Free To Live Again and The Second Trip by Robert Silverberg Page A

anything to say about it.”
    “That would be a blow, wouldn’t it?” Rod said. “Roditis is big enough as he is. With Uncle Paul, he’d be a titan. He’d have the business mind of the century.”
    Risa yawned. She swiveled around, dipping her toes in the water. A gray ghostly crab scuttled along the sand and vanished, digging down with startling swiftness. Risa said, “My father doesn’t want Roditis to have Uncle Paul. My father’s a good friend of Santoliquido, and Santoliquido decides. See?”
    Rod nodded. “You make it sound very open and shut.”
    “It has to be. Why, if Roditis got Uncle Paul, he’d be able to come to our family gatherings, he’d have a wedge right into our whole group. Wouldn’t that be horrible? That nasty, aggressive little man sitting right there on the beach, sipping a drink, making us be polite to him for Uncle Paul’s sake? But it won’t happen.”
    “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
    “It won’t.”
    “If it isn’t going to happen,” Rod said, “what’s Roditis’ private secretary doing here?”
    “Where?”
    “Look,” Rod said, pointing.
    Risa peered back and saw a group of new arrivals descending to the beach from the cabanas. Leading the way came Elena Volterra, wearing next to nothing, her oiled body agleam, fusion nodes glistening in her skin, her heavy breasts artfully cantilevered into position by a wisp of sprayon support. Beside her, pink and fleshy, walked Francesco Santoliquido. A pace behind them came an attractive couple whom Risa recognized as David and Gloria Loeb, and on Gloria’s right was a very tall, very thin, extremely pale and fairhaired man who indeed closely resembled Charles Noyes, a well-known associate of John Roditis.
    His appearance on the beach was exciting comment from many quarters. Heads were turning; whispers buzzed. Noyes himself looked ill at ease. He was thickly lathered to protect his skin from the sun, but even so he continually wrinkled his back as if to make sure he was suffering no harm.
    “What could he be doing here?” Risa muttered.
    “Maybe Roditis is here too,” said Rod. “Having a little discussion with your father in the main house.”
    “No. No.” Risa looked for Mark Kaufmann and failed to see him. This was impossible, she told herself. Then she recalled: “Noyes is Gloria’s brother. He must have just come along for the ride. This doesn’t have a thing to do with Roditis.”
    “Let’s hope you’re right. But it seems odd, having a Roditis man right in our midst. Like Death at the feast.”
    “I want to go over and find out more.”
    “Go ahead,” Rod said. “I’m going swimming. I’ll get all the gossip from you later.”
    He sprang from the rocks and hit the water in midstroke, heading outward toward the reef. Risa, disturbed, crossed diagonally to the new little group standing on the sandy crest of the beach at the midpoint of the crescent. She greeted Elena curtly and took Santoliquido’s hand. She smiled at David Loeb, a tall, courtly-looking man of about forty-five to whom she was related in some incomprehensible way, and embraced his lean, leggy blonde wife Gloria. Risa had never known either of them very well. Gloria looked tense and somehow irritated; but she turned smoothly and said, “Risa, I don’t think you know my brother. Charles Noyes. Risa Kaufmann. Mark’s daughter.”
    “A pleasure,” Noyes said. It didn’t sound to Risa as though he meant it. His large blue eyes raced in all directions, as if trying to avoid any direct confrontation of her girlish nakedness; then, with an obvious effort, he smiled at her.
    “I’ve heard so much about you from Gloria,” Risa lied sweetly. “It must be so exciting to work with Mr. Roditis. Tell me, is he coming to our party too?”
    “No, he—ah—won’t be here,” Noyes said.
    “Pity. I’d love to meet him. Will you excuse me?” Risa grinned icily and went jogging across the hot sand, up onto the lawn and into the main house, where the