To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga) (5 page)

Home, sweet home,
he thought.

It was a black-and-gray mountain, made of uncounted megatons of granite and immense continental-plate pressures. It had a thin mantle of decomposed granite and a skirt of pine trees in the lower regions, but raw rock above. A three-dimensional image of the entire mountain was constructed from seismic recordings, holograms, test holes, sonics, corings, and precise engineering measurements.

Voss kept everyone under constant pressure, from Blake and the engineers to the security men charged with keeping
the
site private. Voss even used his charm, and sometimes the pressure of his power, to obtain or hurry artists whom Blake had found difficult to handle. Blake found he admired the drive and decisiveness of the man, though he couldn't stop wondering why anyone as young as Voss was thinking about a tomb. But he shrugged it off. It was an exciting venture, so why should he care?

At one of their frequent meetings in the designer's office, Blake mentioned Voss's ability to get people to respond and to act.

The industrialist laughed. "That is one of the reasons I like you, my dear Mason. We are much alike. You, too, get people to do things your way ... and at a profit."

Blake started to protest, but Voss was already off on another subject. "Come down to Puerto Vallarta this Sunday. Rio should be there by then. I'd like her to look over the plans so far."

"Who's Rio?"

"A lady of many beauties: You'll like her."

"What's this?" Blake laughed. "A blind date?"

Voss's laugh was short. "No. Rio is mine. But there will be other entertainment. One of my planes will be wailing for you at the Voss hangar Sunday morning."

After Voss had left, Blake sank into his chair, disturbed by Voss's comment that they were much alike. But now that he thought about it, he had to admit there was some legitimacy to the man's words. For years he bad smoothed over union disputes, wheedled manufacturers into doing research on materials and processes that he could not afford to conduct himself, and persuaded cities and arcologs and cranky individualists to accept his views. He challenged artists to exceed their usual degree of excellence; he created environments that stimulated creativity; and
he
used the weapons of status, ego, jealousy, money, or whatever he needed to pull together the current dream he was creating.

But he also realized there was at least one major difference between him and Voss. The financier used people. Though Blake also used people, he believed that his use of them left them enriched in spirit or in money – or both. Voss did not care for people at all. They were pawns and phantoms to him, as a hundred casual comments had proved. Voss just used people – including Blake Mason.

The helmsman of the launch, a stolid bronzed Mexican who seemed to ignore the crazy naked Norteamericanos, swung the boat into the dock with expert skill, killing the motor and letting the craft touch gently against the stones. Two girls who had been sunning themselves on the cabin roof jumped off athletically, leaving the crew to take off their luggage. They ran across the dock and up the ramp to the first level.

Blake stepped off onto the warm stone dock and peered up through the thick trees at the red and white glimpses of Casa Emperador on top of the promontory. He could see someone waving but could not tell who it was.

He thanked the helmsman, who only nodded, and followed a crew member loaded with luggage up the slanting seawall that formed the ramp to the wide terrace closest to the water.

Two more girls came running down the ramp from the terrace above, laughing and bouncing. Only one wore any clothing, and that was a wide sunhat. They ignored the Mexican crew, who seemed to ignore them; except for the helmsman, who spoke softly to Blake.

"A convenience for the guests,
senor."

"Hello, hello, hello," the brunette said, grabbing Blake's arm. She looked up at him brightly. "I'm Caren. With a
C."

The blonde shoved back her hat as she clung to Blake's other arm. "I'm Debra!" She snuggled against his arm like a long-lost lover. "Welcome to Misrnaloya!"

"How was the flight down?" Caren asked. "Isn't Puerta Vallarta quaint? Jean-Michel practically rebuilt it, you know; and it's becoming popular all over again."

As they walked up the ramp, Caren regaled Blake with the history of the old port's social downfall decades before, starting with the murder of a beach boy by a jealous heiress. A series of small but messy situations had been capped by the discovery of a homosexual satanic coven. The jet set said, "No, not this season," and the town started to die. The resort had gone on some years, feasting off the middle-class tourists who didn't know it was déclassé; but in time they, too, caught on.

Blake knew how the Beautiful People moved from watering hole to watering hole, and how others followed, hoping that the glamour would rub off on them. The southern Peruvian villages were easily reached by aircars from big city jetports. And the tourists found their way to Lake Sahara; the pampas ranchos; the Gold Coast of Africa, with its legal slavery; the undersea pleasure palaces like
Triton;
and the plankton skimmers with their lush accommodations. So Puerto Vallarta had grown weedy and the beach boys developed paunches.

"Then Jean-Michel bought up practically everything here, tore down those dated old hotels, and redesigned the whole city from the ground up. Spanish Colonial is the motif, not bastard Grand Motel," Caren said proudly. "But this is the capitol," she laughed, gesturing overhead at the big house above. "This is where things happen!"

Debra pressed against his arm. "You're Blake Mason, aren't you? You and Jean-Michel are up to something big, right?"

Blake smiled noncommittally and looked down at her bare flesh. She smiled back and the two girls led him across the terrace to the cool shade under the big thatched roof of the seaside bar. He was brought a cold drink, introduced to a count, to the director of a large corporation, and to two vice-presidents of Voss Investments. There were three other beautiful women in the terrace lounge: Wendy, Pei Ling, and Doreen, a redhead. The girls wore jewelry and sandals but little else, and they were uniformly – almost monotonously – beautiful. The men, all middle-aged, wore brief swim suits, and some had on robes that covered their aging bodies. Blake noticed how casually the male bands caressed the unresisting women. The helmsman's comment came back to him
.
A convenience for the guests...

Debra tugged at his arm. "Come on, Blake, Jean-Michel wants to see you!"

Blake shrugged and got
-
up. They went out into the sun again and up a wide, stone-stepped path under the green trees. A few Olmec stone heads were lying in the undergrowth. The retaining walls seemed to be a thousand years old, but the greenery was as fresh as morning. He could hear music, something rather exotic but unknown to him.

The climb was tiring, for the hill sloped steeply. But they at last cleared the level of the final terrace, and Blake saw the high white walls of the big house rising over him.
At least fifty rooms ...
he thought; and knew that this was only one of Voss's homes.
And I thought Shawna Hilton was rich!

Blake took in the terrace quickly, for he saw Voss emerge from a large and ancient double door and come toward him smiling. On Blake's right, a tanned beauty lay supine on a lounge. She raised the brim of her crushed straw hat when she heard Voss say Blake's name, and looked at him without expression. On Blake's left was the terrace wall, stone blocks capped by deep rust-red the squares. Potted plants and an excellent Mendoza bronze lined the wall. The sea was seen beyond, through the trees. Several birds hopped about on the tiles, pecking at crumbs.

"Blake, they just told me you had arrived! Welcome.
Mi casa es su casa.
Did you bring sketches?" He noticed Blake staring at the woman on the lounge. "That's Theta, my sister." When he saw the expression on Blake's face, he laughed. "Yes, sometimes it's hard to tell her from the others. Except she doesn't make a fuss over me."

"Oh!" Blake said. He couldn't think of anything else to say.

A beautiful blonde, deeply tanned and wearing nothing but an ornate silver necklace, came out of the house bearing a tray with one drink. She saw Voss, paused to smile briefly and make a small bow, then knelt on a cushion next to Voss's sister and proffered the drink.

Blake thought she had one of the finest and most beautifully proportioned bodies he had ever seen.

Voss nodded his head toward the blonde, who was now oiling Theta's nude body, and took Blake's elbow. "Theta's taste is getting better. She's
a nice
one. I wonder what she paid for her."

"Paid?" Blake spoke before he thought, and Voss smiled.

"A labor contract, all very legal. Expensive, but legal. Lump sum upon signing, a weekly or monthly amount deposited in a Swiss account – and lo! a slave girl to do with as you wish. A year, three years, seven years, with options. I'd take very few for seven. They age too much. But that one, that one might be worth it. You'd have to pay through the nasal passages for her now that she's seen how it's done."

Voss gestured Blake through the big oak door, heavily carved in an intricate design with big bosses of cast silver set with jade.

"You look shocked, Blake. Don't you really know about the world of the rich? The
rich
rich? We have everything, anything. All we have to do is want something enough to spend the money." He gestured back toward the terrace as they went through the entry hall. "Everything but time. Oh, you get a
little
more time with the doctors, and the shots, and the little extras. Knapp is putting millions into immortality research; so am I, for that matter." He smiled. "The Methuselah Institute is funded by me. Warfield and Kemp have foundations researching democratic processes." Voss now came close to Blake and whispered to him with mock seriousness. "Want a slave girl, Blake? One that is your property? Want to whip her or have her do something ... dark? All you need is money, my friend. All
they
need is money, or so they think; then they are willing to do whatever they must. Beautiful boys, luscious women, any type you want. Just hunt around." Then he laughed and stepped away. "Or if you are a Voss, they send you pictures and details. Ah, Amelia!"

Voss greeted a buxom Mexican woman in a plain dress. "Amelia, this is Mr. Mason. He is the man who is going to make me famous. Blake is going to design my tomb."

"Oh,.
Senor
Voss! Why do you think of such things! Ahh!"

Voss laughed easily and turned to Mason. "Amelia is my housekeeper and my friend. She keeps the girls from stealing the silver when they don't hook a millionaire by dinnertime."

"Oh,
senor!
You are
loco!"

Blake looked around the big main room. Life-style chairs in warm colors. A Locke table, a bad Shembo and a good Kirk Austin mosaic. A tapestry that was probably a Shannon. An oriental girl asleep on a pile of velvet cushions, her skin creamy and flawless, her breasts small and perfect.

"Which is his room, Amelia?"

"The one with the blue door,
senor,
at the head of the stairs in the south wing."

Blake turned to his host. "Why do you want to leave this and go live in a hole in a mountain? I don't mean to talk myself out of the biggest commission of my life, but I have to ask."

"But I don't have to answer," Voss smiled. Blake noticed that only his mouth smiled; his eyes were flinty. "I don't blame you for asking, though; but don't get nervous. We shook, didn't we?" Blake nodded. "This is not a whim, Blake, remember that. It is important to me."

Amelia showed Blake to his room, and Blake sat down on the bed.

The room was big and comfortable, the baronial hall of a lord, fully equipped with a wall screen in an antique frame, a colorchanger, a computerized tape library, and an information terminal hooked into the Masterlibe in Omaha.

He lay back on the fur spread and closed his eyes. He had cone a long way from the old neighborhood. There hadn't been as many of the big arcologs then, and more of the untidy urban sprawl. The San Fernando Valley had been one big bedroom, twenty or thirty floors deep. His parents were middle-class – his father a hydroponics engineer, his mother a biochemist with Algae International...

"Art?"
his father exploded? "You want to study
art?
Goddammit, Son, make yourself useful in the world. Go to Cal Trade, or some good electronics school. There will always be a need for someone to fix things. I can get you into the Hydroponic Institute, you might like that."

"That's great for you," Blake said in his teen-age voice, "but that's not for me. I want to be an artist."

"What kind of artist?" his mother asked. "Some of those fancy arks they're building are using a lot of craftsmen. Or maybe you could get a job in television like your cousin Mae."

"I don't want to be a craftsman. And I don't want to whip up sets for
quiver
music groups. I want to go to art school."

"And be what?" his father growled.

"I don't know yet. All I know is that is what I want to do. I want to look the whole thing over. I can decide later."

"Jesus H. Mohammed," Blake's mother grumbled. "Now, Charles, some of those artist people do make a lot of money."

"It's not the money, Mom," Blake said. "It's ... the
doing
of it. Dad, remember when you rigged that bypass and stopped that overload? You were pretty proud of that, weren't you?"

"If I hadn't acted, it would have blown the side right out of the ark."

"And no one else did it, or knew how, or even thought of it.
That's
how I want to feel about my work. That no one else has done it, that only
I
could do it, and that Pm the best at it."

Charles Mason stared at his son, his head barely nodding. "All right. I still don't like it. But everyone has to make his own mistakes."

"Be careful, Son," his mother cautioned. "I've heard some pretty odd things about those artists."

Blake shifted in the luxurious bed. Art school. Working long hours – longer than the classes had required – for the sheer joy of it. Working in the cafeteria, working for a spray-plastics craftsman, selling tickets to Arena games, doing whatever odd job came to hand in order to get by. Living in poverty and not really caring. Drawing and drawing and drawing. Sketching people, sketching dreams, painting the landscape of his mind.

Wrangling a one-year scholarship from the Ventura County Art Commission, and getting it stretched to two. Linette, Johnny, the Chinese kid whom' everyone said was on a scholarship to watch for earthquakes, bisexual Georgia Big Brownie, beautiful Dora, witty Marge. The thrill of selling his first drawing, seeing his first painting hanging in the group show. One thing had led to another, to a series of murals for a group of condominiums in the
Scheherazade
ark on Lake Sahara.  That had been the turning point – a slow, but steady improvement in his status. Then the All Baba cave commission, the Blackfoot Nation Fair, the soaring monument for the Federal Space Agency, Shawna Hilton's incredible home, and all the others that had consolidated his reputation.

And all the time his parents had never understood a thing he was doing. They had been proud of him when he started making money, and prouder still when his name was mentioned in the vidstats. But they'd never understood why.

An environmentalist was, in Blake's opinion, part artist, part accountant, part psychologist, part manager, and part psychic. He had to determine what a client really wanted, not what he said he wanted, and not what his status told him he should have. Some people wanted to be told what they were, others wanted their lives structured for them. Talking a client into what that client really wanted was often the hardest part of Blake's iob, but also the most rewarding. Some clients hired him just as a convenience – hiring his taste, his expertise on what was available on the market, hiring him as they hired security services or carpenters.