A Calculated Risk, Katherine Neville [english novels for students txt] 📗

he had led me to the building core—where elevators and fire doors were located—and marched me into a broom closet!

When we switched on the light, there were mops and pails, and rows of metal shelves holding supplies—punched cards, pens and paper, technical manuals—all covered with a thin veneer of dust.

“The space behind the elevator bays was designed for storage,” he told me as he pulled a key from his waistcoat and unlocked a heavy metal door hidden behind the last row of shelves. “But I found a better use. I hate working in that fish-bowl out there, so I partitioned the stockroom with soundproof walls. I have the only key. Privacy—like eating and breathing—is one of life’s basic requirements.”

We entered an enormous, oblong room with parquet floors, walls paneled from top to bottom with books: many were leather-bound, and a glance informed me that few, if any, dealt with computers.

Fine Persian rugs were scattered about, as well as worn leather chairs, greenish-blue Tiffany lamps that looked like the real thing. A Spode tea service was displayed on an étagère, and an old copper samovar with three spigots rested on a table in the corner. At the center of the room was a large, round, leather-topped table, inset with thick green baize. Arrayed on it were dozens of small figurines in metal, enamel, ivory, wood. I went over to examine them, and Tor picked one up, handing it to me. I noticed the carved-out base.

“These are signets,” he told me. “Do you know anything about them?”

“Only that in the old days they were used to seal the wax on letters,” I said.

“The old days—yes,” he agreed, laughing. “With that, modern man sums up everything that has occurred in the last five thousand years. Yes, signets were used to seal documents—but more than that: they were the first encryption. The intaglio imprints were used as a sort of code, depending upon where they were placed on a document, or in what combination.”

“You’ve made a study of encryption?” I asked.

“I’m a most avid student of the entire art of secrecy—for it is an art,” he told me. “Secrecy is the only liberty still afforded us, in this ‘best of all possible worlds.’”

Perhaps I imagined it, but he sounded somewhat embittered.

“Are you quoting Dr. Pangloss?” I asked. “Or his creator, who said, ‘I laugh only to keep from hanging myself’?”

“Why, that’s it!” he said, neatly avoiding my question. “It’s Candide you remind me of: that same naive impressionability one loses so quickly by encountering the real world. But you must take care, and see it always works to your advantage—revealing truth, as the child did in the story of the emperor’s new clothes—not ending in cynicism and isolation, as in Candide’s case. Just now, your mind’s like a piece of fresh, hot wax, in which no print has yet been left—”

“So you plan to stamp your intaglio in me?” I asked.

Tor, who’d been arranging the signets on the table, glanced up sharply. Now I noticed the color of his eyes. They were strangely disconcerting—an intense, coppery flame burning in the depths—so at odds with his aloof and formal manner. It was as though he could penetrate like a laser—stripping away those layers of veneer with which we all protect ourselves—cutting to the very bone. Then he squinted, and the impression vanished.

“You’re a strange child,” he said, still studying me. “You have the ability to see truth without really understanding what it means. A mixed gift, and a dangerous one, if you always blurt things out tactlessly like that.”

I wasn’t sure how I’d been either truthful or tactless, so I simply smiled.

“I’ve studied this art of secrecy so long,” he went on, “encryption, decoding, intelligence, espionage … but in the end, I’ve been left with one great fact: nothing can be hidden from X-ray vision, regardless how things are concealed. Truth has divine properties, and the ability to see it is a gift that’s given, not acquired.”

“What makes you think I have it?” I asked, for I knew that was what he meant.

“Never mind; it’s enough that I recognize a gift when I see it. All my life, I’ve searched for challenges—only to learn in the end that the greatest challenge was in finding a challenge at all. How sad, that when I met it at last, it should arrive in the guise of a fourteen-year-old child.”

“I’m twenty,” I pointed out.

“You look fourteen, and so you behave,” he said with a sigh, coming over to set both hands on my shoulders. “Believe me, my dear, when I say that I’ve never been accused of being an altruist. In some languages, there’s no way to express, as there is in English, the concept of time as a commodity—of wasting, spending, or killing it. When I use my time for something, I expect commensurate value. If I pluck a waif from the halls and offer to improve her through my tutelage, I assure you that my goal isn’t to improve the lot of beleaguered mankind.”

“Then why?” I asked, meeting his gaze.

He smiled, perhaps the most intriguing smile I’d ever seen.

“I’m Pygmalion,” he told me. “When I’m through with you—you’re going to be a masterpiece.”

By Monday morning, I felt I was a masterpiece—though I didn’t look much like one. My hair was disheveled, and dark rings circled my eyes.

But my head was jam-packed with knowledge, and just as Tor had predicted, I hadn’t lost a stitch. For the first time in my life, I felt that calm confidence that comes with being truly knowledgeable on a subject—completely prepared. I felt I’d taken a long dip in a refreshing pool.

I’d wanted to give Tor the good news at once. But the meeting, and what came after, had taken longer than I’d thought. I passed through his floor several times during the day, but even the dingy stockroom was locked.

I was just about to leave for the day when I received a note at my desk:

Come to the