The media management consultant sat back and reached for the phone. ‘Let me just contact Hank’s publisher, that’s Fishfold and Tove, let me just sound them out, they could divert his tour so it just runs into hers, kinda accidental-like. We don’t tell the Dinkses.’
‘You think that’s a good idea, not telling them?’
‘Bound to strike some kinda sparks. Now you just let me pull something together, get it blended and orchestrate a meaningful deal…’
His finger went for a button.
XIV
‘Von Neumann, playing Kuratowski to Frege’s Wiener, offered a different identification’
Luke was wearing saffron: Hat, overcoat, suit, shirt and tie, shoes, attache case and a visible inch of sock were all part of the saffron glow.
‘Can’t help it, Rickwood, it’s what we had to wear all the time; probably why they called us the Saffron Peril. Only let me tell you, we were the only ones in danger, when those lunatic Luddites showed up and—’
‘Okay, fine, but why did we have to meet way out here in a place like this? The Vitanuova Shopping Piazza may be a terrific place and the chief jewel in Minnetonka’s crown and all, but I mean it’s miles from civilization.’
The two friends sat on a park bench near a fountain which, according to a brochure, could form over fifty million different beautiful patterns without repeating itself. Like everything else of importance here, it was indoors, for the entire great shopping complex was, enclosed under geodesic domes, as if it were a moon base.
‘And don’t tell me Mission Control ordered us here,’ Roderick added.
‘Nope, my idea. We are going to a meeting, important meeting.’
‘Not your Saffron Peril?’
‘I’m all through with them — or they’re through with me. I only have to wear this stuff because my luggage with my other stuff was delayed at the airport. Had to leave Tibet in kind of a hurry, Rickwood. Now I’m through with meditation in the Himalayas, I mean who needs it?’
Roderick watched the fountain repeat itself. ‘But I thought
‘Okay okay, laugh, I deserve it. It’s just, the whole thing turned out to be more of a commercial venture than I figured. See I expected to maybe shave my head and sit down with the monks to some meditation and glass beads, only it wasn’t like that at all. I mean they got computerized prayer-wheels, that was the first shock. And all they really do is deal in different stock markets and talk about exchange rates and commodity prices, all day while the old prayer-wheels go on grinding away all by themselves. I felt kind of uneasy about it, but I suppressed it. I said to myself, “Give it a chance, Draeger, there might be some deeper meaning in all of this. The Master must know what he’s doing.” So I hung on.
‘The Master was a little old dried-up-looking man, he always looked ready to say something important. He went off on these trips to Taipin, somebody said, to plant the seed of consciousness. But then somebody else said he just went to gamble, that he was robbing the treasury. Who could believe a thing like that? Especially when our Master seemed so doggoned
‘Then the police showed up and took our Master away. They were extraditing him to Taipin, to stand trial for murder. They said he’d killed some Chinese guy in a quarrel over a poker game.’
Roderick stared through the changing fountain to where a sign was going up. ‘TODAY. **DICA **NKS… *N*ICA D**KS… IN*IC* DIN**…’
‘Sure we were shaken a little. Some people said it was all over, they wanted to go home. But I persuaded them to hang on — maybe it was only a test of our faith and loyalty, I said.
‘Just as I was saying that, the Luddites broke in and smashed the whole place up. The stock quotation machines, the computers, the prayer-wheels, everything. Worst of it was they took out the phone and telex, left us stranded.
‘There we were — about fifty of us — broke, our outfit smashed, our Master gone, no money to come home on. We didn’t have a prayer you might say. Nothing in the storeroom either, but a half pound of rice, an old motheaten silver fox coat, and a catcher’s mitt autographed by Yogi Berra. We were high up in the mountains with snow all around. What could we do?’
Pray?’ Roderick suggested, watching I*D*C* INKS…
‘Right. Our prayers were answered right away too, because this camera team from some big magazine syndicate showed up. They were doing a feature on Everest-climbing tours, and they wanted some local colour. We fed them the last of our rice and gave them beds. During the night, I put the catcher’s mitt on my foot and went out walking in the snow. In the morning we pointed out the giant tracks to them and they got real excited and took lots of pictures.
‘Then in the afternoon there was a snowstorm. I put on the fur coat and ran around in it, the others pointed me out and the photographers chased me and took more pictures. Then they got on their radio and arranged a lucrative book and movie deal, and our end of it was just enough to pay our fares home.’
Roderick got up from the bench and moved to one side of the fountain to read:
‘On the plane home,’ Luke said when he returned, ‘I met another Luddite. In fact he was the guy who started the whole movement. I told him what happened and how Luddite heavies had moved in on us. He apologized. He said, “Some of the boys just got carried away with the message, I guess.”
‘Then he started telling me all about the New Luddites Movement and it didn’t sound so fanatical after all. He said the Luddites were opposed to violence, even against machines. He wanted a way of peace, linked with the great Eastern traditions of resignation and manual labour. Why didn’t I come to the rally he was having in Minnetonka? So here I am, ready to be a Luddite.’ Luke looked pleased with himself. ‘Maybe I can convert you too.’
‘Convert — but Luke, I can’t be a Luddite.
‘Oh, you don’t have to join right away, Rickwood. I just want you to come along and meet some Luddites yourself. Great buncha guys.’
‘But Luke, this is crazy!’
‘Meet the guys, hear what they got to say, that’s all. Then you make up your own mind.’
Father Warren and Hank Dinks stood by the luggage carousel, watching the same parade of unclaimed bags pass for perhaps the sixth time, the tattersall overnight pursued by the natural calf two-suiter followed at a distance by the viola case, then two items in red hide crowded close by a stiff Gladstone bag with labels and, after a short interval, the duffel bag and the large bright saffron suitcase leading the tattersall overnight. From time to time
