by E. C. Tubb
The battle could only have one end. Already he was aching with fatigue, his left forearm a burning torment. Sweat ran down to sting his eyes and blur his vision, making it even harder to see the attacking hornets. Only their hum saved him at times, the instinct which told him where and when to strike.
And, sometimes, he was too late.
Pain burned on his scalp where a sting had slashed the skin through his hair. Hooked legs had ripped a cheek and his left hand was puffed from injected venom. Beneath the ripped plastic his body ached from accumulated bruises and the right side of his throat oozed blood.
Soon a sting would find an eye, the pain ruining his concentration, causing him to flail wildly at the air, leaving himself open to more successful attacks. Within seconds he would be falling, rolling to join the shattered statue, the pulped bodies of the hornets he had sent after it.
Here, in the nighted darkness, on the summit of a roof, he could die.
Would die unless something happened to his advantage. Unless the luck which had saved him so often before served him once again.
A hum and pulp on his swinging hand. Another and a shadow blocking the vision of one eye as his hand stabbed upwards to drive fingers deep into the winged body. More as, like rain, the hornets fell from the sky. "Dumarest!"
He heard the voice, the sudden glare of light which rilled the air with scarlet gossamer from shimmering wings, with red and yellow from mutated bodies. "Down man! Down!"
An order yelled from beyond the glare of light, one he obeyed, hearing the whine of missiles as he dropped, a hail of darts which blasted the hornets from above where he crouched.
"Hold your breath!"
Vapor this time, a swirling fog which chilled the air and frosted the stone, the tiles, the fallen bodies with a thick, white film. The gas numbed his attackers and sent them to land, swaying on thin, spindle-legs, wings drooping, eyes glassy with disorientation. "All right, Earl, get aboard."
The raft edged closer, a figure standing before the searchlight, others at the instrument, the controls. As Dumarest rose and stepped forward to grip the rail Dino Sayer came into clear view.
"You were lucky," he said. "Damned lucky. If we'd arrived a couple of minutes later you'd be jelly by now."
Dumarest said nothing, waiting until he was safe, his boots on the deck of the raft, one hand gripping the rail as it lifted up and away from the roof.
"You should have waited," said the old man. "Didn't you hear the call? The roofs no place to be at anytime especially at night. A man needs to be covered, coated with repellents, armed with a spray before he can venture out. Those hornets will attack anything which comes into their area-and there are other things."
"I met one," said Dumarest. He straightened, easing his muscles, his right hand falling casually toward his right boot, the knife it contained. "Her idea?"
"Charisse? No, Armand pet the guards, but she lets them be. No point in clearing them when they've become established and they're no trouble usually." Sayer gave a dry chuckle. "But we don't usually have intruders on the roof." To the driver he snapped, "That's high enough. Back to the station and check in the equipment. Brice, kill that light."
The night closed around them as the man obeyed. At the controls the driver was illuminated by the small gleams from ranked dials and the vehicle would be equipped with riding lights fitted beneath, but in the body there was nothing to reveal who was where. Dumarest moved, stooping to watch silhouettes against the star-brightened sky. Sayer hadn't moved. He grunted as Dumarest rose to stand beside him.
"Earl?"
"Yes. What happens now?"
"We go back to the station, check in the raft and gear."
"And?" Dumarest stepped to the man's rear as he made no answer. "What about me?"
"You'll be taken care of. A medical check first, a bath, some food and I guess you could do with a rest after what you've been through. Climbing to the roof like that was a crazy thing to do. Crazy!"
"You think so?"
"No doubt about it? What made you do it? If you'd just stopped for a minute to think you'd have realized there was no point in-" Sayer broke off as Dumarest clamped his left arm around his shoulders, lifted his right hand from his boot to the man's neck. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Feel this," said Dumarest softly. "It's a knife and it's resting against your windpipe. If you yell or struggle I'll cut your throat."
"You're insane!"
"Maybe." Dumarest looked at the man standing at the searchlight, aside from the driver the only other occupant of the raft. "Take me to Charisse."
"If I don't?"
"You die," said Dumarest, and his tone left no doubt he meant it. "The man standing by the searchlight will go after you. The driver will do as I say once he sees you dead so it will all be the same in the end."
"Yes," said the old man. "I guess it will."
"Take me to Charisse."
"Now I know you're crazy. She won't see you. She's busy and you'll have to wait. In any case-" Sayer drew in his breath as a slight movement of the knife slit the skin at his throat. "All right, Earl! All right!" As Dumarest released him he dabbed at the smart, the blood. Looking at the smears on his fingers he said, "You bastard!" Then, to the driver, "Take us back to the house. Land in the inner court."
Chapter Eleven
She sat in a room ceilinged with shadows; gloom rested like a cloud so as to mask all detail ten feet above the carpeted floor. A trick of lighting as was the shimmering thing of crystal standing on a small table, the winking sparkles which came from flasks of restless fluids, the gleams which scintillated from her throat, the rich mane of her hair.
"Earl!" She rose to greet him, one hand resting on the table at which she'd been sitting, the scatter of papers spread over the polished wood. "My impetuous friend. All right, Dino, you may leave us."
"But-" He looked from one to the other. "Are you sure?"
"You think he will hurt me?" Her smile, her tone made a mockery of the concept. "I am as safe with him as with a hundred guards."
A confidence the old man didn't share and his hand crept up to touch the minor wound at his throat. The scratch had bled, the blood drying to leave an ugly smear, though she seemed unable to see it.
"Leave us," she said again, and this time her voice held impatience. "I assume you have no objection, Earl?"
"None."
"Then you may go." She waited until the door had closed on the old man and gently shook her head in mild reproof. "Such a devoted servant and so frail when compared to yourself. Did you have to threaten him? Cut the skin of his throat?" She leaned forward a little, eyes sparkling. "Would you really have killed him? Yes," she answered her own question. "Why not? Even though he had saved your life-why not? The law of the jungle, Earl; kill or be killed. Is that not so?"
He watched, saying nothing as she crossed the room to stand before the shimmering fabrication.
"Do you remember this?" It came alive beneath her touch, light flashing in motes and points of swirling brilliance which flared in silent explosions, to die, to be reborn in scintillant splendor. "My toy, Earl, surely you remember it? You saw it on Podesta when you acknowledged the debt you owed me. The small matter of having saved your life-but, now, that seems little to you. Would you have preferred me to have let you die? Your life, Earl, and not once but twice. A heavy debt for an honest man."
"Once," he said. "Not twice."
"Because you consider the original debt paid? The blood and tissue and sperm taken from your body sufficient compensation?" She smiled, then shrugged as if the matter were of no importance. "We will not argue the matter. Some wine?"
She moved to where a decanter stood with glasses and poured without waiting for his answer. As she turned, he strode toward the shimmering toy and, finding the switch, turned it off. As it darkened, the shadows thickening the upper reaches of the chamber seemed lower than before.
"Earl?"
"A distraction," he said. "One I can do
without."
"So that you can concentrate on me?" She came toward him, one hand extended, the glass resting in her fingers. "Take it, Earl. Drink. At least let us share a toast to your continued good fortune." She sipped, frowning when he made no effort to follow her example. "Perhaps you would care to bathe first. Are you in pain?"
He was in too much pain for comfort but he ignored it as he did her suggestion. A shower had washed the pulp and slime from his clothing, the blood from his face and neck and hands. One taken with Sayer an unwilling partner.
"You hesitate," she said. "You did not refuse when Linda Vyna made you the same offer. Did you enjoy her ministrations? Was the bitch gracious? At least she's had experience enough in entertaining men in need." She drank and lowered the empty glass. "Do you love her?"
"No."
"Yet you would use her. As you were willing to use me on Ascelius."
"To escape," he said. "And you were there to help me do it. A lucky coincidence."
"They happen."
"Perhaps."
"Have you never known others?" She refilled her glass and, when she turned, again she was smiling. "Come, Earl, why be so suspicious? Drink and relax and talk to me. Of your travels and other coincidences you have known. Surely there are some?"
"Many." He lifted his glass and lowered it untouched. Her eyes ignored its passage. "One should amuse you. Two brothers left home at various times to seek their fortunes. Both became mercenaries and, after twenty years, they met on a battlefield."
"And one killed the other?"
"I said they were mercenaries," he said patiently. "They had been at their trade long enough to have learned the futility of slaughter. One held the upper hand and made an offer; terms which would leave his opponents far less than what they had but more than they could hope to retain if beaten into submission. The offer was accepted."
"And when they met face to face and realized their relationship they joined forces and turned against those who had hired them?"
"No. Mercenaries, if nothing else, are realists. The terms stood but, afterwards, they traveled together. A mistake; while there was work for one there was not enough for two. Finally they argued over a woman and one killed the other. He lived barely long enough to claim his prize; she had loved the other and took her revenge in bed."
"So?" She frowned. "What is your point?"
"A simple one, Charisse. Things are not always what they seem. You, for example, a young and beautiful woman-who would take you for a liar?"
She said, tightly, "You are a guest in my house, Earl. I suggest you remember that."
"A guest?" He looked at the glass in his hand then set it on the table. "On Podesta you told me your father had died a year earlier. I believed you-why should you bother to lie? But later I learned that a man, Rudi Boulaye, had visited you. You, Charisse, not your father. Circe was not a man. That was ten years ago."
"So? My father was busy."
"He would never have been too busy to entertain Boulaye. They shared a common interest. Did you see him?"
"Boulaye? No. I merely gave him access to the library and Armand's papers. He offered to pay and I had need of the money at that time." She drank some of her wine. "I wish you'd drink with me, Earl."
"Later, perhaps."
"It's harmless, I swear it." She shrugged as he made no comment. "All right, so I lied. What of it?"
"I wondered why. Was it just to make yourself seem younger than you are? A harmless vanity? But then came the meeting on Ascelius and your loving care." His left hand rose to touch his temple. "The implant you so generously gave me."
"Something to ease your pain," she said quickly. "A convenient form of medication."
"Which dulled my intellect and made me amiable and robbed the temporal lobe of a true awareness of time. Which is why I removed it. What else did it contain? A receptor for a stunner? Something you could activate to throw me into an artificial sleep? Why? Were you afraid of me?"
Her laughter rose in genuine amusement. "Afraid of you? Earl, of all men you are the one I trust most. You couldn't hurt me if you tried. As you couldn't hurt the creature I set you against. Those fools, Enrice and the rest, they thought you had no chance but they hadn't seen you fight the mannek. It was stronger, taller, better equipped and more fearsome and you fought it to the point of death. Yet you ran from an overgrown girl. Do you know why?"
"Tell me."
"A simple thing, Earl, the color of her hair. Black hair like mine, like that of the child you risked your life to save. Whom did she remind you of? A woman you had loved? A child you had lost?" She paused, waiting, shrugging when he made no answer. "Not that it matters. I had the clue and it was enough. The rest was a matter of routine."
Of suggestions whispered into his ear while he lay at her mercy in drugged unconsciousness. Hypnotic conditioning used as an elementary precaution could have cost him his life. Not from the female he had faced, the men set on the roof of the building would have prevented that, but there could have been others. Black-haired women with the urge to kill.
"No, Earl!" Her voice held command. "Don't be a fool!"
He looked at his hand, at the knife he had drawn, the blade reflecting shimmers as it amplified the nervous tension of his muscles.
"You hate me," she mused. "But you can't harm me. Classic conditions for developing a mind-ruining conflict. One aggravated by your recent exertions. Another classic example, this time of an exercise in utter futility. What did you hope to gain? What had you to fear? The only dangers you faced were of your own choosing." Her eyes widened as he stepped toward her, to halt with the knife lifted, the point aimed at her throat. "Earl!"
"I can't harm you," he said. "Remember?"
"The knife-"
"An illustration. The real point of the story I told you. Things are not always what they seem, true, but the moral wasn't that. It was to make the point that it is a mistake to jump to the wrong conclusion. A knife is a tool designed to cut and so you imagine I intend hurting you. But you know I can't do that so-"
She cried out as the blade lifted, caught at her necklace, tore it free to send it flying to the floor where it lay with gleaming, winking eyes. The strands in her hair followed to lie in an ebon tangle.
"No!" She backed, hands lifted to shield her face. "No, Earl! No!" And then, with sudden fury, "You bastard! You'll pay for what you've done!"
He saw the fall of her hand, the gleam as she drew metal from her waist, springing forward, knife raised as she aimed the weapon at his face. Metal clashed as he knocked it aside, a thin, high ringing which rose to die in fading murmurs as he tore the gun from her hand to send it after the gems.
"You attacked me," she said incredulously. "You could have killed me." Then, dully, "Well, Earl, do you like what you see?"
She was still as tall, the curves of her body taut against the fabric of her gown and, with her face hidden in shadow, she seemed much the same. Then as he looked Dumarest noted changes, a blurring which seemed to accelerate, a shifting and alteration as the last shreds of illusion vanished before the impact of harsh reality.
Charisse was grotesque.
Nothing is really ugly in the context of its environment; a spider, a slug, a snail all have the beauty of functional design, but Charisse was a woman and, as a woman, she was monstrous.
"Armand," she said dully. "My loving father. My creator. A fool who aspired to be a god. The egotistical bastard! May he rot in hell." She took the glass of wine Dumarest had poured for her, stared at him for a moment, drank and threw the delicate crystal to shatter in a glitter of shards. "And you, Earl-did you have to be so cruel?"
He said nothing, handing her more wine. This time after drinking, she did not hurl the glass to ruin.
Bitterly she said, "You know, I was a very pretty child. A living doll, they used to call me. A sweet creature who won the hearts of all who saw me. A success, Armand thought. The living proof of his genetic skill." Her hand shook as she looked at the glass. "
A pretty child-who would think it now?"
Those blind who would make their judgment on her voice but none who could see. The thrust of the knife had torn the wig from her scalp leaving a naked skull, the false eyebrows and eyelashes adding to the clownish distortion of her face, pocked with nodulated skin, flesh mounding over bone, puffed, seamed, a parody of what a face should be, rendered even more bizarre by the cosmetics emphasizing the eyes, the mouth, the line of the jaw.
"Do I disgust you, Earl?"
"No," he said with sincerity. "Never that."
"You are kind but I suppose no one who has traveled as you have could be other than tolerant. Others are not so generous." The empty glass in her hand reflected the light in a host of broken rainbows as she twirled it between her fingers. Clean, well-shaped fingers, the flesh smooth, undistorted as was the hand. "It's progressive," she explained as if guessing his thoughts. "A gene which held an unsuspected weakness. One added to the chromosome pattern to give me a useful talent. It turned into a bomb which exploded into biological nightmare when triggered by the hormones released during puberty. At first it was minor; a slight thickening of the skin coupled with a succession of small nodulations. Treatment seemed to cure the problem but it merely eradicated the symptoms for a while. Armand did what he could but it wasn't enough. Nothing I tried was enough. I was doomed to turn into a repulsive freak."
"But you found an answer."
"A protection, yes." She handed him the empty glass and watched as he refilled it. "How did you guess?"
"I was curious," said Dumarest. "I wondered why such an attractive woman should choose to wear such gems. And I remembered what I've learned from working in carnivals. Always there is the noise and the shine, the glitter and the movement. The beat of drums to dull the hearing, the wink and gleam of tinsel to draw the eye, shifts of light to distract, to break unwanted concentration. An art, Charisse, one you developed to an unusual extent. But you had more than just paint and hypnotic gems. The teleths?"