Wormbender's Circus

When the brandy glasses had been drained, Lichinsky turned to his guests. “Let me show you around a bit. I’m rather proud of this ship, you know.”

His visitors exchanged glances and shrugs.

“Why not?” said Sebastian.

Lichinsky smiled, sensing a subtle softening in their attitude towards him, pushed back his chair and led the way out of the dining room. Sebastian and Casey followed close behind him. Zoe trailed a short way behind, thinking of which way she would most like to murder Lichinsky.

Lichinsky led them to one of the walkways which traversed the rain forest, pausing to point out rare plants here and there. More than once, his guests were unable to determine precisely which specimen he was referring to. He plucked soft fruit from the branches here and there, and gave a soft whistle. Two or three monkeys approached boldly along an overhanging tree limb. They settled on his head and shoulders and began eating the proffered fruit.

They are partial to pawpaws, mangos and the like,” Lichinsky explained. “Would you like to have a go at calling them?”

“Okay,” said Sebastian. He picked some fruit and imitated Lichinsky’s whistle as best he could. A couple of faces appeared above him. Dark beady eyes examined him, and the monkeys gave little noises of approbation. They approached cautiously, settling tentatively onto his shoulders, and took the fruit.

“Of course,” volunteered Lichinsky, “they are more than capable of helping themselves, but somehow they seem to appreciate the fruit more if it’s actually given to them. A gift from another is always more estimable than something you have acquired yourself.”

Casey turned to him. “Why don’t they run riot all over the ship?”

“That would cause a lot of problems,” said Lichinsky, “so we ensure that the doors to this section are kept securely closed. And they have no need to wander: they have all they want here.” He gently disengaged the monkeys’ paws from his shirt. “Shall we go on?”

Overflowing with the pride of possession, he conducted them through other areas of his ship, particularly his art gallery. “There are some superb old masters here that I’ve collected over the years. That’s a Dollman...over there an Enriquez...Jackson Pollock...Carter...a Picasso there...Miro...”

He stopped before the door at the further end of the gallery. “This room contains my most treasured works. I must ask you to move extremely carefully, and above all, not to touch anything.” He looked each of them in the eye for a moment, then opened the door. He ushered Casey and Sebastian into the room, then waited for Zoe, and sought to put his arm round her as she passed. She deftly slipped out of his grasp.

The room they had entered contained rows of pedestals on which were placed masterpieces of pottery from almost every era of the Earth’s history. Every great name was represented, from Ming and T’ang through Roman and Etruscan, to Bizen, Sevres and Delft, Wedgewood and Royal Doulton, Leach and Hoashi, to McAllister and Lindenberg.

“Each one unique,” beamed Lichinsky. “Each one priceless.”

“Have you ever had any, ah, accidents?” asked Casey.

Lichinsky paled visibly at the thought. “No.” He picked up a Limoges dinner plate, cradled it lovingly, like a father with a new-born baby, then placed it delicately back in its stand. After a brief reflection he said, “I think if anyone were to cause one of these pieces to be broken, I would kill them. Believe me, I would.”

For a moment there was a wild glint in his eyes. There could be no doubting that he meant it. Then he appeared to master himself once more, and gestured for the tour to continue. “This is my library...”

The following day, Sebastian and Casey were seated side by side in the bath. Sebastian was making a great show of idly thrashing the water with his legs.

“I’ve got the bones of an idea to get us out of here,” said Casey, his mouth close to Sebastian’s ear. “But Zoe’s going to hate it.”

He was right.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Zoe howled, when Casey’s plan was put to her. Sebastian clamped his hand over her mouth. “Sssh.”

She held up an item from the wardrobe which scarcely merited the description of clothing. “It has to be this one, I suppose?”

Sebastian nodded. She wrinkled her face into a grimace of total disgust. “All I can say is, this better work, Sebastian Wormbender. This better work.”

An hour or so later, Casey and Sebastian elected to take a stroll through the rain forest. The surveillance cameras followed them as they moved through the undergrowth, chatting and admiring the flora and fauna, and now and then pausing to pick and eat the soft fruit from the trees. Their path frequently took them through places where they could not be seen by the camera, but their leisurely pace remained much the same, and nothing they did aroused suspicion in either Lichinsky or Cliff.

Throughout the remainder of the day, the crew of the Semiramis remained generally civil towards Lichinsky, and he began to entertain hopes that this increased cordiality was a prelude to a deal being struck. He would not hold a grudge against Sebastian for his earlier animosity, he decided. He would actually give him an almost fair price, which would send him on his way happy. Lichinsky smiled broadly at the prospect of the enormous power which was now just a signature away from being his.

After dinner, Zoe shot a covert glance at Sebastian and Casey and excused herself. The men settled back in armchairs to enjoy their brandy and cigars.

Sebastian blew a plume of smoke into the air as if to the manner born. “While we’re here,” he said casually, “we’d like to give you a sample of what the paying public will be seeing. See what you think. After all,” he added with conscious irony, “it’s not often we have a captive audience.”

Lichinsky was highly amused by the joke, and laughed heartily.

“What about Cliff?” said Casey. “How about getting him in? He’d probably enjoy it.”

Lichinsky took a swig of brandy, and for a second a glimmer of suspicion crossed his face, then he dismissed it and smiled. “Cliff,” he called into the intercom. “Our guests are going to put on a show for us. Won’t you come and join us?”

Cliff appeared in moments. Casey marvelled that in spite of the huge size of the ship, he was always close at hand. He seemed always to linger close to Lichinsky, doubling as servant and bodyguard, and, after so many years of service, frequently anticipating his master’s wants.

He offered Casey and Sebastian a wan smile and silently settled into a seat next to Lichinsky. Lichinsky handed him a cigar and poured him a generous measure of brandy.

Sebastian noted angrily that Lichinsky was grinning broadly with anticipation. He knew Zoe had gone to change, and he knew the precise contents of the wardrobe that was available to her. But then, Sebastian reflected, Lichinsky’s reaction was just what they were hoping for.

Sebastian cleared chairs and tables from an area in front of Lichinsky which would serve as a stage. He then adjusted the lighting controls for the room to create a spotlit area for the performance, and threw the rest of the room into total darkness.

“Ready when you are, Miss Pinkerton,” he announced into the intercom.

He stepped forward into the spotlight, shading his eyes with his hand and squinting into the darkness in a manner that he hoped appeared comic. Adopting his best master of ceremonies voice, he announced: “Gentlemen, for your pleasure and entertainment, there will now be a performance by the delightful Miss Zoe Pinkerton.”

A side door slid open, and to rapturous applause, Zoe entered doing handstands. She came to a halt in front of Lichinsky’s chair, rose up on tiptoes and slowly, gracefully pirouetted to give him the full benefit of her costume, such as it was. It took the form of a glittering silver serpent whose tail encircled her waist and then hooked around its own body to form a belt. From there the body of the serpent insinuated itself between her legs, up between her buttocks, across her back, slithered across her breasts and under her arm, finishing up with its sleek head resting coyly on her shoulder.

Lichinsky stared, his jaw hanging open. He took a swig of his brandy and stared again. He had not seen a woman - never mind one as lithe and athletic as the one now before him - in many months, and now his wildest expectations had been surpassed. He began to burn with a fierce flame of passion.

Zoe fanned the flame expertly. She took a chair and used it to adopt a variety of contorted acrobatic poses which she knew would certainly never be seen by Sebastian’s paying public. Praying that the serpent would remain clinging firmly to her body, she writhed and twisted, accentuating each erogenous zone in turn and hearing in the darkness only Lichinsky’s laboured breathing.

When she had been performing thus for a few minutes, and it was clear that neither Lichinsky’s eyes nor Cliff’s were straying for one second from her body, she saw a door at the far end of the room slide silently open, and two silhouettes were momentarily outlined in the lighted opening before the door slid as silently and rapidly closed.

Outside the room, Sebastian turned one way and made for the central control room of the ship. Casey sped the other way, across the rain forest, through the picture gallery and into Lichinsky’s china room.

Here and there throughout the room he deposited on the plinths pieces of soft fruit that he had secreted in his saucer while he and Sebastian were invisible to Lichinsky’s cameras.

Casey then hurried back to the rain forest. Close to the exit, he stopped his saucer and whistled softly. The monkeys approached warily. They were unsure of the saucer, and hesitated.

“Come on,” Casey hissed. “Don’t screw it up, you guys.”

He held out a mango at arm’s length. The nearest monkey was tempted, and scrambled down its branch to get a closer look. When it was close to Casey it saw the rest of the fruit he had beside him in his saucer. It uttered a little cry and sprang into the saucer, closely followed by five or six of its fellows.

Gently, so as not to frighten them, Casey moved the saucer out of the rain forest, through the gallery and back to the china room.