John Wright - Titans of Chaos

Quentin seemed, not glad exactly, but relieved, that they were dead. "We don't need to worry about what happens when you introduce a self-replicating nonorganic life-form into terrestrial ecology," he murmured to me. I think he felt about Victor's mechanistic view of the world the way I felt about Colin's passion-driven mysticism. He liked Victor, but did not like Victor's universe.

Our splashdown point was in the Pacific, off the coast of Oregon. There are three assumptions I was operating on:

First, I assumed all sorts of air-traffic controllers, military radar stations, satellites from NASA and Red China, high-flying spy-planes, aircraft carriers, speedboats, and Polynesians in canoes saw us: They all wondered about the falling Greek trireme shining green and white and silver, miraculously unburned by reentry heat.

Second, I assumed the Olympian gods, no friends of mankind, erased records and memories and people as needed to make the happening into an Orwellian unhap-pening, the people into nonpersons.

Third, I assumed the Olympians followed the boat as it sailed leisurely toward Vanity Island. We, of course, winged our way in a menagerie of shapes to Catalina Island, and then to Los Angeles.

A cold north wind blew us past the coast until we saw below the hurrying clouds, the city lights, crawling lines of red traffic, a glitter of signs, a solemn glow from empty offices.

Boggin's letter had been written in his backwards-slanting, wide-looped style: My dear Miss Windrose,

If you have not overlooked the evident usefulness to your party of this note, and if my assumption is sound that you do not wish to be burdened by fates more than is natural, then you may take it as given that Lord Mavors has overstepped his authority in the matter of arranging your current dangerous circumstances. Nonetheless, being an Olympian, he can decree fate to his wishes, including his wish to involve boys and girls of tender years in affairs best left to professional military men.

Matters being as they are, I am confident that you would care to explore any avenue that might promise solution to this conundrum. There is but one god who can overrule even the war-god, even in matters of war. For obvious reasons, he is a fellow of cautious retiring temperament, so take care not to startle him upon your approach.

I have sent my regards ahead of you, that he awaits your coming.

Below this, an address and a name. The name was Valentine Archer. The address turned out to be a swank club on Santa Monica Boulevard.

It was night as we approached, which, I suppose, is the proper time to approach a Hollywood nightclub. (If they are open during the day, are they called dayclubs?) A line of limousines, like shining black jewels, threaded its way past the fountains, with here and there a red sports car for contrast.

Some were magnificently dressed: The men were in black tie and tails, the women in flimsy silks of sable or scarlet, or clinging short dresses of peach hue, which left their arms and long legs bare to the cool night air, the ladies had gems at their wrists and throats, or winking in their hair. Others looked like day laborers, longshoremen, or criminals, with tattered dungarees, wild dreadlocks, caps on backwards, T-shirts with tails untucked. I stared in fascination at one smiling woman whose teeth had been studded with diamonds.

There was an honest-to-goodness red carpet leading from the curb to the tall glass doors. The walls beyond were green and lit with olive lights, giving the building an unearthly look, and atop the central tower was, I kid you not, a giant-size Robin Hood hat, complete with five yards of feather.

The garish neon sign spelled out archer's bull's-eye. In smaller letters beneath: the place to score.

We had circled the block once and twice, trying to get a view from all angles, but other buildings, including a discotheque and a restaurant, blocked approach from the rear. Now we joined the line. The scent of perfume from many bodies hung in the air, and the tang of cigarette smoke, along with the endless mutter of traffic from the street, and the dimly heard banging of the music from the club. When the wind blew, droplets from the fountains fell among us, refreshing.

Colin nudged me. "Hey! There she is! I wrote her a letter. Why is there another guy with her? I thought I was supposed to have mind-control powers or something. What's the point of mind control if your girls date other guys? What's up with that?"

Vanity said, "She's not your girl because you wrote her a love letter."

Colin muttered, "If I had mind-control powers, she would be!"

Quentin said mildly, "I've seen that guy on TV. Funny, I thought he was done with computers."

I started to look "past" the walls of the building, but Vanity hissed, "Stop!"

"What?" I said.

"Your eyes turn red when you do that, and they seem to be, sort of, further away than your head is."

"Well..."

Colin said, "I'll handle it."

Without another word, he jumped over the velvet rope separating one part of the line from another. He was speaking to a young woman with long chestnut hair that brushed her hips. Her hair was longer than her dress, which almost did not make it all the way from her armpits to the top of her legs. Whatever he said, he was making her laugh, and I noticed he touched her bare shoulder when he spoke.

He was wearing her sunglasses when he returned and, without a word, he passed them to me.

"I could have just closed my eyes, you know," I said crossly. "I can see through my lids."

"Gross," opined Vanity.

In a higher dimension, where no mortals could see, I opened my hypersphere and jarred it to set it ringing. The concentric pressure waves of not-light radiated out in four directions, filling hypervolumes rather than volumes. In the sudden gleam, I looked.

"The buildings are interconnected. Two dance floors with lights and lasers. A bar. Basement rooms contain refrigerators, wine cellars. There are offices on the top floor."

"Can you see through lead? Look for a safe," suggested Colin.

"Are you an idiot? I am looking over the sides of things. It doesn't matter what they're made of."

"Anyone look like a god?" Colin asked. "They have ichor inside 'em instead of blood."

Victor said, "Leader, I just noticed the electromagnetic aura concentrated here dropped. The signatures are consistent with the standing-wave phenomena Quentin manipulates. Magic."

"Dropped, meaning... ?"

"Something just went away, or reduced output. Doesn't look like a threat."

I winced and bit my lip. In the higher plane, I folded my hypersphere back into a disk, feeling foolish. "Boggin warned me to be cautious. I might have scared Archer away. If he sees in the fourth dimension, he just saw a spotlight passing over his house here, or if he has a Phaeacian...

Vanity, is anyone looking at us?"

Vanity was signing an autograph for a young man who mistook her for Lindsay Lohan. He was trying to wheedle her phone number from her when Quentin stepped between the two, letting his walking stick rap threateningly near the boy's feet and allowing her to disengage.