Who might have observed that euphoria?
Explorers Martin and Ralth, while they were out at dinner one night. ‘Touch me, boys, because the day will come when you’ll tell people, “I knew her before she was famous.” ’
‘What are you up to now, Don?’ asked Martin, sounding bored. ‘Another new variation for the Creeping Desert? Don’t we have enough Creeping Desert variations already?’
‘Bigger than that,’ she had replied with a laugh. ‘Much bigger.’
‘You’ve got a Gemmed Rampart score that really works,’ suggested Ralth. ‘Or a foolproof way to get through the Crazies.’
‘Why not?’ She had giggled.
‘Which?’
‘Why not both. Why not everything?’
They had laughed incredulously. They had ordered more wine. There had been laughter and arguments among the three Explorers and congratulations on the Enigma score.
Well, what else had she said that night? Nothing. Nothing at all. One bragging phrase. ‘Why not everything?’ Had there been enough in that conversation to give someone the idea that Donatella Furz knew something they would rather she didn’t know? Not really. It could all be put down to her euphoria. Even an untested score for a Presence as famous as the Enigma lent a certain cachet to her name. She hadn’t really said anything at all!
Who else had she talked to? Zimmy. A services employee. A Northwest Chapter House man. Not unlike this Chapter House man, Blanchet, except that Zimmy belonged to Don. He was only hers, he kept saying, and had been only hers for some years now, eager to please her, intelligent in meeting her needs for comfort and affection. Zimmy. She thought of him with both fondness and pleasure. What had she said to Zimmy? Nothing much. ‘Oh, Zimmy, if you knew what I know.’ Something like that. He hadn’t even paid much attention.
And who else? The woman in Northwest City who usually cut her hair.
Don’s head had been bent forward while the woman depilated the back of her neck, quite high, so that the bottom of the wide bell of her hair would come just to the bottom of the ears. ‘How can you do it?’ the woman had chattered. ‘All alone, out among the Presences. I would pee my pants, truly, lady knight, I would.’
‘It isn’t as dangerous as people have thought it was.’
‘No, it is more. I know it must be. To hear the Great Ones speak, to attempt to pacify them. Oh, a terror, lady knight, truly, a terror.’
The woman’s use of the words ‘Great Ones’ should have stopped Donatella in her tracks. Those were the words used by Crystallites to refer to the Presences, but Don simply hadn’t noticed. ‘It won’t be long before we’ll all be able to walk among the Presences much more safely. Not long at all.’ Don had raised her head, seeing herself and the woman in the mirror.
‘Oh, you think some great discovery? Some marvel?’ The woman peered at her in the mirror, her black eyes gleaming with something acquisitive and desperate.
And at that point Don had realized what she was saying and had drawn up sharply. ‘No, no discovery, no marvel, Sophron. Simply the slow accumulation of knowledge….’
Who else had she talked to?
Chase Random Hall, the Explorer King. Could anything she had said to him in the dining room of the Chapter House, during the informal time of day when everyone was on a first-name basis, could anything there have been interpreted as something threatening?
‘Randy, you ever think the day may come we’ll all be out of work?’
‘Mind your manners, silly girl. Don’t be obscene.’
‘No, I mean wouldn’t it be terrific if we found The Password?’ ‘The Password’ was the apotheosis on Jubal and had been for a hundred years. It was like ‘The Millennium’ or ‘The Second Coming,’ a terrible end said to be devoutly desired by some, the single score that would open every pass and permit free travel everywhere.
‘I think it’s a disgusting thought, one I would appreciate not having raised again in my hearing.’ Randy had been effete in his youth and was effete still, but there was no arguing with his successes. Now he smoothed his elegantly trimmed moustache and smiled at her in his best monster-eating-up-a-little-girl smile: glittering eyes in a brown, brown face with his terribly white teeth, teeth that made one weak even while they made one shiver, anticipating voracious kisses. They were inevitable, those teeth like death. ‘Do you like living dangerously, stupid child?’
‘Is it that dangerous to speculate about The Password?’ She had said it lightly. Surely she had said it lightly!
‘A little idle speculation here in the Chapter House, over drinks, perhaps not. Anything more than that, decidedly. As a moment’s thought – if you are capable of such – should have informed you. Think, silly girl. If you had The Password, there are at least twenty people I could name who would kill you to keep it quiet.’
She knew her face had changed then. Changed with horror, in memory. People who would kill! She remembered her friend Gretl Mechas. Or rather, Gretl’s body as it had been when Donatella identified it. Remembering this, she turned away. She had had enough of this conversation.
But then he had asked, ‘Would you like to go to bed with me, Donatella?’
‘I am the King Explorer’s to command,’ she had
