Deus X Read Free

collar, and a gold chain dangling something off-camera, and he’s wearing some kind of little red cap, it all seems like it should be familiar, but I don’t make the connection until he does, and then I find it right hard to believe.
    “Mr. Philippe?”
    “The one, my man, the only.”
    “John Cardinal Silver,” he says, “I need to meet with you on a matter of great urgency.”
    He’s got thinning black hair and a black spade beard streaked with white looks like they’ve been trimmed with a laser five minutes ago, urbane like they say, with hard brown eyes and a mouth that looks like it’s used to sniggering at sophisticated jokes, and the smooth powerful voice of a corporate dreadnought. Looks like the type who never sweats, oils his way through it all like a diplomat’s Siamese cat.
    Only he don’t seem so supercooled now, and he’s not trying to hide it, and there’s something so strange about his persona, that I
still
don’t realize that I’m talking to a Prince of the Church.
    “Your place or mine, Mr. Silver?” I tell him, reaching for my dreadcap.
    “No, no, no!” he says. “This much is risky enough! I have to meet with you in person.”
    “In person? You mean like in the flesh?”
    “I mean here in Rome, Mr. Philippe, and I mean as soon as possible. The Church urgently needs your services immediately on a matter of extreme importance and delicacy and we are prepared to pay quite handsomely for speed and priority.”
    “Who did you say you represent, Mr. Silver?”
    “Cardinal Silver
, or Your Eminence if you prefer,” he snaps back with a hauteur like a backhand slap to a peasant’s face. “I represent the Roman Catholic Church, Mr. Philippe, and in this matter I am speaking with the authority of the Pope. You must come to Rome at once!”
    “Well, if I decide to take your contract, and if it calls for double my standard rate, and if the meter starts running right now, I could reach the closest port in about a week—”
    “We’ll send a helicopter.”
    “You’ll send a
what
?”
    “We’ll have a helicopter overhead within three hours to pick you up.”
    A helicopter! Sets your teeth on edge just to think about it! The big bad overseer chariot of the last century and the petrol-guzzling vampire bat of our Greenhouse Fall, a flying brick puffing and groaning just to stay aloft and farting out carbon dioxide and nitrides like the Devil’s own asshole!
    I don’t like leaving my boat, except for occasional moorings in quiet little coastal towns, and I certainly have no desire to tour the behavioralsinks of the crumbling inland cities, and you don’t have to be a Flaming Green Warrior to cringe at the thought of flying in something that burns fossil fuel.
    On the other hand, any organization capable of procuring such a piece of Space Age hardware, restoring it to working order, protecting it one way or another from authorities and lynch mobs, getting its hands on the petrol to fly the thing, and putting it in the air without apparent fear of terminal sanctions, was clearly an organization of resources, financial and otherwise.
    “My rates just doubled again,” I told the Cardinal, in whose reality as an authentic Prince of the well-heeled Church I now found it expedient to believe. “But you’re not getting me on any helicopter, and I’m not leaving my boat. You want to talk business with me, you’d best do it now.”
    “If you insist, I’ll fly out to you.”
    “You’re serious?”
    “Mohammed to the Mountain, Mr. Philippe….”
    “Come on, Your Eminence, can’t you tell me what this deal is all about before you trot out your chopper? That’s a lot of carbon dioxide to add to your karma just to have a little chat. Truth be told, I find it immoral.”
    “No more than I! But if you knew my reasons you too would accept the necessity. Suffice it to say that the nature of our problem itself makes it highlyinadvisable to discuss it over channels or in media that might be