Da Vincelleo was sitting behind a large desk with a Cellini-exquisite
reading lamp at his elbow. He was clad only in a pair of businessman's
electric-blue shorts, and a scarlet beret. His forehead was lofty
and square, a beautifully sculptured Greek temple dedicated to
Thought. But the face that hung beneath was a fox's, and the eyes were
twin furnaces, red-rimmed and smouldering. Sometimes beauty burned
phoenix-like in them--more often, dollar bills.
Da Vincelleo barely had time to swing the tape-thrower back into its
cabinet. He had just finished reviewing a case history of Revanche's
life. His agents had done a superb job on Revanche. He knew more about
the great financier than that complex man himself, for included in the
report were the opinions of ten top-flight psychiatrists. Despite the
fact that each of the reports was contradictory, the master of Bioid
felt he had an excellent looksee into his rival's psyche.
The Messinan had painstakingly studied Revanche's psych index as a
child. He knew that the formative years counted most, for the child was
father to the man. Understanding what kind of youngster Revanche had
been gave him an advantage from the start.
Therefore, when the magnate bounced bristling into his office, he
remained seated, sure that he had the upper hand.
B. T. faced him for a moment without greeting him, giving him the
famous "once-over," the scanning that had made strong men shake. His
eyes were as hard as a Bioid's. His nose had been heavily powdered,
so that the tiny line which circled its tip would be concealed. The
cleavage betrayed the artificiality of the tip, which was made of
plastiskin.
Revanche let his eyes crawl up and down his host like measuring
worms. Then, abruptly, frankly, he came to the point of his visit.
His request, and the whirlwind fury with which he thrust it, shook Da
Vincelleo out of his sureness, brought him to his feet with a gasp.
"Di', man!" he muttered hoarsely. "What're you saying? That could only
mean...."
"Da Vincelleo!" barked Revanche. "Da Vincelleo's genius in its full
flowering!" He coughed the words out of the side of his mouth, without
removing his cigar.
"My agents report you're hard as eternalloy," he went on, without
giving the other a chance to reply. "They say you have the artistic
genius of a Buonarotti, the ruthless ambition of a Borgia, and the
depraved humor of a Caligula!"
The Messinan did not flinch. He looked pleased, as well he might, for
Revanche meant the epithets as compliments.
"You'll stop at nothing to get what you want," the financier
emphasized. "It was your remorseless drive and executive ability that
made you build Bioid with only a servoshoeshiner as a start. And you
know as well as I do that you stole the money to buy the servo from
your blind and penniless mother!"
Da Vincelleo blinked. He had thought no one had known about that. But
after all, what did he care? His mother had been paid back. He had
buried her in a beautifully designed gold coffin.
"My psychologists say one of your ambitions is to become the richest,
most powerful man in the System. Unfortunately, I'm in your way. Well,
if you'll do as I ask I'm prepared to turn over my entire holdings to
you!"
Da Vincelleo's rusty-brown eyes flaked with red desire. "How could
I?" he countered. "If I tried it, I'd have to get out of the System.
Every free city, every planet would band together to attack me. The
universe would howl for my blood. What's wrong with you, Revanche, that
you can't see that? Are you seriously trying to get me killed--or is
it your contempt for the creative intellect which prevents you from
realizing how the dogs would howl?"
"Let them howl!" Revanche countered. "I'll sign over my entire fortune
to you. I'll make you president and owner of my company. We'll draw
up a contract which will make me head of Bioid. That way, I'll bear
all the responsibility. All, do you hear? You'll actually be directing
operations, but you'll be legally blameless. Do you understand?
Immediately after the job is finished, Bioid reverts to you."
"And you, Revanche. What are _you_ going to do?"
"As soon as my revenge is satisfied, I'll take my yacht to the
newly-discovered planet of Alpha Draconis. I'll be beyond extradition
there. I'll start business all over again. It's a raw planet that
offers a challenge to me this tame System has lost."
"Well, I don't know. I'll need time to think."
Revanche growled, then barked: "My agents say you're famous for making
electronicfast decisions. Tell me right now--or I go to your competitor.
"Think, man," he went on quickly. "You're an engineer, and an
artist. It will be the culmination, the masterpiece of your career.
Historically speaking, Buonarotti or Nero won't be able to hold a
candle to you. And you'll also be the richest man under the sun."
Da Vincelleo's eyes swiveled back and forth. Revanche could see the
tubes glowing, the switches clickclacking on the tremendous grey board,
inside that Greek temple of a forehead. But, he reflected, somewhat
hypocritically, it was a temple that needed a whip to drive out the
moneychangers.
The Messinan made up his mind suddenly. "Done! I'll get my lawyers, and
we'll make the transfer at once. I'll conduct operations sub rosa.
That's best."
He sat down at his desk, and ran his fingers over several electronic
"eyes" and said, "Your hometown is a free city, isn't it?"
"Yes, it has no contracts with the other cities. No alliances. It's
a non-co-op all the way. It exists by its smug self-righteous little
self!"
"And it refuses to use modern-day mechanisms. Right?"
"Yes. It has reverted back to the horse-and-buggy days. Claims
machines take the soul out of a man. Yet, and get this--here's
the irony of their set-up. Despising machinery, they're still run
by the most mechanical religion, and the most mechanical state,
politically-speaking, imaginable. They think the devil invented the
steam engine!
"Yet each soul in Dafess City is destined from birth to a certain rank
in society. Destined to a certain job, a certain mate, and a certain
place in Heaven! They've got a book which they call the Celestial
Blueprint. It outlines the future in veiled, allegorical terms. But the
Dafesses take every word literally, the letter being their spirit."
"Dafesses?" asked the artist, pretending ignorance.
"After Multum Bonum Dafess, founder and prophet. Anyway, the Blueprint
foretells the end of the world, when the inhabitants of Dafess will
be saved, and the rest of the world will go to a nice little place
reserved for them, called Rejectus.
"Rejectus is furnished with all the comforts of home--with hot water,
baked meats, specially-built furniture, highly-trained personal
attendants. You get me. Only the Dafesses, the Truncated, will be
left untouched after the Day of Judgment. The Untruncated will go to
Rejectus."
Da Vincelleo shifted uncomfortably in his chair. When he was a boy,
his loving mother had described just such a place as his ultimate
destination--if he didn't mend his ways. And, though he had scoffed,
his unconscious knew how to pitchfork certain obscure uncalloused
figments into his conscious mind.
"You really hate them, don't you?" he gibed.
"I hate them because they're so hateful," Revanche replied. "You would,
too, if you were destined to be looked down on all your life by people
you knew were stupid. Or if you fell in love, and you were forbidden to
marry because the girl wasn't slated by the Elders to be your mate. Or
if you were forced to marry some fat cow with the brains of a magpie
because the Elders interpreted a certain passage in the Blueprint as
referring to you."
His voice grew strained. "That's not all! When I ran away, and made my
pile, and could have any woman I wanted, I found I couldn't endure any
woman not from my hometown. Do you want to know why?" He touched his
artificial nosetip, his voice soaring in a new scream.
"I'll tell you why! From infanthood I was drilled in the idea that
only women with truncated noses were pure, glorious and beautiful.
Until I ran away, I never saw a woman with a normal nose. Never! And
now, even though I've disguised the mark of my native community, and
know, rationally, that untruncated women _are_ beautiful, my nerves, my
stomach, won't admit it. I think Miss Solar System of 2052 is ugly!
"I could have her anytime, anywhere, understand? But I can't endure
her, or any of her sisters. They all look misshapen. And you know what,
Da Vincelleo? Despite all my money, I can't get a single beautiful
woman in the System to cut off the tip of her nose for me. Not one! And
I've met plenty who've said they loved me, and would die for me. But
they don't love me enough to snip off the tips of their money-sniffing
little noses. Oh, no!"
For an instant there was mute agony in his stare. "Just why do you
think I've fought my way up until I'm sitting on top of Sol? So I can
take it easy, and play golf or go staryachting? Not B. T. Revanche!
"It's because I hate the guts of every soul in Dafess, every beakcut
heaven-elected who won't touch a machine because it might spot him
with unholy oil, yet is himself a machine of the lowest type! I'm going
to give them the most ironic justification of their creed.
"Funny thing, though," Revanche added, as if it were still puzzling
him. "A _statue_ of a beautiful woman without a truncated nose does
seem to stir me a little. Like that one in the slogan corridor. It
shows my basic instincts are still biologically normal."
Da Vincelleo sighed in mock sympathy and began running his fingers
over the "eyes" that would summon the chiefs of his staffs. He knew
that what he had in mind was going to be his masterwork. The secret
excavation beneath Dafess would in itself tax his resources. As he
blocked in the calls, his gaze fell upon a romantic historical novel on
the desk before him, _Renfrew Rides Again For The Mounted_.
His rocketing brain must have collided with a humorous thought, for his
foxlike lips turned up even more. So Revanche wanted irony, did he? And
poetic justice?
He looked at the financier but Revanche failed to notice the smile. He
was still raving.