Nishi paced across her suite at the Madison Hotel in Washington, D.C., admiring the antique French decor and the sepia engravings of Napoleonic Paris. Even the vidcom was concealed in a graceful vase. Draperies hid the streets and muted the morning sunlight. She could almost imagine she had been moved back in time to those less frenetic days pictured on the walls.
Wytee was a ball of yellow fur on an Empire chair, its thought-spying range defensively reduced because of Many bad thinks here.
So much evil in this nation’s capital overwhelmed Wytee’s native naiveté, Nishi reasoned.
Mrs. Ebey was next door. Lorna and Lew Subiyama occupied connecting rooms and her prefect protector with Legion guards in mufti had adjoining quarters beyond the Subiyamas.
She glanced at her watch. Lutt should arrive in a few minutes.
President Lutt Hanson, Jr.
It was odd to think of him that way but she had watched media coverage of his inauguration and acceptance speech, had seen him display a captive Dreen. And she knew the United States capital bustled with new activity—many nations seeking a share in the Human Defense League with its lucrative weapons contracts.
Human Defense League. It was a clever label. Her prefect was here because of that organization.
“We must share the burden.”
He want share profits, Wytee had translated. He want Nishi boss Lutt President.
Is that why I’m here? Nishi wondered. Bait? A bargaining chip?
But the French had Phoenicia and that still-unannounced charge of an offense against the state. They could execute her.
Why does Lutt insist I come here? He has a wife.
Lutt President want lustful breeding Nishi, Wytee said.
Lorna and Lew Subiyama slipped in the connecting door. Lew looked fearful, his gaze downcast. He kept glancing at Wytee as though afraid Nishi’s pet would attack him.
“Not here yet?” Lorna asked. “Heysoos! The frigging President of the United States coming to you instead of you going to him! You got some hold on that bastard’s balls, honey.”
“The prefect insisted we keep to the hotel,” Nishi said. “Here, we have our own security.”
Prefect man make spy things, Wytee offered.
“Those business suits on your legionnaires didn’t fool that White House arranger one second,” Lorna said. “But I was surprised he caved in so fast.”
“I have a diplomatic passport,” Nishi said.
“Yeah, honey, but this is still the President. I’ll bet he wants inta your panties. Should we leave you two alone?”
“I have already explained my position!” Nishi said.
“But a gal’s got a right to change her mind,” Lorna said. “Let me know if we should hightail it outa here.”
A soft rap sounded on the hall door. It opened to reveal Captain O’Hara in a Harris tweed suit. “Your guest is coming up the elevator, mademoiselle,” he said. “Secret Service men are here and we have cleared the hallway.”
“Very good, monsieur,” Nishi said.
“Lew, go hold the door,” Lorna ordered.
Lew scuttled to obey and took the door handle from O’Hara, who went out of view. His voice could be heard. “A man at each elevator. Be polite but firm.”
“Isn’t it cute the way Lew does everything I want?” Lorna asked.
There was no time for an answer. An abrupt flurry of sounds in the hall signaled the arrival of the president. Lutt, accompanied by two Secret Service men, swept past Lew and stopped three paces from Nishi. He looked her up and down.
“Everybody but Nishi out,” Lutt said.
“But, sir!” a Secret Service man protested.
Lutt hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “Out!” He glanced at the Subiyamas. “You, too.”
“Have fun,” Lorna said. She took Lew’s arm and left with the Secret Service men.
When the door closed behind them, Lutt asked, “How about this, Ni-Ni? President Hanson!”
“And how is your First Lady?” Nishi asked.
“Forget her, Ni-Ni. She’s for show and to please Mother.”
“You wish to discuss your mother’s situation now?”
“Hell, Ni-Ni! Didn’t that fat French bastard clue you to what’s going on?”
“I do not understand, Mister President.”
“Come on, Ni-Ni! Take off your clothes and let’s get with it!” He began unbuttoning his suit coat.
“None of that!” she said, backing away from him. Wytee? Help me, Wytee!
Wytee help.
Lutt suddenly moaned and put both hands to his head. “Jesus! What’s happening?” He staggered to his left. “You doing this, Ryll, you son-of-a-bitch?”
“I will speak to Ryll,” Nishi said.
As he had done fruitlessly several times in the past week, Ryll demanded control of their body.
You made a solemn promise, Lutt, and I know you meant it. If you go back on your word, I will carry out my threat!
To hell with you!
I see it all now! Ryll said. You have learned to play at being sincere! You really mean to attack Dreenor!
Lutt twisted his head and groaned. “You lying Dreen son-of-a-bitch!”
I warned you I would not permit an attack on my people!
“You’re killing me,” Lutt moaned. “Please stop.”
It is not I who causes you pain, Ryll offered. It is that yellow creature on the chair.
It’s you! Just when things are going great, you mess it up!
I assure you it is the Soother. I do not know how Nishi acquired it. They are reserved for Latents and other aberrated types.
Lutt staggered to an Empire couch and collapsed onto it.
Enough, Wytee, Nishi ordered.
Lutt took a deep breath and slowly lowered his hands. Nishi saw the fight for transition to Ryll as a flickering of movement in face and eyes, the slight sagging of jaws, a brighter gleam in the eyes that faded and returned.
Ryll remained on the couch. “I am happy to find you well, Nishi,” he said, “These are times to try one’s soul.”
“Why has he brought me here?” she asked.
Lutt tried to interfere and regain control. The shared face grimaced, lips moved, grunts issued from the mouth.
Wytee, Nishi prompted.
Once more, Lutt clutched his head.
“Okay! Okay!” Lutt gasped.
She waited for Wytee to relax the pain, then: “Ryll?”
Again, Ryll’s voice issued from the familiar mouth. “He wishes only disgusting, lustful things with you, Nishi.”
“I thought so!”
“The French envoy said Lutt must make his own repellent way with you. Lutt was led to believe you agreed.”
“The prefect? He said nothing of this to me!” Nishi protested.
“So I surmised.”
“This is awful!” Nishi said. “Has the Legion abandoned me?”
Ryll looked at Wytee. “An idea occurs to me.” He returned his attention to Nishi. “Could you part with your Soother?”
“My what?”
Ryll pointed at Wytee. “Your Soother.”
“Wytee? What could you want with Wytee?”
“Ahh, yes. You named your Soother. I’ve been told that is customary.”
He fell silent with head cocked to one side. Presently, he idmaged a note to Nishi. She plucked it from the air as it drifted past her eyes.
“With a Soother’s help, I might control this body and not reveal our extraordinary situation,” the note read.
Do you understand what he means, Wytee?
Wytee say spy things here.
But what does he mean that he needs you?
Lutt President sick. Nishi not sick.
Would you go with Ryll?
Nishi say Wytee go Lutt/Ryll?
Y-yes.
Wytee go.
I will be sorry to lose you, Wytee.
Wytee friend Nishi. Wytee friend Dreen. Wytee help sick peoples. Lutt President need Wy
tee. Ryll need Wytee.
Nishi looked at the man on the couch and nodded agreement.
Ryll stood and, once more, Lutt sought control, but a spasm of agony caused him to withdraw immediately.
That is a small taste of what you will get if you interfere, Ryll promised. He scooped up the Soother and bundled the creature beneath his suitcoat.
“What of our negotiations?” Nishi asked.
“I’ll let the French share the secrets of Spiral technology.”
And Ryll thought: But I will misdirect them. You got that, Lutt? I told you I wouldn’t let anyone attack Dreenor.
Ryll turned toward the door and paused as a musical bell sounded from a vase on a table to his left. The vase opened along a vertical seam to reveal a vidcom.
Nishi crossed to the instrument and pressed the “answer” key.
Major Captain’s face appeared on the screen. “There you are, sir,” she said, addressing the figure she thought was the President.
“What is it?” Ryll asked.
“We have a first-class snafu on our hands, Mr. President.” She looked pointedly at Nishi.
“You may speak in front of Mademoiselle D’Amato,” Ryll said.
“I don’t know, sir. This is pretty sensitive. I think you’d better call in the Secret Service with your communications box. This should be scrambled.”
“Very well.” Ryll went to the door and signaled one of the Secret Service men waiting in the hall.
Presently, Ryll sat with a scrambler hood over his head. Once more, he looked at Major Captain.
“Sir, your brother has gone berserk,” she said. “He used a pass signed by you to enter the security area where Deni-Ra is held and, before anyone could stop him, he killed the Dreen.”
“Morey? Morey killed Deni-Ra?”
“It’s a mess! Yellow blood all over the place. A godawful stench. Even I threw up and I’m a doctor.”
“But how could he do this? What weapon . . .”
“One of those damn blade guns! An anesthetic poison on it. We don’t know whether it was the blades, the poison or what killed the Dreen. Some of our experts are coming in for the autopsy but we may not produce answers. The question now is—What do we do about your brother?”
“Hold him under protective detention.”
“And what do we say if it leaks out?”
“What makes you think it’ll leak out?”
“Your White House is a sieve, sir!”
“Say my brother struck a blow in the war against the alien menace, but don’t release him.”
Ryll broke the connection and returned the scrambler box to a Secret Service man.
Lutt? Why did your brother do that?
There was no response from his fleshmate.
I insist on an answer, Lutt. Do you want more head pain?
Morey’s just conducted an experiment, I think. He’s learned how to kill a Dreen.
Why would he want to do that?
He remembers us raving about an alien in our body. Morey plans to assassinate us.
How can he do that if he’s a prisoner?
Don’t be stupid, Ryll. He uses accomplices.
Alarmed, Ryll blurted: We must go back to the Listening Post. We’ve missed something! .
***
There is a perfectly simple explanation for his calling her Nee-Nee and her calling him Rill Lovers always have pet names.
—The prefect’s report
It had been a rough two days for Ryll and he was in no mood for the trip to Dulles Airport where Phoenicia was to arrive shortly after midnight. No getting out of it, though. He picked up Wytee and girded himself for the ordeal.
During the long ride with Eola to Dulles, he thought about the problems he and Lutt confronted.
What had they missed at the Listening Post? It didn’t seem possible for Morey to conduct a conspiracy under unwinking scrutiny. Unless you considered everything Morey did suspicious, probably the safest assumption, his actions before killing Deni-Ra appeared perfectly normal. The only untoward thing had been a visit to Nishi, but that had been arranged by Woon for a very good reason. Woon remained fearful Subiyama and Nishi would collaborate on more revelations.
“Subiyama’s stories are dangerously embarrassing!” Woon had stormed. “It must be stopped! If this D’Amato dame won’t take money, maybe that Subiyama bitch will!”
“Where would you get the money to pay her off?” Ryll had asked.
“How about Hanson Industries? Does your brother have a deep pocket?”
“Deeper than most.”
“I’ll look into it.”
Phoenicia arrived at Dulles later than expected—well past midnight.
The damn French and their Concordes! Lutt complained.
Upset by the frustrating search through the Listening Post, he raged bitterly about the unreliable Concord IXs the French insisted on using to return Phoenicia.
An ordinary plane could land at Washington National. But no! They gotta show off their damn Concordes! And that drags us all the way out to Dulles!
Phoenicia, entering the VIP lounge to be met by the man she thought of as her son, saw him with his new wife, Eola, and tried to put the best face on this aftermath of what she considered to be her gaffe with Nishi. She rushed up to Eola, gave her a pecking kiss on the cheek and turned to do the same for Ryll but he had stepped back.
“Eola, how nice,” Phoenicia said. And to Ryll: “So good of you to meet me, Son.”
Ryll patted her arm, more to keep her at a distance than for any pretense of affection. In his best Lutt voice, he said, “Let’s hurry it along. We have limousines outside.”
Ryll and Eola had a White House limousine parked at the door of the VIP lounge with Wytee curled up on the back ledge but, at Eola’s suggestion, they had brought the gaudy rickshaw for Phoenicia.
“Your mother always uses it and it will be a touch of the familiar to welcome her home. Besides, this way, you won’t have to ride with her. I know how much you dislike it.”
When they emerged from the lounge, Phoenicia took one look at the sprawled robocoolies in front of the rickshaw and thrust aside her Secret Service escort. “Take that damned thing away!” she shouted, pointing at the rickshaw.
“But, Mother,” Ryll said. “I thought you always preferred the rickshaw.”
“I rode in it to placate your father! He always insisted I use it. Couldn’t you see that?”
Ryll waved for an aide to remove the vehicle. Still in his best Lutt voice, trusting excitement and jet lag to dull Phoenicia and prevent her from detecting any personality changes, Ryll said: “We are sending you to Blair House. I hope you understand. I can’t spare you any time just now. And I have Eola as my hostess.”
Phoenicia glared at him. “You’re using her against me, aren’t you?”
“Mother! This is my wife! The First Lady!”
Eola clutched Ryll’s arm. “Phoenicia, please!”
“This is family business!” Phoenicia flared. “You stay out of it!”
“But I am family now,” Eola whined.
Ryll patted Eola’s hand. “Be still, dear.”
“I knew you’d all turn against me once you won the election!” Phoenicia said.
Suddenly realizing this was precisely the spiteful pattern to be expected from Lutt, Ryll assumed a sneering grin.
“Think of it as retirement, Mother. You can go back to your parties and your friends.”
“You are absolutely hateful! Where is Morey?”
“Morey is . . . ahhh, not here.”
“I can see that!”
“He’s doing some things with the Zone Patrol.”
She leaned toward him. “What have you done with your brother?”
“Nothing at all, Mother.”
“I want to see Morey immediately! We have Company business to discuss.”
“Those matters have been delegated, Mother.”
“I am still in charge of The Company!”
&nbs
p; “Of course you are, Mother. Do anything you want with Hanson Industries.”
“You’re hiding something from me.”
“State secrets can be shared only on a limited basis, Mother.”
“What would Morey have to do with state secrets?”
“That’s a state secret,” Ryll said, enjoying the ease with which he fended her questions.
“Is it something about that horrible alien? Does this concern all the war talk I hear?”
“In a way, Mother.”
“You’re even more secretive than your father!”
“My new duties require it.”
She studied him a moment, then, “Will The Company get any of the weapons contracts?”
“Only on a bid basis, Mother. I can have nothing to do with it. That would be unethical.”
“Lutt, why are you treating me this way?”
“What way, Mother? I’ve just saved your life. The French would have executed you.”
“Poppycock!”
“Your head in a basket,” Ryll said. “I am giving the French what they asked. And you have not thanked me for saving you at great sacrifice.”
An aide touched Ryll’s arm. “Sir? The Chinese envoys at 8:00 a.m.”
“I know,” Ryll said. “Good night, Mother.”
With Eola on his arm, Ryll followed the aide toward the White House limousine.
Phoenicia called after them: “Eola! What is he doing?”
“He is being President,” Eola called back.
In the limousine rolling out of the airport with a full cavalcade of guards and aides, Ryll leaned back and closed his eyes. Mercifully, Eola was too tired to resume one of her interminable conversations about their “position in society.”
You played that pretty well, Ryll, Lutt intruded.
I did, didn’t I. You have been most instructive.
How about letting me have a little time with Eola tonight? You won’t let me have Ni-Ni, so what about a roll in the hay with my wife?
You disgust me, Lutt.
Want me to fight for control?
Want me to hurt your head?
No! How do you do that? Is it really that cat on the back ledge?
That is not a cat. It is a Soother.
I don’t find it very soothing.
You’re right. Wytee seems to have absorbed strange ways from contact with Earthers.