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Mario smiled. "I want to get out of this body soon. What I see of Ebery I don't like."
"Bring in ten million dollars," said Mervyn Alien. "The Chateau d'lf exists for one purpose-
to make money."
Mario inspected Alien carefully, noted the hard clear flesh, the beautiful shape of the face,
skull, expression.
"What do you need all that money for? Why build an Empyrean Tower in the first place?"
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"I do it for fun. It amuses me. I am bored. I have explored many bodies, many existences.
This body is my fourteenth. I've wielded power. I do not care for the sensation. The
pressure annoys me. Nor am I at all psychotic. I am not even ruthless. In my business,
what one man loses, another man gains. The balance is even."
"But it's robbery!" protested Mario bitterly. "Stealing the years off one man's life to add to
another's."
Alien shrugged. "The bodies are living the same cumulative length of time. The total effect
is the same. There's no change but the shifting of memory. In any event, perhaps I am, in
the jargon of metaphysics, a solipsist. So far as I can see-through my eyes, through my
brain-I am the only true individual, the sole conscious intellect." His eye shadowed. "How
else can it be that I-I-have been chosen from among so many to lead this charmed life of
mine?"
"Pah!" sneered Mario.
"Every man amuses himself as best he knows how. My current interest is building the
Empyrean Tower." His voice took on a deep, exalted ring. "It shall rise three miles into the
air! There is a banquet hall with a floor of alternate silver and copper strips, a quarter mile
wide, a quarter mile high, ringed with eight glass balconies. There will be garden terraces
like nothing else on earth, with fountains, waterfalls, running brooks. One floor will be a
fairyland out of the ancient days, peopled with beautiful nymphs.
"Others will display Earth at stages in its history. There will be museums, conservatories of
various musical styles, studios, workshops, laboratories for every known type of research,
sections given to retail shops. There will be beautiful chambers and balconies designed for
nothing except to be wandered through, sections devoted to the-let us say, worship of
Astarte. There will be halls full of toys, a hundred restaurants staffed by gourmets, a
thousand taverns serving liquid dreams; halls for seeing, hearing, resting."
Said Mario, "And after you tire of the Empyrean Tower?"
Mervyn Alien flung himself back in the seat "Ah, Mario, you touch me on a sore point.
Doubtless something will suggest itself. If only we could break away from Earth, could fly
past the barren rocks of the planets, to other stars, other life. There would be no need for
any Chateau d'lf."
Mario rubbed his fat jowl, eyed Alien quizzically. "Did you invent this process yourself?"
"I and four others who comprised a research team. They are all dead. I alone know the
technique."
"And your secretary? Is she one of your changelings?" "No," said Mervyn Alien. "Thane is
what she is. She lives by hate. You think I am her lover? No," and he smiled faintly. "Not in
any way. Her will is for destruction, death. A bright thing only on the surface. Inwardly she
is as dark and violent, as a drop of hot oil."
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Mario had absorbed too many facts, too much information. He was past speculating.
"Well, I won't take any more of your time. I wanted to find out where I stand."
"Now you know. I need money. This is the easiest way to get it in large quantities that I
know of. But I also have my big premium offer-bank night, bingo, whatever you wish to
call it."
"What's that?"
"I need customers. The more customers, the more money. Naturally my publicity cannot
be too exact. So I offer a free shift, a free body if you bring in six new customers."
Mario narrowed his eyes. "So-Sutlow gets credit for Zaer and me?"
Alien looked blank. "Who's Sutlow?"
"You don't know Sutlow?"
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