plushly upholstered in emerald-green lizard skin, the ambiance was even
more luxurious than in the passenger compartment of the Lear. The
chopper also offered a more entertaining collection of reading matter
than had been available in the jet, including that day’s editions of The
Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety plus the most recent issues of
Premier, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, Forbes, Fortune, GQ, Spy, The
Ecological Watch Society Journal, and Bon Appetit.
To occupy his time during the flight, Clocker produced another Star Trek
novel, which he had purchased in the gift shop at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel
before they checked out. Oslett was convinced that the spread of such
fantastical literature into the tastefully appointed and elegantly
managed shops of a five-star resort–formerly the kind of place that
catered to the cultured and powerful, not merely the rich–was as
alarming a sign of society’s imminent collapse as could be found, on a
par with heavily armed crack-cocaine dealers selling their wares in
schoolyards.
As the JetRanger cruised north through Sequoia National Park, King’s
Canyon National Park, along the western flank of the Sierra Nevadas, and
eventually directly into those magnificent mountains, Oslett kept moving
from one side of the helicopter to the other, determined not to miss any
of the stunning scenery. The vastnesses beneath him were so sparsely
populated, they might have been expected to trigger his nearly
agoraphobic aversion to open spaces and rural landscapes. But the
terrain changed by the minute, presenting new marvels and
ever-more-splendid vistas at a sufficiently swift pace to entertain him.
Furthermore, the JetRanger flew at a much lower altitude than the Lear,
giving Oslett a sense of headlong forward motion. The interior of the
helicopter was noisier and shaken by more vibrations than the passenger
compartment of the jet, which he also liked.
Twice he called Clocker’s attention to the natural wonders just beyond
the windows. Both times the big man merely glanced at the scenery for a
second or two, and then without comment returned his attention to
Six-Breasted Amazon Women of the Slime Planet.
“What’s so damned interesting in that book?” Oslett finally demanded,
dropping into the seat directly opposite Clocker.
Finishing the paragraph he was reading before looking up, Clocker said,
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because even after I told you what I find interesting in this book, it
wouldn’t be interesting to you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Clocker shrugged. “I don’t think you’d like it.”
“I hate novels, always have, especially science fiction and crap like
that.”
“There you go.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that you’ve confirmed what I said–you don’t like this sort of
thing.
“Of course I don’t.”
Clocker shrugged again. “There you go.”
Oslett glared at him. Gesturing at the book, he said, “How can you like
that trash?”
“We exist in parallel universes,” Clocker said.
“What?”
“In yours, Johannes Gutenberg invented the pinball machine.”
“Who?”
“In yours, perhaps the most famous guy named Faulkner was a virtuoso on
the banjo.”
Scowling, Oslett said, “None of this crap is making any sense to me.”
“There you go,” Clocker said, and returned his attention to Kirk and
Spock in Love, or whatever the epic was titled.
Oslett wanted to kill him. This time, in Karl Clocker’s cryptic patter,
he detected a subtly expressed but deeply felt disrespect.
He wanted to snatch off the big man’s stupid hat and set fire to it,
duck feather and all, grab the paperback out of his hands and tear it to
pieces, and pump maybe a thousand rounds of hollow-point 9mm ammo into
him at extreme close range.
Instead, he turned to the window to be soothed by the majesty of
mountain peaks and forests seen at a hundred and fifty miles an hour.
Above them, clouds were moving in from the northwest. Plump and gray,
they settled like fleets of dirigibles toward the mountain tops.
At 1:10 Tuesday afternoon, at an airfield outside of Mammoth Lakes, they
were met by a Network representative named Alec Spicer. He was waiting
on the blacktop near the concrete-block and corrugated steel hangar
where they set down.
Though he knew their real names and was, therefore, at least of a rank