Duke Cochran shuffled nude and blurry-eyed into the bathroom. He was a fairly large, strongly built man, with curly, blond-brown hair on head and chest. Peering into the mirror, he decided he could skip shaving, if he didn't go out. After a shower and shampoo, he shaved after all, then pulled on bikini shorts, went into his office, and called up his mail.
With one exception, it didn't require action. The frozen-frame face that appeared on the screen was one he didn't know: a young Asian male. The WebWorld address meant nothing to Cochran, but the geoaddress did: Henrys Hat, Colorado. He wondered if Millennium was going to complain about something in the published interview. All he'd done was tidy up the language a bit.
"Roll and record, now," he said. The mouth began to move, a voice issuing from the speakers in precise American English, the written words crawling quickly across the bottom of the screen.
"Mr. Cochran, my name is Lor Lu. I am Mr. Aran's administrative assistant. Millennium has a business proposal you may be interested in. If you'd care to know more about it, please call me before 1150 or after 1310 Mountain Daylight Time, before October 6th. Thank you."
"Hmm." Cochran looked at his wall clock, then went into his bedroom and wakened Adrielle. Her nubile body caused a pulse of desire, but he tuned it down. He had business to take care of. "Time to greet the day," he said. "You told me you had classes this afternoon. Cereal and sugar are on the table; juice, milk, jam and margarine are in the fridge. Bread's in the bread drawer. Put your dishes on the counter. I'll be on the Web. On visual part of the time, so don't come in before you leave."
She mustured an affirmative sleepily. He took her chin in a hand. "I'll try to call you this evening," he added, his voice soft now. He kissed her lingeringly, almost changing his mind about calling Ngunda's administrative assistant that day. "Or you can call me," he added. He watched her round firm rear sway through the door of the bedroom bath. Normally he discouraged women from phoning, but Adrielle was the best he'd bedded in a year. Enthusiastic, talented, creative, and not into power games like a lot of college girls.
In the kitchen he skinned a banana, poking the peel into the "Tasmanian Eats-All." Then he dialed a tall coffee with fat-free creamer and three spoonsful of honey—his default setting—and ate a mini-breakfast over the comics in the morning paper. He'd never found the comics as entertaining on the WebWorld or fax.
You're a fogey, he told himself.
He left the kitchen, taking his electrothermal coffee mug with him, and at the computer, dialed Lor Lu. A receptionist cleared the call, and the brown face appeared again on Cochran's screen, an unfocused fragment of office in the background.
"Mr. Cochran! I'm Lor Lu. Thank you for calling."
"You said you had a business proposal to discuss."
"Right. Mr. Aran liked both your interview and your style. And of course you have an established reputation. He'd like to have you cover his activities in a Millennium context. Regularly that is. You would accompany him on his tours, and spend part of the non-tour time here at the Ranch, learning and writing about Millennium."
"If you're offering me a job, I already have one."
"Not a job. Access. We're offering you access that other journalists don't have, for columns and articles. And for a book, should you decide to write one."
Cochran felt an electric jolt of excitement: Ngunda was becoming a very major figure, a superstar in the American public eye. "I might be interested," he said, "if I'd be free to write as I please. No censorship, no sweetheart treatment. And I'll still be with American Scene." "Of course. If you were an actual employee of Millennium, your public acceptance would be seriously compromised, no matter how much freedom we gave you. No, a fair-minded, independent skeptic is what we're looking for. Anything less would be recognized and devalued. Shall we discuss it further? Or do you want to talk to your editor first?"
"My initial reaction is guardedly favorable, Mr. Lu, but I need to think about it, and talk it over with Mr. Nidringham. He may want to put limits on my involvement. May I call you back about four your time?"
"Four Mountain Time. Good. Are we done for now, Mr. Cochran?"
"So far as I'm concerned."
"Well then, I look forward to your next call."
"Fine. And thank you very much for your proposal."
Cochran broke the connection and stood up, feeling pumped. Fred would definitely go for it, and it would probably double the column inches he got. Quadruple his name recognition. The challenge would be to keep Millennium content with what he wrote; he did not intend to be their PR flack.
He went to the kitchen again. Adrielle stood with her back to him, wearing one of his flannel shirts as a robe, its tails down well toward her knees. He stepped over to her, put his arms around her and murmured in her ear.
"When did you say that first class is? Something good just happened to me, and I feel like celebrating." Chuckling, she reached back and groped him. "Nothing till two. I can leave here as late as 12:30."
Before supper, he and Lor Lu had come to an agreement. He'd fly to Pueblo that Thursday. It seemed to him his future was made. Especially if he could learn what—or who—lay behind Ngunda and Millennium. He'd already read what he could find in the WebWorld—including a ferret search—before he'd done the interview. And found little more than the public faces of Ngunda Aran and his organization.
There'd be more though. There always was.
He almost phoned Adrielle again, but resisted. Don't get addicted, he told himself. Call Ginny instead. Director of marketing research for Latscher and Kearney, Ginny had a salary two or three times his. She was mature and independent, and shared his attitude toward affairs. Which he classified into three main kinds: (1) strictly physical but good—extremely good in Adrielle's case; (2) brief and passionate, hot, generally with someone's guilt-troubled wife; and (3) good, comfortable, and convenient, between peers.
Ginny couldn't screw like Adrielle, but she was good in bed, and she could carry on a mature conversation. They could do dinner, followed by a show or concert, then make love, and enjoy all of it.
He wondered if he really was turning into a fogey.