John Wright - Fugitives of Chaos

"What is your goal?"

"I have found my calling in life. It is to spend as much time in a Jacuzzi as possible. Like Socrates, I want to live a life of reflection and virtue. I just want to be warm and wet while I am doing it."

"Very Epicurean of you. You have another two days of such a life. I assume you have thought beyond that point?"

Actually, I hadn't. Why does Victor always make me feel so stupid?

"Two days… ?" I said.

"Well," he said sardonically, "this trip is a reckless expense, and we are almost drained of the absurd amount of money Mr. ap Cymru gave you. I did not know it at the time when Vanity picked this boat to hitch a hike on; I would have objected. We should have found a tramp steamer."

"What's wrong with this boat?"

"Nothing, were we not paupers. I am sure our enemies have not found us simply because their brains would not accept the idea that the first thing we would do with the only real money we have ever had in our lives is blow it all on one pleasure cruise."

"Are we out of money? Nearly out or all out?"

Victor let out a loud laugh when I asked that. He actually slapped his knee and laughed.

I said, "What is so funny!"

Victor pressed his lips together to smother his laugh, but his eyes still twinkled. "Yes, Amelia, we are nearly out of money."

"Was I supposed to know that? You are the one keeping the envelope in your jacket!"

"Actually, I altered my skin to make a watertight pocket, like a marsupial. I am keeping the envelope in my pouch. And yes, you were supposed to know that. I assumed you could do math."

"What are we going to do?" I asked, eyes wide.

He smiled. "Get jobs."

"Jobs?"

"I am afraid that something as glamorous as the film actress career Vanity has her heart set on might attract the attention of the enemy. It is, of course, her risk to take. I was experimenting last night with using a molecular sieve method to collect gold out of seawater. That might tide us over until I can find a more promising career."

I said, "I don't think you can own gold in America. Franklin Roosevelt took it all away, or something."

"Hmph. And it advertises itself as a free country. It is supposed to be this great paragon of the free market. The subjects there cannot own money?"

"They have paper money."

"An oxymoron. Paper is IOUs never intended to be repaid. Only metal is money. Well, I will have to find something else to do."

"Like what?"

"Dig ditches. Draw water. Chop wood. Tote barges. Lift bales. You know: work. The capacity to move mass over distance. Work."

"Hmmm… Doesn't sound very appealing. Is there any job I can get that does not require moving out of the Jacuzzi?"

"I can think of two, playwright and Playboy model, depending on whether you are willing to have people photograph you in the water as you bathe. Come on, Amelia. We are not really British. We do not have to look down our noses at honest labor."

"Digging ditches is not my idea of a bright future."

"Those who work are free. There are only three categories of nonproductive people: babies, beggars, robbers."

"I still do not want to dig ditches."

"What do you want, then?"

"I want to be the first girl on Mars."

"Without moving out of the Jacuzzi? That will be a feat"

"How much money is left?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I want to spend some of it before it is gone."

He laughed. I was beginning to think I liked Victor better before he was so happy and at ease.

I said crossly, "I have not ever seen it! I have not spent a dime. Vanity was in Paris; I haven't bought anything in the shops here on the ship. I didn't even rent the skates we are wearing; you did! Don't I get a cut of the money?"

His flesh rippled, and a pair of lips formed near his belly button. He stuck his hand into the lips and pulled out an envelope.

He passed it to me. "It's all yours."

I said, "What? Only one fifth of this is mine "

Victor said, "How do you figure that? You got it from ap Cymru. None of us did anything to get it. As far as I am concerned, that is your property. I was only holding it because you handed it to me to count when we were standing on the dock, and then Mr. Glum attacked." Victor could count faster than any of us.

I said, "Well, I'm ceding it to the group. Four fifths of it. No, I don't even need that much. I guess we'll have to rent a room in New York when we get there, won't we?"

Victor jumped to his feet, slamming his hand down atop the envelope. He stood, looming over the table.

I shrieked and flinched backwards in my chair, shouting, "What? What? What is it?"

But he was not looking at me. Face blank, his eyes were scanning left and right, right and left.

He said, "There is something invisible in the immediate area. I hope it is Colin. Colin… ?"

No answer.

Victor opened his third eye. The metal orb, shining, came out of a seam on his forehead. Blue sparks began to glow in his depth, brighter and brighter as the nested spheres began to align their irises, one after another…

I looked in the fourth dimension. A web of spider-lines? No; it wasn't there. But had I seen it for a moment?

Colin appeared, right hand curled around his left index finger, twisting the ring collet-out. "Okay, okay, smart guy. You got me. Put your eyeball away before someone sees it."

Victor closed his third eye. "Don't play tricks. We are about to be attacked by people who want to kill us rather than capture us."

"Sorry. But you guys are the ones who told me not to go around attracting attention. On account of I don't have a ticket, see?"

"By not attracting attention, I meant stop pulling the ice sculptures of mermaids off the buffet tables and waltzing with them."

"My date walked out on me. Are we going to divvy up the loot?"

"If Amelia says it is okay. Myself, I think we should pool our resources. I doubt if this is enough to rent a room, even a poor one."

"Oh, come on!" said Colin. "America is a rich country. They are not going to let people starve there! I mean, Margaret Thatcher's not running the place, is she?"

I put my hand on Victor's hand, saying, "I'll be happy to dig ditches with you, if you want, Victor.

Anything is better than being a baby, a bum, or a robber." I favored Colin with a dark look.

Victor said, "How long were you listening, Colin?"

Colin said, "Keeping secrets from me? I heard you guys talking about not being able to go back home."

Colin returned my dark look and made it darker. "Or was this one of those mixed doubles things, where the fifth guy from the hotbox doesn't get to play?"

I said, "Maybe absolute power does corrupt absolutely. What are you going to do for a living when we get to the States? Be the world's greatest pickpocket? Walk through girls' shower rooms? Strangle the president?"

"With great power comes great responsibility," said Colin earnestly. "I will dedicate myself to ridding the world of evil! I will use my great powers of invisibility to fight crime! Maybe I can catch the Catwoman. I sure as hell am not going to end up waiting tables for tips. That is your future, you know, Dark Mistress.

Or should I say: Dark Waitress."

"I don't think so," I said haughtily.

Colin grinned one of his slimier grins. "Yeah? What marketable skills did Boggin teach you in that fine school we just fled from?"

I stared at him in silence, unable to think of anything to say.

Colin said, "Maybe you can recite the Iliad in Greek on a street corner and leave a hat out for people to drop dimes into. 'Of wrath sing, oh goddess…!'"

"We learned other things…" I said, pouting.

"Astronomy? There is big money in calculating the orbit of Jupiter using Ptolemy's Almagest these days.