Yet she had kissed and touched him and he was unharmed.
'Earl, what is wrong?' She stepped back from him, eyes wide, luminous in the starlight. Dark pools of shining brilliance as her hair was dark in the starglow. As were her lips and nails and darting tongue. As the thin fabric of her robe which showed betraying glints as she moved. As the dark areolas of her nipples surmounting the breasts which shifted with wanton, unfettered abandon. 'Earl?'
The magic was too strong. The web spun by perfume and starglow and warm, feminine flesh. Of soft lips and yielding contours and the ache in his heart which she seemed to know too well and which never ceased to hurt. The pain of what had been and would never be again. Could never be again until the end of time.
'Earl?'
'No!' He moved, reaching for the light, his head turned from her, eyes blinking, narrowing at the sudden, warmly yellow glare. 'Don't say anything. Just leave me. Just-' He turned, falling silent as, around him, his universe collapsed.
'Earl!' Kalin stepped toward him, arms lifted, mouth curved as he had seen it curve so often, eyes filled by the light he had never thought to see again. 'Earl, my darling. My very own wonderful darling!'
An illusion. Govinda using her talent and making herself appear to him as the thing he most wanted to see. The woman he most ached to possess. The one he missed most of all-and now had found again.
Had found again!
The joy of it blazed through him as he folded her in his arms. The touch of her lips, her hands, her body banishing all thought of illusion from his mind. She was what he wanted her to be and, becoming it, made him see her in that guise. See her and love her as he had never stopped loving her.
'My darling! My love!' She cried out in the bittersweet pain of his caress. 'My love!'
Later, when again starglow filled the room, Dumarest turned to where she lay beside him, seeing the cascade of her hair spread on the pillow not black as it seemed but flaming red as he remembered. As red as the flame which she had set to burning within his heart.
* * *
In the dimness the lights were like the eyes of watching insects; red, yellow, blue, green, flashing and changing even as Kooga watched. The telltales on the instruments he had added; extra monitors which even now recorded every variation of the electromagnetic fields of the cyber's brain. Among them Avro lay like a corpse, mummified, immobile. The oxygen which kept him alive now pumped directly into his bloodstream by the mechanism which had bypassed both heart and lungs.
A man, dying as all men must die, but the manner of his passing was something novel to Kooga's experience. The vitality was incredible as if, like an animal, the cyber clung to existence against all odds. And, as he sank even deeper toward final extinction, the cerebral activity increased against all logic. The patterns recorded by the pens of the encephalograph were of a complexity Kooga had never seen before: presenting a puzzle he itched to solve.
'Doctor?'
The nurse had arrived to make her routine check and stood, deferential, waiting for him to clear the area. A good worker, obedient, deft with her hands. Too deft for her to have done what he had told Vaclav she had done; such a nurse would never have disturbed any connection. But the lie had been a facile explanation of what he would rather the Chief did not know.
'Doctor? Shall I attend the patient?'
'A moment.' Kooga forced himself to soften his normal, brusque manner. 'Have you noticed any change in his condition?'
'None that has not been recorded, Doctor.'
'No blame is intended,' he said quickly. 'I was thinking more of some intuitive feeling you may have had which did not register on the monitors. An impression,' he urged. 'A personal assessment which you may have felt. Such things happen.' Too often for the peace of mind of those dealing with the bricks and mortar of ordinary medicine; sensations which defied analysis, guesses, hunches, odd certainties which led to unexpected results. He added, appealingly, 'You know this is a special case and any help you can give will be appreciated.'
'I'd like to help, Doctor', it is my duty but-' She paused, frowning. 'I don't think I can be of assistance.'
'Let me be the judge of that.'
'It's just that when I was attending him before the bypass was introduced I had the oddest impression that he was shouting at someone. It was as if-'
'A moment, nurse. Was that after Mirza Karroum paid her visit?'
'Yes, just after you had attached the recorder to the patient's larynx.' Her eyes met his, wide, innocent. 'I noticed it, of course, while making the routine check. The higg-load light was showing on the encephalograph and, as I touched him, I seemed to hear a voice. Well, not hear it exactly, but-'
'Sense it?'
'Yes.' She smiled her thanks at his help. 'Almost as if a finger had touched my brain. But not quite that either. It was just a feeling. I can't explain it and, naturally, didn't report it. I'd almost forgotten it until you asked.'
A burst of cerebral activity which could have been triggered by her proximity and, because of the subtle affinity with the sick gained during her years of service, she had sensed it with a talent barely suspected. Kooga studied her as she stood beside the bed. An ordinary, honest, hard-working woman with an ingrained deference to those in authority. Questioned by the Cyclan physicians she would repeat what she had said and their questions as to the recorder he would do without. To discharge her would be simple yet that, in itself, could give rise to questions. Good nurses were simply not thrown aside without cause.
He said, 'As I remember it, nurse, you are due for a vacation. Certainly you merit a reward for your dedicated service. A month, I think, would not be too long. Starting immediately.'
'Doctor?'
He saw her puzzlement and guessed its cause; he was not noted for generosity or undue concern with the welfare of those beneath him. Deliberately he grew brusque.
'Aren't you due for vacation? I must be mistaken. However I am making other arrangements for this patient and you will no longer be needed. I was thinking of the Bilton Resort-you could fill in as emergency medical staff. I owe the resident practitioner a favor and you could help to repay it.' To explain too much would be a mistake; one he avoided by an abrupt termination of the subject. 'I will make all arrangements. Be ready to leave by morning.'
Alone he looked at the figure lying supine on the bed. Closing his eyes he tried to capture the feeling the nurse had mentioned but he lacked her affinity and gained nothing from the experiment. Opening his eyes, he studied the interplay of the telltales, the winking gleams which held a subtle mockery.
The visible signs of cerebral activity of a man with a brain grown too big for his skull. One more dead than alive yet who, if the nurse was correct, was screaming for help.
To whom?
Chapter Eight
Chenault said, 'I owe you an apology, Earl. We should have met earlier.'
'Two days ago.' Dumarest was blunt. 'I had your promise.'
'I was not allowed to keep it.' Chenault lifted his shoulders in a shrug. 'At times Toyanna can be a veritable bully and she has the means to enforce her will. However, as I hear it, you have been pleasantly occupied.'
With the realization of a dream but Dumarest made no comment, looking instead at the study in which they sat. It was as it had been before; filled with the musty smells of old paper, leather, ancient oils. The repository of things long dead and things he hoped were still alive. On the table before him a decanter of ruby wine threw a warm patch of luminescence on the polished wood.
'Legends,' mused Chenault. 'Stories from ancient times each holding a grain of truth. Dazym Negaso claims that a legend is, in reality, a means of passing a message from one generation to another. In order to be effective that message has to be simple and repetitious as well as holding its own attraction. So we talk of Eden, a place of ease and plenty. A place in which none knows pain. One in which all needs are satisfied. Things all find enticing.
