Even though it was late at night and Kenji was very tired, he still could not sleep. The events of the day kept forcing themselves into his mind and exciting him again. Next to him in the small double bed Nai Buatong Wata-nabe was very much aware that her husband was awake.
“You’re absolutely certain mat we were seeing the real Nicole des Jardins, aren’t you, dear?” Nai said softly after Kenji had turned over for the umpteenth time.
“Yes,” said Kenji. “But Macmillan isn’t. He demanded that I make that statement about the possibility of a perfect copy. He minks everything in the video is a fake.”
“After our discussion this afternoon,” Nai said following a short pause, “I was able to recall all the brouhaha about Nicole and King Henry from seven years ago. It was in most of the personality magazines. But I’ve forgotten something. How was it established for certain that Henry
266 ARTHUR C. CLARKE AND GENTRY LEE
was Genevieve’s father? Wasn’t the king already dead? And doesn’t the royal family in England keep its genome information private and secret?”
“Lopez used the genomes belonging to the parents and siblings of people who had married into the royal family. Then, employing a data correlation technique that he himself had invented, Dr. Lopez showed that Henry, who was still the Prince of Wales during the 2184 Olympics, was more than three times as likely as any other person present in Los Angeles at the time to have been the father of Nicole’s baby. After Darren Higgins admitted on his deathbed that Henry and Nicole had spent one night together during the Olympics, the royal family allowed a genetic specialist access to their genome data base. The expert concluded, beyond any reasonable doubt, mat Henry was Genevieve’s father.”
“What an amazing woman,” Nai said.
“She was indeed,” Kenji replied. “But what prompted you to make that comment right now?”
“As a woman,” Nai said, “I admire her protecting her secret and raising her princess herself as much or more man any of her other accomplishments.”
8
Eponine located Kimberly in the corner of the smoky
room and sat down beside her. She accepted the cigarette her friend offered, lit it, and inhaled deeply.
“Ah, what pleasure,” Eponine said softly as she expelled the smoke in small circles and watched it rise slowly toward the ventilators.
“As much as you love tobacco and nicotine,” Kimberly said in a whisper from beside her, “I know that you would absolutely adore kokomo.” The American girl took a drag from her cigarette. “I know that you don’t believe me, Eponine, but it’s actually better than sex.”
“Not for me, mon came” Eponine replied in a warm, friendly tone. “I have enough vices. And I could never, never control something that was truly better than sex.”
Kimberiy Henderson laughed heartily, her long blond locks bouncing on her shoulders. She was twenty-four, a year younger than her French colleague. The two of them were sitting in the smoking lounge attached to the women’s shower. It was a tiny square room, no more than four
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meters on a side, in which a dozen women were currently standing or sitting, all smoking cigarettes.
“This room reminds me of the back room at Willie’s in Evergreen, just outside of Denver,” Kimberly said. “While a hundred or more cowboys and rednecks would be dancing and drinking in the main bar, eight or ten of us would retreat into Willie’s sacred ‘office,’ as he called it, and fuck ourselves completely up with kokomo.”
Eponine stared through the haze at Kimberly. “At least in this lounge we aren’t harassed by the men. They are absolutely impossible, even worse than the guys in the detention village at Bourges. These characters must think about nothing but sex all day long.”
“That’s understandable,” Kimberly replied with another laugh. “They’re not being closely watched for the first time in years. When Toshio’s men sabotaged all the hidden monitors, everybody was suddenly free.” She glanced over at Eponine. “But there’s a grim side as well. There were two more rapes today, one right in the coed recreation area.”
Kimberly finished one cigarette and immediately lit another. “You need someone to protect you,” she continued, “and I know Walter would love the job. Because of Toshio, the cons have mostly stopped trying to hit on me. My main concern now is the ISA guards—they think they’re hot shit. Only that gorgeous Italian hunk, Marcello something or other, interests me at all. He told me yesterday that he would make me ‘moan with pleasure’ if I would just join him in his room. I was sorely tempted until I saw one of Toshio’s thugs watching the conversation.”
Eponine also lit another cigarette. She knew it was ridiculous to smoke them one after another, but the passengers on the Santa Maria were only allowed three half-hour “breaks” each day and smoking was not permitted in the cramped living quarters. While Kimberly was momentarily sidetracked by a question from a burly woman in her early forties, Eponine thought about the first few days after they had left die Earth. Our third day out, she recalled, Naka-mura sent his go-between to see me. I must have been his first choice.
The huge Japanese man, a sumo wrestler before he be-
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269
came a bill collector for a notorious gambling ring, had bowed formally when he had approached her in the coed lounge. “Miss Eponine,” he had said in heavily accented English, “my friend Nakamura-san has asked me to tell you that he finds you very beautiful. He offers you complete protection in exchange for your companionship and an occasional favor of pleasure.”
The offer was attractive in some ways, Eponine remembered, and not unlike what most of the decent-looking women on the Santa Maria have eventually accepted. I knew at the time that Nakamura would be very powerful. But I didn’t like his coldness. And I mistakenly thought that I could remain free.
“Ready?” Kimberly repeated. Eponine snapped out of her reverie. She stubbed out her cigarette and walked with her friend into the dressing room. While they were taking off their clothes and preparing to shower, at least a dozen eyes feasted on their magnificent bodies.
“Doesn’t it bother you,” Eponine asked when they were standing side by side in the shower, “to have these dykes devouring you with their eyes?”
“Nope,” Kimberly replied. “In a way I enjoy it. It’s certainly flattering. There are not many women here who look like we do. It arouses me to have them stare so hungrily at me.”
Eponine rinsed the soapy lamer off her full, firm breasts and- leaned over to Kimberly. “Then you have had sex with another woman?” she asked.
“Of course,” Kimberly replied with another deep laugh. “Haven’t you?”
Without waiting for a response, the American woman launched into one of her stories. “My first dealer in Denver was a dyke. I was only eighteen and absolutely perfect from head to toe. When Loretta first saw me naked, she thought she’d died and gone to heaven. I had just entered nursing school and couldn’t afford much dope. So I made a deal with Loretta. She could fuck me, but only if she kept me supplied with cocaine. Our affair lasted almost six months. By then I was dealing on my own and, besides, I had fallen in love with the Magician.
“Poor Loretta,” Kimberly continued as she and Epo-
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nine dried each other’s backs in the lavatory that adjoined the shower. “She was brokenhearted. She offered me everything, including her client list. Eventually she became a nuisance, so I undercut her and had the Magician force her out of Denver.”
Kimberly saw a fleeting look of disapproval on Epo-nine’s face. “Jesus,” she said, “there you go again, turning moral on me. You’re the softest goddamn murderer I have ever met. Sometimes you remind me of all the goody two-shoes in my high school graduating class.”
As they were about to leave the shower area, a tiny black girl with her hair in braids came up behind them. “You Kimberly Henderson?” she said.
“Yes.” Kimberly nodded, turning around. “But why—”
“Is your man the king Jap Nakamura?” the girl interrupted.
Kimberly did not reply.
“If so, I need your help,” the black girl continued.
“What do you want?” Kimberly asked in a noncommittal tone.
The girl suddenly broke into tears. “My man Reuben didn’t mean nothing. He was drunk on that shit the guards sell. He didn’t know he was talking to the king Jap.”
Kimberly waited for the girl to dry her tears. “What have you got?” she whispered.
“Three knives and two joints of dynamite kokomo,” the black girl replied in the same soft whisper.
“Bring them to me,” Kimberly said with a smile. “And I’ll arrange a time for your Reuben to apologize to Mr. Nakamura.”
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