A Talent For The Invisible (v1.1) Read Online Free PDF

I know only that he did things I wouldn’t have thought possible. My wound, for instance, is almost completely gone. I was afraid a hole like that was going to leave a terrible unsightly scar. On the contrary, he was …”
    “Specifically, how did he bring you back?”
    Cavala sighed, sliding again down the steps, his cassock skirt raveling up around his chubby knees. “I was told no specifics.”
    “You mentioned a laboratory,” Conger reminded him. “Does Sandman’s process involve equipment, drugs, an operation or what?”
    “ Sim, yes. All that and more. As I told you, I was deceased during a good part of the proceedings. Even when one is alive it’s difficult to take in all of what’s going on in a medical situation. I know when I had my tonsils removed shortly after my confirmation I …”
    “Where is Sandman’s lab?”
    “I don’t believe I was at his own personal laboratory. He made use of borrowed facilities, is my impression.”
    “Where?”
    “Some hundred miles from here, on the coast. It was at the lovely villa of Duke Ocasologo,” answered Cavala. “Perhaps you recall the duke’s long dedicated service to our country as Portuguese ambassador to the planet Venus?”
    “Nope,” said Conger. “Whereabouts in the villa did Sandman have his lab set up?”
    “To the best of my recollection it was on the second floor, in a large room with a skylight.”
    “Tell me how to get to the duke’s villa.”
    “Gladly, my friend.” The colonel gave Conger a detailed and lengthy set of instructions on how to reach Duke Ocasologo’s coastal estate.
    Conger clutched the imitation monk under the arms, twisting him up and around. He left him propped in a praying position and went, invisibly, away from the guarded monastery.

CHAPTER 5
    The lizard man kept discarding carnations. “No, not that one either,” he said. “It clashes with my skin tone, don’t you think?” He was six feet tall, dressed in a one-piece nearsilk tuxedo, and was a scaly seagreen.
    “Perhaps because you’re flushed with excitement,” suggested his human bestman. He produced a purplish carnation from the large white cardboard box he was holding. “Try this one, prince.”
    The seagreen Venusian snorted through his snout. “Oh, it’s even worse than the others.”
    The two men were standing in an arbor on the sunlit afternoon grounds of Duke Ocasologo’s estate. It was the day after Conger’s visit to the monastery and he had just climbed to the top of the unguarded white brick wall which ran along the ocean side of the fifty acre spread. He was invisible again.
    “How about a speckled one? Or here’s a nice chocolate-colored carnation.”
    “No, no.” The lizard prince made a petulant sweep with his hand, knocking the flower box into the air. Two dozen carnations erupted.
    One landed on Conger’s invisible knee. He brushed it away.
    The Venusian prince glanced upward, frowning. “All this shillyshallying over my boutonniere has upset my optic nerves. I have the impression that that ugly pinkish carnation stopped several seconds in midair before falling.”
    “Let’s return to the villa, prince,” said his bestman. “I’m sure we’ll find a flower to your liking in there.”
    “I loathe outdoor weddings,” complained the lizard man as the middle-sized human led him away across the neat grass. “Ah, the nonsensical things diplomacy leads us into.” He rotated his large seagreen head to take one final look at the wall where Conger still sat invisible.
    Dropping to the grass, Conger scanned the grounds of the duke’s villa.
    About two thousand feet away, across rolling lawns and floral islands, rose the Ocasologo home. It was a castle-like building of a soft rose-pink stone.
    A dozen striped tents had been pitched near the villa and a mixed orchestra, part human and part Venusian, was already tuning up in a wide-floored white gazebo.
    Wedding guests were rolling in through the main gate in immense landcars,