Read Online To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga) by William Rotsler - Free Book Online

don't have, or for someone to fulfill our dreams of youth. Blake then thought about his male friends. Caleb liked his women small and slim, almost boyish. Kerrigan liked them almost pre-adolescent. Tom Oldman liked them at least warm. Dawson liked them older, in their early thirties, when they theoretically knew what they were doing.
    And he, what did he like? Blake Mason knew. He had always known, had always responded, first to the physical part, for that was the first thing be noticed, then to the mental part – the spirit and wit and character of the woman.
    But why had his reaction to Rio been so sudden, so total? He knew many beautiful women, for he moved in that kind of society. Beauty brought both men and women to the company of the rich, and it was only the rich who could afford his services. But his reaction to Rio had been more than a reaction to her beauty. And she had seemed to sense it as well, although she covered it well. But those first looks she gave him had betrayed her calm.
    What made Rio so special?
    Determined to fmd out, Blake waited until Rio was momentarily alone and then approached her. "Show me the villa by moonlight," he suggested.
    She smiled, even as she took his arm. "There's no moon tonight," she said.
    "What?" Blake exclaimed as they walked out onto the terrace and over to the wall overlooking the bay. "Surely that is some bureaucratic foul-up. All evenings at Casa Emperador require a moon. Heads will roll."
    Rio laughed softly, almost politely, then turned to put her hands on the tile-topped wall and look out to sea. They could hear the surf and see the starlight glinting on the water.
    "Do you think Jean-Michel's idea is mad?" she asked.
    "No. Everyone wants to leave something behind, be remembered. He can afford it, that's all."
    She looked at him, her face shadowed. "Do you want to live forever?" she asked seriously.
    Blake thought a moment. "I suppose everyone has that fantasy. Living for hundreds of years, thousands perhaps, having enough time to do everything, see everything. Why do you ask?"
    Rio shrugged and turned to lean against the wall, her face illuminated by the light from the arches. "Do you like what you do, Mr. Mason?"
    "Blake, please. Yes, I do. It's very interesting, I get to go a lot of places, try out a number of ideas that are my own. Once I'd achieved a certain, um, prominence, people put themselves into my hands and let me do as I wished."
    "Do you enjoy that power?"
    "I don't really think of it as power, but as opportunity. It's a challenge to create something that hasn't been done to death, that is even better than the client thought it might be – and to find out what a client really wants." Blake paused a moment, then asked: "What do you really want?"
    She smiled. "To find out about you. You are quite famous, really, but..." She let the sentence die, then started to speak, but Blake spoke first.
    "But the famous are not always good, or interesting, or ... exciting?"
    Rio's smile was renewed. "What is your philosophy of life, Mr. ... uh ... Blake?"
    "I don't know. My subscription ran out. I used to belong to the Philosophy-of-the-Month Club. I used to have one, though, when I was a kid. The wheels fell off it and it died, and since then..." He made a gesture with both hands.
    "Seriously."
    "Seriously." Blake turned toward the sea again, his shoulder very close to Rio. "You mean how I separate the good from the bad, the right from wrong?" Rio nodded. "That's very difficult. What is right one time doesn't seem right another, sometimes. I suppose..." He took a deep breath, feeling her eyes on him. "I suppose it is in not hurting anyone, in giving pleasure, in being worthy of the friendship of people you like and admire. But to have friends like that you have to be that way yourself." He looked at Rio, but her face was shadowed by her hair. "What is your philosophy, Senorita Volas?"
    "Rio." She smiled. "Once I was too poor to have a philosophy of life. If I had been