Free Westlake, Donald E - Novel 51 by Humans (v1.1)

for planning, to
this man who had saved his life. “I don’t know how”
                “By ship, I think.” The stranger
gestured out over the water; a big passenger liner like an oval wedding cake,
with an American flag for decoration at the stern, was just pulling out of Hong Kong Harbor . “Those ships have many Orientals in their
crews. Especially in the kitchens.” He smiled at Kwan. “You’d make a fine
dishwasher, with that education of yours.” “I don’t have any papers.”
                “Maybe someone you know,” the
stranger suggested, cc would know someone who works for one of the
shipping lines.”
                “The family I’m staying with, they
might.”
                “I wouldn’t be surprised. You could
ask.” The stranger nodded again at the departing liner. “A ship like that,” he
said, “goes everywhere. In six months, it goes all around the world. Through Suez , through the Med. You could get off in Genoa or Barcelona . Or even all the way to Florida .”
                Kwan looked at the ship. “ America ,” he said.
               

          Ananayel
     
     
                X really don’t like to do it in such
a fashion, so sloppily, leaving these anomalies around, these quasi-miracles,
like loose ends in a popular novel. Locked doors that open, alarms that do not
sound.
                It’s the haste that causes it, of
course, His desire to get this mess cleaned up once and for all. So I suppose
it doesn’t matter in the long run if I make a bit more of a mess along the way.
It does offend the perfectionist in me, though, I must admit that.
                And I do have to be careful that
none of my principal performers notice these aberrations from the laws of
physics. Fortunately, this is a skeptical age; belief in miracles is not
widespread. There have been times and places in human history when I would
never have gotten away with these slapdash methods, but they are long gone.
Today’s humans would much rather believe they are being tricked; alternatively, cc there must be an explanation,” which they simply have not yet
quite worked out.
                Still, I can’t help feeling rueful.
Oh, if only I had been called on in an age worthy of my talents. On the other
hand, I do increasingly see why He has had enough.

6
     
                 
     
                In Sao Sebastiao they talked with
the sort of priest who believed that life on Earth was in any case irrelevant,
that pain and suffering could only ensure greater joy and harmony in the next
world, and that rich men who treat God’s creatures badly would be punished with
horrible fire in the hereafter. He was not, as he told them proudly, an
activist priest.
                How, Maria Elena wondered, could
such a man be any use at all to her employer, a doctor from WHO, the World
Health Organization, a man who believed that life on Earth was all we have,
that pain and suffering must be alleviated whenever and wherever possible, and
that rich men who treat God’s creatures badly should be wrenched out of society
like diseased rootstock from a vineyard? But in Sao Sebastiao there was no one
else; the Administration Section doctor visited the village less than once a
month and his records were useless, as they already knew. Only Father Tomaz had
the statistics, the births and deaths, the illnesses, the deformities, all the
spoor of the chemical assassin.
                Maria Elena translated as best she
could, as unemotionally as she could. Beside her, Jack—Dr. John Auston, of
Stockbridge,
                Massachusetts , U.S.A. —ploddingly asked his questions, filling in
the spaces on the forms, writing his comments in his tiny illegible
hieroglyphics in deep black ink. Maria Elena—Maria Elena Rodriguez, of Alta
Campa, Brazil, later of Rio, most recendy of