Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra Read Online Free PDF Page B

vantage to tell if they were the distant lights of Houston or someplace else.
    Treet gazed out upon the scene as the twilight deepened. The sky had clouded up during the latter part of the afternoon, and these clouds hung as if they were steel wool, rusted in spots and suspended on wires from an iron firmament. He looked on until he realized that he was staring but no longer attending to what he was seeing; his eyes were simply open to the view with nothing taken in.
    He turned, put his shoes back on, and left the apartment, feeling the key in his pocket on his way out. Oh well, he thought, walking back to the private chauffeured elevator along a quiet, deserted, and well-lit corridor, if nothing else, he would have a good meal and a free night's lodging out of the deal. What could be so bad about that?
FOUR
    “I am so glad you could join us, Mr. Treet. I do hope you will come back again very soon.” The
maitre d'
placed the silver coffee urn on a warming cradle, tilted his head, and nodded as he backed away from the table. “Enjoy your dessert.”
    Glazed strawberries the size of hen's eggs swam in thick, sweetened cream in a chilled bowl on a silver tray before him. Spoon in hand, he stared thoughtfully at the luscious extravagance, but he was not thinking about the strawberries. He was instead puzzling over something that had been going on all during his meal: a polite but incessant stream of diners had made their way to his table to introduce themselves to him and make his acquaintance as if he were a holovision celebrity.
    How did they all know his name? Was he so conspicuous that every Cynetics employee—he supposed that the thirty or so other diners in the restaurant were all Cynetics employees—knew who he was on sight?
    Obviously they had been told of his arrival and instructed to greet him. But why? Was it really
that
important to the Chairman that he feel welcome? He imagined an order that may have been issued:
     
Executive Memo

To: All Cynetics Division Heads

Re: Arrival of Orion Treet

All employees using the restaurant facility this evening are instructed to extend every cordiality to Mr. Orion Treet, who is visiting at the special request of Chairman Neviss.

Anyone found not in compliance with this directive will be terminated immediately with total forfeiture of all company benefits.

Varro

    The thing that bothered Treet about all this, besides the interruption of one of the best meals he had eaten in nearly three years—not counting that dinner with the uranium heiress in Baghdad eighteen months ago—the thing that needled him most was that the lavish attention he was receiving was all out of proportion with the proposed assignment. In his mind Treet had begun calling it the
supposed
assignment; he felt that uncertain about it.
    Treet spooned thick white cream over the ruby berries, sliced one in half with his spoon, and slipped it into his mouth as he turned the problem over in his mind, letting out a little sigh of pleasure as the strawberry burst on his tongue. The easy answer was that, as Varro had suggested, Chairman Neviss was an extremely—no, make that
unimaginably
—powerful man who was accustomed to having his slightest whim satisfied instantly and in spades.
    He wanted Treet, and Treet he would have at whatever cost. The expense did not matter; it was not a factor. Money itself had no meaning to a man like Chairman Neviss. He wanted what he wanted; the money simply made it happen. For some quirky reason—perhaps all those spoony history articles he had written over the years to finance his wanderings and keep his brain from ossifying—Treet had struck the Chairman's fancy; so here he was.
    Treet ate another strawberry and, with eyes half closed in gastronomic ecstasy, decided that perhaps he was being unduly moronic not to take the Chairman's proposal at face value. Besides, here was a chance to make some money. How much money? A seriously large amount of money; a sum quite radically