I was at RISK!

Sitting in the owner's salon that afternoon, I came out of a brief doze with a start.

I thought I was seeing things!

Right there on the viewer was a green ring. That's all that was in the picture: a green ring. Like a smoke ring somebody had blown except that it was green.

I looked at the second viewer.

A green ring!

Oh, I knew that hashish would do me in. I was now seeing things! Yet I hadn't eaten anything but lunch.

I looked back at the first viewer.

Another green ring.

I looked at the second viewer.

Same thing!

I noticed something. I wasn't giggling.

I held my head in my hands. Maybe it wasn't the hashish. Maybe that blow on my forehead had altered my vision. Maybe this was the beginning stage of going blind.

A horrible vision of Teenie leading me around on a leash and beating me with a white cane rose to plague me. It was her fault for leaving the skateboard there.

I glanced back at the viewers. Heller's face was on one, Krak's face was on the other. Now I knew I was having visions. They were both wearing sun helmets.

I shut my eyes tightly.

Krak's voice. "Finished!" She sounded jubilant. I knew she meant me. Nothing else would give her such joy.

"Absolutely finished!" said Heller. He sounded so happy he could only be referring to my eyesight.

Experimentally, to prove him wrong, I cautiously opened one eye. Bang-Bang was on the viewer, full face. He was wearing an old marine fatigue cap that said LT. RIMBOMBO on it. My time sense was gone. Bang-Bang had left the marines years ago. "That'll really knock 'em dead," he said.

Another voice. Izzy's face on the viewer. He was wearing a war surplus steel helmet. Now I WAS seeing things. "What I'm afraid of is retaliation." I shut my eye. I was in no state to retaliate.

But I hadn't closed my eye quick enough. J. P. Flagrant's face. He was wearing an Indian war bonnet! Now I knew my vision was crazy. "What mean retaliation, paleface? Red brothers smoke plenty wampum. Do peace dance. Ugh."

Izzy's voice, "That's kind of you to try to reassure me, but they might get the idea it's a smoke signal to massacre everybody and hit the warpath yet."

There was something not quite right about what he was saying. Suddenly I sat up straight and stared at these viewers. Where the Devils were these people?

Now there was another face on Heller's viewer. Some businessman? "If you really approve it, Mr. Floyd, I'd like to tell my men. They worked pretty hard."

"It's great," said Heller. "I'll go with you and tell them myself."

"No, no," said J. P. Flagrant. "Please don't be premature." He pulled back a sleeve of his beaded leather hunting coat, disclosing an expensive watch. "The celebration is not due to start for another hour. We've got to launch that stack with a bottle of champagne. You can't kick off Beautiful Clear Blue Skies for Everyone, Inc. with just a casual thank you. There are fifty alligator farm buyers here in addition to all the contractors and workers. I've got the press coming in on a bus and two hundred Seminoles are going to yell themselves hoarse with tribal dances." He was fumbling in a bullet pouch. "I've got your speech all written for you. And another for Mr. Epstein..."

"Oy!" said Izzy. "Not me!"

"Just the first half?" said Flagrant.

"No!" said Izzy in a panic.

"It's a great speech," said Flagrant, separating it out. "It starts, 'We are gathered here in solemn conclave to celebrate, today, the greatest engineering marvel of the age. Fifty million spores a minute-fifty million are being rocketed into the sullied stratosphere of this, our noble planet....' You still sure you don't want to give it?"

"NO!" said Izzy.

"All right. Then I'll hand it over to Chief Ratty War Bonnet and he can give it and nobody will know the difference."

I breathed a sigh of relief. They were in Florida to kick off the spores project. The rings had been spores being blown violently aloft through a five-hundred-foot stack.

They all walked down a path and Krak looked back. Yes, there was the vast area of vats and belts. And there was the stack. The rings were flying out of the top of it at regular intervals.

"I'm certainly proud of you," said the Countess, putting her arm through Heller's. "That's one we can mark off the list and we're that much closer to going home. Now, if we can just push along with these fuel things, we'll be through in no time."

I groaned. If they wound up a success, they would certainly ruin Rockecenter. And Lombar would comb the planet to find and kill me.

I looked at the two-way-response radio. I could think of nothing to tell Raht.

I turned the faces of the viewers to the wall. I could not stand to witness a celebration. It was too much like an Irish wake: the corpse being me.

About three o'clock in the morning, Teenie came waltzing into my bedchamber. I stared. She was wearing a black hat, a red jacket and pants trimmed in gold, white stockings and black shoes. A bullfighter's rig!

"Inky, Inky, wake up!" She gave me a punch with a feathered stick that had a sharp end. "You won't believe what I have got!"

She raced back into her bedchamber and began to drag in boxes and open them. Gauze pants, veils, curl-toed slippers, headbands, bangles. A flamenco skirt, flamenco petticoats, mantillas, combs, castanets, ivory fans, flamenco shoes, on and on. And then she opened a jewel box. A gold necklace!

"Teenie," I said, "what the Hells is this all about? Tell me truthfully. Who is that black-jowled man?"

"We had to fly to Madrid to get some of this," she said. "Private plane. We just got back."

"Who is that fellow?" I demanded. "Why was he so angry with you?"

"Well, actually, he's a Spanish nobleman. A duke. He owns half of Spain. And he was so angry with me because I ran out on him in Casablanca."

"Teenie, are you going to tell me the truth for once? What was a Spanish nobleman doing in Bermuda and Casablanca?"

"Oh, he travels all around and, just by accident, he saw the yacht in the harbor when he was flying home from Morocco where he married Hussan-Hussan's sister, a princess."

"Oh, my Gods. Now you're going to tell me that a man who just got married is interested in rolling you in the hay."

"Well, you see, I promised his wife in Marrakech and I am ashamed to say I didn't keep my promise but sailed off."

"Teenie, stop flying around trying on clothes and give me a straight story for a change. Let's start at the beginning."

"Well, that's where I am starting. You see, he told his wife how wonderful it felt when I went down on him and she demanded that I teach her. I couldn't have the wedding breaking up, could I? But it's all right now. She was in Madrid and I spent the whole evening showing her exactly how to do it and she did and oh, man, is he happy now. Eyes rolling right back in his head. So it's all handled and we can sail. Oh, look at these pants." She had her own off and had slid into the gauzy fabric. "You can see right through them. Look, Inky!"

She sure looked weird with a bullfighter's hat and jacket on, wearing Arab invisible gauze pants. I had to laugh.

"That's better," she said. "And now, as a reward, just take a couple puffs on a bhong and go back to sleep."

"No."

"Oh, come on, Inky. Don't be a sourpuss." She rushed off and came back with a bhong.

I took a puff. It tasted slightly different.

She was getting out of her clothes. "Wait a minute," I said. "If you've been fooling around with sex all night, you don't have to harass me."

"Oh, that was just a warm-up," she said. "No fun, really. I just did it so they'd have a happy married life. Move over."