“Mark!” He tugged her in. She landed with a radiant fluorescing splash and came up sputtering and blinking, her ebony hair in disarray, her tanned skin shining. “Birbone,” she muttered. “Scelerato!”

“Sticks and stones will break my bones.” He pulled her to him and kissed her, standing upright in the shallows of the pool. Her body resisted him stiffly for a moment, but only for a moment, and then she flowed against him, and her rigid nipples drew a tickling line across his chest When he released her, she was pouting with what he knew to be mock rage. He watched the sparkling water stream from her skin as Elena hauled herself out of the pool and flounced to a vibrator to dry. She stood with her back to him, combing out her hair. His eyes followed the supple line of her spinal column downward from her long neck through the widening hips, the delightful dimples, the fleshy blossoming of her rump.

“I’ll get even with you for that.” she told him. “I’ll make Santo give your uncle’s persona to an Arab.”

“Better that than to Roditis,” Kaufmann said. Elena stared at him over her shoulder. “I almost believe you mean that. You’d have Paul saying prayers to Mecca before you’d let him into Roditis.”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure of that.” She finished at the vibrator and sprawled on the tile again, well out of reach of his grasping hand. He remained at the edge of the pool.

She said, “Shall I do a three-dollar frood job on you, Mark? I’ll tell you why you hate Roditis so much.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s so much like you.”

“What do you know about Roditis? Have you ever met the man?”

“Not yet.”

“I have,” Kaufmann said. “He’s a little thick coarse fellow with big muscles and no grace of soul. He’s a walking bank account. He dreams money day and night, and if he’s got any other interests they don’t show.”

“He gave more than a million dollars to a lamasery in San Francisco a few weeks ago,” Elena pointed out. “The same one your uncle used to give so much to.”

“And for the same reasons, too. You think Paul was a Buddhist? You think Roditis gives a damn about karma? He’s looking for publicity, and maybe he’d like the guru to lobby for him with Santoliquido. I’m surprised you’re taken in.”

“And I’m surprised that you underestimate him so much,” said Elena. “He’s not quite the ugly dollar-chaser you say he is. One of his personae is the sonic sculptor Kozak. Roditis is a connoisseur of the arts. He collects rare books. Do you know, he’s got an entire building full of editions of Homer?”

“How do you know all this?”

“I’ve been reading about him. I mean, he’ll be practically a member of the family soon, and so I thought I’d better—”

Kaufmann was out of the water instantly. He rushed toward her, knowing that he must look absurd in his angry dripping nakedness. He dropped don beside Elena and shouted, “What’s that? A member of the family?”

“After he gets your uncle’s persona.”

“There’s no chance of that!” Elena smiled sweetly She appeared to be enjoying his discomfiture. She placed one hand flat on the tile at either side of her, leaned back, inflated her lungs to give her breasts maximum display. Coolly she said, “I talked to Santo about it. Santo expects to award the persona to Roditis any day now.”

“No,” Kaufmann said. “Impossible! I’ve talked to Santo also about this. He promised—”

“What did he promise?” Kaufmann hesitated. “Well, perhaps not exactly a promise. But he indicated he didn’t want to see Paul go to Roditis, any more than I did.”

“That was some time ago. Santo is discovering that there’s no other qualified recipient. Roditis is clamoring for the persona, and without a valid reason for denying it, Santo is going to have to give it to him. He’s holding back only because he’s searching for some way to break the news to you.”

“No, no, no, no!”

“Yes, Mark!” Elena’s face was strangely animated. “You’re jealous, aren’t you? Roditis is going to get him, and you want him yourself! You can’t bear to see anyone else have Paul Kaufmann’s persona.”

“Stop it,” he said. “I offered you the three-dollar frooding. Take the ten-dollar job instead. It’s as I said: you and Roditis are practically alike. The same drives, the same hungers. You have ancestry and he doesn’t; that’s the only difference. He came out of the dirt and you were born to the Kaufmann billions. Now he’s going to grab himself a Kaufmann, and everything will be even. You can’t bear that thought.”

Kaufmann slapped her across the face. She jumped back, the meaty mounds of her bare breasts leaping toward her chin. Trembling but not in tears, she glowered at him.

“I’m sorry,” he said after an endless moment. “You pushed me too far.”

“Was I wrong in what I said?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” He crouched on the tile and pressed his forehead against his knees. Looking up, he said, “How does it happen that you’ve been discussing all this with Santoliquido? And why are you suddenly so fascinated by Roditis?”

“Strong men have always interested me, Mark. I shouldn’t need to tell you that. And I’ve neglected Roditis up till now. I should have paid more attention to him while he was on the way up. Now it’s clear to me that he’s the coming man.”

“And so you’re preparing to make the hop from my bed to his,” Kaufmann said. “Eh?”

“That’s an overstatement. But I mean to know him better. And I hope you’ll bring yourself to get over your hatred of him. The two of you, working together, could control the world. Particularly with your Uncle Paul guiding him.”

“I should have Uncle Paul.”

“But you can’t, Mark. So let him go to Roditis, and then make terms with them. Are you afraid you’ll be outnumbered? Aren’t you a match for Roditis and Paul together?”

“No,” said Kaufmann. “No man ever born could be a match for those two in one mind.”

“All the more reason for you to make peace,” Elena told him. “He’s going to get that persona, and if you haven’t come to terms with him, he’ll try to break you. Don’t be stubbornly proud, Mark. Don’t let anger get in the way of common sense. As of now you’re richer and stronger than Roditis, but not by much, and the balance is going to tip.”

“You sound so sure of that, Elena. Exactly what did Santo tell you, anyway?”

“You’ve heard it already. It’s inevitable that Roditis will get your uncle’s persona.”

“I’ll block it.”

“You can’t,” Elena said in exasperation. “I’ll speak to Santoliquido! I’ll—”

“Santo’s been having a terrible enough time over this thing as it is, Mark. And you’re the cause of all his trouble. Let him alone! It’s not proper for you to interfere this way. He’s trying to look at things objectively, and here you are in the background, throwing your weight around as a Kaufmann, threatening, cajoling—”

“I can’t let Roditis do this,” said Kaufmann stubbornly, feeling more and more like a blind, obstinate fool, but unable to let himself turn back from his chosen course.

Elena yawned prettily. “I’m tired of this discussion. We’re at a dead end. You’re giving me a headache. Come swim with me.”

“You don’t like to swim!”

“What of it?” She sprinted past him, reached the rim of the pool, catapulted herself out into space. For an instant she seemed to hang there, for at her request Kaufmann had lowered the gravity of the room they were in, and he watched the heavy mounds of her breasts extend themselves into downward-pointing cones. Then she slipped sleekly into the water, leaving a bright streak that outlined her nudity in an appealingly sensuous way.

He went diving after her. She eluded him for several moments as they crisscrossed the pool. At last he caught her, and she struggled playfully in his arms. He pulled her toward the shallow end of the pool. His lips descended into the hollow between her cheek and her shoulder.

Panting, she slipped away and sprang from the pool. She went only a few paces, turning, going to her knees, then reclining to await him. Tense and uneasy, Kaufmann came after her. She drew him down against the soft cushion of her flesh, and he entered her quickly, fiercely, and together they shuddered out their ecstasies.