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.His body was important to him the way Mike Carlow considered those race cars of his important.Take care of it, keep it finely tuned, and it will do the job for you.The way a car nut likes to tinker with the engine, the fuel mixture, the tire pressure, all those details, that's the way Dan Wycza took care of himself.His diet was specific and controlled, his exercise lengthy and carefully planned.He traveled with so many pills, so many minerals and herbs and dietary supplements, that he seemed like either a hypochondriac or the healthiest-looking invalid in history, but it was all just to keep the machine well tuned.And sex was a part of it.Simple uncomplicated sex was good for both the body and the mind.There was nothing like rolling around with a good willing woman to keep the blood flowing and the mental attitude perked up.A woman like this Susan Cahill, for instance.Pity it wasn't going to happen.This woman would never fuck anything but power, or at least her idea of power.At the moment, to her, Dan Wycza, aka Trooper Helsing, was just a spear carrier, part of the furniture, a nothing.Later, he'd be something, all right, but it wasn't likely to be something she'd find a turn-on.Not likely.For the moment, he and Parker were just doing their dumb-fuck thing, trailing along behind Lou Sternberg while the Cahill woman showed him a little of this and a little of that.Wycza remembered this ship from when he'd been a sucker aboard her, that one time, down in Biloxi.(The healthy woman he was with at the time liked to gamble.) It looked exactly the same, the carpets, the colors of the walls, the shapes of the doors, the edgings around the windows.The only difference was the uniform on the various crew members who worked in public; the pursers, dealers, hostesses, managers.When the ship was the Spirit of Biloxi, the uniforms were tan with dark red; sort of the colors of Mississippi dirt.Now that she was the Spirit of the Hudson, operating in the Empire State, the uniforms were royal blue with gold.But some of the people inside those uniforms were the same, he was sure of it.Once the joke of a safety drill was done down on the boat deck, and the ship at last eased away from the dock to start its leisurely amble downstream, Cahill became a little less flirty and more matter-of-fact."Of course I will be taking you around for a complete tour of the ship," she said, "but first I know Captain Andersen wants to greet you.He wasn't able to before this, of course.Departure and arrival are his really busy times.""I'll be happy to meet him," Sternberg told her, and as she set off across the boat deck toward the bridge, the others following her, he asked, "Was he the captain before? When it was down South?""Oh, yes," she said, sounding delighted by the fact that it was the same captain."Captain Andersen's been with the company for seven years.Longer than I have!" And she did that girlish laugh thing of hers again.The bridge was amidships, up one steep metal stairway from the sun deck.Everything up here was metal, thickly painted white.The bridge itself was two long narrow rooms, the one in front featuring an oval wall of glass to give a full hundred-eighty-degree view of everything ahead of the ship and to both sides.The helm was here, and the computers and communications links that made the function of captain almost unnecessary these days.Tell the machine where you want to go, and get out of its way.The rear room, also full of windows but without the oval, was a kind of office and rest area; two gray vinyl sofas sat among the desks and maps and computer screens.This is where the stairway led, and this is where Captain Andersen stood, splendid in his navy blue uniform with the gold stripes and his white officer's hat with the black brim, as though he were about to lead this ship on a perilous journey around the world, pole to pole, instead of merely a pokey stroll to nowhere; Albany, New York, to Albany, New York, in six hours.His back was to the open doorway, and he was conferring with three others, two dressed as officers, one as crew.He turned at their entrance, and he was a Scandinavian, or he wanted you to think he was.Tall and pale-haired, he had pale eyebrows and pale blue eyes and a large narrow pale nose.He wore the least possible beard; a narrow amber line down and forward from both ears to define his jaw, and no mustache.In his left hand he held a gnarled old dark-wood pipe.Cahill did the honors: "Captain Lief Andersen, I'd like to introduce Assemblyman Morton Kotkind of the New York State legislature."They both said how-do-you-do, and shook hands, Sternberg with grumpy dignity, Andersen with a more aloof style."You have a beautiful ship, captain," Sternberg told him, as though forced to admit it."And you have a beautiful statehouse," the captain assured him, nodding his narrow beak at it.They all turned to look, even Wycza, who usually ignored polite crap like that, and it was still there all right, slowly receding [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]