Triumph Read Free

Horselike. This beaky and elongated nose has been claimed as the equal of anything Modigliani ever painted. My eyes are held to be the same 'blue-clay blue' that the pre-Roman cannibals of Britain daubed themselves with."

    She gurgled with mirth. "Homely," she finally agreed. "But how! Yet, when you smile, it's like a Christmas tree coming on in the dark! Next fact. All the people who work for you, with you, over you--everybody I ever heard of who knew you--loves you.
    Including me. So there!"

    He nodded soberly but went on. "You are Money, Miss Farr. Also, Society, Café Society, and Blue Blood-- not mud-blue, either. The McCoy. My old man is a Jewish shop-owner in Newark. I'm exactly one generation from going to church in a yarmulke."

    "Oh, fiddle! You're as religious as Dad. Nil. Nix. None."

    "Then there is the matter of my métier."

    "Math? Physics? I was damned good at math in college! Our prof literally implored me to go on, after calculus."

    "But you studied opisthotonos dancing, instead."

    "You fool! Wait a sec! Opisthotonos. That's the spinal back-bend you get in your dying agonies if you take strychnine. Or if you die of tetanus."

    He nodded, his expression unimpressed. "Next on the agenda. My present plans.
    Along about mid-October I'm scheduled to leave for Antarctica--"

    "Ben! You're not!"

    "--a thing you'd know I recently agreed to do, if you read the science news. Some special studies to be conducted down there, of the magnetosphere, certain new missiles, and communications. Some low-temperature work: laser phenomena at near-absolute zero."

    "Near-absolute zero is right! How long will you be gone?"

    "Two years," he said quietly.

    She accelerated so savagely she had to brake hard and instantly, afterward, to keep from leaving the road and flying onto the roofs of Candlewood Manor Apartments, visible below. She flushed, then grew slightly pale, bit her lip, glanced at a vast mansion set far back from the road, and did not tell Ben it was the Barlow home--did not need to.
    Finally, she said, "Do--are you--allowed visitors?"

    "Like in penitentiaries?" He chuckled. "Sometimes."

    "Women?"

    "Sometimes. Wives, at least. After all, it was--oh, in the Kennedy Administration, I guess--second term, I think--when they started building a genuine, domed city in Marie Byrd land--and it's as comfortable as your family's Park Avenue penthouse, indoors, even at minus seventy outdoors."

    "Goody! Then the very first time Kit and I fight-after we're married, I mean--I'll come down and see you!"

    "Do that! You'd really be an ornament--in a military jail!"

    She responded forlornly, "Oh, Ben!"

    Then the trees under which they'd climbed opened up. Ahead he saw a stone gateway. On its summit stood an exact replica of the "tiger" god found deep inside the largest pyramid at Chichen Itza--complete, even, to glowing green eyes of Chinese jade that somehow the Toltecs had imported centuries before the Spaniards had crossed the Atlantic to smash their idols and steal their treasure in the Holy Name of a different deity.

    This great cat--a panther, Ben thought-[was beautifully modeled in what would be accepted as a most "modernistic" style.

    Beyond the gate lay a sort of plaza-as big as the game courts of Uxmal or Chichen Itza, Ben thought--surrounded by the temple-like edifices of stone, timber, and glass which were living rooms, dining chambers, and guest quarters, connected by closed passageways and looking out, on all four exterior faces, across a moat swimming pool where cool-looking water shimmered in sun or drowsed in shade. The car stopped on bluestone beside a building where half a dozen other cars glittered in the shade, and there was room for many more.

    From a door came a slender, white-uniformed Negro of middle age. "This," Faith said, "is Paulus, Dr. Bernman. Paulus Davey, our butler. Lord! It's hot!"

    To Ben's great surprise, the butler held out a confident hand. Instantly, Ben took it, aware that Faith