by E. C. Tubb
"You quit?" The dancer grabbed at his cards. "What did you have?"
A blur and Bochner's hand was on her own, the fingers hard against her flesh, twisting so as to turn the ringed fingers down against the table.
"No," he said. "You don't see my cards. No one sees them."
"My wrist! You're hurting me!"
She nibbed at the bruised flesh as Bochner released her hand then rose, fuming, to storm from the salon and into her cabin. Fele Roster rose and looked down at the others.
"I'd better follow her. There could be something I could do."
"Poison her," suggested the mercenary. "Some people live too long."
"She's no longer young, and worried, and not too well." The seller of nostrums backed from the table. "I've a compound which can bring her sleep and pleasant dreams. An illusion of youth which will not last, but will serve to ease her hurts. And you, sir," he glared at Bochner. "Perhaps you should remember that your mother was a woman and all women are worthy of a little consideration."
"A fool," said Charl Zeda, dispassionately, as the man left the salon. "He loves what was and now can never be. A woman long past her prime, with only the remnants of a once lovely body to commend her. Well, if you can't afford the cake, you can at least enjoy the crumbs."
"Fele is a romantic," said Shan Threnond. "He deals in charms and magic and has come to believe in the potency of an incantation. True, such things work with the yokels who come to gawk at his tricks at carnivals and fairs, but at such times, when does a love philter not work? A vial of colored water, a muttered spell, and nature will take care of the rest. It is much the same with his salves and lotions, his powders and pills and capsules, his compounds and nostrums. Chemicals mixed with herbs and natural oils which sting and smell and titivate and which, together with time, will either kill or cure."
"Unlike your own wares," said the historian dryly, "which only kill."
"Which protect," corrected the dealer. "Which are a precaution against a time of need." To Bochner, he said, "I noticed the way in which you twisted the woman's hand. Her rings?"
"I've seen rings like those before," said Bochner. "And I know how spiteful such a woman can be. There are those with faces marred by acid thrown by such as her. I wanted to keep mine intact."
"And your life and that of your lady?" Threnond glanced at Gale Andrei. "I must show you my wares. If nothing else, they will be of interest to a man like yourself, and the rings make appreciated gifts. Later, perhaps?"
"Later." Bochner looked at the cards. "Are we still playing?"
"You might be, I'm not." Charl Zeda leaned back in his chair, stretching. "A wise man knows when his luck has deserted him."
"Or when it rides with him?"
"True," admitted the mercenary. "Like that time on Tchang when the charge of my laser had bled and I only had an automatic gun and a score of cartridges between me and what I knew was extinction. When I ran into an enemy patrol, I tried to open fire and the damned thing jammed solid. I thought I was dead for sure, but what I didn't know was that peace had been signed shortly before and, had I hit anyone, I'd have been impaled for breaking the truce. That was good luck and I tried to ride it by buying that damned mine. I thought I finally had it made; just work a little, dig out some metal, hire some men to dig out more and I'd live easy the rest of my life. But I was cheated. Even so, I was still lucky. If I hadn't bought the mine I'd have been with my old company when they got themselves wiped out with flames in the Hitach-Lentil war on Loom." He sat, brooding, his seamed face sagging, suddenly old. "Flamers," he whispered. "A hell of a way to go."
Men screaming, their clothing a mass of flame, skin bursting into a mass of oozing blisters, blood smoking as it spouted from ruptured veins. Eyes gone. Feet destroyed. Lungs gone. Hands turned into shreds of brittle, yet still living, bone. Feet destroyed. Faces.
Unsteadily he rose and crossed the room toward the spigots, the water, the basic which provided a liquid diet, the weak wine which, too slowly, could bring a blessed oblivion.
The recording had ended; the thin, keening notes accompanied by the muffled beat of drums had died into silence and now only the smoke remained. Jumoke drew it deeply into his lungs, savoring its bite, the euphoria it would give, the forgetfulness. And yet, some things refused to die; the touch of a hand, a smile, the feel of warm, lovely flesh. A whispered word, a promise implied if not spoken, a yearning which was like a pain.
Was a pain. One which tore at his heart and stung his eyes with unshed tears; which closed about the innermost core of his being so that, in his mind, he cried out for the universe to hear.
Dilys-I love you! I love you!
And would always love her. Would always want her with a need which went beyond sane logic and calculated reason. His woman. His life.
The smoke curled about his face, fumes rising from the can before which he squatted, chemical heat releasing the vapors from exotic compounds, a mist which should have brought a roseate glow. One destroyed now by the pounding, the echo of drums, the voice which rose then exploded as Allain burst into the cabin.
"Jumoke! Are you crazy? The Old Man would kill you if he saw you like this."
The Old Man? Which old man? Who was talking and why? Questions which shattered like broken glass as the steward grabbed him, lifted him, thrust his head beneath a faucet and let a mist of water spray over head and neck as he snuffed the can. Glass which became reality to the sting of astringent odors as Allain thrust something beneath his nose, became pain as the man slapped his face, turned into anger at his cursing.
"That's enough!"
"Like hell it is! You know what you're doing? It's my neck too, remember. You dumb bastard, I've a mind to-"
"I said that's enough!" Jumoke straightened, water dewing his face, vanishing as he used the towel Allain handed to him. "What's the matter? Trouble?"
"You're due to go on duty."
"So soon?"
"You should have reported ten minutes ago. Varn sent me to get you." Allain glanced at the can with its gaudy label and insidious contents. "I'll tell him you overslept if he should ask, and you'd better tell him the same. But if you try a stupid thing like this again, I'll break both your arms. You'd better believe that."
"I want no favors from you."
"You're getting them, just the same." Stepping closer, Allain said quietly, "Get a grip on yourself, man. You can't act like this in the Rift and you know it. Still less, in the Quillian Sector. If yon want to commit suicide, then wait until after we've landed."
Jumoke said coldly, "You forget yourself. I'm the navigator and you're nothing but a damned steward."
"I'm a partner, and even if I wasn't I wouldn't let a friend make such a fool of himself. What is it, man? Can't you get her out of your mind?"
He knew, of course, as Gresham had known and Egulus must know. How could they have remained ignorant when his happiness had illuminated the ship? When his world had been complete and he had been free of the pain which rode him now. The loss. The yearning. The endless, empty yearning.
Damn her!
Damn her all to hell!
And damn Dumarest with her!
Egulus stared hard at him as Jumoke entered the control room. The captain looked tired, eyes betraying the strain he was under, the need to remain constantly alert, which was the price of survival for any officer traversing the Rift.
"You're late."
"I know, Varn. I'm sorry. I overslept."
Egulus accepted the lie, though his nostrils twitched as the navigator passed him to take his place in the main chair. A captain needed to know what went on in his vessel and Egulus was no fool, but there was a time to be hard and a time to compromise. And now, more than ever, he needed the navigator.
"We're running into a lot of distortion," he said. "Those suns are playing up and space is a mess. Nodes and vortexes all over the place. We'd best cut shifts so as to remain alert. I'll send Allain up with something to help."
Drugs
to wash away the fatigue and the residue of the vapors. Chemicals to steal time from the need to sleep, a debt which would have to be paid for later but which would buy them a higher margin of safety. A common practice in dangerous areas of space.
"I'll be all right."
"Did I suggest otherwise?"
"You don't have to worry about me, Varn." Jumoke turned to meet the captain's eyes. "Go and get some rest now."
"Yes," said Egulus. "Yes, I guess you're right. Rest is what I need."
Rest and more crew, so as to lessen the burden, and the sense to quit the game while he was still ahead. While he still had his life. A familiar thought, and one he treasured like an old friend, but one he would never listen to when the danger was past. As the others, whose bodies drifted in the Rift, hadn't listened. Captains who had gambled once too often. Ships which had crumpled like paper bags when caught in the invisible jaws of the monster which lurked always just beyond the hull.
Alone, Jumoke checked the instruments, eyes moving with the ease of long practice from dial to meter, from digital readout to the shades of color seething behind graduated scales. Sensors which, even now, were questing space around and ahead. Probes which checked the local stresses and warned of opposed potentials. Electronic eyes which guided the hurtling vessel through the vagaries of the plus-C universe through which it moved, powered and protected by the shimmering haze of its Erhaft field.
A touch and a meter swung to optimum, a minor adjustment and a dial settled from its nervous twitching. Things done even as Jumoke breathed, actions taken without the hampering need for conscious thought. A game he played to beat the computer which would have made the necessary correction had the variation grown dangerously wild.
The control room was dimly lit, the glow of telltales like colorful, watching eyes, the soft susurration of the air-circulators, the breathing of a thing alive. It was easy to imagine the room as being a womb, the ship as a living thing. A temptation to give it anthropomorphic attributes. A woman with the computer for a brain and the engines for a heart. The sensors, stalked and staring eyes. The probes, reaching hands. The crew, the seed carried in her belly.
Would he give her a child?
The thought was like the thrust of a knife into his guts, a blade which turned and dragged and spilled his life so that he doubled and felt the vomit rise in his throat.
Not that! Dear God, not that!
Because that would be the end and the death of all hope that she would come back to him, to rest at his side as she had done so often before, to let his hands rove over her soft and tender body, touching, fondling, caressing, lingering on the swell of breasts and the curve of thighs, the softness between them, the moist wonder which had once been his.
Madness. The whine of a child. He knew it, and knowing it, could do nothing about it, for what else was a man obsessed but a crying child? One who wanted more than could be given-and yet he asked so little. The opportunity to love, to worship, to share.
A hope which had died even as he voiced it.
Leaning back, he saw her face painted against the screens, the incredible splendor of the universe they portrayed; the stars and clouds, the sheets of luminescence and curtains of radiance. The fuzz of distant nebulae, the splinters and pulses and flares. Loveliness to match her own. A coldness she shared.
"No, Jumoke." He had cringed to the iron resolve of her tone. "No."
"But, Dilys, where's the harm? We've known each other for so long and you know I love you. Why let a stranger ruin what we have between us?"
"Had," she corrected. "We've nothing now, Jumoke."
"I-we, for God's sake, Dilys! Must I beg? All right, I'm begging. I need you. Please!"
"No." Then, looking at him, she had softened a little. "We shared something, yes, but that was all. It was a physical thing, a convenience, if you like. We both needed release and each could give it to the other. But now you ask too much."
"Dilys-"
"I'm not a whore!"
"Did I say you were? But on Aclyte and Nyard women take multiple husbands. They are shared by the men. Do I ask for so much?"
"You ask too much."
"But-" He had sought for words with which to win her. A phrase to buy happiness. "Dumarest is just a man, as I am. What makes him so different?"
"I love him." She had reached out then, and touched his cheek, her fingers burning even as they felt like ice. "I love him, Jumoke. I love him!"
The face vanished and he sank into hell.
He would never win her back. Never again feel the pride he had known. Never again the happiness. She had taken them from him and given them to another. Dumarest. Jumoke lifted his hands and looked at them, clenched, the skin taut over the knuckles. Dumarest, Dumarest and Dilys- he wished both were dead.
"Now!" Gale Andrei turned a switch and the salon bloomed with light. "The Garden of Emdale," she said. "It is one of my favorites."
Which was why she carried the recording with her-much of what she did and said was obvious, a trait Bochner had noted and assessed as a part of her facade. One of apparent childish exuberance, probably adopted to match her innocent face. But there was nothing innocent about her as he now knew. Within the slight figure burned a mature passion but both it and her body had left him curiously unsatisfied. A trophy won, a symbolical kill made, yet there had been small joy in the victory. Like swatting a fly, it had been too easy. An act performed from boredom, and as an aid to his assumed character. A prop he wished he had done without.
But, in other ways, the woman had skill.
"It's beautiful!" The dancer was entranced. She spun, arms extended, the transformation of the salon giving her an elfin grace. "Beautiful!"
Even Charl Zeda had to agree, his voice gruff as he added to her praise. "It's fantastic! My dear, allow me to congratulate you. To honor you in the accustomed manner."
She turned her lips from his kiss, allowing him only to touch her cheek and, watching, Bochner could sense her tension, the repugnance she felt towards the old mercenary. Would she have reacted the same if Dumarest had offered his salutation?
Bochner glanced to where he stood behind the table, his back to the wall. The sight pleased him; the stance was that of a cautious man. Only when he had marked his prey did the hunter allow himself to study the hologram which had been created by the projector and the woman's art.
Gale had chosen well. On all sides stood a profusion of flowers touched with a multitude of hues, reds and greens and blues merging with violets and scarlets and purples and all degrees of the shades between. Alone, that would have been impressive, but the blooms were in motion, kissed by an unfelt breeze, their cups the targets for wide-winged insects which flashed and shimmered, to hang poised to flash again in metallic gleams which entranced the eye as their drone excited the ear.
And, almost, he could smell the flowers.
They filled his vision, numbing his eyes with their form and brilliance, a poem in color augmented by the insects so that it was hard not just to sit and stare and let the tide of beauty roll over him and become one with the moment. He became aware that the salon was silent aside from the thin hum of the insects. Almost, it could have been filled with the dead. Then he saw the historian, the man's eyes enormous in his pallid face, a creature stunned and enamored by loveliness beyond all his previous experience.
Quietly, Bochner moved from the salon, heading down the passage, past the cabin he occupied, past the one shared by the mercenary and historian, the one in which Andrei slept when she chose to rest alone, the one hired by the dancer, that which formed the steward's office to halt at the door which gave onto Dumarest's quarters. It swung open as he manipulated the lock, and he stepped inside to stand as his eyes searched the compartment.
Here? Would it be here? The thing Dumarest owned which made him so valuable to the Cyclan that they had hired him to hunt him down.
He saw nothing but the usual furnishings; the bed, the cabinet, the washbowl with its spray faucet. A
chair stood against the bulkhead and a small boxlike container rested to the side of the bed, close to the head. It held a door, which he opened. Behind lay gray plastic clothing, neatly folded, high boots of matching color, a knife.
Bochner lifted it and straightened as he examined the weapon.
It was a tool designed for service, the blade nine-inches long, curved, the reverse side sweeping in a sharper curve so as to form a vicious, needle-point. The guard was smooth on the inside, rough on the outside with a pattern of engraved lines, a means of catching an opposed blade. The hilt was shaped, wrapped with plastic, topped with a rounded pommel. Bochner examined it, twisting it, finding it firm and noting the thin line of weld lying in the junction of pommel and hilt. He balanced it in his palm, feeling the distribution of weight, the heft. A good blade, he decided. One deadly in an experienced hand. Along the edge, the light splintered to form a cloudlike haze-the sign of sharpness, of keenness so well achieved that it equaled that of a surgeon's scalpel.
"You! What are you doing here?" The woman was sharp. Bochner turned as she entered the cabin, the knife poised in his hand. "That isn't yours," Dilys accused. "What are you doing with it?"
"I was curious."
"Curious enough to break into another's cabin?"
"The door was open," he lied. "I glanced in as I passed and saw this knife. I am a hunter and have an interest in weapons. An interest which overcame my discretion, I'm afraid. I couldn't resist examining it. Earl's?"
"Yes."
"As I thought. Dumarest is the kind of man who would know how to use it. The kind of man I have a need of." He saw the flicker of interest in her eyes and, replacing the knife, he closed the door of the boxlike cabinet. Now, if he could get them both out of the cabin, the door relocked and Dilys so intrigued that she would fail to mention the incident to her lover, he would have won. "After you, my dear."