Amaryllis

don't have time for that. Save it.'

'I'm not crying.' She sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand as she carried the calendar to the desk. 'Hold the flashlight so that I can see what I'm reading.'

Guilt trickled through Lucas. He had to keep reminding himself that Amaryllis had actually been fond of Jonathan Landreth. 'Sorry.'

'Never mind.' Amaryllis smiled wryly as she opened the calendar and started to flip the pages. 'Mrs. Dunley and I seem to be the only ones who had any real affection for poor Professor Landreth. I hadn't realized until lately that most of the people in the department considered him a prissy, rigid martinet.'

'I guess they just didn't understand him the way you did.'

'He was brilliant, Lucas. He devoted his life to furthering the study of the principles of psychic synergism. He always said that there was so much more to learn, that the swift evolution of psychic talent in humans on St. Helens was unprecedented.'

'Uh hub.'

'What little information we have suggests that on Earth psychic abilities were either nonexistent or so undeveloped that they were frequently dismissed as manifestations of pure fantasy by most experts.'

'Yeah, right.' Lucas motioned with the light. 'Could you save the lecture until some other time? I don't want to hang around any longer than absolutely necessary.'

'Yes, of course. Sorry.' Amaryllis concentrated on the calendar. 'This section covers the last few days of his life. Let's see, he was killed on the thirteenth of the month. That was a Friday.'

'Figures.'

She turned another page. 'Here we go. These are the entries for the thirteenth. I wonder if I should take a look at the whole last week, just in case.'

Lucas glanced at the entries on the pages. They had all been penned in a painstakingly precise hand. 'Why don't you just take the entire calendar home with you?' He was aware of a stirring sensation on the nape of his neck. 'You can study it at your leisure.'

Amaryllis gave him a shocked look. 'I couldn't possibly remove the calendar. That would be theft.'

'Excuse me, but I'd like to point out that you're already walking a pretty fine line just being in here tonight.'

Her fingers clenched around the calendar. 'I'm well aware of that. But I couldn't think of anything else to do. I told you that I had to act quickly because Mrs. Dunley said that one of Professor Landreth's relatives is going to collect the boxes first thing in the morning.'

'Yeah.'

'It was not an easy decision to come here tonight. But I finally decided that it was a question of priorities. I felt that the importance of the investigation of the professor's death outweighed--'

'Could you save that speech for later, too?'

'Lucas, is something wrong?'

'Other than the obvious?' Lucas let his senses float, widening his awareness the way he did when he was in the jungle. 'Maybe. I don't have a good feeling about this.'

'You're nervous. I knew I shouldn't have involved you.' Amaryllis bent over the last entries in the calendar. 'Most of these notes were made by Professor Landreth himself. I recognize his handwriting. He paid close attention to his schedule.'

'Hooray for him. I let my secretary handle my calendar.' He followed her fingertip as she read off the entries.

'Nine o'clock. Test Results Meeting.' Amaryllis frowned. 'That was a regular weekly event here in the department. Nothing out of the ordinary. Eleven o'clock, departmental budget review. Noon, lunch with Professor Wagner. Wagner is with the history department. An old friend. Three o'clock--'

Lucas glanced at the name that had brought Amaryllis to a screeching halt. Gifford Osterley. Before he could comment, a jolt of warning flashed through him. He switched off the light.

'Lucas?'

'Quiet. I think I heard someone. Security guard, probably.' He took her arm and edged away from the desk.

Amaryllis did not argue. He heard her close the calendar very quietly. He plucked it from her hand and used his sense of touch to return it to the open box. Then, guided mostly by feel, he found the lid and replaced it.

He had good night vision, but even for him the secretary's office was as black as the inside of a cave. A light appeared through the frosted pane of glass in the door. Someone with a flashlight was coming down the hall. Whoever it was, he moved with the brisk, confident pace of a person who had every right to be where he was.

University security had finally put in an appearance.

With one hand wrapped around Amaryllis's arm, Lucas relied on his jungle-honed sense of orientation to guide him to the solid paneled door of the inner office. He had noted its location earlier, just as he had automatically made a mental map of the position of everything else in the room. After a lifetime in the Western Islands, a man got very good at that kind of thing.

A soft, scraping footstep sounded in the outside hallway. Lucas felt Amaryllis flinch. He drew her into the second office and gently closed the door.

There were windows in this room. A pale swath of moonlight slanted across the desk. Keeping his grip on Amaryllis's arm, Lucas urged her across the office. He set his teeth as he eased open one of the windows.

There was no squeak.

'Out,' he whispered. 'Hurry.'

He bundled her through the window. She scrambled awkwardly but silently over the sill. He heard her land softly on the ground.

The door of the outer office opened. The beam of light appeared beneath the door of the inner office. Lucas put one leg over the sill. If the guard was the meticulous type, he would check the second office, too. Lucas figured he had about three seconds.

He slipped through the window.

Amaryllis grabbed his hand. Together they crossed the lawn, bugging the shadows of a tall hedge. Then they hurried to the safety of the leer, which Lucas had parked behind a large storage facility.

'Whew.' Amaryllis collapsed into the passenger seat as Lucas got in beside her and activated the engine. 'That was a close one. I didn't know that university security checked inside the buildings. I assumed that the guards just pa- trolled the grounds.'

'You want a professional tip?' Lucas did not turn on the leer's headlights as he drove past the library. 'Never assume anything when you plan a fun-filled evening like this.'

Amaryllis didn't surface from the depths of her uneasy thoughts until Lucas drove through a set of elaborately designed gates. He guided the leer slowly down a narrow drive. It took her a moment to realize that he had not taken her home. She gazed around in wonder as the car wended its way through the heart of a strange garden.

Unfamiliar trees with massive leaves loomed on either side of the drive. They formed a thick canopy that blocked out most of the moonlight. The headlights revealed glimpses of exotic foliage that looked dense enough to serve as a wall. Plants with broad leaves edged with what looked like golden fringe dipped and swayed. Here and there flowers glowing with surreal colors appeared and disappeared in the lights.

'I've never seen anything like this,' Amaryllis whispered. 'It looks like a giant's garden. Everything is oversized. It doesn't look real.'

'The last owner of the house was a class-seven horticultural talent. He used the gardens for his botanical experiments. I bought the place because it reminds me of the islands.'

A colonnade of massive fern-trees ended in front of a house that was as bizarre as the gardens. Amaryllis studied it with open-mouthed amazement. Moonlight gleamed on delicate spires, fluted columns, and tall towers. The style was unmistakable. The mansion dated from the Early Explorations Period, which made it nearly a hundred years old.

The first long-distance voyages through St. Helens's un- charted seas had been undertaken during that era. Enthusiasm, optimism, and expectations had run high, and the mood of the times had been reflected in the soaring architectural styles.