlike a human heart. With lush forests and thousands of miles of exotic beaches dotted with towering, castlelike resorts, Zros pandered only to the cream of the Specials. It was awash in Holy Blood.
Hunter found himself at the top of a very tall building, looking west onto a beautiful jungle and the sea beyond.
This building was the tallest of a vast complex of luxurious châteaus that spread out over high cliffs for at least twenty miles in each direction. This place was called La-Shangri.
It was a three-tiered palace, bigger than the other châteaus by a factor of ten. They had popped in on a balcony atop the highest spire of the place; a cadre of Imperial bodyguards appeared right after them.
The palace roof was already crawling with Imperial soldiers. The airspace surrounding the complex was thick with patrol craft and even some larger, armed culverins, corvette-size warships more commonly used in space.
The Empress ignored all this commotion and led Hunter down a passageway and into a huge room. This room was made of sheer superglass and hung out over a cliff nearly half a mile above the ocean.
A huge party of the Specials was in full swing here; indeed, it appeared to have been going non stop for some time. Heads turned when the Empress walked in, Hunter just behind her. Most of the revelers simply nodded in her direction and then went back to their dancing, drinking, and general merriment.
Hunter guessed there were more than a thousand people on hand, most of them beautiful young women.
Unlike the Vegasus, the atmosphere here was subtle, sensuous. Sexual.
“Every person in this room is related to me,” the Empress whispered in his ear. “Half of them snobs, the other half are slobs. It makes for an interesting mix, don’t you think?”
Before Hunter could answer, she began dancing away from him. He found a goblet of sparkling blue liquid in his hand. The Empress had one, too. She drained hers in one gulp. My kind of Empress, Hunter thought. Then her jacket came off. The music got louder; the mixture of pulsating bass and ethereal strings was hypnotic. She floated away, kicking off her boots and allowing the crowd to take her over.
She was quickly swallowed up by the mass of arms and legs and lips. Hunter felt a sensation run through him; it was not entirely due to the cool blue liquid he was drinking either. The Empress came back into view, dancing slowly, eyes closed. Hunter took a gulp of his drink. Was it his imagination, or could he see right through her tight black top?
Hunter blinked — and a very strange thought went through his head. Was it possible that he was still in the race? And that this, and everything that had happened before, from reaching the finish line to this moment, was really happening inside one of the blue screens?
But how could that be? He’d gone through three screens — just as the race procedures called for. But what if the second screen actually incorporated into its madness a scenario where he thought he punched out, and then punched back in again and then, maybe…
Stop! he heard a voice cry from somewhere deep inside his head. You’re making yourself crazy.
He opened his eyes and looked at his hands, and at that moment he knew that all this was happening.
This was real.
Wasn’t it?
The Empress was coming toward him again. Her eyes were locked onto his. She began dancing even closer. Time seemed to jump ahead several minutes. The other partygoers were suddenly becoming extremely intimate with each other. Many of the women were now topless. Hunter began to sweat. He drained his drink, making the situation worse — or better. His goblet was instantly filled again.
The Empress was dancing so close to him now, she was rubbing against his chest. Hunter closed his eyes. The music began pulsating very slowly.
What was the penalty for cavorting with the Emperor’s wife? he wondered.
The music got louder. He felt her body start to grind into his. He’d been stuck on Fools 6 a very long time — but not long enough to forget the necessities of life.
Her hands on him now.
“Well, is this better than the desert?” she asked him.
Oh, yeah, I remember this, he thought.
He reached out for her.
Flash!
“I said: ‘Is this better than the desert?’ ”
When Hunter opened his eyes again, he was sitting on a flat, moss-covered rock, high atop a soaring cliff, looking out over the ocean. The sun was right in front of him. And it was setting — over the water.
This could mean only one thing: He was still on Venus, but most likely on the opposite side of Zros.
The pop-in had been so sudden, his hand was still moist from holding his wine goblet. Someone was sitting beside him — a female, but not the Empress. This person was dressed in a nonprovocative white gown. Her hair was brunette and styled long but conservatively. She was wearing no makeup, she had no glow. There was no aura around her, at least not one that he could see.