“Why the bathing suit? Hot in there?”
“Hot for Bert if they think he’s smuggling stuff out,”
said Hsi. “You been here long enough to see the Monument yet?”
Chandler shook his head, then grimaced. “You mean up about three blocks that way? Where the people?”
“That’s right,” said Hsi, “three blocks mauka from here, where the people Where the people are serving as a very good object lesson to you and me. About a dozen there, right? Small for this time of year, Chandler. Usually there are more. Notice anything special about them?”
“They were butchered! Some of them looked like their legs had been burned right off. Their eyes gouged out, their faces” Chandler brought up sharply. It had been bad enough looking at those wretched, writhing semi-cadavers; he did not want to talk about them.
The parts man nodded seriously. “Sometimes there are more, and sometimes they’re worse hurt than that. Have you got any idea how they get that way? They do it to themselves, that’s how. My own brother was out there for a week, last Statehood Day. He jumped feet first into a concrete mixer, and it took him seven days to die after I put him on my shoulder and carried him out there. I didn’t like it, of course, but I didn’t exactly have any choice; I wasn’t running my own body at the time. Neither was he when he jumped. He was made to do it, because he used to have Bert’s job and he thought he’d take a little shortwave set home. Like I said, you don’t want to cheat on the Exec because it doesn’t pay.”
“But what am I supposed to”
Hsi held up his hand. “Don’t ask me how to keep out of that Monument bunch. Chandler. I don’t know. Do what you’re told and don’t do anything you aren’t told to do; that is the whole of the law. Now do me a favor and get out of here so I can pack up these other orders.”
BY THE morning of the fourth day on the island of Oahu Chandler had learned enough of the ropes to have signed a money-chit at the Tripler currency office against Koitska’s account. That was about all he had learned, except for a few practical matters like where meals were served and the location of the fresh-water swimming pool at the back of the grounds. He was killing time using the pool when, in the middle of a jackknife from the ten-foot board, he felt himself seized.
He sprawled into the water with a hard splashing slap, threshed about and, as he came to the surface, found himself giggling. “Sorry, dear,” he apologized to himself, “but we don’t carry our weight in the same places, you know. Get that square-what’sit thingamajig, like an angel, and meet me in front by the flagpole in twenty minutes.”
He recognized the voice, even if his own vocal chords had made it. It was the girl who had driven him back from the interview with Koitska, the one who had casually announced she had saved his life at his hoaxing trial.
Chandler swam to the side of the pool and toweled as he trotted toward his quarters. She was from Koitska now, of course; which meant that his “test” was about to be graded.
Quickly though’ he dressed, she was there before him, standing beside a low-slung sports car and chatting with one of the groundskeepers. An armful of leis dangled beside her, and although she wore the coronet which was evidence of her status the gardener did not seem to fear her.
“Come along, love,” she called to Chandler. “Koitska wants your thingummy. Chuck it in the trunk if it’ll fit, and we’ll head waikiki wikiwiki. Don’t I say that nicely?
But I only fool the malihinis, like you.”
She chattered away as the little car dug its rear wheels into the drive and leaped around the green and out the gate.
The wind howled by them, the sun was bright, the sky was piercingly blue. Riding next to this beautiful girl, it was hard for Chandler to remember that she was one of those who had destroyed his world. It was a terrible thing to have so much hatred and to feel it so diluted.
Not even Koitska seemed a terrible enough enemy to accept such a load of detestation; it was hate without an object, and it recoiled on the hater, leaving him turgid and constrained. If he could not hate his onetime friend Jack Souther for defiling and destroying his wife, it was almost ~
as hard to hate Souther’s anonymous possessor.
It could have been Koitska. It could even have been this girl by his side. In the strange, cruel fantasies with which the Execs indulged themselves it was likely enough that they would sometimes assume the body, and the role, of the opposite sex. Why not? Strange, ruthless morality; it was impossible to evaluate it by any human standards.
It was also impossible to think of hatred with her beside him. They soared around Honolulu on a broad express-way and paralleled the beach toward Waikiki. “Look, dear. Diamond Head! Mustn’t ignore itvery bad form like not going to see the night-blooming cereus at the Punahou School. You haven’t missed that, have you?”
“I’m afraid I have”
“Rosalie. Call me Rosalie, dear.”
“I’m afraid I have, Rosalie.” For some reason the name sounded familiar.
“Shame, oh, shame! They say it was wonderful night before last. Looks like cactus to me, but”
Chandler’s mental processes had worked to a conclu-sion. “Rosalie Pan.”’ he said. “Now I know!”
“Know what? You mean” she swerved around a motionless Buick, parked arrogantly five feet from the curb”you mean you didn’t know who I was? And to think I used to pay my press agent five thousand a year.”
Chandler said, smiling, and almost relaxed, “I’m sorry, but musical comedies weren’t my strong point. Let’s see, wasn’t there something about you disappearing”
She nodded, glancing at him. “There sure was, dear. I almost froze to death getting out to that airport. Of course, it was worth it, I found out later. If I hadn’t been took, as they say, I would’ve been dead. You remember what happened to New York about an hour later.”
“You must have had some friends,” Chandler began, and let it trail off.
So did the girl. After a moment she began to talk about the scenery again, pointing out the brick-red and purple bougainvillea, describing how the shoreline had looked before they’d “cleaned it up.” “Oh, thousands and thousands of the komeliest little houses. You’d have hated it.
So we have done at least a few good things, anyway,” she said complacently, and began gently to probe into his life story. But as they stopped before the TWA Message Center, a few moments later, she said, “Well, love, it’s been fun. Go on in; Koitska’s expecting you. I’ll see you later.”
And her eyes added gently: / hope.
Chandler got out of the car, turned … and felt himself taken. His voice said briskly, “Zdrastvoi, Rosie. Gd’yeh Koitska?”
Unsurprised the girl pointed to the building. “Kto gowrit?”
Chandler’s voice answered in Enghsh, with a faint Ox-ford accent: “It is I, Rosie, Kalman. Where’s Koitska’s tinkertoy? Oh, all right, thanks; I’ll just pick it up and take it in. Hope it’s all right. I must say one wearies of breaking in these new fellows.”
Chandler’s body ambled around to the trunk of the car, took out the square-wave generator on its breadboard base and slouched into the building. It called ahead in the same language and was answered wheezily from above: Koitska. “Zdrastvoi. Kto, Katman? Iditye suda ko mneh.”
“Konyekhno!” cried Chandler’s voice and he was carried in and up to where the fat man lounged in a leather-upholstered wheelchair. There was a conversation, long minutes of it, while the two men poked at the generator.
Chandler did not understand a word until he spoke to himself: “Youwhat’s your name.”
“Chandler,” Koitska filled in for him.
“You, Chandler. D’you know anything at all about submillimeter microwaves? Tell Koitska.” Briefly Chandler felt himself freelong enough to nod; then he was possessed again, and Koitska repeated the nod. “Good, then.
Tell Koitska what experience you’ve had.”
Again free, Chandler said, “Not a great deal of actual experience. I worked with a group at Cal Tech on spectro-scopic measurements in the million megacycle range. I didn’t design any of the equipment, though I helped put it together.” He recited his degrees until Koitska raised a languid hand.
“Shto, I don’t care. If ve gave you diagrams you could build?”
“Certainly, if I had the equipment. I suppose I’d need”
But Koitska stopped him again. “I know vot you need,”
he said damply. “Enough. Ve see.” In a moment Chandler was taken again, and his voice and Koitska’s debated the matter for a while, until Koitska shrugged, turned his head and seemed to go to sleep.