7. The Chairman

Block's head swum as he tried to make sense out of the fronts of the buildings whizzing past him on his right. He was exhausted, for sure, but he could still describe to his driver the facade of the building he wanted. After all, it was a fricken fortress.

The driver, an operative, missed the facade, an impossibility given its massiveness.

However, it'd happened, so it wasn't an impossibility at all. Block's head whirled as the limo sped around the Mare Piccolo, working back to the modern section of Taranto, the ancient Ionian seaport nestled in the south side of the heel of Italy, which, with Bari and Brindisi to the north, formed a triangle of ports that'd ra-diated Roman sea power into the ancient world the Empire domi-nated.

The driver worked his way around onto the Ponte Girevule, the swinging bridge leading to the road fronting the Mare Grande. Block craned his neck trying to find an entrance in the massive fort's wall.

"Pull over," he ordered, and the driver swung into a loading dock.

Block got out the right side of the limo and waved the driver on. He looked around, catching his mental breath, orientating himself.

Beside him, he spotted stone steps through the massive sea wall leading down to the boats on the docks below. In front of him, the Gulf of Taranto stretched in impassive splendor, a part of the Ionian sea that turned into the Mediterranean, the ocean of the ancient world.

Behind him, the massive fortress built to administer the Italian State Capitalism that'd grown up with the 20th century loomed. A dictatorship leading to timely trains and the conflagration of the Second World War was now a memory represented by weathering concrete.

The Chairman, Block concluded, was becoming more paranoid since the spectacular attempt on his life in the Bahamas.

Then he remembered the rats at Mahmudabad and realized it too was an attempt on The Chairman, although more insidious than the public attack on the Crystal Palace, so perhaps ensconcing himself in a structure as massive as Mussolini's Mausoleum, as it was known locally, was probably not such a bad idea.

He walked along the stonewall topping the sea wall until he was directly at the architectural front of the edifice, if architecture was an appropriate term. It stood in contrast to the beauty of the Ionian Sea, the beauty of color and texture interrupted by ugliness and bulk, darkness filling the lightness of the afternoon breeze.

Mass preservationists liked to weigh senseless things, Block thought, like planets and invisible dead stars that existed as far away from proof as the soul of an eternal flame, and here was a building that'd truly tax their skills. Several blocks square, and perhaps the equivalent of a normal ten story building, its walls gave the appearance of solidity, of not being walls at all but, like the pyramids, merely the outside of a solid inside.

Block wondered whether there was a correlation between the substance of the concepts and the structures men built to give their concepts substance. When concepts are old, ingrained into the population from generations of use, they can support the breath-takingly delicate spires of the gothic cathedrals formed to repre-sent them.

When concepts are new, it took a more forceful representation to impress the minds of potential believers.

It takes but a gentle prod to maintain, brute force to convert.

When ideas are tenuous, the symbols of power must compensate.

It always amazed Block how ideas, concepts, mere thoughts could take on a reality driving people to die for them. The massive structure overlooking the Ionian was not a fortress to protect against foreign invasion, it was an attempt to render a world con-structed in someone's mind, a world with no reference to reality, real.

Block felt the sea breeze grow warm as it blew past him, clos-ing his eyes against the dark thoughts interfering with the bright day, then opening them as he sensed the day was starting to mimic his thoughts. As he watched the horizon, the clouds appeared black, ominous, filling the sky, obscuring the line between the sea and the air, moving closer, obscuring the sea, and then the masts of the boats moored below the sea wall, and then the sea wall itself as the storm moved to engulf him, fling him up into the street, bash him against the impassive wall of the fortress behind him.

Block flinched at the effect, grasping onto the seawall, bracing his body against the imagined impact, his hands pressed white.

He let the moment pass, allowing the sunny beauty of the Medi-terranean reappear in his mind, letting its beauty calm his thoughts into reality, lifting the stress his thoughts had placed on his body. He opened his fists against the cool breeze, working out the stiff-ness of his intense grasp that his gloomy vision caused.

Where, he wondered, had the mental storm come from? He couldn't be that exhausted.

Block became aware of passing time in the setting of beauty and looked at his watch. He still had time. He wondered what The Chairman was up to. He'd flown in with Marise, landing at the naval base that was the original reason for Taranto's existence. Marise had left to meet with Mary who'd flown in from Bay State Univer-sity south of San Francisco. Block would've been looking forward to seeing Mary, given his stretch of abstinence the last few days, but the trip from the Amazon with Marise had, surprisingly, put an end to that unwelcome condition, and to a greater extent than he'd an-ticipated.

Marise couldn't tell him where Risa had gone, or even when she was expected back. No one knew how he could reach her. He'd en-tertained the idea of trying to start up a dalliance with one of the other R girls even though they couldn't hold a candle to Risa, but Marise insisted they leave for Taranto right away. When he tried to take his borrowed Stratodart, leaving Marise on her own, and her own schedule, she'd vetoed it. She was polite and, although she did-n't appear anxious for his company, wanted him with her just the same and, of course, she was in charge of the project, although he could've refused if he wanted to.

She took his arm and deftly walked him into some sort of hidden passage. When he asked after Jarred, and whether he could talk to him, he found himself in the entrance hallway and, before he could digest her answer, out the door through perimeter security.

"I'm barely going to make it as it is," she said. "They're four hours ahead of us, so we're going to have to put our foot on it."

She literally flew across the lawn. The tent she wore, caught in the breeze, wrapped itself tightly around her body. The resulting incongruity, the picture he fleetingly caught, lithe and startlingly shapely, contrasted so greatly with the picture of fat and dumpy, it caught his attention and filled his body with a pleasurable feeling.

Instead of just viewing her in his mind, he began to examine her every movement, looking for new information as to what lay be-neath the folds of her garment.

Her educational display vanished as Marise leaped up the steps of the Stratodart and into the pilot seat, warming up the engines. The leap, incongruous with fatness, brought back the lithe memory of her body the glimpse had given him, and his juices started flow-ing faster.

"Shut the door," she yelled over her shoulder as the engines sputtered into life.

Block shut the door and walked over to the bar. His glass was still in the sink. He rinsed it out, looking around for a towel and, finding none, opened the door to the bathroom, taking a stack from there.

He walked back to the bar to mix himself a drink. He felt the Stratodart lift off and gain altitude.

He heard something bump behind him and turned to see the bath-room door swinging unlatched. He pulled it closed and, wanting to catch the glimpse of the Amazon in the morning light, moved to the window.

The door swung open again, making him impatient with it.

He thought of the evening before as he firmly shut it, the mem-ory of the orgasm he had to have had in Risa as elusive as the latch on the door. Try as he might, he couldn't remember the sensation of being in her, let alone having an orgasm in her. He couldn't even remember touching her.

He could only remember how beautiful she was.

Not how she looked beautiful, just how beautiful she was.

He jerked the door hard, transferring his frustration of not re-membering to the door. It closed with a solid thump, seemed to latch, then silently swung open again.

He let it be so he wouldn't miss the view of the Amazon. The hues of greenery shaded by the billowing morning mists, the sun-light painting the whole alien landscape a gradient yellow that con-trasted smoothly with the greens, was amazing. The river streamed haphazardly through the yellowy green kaleidoscope re-flecting the blue sky above the Stratodart though the motley display created in the mists.

Marise, standing forward over the controls, enjoyed the same view. She watched as the Stratodart gained altitude and then, pointing its nose directly into the sun, converted its upward motion to forward speed. She sat back on the couch and punched in Mary's locator. She quickly detected Mary's signal. Establishing a connec-tion, she realized Mary was on a StratoLiner just arriving at Naples.

"I'm supposed to be picked up and taken down to Taranto. You're not going to do it, are you?" she asked Marise.

"We're coming in almost due south."

"We?"

"I'm with Ronald Block."

"Oh, really? How is Ronald?"

"Not very good, I'm afraid."

"Not very good?" Mary sounded concerned. "Is he sick?"

"No, just not very good for me. I've been, well, trying to inter-est him in . . ."

Mary laughed. "You've been trying to get it on with him. That shouldn't be too hard with Block. I mean, just ask him."

"I don't know, I mean, how do you just go ask someone to, I mean, I've never done it with anyone before."

"That shouldn't be a problem. Ronald got my cherry."

"You?" Marise was incredulous. "I thought . . ."

"Never mind what you thought or heard. When I met him, I didn't know what sex was. He didn't teach me everything I know, but he sure taught me how to go about learning it."

"How's that?" Marise asked.

"I told you, just ask," Mary replied.

"But what if he turns me down?"

"What if he does?"

"I'd feel crushed. I'd never get over it."

"Pshaw. You'd get over it. Quit focusing on how you think other people see you. If you get rid of your face in the crowd, the only person you have to please is yourself, and if it takes Ronald to give you that pleasure, well, I'm sure you'll come up with a way to per-suade him to favor you. As I say, with Block, it's not too difficult. But more to the point, what's going on with The Chairman? It's not everyday the Regent of a backwater school like Bay State gets called in for consultation. What's up?"

"I haven't the foggiest idea," Marise answered. "He said some-thing about starting a school to train administrators for interna-tional protectorates, whatever they are. I just signed on for the sport, but hey, if there's a higher calling for me, I'm game."

"Where are you going to land in Taranto?" Mary asked.

"The instructions say I'll be dropped at the Naval Base."

"I'll catch up with you there," Mary said, signing off.

Marise sat back, contemplating the control panel. Asking was easier said than done. First, she had to figure out what she was asking for. She couldn't just walk up and say, excuse me, I've got a problem, I'm a virgin, do you think you could help me out?

Why couldn't she? Here she was, miles up in the air, just the two of them. Who was to know if he turned her down, laughed at her, made fun of her, choked her for that matter? If she was too embarrassed by the response, she could just get him drunk and throw him out, leaving the whole sorry mess a bad memory.

Wait a minute, she thought.

What sorry mess?

She was creating a defeatist scenario in her mind before she even started. If she created a picture of failure, what types of acts would she be able to make in furtherance of that picture.

No acts.

She was coloring the picture she was trying to form, the picture of making a simple request, opening her mouth and asking. She was superimposing a picture of one possible outcome of the request on it, and letting it block the picture of her making the request.

Why not picture a positive outcome?

She'd never lost her virginity before. She didn't have a picture of herself doing it. If she constructed a picture of him saying yes, there was only a void left, a void created by not having any way to recall something she'd never experienced.

So she reverted to the refusal.

It was easy to create a picture of what followed that.

Shame.

It wasn't a picture, it was a feeling, an unpleasant feeling, and because she didn't want to experience an unpleasant feeling, it blocked the positive picture she was trying to form. She'd felt the shame she'd felt before, so she not only avoided the picture of be-ing refused, she let the feeling carry back to the picture of making the original request. Why bother requesting if she was going to be turned down and then feel terrible about it.

A feeling of hopelessness engulfed her.

Why try if she was going to fail?

She couldn't form a picture of her asking because she was com-bining it with the emotions that would result from the picture of refusal the picture of asking created.

Without having a picture of herself asking, she couldn't ask.

She snapped her fingers.

"This is ridiculous," she said to herself out loud.

She wasn't used to being tied up in mental conundrums that crip-pled her ability to act. She didn't know where the connection be-tween asking and being turned down came from, all she wanted to do was ask. It was like the first time doing anything. You just con-centrated on the limited act, and did it.

Here, she'd just concentrate of forming the words, will you make love . . .

She felt the blood rush to her face.

She rephrased it. "Let's screw," she said out loud to get the feel of it.

It didn't elicit the unwanted flow of blood to her face, but it also didn't sound very ladylike.

"I'm a virgin," she tried, "and I don't want to be. How about it?"

That had possibilities.

"Mary said you're good with first timers."

That sounded even better, not as direct, but meaningful.

"I talked to Mary, and she said . . ."

Yes, that was more like it.

"What do you think Mary said about virginity?"

Getting a little far afield.

"Let's screw."

She felt the warmness on her forehead.

What was up? That hadn't embarrassed her before.

She couldn't say anything if she couldn't figure out what to say.

Bathroom.

If she went to the bathroom, she'd be able to phrase it properly.

Marise walked into the cabin. Block was leaning over one of the windows, drink in hand, intent on the clouds reflecting off his face.

"Interesting view," she managed to say as she swung the door open to the lavatory.

Block looked back, straightening up from the window. His eyes dropped to her form, seeking out the shape he'd discerned beneath the tent.

"Watch the door. It . . ."

His comment was lost in the thump of the door as Marise closed it. A peculiar feeling came over him, a sexual feeling with no image. He couldn't identify its source.

He went back to contemplating Marise. The thought of Risa, the K girls, was still fresh in his mind, but Risa and the other R girls weren't on the Stratodart and Marise was. Despite the fact he'd obtained a physical release the night before, and the night before that, the physical discharge hadn't provided him with mental relief. His body kept trying to edge into his mind, not the image of an R girl, slowly stripping off her clothes, wrapping her warmth around him, at least his body, but rather the concept of himself concen-trated totally in his glans with the glans tactily ensconced in the lubriciousness of a warm vagina, any vagina.

The thought of entry instantly made him hard.

He really wanted to be in a woman, he realized, not feeling her breasts or playing with her clitoris or imagining the indescribable delights hidden by the crack of her ass, but solidly, firmly, unde-niably, totally in her, feeling her every response with his extended sensibilities.

He licked his lips, realizing they'd become dry, grating when his tongue didn't supply the needed moisture, using his drink to accom-plish the task.

All of a sudden, his body became very still, anticipatory. His mind kind of hung as thoughts of process began to form. Should he use his mouth, try persuasion, simply ask, state his request, or try a kiss, one or all or just a few.

His mind was filled with indecision because every possibility he tried had an instant reaction between his legs, reinforcing his hard-ness again and again. It didn't matter how he went about it, he was going to accomplish it, let his physical desire frame the words if necessary.

His mind registered to the whoosh of the air toilet and his body tensed for the door to open.

It did, Marise twisting through the narrow entrance, her dress catching on the latch, stretching the material across her stomach, outlining her breasts, the reality of her hips.

Block's eyes were locked, riveted on the momentary revelation which was burned into his body, demanding his mind to reconstruct it, to recreate the vision that'd given it such a jolt.

Marise turned and pulled the door shut.

It drifted open before she'd even let go of it.

She pulled it shut harder.

Thump!

The sound electrified Block.

Whoosh, his mind went as if air had rushed through his ears, leaving him light headed, disembodied.

Marise tested the door to see if it had latched.

It hadn't.

She pulled it again, harder still.

Thump!

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

Block's mind was reeling. His body was filling it as the whooshes emptied it of the images of reality around him.

Marise hadn't been able to think of an approach in the bathroom, had no words formed to make her desires known to Block. The in-ability to accomplish what she'd created a picture of herself ac-complishing caused her mind to freeze.

She was frustrated.

She checked the door again to see if it latched. When she found out it hadn't, she took her frustration out on it.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Before she could give it a final slam, she was spinning. Block grabbed her by the shoulder, spun her around, backed her up, and pushed her onto a couch. As she hurtled backward, he grabbed her dress and pulled at it as she doubled up to hit the couch sitting. The dress wrenched her arms, tore at her hair, and bruised her breasts as he pulled it over her head.

She screamed in surprise, in pain, waving her arms, trying to free herself from the offending material, and the offending hands grabbing it.

Block lost his balance as the material came loose and, falling backwards, collided with his glass, which still hadn't hit the floor. He threw the dress aside and, clearing his head, tried to get a focus on his target.

He spotted it just disappearing between Marise's slender thighs as she plopped into the couch, one hand on the armrest, the other outstretched to ward him off.

Target identified, he saw that it was still encased in panties. He ignored her outstretched arm and went directly for her legs, lifting one up under his arm, grabbing it by the knee and pulling, using his other to hook her shorts and tear them off.

Marise let the armrest go, using both hands to rain blows down on Block's head and shoulders.

Block paid no attention, his target within reach, and, holding her leg firmly in position so her beautiful buttocks were a foot or so above the cushion, unfastened his pants, letting them drop to the floor, his hardness finding its own way out of his briefs.

He swiftly surrounded himself with her thighs, seeking en-trance.

She grunted as he rammed against her, twisting her body side-ways in an effort to shake herself loose.

He tightened his grip and brought her back into alignment with his desires. He rammed into her again, this time his inability to penetrate catapulting him up, his stomach landing on her waist.

He repositioned himself for another attempt.

Marise abandoned her blows and grabbed his shoulders, his neck, pushing on his face, trying to distract him, keep him away, break off the attack.

He wasn't having any of it, the picture of him in her clear in his mind, the fact he wasn't in her yet sending spasms of desire into his body.

He was frustrated.

He pushed her leg against the armrest, pinning it in place, and grabbed her right knee, using his free hand to grab himself so he could guide himself into the desired opening.

The thrust convulsed her throat. She thought she'd choke on air as her lungs sucked it in. She groped around in her mind to figure out the status of her body. Was he in her?

She couldn't tell from her mind, but she realized he was holding her very close, making repeated thrusts. From the look on his face, the thrusts were making headway, but hadn't yet broken the bar-rier.

She tried one more time to twist out of her fate.

She reached back, forming a fist.

Seeing the motion, Block let go of himself and, rearing back, tried to punch her in the face. Seeing it coming, she grabbed him tightly, burying her head in his chest, the blow breezing by her ear. The movement pitched Block's target forward giving Block, who was just inside her labia, the exact angle he needed to tear through her resistance, plunging himself home deep inside her.

"Ump," he grunted, as he changed his punch to a tight embrace, pinning her against him so she couldn't break the connection.

She tumbled helplessly onto the couch beneath him, both arms and legs wrapped around him as he tore at her like a dog trying to shake a bone away from a particularly desirable morsel of meat. It was only after he collapsed, rolling off to her side on the couch, that the pain reached her mind.

"Ump," she grunted as her hands reflexively moved between her legs. Feeling her warm wetness, she jumped up, looking at the cushion.

"Damn," she cried, reaching for, but not touching, the red tinged stains.

"Boy," was all Block could say. He was stunned at the intensity of the unexpected force that had overcome him. He remembered throwing a punch. He couldn't believe he'd done it. He'd never do anything like that, but there it was, he tried.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"For what?" Marise asked, picking up her smock from the floor and pulling it over her head. "You're sorry you raped me?"

The pain from her crotch was filling her mind.

"I didn't rape you," Block said sheepishly, "I just didn't know you were a virgin."

"Would it have made a difference?" Marise asked.

His words were joining the pain filling her mind, mixing in with it.

"Well, I would've tried to make it more, well, more memora-ble."

"You don't think this isn't going to be memorable?" Marise asked, incredulous.

Block pulled himself into an upright position, hooking his pants hanging from one leg and, slipping his other leg in, wiggled his way into them without standing.

"How about getting me a drink?" he asked.

"Get your own fucking drink, you prick," Marise screamed, storming into the lavatory and slamming the door behind her.

It latched, the thought burning past the fiery feeling she felt en-veloping her face. She turned one way in the small room, then an-other, back again, then, slamming her fist on the stainless steel sink, hurting it in the process, opened the door and stormed out.

Block had his back to her, mixing a drink.

She pushed him aside, grabbed a glass, poured some scotch into it, muttered prick, this time under her breath, and returned to the bathroom, lifting her tent up as she lowered herself gingerly onto the toilet seat, holding the drink between both hands, sipping the liquid directly into her mind.

A picture of herself played on the outskirts of her mind, a pic-ture of a decent, innocent, harmless girl who'd done nothing wrong moving through the daisies, happy, contented, at peace with the world.

The picture was replaced by another, a picture of herself being restrained, violated, forced against her will.

The rage the contrasting pictures created blocked out the pain still streaming up from her crotch.

The more real she made the picture of being wronged, the more intense her rage became, the more focused she became, the more real her martyrdom became.

If the rage started to diminish, releasing her body from the ten-sion it was causing, she renewed it by creating a picture of her violation. She wasn't worthy of abuse, her soreness recreating her picture of being abused, her rage increasing as she visualized Block trying to punch her.

She sipped more scotch, seeking relief, any relief from the rage that kept reappearing.

She was trying to ward off the pleasure of her rage, pleasure that'd been denied by the rape. Out of the blue, a picture of Jarred, his head thrown back, his face bobbing in agony, formed and before it was fully formed, turned the tension in her body to pleasure. Picturing Jarred, helpless, open to any revenge she desired, redi-rected her rage, tricked her body into feeling it as pleasure rather than pain.

She tried to increase the pleasure, imagining herself not only looking at the pain on Jarred's bobbing face, but the person working between his legs, doing things to his body she could scarcely visu-alize. The hidden glimpses of an imagined reality she couldn't quite visualize increased the intensity of her feelings.

She took another sip of her drink as Jarred's flapping ponytail disappeared and Block's face took its place. When her pleasure started to lessen, she reformed the picture of herself, innocent, being violated, stoking up the generator of her mind, renewing the force of the jolt, then focused on her picture of Block strapped in the sling, helpless, writhing under her expert ministrations.

A sharp pain broke into her imagined reality as her teeth broke the flesh of her knuckle.

She shook her head, dazed.

She put the glass down on the stainless steel surface and put her knuckle under the faucet, turning it on with her other hand.

The ice cold water cleared her mind.

The soreness between her legs reasserted itself, the picture of being violated starting to reform.

"No," she muttered under her breath, resisting the urge to re-establish the feelings she'd been enjoying while sitting on the john.

"No!"

She tested the water and, finding it hot, closed the drain, letting the basin fill with lukewarm water. She dampened a stack of towels and, putting one leg up on the toilet, lifted her dress to see the damage.

She'd expected to see a gaping wound, blood dripping down be-tween her legs. The mirror returned nothing but the startling pic-ture of her vagina, carefully shaved clean by the R girls. She washed herself off, gently exploring for bruises with the warm moisture.

There were none.

She was still, surprisingly, Marise.

She put her leg down and let her dress drop, facing the mirror, her head looking ridiculous poking out the top of a tent.

She took a gulp of her drink rather than a sip, looking at herself contemplatively over the rim of the glass.

If she put it out of her mind, she didn't feel the tension. If she didn't have the tension, she felt better. The question was, could she quit thinking about it?

The replay of Delusia being consistently and purposefully bru-tally violated drifted into her mind.

Had that happened to her?

Or had she just gotten in the way of a sexual urge?

One she'd provoked.

She didn't think so.

Could she have provoked Block?

She put her glass down and cinched up the sides of her dress with her hands.

She certainly could've provoked him if she'd tried.

But wait a minute.

She hadn't tried.

No, she tried, but couldn't.

So she got what she would have if she could have.

He just did what she wanted him to do.

It wasn't rape, more like necessary surgery.

She released the waist of her dress, letting it return to its formlessness, and rummaged around for a sewing kit. Finding one, she quickly used thread and needle to cinch up the sides of her dress, showing her wasp waist, her billowing breasts.

Standing back and admiring her newfound body, she looked with disapproval at the closed collar hiding her upper body.

Don't want to stick them in his face, she thought, but a hint wouldn't hurt.

She took a pair of scissors and deftly cut a plunging neckline, peeling the flaps back and basting them into a broad collar.

Her hair was a mess, but what the heck, it looked sexy.

She looked around for a lipstick or some rouge and finding none, she patted her cheeks until blood came to their surface.

Finishing her drink and staying ahead of any picture of what she was doing, she opened the door, letting the impulse drag her out of the bathroom.

Block was leaning against the bar, facing the door as she came out.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to . . ." he started to say, but abruptly stopped when he saw her alterations.

Her lips were on him before he could regain his composure, her arms around him, lifting him with a strength she didn't know she had. She whipped him around, feeling him grow between her legs, the pressure energizing her muscles as she rocked him to and fro sideways back into the cabin between the couches onto the floor.

His hands and legs were flailing as he went down, trying to gain purchase, but she paid no heed, retaining her balance and using it to strip off his pants and briefs in a single move.

Her frenzy turned into intolerable excitement as he popped out for her pleasure. She pounced, enveloping him within her, feeling the pleasure burn through her body into her brain.

"Where has this been all these years?" she muttered, frantic-ally trying to touch all of his skin surfaces with her own.

"Uh," he groaned what seemed like a decade later, still straining to satisfy her seemingly unlimited desires. "Are we there yet?"

»»»»»»»»»»»»»»»«««««««««««««««

The Chairman felt his body jump as he became aware of himself.

Awareness, he thought.

His consciousness flickered into existence and he began to com-prehend the space around him, then time, then himself, his mind and body occupying this space at this time.

His first thought, where was he, surprised him.

He opened his eyes and looked around. The shape of the room, its colors, furnishings and draperies pictured the huge fortress he was in, and how it clashed with the delicate Ionian coast. He was in a modern box-like addition on top of the concrete heap, recessed from the edge, its windows slanted away from the edge, mirrored to catch the sky, designed to make it invisible from the street.

He rarely woke up in the same place twice in a row, but he usu-ally knew exactly where he was as well as what he'd been doing and what he had to do.

But his mind was fuzzy, as if he'd been on a long trip, overtired and awakened before he was able to catch up on his sleep.

Where'd he been?

What had he been doing?

He looked around the room again and noticed one of the shadows wasn't a shadow at all, but the gawky, hammock-like contraption Dareze had the maintenance people throw together from her in-structions on the back of a cocktail napkin. The sight opened his ears and he heard her in the other room humming over the clanking of dishes. The sound produced a pleasant reaction in various parts of his body, not the least of which he took in his hand, kneading the sleep crevices out of the soft flesh.

What had it been used for?

He closed his eyes and tried to form a picture of what happened. They'd delivered the contraption and Dareze disappeared in the bed-room to tend to the hammock, adjusting it several times before she was satisfied.

Then she took him by the hand, pulled him into the bedroom where the thing lay poised over the bed, and undressed him, making him lie down directly under the cloth sling strung between the metal frame.

She sat down on the sling, reached under it, grabbing him where he was waiting full of anticipation, and done . . . what?

What could she have done?

The picture of what happened after that escaped him. The only thing she could've done is put him inside her.

But he had no memory of the sensation of being inside her.

He opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling, letting his mind go blank.

"Omigosh!" he exclaimed as the sensation of her slipping inside him came rushing back, causing his soft flesh to grow hard in his hand.

"Dareze," he shouted, half rising in bed.

He heard a clank from the other room.

"Dareze," he yelled again.

"I'm coming as fast as I can," she yelled back.

She was in the room before the words were out of her mouth. Instantly seeing his condition, she went to the side of the bed, put one knee on it, smoothly swung her other up and over his body, coming down directly on him, seamlessly sheathing his necessity.

"Omigosh," he moaned, grabbing her by her slender hips. "Make it happen. Make it happen fast!"

She did, giggling delightedly as his body arched in spasm, rock-ing back and forth on her knees in rhythm with his bucking.

She leaned forward as he settled down, grabbed him by the ears and kissed him softly on his lips.

"Marvelous!" she exclaimed, rolling off. "How did it feel?"

"Like I hadn't come in a year. Did I?"

"I haven't been here a year," she replied, laughing.

"No. Did I come last night? What did you do to me?" he asked.

"You didn't like it?"

"I guess so. I mean, I don't know. Did I?"

"You certainly seemed to."

"Then I must have."

"Then quit your complaining. Get up, now. Ireless is going to be here any minute, and if I don't have you up and out of here, she's going to come looking for you, find this little contraption, and none of us are going to get anything done."

"What is that little contraption?" The Chairman asked, giving Dareze a kiss between the little buds that were her breasts and rolling out of the bed.

"That's Attila's marriage bed, or at least a variation on it. It's a metaphor for life, it telescopes your concept of existence."

"It's just a couple of poles with a piece of canvas stretched between them."

"It's that," Dareze said, "but it's a tool for sexual contact. If you externalize your emotions during sex, then your entire mind focuses on the sexual contact. Your pleasure is current, and if I might add with pleasure, unendurably intense."

"And if you don't externalize your emotions?" The Chairman asked.

"Then your body stays, but your mind goes to the moon. Without your mind, your body can only store up the pleasure, it can't re-spond to it. Oh, you might ejaculate, but without your mind, the ejaculation won't be perceived as pleasure. Your sexual desire will just keep building up until your mind returns and we can do some-thing about it.

"Which I believe we just did."

"Did we ever. I can't wait to get rid of Block . . . Block!" He paused, one leg in his pants, one leg out. "Does he know about this? Darn it, I don't want you disappearing somewhere with, what do you call it, Attila's marriage bed and finding Block under it."

"I was with Block in the real one," Dareze said.

"Good. Just don't let him get near this one."

"Oh pooh," she said, zipping up his pants, her finger playfully following the zipper. "I'll do it with whoever I want."

"Well, just do it here with me tonight, okay." He was still paused, flamingo like, one hand resting on the edge of the bed, looking imploring at Dareze who sat back, cross-legged, nude, fac-ing him.

"But that's what I want to do," she said earnestly. "Quit your worrying. Besides, I was just talking with Marise. Block will be in no condition to do anything but drink for awhile."

"Really?" The Chairman asked, surprised. "I threw him to-gether with Marise because I didn't think he'd . . ."

"Get her in the sack?" Dareze finished, grabbing her knees in delight. "You were trying to fix Block up with Marise, were you? You sure as hell succeeded."

The Chairman smiled. Finally, a small victory.

But wait, that meant Block screwed someone he hadn't. He probably had been in thousands women he hadn't. But then he didn't know them, he knew Marise. But although he knew Marise, he didn't want her, did he?

Dareze was looking at him closely. "You never had Marise, did you?" She jumped up and punched him on the shoulder. "You sexist pig," she teased, shoving her nonexistent chest at him. "You must not like 'em voluptuous."

What do you mean, Marise voluptuous?"

"I've haven't met her yet, but word gets around fast. What's under those formless clothes is incredible. Don't worry about Block. She's the one I want to get in here, with you, of course.

As I said, from what Marise tells me, he won't be able to get it up for awhile, which gives us plenty of time. Now, let's go. We've got work to do."

She went over and pulled the tassel on the curtains, standing back as they opened silently onto the brilliant Mediterranean after-noon sun. She turned, framing her nudeness with the horizon, posing for him, then took her clothes from the chair and quickly slipped into them.

"See you later, lover," she said, kissing him softly. "Last night, you took a little trip to the planets. This afternoon, it'll be the uni-verse."

The Chairman shook his head as she departed, still partly dazed at what happened, excited at the prospect of what was going to happen.

He heard the speaker announce Ireless's arrival. Dareze was at the door in a flash, pulling him through, shutting it behind him.

"Come on in," she yelled, giving The Chairman a glass of wine at the same time.

The door opened and Ireless walked in from the security area, haloed by its harsher lighting, the harshness contrasting with her auburn hair billowing around her classic face.

"Ireless," The Chairman said, searching out her golden eyes, eyes he'd lost himself in many times, eyes he realized echoed Janette's eyes, also incredible, but lost somewhere in the Atlantic to someone named Danette.

"Come, come, give me a hug. You look fabulous. What can I get you? I have a place set up for our little talk."

He led her over to a group of couches arranged so, even though the suite was located away from the edge of the fortress, they looked over the rippling water on the horizon.

"Get yourself one too, Dareze, and come join us. Bring the de-canter." He settled back in the chair, looking directly over the low, square table at Ireless, drinking in once again the glory of her eyes.

"How long have we known each other, Ireless?" he asked.

"Twenty years give or take a few months. I was twenty, just got my doctorate."

"Was it worth it?"

"The doctorate? No," she replied. "Working with you, you bet."

"What did you find out at, Tirgo Ocna was it, yes Tirgo Ocna?"

The Chairman flew with Shandra to Sighisoara prior to the op-eration on PE International. Shandra took the Stratodart into Tirgo Ocna and, after the facilities were secured, flew with Ireless to the offshore haven at Palermo where Ireless had to file certain papers with respect to the operation, many dealing with the transfer of the ownership of the Philbrook Effect.

The Chairman gave these papers to Shandra for Ireless's use in case there was, in fact, a Philbrook Effect, it was obtainable and transferable. The whole situation arose so quickly, Ireless had nei-ther the time to be briefed by The Chairman, nor the time to debrief him.

Their long association, and the fact The Chairman didn't work with people he didn't trust to make binding decisions on his behalf, empowered her to carry out the entire operation with a minimal of collaboration within the context of the emerging picture.

And what the emerging picture was, she had no idea, and she perhaps had less now that she'd filed the papers and obtained the information they contained. That information had her in a state of semi-excitement, wavering between refusing to hope and the ex-hilaration of outright fantasy.

The primary set of papers she filed were the organization docu-ments for something called International Symbolic Business Ma-chine.

She was listed as the President, Chief Executive Officer and Principal Shareholder of ISBM. She always enjoyed working on the administrative side of The Chairman's far-flung enterprises, doing the necessary fieldwork to ensure their diverse operations meshed. She now wanted to settle down into one of the operating companies, perhaps as a vice president, or even president of one of the smaller, more localized operations.

ISBM didn't sound either small or local.

In fact, according to the papers she'd filed, it was being capi-talized with a line of credit for ten billion dollars.

The thought of such a position, the picture it created, made her more excited than the time she sneaked out to neck with her first boyfriend. Dwelling on the thought of being President of such a size-able operation sent chills of anticipation though her body, thrilling her. When the sensations diminished, she simply repictured herself CEO, and if she really wanted to give her body a shot of ecstasy, she conjured up the picture of being principal stockholder.

The Chairman's question about the Philbrook Effect caused all her pictures to come together. She thought she was going to climax right there and then. She was so involved with the intense feeling that overcame her, she left a blank in the conversation.

"You found that it really works, didn't you?" The Chairman asked, closing the gap.

"Works," she said, finally finding her voice. "Without getting too technical, there's a quality both with the frequency that invokes the effect and the effect that make them both usable in particular circumstances. For instance, the frequency seems to have an effect independent of the Philbrook Effect. They have records showing frequency alone will affect a particular species in a particular man-ner. For instance, it can make well-fed rats ravenous and starving sharks docile."

"How about on the Millennials?" The Chairman asked.

"There were no findings of an identifiable effect on human be-ings. It took the introduction of the serum from Philbrook's brain to create the effect in a human. That's apparently why Jarred was moving his product directly into the schools containing the upcoming Millennial generation," Ireless replied.

"How did they manufacture the serum containing the symbolic units?"

"Symbolic units?" Dareze, who had heard the term symbolic processor, interrupted the conversation to catch up with what was going on.

"Whatever it is in Philbrook's brain causing the personality dis-order was activated by the specific frequency, can we call it the Philbrook frequency for the time being, the Philbrook frequency," The Chairman said, bringing Dareze, who'd been occupied with Shandra's financial activities as opposed to Ireless's, who concen-trated on PE's operations, up to date. Turning back to Ireless, he asked, "Did you find they moved these symbolic units between se-rums solely with the use of electromagnetic frequencies?"

"That's how they produced the stuff," Ireless said. "They had a room set up where they were ostensibly testing frequencies on different animals. Four people sat around one animal working vari-ous frequencies on the animal, noting the results. Being so close to Sighisoara, no one was injecting or collecting blood.

"As a result, they devised a mock health procedure requiring all arriving and departing workers to put on a thinking cap, a simple helmet with electrodes brushing the temples on either side. Incom-ing workers were connected to a vial of serum containing the, ah, symbolic units, the serum with the Philbrook Effect in it, and the Philbrook frequency was establish in their brains."

The Chairman shook his head. "They inoculated them with the symbolic unit?" He was incredulous.

"Wait," Ireless said, "it gets better. At the end of each shift, they had to do the same thing, but this time the electricity shot through their brains passed into a vial of virgin serum, one without any of the symbolic units."

"Then where did the symbolic units come from if they put them in at the beginning of each shift and took them out at the end?" The Chairman asked.

"They were created during the shift. The work was designed to create controlled intensity in the workers. From the time they sat down at their benches until the time they got up, they constructed a picture of the reality in front of them thirty-two times a second. Each time they created a picture of reality, they duplicated the symbolic unit, thirty-two times a second, one thousand nine hun-dred and twenty times a minute, one hundred fifteen thousand two hundred times an hour. That's why Jarred worked nine hour shifts. He wanted to get a million units out of a worker each day."

"So what your saying, in essence there's no question these symbolic units travel with the electricity when the electricity is generated at a particular frequency," The Chairman summed up for her.

"No question what so ever," Ireless said, emphasizing each word.

"So Ireless, how's it feel to become a billionaire?"

The Chairman said it quietly, unexpectedly, the effect so in-stant, the effect between her legs dwarfed her contemplation of it. She couldn't recall having a more intense orgasm. She knew The Chairman, who'd seen her climax many times before, was seeing her attempt to hide the effect of his words, but she was past car-ing.

She lifted her wine glass to wet her suddenly dry lips, focusing all of her energy on keeping her hand from shaking.

The Chairman let her gesture pass for a toast, and raised his glass in agreement.

"To ISBM," he toasted, clinking first with Ireless, then turning to Dareze.

"A billionaire!" Dareze exclaimed. "It must be a lot of fun to be a billionaire."

"Not so much fun as you might think, Dareze," The Chairman said, refilling his glass and sitting back comfortably in his chair. He was well aware of what was going on between Ireless's legs and was thoroughly enjoying it. "You see, to be a billionaire requires an understanding of what the billion refers to."

"It refers to money," Dareze said. "What else?"

"Right, but what's money? If you think about it, money exists only when it's used. It's a medium of exchange connecting produc-ers with consumers in the marketplace. All money is lent into ex-istence, and is removed using interest, taxes and bankruptcy."

"You mean it's not real?" Dareze asked.

"Oh, it's very real because it represents production. But if it isn't being used to purchase productivity, it's out doing something else. No one keeps money in a mattress. But for every dollar of as-sets, there's a dollar of debt. Not many people have inheritances in the bank or cash in on business successes. Going businesses have balance sheets that pretty much balance out, and having a lot of cash around is not a particularly good investment and investments are always at risk."

"So you're saying I'm not a billionaire," Ireless said, not at all disappointed.

"Let's put it this way. International Symbolic Business Ma-chines has a ten billion dollar credit line. As it starts to use that credit line, it'll get assets equaling the debt incurred. Eventually, it'll start to produce a new form of computer and when that com-puter enters the marketplace, and is, as I believe it will, vastly more efficient than any computer ever conceived and fabricated, it'll start replacing the enterprises that are presently providing computers in the marketplace.

"However, the growth will send it past the credit line and that's when the owner, you Ireless, start cashing in selling stock to the public to raise money. I have no offspring, and in any event, have substantial other interests."

He turned to Dareze. "Ireless will quickly find, Dareze, she doesn't own the money, the money owns her. She'll get a lot, but she'll give up a lot."

"Not if she does it right."

The three looked over to the door as Shandra breezed through security.

The Chairman rose. "Shandra. Come on over. Yes, I wouldn't have put Ireless in the hot seat if I didn't think she'd do it right. But still, money is an obligation."

"If you want," Shandra said, her shocking weave of auburn hair bobbing as she came over and sat down. "Give me a second and I'll pull up the names of a hundred billionaires who are no longer billion-aires." She held out her hand, palm out, refusing Dareze's offered glass of wine. "As I see it," she continued, "unless you come up with more than the unit that's been isolated with the Philbrook Ef-fect, you don't have much. A digital computer operates on the basis of two electronic states, and then stringing those states together into recognizable symbols. If you have the Philbrook structure . . ."

"A microstructure," Ireless pointed out. "That's what the sym-bolic unit is."

"A microstructure? They exist?" Shandra asked.

"They have to exist, otherwise, there's no explanation for the transfer with the workers producing the serum. The serum defi-nitely works."

The Chairman sat back while Ireless updated Shandra, who'd been concentrating on the transfer and the creation of the corpora-tion to the exclusion of Ireless's discoveries, on what they'd found at the laboratory.

"The structures are called microstructures," she concluded, "and the currents tuned to transport specific microstructures are called microcurrents."

"So," Shandra probed, "the microstructure responds to the frequency of the current by being, what should I say, picked up by the microcurrent."

"Right," Ireless replied. "Specific microcurrents pick up spe-cific microstructures. That's what happened to Block and Marise with the rats, although Jarred didn't need to feed the rats, with limited intelligence, anything. He used a universal current to acti-vate their survival mechanism. The frequency recalled the micro-structure that contained the rat's survival mechanism and moved it continuously into their midget minds. That's all they could think of so long as the microcurrents were broadcasting. Marise, by a proc-ess of trial and error, countered the frequencies so the rats no longer recalled the microstructures that were making them sav-age."

"So," Shandra said thoughtfully, "a specific microcurrent re-calls a specific microstructure, a specific symbol. However, we only have one microstructure created, probably by chance, in Phil-brook's brain. Given the normal course of events, Philbrook would probably have murdered his wife and wound up fried in the electric chair."

"And the one that activated the rats," Dareze added from the bar where she was refilling everyone's glass, including Shandra's whose protest was becoming half-hearted. "I mean," she continued. "How many people have gotten off work, gone home, fixed them-selves a drink, turned on the radio and the next thing they knew they were standing in the middle of a bloody apartment saying what the heck happened, I've no memory of what I did? Investigation shows no history of violence, the act exists in reality, has to be accounted for, and is accounted for by the existing legal system that has no way to connect the frequency emitted by a particular radio station interacting with some sort of microstructure in the mind that recalls rage."

"Come to think of it," Shandra responded, "memory recall based on frequency is a plausible concept because it matches the facts. What other filing method could the mind use to retrieve informa-tion? We know the brain has fluctuating electrical currents. Who's to say the currents aren't recalling microstructures that contain memory? Memorizing lists is merely the process of lining up a se-ries of symbols and tagging them with a specific current level so recalling one leads to recalling the next. There's one everyday oc-currence that comes to mind illustrating the formation of memory into symbolic units, microstructures if you will, that are recallable by microcurrents."

"What's that?" The Chairman asked.

"You try to recall a name, a street, or a date, and it's just not there. You could bang your head against the wall and something on the tip of your tongue won't come to mind. The explanation has to be we're not generating the proper microcurrent. If we can't gen-erate the correct microcurrent, the recall is locked away in the neuronic filing cabinet. As we go through the day, we generate mil-lions of microcurrents recalling what we are doing, the trees, sky, streets, the various people we see, one of them approximates what we couldn't remember, and wham, the name pops into mind."

"So," The Chairman said. "It's not too far fetched to think there might be other Philbrook's out there. You think if we read the paper we'll be able to find other microstructures."

"Well," Shandra went back to her original assertion. "One mi-crostructure a symbolic computer isn't going to make. Since you've made it clear, at least to me, that's what you have in mind, you're going to have to find a way to obtain additional microstructures that can serve as symbols. We know they exist. We know they can be preserved. We know they can be manufactured. We know they can be transported by electronic means. We just don't know where they are."

"How would this symbolic computer work?" Dareze asked.

"Instead of having to retrieve information from locations en-coded in a series of on/off symbols," Ireless explained, "you'd retrieve a single symbol. Thus, if we had fifty symbolic units, each responding to a particular microflow, we could manipulate the sym-bols simply by manipulating the level of the microflows. Instead of needing to retrieve and display millions of pieces of information, we'd merely have to retrieve one, a symbol that would display all the information. A million cycles would be replaced by one."

"That's pretty significant," Dareze said. "You could either spend your time looking for these microstructures in the tabloids or you could go directly to where they're being manufactured."

Dareze smiled at the reaction, which was total silence.

"Philbrook," she continued, "apparently manufactured his unit himself through the brain's function of recall, compare, re-encode and store for future recall. There's no way to determine the expe-riences Philbrook went through to create his particular micro-structure, a microstructure sending him into an unreasoned rage. But we know he formed it and we know its formation is based on the chemical operation of the brain. Chemical operations are merely the movement of electrons and the structures which they form as a result of their positions and the conditions of the environment in which they exist. You put x with y at z degrees, nothing happens. You do it at z+ degrees and the whole world explodes. Whatever process the mind has developed to create and store these mi-crounits, indeed, whatever process the optic nerve has developed, it's a chemical process, and a life based chemical process."

"So," Ireless speculated. "If we can't duplicate the life experi-ences that . . ."

"We look for a physical process that can be duplicated."

"Who deals with electrons?" The Chairman asked.

"We can't look to established science," Ireless said. "Theoreti-cal science claims its theories create technological innovations, scorning the innovators as mere tinkerers while it siphons off the resources on mystical pursuits that can neither be proven nor dis-proven. Most of our technology is the result of trial and error in the face of theoretical impossibility. That's the way we'll do it."

"But, Dareze," The Chairman asked, "didn't you imply more? Didn't you imply we knew where to look?"

"I think the trial and error should be carried out in confined electromagnetic fields."

"How so?" Ireless asked her.

"Confined electromagnetic fields were developed in the sense-less, but expensive, search for controlled fusion, the old Tokamak. It required the development of extremely strong magnetic fields designed to contain matter in a steadily decreasing space."

"It was supposed to fuse under controlled circumstances," Shandra added.

"Right. The microstructures we were talking about in Trieste were groups of individual electrons held together in a stable equi-librium . . ."

"So the Tokamak-type containment would compress electrons, letting us form microstructures to experiment with. Sounds like a starting point," she said to The Chairman, who always took her conclusions as fact.

"Do we know they're there?" he asked. "I mean, really know."

"Why would we?" Shandra countered. "We've never looked for them. We never had a reason to look for them before this Philbrook business came up. They were just some sort of theoretical struc-ture dreamed up by Georges Lansdowne."

"Do you have any idea how you can get this confinement technol-ogy?" The Chairman asked Ireless.

"I don't know anything about the technology, but if this Tokamak business was such a bust, whatever patents are out there will be looking for money," she replied.

He turned to Shandra. "Can you find out anything about the pat-ents?"

Shandra accessed her computer. "Ah. I've got a notation here. Tokamak was funded through Senator Mesne Shade's office."

"That crook?" The Chairman said, disgusted. "He probably con-trols them and he'll hold us up for a fortune."

He leaned forward and refilled his glass, sitting back in silence while Shandra worked her computer. Dareze replenished the wine stock during the interval while Ireless contemplated future opera-tions.

"Nothing but the usual, run of the mill. He doesn't seem to do anything the others don't. The only peculiarity I see is he shares contributions with pro-life candidates on the local level but votes straight pro-choice in the Senate."

"Do one thing, vote the other way, that's the nature of the job," The Chairman sighed.

"He recently received a sizeable illegal contribution to do just that," Shandra observed. "It's one thing to promise the public you'll use its funds for one thing and then use them for another, but it's quite a different thing to misdirect illegal contributions. You could end up dead, or worse."

"Where'd it come from?" The Chairman asked.

"I only have an account number," Shandra replied. "Let's see, it's Interfund account number 55001."

"I know that number," Dareze yelled from the bar. "It's what we were using for Block's Millennial operation!"

The Chairman looked at Ireless who shrugged, palms up.

"Don't look at me, Boss, I just used the number CORWOG Finance gave me. It was, after all, a CORWOG project."

The Chairman looked at Shandra. "Can you do a little of your magic and find out what 55001 is?"

"I'm already at it," she replied, her fingers flying over the keys.

Dareze brought two decanters of wine over with extra glasses and joined the waiting.

"Just one more patch," Shandra murmured. "Got it. You're not going to believe this. That's the prime account for the Amazonian Internationalization Project."

"Why would they fund Block's Millennial project out of Interna-tionalized funds?" The Chairman asked, puzzled.

"They're always robbing Peter to pay Paul," Ireless replied. "They're not exactly on the top of everybody's funding list."

"It doesn't really matter why they did it, it only matters they did it," Shandra noted.

"Why's that?" The Chairman asked.

"Because it doesn't matter what the illustrious Senator Shade thinks of you, we own his hide to tan as we please."

"How's that?"

"The only other person with access to the account is Jeremy Jarred. Unless Block funneled the funds to the good Senator, they're part of the funds Jarred misappropriated from the Amazo-nian Project. Under the law establishing the project, any embezzled funds are commingled for purposes of responsibility and all recipi-ents are joint and severably liable, with no defense against pay-ment by any of the others."

"Put that in English for everyone's benefit," The Chairman said.

"It means," Shandra replied, "the Senator is not only person-ally liable for each and every penny Jarred converted to his own use, he's personally liable to the tune of, let me see, ten times that amount."

The Chairman gave a muted whistle, the sound interrupted by laughter from the entranceway as Mary and Marise walked in. The muted whistle was actually air catching in The Chairman's throat as he watched Mary walk in with someone resembling Marise. It couldn't be Marise, he thought, but must be because no else had clearance.

He caught his breath and resumed the whistle, not because of Senator Slade's predicament, but because of Marise.

He got up and walked over to greet them. "Mary," he said. "It's always a pleasure. Marise?"

"Sir," she said, giving him a small, perhaps sardonic, curtsey. She was wearing a subdued dress flared just above her knees, re-maining loose enough to leave the precise outlines of her figure in the realm of conjecture, but tight enough to leave no doubt there was a whole world moving around underneath the material.

The Chairmen enjoyed gazing at her. Marise enjoyed The Chair-man's gaze.

"I see you're having a party," she said, looking past him at the chairs arranged around the table strewn with decanters and glasses. "Are we invited?"

"Indeed you are. Come on over and have a, ah, seat."

Dareze poured glasses of wine for each and they took them as they found seats on the window side, Mary beside The Chairman, Marise beside Ireless.

"We just found out Jarred was stealing funds from the Amazo-nian Project," Ireless said.

"Which means," The Chairman broke in, "he'll probably be the most hated person on the face of the Earth. The nations contributing to the Amazonian Project, not to mention Brazil, were highly dubi-ous about it from the beginning. It had all the makings of a huge suc-cess. The groundwork is already being laid for the second effort at Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela and what happens, the administrator steals the funds and uses them to try to take over the world. You can't help but despise ineffable scum like that, regardless of your personal feelings.

"My concern is, one of the CORWOG nations will use their pre-rogative to name members to international security teams to infil-trate the security guard operation at Jarrezonia with a paid assas-sin and knock Jarred off. It might be good riddance, but he's got a lot to answer for in court, and its better he be alive to do it than have the matter become a dead issue, so to speak."

He turned to Marise. "You ran the Amazonian end of the opera-tion. Is Jarred safe?"

"I anticipated the possibility member nations might try to get at him by positioning someone on the security guard," she replied smoothly. "As a result, I designated the guards as perimeter guards only. None have access to Jarrezonia itself, but serve only to re-strict passage in and out."

"How about Jarred's internal position. Is he sufficiently guarded?"

"I left his servants in place, and he's guarded by the head of his security guard who has no intention of allowing him to die. In addi-tion, Delusia Dorney, who now controls the ostrich industry, agreed to work on-site as necessary, supervising both the guards and the staff. Believe me, I fully comprehended the nature and ex-tent of Jeremy Jarred's transgressions," she concluded. "I've placed him in good hands."

"Good, which brings me to one of the reasons I asked you here. Bay State University has been rather disappointing establishing an area of expertise, a niche in the educational establishment. We're about to change that. The first thing I want to do is set up a school for the administration of international protectorates. Jarred was apparently appointed on the basis of his political connections. This isn't the proper way to handle these emerging structures. It's time we defined the qualifications of excellence that'll be necessary to accomplish the administrative tasks involved in internationaliza-tion, and identify individuals with those qualifications who can work on establishing a curriculum designed to bring up a generation of administrators in the field. So that'll give Bay State a leg up in the area of diplomatic training."

"I've felt for a long time Bay State needed a more international flavor," Mary noted.

"The demand for talent will have to draw people from all over the world regardless of sex, race or national origin."

"Sex?" Mary asked. "Does that mean we'll have to increase the number of women we enroll?"

Shandra laughed. "Look at it is as an opportunity to obtain addi-tional sports."

"Yes, and players," Dareze added.

"In any event, qualifying individuals will be identified for you. A curriculum is already being established, so the only thing you'll be responsible for, Mary, is providing the plant. The other assignment I have for Bay State is the establishment of a new college in the area of Virtual Life Sciences."

"What are virtual life sciences?" Mary asked, as if she were interested in the curriculum at all, The Chairman well aware what her real interest was.

"Marise will know about that," The Chairman said, refusing to look at Marise who was sitting demurely next to Ireless, fearing the less than demur picture she hinted would disrupt his train of thought. "Virtual Life is what we're going to call the symbolic proc-essor that ISBM is going to develop primarily in the new research laboratories at Bay State.

"Shandra is going to take care of the necessary paper work to have Senator Shade provide us with total control of the

Tokamak technology. She'll set up a foundation that you, Marise, will head. The foundation will move people back and forth between it and Bay State College studying Virtual Life Sciences, developing both the technical aspects of the symbolic computer and the educa-tional side, the approach we take to make the technology under-standable to students.

"And you, Mary, will continue what your doing."

"How about me?" Dareze cried. "What part do I play?"

"Your my new personal assistant." He looked up as Block passed through security. "I assume you've already met Ronald Block, so there's no need for introductions."

"So I have," Dareze said, jumping up to greet him, then fixing him a drink.

Block saluted with the rolled up paper he held in his hand, greeting each in turn, lingering, The Chairman noticed, with a little more than casual warmth when he reached Marise.

The blood rushed to The Chairman's face as he realized Block had once again one-upped him, having already had Marise. What had he been thinking, he wondered. He could've had her, and he hadn't even tried. He realized he'd thrown Marise and Block together with the intention of compromising Block, creating an obligation to perform where perhaps he'd rather not.

But that turned out to be a bad move. Marise and Block had been part of the symbolic computer project. As soon as he'd heard of the Philbrook Effect, he'd concentrated his attention on Marise's file, developed over the years since she'd been identified by his prob-ability program as a realitist, a person who saw reality just as it was. He'd assumed, knowing she was a realitist, she dressed to cover what was there, not hide it.

The uncanny Block, the son of a gun, apparently saw right through the sack to the reality, discovering her physical endow-ments for himself.

And, The Chairman thought with a definite pang of jealousy, had taken advantage of them.

How did the guy do it time after time? You just couldn't beat him.

He didn't rise in greeting, waiting for Block to get his glass of scotch. Dareze made a spot for him to pull up a chair.

"Congratulations," The Chairman said. "You've brought another mission home successfully. The Millennials are now safe. The Rep-resentative World Government will now have the talent it needs for success. And, I might add, you did this job with admirable obscu-rity. No atom bomb over Baltimore, no bare-butted porker hanging over rush hour traffic in mid-Manhattan, no destruction of religious shrines or tourist attractions."

Block unrolled his paper and held up the headline.

"BLOCK BLOCKS AGAIN"

"Sorry," he said, passing it over to The Chairman.

The Chairman scanned the article, which revealed Jarred's scheme to inject ostrich meat with hypnotic drugs in order to turn mankind into zombies.

It was accurate, just the way he'd dictated it.

"I don't know how these things get out," he muttered. "Just as well, though. Diverts attention from our major goal, the perfection of the symbolic computer. I'll say to everyone, a job well-done." He held up his glass in toast. "To the coming job well-done."

They toasted.

"Now," he said, getting out of his chair. "Ronald promised he's going to tell me once and for all what cynosure is."

"Cynosure?" Marise repeated.

"Cynosure?" Dareze echoed.

"What's cynosure?" Ireless asked.

"I want someone to explain to me what it is that makes all eyes move to a beautiful women or a handsome man. Why do looks sell? Why is it no matter how many naked women I've seen, I always want to see one more?"

"What's beauty?" Dareze said.

"An age old question," Ireless added.

"An unanswerable one," Shandra pointed out.

"Well, try anyway," The Chairman said, looking directly at the changed Marise for the first time.

"Well, okay," Shandra said, putting down her computer and picking her untouched glass of wine up. "To start with, beauty has to be a feeling, a sensation that has its source in the mind."

"Right," Dareze said. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

"So therefore, it's subjective." Shandra continued. "However, being subjective, there's no doubt it can also be objective. No one can deny the beauty in congruities."

"Congruities?" The Chairman asked, puzzled.

"Congruities are single operations that take multiple levels of understanding. Two plus two equals four is an extremely simple congruity. It requires separate understandings to make up a single understanding. You have to know what the numbers are symbols of and you have to know the concept of plus.

"Physical reality presents all sorts of congruities in the form of measurements. But these congruities are created by the mind. The symbols for representing the distance between two points and the interval between two occurrences are created by agreement, but the distances and the intervals are objective.

"Space and time, which is what the distances and intervals are, are objective in reality only so far as they pertain to matter and the movement of matter in that reality. It's by creating congruities that we're capable of comprehending reality and ordering it around our concepts.

"However, there're congruities in reality that contain their own comprehension. These are such things as an object falling at a rate that increases in accordance with the square of its fall, or the electromagnetic emission field diminishing inversely with the dis-tance from its source.

"Here there are two inseparable facts that always operate to-gether, the fall and the rate of fall, the expansion and the rate of diminishment. They're the only two such congruities in physical reality, and the realization they're congruous with each other is an example of objective beauty.

"Once you obtain the feeling that comes from comprehension, you can begin to identify on an objective basis what beauty is," she concluded.

"But understanding physical reality doesn't tell me why I pursue it," The Chairman said. "I can understand why a woman is put to-gether the way she is. That doesn't stop me from wanting to posses her."

"Desire brings you closer to the subjective side of beauty," Dareze observed. "With Shandra's congruities, when she finds two plus two equals four, or that an object falls at a rate that increases at the same rate over the distance of its fall is doing so in a field expanding and diminishing at the same rate over the same distance, what's she finding? Objective agreement in external reality. No desire involved. External reality is objective, and agreement in external reality is also objective, but it's the agreement that's creating the sensation perceived as beauty."

"We're all aware of the basic principal of mental operation," Ireless jumped in. "Operating on the basis of comparison, there's no understanding if there's no comparison. Therefore, beauty, whether objective or subjective, is rooted in the process of com-parison. It's the physical reaction we get from having comparison occur."

"Are you saying that it's the physical process that's driving me?" The Chairman asked. "I have some sort of image in my mind, and I'm always looking for a new match?"

"Hey," Mary interjected, "I'm an example of the totally sub-jective because all I want is another good go in the sack."

"Good point," The Chairman said. "You're getting actual physi-cal pleasure, while I'm getting more of a mental jolt when my hopes are matched in reality. I'm getting mental pleasure, then physical pleasure. You're just skipping the first step."

"And we all try to duplicate pleasure," Shandra added. "There's a finite number of qualities, and a heck of a lot of people, so people will emerge who have qualities that satisfy a large num-ber of those people who, if they want, become the focus of cyno-sure, everyone wanting to look at them in order to feel pleasure."

"That's what makes celebrities," Marise pointed out. "But an object of cynosure probably has to live with two self images, the one they have of themselves in reality and the one pictured in the endless coverage. Not an enviable position to be in, I should think."

"Which means," Mary broke in, " once you cut all the crap, if the guy's a desirable fuck, you fuck."

"What about power?" Marise asked.

"Oh, baby," Mary, Dareze, and Ireless answered in unison.

"Power is the biggest aphrodisiac," Mary said emphatically.

"Power turns you on?" The Chairman asked everyone.

The five girls looked at each other.

"Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac," Dareze said, turning to Marise. "Which raises a good question, Marise. How did you, with your, shall we say, inexperience, reduce the powerful sex machine Block to a pile of putty? Read a lot?"

"Ha," Marise replied, "I realized, after the first assault that he'd gone crazy for me, for my body, to possess me through my body. I thought, God, the power, the fucking power sex gave me over him, it's more than incredible. Shit, I'm starting to come just thinking about it, the fucking God Damn power."

"Well, I've got a secret, two really," Dareze replied.

"What's that?" Ireless asked.

"I've rigged up Attila's marriage bed in The Chairman's suite."

"Several of the girls let out squeals of delight.

"Don't get too loud." Ireless cautioned. "We want Block to stay in his dreams so The Chairman gets all the action."

They all turned to look at Block who was passed out, his drink balanced precariously on his leg.

"I've seen the drawings of the thing in the archives," Shandra said, "but I couldn't make any sense out of it. What's it supposed to do?"

"For starters," Ireless answered, "it sends you into an end-less series of orgasms."

"That is," Dareze said, laughing, "only if you measure up."

"And all girls measure up," Ireless noted. "We're going to in-troduce you and Marise to it right now, with The Chairman's per-mission, of course. After all, he's the principle ingredient."

"That's only one secret," Marise noted. "What's the second one?"

"Well, we'll let you start."

"What about me?" Mary demanded.

"You'll go after Marise. I want to get her primed for the second secret, the real power of the body I'm going to show her, that is, if she's up to it."

"I'm up to anything involving sex," Marise replied.

"When you're finished on the marriage bed, Mary," Dareze added, "you can come out here and work Block over so he'll stay exhausted. I'm sure you'll be up to it."

"Always," Mary said.

"So . . .' Ireless said, as they all turned to The Chairman.

The Chairman lifted his glass in toast. "To our past and future success," he said, "and, to hell with cynosure. All but Block to Attila's marriage bed."