"About time you woke up," she said. "Do you know you snore?"
"I can't help it," he told her. Then, coming fully awake, "How the devil
did you get _here_?"
"I walked," she informed him succinctly. She stood up, her magnificent
figure silhouetted against the light. "Better get dressed--your duds are
over there." She nodded toward a walldrobe. "I'll wait in the bathroom."
She breezed out.
When he looked at the clothing he was to wear he sensed that Nina had
selected it for him. It was a little brighter in color, a little more
daring in cut, than what he would have picked for himself.
Nina was placing jewels carefully in her hair, which she had released to
form a sleek halo around her magnificent head, when he entered the
bathroom. A small palisade of glittering jeweled hairpins protruded from
her mouth. She had shed her demure bolo and stood revealed in glittering
black bodice-bra and evening skirt-clout.
After placing the last jewel in her hair she swung about and said,
"There--how do I look?"
"Gorgeous," he told her.
"You look a bit dull," she said. She dug a box out of a travel-bag
placed in a corner of the room. "Here," she said. "Put this on--left
side."
"This" proved to be a magnificent sunburst decoration, a glittering
diamond-encrusted star. He said, "What is it?"
"Grand Order of the United Worlds--a fine diplomat you are! I picked it
up for you this afternoon before flying here. Just stick it on...." She
came over, took it from him, pressed it firmly against his bolo till the
suction grips caught hold.
He put his arms around her. She let him hold her a moment, then pushed
clear in the immemorial gesture of women dressed for a party who do not
want to have their grooming mussed. "Not now," she said. "We'll have
plenty of time."
"Not for what's worrying _me_," he said. "Nina, I've got to put Giac
through its paces in front of the whole world tomorrow. And I don't know
what to ask it. I've got a blind spot where symbolic logic is
concerned."
"Don't fret yourself," said the girl calmly. "I'm not worried about
_you_. Not after what you've managed to do to all the other computers
you've faced. Come on--we're having dinner with the president."
"Who the hell _are_ you anyway?" he asked her bluntly. "You don't even
look the same."
She laughed. "I should _hope_ not," she told him. "After all, I could
hardly grace the president's table as a mere UW secretary--_or_ as a New
Orleans top model. Come on!"
He went--and got his second shock when President Giovannini greeted Nina
with a manner as close to obsequiousness as that professionally
free-and-easy politician could muster. He said, "My dear Miss
Norstadt-Ramirez. I do hope you'll forgive me for ordering such summary
action this morning. If I'd had the slightest idea...."
"I was boiling," Nina told him. "I was just about ready to order
Aetnapolitan to pull the props out from under you when the riots
started. Then I blessed your shiny little head and came up here."
"I am honored," said the president.
* * * * *
Lindsay, walking through the proceedings in a fog, was even more laconic
than a clipped British envoy who, along with a recovered Senator
Anderson, was a member of the party.
"Don't take it so hard," Anderson whispered. "Nina is just about the
best-kept secret in this hemisphere. If I weren't one of the few who's
been in on it all along...." He shrugged eloquently.
Lindsay said nothing. He couldn't. So Nina--his fresh slatternly
secretary, the courtesan of the world capital--was also Coranina
Norstadt-Ramirez, the heiress who owned almost half of Earth!
He felt like a quadruply-plated idiot. He knew about
Norstadt-Ramirez--who didn't, whether on Earth or Mars or the
space-stations circling Venus while that planet's atmosphere was being
artificially altered to make it fit for human habitation?
She was a fantastic glamorous lady of mystery, the ultimate heiress, the
young woman to whom inexorably, thanks to North America's matriarchal
era during the twentieth century, the control of most of its mightiest
corporations and trust funds had descended.
And she was Lindsay's secretary. No wonder, he thought miserably, she
had never sounded quite sincere about calling him boss. Why, she
virtually owned his home planet as well. He watched her covertly across
the table, poised, amused, alert, occasionally witty--and so damnably
attractive. He wished he were dead.
She caught his regard, scowled and stuck her tongue out at him. He
thought. _Why, you little...!_
Somehow she got them out of the chatter after dinner, got him back to
his suite. There, regarding him sternly, she said, "Zale, you aren't
going to be stuffy about this, are you?"
"I can't help it," he replied. "If you'd only told me...."
He read sympathy in her green eyes. But she merely shrugged and said,
"Result of a lifetime of keeping myself under wraps." She sat on a
contour chair, patted a place for him alongside.
She said, "I'm the richest single person there has ever been--you know
that. It isn't my fault. It just happened. I didn't deserve or want or
need it. But it is a hell of a responsibility. Since I'm responsible for
so much it seemed important to me to know how people felt. After all we
act because we feel. And thanks to a few good friends like Fernando
Anderson I've been able to get away with it."
"Why me?" he asked her. "Why pick on me?"
Her expression softened. One of her hands crept into his. "One of the
nicest things about you, Zale, is the fact that you don't realise just
how special you are."
"I'm not so special on Mars," he told her.
"No?" Her eyebrows rose delightfully. "A quarter of a billion Martians
select you as their first Plenipotentiary to the UW and you're not
special? Zale, you're an absolute woolly lamb.
"There's more to it than that. I've never been to Mars. I should have,
but I simply haven't had the time. So I decided the best way to find out
about Mars at second hand was to work with you in some capacity that
would let you be yourself."
"A filthy, underhanded, thoroughly feminine trick," he said gently and
kissed her. Then, frowning into her green eyes, "But why are you so dead
set against computer judgment?"
"Isn't it obvious?" she asked. "I've got a tremendous stake in this
world. Kicking around it as I have I've been able to see what is
happening. I'm damned if I'm going to have my property managed and run
by a bunch of people who make mistakes because they're too neurotic to
make decisions. Look at them!" Her voice became edged with disgust.
Lindsay said, "I see. Listen, honey, I'd like to sleep with you
tonight."
She looked surprised but not displeased by his bluntness. "Of course,
darling," she told him.
"How much will it cost me?" he asked her.
She froze--then her eyes began to fill and she sniffled. He said, "You
know I didn't mean that. Dammit, I just wanted to show you you're a
neurotic yourself."
She slapped him hard enough to tilt him off the contour chair. She rose
haughtily, still sniffing. Lindsay stretched out a hand and caught one
of her ankles and tripped her up. She tottered, gave vent to a startled,
"_Awk!_", fell backward into the pool-tub.
He dived in after her, caught her when she came up, spluttering, gripped
her shoulders hard. Her eyes blazed green fire at him. She said, "How
_dare_ you do that to me, you moron!"