Текст книги "Treasure"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

"Down on the floor!" he yelled at the two women in back.

There was no drive shaft on the Cord, and the women were able to curl up and press themselves against the flat floor. Hala stared into Lily's face and began trembling uncontrollably. Lily put an arm around her and forced a brave smile.

"Not to panic," she said encouragingly. "Once we make it to town we'll be safe."

"No," Hala murmured as shock began to set in. "We won't be safe anywhere."

In the front seat Giordino hunched low to get what shelter he could from the gunfire and higid wind whistling around the windshield. "How fast will this thing go?" he asked conversationally.

"The best top speed ever recorded for an L-29 was seventy-seven,"

answered Pitt.

'Miles or kilometers?"

'Miles. "

"I have a sinking feeling we're outclassed." Giordino had to shout in Pitts ear to be heard above the howl of the Cord's second gear.

"What are we up against?"

Giordino swung around, leaned over the door and cast a wary eye backward. "Hard to tell what model a Mercedes is from the front, but I'd say the hounds are driving five hundred SDLS."

"Diesels?"

"Turbocharged diesels to be exact, capable of 220 kilometers per hour."

"They gaining?"

"Like tigers after a -toed sloth," Giordino replied drily. "They'll chew our ass long before we reach the local sheriff's coffee hangout."

Pitt jammed the clutch to the floor, grasped the end of the gear-shift arm that extended from the dashboard and shoved it into third. "Better we save lives by staying away. Those killcrazy bastards are liable to slaughter a hundred innocent bystanders just to assassinate Kamil. "

Giordino peered to the rear again. "I think I can see the whites of their eyes."

Ismail screamed a dozen curses as his gun jammed. In a rage, he heaved it out of the Mercedes onto the highway and snatched another from the hands of his follower in the backseat. He reached out the window and squeezed off a burst at the Cord. Only five shells spat from the muzzle before the armno clip emptied. He cursed again as he fished in his pocket for another clip, wrestled it free and pushed it in the slide.

"Do not excite yourself," said the driver carefully. "We'll catch them in the next kilometer. I'll come around on the left while Omar and his men in the other car take the right. We can snare them in a cross fire at close range."

"I want to kill the scum who interfered," Ismail snarled.

"You'll get your chance. Patience."

Almost like a sullen child who can't have his way, Ismail slumped in the seat and stared vengefully through the windshield at the fleeing car ahead.

lsmail was the worst kind of killer. He was utterly incapable of remorse. He would have celebrated after blowing up a maternity ward.

First-class hit men recorded their kills and studied ways to improve their craft. He never bothered to react or count the bodies. His planning was sloppy, and on two occasions he had wiped out the wrong quarry, which made a fanatic like Ismail all the more dangerous.

Unpredictable as a shark, he struck indiscriminately and without mercy at any innocent victim who was unlucky enough to step in his way. He justified his bloody deeds by killing for a religious cause, but in another time, another place, he'd have been a serial murderer, leaving a trail of dead for the full of it. Ismail would have sickened John Dillenger and Bonnie and Clyde.

He sat there moving his fingers over the rifle as if it were a sensual object, waiting, waiting to pump its lethal fire through the thin walls of the old car and into the flesh that had temporarily cheated him of his prey.

"They must be saving their ammunition," sadd Giordino thankfully.

"Only until they box us in and can't miss," Pitt replied. His eyes were on the road, but his mind was desperately turning over escape schemes.

"My kingdom for a rocket launcher."

"Which reminds me. When I got in the car this morning, I accidentally kicked something under the seat."

Giordino bent down and probed the floorboard under Pitt. His hand touched a cold, hard object. He held it aloft. "Only a socket wrench,"

he announced sadly. "Might as well be a hainbone for all the good it'll do."

"There's a Jeep trail just ahead that leads up to the top of the ski runs. Maintenance vehicles sometimes use it to carry supplies and equipment to the peak. Might give us a slim chance to lose them in the woods or a ravine. We're dead if we stick to the highway."

"How far?"

"Around the next bend in the road."

"Can we make it?"

"You tell me."

Giordino looked back for the third time. "Seventy-five meters and hauling ass."

"Close, too close," said Pitt. "We'll have to slow them down."

"I could show my ugly face and make obscene gestures," Giordino said dryly.

"Only make them madder. We have to go to plan one."

"I missed the briefing," Giordino said sarcastically.

"How's your throwing arm?"

Giordino nodded in understanding. "Keep this old barge in a straight line and fireball Giordino wig retire the opposing term."

The open town car made a perfect platform. Giordino planted his knees on the seat facing backward, his head and shoulders exposed above the roof. He took aim, raised his arm and hurled the socket wrench in a high arc toward the leading Mercedes.

for an instant his heart seized. He thought he had underthrown as the wrench dropped low and landed on the hood of the car. But it took a bounce and smashed neatly through the windshield.

The Arab driver had spotted Giordino in the act of heaving the wrench.

His reaction time was good but not good enough. He hit the brakes and cramped the wheel to swerve out of the way just as the glass burst in a thousand tiny pieces and sprayed into his face. The wrench caromed off the steering wheel and dropped into Ismail's lap.

The driver in the second Mercedes was hanging close to the rear bumper of Ismail's car, and he didn't see the socket wrench sailing through the air. He was caught completely off guard when the taillights in front of his eyes suddenly flashed red. He stared helplessly as he rammed the first Mercedes, sending it spinning out of control until it came to a halt facing in the opposite direction.

"That what you had in mind?" asked Giordino cheerfully.

"Right on the money. Hold on, we're approaching our Turn." Pitt slowed and swung the Cord onto a narrow, snowpacked road leading in a series of switchbacks up the mountainside.

The straight-eight engine with its 115-horsepower strained to pull the heavy car over the slippery, uneven surface. The stiff chassis springs jolted everyone like tennis balls in a washing machine as the lighter rear end slewed back and forth. Pitt compensated with a deft touch on the accelerator and steering wheel, using the pulling power of the front-wheel drive to keep the long hood pointed up the middle of a road that had all the qualifications of a vague hiking to.

Lily and Hala had picked themselves up off the floor and were sitting in the seat, feet braced against the divider partition, hanging onto the overhead straps for dear life.

Six minutes later they left the trees behind and were climbing above timberline. The road now ran between steep inclines carpeted with massive rocks and deep snow. It had been Pitts original idea to abandon the Cord and make a run for it, using the woods and craggy landscape for cover, but the depth of Colorado's famous powdery snow sharply increased at the higher altitudes, making any passage on foot nearly impossible.

He was left with no alternative but to reach the summit with enough time to take a chair lift down the mountain to the town and become lost in the crowds.

"We're boiling," Giordino observed.

Pitt didn't need to see the steam starting to issue around the base of the radiator cap; he'd been watching the needle on the temperature gauge creep upward until it was pegged on HOT.

"The engine was rebuilt with close tolerances," he explained. "We've given it too much of a beating before it had a chance to break in."

"What do we do when the road ends?" asked Giordino.

"Plan two," answered Pitt. "We take a leisurely ride down a chair lift to the nearest saloon."

"I like your style, but the war's not over." Giordino nodded over his shoulder. "Our friends are back."

Pitt had been too busy to keep track of his pursuers. They had recovered from the accident and charged up the mountain after the Cord.

Before he could look behind, bullets shattered the rear window between Lily's and Hala's heads, traversed the car and passed cleanly through the windshield, leaving three small, starred holes. The women didn't have to be told to crouch on the floor again. This time they tried to melt into it.

"I think they're mad about the wrench," said Giordino,

"Not half as mad as I am over the way they're trashing my car."

Pitt hauled the car around a steep switchback, and when he straightened oirt again, he turned and stole a quick look at the chasing cars. The rearward view was not lacking in menace.

The twin Mercedes were violently slewing all over the snow-covered road.

Their superior speed was partially offset by the Cord's front-wheel traction. Pitt pulled away in the tight turns, but the Arabs narrowed the gap in the straightaways.

Pitt caught a glimpse of the lead driver twisting and turning his wheel like a maniac, ignoring caution and keeping the rear-drive wheels in a constant state of spin. At every switchback he came within a hair of sliding into heavy snow and becoming hopelessly stuck.

Pitt was surprised that the Mercedes showed no signs of wearing snow tires. He couldn't have known the Arabs had driven the cars over the border from Mexico to muddy their trail. Registered to a nonexistent textile company in Matamoros, they were to be abandoned at the Breckenridge airport after Hala's assassination was completed.

Pitt didn't like what he saw. The Mercedes were moving relentlessly closer. They were only fifty meters behind. He also didn't like the sight of a man sticking an automatic rifle through the smashed windshield.

"Here comes the mail!" he shouted, slipping under the wheel until his eyes barely peered over the top of the dashboard. "Everyone down!"

The words were barely out of his mouth when bullets began thumping into the Cord. One burst ripped the right fendermounted spare tire and wheel. The next tore through the roof, shredding the leather padding and mangling the metal skin underneath.

Pitt tensed and tried to duck even lower as the left side of the car was cut open as if attacked by an army of can openers. The hinges flew off a rear door and it fell open, hanging grotesquely for a few moments until it was torn away as the Cord brushed a tree. Glass fragments flew like rain. One of the women screamed, he didn't know which one. He became aware of a fine spray of blood on the dashboard. A bullet had ploughed a furrow through one of Giordino's ears, but the gritty little Italian made no sound.

Giordino probed the wound indifferently, almost as though it belonged to someone else. Then he tilted his head and gave Pitt a slanted grin. "I fear last night's wine is leaking out."

"Is it bad?" Pitt asked.

"Nothing a plastic surgeon can't fix for two thousand dollars. What about the women?"

Pitt shouted without turning. "Lily, are you and Hala all right?"

"A few scratches from flying glass," Lily replied gamely. "Otherwise we're unhurt." She was good and scared but not anywhere near the edge of panic.

The steam from the Cord's radiator was escaping like a high-pressure jet now. Pitt could feel the engine lose revolutions as it slowly began to seize up. Like a jockey riding a tired old nag long overdue for the pasture, he pushed the car as hard as he dared.

He worked coolly, concentrating on hurling the Cord around the last switchback before the summit. He had gambled and failed to elude the assassins. They clung to his rear bumper as if chained there.

The engine bearings began to rattle in protest from the excessive heat and strain. Another volley of bullets peppered the left rear fender and flattened the tire. Pitt fought the wheel to keep the rear end from careening off the side of the road and dragging the car down a 60-percent grade filled with large jagged boulders.

The Cord was dying. Ominous blue smoke filtered through the hood louvers. Beneath the engine, oil seeped through a gouge torn in the oil pan by a rock Pitt could not avoid. The oil pressure gauge quickly registered zero. any chance of making the temporary safety of the summit became more remote with each knock of the piston rods.

The lead Mercedes charged around the switchback in a wild skid. Pitt clutched the wheel despairingly. He could picture the look of triumph on his pursuers' faces as they sensed they were seconds away from naming their prey to the ground.

He saw no place for a desperation escape on foot. They were trapped on the narrow road between a steep drop on one side and a sharp rocky rise on the other. There was nowhere to go but ahead until the Cord's engine gave up and froze.

Pitt jammed the accelerator pedal against the floorboard with all the strength in his leg and uttered a fast prayer.

Incredibly, the battle-weary old classic had something more to give. As though a mechanical engine had a mind of its own, it reached down into its iron and steel for one final, magnificent effort. The engine revolutions suddenly increased, the front wheels dug in, and the Cord wiggled up the final grade to the sunmiit. A minute later, through clouds of blue smoke and white steam, it broke out onto the open crest of a ski run.

Not one hundred meters away stood the upper end of a triple-chair ski lift. At first Pitt thought it strange that no one was skiing on the slope directly below the Cord. people were dropping off the chairs and turning toward the opposite side of the lift before starting down a parallel ski trail.

Then he observed his section of the slope was roped off. Several signs hung on a line festooned with bright orange streamers warning skiers not to ski this run because of dangerous, icy conditions.

"The end of the trail," Giordino said solemnly.

Pitt nodded in frustration. "We can't make a break for the lift. They'd shoot us down before we ran ten meters."

"It's either fight them with snowballs or take our chances and surrender."

"Or we can try plan three."

Giordino peered at Pitt curiously. "Can't be any worse than the first two." Then his eyes widened and he groaned, "You're not-oh, God, no!"

The two Mercedes were almost within spitting distance. They had pulled side by side to box in the Cord when Pitt twisted the wheel and sent the car plummeting down the ski run.

"Allah help us," muttered lsmafl's driver. "The crazy idiots. We can't stop them."

"Keep after them!" Ismail shouted hysterically. "Don't let them escape."

"They'll die anyway. No one can survive a runaway car down a mountainside."

Ismafl swung his gun barrel and roughly pushed the muzzle into his driver's ear. "Catch those pigs," he snarled viciously, "or you'll see Allah sooner than you planned."

The driver hesitated, seeing death no matter which move he made. Then he gave in and turned the Mercedes down the steep incline after the Cord.

"Allah guide my actions," he uttered in sudden fear.

Ismail pulled the gun away and pointed through the broken windshield.

"Be still and mind your driving."

Ismail's henchmen in the second Mercedes didn't pause. Dutifully they plunged after their leader.

The Cord hurtled across the hard-packed snow like a runaway freight , gaining speed at a terrifying rate. There was no slowing the heavy car.

Pitt steered with a light touch and feathered the brakes, cautious not to lock them and send the Cord into an uncontrollable spin. A sideways slide down the steep incline would only result in the car's overturning and ending up at the base of the mountain in a scattered trail of metal and broken bodies.

"Is this a good time to raise the question of seat belts?" asked Giordino with his feet raised and wedged against the dashboard.

Pitt shook his head. "Not optional equipment in this model."Pitt sensed a tiny bit of luck as the bullet-shredded rubber tore off the rear wheel. Free of the deflated tire, the double edges of the rim gave him a small measure of control as they bit into the icy surface, throwing up fanlike sheets of ice particles.

The speedometer was hovering at sixty when Pitt saw a field of moguls coming up. Expert skiers found the rounded snow bumps a favorite obstacle course. So did Pitt when he schussed down a slope at that speed. But not now, not playing downhill racer with a weighty 2,120

kilograms of automobile.

With a deft touch, he gently nudged the car off to the side of the road where the path ran smooth. He felt as though he were trying to thread a needle with an Olympic bobsled. Subconsciously Pitt tensed himself for the violent shock and crashing impact should he make the slightest wrong move and hurl the car into a tree, smashing everyone to bloody pulp.

But there was no crushing impact. The Cord somehow shot through the narrow slot, the moguls on one side and the trees on the other flashing by like blurred stage sets.

As soon as Pitt was on a wide, unobstructed run, he snapped his head around to check the status of his pursuers.

The driver of the lead Mercedes was savvy. He'd followed in the Cord's tire tracks around the moguls. The second driver either didn't see them or didn't consider them dangerous. He realized his mistake too late and compounded it by throwing the Mercedes wildly from side to side in a desperate effort to dodge the meter-high humps.

The Arab actually slipped past three or four before he took one head-on.

The front end dug in and the rear rose up and appeared to hang on a minety-degree angle. The car stood poised there for an instant, and then it flipped end over end as if a child had flipped a short stick. It struck the hard snowpack again and again with the splitting sound of crashing metal and glass, The occupants might have survived if they'd been thrown clear, but the jarring series of impacts had jammed the doors. The car began to disintegrate. The engine tore from its mountings and tumbled crazily into the woods. Wheels, front suspension, rear-drive train, none of it was built to take this destructive tomm-It all wrenched away from the chassis, bouncing in mad gyrations down the hill.

Pitt could not spare the time to watch the Mercedes cartwheel and crumple into an indistinguishable heap before finally grinding to a halt on its squashed roof in a small ravine.

"Would it sound gauche," said Giordino for the first time since they plunged off the crest, "if I said, One down?"

"I wish you wouldn't use that term," Pitt muttered through gritted teeth. "The score is about to escalate." He briefly took one hand from the wheel and motioned ahead.

Giordino tensed as he observed the ski run fork and merge with another trail crowded with people in vividly colored ski suits. He jerked himself to a standing position by grabbing the remains of the windshield frame, shouting and waving frantically as Pitt laid on the Cord's twill horns.

The startled skiers turned at the honking and saw the two speeding cars barreling down the ski trail. With seconds to spare, they traversed to the sides and gaped in astonishment as the Cord, with the Mercedes right behind, sped past.

A ski jump rose from the trail and dropped off a hundred meters away.

Pitt hardly had time to distinguish the snowy ramp blending in with the hillside. Without hesitation he aimed the radiator ornament at the starting drop-off.

"You wouldn't?" blurted Giordino.

"Plan four," Pitt assured him. "Brace yourself. I may lose control. "

"I thought you've been doing that right along."

Far smaller than the structures built for Olympic competition, the jump was used only for acrobatic and hot-dog skiing exhibitions. The ramp was wide enough to take the Cord and then some. It extended thirty meters into a concave dip before abruptly ending twenty meters above the ground.

Pitt lined up on the starting gate, using the Cord's wide body to hide the ski jump from the view of the Mercedes. The tricky part depended on exact timing and a nimble twist of the steering wheel.

At the last instant, before the front wheels rolled across the starting line, Pitt flicked the steering wheel and spun the Cord's rear end, whipping the car away from the ramp down the ski jump. Alert to the sudden antics of the Cord, Ismail's driver swung to avoid a collision and made a perfect entry through the starting gate.

As Pitt wrestled the Cord back on a straight path, Giordino looked back at the Mercedes and stared into a face masked with a weird expression of frightened rage. Then it was gone as the car shot down the steep slant out of all control. It should have soared into the sky like a fat bird with no wings. But the rear end broke loose and it slipped on a slight angle, dropping the right wheels off the ramp's side a few meters before the final edge and sending the car spiraling through the air like a well-thrown football.

The Mercedes must have been hitting close to 120 kilometers when it lifted off. Impelled by tremendous momentum, it twirled through sky for an incredible distance before curving earthward and striking the snowpack with a tremendous impact on its four wheels. As if in slow motion, it bounced and sailed into a tall ponderosa pine, smashing against the thick trunk. The grinding screech of mangled metal split the thin air as the chassis and body wrapped around the tree until the front and rear bumpers met like a pitched horseshoe against a steel stake. Glass exploded like confetti and the bodies inside were twisted and mashed like flies under a swatter.

Giordino shook his head in wonder. "That's the danmedest sight I've ever seen."

"More to come," said Pitt. He had straightened out the Cord's wild slide, but there was no slowing its velocity. The brakes had burned out halfway down the slope and the steering tie rod was bent and hanging by a thread. The Cord's path was un stakable. It was heading toward the large ski facility and restaurant building at the base of the chair lifts. All Pitt could do was keep blowing the horns and struggle to avoid skiers too dumb to scramble out of the way.

The women had watched the destruction of the last Mercedes with morbid curiosity and vast relief. The relief was short-lived. They turned and stared aghast at the rapidly approaching building.

"Can't we do something?" Hala demanded.

"I'm open for suggestions," Pitt fired back. tie became quiet as he managed to dodge a ski class made up of young children by careening up a snowbank and curling around them. The main mass of skiers had either heard or witnessed the crash of the Mercedes and were galvanized into action at the sight and sound of the Cord. They quickly moved to the side of the I and stared in utter incomprehension as the Cord rocketed by.

Warnings of the runaway vehicles had been phoned from the upper end of the chair lift, and ski instructors had cleared most of the crowd away it-from the base area. There was a shallow, frozen pond to the right of the ski center. Pitt hoped to angle in that direction and run onto the ice until it cracked open sinking the car to the running boards and bringing it to an abrupt halt. The only problem was, the onlookers had unwittingly formed a corridor leading to the restaurant.

"I don't suppose there's a plan five," said Giordino, bracing himself for the collision.

"Sorry," said Pitt. "We're all sold out."

Lily and Hala watched, helpless and horror-stricken. Then they dived behind the division behind the chauffeur's seat, closed their eyes and clutched each other.

Pitt stiffened as they struck several long racks holding skis and poles.

The skis seemed to explode as they were sent flying through the air like toothpicks. for an instant the Cord seemed buried, but then it burst clear and bored up the concrete stairway, missing the restaurant but splintering through the wooden wall of the cocktail lounge.

The room had been emptied except for the piano player, who sat paralyzed at his keyboard, and a bartender, who elected discretion and frantically took refuge behind the bar just as the Cord exploded into the room and bulldozed its way through a sea of chairs and tables.

The Cord almost broke ugh the far wall and down a two-story drop.

Miraculously, its momentum finally spent, the mutilated car stopped short, leaving only its badly distorted front bumper protruding through the wall. The cocktail lounge looked like the recipient of an artillery barrage.

Except for the hiss of the radiator and the crackling of the overheated engine, an eerie silence filled the room. Pitt had banged his head against the windshield frame and blood was streaming down his face from a cut above the hairline. He looked over at Giordino, who sat staring at the wall as if turned to stone. Pitt turned and stared down at the women behind. They were wearing their best "are we still alive?" look, but seemed none the worse for wear.

The bartender was still huddled out of sight behind the bar, so Pitt turned to the piano player, who sat in a daze on a three-legged stool.

He was wearing a derby hat and the cigarette that dangled from the side of his mouth hadn't even lost its ash. His hands were poised above the keys, his body rigid as if he was locked in suspended animation. He stared, shaken, at the bloody apparition who insanely smiled back.

"Pardon me," sir Pitt asked politely. "Can you play 'Fly Me to the Moon'?"

October 19, 1991

Uxmal; Yucatdn

The stonework on the massive structure reflected an unearthly glow under the battery of multicolored floodlights. Blue dyed the walls of the great pyramid, while orange highlighted the Temple of the Magician on the top. Red spotlights swept up and down the wide staircase, giving the effect of cascading blood. Above, on the roof of the temple, a slender figure stood haloed in white.

Topiltzin spread his arms and open hands in a divine gesture and stared down at the hundred thousand upraised faces surrounding the temple/pyramid in the ancient Mayan city of Uxmal on the YucatAn peninsula. He ended his speech, as he always did, with a chant in the lilting Aztec tongue. The vast audience picked up the phrases and repeated them in unison.

"The strength and courage of our nation lies in us who will never be great or wealthy. We starve, we toil for leaders who are less noble and honest than ourselves. There can be no glory or greatness in Mexico until the false government is dead. No longer will we endure slavery.

The gods are gathering again to sacrifice the corrupt for the decent.

Their gift is a new civilization. We must accept it."

As the words died away, the colored lights slowly dimmed until only Topiltzin remained brightly lit. Then the white spotlights blinked out and he was gone.

Great bonfires were lit, and a truck caravan began handing out boxes of food to the grateful mass of people. Each container held the same amount of flour and canned goods, and a cartoonUe booklet, heavy on illustrations, light on captions. President De Lorenzo and his cabinet ministers were drawn to resemble demons being driven out of Mexico and into the open arms of an evil-looking Uncle Sam by Topiltzin and four major Aztec gods.

A list of instructions was also included, describing peaceful but effective methods of eroding government influence.

During the food handout, men and women worked the crowd, recruiting new followers for Topiltzin. The event was staged and oiled with the professionalism of a rock concert organization. Uxmal was only one stop from Toppling the campaign to subvert the government in Mexico City.

He preached to the masses only at the great stone centers of the past-Teotihuacdn, Monte Albdn, ?"ula and Chichdn It7A. He never appeared in Mexico's modern cities.

The people cheered Topiltzin and shouted his name. But he no longer heard them. The instant the spotlights went off, his bodyguards hustled him down a ladder on the backside of the pyramid and into a large truck and semitrailer. The engine was started and the truck, led by one car and followed by another slowly wound its way through the crowd until it met the high' way. Then it turned toward the Yucatdn state capital of Mdrida and picked up speed.

The interior of the trailer was expensively decorated and divided between a conference room and Topiltzin's private living quarters.

Topiltzin briefly discussed the next day's schedule with his close worshipers. When the meeting broke up, the truck was stopped, and everyone bid him a good night. The two cars collected the weary followers and drove them to hotels in MA-rida.

Once Topiltzin closed the door and shut off one world, he entered another.

He removed a feathered headdress and stripped off his white robe, revealing a pair of expensive slacks and a sports shirt underneath. He opened a hidden cabinet, removed a chilled bottle of Schramsberg Blanc de Blanc sparkling wine and swiftly extracted the cork. The first glass was downed for thirst, but the second was slowly savored.

Relaxed, Topiltzin entered a small cubicle containing communications equipment, punched in a numbered code on a holographic telephone and turned to face the center of the room. He sipped at the California champagne and waited. Slowly an indistinct figure began to materialize in three dimensions. At the same time, Topiltzin was visible thousands of miles away.

When the details cleared, another man sat on an ottoman couch and stared back at Topiltzin. His complexion was dark, and the thin brushed-back hair gleamed with oil. His eyes had a hard-jeweled gleam. The visitor was dressed in a silk paisley robe over pajamas. He studied Topiltzin's shirt and slacks for a moment and frowned when he noticed the glass in one hand.

"You live dangerously," he said sternly in American English. "Designer clothing, champagne-next it will be women."

Topiltzin laughed. "Don't tempt me. Acting like the Pope and wearing a bizan-e costume eighteen hours a day is bad enough without practicing celibacy."