Dinner at Deviant's Palace (30 page)

“And,” said Jaybush, “since you have learned such an unprecedented amount about me, I’m going to make an unprecedented offer to you.” He was smiling—everybody at the table was smiling—and Rivas couldn’t tell if he really did have some kind of offer to make or was simply playing with him. God, the man was fat! “I want you to join me,” Jaybush said.

“Merge with the Lord?” Rivas asked drily.

“No, not merge with—
link
with. I’m sure you’ve often seen people with undeveloped twins attached to or imbedded in their bodies. I’m offering you the opportunity to become such an appendage—psychic rather than physical, of course—to me.” He chuckled. “And another five or six of our guests have become dead people.”

Several of the guests called for drinks, and Rivas raised his hand, too. “Why don’t we let the remaining people go?” he asked, wishing he’d thought of it before.

“How many of you would like to leave?” Jaybush asked. No one spoke and no hands were raised. He waited until Rivas’s fresh tequila was brought, then said, “How does my offer sound?”

Rivas took a long thoughtful sip. “Let’s see,” he said finally. “It sounds insincere, impossible, and definitely, absolutely unattractive.”

There were gasps from the surrounding rafts, and even Sister Sue looked a little shocked.

Jaybush, though, just laughed good-naturedly, the fruity
ho-ho-ho
echoing away into the upper reaches of the huge chamber, where other imperiled guests peered down from the high tiers and bridges. “Ah. Well, I’ll explain it to you more fully—to the further decimation of our guests—over dinner, eh?”

That must have been a cue, for a waiter now piloted a gondola up to the raft and deftly laid big plastic-sealed menus in front of Sister Sue, Rivas, Jaybush and two of the presently empty holes. Rivas looked at Jaybush and cocked an eyebrow.

“Ah, my dear fellow,” Jaybush said, “you and Sister Sue being old friends, I was beginning to feel left out! So there will be some feminine company for myself, too—and since there’s so much of me, heh heh heh, I get
two
girls.”

Rivas’s instant suspicion was confirmed when he looked beyond the grinning Messiah. A bigger gondola was being sculled toward Jaybush’s dining raft, and the two women passengers were Sister Windchime and—though he had to squint and wait until it got closer to be sure—Urania Barrows. Uri had obviously been weeping recently; Sister Windchime looked paler and more drawn than she had when she and Rivas had ridden together to the Regroup Tent, but her mouth was a firm, straight line.

“
Ah
, but I see you know these young ladies also! You
do
get around, don’t you, sir?” Jaybush leaned back and indulged in a fit of laughter that set his corpulent body jiggling like a rack of
carne asada
on a windy day in the meat market.

“Why are they here,” Rivas asked in a voice he managed to keep even.

“Simply to brighten the conversation,” said Jaybush, spreading his palms ingenuously, “and to serve as examples and illustrations in a story or two I might tell.”

When their gondola stopped beside the raft the gondolier whispered to the two women, and Sister Windchime climbed across and settled into one of the vacant holes, but Uri shook her head and fresh tears ran down her cheeks.

“Please,” she said brokenly, “couldn’t I just go back to the—”

The boatman touched the back of her neck, and she gasped in sudden pain and then climbed obediently onto the raft and, with a splash that wetted her four raft mates, seated herself.

Rivas’s left hand had gone to his right sleeve before he remembered that he’d transferred his knife to the improvised pocket under his collar; and now the boatman was poling his craft away and all Rivas could do was clench his jaws together very hard.

“There we are,” said Jaybush fondly. He picked up his menu and then glanced around with raised eyebrows, so the others, even Uri, did the same.

Rivas was not surprised to see, when he glanced at the menu, that Deviant’s Palace specialized in the more
outré
forms of Venetian dining.

“I think,” said Jaybush to the waiter, who had been holding his little boat steady since presenting the menus, “that I’ll have the sport bass livers in film-darkening sauce. Though,” he added genially to the others, “I don’t think I’d recommend such hot food for the rest of you.” He turned to Sister Sue.

“Un plato de legumbres,”
she said, handing her menu to the waiter.

Sister Windchime had been studying the menu, and Rivas realized that she could read—like her horseback riding, it was not a common skill.
“Y para mi la gallena en mole, por favor,”
she said.

Uri was blinking around unhappily. Clearly she hadn’t recognized Rivas. “I don’t know,” she quavered; “I guess a couple of tacos. Soft shell, and with extra cheese but no salsa.” And it occurred to Rivas that he couldn’t remember whether Uri knew how to read or not.

It was his turn. May as well get something good, he thought, since it’s probably my last meal. “Let’s see,” he said, raising one eyebrow like an actor trying to look judicious. The incongruity of the whole scene—the possibly naked fat man in front of him, the underwater chairs, the handsomely printed menus, the formal clothes and tinfoil hats of the diners on the other rafts, the prospect of eating poisonous food with the finest spices and sauces—made him want to giggle hysterically. “I’d like the
camarones al diablo
, please.”

“Ah, sir,” said the waiter with a regretful smile, “that is available only with sport shrimp.” He held up his hands to show how big the sport shrimp were.

“Fine,” said Rivas with an airy wave. “And with that, a couple of bottles of Dos Equis.”

“And a bottle of Santa Barbara Riesling for the ladies,” added Jaybush, “and for myself and the gentleman a bottle of tequila and a pitcher of
sangrita
.”

The man nodded, collected the rest of the menus and poled the gondola away.

“Though I didn’t know what it was at the time,” remarked Jaybush to Rivas, “I could feel you participating in my memories when you used agony to clarify and disarm your inadvertent dose of Blood.” He pointed his finger at a couple of guests in turn, his thumb vertical and bending as he said, “Bang, bang.” Turning back to Rivas he went on, “So I think you’ll understand what I’m about to say. I have found knowledge in this place—technology—which, though presently neglected and disordered, leads me to believe that the shedding of the host body and the expenditure of personal energy involved in… leaving a place, can be avoided. You see? I’m convinced that it’s possible to preserve the body, to construct a machine to shelter it and carry it to… the next place.”

Rivas just managed to restrain himself from saying,
Space travel!
Instead he just nodded.

“You understand what I mean,” said Jaybush with an approving nod. “And if you happened to glance southeast during your trek through the Holy City’s back yard, you probably saw my Cape Canaveral. Bang! Bang! Bang! And I know you’ve had conversations with one of the inadvertent castings known as… well, you know what I mean. And you know the healing and recuperative powers it has, through me. So you see what I’m offering you, dear boy, is immortality, and unimaginable travel, and more knowledge than any entity other than myself has ever had!”

Rivas took another sip of his drink, and shook his head more in wonder than refusal. “Perhaps I,” he said slowly, “withdraw the ‘impossible.’ Let’s look at the ‘insincere.’ Why
me
? What’s in it for
you
?”

“Well! As far as what’s in it for me, I’ll tell you frankly that I’m spread just a bit thin at the moment, a trifle overextended; like a farmer with vast fields of ripe crop but no field hands or horses and only a couple of bushel baskets. And, too, ten years ago I foolishly indulged in the, uh,
extravagance
that left the Holy City paved in glass. Bang! Bang!”

Rivas nodded, remembering Jaybush’s memory of the sudden unexpected white flash.

“So,” the Messiah went on, “I’d find it useful to have a full partner, rather than just a lot of uninformed employees, who could travel back and forth between here and Irvine—bang!—and make sure everything’s proceeding efficiently, and perhaps give me useful advice from the point of view of an intelligent and informed native. We could present you as a sort of latter-day Saint Paul—once a merciless scourge of the true faith, but now, enlightened and forgiven, one of its stoutest pillars! I like it. Greg, Greg, why do you persecute me?” He chuckled hugely.

“And,” he said, “as to the question of why
you
—my dear fellow, you underestimate yourself! I learned something about you, too, during our brief psychic linking. Why, in all my travels, I swear to you, never have I encountered such a fellow soul! Confess, confess—you too find other entities interesting only to the extent that they might give you pleasure or hindrance. Like me you consume with greedy haste everything you can get from them, and are indifferent to what may become of them afterward; you are in fact sickened by the sight of them afterward, like being forced to linger over the chilling, congealing remains of a dinner! And, like me, your real focus of attention, shorn of peripheral poses and pretences, is the one thing, the only thing, worth an eternity of regarding—
yourself
. You and I understand each other perfectly, boy. We could, without
having
to simulate any
affection
for each other, help each other considerably.
We
don’t merge with anyone, boy. We consume. You and I are always distinct, undiluted, individual. Quanta rather than arbitrary segments of continuum.” Jaybush laughed harshly. “We’re two of a kind.”

Rivas stared across the deck table at the fat smiling face and knew that no one had ever understood him as thoroughly.

“And is,” said Jaybush, “the offer still—how did you put it—‘definitely, absolutely unattractive’?”

“No,” said Rivas.

Neither of the women at the table had seemed to be paying any particular attention to the conversation—Uri had been staring earnestly into Jaybush’s face whether he was speaking or not, and Sister Windchime had been just as intently staring at her hands, wearing the expression of pained tenseness of someone who’s just swallowed a too-big mouthful—but now Sister Windchime looked up and met Rivas’s glance, and the look of hurt and betrayal in her eyes had doubled.

Jeez, kid, thought Rivas, I’m
agreeing
with your damned Messiah, your precious god.

The gondola was back, laden with steaming trays, and the waiter dexterously put the right plates in front of the right people and set out the drinks.

“But I’m afraid,” Rivas added, touching the sewn-in lump under his collar for reassurance, “I’m going to refuse.”

Jaybush, a forkful of some glowing trash halfway to his bulging mouth, paused to smile tolerantly. “Are you
sure
, my boy? Tell papa why.”

Rivas downed the remainder of his tequila and refilled his glass. “Well,” he said almost comfortably, sure now that he would never leave Deviant’s Palace alive and that nothing he could say would change anything, “because of… a bald boy who died on a garbage heap. And a pile of old stove parts that died on a glass plain. And a murdering pimp who evoked, and died out of, loyalty. And a whore with a sense of justice. Am I boring you? And because of Sister Windchime, who has compassion, though you’ve tried hard to stamp it out of her. And because the hard selfish part of Greg Rivas is swimming around in a canal someplace.”

“I understand, my boy,” said Jaybush gently, putting down his fork. “What you need is to see a little show, isn’t it?”

“No,” said Rivas unsteadily.

“I know you don’t mean that.” Jaybush smiled and clapped his blubbery hands and raised his voice and called, “I need some volunteers from the audience!” As if all twitched by the same string, half a dozen people leaped up from chairs at various tables.

“One of the waiters is bringing around a boat,” Jaybush called to them. “I’d appreciate it if you’d all get into it, and he’ll bring it to a spot right in front of this raft.”

Rivas watched as the six people, three of whom were women, stepped one by one into the boat the waiter was towing around the lagoon behind his gondola. At last the boat, with all of them on it now, was left rocking gently in front of Jaybush’s raft table.

“Hi!” Jaybush called to the boat’s occupants.

“Hi,” they all responded.

“How’s everybody feeling? Glad to be here?”

An overlapping chorus replied, “Sure!” “You bet!” “Damn right!”

“Glad to hear it,” Jaybush assured them. “Now I want all of you to pay attention, okay? Please stand up—carefully, don’t want you all tumbling into the water—and each of you look straight at me and hold out your hands, palms up, as if you were carrying a dish.”

Smiling cheerfully, the six people did as they were told, and after some jostling and elbowing they all stood facing Jaybush’s raft and holding out cupped hands.

“Do you know what you’re holding?” Jaybush asked.

They shook their heads, glanced at each other, shook their heads again. Rivas suspected that they’d been hypnotized.

“What each of you is holding is his or her own face,” said Jaybush forcefully. “You’re all standing there holding your faces in your hands, and the fronts of your heads are as smooth as eggs! You’re all absolutely identical! Good heavens, don’t any of you
drop
your face, or get it switched with someone else’s!”

None of the people moved, beyond some shiftings of weight and licking of lips, but now they were agitated, tense. Their hands were claws.

“You can’t even speak!” marveled Jaybush. “You’re just egg things.” He picked up a salt shaker and tossed it into the water. His face was placid, but he put panic into his voice as he said, “You dropped them! You’ve all dropped your faces in the water!”

All six of the people instantly leaped into the water, splashing Jaybush’s raft and sending their boat rocking away.

“And are you, sir,” asked Jaybush, turning to Rivas, “holding on securely to your own face?”

“Yes.” Rivas peered down at the agitated water.