The Lord of Opium

“Remember. No tantrums,” Matt warned as they went into the gardens, but he needn’t have worried. El Bicho danced around from the joy of being outside before settling down to a steady pace. The eejits followed solemnly, holding their leashes.

To Matt’s surprise they went to a hovercraft port concealed behind a hedge. There were a dozen or so small craft parked on magnetic strips, and the Bug went up to one and opened the hatch. “It’s a long way to the observatory,” he explained.

“I’ll get Cienfuegos to pilot,” said Matt.

The Bug laughed. “Anybody can fly these,” he said, climbing inside. The eejits followed him, pressing themselves against the back wall. “You need a pilot to take up a real hovercraft. This is a stirabout for short hops.” He patted the seat next to him.

Matt climbed in, hoping that he wasn’t making a mistake. The change in El Bicho had been so gratifying, he didn’t want to spoil the boy’s mood.

“First, you uncouple the magnets,” explained the Bug. He pushed a green button. The stirabout lurched up, and Matt caught his breath. “It’s okay. We can’t go more than ten feet off the ground,” said the Bug. “Now you press the go button and steer with this wheel. I’ll let you try it on the way back.”

The stirabout obediently followed the road, and Matt’s heart settled down to a regular rhythm. For one thing, he was astounded that a seven-year-old could fly anything. El Bicho was clearly intelligent—he spoke of telescopes and computers with easy familiarity just as Listen spoke of rabbit anatomy. They had both copied Dr. Rivas. Matt thought uncomfortably of his own upbringing. At age seven he’d been interested in picnics and Celia’s cooking. Nothing much to exercise a brain there.

It occurred to him that El Bicho had become much friendlier when he was in charge. Power was what the boy craved, even as El Patrón had craved it all his life.

The valley widened out to a broad plain dotted with mesquite, yucca, and cactus. Here and there were the small observatories once owned by astronomers before El Patrón drove them out. Mesquite trees had grown up around the buildings until their walls were almost invisible. Their round roofs were caked with dirt and bird droppings. Looming beyond them was an enormous white dome, the biggest observatory in the world, Matt remembered, with a telescope that could look around the universe until you could see the back of your neck.

By its side, no less impressive, was a building shaped like the number seven tipped over on its side. The shorter section rose at least a hundred feet into the air. At the top was a solar telescope. The longer section sloped at an angle to the earth and, El Bicho said, extended a thousand feet underground. “Dr. Rivas let me look into it once, but it’s nasty. Dark and hot. Only eejits work there.”

The boy positioned the stirabout over a strip in the parking lot, and Matt felt the magnetism pull them down.

“What you must always do, when you’ve gone for a hop,” said the Bug in the same serious way as Dr. Rivas giving a lecture, “is recharge the antigravity pods. You pull this lever”—Matt heard a whump as a tube with a sucker at the end clamped onto the front of the craft—“and you’re set. It takes fifteen minutes to recharge for the distance we’ve gone.”

For all the authority El Bicho tried to project as he led the way into the observatory, he still looked like a little kid on a leash. The eejits followed him as though they were walking a dog, and Matt struggled not to smile. He sensed that any hint of humor would send the boy into one of his rages.

The building was dark, except for the lights on computers, and it was very warm. “You have to keep the telescopes at the same temperature as the outside,” said the Bug. “Otherwise, they won’t stay still. In winter the astronomers have to wear thick coats.”

A woman in a white lab coat hurried out of an office. “¿Dónde está mi padre?”

“Dr. Rivas was busy, Dr. Angel,” the Bug said grandly.

“You’re never supposed to come here without him,” scolded Dr. Angel. “But who is this? Ah! Father told me at dinner. You must be the new patrón!” The woman bowed as though greeting royalty.

“And you must be Dr. Rivas’s daughter,” said Matt. “I hope we aren’t disturbing your work.”

“Not at all. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” said Dr. Angel graciously. “Would you like a tour?”

“I’ll show him around,” the Bug objected.

“You will follow me and keep your hands off the computers,” said the woman. “It took us weeks to recover from your last visit.”