Lea huddled back on the couch, her arms around herself, looking chilled in spite of the heat of the day. “What happened to the people at the building?” she asked in a thin voice. The injection had removed her memories of the tragedy, but echoes of the strain and shock still reverberated in her mind and body. “I feel so … exhausted. Please tell me what happened. I have the feeling you’re hiding something.”
Brion sat next to her and took her hands in his, not surprised to find them cold. Looking into her eyes, he tried to give her some of his strength. “It wasn’t very nice,” he said. “You were shaken up by it, I imagine that’s why you feel the way you do now. But—Lea, you’ll have to take my word for this. Don’t ask any more questions. There’s nothing we can do now about it. But we can still find out about the magter. Will you examine the corpse?”
She started to ask something, then changed her mind. When she dropped her eyes Brion felt the thin shiver that went through her body. “There’s something terribly wrong,” she said. “I know that. I guess I’ll have to take your word that it’s best not to ask questions. Help me up, will you, darling? My legs are absolutely liquid.”
Leaning on him, with his arm around her supporting most of her weight, she went slowly across to the corpse. She looked down and shuddered. “Not what you would call a natural death,” she said. Ulv watched intently as she took the scalpel out of its holder. “You don’t have to look at this,” she told him in halting Disan. “Not if you don’t want to.”
“I want to,” he told her, not taking his eyes from the body. “I have never seen a magter dead before, or without covering, like an ordinary person.” He continued to stare fixedly.
“Find me some drinking water, will you, Brion?” Lea said. “And spread the tarp under the body. These things are quite messy.”
After drinking the water she seemed stronger, and could stand without holding onto the table with both hands. Placing the tip of the scalpel just below the magter’s breast bone, she made the long postmortem incision down to the pubic symphysis. The great, body-length wound gaped open like a red mouth. Across the table Ulv shuddered but didn’t avert his eyes.
One by one she removed the internal organs. Once she looked up at Brion, then quickly returned to work. The silence stretched on and on until Brion had to break it.
“Tell me, can’t you? Have you found out anything?”
His words snapped the thin strand of her strength, and she staggered back to the couch and collapsed onto it. Her bloodstained hands hung over the side, making a strangely terrible contrast to the whiteness of her skin.
“I’m sorry, Brion,” she said. “But there’s nothing, nothing at all. There are minor differences, organic changes I’ve never seen before—his liver is tremendous, for one thing. But changes like this are certainly consistent within the pattern of Homo sapiens as adapted to a different planet. He’s a man. Changed, adapted, modified—but still just as human as you or I.”
“How can you be sure?” Brion broke in. “You haven’t examined him completely, have you?” She shook her head. “Then go on. The other organs. His brain. A microscopic examination. Here!” he said, pushing the microscope case towards her with both hands.
She dropped her head onto her forearms and sobbed. “Leave me alone, can’t you! I’m tired and sick and fed up with this awful planet. Let them die. I don’t care! Your theory is false, useless. Admit that! And let me wash the filth from my hands. …” Sobbing drowned out her words.
Brion stood over her and drew a shuddering breath. Was he wrong? He didn’t dare think about that. He had to go on. Looking down at the thinness of her bent back, with the tiny projections of her spine showing through the thin cloth, he felt an immense pity—a pity he couldn’t surrender to. This thin, helpless, frightened woman was his only resource. She had to work. He had to make her work.
Ihjel had done it—used projective empathy to impress his emotions upon Brion. Now Brion must do it with Lea. He had had some sessions in the art, but not nearly enough to make him proficient. Nevertheless he had to try.
Strength was what Lea needed. Aloud he said simply, “You can do it. You have the will and the strength to finish.” And silently his mind cried out the order to obey, to share his power now that hers was drained and finished.
Only when she lifted her face and he saw the dried tears did he realize that he had succeeded. “You will go on?” he asked quietly.
Lea merely nodded and rose to her feet. She shuffled like a sleepwalker jerked along by invisible strings. Her strength wasn’t her own, and the situation reminded him unhappily of that last event of the Twenties when he had experienced the same kind of draining activity. She wiped her hands roughly on her clothes and opened the microscope case.
“The slides are all broken,” she said.
“This will do,” Brion told her, crashing his heel through the glass partition. Shards tinkled and crashed to the floor. He took some of the bigger pieces and broke them to rough squares that would fit under the clips on the stage. Lea accepted them without a word. Putting a drop of the magter’s blood on the slide, she bent over the eyepiece.
Her hands shook when she tried to adjust the focusing. Using low power, she examined the specimen, squinting through the angled tube. Once she turned the sub-stage mirror a bit to catch the light streaming in the window. Brion stood behind her, fists
