Chapter 18

With the girls away from the computers, the noise level in the office had been sharply reduced. Now they became aware of a commotion that seemed to be coming from the street level far below them. At that moment they heard a quiet knock at the front door.

Since Anna and Maria were eating, Karla picked up a pair of cuffs and a collar they had left behind, put them on, then quickly tied her bow tie. With a lovely smile she stood before Doug and asked him to straighten the tie because she didn’t have a mirror handy.

He did and then stepped back. “My darling, you are incredible!” he exclaimed. “And now I see why you wear your uniform. It looks magnificent on you.”

With a wink she went to the door.

Opening it she found Paula standing there looking a bit upset. Since normally she was the most unflappable woman alive, it caused Karla to raise an eyebrow and ask what was going on.”

“Have you seen a newspaper yet this morning?” she asked. When Karla shook her head, she continued, “TV news?”

“We saw CNN for a few minutes, but that concerned a near-blackout of the whole eastern United States. But that was all,” Karla replied. “Why do you ask?”

“Because, dear heart, you, your sisters, and your masters are the biggest thing since the wheel! The noise you hear down below is the crowd that’s gathered in front of the hotel. Prague now must have 90 percent of the world’s paparazzi, and they’re all down in the street. I’ve just called out the riot police to reinforce the city police trying to maintain order. Then there are representatives — mostly multiples — of every news-gathering organization on the face of the earth! And they all want you!”

“But who?” Karla asked, utterly bewildered.

“You, turkey!” Paula almost screamed. “Let’s take you first. You are now publicly credited with the creation of the Czech Republic through your personal heroism and incredible suffering. You emerge last night as Queen of Bohemia in the arms of Europe’s most eligible bachelor. And you are the most beautiful woman any of them has ever seen! Enough?” Karla could only dumbly nod.

“And then there are the twins! Look!” she yelled as she produced a stack of newspapers.

“The paparazzi are freaking out over Maria. First, they love the Italian sound of her name. Beyond that, though, they adore her dark hair.” Now she was close to screaming and the others had all come out to see what was going on. “There are fistfights starting all over the street — among the news people, for heaven’s sake — over which of you is the most beautiful! And as Contessa di Savoi, Your Majesty is very much back in the hunt.”

Stalking into the sitting room, she sat on the sofa, put the papers on the coffee table and proceeded to go through them. “Now here’s one. From a nice sedate paper, The Times of London. Just look!” she nearly screamed.

Holding the paper in front of her so the headlines were showing, Karla gasped. There, above the fold was a full-color photo taken the night before of Anna and Maria. The headline above it read, “They are the smartest women in the world. Are they also the most beautiful?” Below the fold was another full-color photo, this one showing Karla in Doug’s arms. The headline read, “World’s most beautiful queen to wed world’s most eligible bachelor?” Above the flag was a teaser, “The World’s Most Powerful Private Company? The Times looks at Kendy Company. See page C-1.”

Looking at Paula and the stack of newspapers in front of her, Barbara said, “Okay, Slave Paula. Why is it I think that your fertile Machiavellian mind has come up with a course of action? What are we supposed to do, Madame oh-so-powerful Home Minister?”

“I’ve already arranged pool coverage, if it’s all right with you people,” she replied. “There will be a Czech TV crew — they almost cried when I told them they couldn’t bring up their lights — and reporters from AP and Reuters. Then there’s a battle royal among NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN over which of the American crews can come up. Finally, have you people ever heard of bookers?” When the group indicated a collective negative, Paula continued, “They’re the people who line up guests for TV shows.”

She smiled warmly and digressed, “The people here in the hotel have been simply outstanding! Barb, you should really tell Mrs. Clifford—”

“If she ever hears you say that, Paula Wilhelm...” Barb interrupted. Then with her eyes wide she asked, “Now there’s a question that never occurred to me before. What kind of flowers do you want at your funeral? Because if Ali should ever hear — or hear of — you calling her ‘Mrs. Clifford,’ I’ll need to order some.”

“That’s a very good question,” Paula mused. “Golly! I never thought to ask what flowers are normally sent to a prostitute’s funeral. I’ll make a note to find out.”

Then with a wink she continued, “—tell Ali how the entire hotel staff has united to protect you people. Why, the chef even chased a paparazzo out of his kitchen and back to the street with a meat cleaver! But anyway, the hotel telephone operators have been fielding calls for hours and telling callers you are not to be disturbed ... in about fifteen different languages, yet!”

She grinned and then continued, “But anyway, among the most insistent have been the bookers for Today, Good Morning, America, and The CBS Morning Show. They have been incredible pests. The point is they’re falling over each other to set up a live satellite interview with you for 1300, our time, or 0700, Eastern. It’s their prime time.”

“But who is ‘you’,” Karla asked.

“‘You’ is any and all of you, turkeys!” Paula almost screamed. “It’s the funniest damned thing I’ve ever seen. Here it is, the Thursday before the Christmas weekend, and every bit of the world’s news is concentrated here in Prague, and more explicitly, in this apartment on the top floor of the Hotel Ritz! And am I ever proud of our people! Both the city police and the riot police are doing incredible jobs down there. And, Your Majesty, it’s all for you!”

Her eyes riveted on Karla as she continued, “I can’t tell you what has happened here in the Republic. You are a combination of hero and saint. I don’t think there’s been anything like it since Joan of Arc! They utterly worship the ground you walk on.”

Turning to Maria and Anna she said, “And you two! There are no words to express the tremendous pride they feel in you. Here our tiny country has the two most beautiful scientists who’ve ever lived, but more than that, you’re modern incarnations of Thomas Edison, Louis Pasteur, and Albert Einstein!”

Maria was about to make a quip when she realized that Paula was absolutely serious. “But they don’t understand!” she said finally. “Anna and I just fooled around with some bits and pieces of little bitty software. What’s the big deal? We were like two kids playing in the sandbox.”

“Some sandbox!” Steve interjected. “Paula, just before you came up — and with the excitement downstairs, you probably missed it — our two urchins nearly knocked out the entire North American power grid! How? They were trying to solve a trivial little problem. You know, their standard little thing? Well, since they couldn’t find the very expensive $1.50 calculator I bought for them just four months ago, they lined up every Cray supercomputer in the world — almost all of which belong to the U.S. government — and rigged them in series so that their computing power was additive.

“And guess what? Aside from using virtually every volt of electric power on the North American continent — which is about two-thirds of the world total — they got an answer to their little bitty problem.”

He shook his head and added, “These kids are so damned brilliant it scares me sometimes. But then I’ll pinch their bottoms and they utterly melt, so maybe there’s some hope, after all.”

Then turning back to Paula he asked, “But about those bookers. What did you tell them?”

“It was funny as hell! I told them to call back at twelve o’clock, our time.” Then she grinned and continued, “Then all hell really broke loose! They said they had to organize a camera crew, schedule the satellite transmission, brief the anchors, and so forth, and they couldn’t possibly do all that in just one hour.”

“So what did you reply?” Steve asked with a grin, almost certain of what her reply would be.

He wasn’t disappointed. “I told them that I guess they really did have a problem, didn’t they? But fortunately, I did not!”

“So then what?”

“So then what do you expect?” she replied casually. “They will all call back at twelve noon, sharp!

“Okay, Hon,” Barb interjected. “I guess we have our orders. When are our guests due to arrive?”

Paula glanced at her watch and her eyes widened. Then she relaxed again and said, “Oh, you’ve got plenty of time. They won’t be up here for nearly five minutes.”

Six naked bodies scattered toward the bedrooms. Paula followed Doug and Karla into their room. While Doug was pondering what to wear, Paula dropped to her knees and cradled his cock and balls in her hands. “Oh, darling!” she exclaimed, “he’s so big!” But then turning toward Karla she said, “But what’s wrong with you? I expected to find him utterly drained. What did you do last night?”

Karla’s head was in a Christmas-red dress she was slipping on so her voice was muffled as she replied, “He was drained, both last night and again this morning. But he recovers quickly, don’t you agree? He shows the potential to keep me ... entertained.” Her head emerged from the top of the dress and she continued, “And by the way, we’re getting married.”

Paula squealed, then jumped to her feet to kiss Doug, then rushed over to kiss Karla. “Darling, I’m so happy for you! No wonder you look so utterly marvelous this morning!” Then she shook her head and added, “On the other hand, you are so utterly magnificent all the time, it is a bit difficult to see the difference sometimes.”

As Doug finished dressing — he was wearing a tattersall plaid shirt with an ascot, gray trousers and a blue blazer with the Jesus College crest — Barb came into the room and said to Karla, “Now that your time is being scheduled to the minute, I thought you might need this.” With that she put a small, gaily wrapped box in her hands and left as quickly as she had entered.

Opening it, Karla found a solid gold lady’s Rolex. Its back was engraved, “To my adorable baby sister, from her big sister who adores her”. Karla’s eyes teared as she read the inscription, but then she fastened it on her wrist and put on her gold collar. Earlier, she had noted that Paula was wearing hers.

When they returned to the sitting room, Doug was delighted to see the other two girls sitting side by side on the sofa. Maria had her arm around Anna, hugging her while teasing her, “Honey, just because no one ever gave you a gift before there’s no need to cry, is there? And it really is a beautiful watch! Don’t you just love it?”

Pulling herself together Anna replied, “Of course it’s beautiful and of course I love it. But you’re the only one — except maybe for Karla — who could understand. These are gifts from our mother! And for both of us, it’s been so long since we’ve had one.”

“I thought I was your mother?” Paula asked pretending to be miffed.

“You were our surrogate mother. And, Paula Wilhelm, until the day I die, I won’t forget the way you comforted me, even though your body had been ripped to pieces. That was just the purest love imaginable!”

There was a knock on the door. Checking to ensure that everyone was ready, Paula took it upon herself to answer it. Opening the door, she greeted the press, but with a noticeable lack of warmth, except for the Czech TV crew, and an addition to the group, a representative of the Czech press. In addition to the crews there were two uniformed sergeants in the Secret Police who very politely nodded to the woman who, they knew, really ran the Home Ministry. She suppressed a smile as she noticed an NBC camera crew; obviously they had won the battle to represent U.S. television. When she ushered the group into the sitting room — a large living room, actually, now that it had been redone — she was so proud of the people she felt like cheering.

Doug and Steve were standing to greet their guests. She couldn’t determine which of them looked more like a British peer. The three girls were sitting on a sofa with Karla in the center, flanked by Maria on her right and Anna to her left. Barbara was sitting by herself on a facing sofa; the place beside her was Steve’s. Doug had pulled up a small armchair to sit close to Karla.

To the surprise of no one, the most obnoxious person in the room proved to be the director of the NBC camera crew. His first move was to attempt to rearrange the seating. When Barb looked at Paula with a raised eyebrow — it was all Paula could do to contain a giggle as she did — Paula interposed herself and asked in her haughtiest voice, “And what might you be doing?”

“I’m setting up the first shot,” he replied in his most annoyed voice. “Now, I want you two on the ends of the sofa to pull your skirts up. I want to see a lot more leg than that—”

“Would you like to leave this instant?” Paula interrupted. “I’m sure one of these two sergeants would be delighted to show you out!” Turning to the senior, she asked, “Sergeant Krupp, what is your reaction to that ... that ... that request.”

“It is the utmost insolence, Frau Wilhelm!” he snapped. Obviously, he had watched the gala the night before, too.

“You, sir!” he called. “You are addressing the Duchess of Burgundy, one of the oldest titles in Christendom; along with her sister, the Marquise de Flandres! Your very presence is an imposition on their privacy. You will either conduct your interviews in accordance with diplomatic principles, or you will leave!”

“But I’m from NBC...”

“And I, sir, am from the Czech Secret Police.

“Last night our beloved president awarded decorations to all of these people, except to his lordship, Douglas, Earl of Whitfield. However, His Lordship was until recently a major in Her Majesty’s Special Air Service. They are better known by their initials, SAS. Perhaps you have heard of the unit? I am sure His Lordship is quite capable of taking care of himself. In addition, of course, we have Queen Karla of Bohemia.”

Stiffening to perfect attention, he clicked his heels and said, “Had her ancestors behaved with even a small fraction of the humanity, patriotism, and pure courage of Her Majesty, she would be sitting on the throne here in Prague today. Now, sir, may I suggest you sit in the corner, while the interview proceeds?”

The man from NBC didn’t know what to do. But what he did know was that Sergeant Krupp was nearly six feet six and weighed 275. He could easily have picked him up from the floor and literally thrown him out.

“Your Majesty,” the man from Reuters began, “what was your reaction to the events last night? After all, as the sergeant so correctly pointed out — and as the president himself even joked — but for the fortunes of history, you would be sitting on the throne in the palace right now.”

Looking every inch the queen, Karla replied, “Frankly, I cried. I thought of all the people who gave their lives that we might now be a free country. Many have been remembered. Many more have been forgotten. I was chagrined that my tiny contribution would be rewarded with a medal as important as the cross presented to me last night. And I was mortified that the tiny little bit I did would result in our nation’s highest award for military valor being named after me.”

“Tiny little bit!” Paula exploded. “Let me tell you about the ‘tiny little bit.’ First, she was tortured so brutally, her skin was entirely flayed from her body. She begged to be raped as the only way she could get any respite from the torture that continued nonstop for 36 agonizing hours! Is that all? For our queen? Hah!

“Early this morning I went over our files. Now they represent the merger of files secretly maintained by President Havel and the Resistance, and those maintained by the agents of the KGB in Czechoslovakia, our former secret police. From the age of only fourteen this woman was the Underground’s top operative. And this, too, was suspected by the Russians and was another reason for their unrelenting torture. Suffice it to say, beyond maintaining all of the secrets of the Resistance while under inhuman torture, she personally — and usually operating alone — did more damage to the Soviet occupation than any ten other agents.”

Paula was on her feet and glaring now. “You heard me correctly, sir! More than any ten — t-e-n, 10 — other people. And virtually every mission was undertaken at grave risk to her life. To say that our queen is loved is so easy. But she is loved! More, she is revered as a living saint!”

Then she smiled warmly and concluded, “But what she said was the truth, and so typical of her. She is mortified that our nation’s highest award for valor in combat is the Karla Cross. But I also hasten to add that she is absolutely the only person in the entire nation who thinks that. Ask any Czech on the street. He or she will only confirm what I just said.”

“Your Majesty, if this is presumptuous, please don’t answer,” the man from Reuters resumed. “My service — Reuters News Agency — is headquartered in London. Therefore, beyond our global coverage, we have a particular interest in the UK. Last night you were seen to kiss His Lordship, Douglas, Earl of Whitfield. As I’m sure you know, Majesty, he is heir to one of the oldest duchies in our kingdom.”

Now blushing, the reporter continued, “And, if I may say so, the kiss you exchanged was more than a mere peck on the cheek. Further, His Lordship is considered to be our nation’s — and Europe’s — most eligible bachelor. Would you ... Could you ... comment?”

“I think you should address His Lordship,” Karla replied with the loveliest smile the reporter had ever seen.

“Your Lordship?” he asked. “Would you care to say anything?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, I would,” Doug replied. “It is with the greatest joy and a feeling of inadequacy that I am announcing my engagement to Her Majesty. We are going to be married. And yes, I must agree that our kisses are, indeed, more than mere pecks. Further, I will say that I consider myself to be the luckiest man on the face of the earth to have Queen Karla accept me as her future husband. The shortest statement I could make about her is that she is utter perfection on two lovely feet.” With a wonderful smile, he concluded, “Does that answer your question?”

“Indeed it does!” the reporter exclaimed as he mentally composed a headline for the story he was already framing. Then very diffidently he asked, “Would it be possible to take a picture of you two together?”

Doug extended his hand and Karla rose from the sofa with perfect grace and took her place beside and slightly in front of him so his arm was around her waist. The Reuters photographer took one look, gasped at the perfect couple and began to snap pictures with his motor-driven Nikon. Then Karla turned in Doug’s arms and melted her lips to his. Their kiss not only shorted out the drive on the Nikon, it blew out the NBC camera. Realizing what had happened, the NBC cameraman fled toward the door to get a spare.

The Reuters photographer’s eyes were bugged. Shaking his head in utter bewilderment he said softly, “I’ve been taking pictures for over twenty years. But never in my life have I seen a kiss like that one. Please accept my personal congratulations on what I am positive will be a marvelous marriage.”

To his great surprise, Doug shook his hand and thanked him, while Karla gave him a very light kiss. Nonetheless, he almost lost consciousness when she did.

To Paula he said, “Madam, never in my life have I seen the level of love your queen contains.” He shook his head and added, “Lord Whitfield, I know, was one of the top officers in SAS, and they are incredibly tough men. I think that’s the only thing that may keep him alive. He certainly has his work cut out for him!”

“He does, doesn’t he?” Karla responded in a soft voice. “But I’m certain he’s up to the task.”

Turning to Anna and Maria, the Reuters reporter said, “I agree with President Havel. You two have destroyed every computer-nerd joke in existence.” Then with a warm grin he added, “I hope you’re satisfied.”

“We are, thank you,” Maria replied with an even warmer grin.

“May I inquire what is next?” the man asked. “In less than six months you two have introduced the two most remarkable software titles in history. Our science section considers you to be beyond Albert Einstein. The chief of our science section at Reuters is a Ph.D. physicist. Personally, he ranks your achievement beyond Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Moreover, again in his judgment, you have a lock on the Nobel Prize. His vote is for physics; he doesn’t see any chemistry in it. But it’s a lock.”

Checking his notes — obviously he had been primed for the interview by the man he had referred to — he asked, “What programming language do you use? I am told that it utterly stuns the computer manufacturers — not to mention other programmers — because in theory, the machines they build cannot read it. But they all do. But what is it, and how do you do it?”

“It’s a little thing Maria and I developed. We don’t like lots of code. In fact, as Mr. Sloan can attest, some new software we developed today went over one megabyte in size for the first time ever...”

“Do you mean to say that Mayday, with its incredible complexity, is less than a megabyte?” the reporter asked, utterly astonished.

“Oh, it’s much smaller than that,” Maria replied. “It’s not even 300 kilobytes. Of course there’s a little applet that tells computers how to use it, and that’s a bit more. But its total size is about 600 kilobytes.”

The AP reporter had not been primed to the extent the Reuters man had, but both were running pre-release versions of Mayday on their own computers. He asked, “You may not care to answer, but could you tell me what the new software is?”

The girls looked at Steve who just shrugged and grinned.

“Well,” Maria said, “it’s not quite as good as Helper or Mayday. To run it, one must have Mayday up and running. The reason is only Mayday has the computer instructions with respect to our language. But anyway, if you have Mayday you might like it. Using a microphone, a telephone, or a headset you just talk to your computer in your natural voice and it does what you tell it to do.”

“I don’t understand,” the man said, looking puzzled.

“Well, sir,” Maria replied, “instead of typing out your story today, all you would need to do is dictate. Its interpretation speed is somewhere in excess of 500 words per minute, and there’s no one alive who can talk that fast. Anyway, it brings up your word processing software and transcribes what you’re saying. Since it also incorporates the very latest in grammar checking, too, a fully finished — and fully edited — story comes out of your printer. Or it’s sent directly to AP’s local office, or wherever.”

“There actually is such software?” the man asked, utterly incredulous. “It really works?”

“Come and meet Susie,” Anna replied. “She’s our personal copy of Mayday. Would you like to try it out?”

The reporters were so utterly stunned, they could only nod. By this time the now-quite-chastened NBC cameraman had returned with a spare camera and he followed the group into the office. Anna sat down at the keyboard and just hit two keys. Instantly the computer came to life, with Susie saying, “Hi, Boss! What’s on your mind now?”

Anna had put on a headset by this time and she told Susie about the representatives of AP and Reuters who were interviewing them. After explaining that this was a demonstration of their new voice recognition software, she concluded, “Susie, this is your big chance. The whole world is watching. And, if you’re really good, they may even let you transmit the stories to their respective headquarters. Want to try? And, needless to say, the voices you hear won’t be ours, but just this once you’re authorized to act on their instructions. Clear?”

“It sure is!” Susie exclaimed in her synthesized voice. “And it’s my big chance! Just think! Here I am in a little desktop in Prague, and I may have a chance to transmit to the whole world! I’m ready.” Anna turned on the printers and turned a mike over to the reporters.

Meantime, the reporters had been organizing their stories. After flipping a coin, the AP reporter went first and began speaking as fast as he could. When he finished, Susie asked if he wanted anything with it, such as video tape, a photograph, a table, a chart ... anything. When he told her there was some video tape, she told him to put it on a special tape machine the girls had. Borrowing the tape from the bewildered NBC cameraman, they spooled it up. Almost instantly, the printer came to life and in less than a minute, four pages of finished copy spewed out.

Taking it from the printer tray, the reporter read it over and gasped. “My God!” he exclaimed. “In my dreams I can’t write as good as this!” Wheeling on Anna he said, “Can this be sent to AP headquarters in New York?”

Before he finished his question, two full-color photographs of the two girls side by side appeared from a color printer. Susie announced that these were, in her opinion, the very best pictures of her mistresses ... aside from the bikini photo in Mayday, of course. He agreed instantly.

“This is your big chance, Susie!” Anna exclaimed. “Send it immediately to Associated Press headquarters in New York.” When the reporter pointed out that she hadn’t given Susie the number, Anna replied, “That’s no problem. She has phone books for every major city in the world. She’ll find it.” Moments later the printer produced a receipt for the story.

While the Reuters man was setting up, the printer activated again. This time it was a message for the AP reporter from the senior duty editor in New York. “This is the finest story you’ve ever done, Tom! Congratulations and keep up the good work. It should be on the front pages of at least half the evening papers in the States tonight. Super story! And the pictures are even better.”

After the Reuters man filed his story, he got the same result. His story focused on the engagement announcement of Doug and Karla and included the photo his man had taken. The girls had equipment capable of reading a picture from undeveloped film. His acknowledgment took a little longer. But when it came, it came with the guarantee that it would be the front-page feature story in every major British evening paper. It rated as a Reuters scoop, and a bonus came with the acknowledgment.

When they returned to the living room, Maria asked anxiously, “Do you like it? Do you think there might be some market for software like this?”

“Well, we haven’t talked price yet,” the Reuters man replied. “Now take me, for instance. I’m a poor struggling reporter assigned to a rather obscure foreign capital.” He appeared to think for a bit and then said, “Well, my wife, Judy, certainly isn’t in your class of beauty, but then no one is; but perhaps you could use her as a scullery slave? Then there are the twins, John and Joan. They’re only four years old, so perhaps you might like to roast them? They’re nice and firm, and I’m sure you would find them sweet to the taste. Then...”

Stopping, he asked, “Let me put it this way. What would you like to have? My right arm, perhaps? Both legs?” Then he shook his head and said, “At £10,000, it would be cheap. Now how much is it?”

In a very tiny voice Anna replied, “We were thinking about US$495, but we thought that would be too much. After all, it’s not really freestanding. One must have Mayday installed first, so...”

The two reporters interrupted with howls of laughter. Both reached into their breast pockets, took out their checkbooks, and looking at her attentively asked in unison, “To whom do we make the checks payable?”

“It’s really not too much?” Anna asked skeptically.

“Let me put it this way,” the Reuters reporter replied. “Your sister, Duchess of Burgundy, could buy the whole damned province back for cash with the first month’s profits. And you, Your Grace, could reacquire Flanders from the Belgians. The short answer, Your Grace, is that there is no price — none — that would be too much for this software.”

Then he asked, “Am I correct in assuming that this software will be another offering from Noble Software?” Maria and Anna both nodded. “Would it be presumptuous to ask about Noble Software? All we know is what appears on the box. It’s a subsidiary of Kendy Company. Could you tell us any more?”

The girls looked at Steve who replied, “Yes, it will be another offering from Noble Software.”

Then the Reuters man, after again referring to his notes, said, “You two are utterly incredible. Our in-house guru tells me that software writers — the few who are really good and successful — have a single thing that they specialize in, such as a spreadsheet, or graphics, or what have you. You two, on the other hand, deal with different problems. The common denominator is that they’re so large in scope, no one else even looks at them. This software will utterly revolutionize personal computers—”