Torreya frowns at the lack of response, then turns back to the sloops and their crews bustling about on their decks. Her eyes narrow.
Laurus orders the captain to go around again. At least Torreya will enjoy the trip.
• • •
As far as Torreya knew, the geneticist was a doctor who wanted to run some tests. She gave him a small sample of blood, and prowled around the study, bored within minutes at the lack of anything interesting in that most adult of rooms. Ryker clawed at his perch, caught up in the overspill of trepidation from Laurus's turbulent mind.
His suspicions had been confirmed as soon as he'd accessed the major-domo's house files. Nemesia had been in residence eleven years ago.
He sat in his high-backed leather chair behind the rosewood desk, unable to move from the agony of waiting. The geneticist seemed to be taking an age, running analysis programs on his sequencer module, peering owlishly at the multicoloured graphics dancing in the compact unit's holoscreen.
Eventually the man looked up, surprise twisting his placid features. «You're related,» he said. «Primary correlation. You're her father.»
Torreya turned from the window, her face numb with incomprehension. Then she ran into his arms, and Laurus had to cope with the totally unfamiliar sensation of a small bewildered girl hugging him desperately, her slight frame trembling. It was one upheaval too many. She cried for the very first time.
After all she had been through. Losing her mother, living in an animal slum, the never-ending task of looking after Jante. She had coped magnificently, never giving in.
He waited until her sobs had finished, then dried her eyes and kissed her brow. They studied each other for a long poignant moment. Then she finally offered a timid smile.
Her looks had come from her mother, but by God she had his spirit.
• • •
Torreya sits cross-legged on the bed and pours out Laurus's breakfast tea herself. She glances up at him, anxious for approval.
So he sips the tea, and says: «Just right.» And it really is.
Her pixie face lights with a smile, and she slurps some tea out of her own mug.
His son, Iberis, was never so open, so trusting. Always trying to impress. As a good son does, Laurus supposes. These are strange uncharted thoughts for him; he is actually free to recall Iberis without the usual icy snap of pain and shame. Forty-five years is a long time to mourn.
Now the only shame comes from his plan for Torreya's seduction, an ignominious bundle of thoughts already being suppressed by his subconscious.
The one admirable aspect to emerge from his earlier manoeuvrings is her genuine affection for Abelia. He means for Abelia to stay on, a cross between a companion and a nanny.
And now he is going to have to see about curing Jante, though how that will affect the fantasyscapes still troubles him. The idea of losing such a supreme source of creativity is most unwelcome. Perhaps he can persuade them to compose a whole series before the doctors begin their work.
So many new things to do. How unusual that such fundamental changes should come at his time of life. But what a future Torreya will have. And that's what really matters now.
She finishes her tea and crawls over the bed, cuddling up beside him. «What are we going to do today?» she asks.
He strokes her glossy hair, marvelling at its fine texture. Everything about her comes as a revelation. She is the most perfect thing in the universe. «Anything,» he says. «Anything you want.»
• • •
Laurus had tracked the lion for four days through the bush. At night he would lie awake in his tent, listening to its roar. In the morning he would pick up its spoor and begin the long trek again.
There was no more beautiful land in the galaxy than the African savanna, its brittle yellow grass, lonely alien trees. Dawn and dusk would see the sun hanging low above the horizon, streaked with thin gold clouds, casting a cold radiance. Tall mountains were visible in the distance, their peaks capped with snow.
The land he crossed teemed with life. He spent hours sitting on barren outcrops of rock, watching the animals go past. Timid gazelles, bad-tempered rhinos, graceful giraffes, nibbling at the lush leaves only they could reach. Monkeys screamed and chattered at him from their high perches, zebras clustered cautiously around muddy water holes, twitching nervously as he hiked past. There were pandas, too, a group of ten dozing on sun-baked rocks, chewing contentedly on the bamboo that grew nearby. Thinking back, their presence was very odd, but at the time he squatted down on his heels grinning at the affable creatures and their lazy antics.
Still the lion led him on; there were deep valleys, crumpled cliffs of rusty rock. Occasionally he would catch sight of his dusky prey in the distance, the silhouette spurring him on.
On the fifth day he entered a copse of spindly trees whose branches forked in perfect symmetry. The lion stood waiting for him. A fully grown adult male, powerful and majestic. It roared once as he walked right up to it, and shook its thick mane.
Laurus stared at it in total admiration for some indefinable length of time, long enough for every aspect of the jungle lord to be sketched irrevocably in his mind.
The lion shook his head again, and sauntered off into the copse. Laurus watched it go, feeling an acute sense of loss.
• • •
Laurus is throwing a party this evening, the ultimate rare event. All his senior managers and agents are in attendance, along with Kariwak's grandees. He is hugely amused that every one of them has turned up despite the short—five hour—notice. His reputation is the one faculty which does not diminish with the passing years.
Torreya is dressed like a Victorian princess, a gown of flowering lace and chains of small flowers woven into her hair. He stands beside her under the white marble portico, immaculate in his white dinner jacket, scarlet rosebud in his buttonhole, receiving the guests as they alight from their limousines. Ryker has been watching the cars cluster at Belsize Square at the bottom of the hill, some of them were there for half an hour before beginning the journey up to the mansion, determined not to be late.
They sit around the oak table in the mansion's long-disused formal dining room. Vast chandeliers hang on gold chains above them, classical oil paintings of hunts and harvests alternate with huge garlands of flowers to decorate the walls. A string quartet plays quietly from a podium in one corner. Laurus has gone all-out. He wants to do this with style.
Torreya sits next to Jante, who is wearing a dinner jacket with an oversize velvet bow tie, a neat chrome sunshade band covering his eyes. She pauses from her own meal every so often to stare at her brother's plate, and he uses his knife and fork with quick precision.
Conversations end instantly as Laurus taps his crystal goblet with a silver dessert spoon. He rises to speak. «This is a double celebration for me. For all of us. I have found my daughter.» His hand rests proudly on Torreya's shoulder.
She blushes furiously, smiling wide, staring at the tablecloth. Shocked glances fly around the table as agents and managers try to work out how they will be affected by the new order. Tentative smiles of congratulation are offered to Torreya. Laurus feels like laughing.
«Torreya will be taking over from me when she's older. And she is the best person qualified to do so, for she has brought me something which will secure all your futures. Tropicana is finally going to take its place among the Confederation's economic superpowers.» He nods permission at her.
Torreya rises to her feet, and takes a big silver serving tray from the sideboard. Candy buds are piled high
