be quite enough by itself to ensure just such an elevation, and I should think so too; such a close-packed sequence of elisions
would require my best work, and success would by no means be assured.
Anyway – sadly, as far as Madame d’Ortolan’s purposes are concerned – I have no intention of killing the people on the list. On
the contrary: I will save them if I can (with any luck, in a sense I already have). No, I intend to go quite diametrically
off-message in this matter.
I already have, of course; Lord Harmyle wasn’t even on the list.
5
Patient 8262
A h, our profession. Mine, and those who will now be looking for me. My peers, I suppose. Though I was peerless, if I say so
myself. There was – especially at the more colourful end of the reality spectrum – an insane grace to my elisions, a contrived
but outrageous elegance. As evidence, the fiery fate of one Yerge Aushauser, arbitrageur. Or perhaps you would prefer the
brain-frying exit of Mr Max Fitching, lead singer of Gun Puppy, the first true World Band in more realities than we cared
to count. Or the painful and I’m afraid protracted end of Marit Shauoon, stunt driver, businessman and politician.
For Yerge, I arranged a special bubble bath at his Nevada ranch, replacing the air feed to the nozzles in his hot tub with
hydrogen. The cylinders, hidden under the wooden decking around the tub, were controlled by a radio-activated valve. I was
watching from the other side of the world through a digital camera attached to a spotting scope, a sunlight-powered computer
and a proprietary satellite uplink, all sitting disguised by sage bushes on a hillside a mile away. A motion sensor alerted
me that the hot tub was in use while I was asleep in my hotel in Sierra Leone. When I gazed, bleary-eyed, into my phone I
saw Yerge Aushauser striding up to the tub, alone for once. I swung out of bed, woke the laptop for a higher-definition view
and waited until he was sitting there in the frothing water, all hairy arms and furious expression. Probably another expensive
night at the gaming tables. He usually brought home a girl or two to knock around on such occasions, but perhaps this morning
he was tired. The view was quite clear through the cool morning air, untroubled by thermals. I could see him put something
long and dark to his mouth, then hold something to its end. A spark. His fat fingers would be closing round his Gran Corona,
his throat exposed as he put his head back against the cushion on the tub’s rim and blew the first mouthful of smoke into
the clear blue Nevada sky.
I punched in the code for the valve controlling the feed from the hydrogen cylinders. Seconds later, half a world away, the
water frothed crazily, briefly seemed to steam as though boiling, hiding first Yerge and then the tub in a ball of vapour.
This erupted almost immediately into an intense yellow-white fireball which engulfed the tub and all the nearby decking. Even
in the early morning sunshine it blazed brightly.
Amazingly, after a few seconds, while the pillar of roaring flame piled towards the heavens like an upside-down rocket plume,
Yerge stumbled out of the conflagration and across the decking, hair on fire, skin blackened, strips of it hanging off him
like dark rags. He fell down some steps and lay there, motionless, minus his cigar but still – in a sense – smoking.
Until the decking itself caught fire – Yerge’s servants had run out from the house and dragged him away by then – there was little
smoke; oxygen and hydrogen burn perfectly, producing, of course, only water. Most of the initial burst of smoke, now drifting
and dissipating in the cool morning breeze and heading towards the distant grey sierras, would have come from Yerge himself.
He had ninety-five per cent burns, and lungs seared by flame inhalation. They managed to keep him alive for nearly a week,
which was remarkable.
Max Fitching was a god amongst
would require my best work, and success would by no means be assured.
Anyway – sadly, as far as Madame d’Ortolan’s purposes are concerned – I have no intention of killing the people on the list. On
the contrary: I will save them if I can (with any luck, in a sense I already have). No, I intend to go quite diametrically
off-message in this matter.
I already have, of course; Lord Harmyle wasn’t even on the list.
5
Patient 8262
A h, our profession. Mine, and those who will now be looking for me. My peers, I suppose. Though I was peerless, if I say so
myself. There was – especially at the more colourful end of the reality spectrum – an insane grace to my elisions, a contrived
but outrageous elegance. As evidence, the fiery fate of one Yerge Aushauser, arbitrageur. Or perhaps you would prefer the
brain-frying exit of Mr Max Fitching, lead singer of Gun Puppy, the first true World Band in more realities than we cared
to count. Or the painful and I’m afraid protracted end of Marit Shauoon, stunt driver, businessman and politician.
For Yerge, I arranged a special bubble bath at his Nevada ranch, replacing the air feed to the nozzles in his hot tub with
hydrogen. The cylinders, hidden under the wooden decking around the tub, were controlled by a radio-activated valve. I was
watching from the other side of the world through a digital camera attached to a spotting scope, a sunlight-powered computer
and a proprietary satellite uplink, all sitting disguised by sage bushes on a hillside a mile away. A motion sensor alerted
me that the hot tub was in use while I was asleep in my hotel in Sierra Leone. When I gazed, bleary-eyed, into my phone I
saw Yerge Aushauser striding up to the tub, alone for once. I swung out of bed, woke the laptop for a higher-definition view
and waited until he was sitting there in the frothing water, all hairy arms and furious expression. Probably another expensive
night at the gaming tables. He usually brought home a girl or two to knock around on such occasions, but perhaps this morning
he was tired. The view was quite clear through the cool morning air, untroubled by thermals. I could see him put something
long and dark to his mouth, then hold something to its end. A spark. His fat fingers would be closing round his Gran Corona,
his throat exposed as he put his head back against the cushion on the tub’s rim and blew the first mouthful of smoke into
the clear blue Nevada sky.
I punched in the code for the valve controlling the feed from the hydrogen cylinders. Seconds later, half a world away, the
water frothed crazily, briefly seemed to steam as though boiling, hiding first Yerge and then the tub in a ball of vapour.
This erupted almost immediately into an intense yellow-white fireball which engulfed the tub and all the nearby decking. Even
in the early morning sunshine it blazed brightly.
Amazingly, after a few seconds, while the pillar of roaring flame piled towards the heavens like an upside-down rocket plume,
Yerge stumbled out of the conflagration and across the decking, hair on fire, skin blackened, strips of it hanging off him
like dark rags. He fell down some steps and lay there, motionless, minus his cigar but still – in a sense – smoking.
Until the decking itself caught fire – Yerge’s servants had run out from the house and dragged him away by then – there was little
smoke; oxygen and hydrogen burn perfectly, producing, of course, only water. Most of the initial burst of smoke, now drifting
and dissipating in the cool morning breeze and heading towards the distant grey sierras, would have come from Yerge himself.
He had ninety-five per cent burns, and lungs seared by flame inhalation. They managed to keep him alive for nearly a week,
which was remarkable.
Max Fitching was a god amongst
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