Dirge - Alan Dean Foster [27]
“All I know is that when that plane went down he didn’t listen to me,” she snapped. “But that’s in the past.”
“Then you will support us?” Unable to sit in a human chair, Shanvordesep had been forced to stand the entire time on all six legs. Now he rose, sitting back on four, the better to see eye to eye with the industrialist.
“I will underwrite your foolishness, yes. For as long as it continues to amuse me.” Adopting a mocking tone, one slim hand fluttered diffidently in the air. “Who knows? I might even pay you a visit now and again, just to see how you are wasting my money.”
Shanvordesep fumbled with his thorax pouch. “We intend to become self-supporting within the first year.”
“Indeed?” She waved off his efforts to find whatever it was that he was searching for. “No, no. Don’t show me any projections, any figures. I’ll just spot the holes in them and discourage you. Madness needs to remain insular or it becomes hostage to reality and loses its charm. I’m not doing this because I think you’re going to make money, or even repay me. I’m doing it for a diversion. As an amusement.”
Having accomplished what they had come for, Pyreau knew they ought to depart. Shanvordesep was gesturing precisely that. But the good father had never been one to leave well enough alone. If that had been the case he would not have found himself in his present circumstances, sharing a hypothesized future with an alien bug while begging money from the contemptuous and cynical affluent.
“We don’t consider the undertaking amusing. Despite what you may think, this is not farce. We see a need that is not being fulfilled.”
For a horrible moment he feared he had gone too far, that he had abused this powerful woman’s hospitality to the point where she would withdraw her offer. Then she laughed for a second time, and he relaxed.
“If you’re not in the business of amusing, then why am I enjoying this so much? Why do I find the whole endeavor so comical?”
“Perhaps,” ventured Shanvordesep quietly, “because it has satisfied a need.”
She turned on him. “A need? I don’t have any ‘need.’ What need?”
“One that you have yet to identify, obviously.” The thranx bowed slightly and began to back away from the desk. “You are a fascinating species. I never cease to be amazed at your ability to pretend things that exist do not, and to ignore logic and reason in favor of what you would like to believe.”
Lorengau shrugged slightly. “So our nature is more whimsical than that of the thranx. Whose wouldn’t be?” Activating a screen set into her desk that was shielded from their view, she manipulated controls with the fingers of one hand. “I’ll want my husband and daughter’s names prominently displayed on the list of contributors, of course, as well as on the front of your first tabernacle, or whatever you end up calling your places of gathering.”
Pyreau glanced at his eight-limbed colleague. “We don’t plan to do that sort of thing. This is to be a refuge from the realities of the world, not a reminder of them. I have always found that the prominent placement of contributors’ names on the outside of structures intended for religious purposes only reminds those who are unable to do likewise of their comparative insignificance, if only in a temporal, nonspiritual way. We are trying to get away from such things.”
“But we will find a way to acknowledge your gift,” Shanvordesep put in quickly. “One that I believe will more than satisfy your wishes.”
Shaking her head slowly, Lorengau’s speculative gaze passed from human to thranx. “I can’t make up my mind if you two are truly dedicated or just arrogant.” She sighed softly. “People are going to find out about this, you know.”
“We intend that they should,