The Pleasure Tube Read online

  There is a crackling silence for a moment, then a small noise. "Oh, no. He says I can't tell you what he looks like. He says he'll meet you at your cabana." "Traffic, what the hell kind of message is this?" There is another crackling silence, it sounds as if the operator is talking with someone standing offmike nearby. I swear she giggles. "Uh, that's all I'm authorized to say," I hear. "Uh, two-nine-two, traffic out."

  Once through the crowded disembarkation chute, into the terminal, a Polynesian longhouse, most of the passengers filter toward waiting NaturBuses, third-class program. An older man wearing a ragged straw hat is swaggering drunkenly, jostling the crowd—nervous, I think, without spun-steel surfaces. I'm not so calm myself, wonder if now I'm about to see Knuth instead of Taylor. In the adjacent tramrun lobby the atmosphere acquires the sweet weight of the air of the tropical Pacific, a lush, flowery odor. Collette and I board an A tram for the beach; evidently the island is shared by both the tropical reserve and a resort complex. A dark-eyed, golden-skinned girl waves, smiling, as we whir away.

  The tram takes us through a dense jungle that muffles its machine hum. The jungle's high canopy trees are entwined with lianas through which the sun filters down in sleepy patches the size of children. The green seems to go on and on, the air is marvelous. When we reach the palm-lined coast, the sun is barely obscured by the planet's mantle of haze—it is brighter and clearer than even the sun over Guam. Who? I wonder.

  We're dropped at another Slot 9. A raffia-thatched cabana lies at the end of a synthetic path through a grove of very real palm trees and just above the high-tide line of a very real beach. Salt air. The ocean stretches away, blue and dazzling, to a vast horizon. As we approach the small cabana the sunlight pains my cabin-soft eyes.

  He's sitting on the lanai of the cabana, in the shade of the thatch, his tan so deep he looks as if he lives in the place. When he sees us his grin goes from ear to ear, his hands rise in greeting.

  "Surprise," he says, getting up to extend his hand in his old-fashioned way; he's laughing.

  I'm laughing, too. "Good to see you, Werhner. Good to see your face. How do you expect to get back on time? How in the hell did you get here?" I shake Werhner's hand, we pump ridiculously, so dislocated yet so used to one another, we laugh at that, too. The beach stretches beyond us, the sea glassy in the morning sun, the air sweet. It's like a pleasant dream.

  "Getting here was the easy part," Werhner laughs. "You loafers are resupplied through Hong Kong. I came to see your expression for myself. Have you heard the latest? Look at you, Rawley, I'll bet you haven't."

  I look into Werhner's sharp, intelligent face; his smile is already hardening into something like pained relief. I tell him that Guam's been under a communications blackout, the last I've heard has been from him. "Is it about Cooper?" I ask.

  "Cooper." He shrugs nervously, I notice exhaustion behind his smile now. "That's still a mystery. No, it's the whole debriefing. We're finished."

  A small wave of electricity passes through my body. I ask him what he means.

  "Just what I said. We're finished with the debriefing, officially terminated. Came through from the East about 0300. Full leave, new assignments in eight months." Now Werhner's grinning sardonically, his sandy hair splayed out, the smile in his eyes.

  "You mean we're all through on Guam? We're through?"

  "Program terminated," he laughs, pushing back his hair. "Don't even have to go back. Can you believe it? Wait till you hear why. Got the story from Tamashiro. Our blow data was misplaced years ago—a generation ago here. So we're coming back, the computer searches, the search gets nowhere—and the flow chart, a year before we land, triggers an investigation."

  "So the data does exist," I say.

  "The same data is in Cooper's report." Werhner shrugs. "So nobody looks to see why the investigation's triggered, see, the data is buried. These SciCom men are well paid, right? They need something to do, important, busy. In the meantime, military does a trace, they're paying our salaries. Turns out military has the data. Meanwhile, SciCom is conducting an investigation that has no terminus, looking for that data internally, eating its own tail, while we're all drawing full military pay."

  "Ooooh," I say, sitting down in a creaking wicker chair, feeling the light become brighter. "So military got us out? Is this true?"

  Werhner nods.

  "And what about Cooper?"

  Werhner bites his lower lip. "That's what makes me wonder. Look, Rawley, it's very weird. He's not on the death list, there's no record of internment, there's no record of his staying in Houston."

  "Then there's a chance he's alive. Now what in the hell...?"

  "If you trace him, it goes Guam to Houston to Guam to Houston through L. A. A transit loop. That's from closed SciCom program. Puzzling. Well..."

  "But we're really through on Guam?"

  Even with his evident exhaustion, Werhner looks better than he has for years—deeply tanned, clear eyes. "That also checks out through closed SciCom program. I'm your navigator, Rawley, I don't put you on. The results from the ship's investigation stand: 'Accidental collision with unknown interstellar material, forces tidal in nature.' The report's thin, sure. We lost all that data when program pontoon blew. But there is what there is, that's all. Now everybody agrees."

  "Christ," I say. I'm slightly giddy, run my hand over the caning in the arm of the chair. "I feel like we've just landed. These last two weeks have been very strange, it was strange enough on Guam, it never quit for me...."

  Collette brought us tall mint juleps, we sit around a small wicker table in the shade. Palms rustle lazily, flap; the water gurgles at the intersection of sand and shallow bay.

  "I actually worried about you," Werhner says, glancing with raised eyebrows at Collette. "Now that I get here, I'm jealous. Hong Kong's not like this."

  "Well, you're here now," Collette tells Werhner with a smile. "You ought to stay."

  I spend a few minutes telling Werhner how I've been chased by Taylor since Guam, how Collette's been involved. Werhner surprises me again. He had a brief talk with Taylor when the ship landed, Taylor wants to see me at 1800 today in the console dome, Dome A of the ship, to hand me my official orders and to conduct an exit interview. Werhner went through his on the spot, waves his orders at me like a small fan.

  "Dome A," I say. "That's fitting." I mention to Collette that Dome A was the place we worked.

  "So you get to see his ugly face one more time." Werhner grins. "There's a man," he says, still talking about Taylor, "launched up his own asshole. Excuse me, Collette."

  Collette says no excuse is necessary, and thanks the high heavens she's seen the last of Colonel T.

  Werhner's going to stay, leaves to arrange for a cabin for the last leg of theTube's flight. After he processes in, he says, he's going to find his cabin and go to sleep; up at 0300, he's been in transit all night. We'll see him again after lunch, maybe do some diving here.

  Sitting in the warm shade with Collette, I take a deep breath of salt-rich, fresh air, look out to sea across the bright sand—a few scattered clouds on the horizon, snow-white, the sky brilliant, washed blue.

  VIETAHITI VENTURES//

  FIRST-CLASS PASSAGE//

  //shuttle trams continuously between Vietahiti Beach/BaliHi/theTube//

  //new options every hour

  Vietahiti Beach//

  —catamaran and trimaran sailing

  —zodiac availability

  —deep-sea transparent sub

  —all aquaplease options continuous

  BaliHi Mountain Palace//

  —arboretum and jungle walk

  —paradise park

  —queen's garden of delights

  —epicurean consensus

  //shuttle trams continuously between Vietahiti Beach/BaliHi/theTube//

  //new options every hour//continuous programming in each cabana//

  our service is your pleasure//your pleasure our service

  @ thePleasureTube cor
p.

  Collette and I join Erica and Tonio for an early lunch at the Palace Garden Club, an elegant restaurant set in the gardens alongside the large building with the red and gold roof tiles I saw when I swam out from the beach—the Mountain Palace. We are a few kilometers inland, up the slopes of the larger volcano, in a belt of high jungle. The air is noticeably cooler here, fresh and crystalline, the climate seems perfect. Peacocks strut among the tables, iridescent blue and green, clucking softly. Collette says we ought to bring Werhner here later to see.

  Tonio is telling us how he managed to get an exceptional performance from a numb actress for a videon series he directed. She was, he says, the only zombied Juliet he's ever seen—she had an expressionless face and a flat voice besides. "So I put her in a grope suit," he explains, pushing back his hair with a well-manicured hand, grinning. "I had her wear a grope suit under her costume. She was fantastic—panting, her voice turned into honey—and her eyes, the color she got. She was just fantastic."

  "Sweet Juliet," Collette says flatly. "Good God."

  I look at Tonio with puzzlement. "All right," I ask. "What's a grope suit? I heard a woman say she carried one in her luggage."

  "Tonio," Collette says, "you are to-the-core decadent. To the core."

  Tonio gestures with his palms up, smiling. "Ah, but what an interesting play Romeo and Juliet turned out to be. You can appreciate that, Collette, try to imagine it."

  "A grope suit," Erica tells me, sighing behind her sunburn, "is made out of latex, and where your erogenous zones are, there are bumps and things that squeeze you when you move, and mainly a knob, see, that goes in. And there are suits for men, too."

  "Indeed there are," Tonio says quickly. "But look at this person—oops, he's coming this way. She's coming—no, don't turn, you'll embarrass me. Rawley, I think she knows you. She was looking for you."

  I do turn slowly to follow Tonio's line of vision, toward the other tables between us and the bamboo bar, the monkey cages. Eva Steiner, dressed in a black jump suit, is striding our way. Beyond her, the pasty, fiftyish man with the thin hair I remember from the grandstands at LasVenus is seating two women at a circular table; they must have just come in.

  "I thought it was you." Eva Steiner smiles—she's pale and a little drawn, obviously hasn't yet been to the beach. "Though this dark one I recognized first," she continues, her eyes flashing for an instant at Collette. "Captain Voorst. Rawley."

  Seeing her now brings back both the final moments of our race and the grim end for Massimo. For some reason, perhaps only because she knew Massimo, I feel a pull of sympathy for her, feel bad that I didn't even respond to her invitation. I ask Steiner evenly if she's having fun, introduce her around the table.

  Tonio's cocked head straightens and his slightly glazed eyes become businesslike. "Of course," he says. "Director Steiner. What a pleasure. Do sit down. May I... ?" Tonio goes on, giving Erica a wide-eyed glance. Eva Steiner ignores him.

  "You must have heard the news by now," Eva Steiner says to me. "Congratulations. Eight months until a new assignment? I envy you."

  "How do you know?" I wonder out loud. "I don't even have the orders yet."

  "I was hoping you'd stop by my cabin the other day," she goes on, ignoring my question. "I was hoping you'd come. We missed you."

  Who is this woman? I ask myself. Deliberately I tell her I've been concentrating on more relaxing things than she might have in mind. "I am on leave," I say, then notice that, for all the politeness I am trying to generate, she still returns a strange electricity. My skin prickles as her expression changes to a wider smile.

  "But you owe me," she says. "It's only fair. I wanted to talk to you about this yesterday. Listen to me, Captain Voorst. My hydroplanes are here. On the west end of this island there is a sheltered bay, perfectly flat. Ideal conditions. We can race."

  Collette's stare is boring through me, she has gone a little rigid. The sensation of my skin makes me shift in my seat.

  "I have to turn you down," I say nervously, though she has made me feel somehow obligated. "Since Massimo died, I haven't much felt the stomach for chance like that. You remember Massimo Giroti, Director Steiner."

  "You must call me Eva. Eva," she says. Now I see her own nervousness; her eyes are red, twitching slightly. "I suspect he died as he would have preferred. Doesn't the thought of how you might die excite you, Rawley?"

  "No," I tell her, my skin crawling, "not at all. And something tells me Massimo would rather be alive."

  She shrugs, her smile gone. "Pity you won't. They are such sleek machines, Rawley. You're making it very frustrating for me."

  "Answer my question," I say. "Just how is it that you know about my orders? Just who are you?"

  "Come to the bay," she says after a moment, says with a smile for everyone. Then she looks at me with intense focus. "I do want to talk with you."

  "Say what's on your mind," I answer.

  "I will," she says after a long moment, says flatly. But then she wheels and walks away.

  Once she's well settled at her own table, I ask Collette what's on the east end of the island.

  "We are. Or were," she says. "That's where the cabana is. And there's the bird preserve on the island offshore, the one they call Chinaman's Hat. But she said the west end, Rawley, that's where a bay is. Please don't."

  "I heard what she said. That woman makes me nervous. No—and especially not in her boats."

  "God, she scares the hell out of me," Tonio says quietly, his voice hushed in the way one speaks in the presence of a corpse. "How could you talk to her that way? What people say about her!"

  "If we take off for that island this afternoon, say in a Zodiac, bring along Werhner... That island looks like a place to dive. Will we be off limits? Could we get away with it?"

  Collette considers the question. "You can dive near it on an aquaplease program," she says. "I think we could get away with landing—look, they're pretty lax here. This is one place service personnel don't much care about and security's... well, security's lazy."

  Beyond Erica, who begins to tell me much the same thing, lithe young women begin to slip among the tables, dancing to Balinese gamelan music, graceful as deer, finger cymbals tinkling like wind chimes. At her table, seated, Eva Steiner is keeping time to the music with her heel on the opposite woman's outstretched leg.

  An hour after we leave Erica and Tonio in the cool shade of the gardens, we've picked up Werhner from the ship and loaded a boat with the help of an obese Polynesian man at the boathouse. Werhner, Collette, and I are slipping over the small incoming swells in a four-man Zodiac, headed toward Chinaman's Hat. We wind up going out past the first reef, Collette in the bow hanging on with both hands, laughing as we punch through the surf. The salty air and the spray are invigorating, the unhazed sun hot on my back as I maneuver the light boat lifting and falling with the swells. Werhner steadies the tanks; he's got some of his own gear from Guam as well.

  The windward side of Chinaman's Hat turns out to be fully hollowed out, a small valley formed by prevailing weather, absolutely desolate. A white beach is at the mouth of the valley, protected by another reef farther out. Well offshore, Werhner puts on his gear and slips into the water to swim in. We power in the rest of the way, pull the boat up on the sand.

  I hit the toggles on the electronics built into the center seat. Someone is paging me from the resort—my guess is Eva Steiner—has been paging me off and on for the last ten minutes.

  Collette watches me unplugging the battery. "You mean business," she says.

  "I didn't come here to be bothered," I say, and look around the spot, what a spot. From here the resort has entirely disappeared. Pristine beach all to ourselves, a thick grove of coconut palms and sprawling sea grape leads up the small valley. A small fresh-water stream drains to the ocean two hundred meters away, then the ridge shoulders over the sand.

  I can see the bright red of Werhner's diving flag bobbing with his float on the swells; it appears, dis
appears, appears in the blue. The sun is booming at two o'clock, absolutely dazzling, a white-hot specter I can feel in my bones, tingling on my skin. The news about Guam is finally sinking in; I feel lighter, find myself starting to think ahead to what I might do when this trip is over. A trip to South America, I think?

  "We won't be able to tell what time it is," Collette says amiably as she unloads the mats and the cooler.

  "Best news I've heard all day," I laugh.

  White beach, warm sand, the surf a low roar since the tide's come up. There are a few seabirds here, skimming the ocean, wheeling overhead to nesting sites on the rocky slopes behind us. We've had to move up the beach because of the rising tide, camp now on a cleared patch above the high-tide line. Collette's pouring the last of our two bottles of champagne, Werhner lies flat on his back looking up into the sky. I'm still wet, just out of the diving gear. My ears ring slightly and I have a mild sense of unreality as I squat down, dripping, at the corner of the straw mat.

  "Black holes," Werhner says to the sky. "The most interesting phenomenon to a speculative mind. Rawley wisely just flew the ship. I think I began to think too much about them. I haven't been the same since. Well, neither has he."

  "There's something I don't quite understand," Collette says, passing Werhner a paper cup of warm champagne. "Rawley mentioned that within a black hole, a traveler, assuming there's the slightest chance he'd live, would be free in time. Could you explain that?"

  "That's a theoretical premise based on what black holes do to light," Werhner says, up on an elbow. "A black hole is so dense that it attracts rather than emanates light—and once you reverse the physics of light, you reverse the physics of space and time. Here we're free in space—we can go back to the cabana, walk along the beach, go wherever we'd like. On the other hand, we're trapped in time—we can't go backward into the past or forward into the future."