Personal Paradise Read online

  PERSONAL PARADISE

  by

  Barbara Hambly

  Published by Barbara Hambly at Smashwords

  Copyright 2014 Barbara Hambly

  Cover art by Eric Baldwin

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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  Table of Contents

  Personal Paradise

  About The Author

  The Further Adventures

  PERSONAL PARADISE

  by

  Barbara Hambly

  The men at the door were definitely corporate suits.

  They looked exactly like Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Patrick Swayze and Harrison Ford, and Antryg, stepping into the living-room as Joanna stood – considerably startled – in front of the door she had just opened, exclaimed admiringly, “That’s very good!”

  Joanna, who for that first instant had been wondering how the hell the agents of those four film heart-throbs had managed to negotiate having them together on the same porch, much less her porch, understood that this was an illusion.

  And if this was an illusion, that meant that she and Antryg – lover, friend, room-mate and exiled wizard (“But I don’t have magic in this world,” he would always explain to bemused new acquaintances) – were probably already in a lot of trouble. She just didn’t know what kind yet.

  The one who looked like Tom Cruise said, “Thank you.” He held out a business card. “Antryg Windrose?”

  “Very much so. This is Joanna Sheraton, my partner.” He put an arm around her shoulders, propped his thick-lensed spectacles more firmly onto the bridge of his long nose with his free hand, and took the card. He seemed, as he generally did, relaxed, genial, and slightly daft, as if the appearance of reasonable facsimiles of the four biggest-name actors in Hollywood on his front porch were no big deal or even much of a surprise – but she noticed that as he’d come into the living-room behind her he’d laid his sheathed samurai sword inconspicuously on the coffee-table. He could make it to the weapon in one long stride if he had to. She was careful not to be in his way.

  “You were referred to us by the Council of Wizards in Ferryth.” Cruise-Alike took a folded paper from the breast pocket of his Armani suit. Joanna recognized the elaborately curliqued syllabary of the Old High Tongue still taught among the wizards of that realm – separated from the prosaic summer heat of Granada Hills, California in 1987 by the shimmering gulfs of the Void – as Antryg unfolded it and read.

  Joanna said, “Please come in,” and stepped aside from the doorway. If these men had been sent by the Council to murder Antryg – always a possibility, given Council politics – they’d had their opportunity to do so, and by the way Antryg ambled to the couch after them there was evidently no problem with this courtesy. She did notice that he scooped up his sword with the air of a man simply moving ornamental impedimenta out of the way of guests, and did not return it to the wall-rack where their unsharpened training katana hung between classes.

  Still with that slightly absent-minded appearance of carelessness, he propped the weapon against the arm of the chair where Joanna sat, and said, “Can I get you gentlemen something? Wine? Coca-cola? They make some extremely nice beers here… What do you make of this, my dear?” He handed her the letter as she stood—

  “I’ll get the beer,” she offered. “Is that really a letter from the Council?”

  Antryg licked a corner of the paper. “It appears to be.” He sniffed the business-card, held it up to the light of the window, then handed both to her and disappeared through the door into the kitchen. Spock, the smaller (and friendlier) of the two cats, uncurled himself from the back of the couch where he’d been doing his usual imitation of a shadow with eyes, and hopped onto Ford-Alike’s lap, which for some reason made Joanna feel better about the visitors.

  “Thank you very much for your hospitality,” said Swayze-Alike, and leaned across from the couch to shake her hand. “My colleagues and I are representatives of Personal Paradise.”

  Joanna looked doubtful, and he smiled, understanding that not everyone in the universe had heard of it, but pitying them for this deprivation.

  “I’m Jeltan Hiros; this is Corflan Dix, Marus Ormagnos, and Galviddian Ceragn the Third.”

  “I’m very pleased to meet you.” Not only were the duplications of the most popular variations of masculine good looks molecule-perfect, the suits, shoes, and matte monotone silk ties matched the general impression: We’re REALLY important and have lots of money. She wanted to congratulate their Outfitting Department. “Though Antryg’s been good enough to extend the Spell of Tongues over me, I’m afraid that doesn’t cover writing—”

  “It doesn’t for us, either,” sighed Corflan Dix, with precisely Tom Cruise’s sparkling grin. “Makes for a lot of paperwork in Contracts.”

  “Daurannon—” Returning from the kitchen, Antryg named the Acting President of the Council of Wizards, presumably, reflected Joanna, the author of the letter of introduction or whatever it was, “—says you have a problem with the Void. I hope you aren’t the ones who’ve been trying to open or close Gates in it lately?” He set down the stack of glasses he carried in his left hand and the five bottles of Michelob and Coke he’d wedged between the long, crooked fingers of his right. Though his voice was friendly, a certain watchfulness flickered at the back of those wide gray bespectacled eyes.

  “Our shielded Enclave technology is perfectly safe,” Corflan assured him, and Antryg’s eyebrows shot up.

  “That makes me feel so much better,” he returned with perfect gravity. “So why don’t you explain to me exactly what is going on?”

  “Is it true that you can sense events occurring in the Void?” Galviddian Ceragn the Third looked up from stroking the cat’s round black head. “Lord Daurannon said that you had this ability—”

  “And among other things,” Corflan broke in, “I’ve been authorized by the management of Personal Paradise Secure Community Corporation to make you an offer of a five-year contract with Elite Level benefits, at five hundred thousand gold a year.”

  He couldn’t quite keep awe out of his voice as he named the sum. Joanna wondered how much gold (at four hundred and eighty-six dollars an ounce) was in a “gold.”

  “And what—” The very slight steeliness that had edged Antryg’s voice before seemed now to glint stronger, “—does the Personal Paradise Secure Community Corporation have to do with the Void?”

  Jeltan Hiros opened his briefcase and produced brochures. “I’m sorry we haven’t had time to have them printed in English.”

  “I do hope that I never hear that you do.” Antryg took them, and handed half to Joanna. “Nor in any of the languages current on this world, if you do what I think you do.”

  “I assure you,” repeated Corflan, who seemed to be the point-man of the delegation, “our technology is perfectly safe, and causes no impact whatsoever on the Void itself or other worlds within the Void. The shielding is one hundred percent impermeable and our tracking programs have shown themselves to be proof against viruses or routing errors.”

  “Personal Paradise,” explained Jeltan, “is in the business of engineering and sustaining Secure Communities within completely terraformed, uncontaminated enclave mini-universes—”

  “Uncontaminated by whom?” Joanna asked.

  “Undesirables.” Corflan graced her again with his sparkly smile. “As I’m sure you know – judging from the level of technology of this planet – any global civilization sufficiently industrialized to produce technology above a certain level generates unstable social elements. Artificially lowering the sentience of these elements seems to have the effect of impairing the creativity of the society as a whole – necessary for technological progress – but the more concentrated the technology, the greater the odds of societal implosion and economic setback.”

  “You mean the rich get richer—”Antryg looked up from his brochures “—and the poor get poorer, until something gives and those connected with the wealthy mega-corporations get put up against the wall and shot?”

  “That’s an extremely crude way of phrasing it.” Corflan’s pleasant voice didn’t display the slightest flicker of either embarrassment or discomfort with the idea. “And many societies have found ways around the situation. But the risk is there, and the upper management personnel of the mega-corporations on many worlds worry about this sort of meltdown outcome – disproportionately so, I might add, to the point of exhibiting stress symptoms that in turn impair their effectiveness. It’s a very real problem.”

  “My heart bleeds,” said Joanna.

  “Additionally, global civilizations at a certain industrial level tend to experience a buildup of chemical wastes that has the effect of first driving up the cost of uncontaminated real estate to unacceptable levels, and then making such real estate impossible to obtain at any price.”

  “In other words,” said Antryg pleasantly, “you pollute your world into a toxic sewer, comprehensively annoy the working class and, I expect, the ever-increasing numbers of unemployed and unemployable… and then build pleasant condominium complexes in pristine and distant universes so you won’t have to look at, think about, or experien
ce the consequences of your corporation’s activities, and no one can get at you. Is that it?”

  “Exactly!” Corflan beamed at his quick understanding.

  “Artificially produced enclave universes have no natural resources of their own,” explained Jeltan, “so they’re extremely expensive to open and maintain.”

  “Who cleans the toilets?” asked Joanna.

  “Grounds and maintenance staff are transported in and out through separate gateway facilities.” Marus leaned across and sorted, from Joanna’s brochures, a plainer booklet that looked like a training pamphlet. “In the same fashion food, water, fuel, and fertilizers to keep the plants alive are provided, and in most cases carefully-selected animal life to improve the ambience of the enclaves.” His manicured fingertip indicated the relevant paragraphs. “The maintenance staff of course has no idea that they’re being transported through the Void to an enclave.”

  “I understand in a number of worlds there’s considerable effort being made by elements of the underclasses to locate where these enclaves are.” Galviddian’s grin was wry and slightly sidelong, and Corflan frowned.

  “Locating the enclaves themselves is technically impossible from client worlds,” he snapped. “As I’ve said before, security and shielding are absolutely impermeable.”

  “So were the watertight compartments on the Titanic,” remarked Antryg, turning the brochures over in his hands. He propped his spectacles on his nose again. “How many of these things have you made?”

  “In the seventeen years of its existence,” said Jeltan, “Personal Paradise Corporation has created, staffed, and maintained a hundred and forty Secure Residential communities, with complete commuter amenities, as well as twelve boarding-school facilities…”

  “Which, I might add,” put in Corflan proudly, “are among the top-rated educational institutions of their respective worlds.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. How big are these worlds? What’s the residential population?”

  “Generally about a thousand full-time residents apiece, plus vacationing guests. The energy required to keep an enclave open limits their size, and we’ve learned by experience that only in an artificially created enclave are we able to guarantee conditions and security. The residential area is generally between ten and twenty miles in diameter; the recreational green-belt around it, maybe another twelve miles across. Ten miles beyond that the loop-back effects kick in and in most of them you can’t get any farther than about forty miles from center. Plenty of room for hiking, riding, camping…”

  “But not raising food,” remarked Joanna. “Or producing anything.”

  Corflan looked shocked. “Of course not!”

  “And how many of them,” inquired Antryg, “have you lost?”

  There was a long, embarrassed silence. Then Jeltan said quietly, “All of them.”

  Joanna said, “Oh, fuck.”

  *

  Security was, as Corflan had assured them, absolute. Joanna couldn’t tell whether the Void Tech Central Facility was aboveground or in some bunker deep below it; the vast picture-windows were, she could tell, very good animation, and carefully keyed to match up. The palm-fringed cliffs visible from one could be glimpsed in a corner of the next, the ocean that stroked the long white-sand beach beyond the windows of the conference room stretched, empty and tranquil, from the windows of the executive restaurant next door and away into infinity. Discreet security cameras observed them at fifty-foot intervals as their escorts walked them from the Entry Chamber to Reception Area One, a circular lobby nearly fifty feet across, dotted with upholstered chairs and benches and carpeted in tasteful pale blue. The air was very slightly perfumed, like an expensive hotel restroom.

  “There are twenty levels of Reception Areas above this one,” explained Corflan, as Antryg walked from one to another of the eight doors that ranged the wall. The ninth, the entry door, opened from the elevator lobby. Joanna wondered if the whole thing looked like a monstrous silo from the outside. “The entire complex was cosmetically remodeled about four years ago, when sixteen new vestibules were added. All the vestibules lost contact with their enclaves simultaneously, at oh-two-hundred Central Time the day before yesterday.”

  What does the world outside actually look like? Joanna wondered. Is this place really anywhere near an ocean? How badly have these people screwed up their own environment, if they’re pumping obviously huge amounts of money into maintaining Secure Communities in some cosmic Elsewhere? She shivered with a variety of remembered science-fictional visions: Talos IV, Skaro, Altair IV. Does everything outside glow in the dark?

  “What’s the ceiling height of the enclaves?” she asked. “I don’t imagine there’ll be an oxygen problem for awhile—”

  “Five miles,” said Galviddian Ceragn III. “All enclaves contain bodies of fresh water – some of them considerable – so there are limited weather effects, but we do try to control these…”

  “What about heating?” She turned to Antryg, who had paused before one of the enclave doors, running his fingertips along the frame. “When I’ve passed through the Void with you I remember it was cold—”

  “It’s cold.” Something in his voice made her realize that when she’d passed through the Void with him, he’d probably kept some kind of heat-spell over them both, like an invisible cloak, to keep her from dying. He turned his mild gray gaze back on their escorts. “I trust the furniture in the condominia is flammable? Always supposing that the Veil that separates the Enclaves from the Void itself doesn’t start developing holes…”

  “Surely it won’t come to that.” Corflan’s sparkly smile froze briefly, as if the face beneath – whatever it was – strove to maintain the expression.

  “Almost certainly it will,” replied Antryg, “unless you show me the power source that you’ve been using for the past seventeen years to establish your enclaves. You can’t have it both ways,” he added earnestly, as the four men – or whatever they actually were – traded glances of panic. “I promise I won’t damage it, but I do need to have a look at the connecting relays.” He held out his hand, in a way that Joanna was familiar with: one of a wizard’s simplest spells, the summoning of a ball of light above his outstretched palm. Something – a white spark, or a flicker of lightning – spat for an instant and he clutched his hand with a gasp: magic existed in this universe, but not the kind he’d expected and possibly, she reflected, not the kind he could control.

  Corflan and Galviddian both looked at Marus, who seemed to be in charge of Security. Then they all looked back at her and Antryg, presumably sizing up the relative capabilities and/or threat implied by the laptops each of them carried, and of the katana stuck through Antryg’s belt. Major corporate executives from how many different universes and their families equals how much of a lawsuit…?

  “This way,” said Marus.

  He used a cylindrical key-plug to activate the elevator to descend below basement level. The same key-plug admitted them to a round chamber which Joanna calculated lay directly below the Reception Area they’d been in. Probably below all the Reception Areas.

  Limited wireless range? On the way down the hall from Entry Chamber to Reception Area One, Jeltan had spoken of clients arriving from their own world by various forms of transport, so it didn’t sound like they had outstations.

  In Portal Tech Central, computers banked in a three-quarters circle around a metal plinth. The power-source itself was small, a glassy-looking brown rock about the size of a man’s two fists put together. Irregular but slick, like obsidian the color of translucent molasses.

  Two uniformed security guards had followed them into the room – they both looked like Sylvester Stallone, but taller – and both pulled their guns as Antryg walked up and put his hands on the power-source. Corflan gestured to them – Let him – but nobody took their eyes off him til he stepped back from it again. He looked around him at the computers. “I assume you checked for mechanical failure before you went to consult the Council of Wizards? Made sure nobody had just tripped over the cables and unplugged something?”