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"I'll have a reading room right there, with two comfortable leather chairs and a
fireplace. And I'll have a pot of tea, Twining's Earl Grey."
"And a bottle of Jim Beam," I added.
Ian opened the door and the room was as described, with a cheerful fire, one
oversized and one undersized leather chair, with a marble-topped table between
them. There was a bottle of Kentucky sour mash next to the big chair, with a
glass and a full ice chest. A cup and a pot of hot tea stood next to the small
one.
"Ian . . . How . . . ?"
"Sheer brilliance and accurate deduction, my son. Only I've changed my mind
about the Earl Grey. I've heard that there are some Chinese teas that cost more
than their weight in gold. I'd like to try some."
A "French" maid came quietly in and removed the silver English tea pot, and Ming
Po came in with a tray of tea-making stuff, bowing a lot.
She was the first of my servants that I'd ever seen twice, and she went through
this little ceremony of whipping a tiny amount of green powder into a bowl of
hot water.
"The water . . . ?" Ian asked.
"Dew from rose blossoms, sir. I gather this morning." She bowed some more and
left the room.
Ian tasted his tea. "Interesting . . . You know, if they were all like that last
one, having servants wouldn't be so bad."
"Dammit, if you'll tell me what you're doing, I'll give her to you."
"Givea human being? Shame on you for the thought."
"I mean, I'll have her transferred to your staff.That can't be immoral. Now what
gives?"
"You're slow, and here I'd had such hopes for you. Perhaps if we arranged a
suitable course of study, starting with John Calvin and . . ."
"Dammit . . ."
"Okay, Tom. Make a wish."
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"All right. I'm rich now, so I'll have Beam's Choice instead of his regular sour
mash, and make it a ten-gallon bottle."
Within moments, a new bunch of nearly naked women removed the old bottle and
rolled in a cart with a huge, pivoted bottle of booze. It was a gorgeous cart,
with all sorts of intricate hand carving and fancy inlay work. The women left us
alone again.
"Uh . . . They couldn't have had that ready and waiting. I don't think that Jim
Beam makes a ten-gallon bottle."
"They probably had a glass blower do it up special. They had plenty of time,
since that cart must have been a year in the making."
"Huh . . . ?"
"If you must be spoon fed, consider the situation of predestination along with
the knowledge of future events. They probably have a microphone hidden in this
room, and are placing orders far enough in the past so that we get things on
request."
"Uh, is that how you knew this room was here?"
"Ididn't know that this room was here! I ordered it here and they incorporated
it into the architectural plans when they built the place."
"Good God! But why are they doing all this?"
"A good question! A magnificent question! Another good one is 'How far are they
willing to go?' "
I was starting to catch on.
"Look, did you know that just beyond that wall is a scene that would entice the
most decadent caliph of the ancient Saracen world? That this very wall,
fireplace and all, can be slowly slid downwards, starting now, to expose a vast
pleasure garden with a thousand naked odalisques undulating in their passion for
our tender bodies to the slithering music of a hundred blind musicians. . . ."
The wall was moving downwards. Arabic music was coming in.
"No!" Ian yelled. "Damn it, Tom, they might do it! Would you have a man
blinded?"
"Jesus Christ, you're right! Cancel the blind musicians! Make that a full
symphony orchestra, black tie and tails, and they can stare at the girls all
they want."
The wall vanished into the floor and there it was, as ordered. Pleasure garden.
Orchestra. A thousand naked dancing girls. At least I think that there were a
thousand.
Hell, I didn't count.
But having ordered it, we felt obligated to watch it, which we did for at least
fifteen minutes.
"Bored yet, Tom?"
"Yeah. And embarrassed. For the last ten minutes."
"Then up with the wall. Let's have the fireplace back."
We shortly had the fireplace back, although I never did figure out how that
chimney worked. I tried to get interested in my sour mash and a bound manuscript
copy of H. Beam Piper'sOnly the Arquebus . Good book. Good booze. But I couldn't
get into either one of them. Still, I tried, hoping perhaps that my subconscious
could solve the problems that fuddled my rational self. But the words on the
paper didn't seem to mean much and mostly I just listened to the hum of the
overworked air conditioner, fighting the heat from the fire in a decadent waste
of power. After what seemed like a few hours, Ian broke the tension.
"God damn it!" Ian slammed a copy ofLife on the Mississippi to the table,
upsetting his tea cup. "These people have robbed us of all that is worthwhile in
life!"
"Robbed us? They've smothered us under tons of everything we always thought we
wanted."
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