admire and their praise was reward enough. And a clean floor could be admired as sincerely as a carved statue, a well-cooked meal as much as any fabrication of metal.
Carina said, 'The last time I was here I saw a box in your old shop. I asked about it, remember?' She continued as the old man nodded. 'My companion is interested in it.'
'Why?'
Dumarest said, 'I told you I was a student. It poses a mystery to me which you could answer.'
'Why anyone should want to stretch their life-span at the cost of living?' Nisbet shook his head. 'I can't help you. I don't know. To be cooped is always bad but to spend a life in sleep and dreams-' He broke off, shaking his head. 'Why anyone should do that is beyond me. You must find your answer somewhere else.'
He had jumped to the wrong assumption but Dumarest didn't correct him. Instead, he said, 'Who could that person be? The owner of the box?'
'Perhaps.'
'Who would that person be?' In a moment Dumarest recognized the mistake he had made. 'I apologize,' he said quickly. 'The question could have been misunderstood. It was badly phrased. I was not, of course, asking you to divulge a confidential matter.' His tone lowered a little. 'As an intruder into your life I ask your tolerance for any unwitting errors I may make or insults I may tender as the result of my ignorance. Of your charity I beg that you take no offense where none is intended.'
The old man relaxed beneath the formal intonation. Politeness, in his culture, ranked with deference to acknowledged skills and the respect due to age.
'Confidence must be respected,' he said. 'Even if only implied. Now, as to the box, some things I can tell you for they are common knowledge. The contents, for one, though they could be varied aside from the essential basics. We are actually at work on one now. If you would care to see it?'
He led the way into a back room where the casket stood supported on stands in the center of the floor. Men were busy at work within the interior, soft scrapings coming from beneath their hands, small tappings, rasps, the sound of abrasions. They rose and stepped back at the old man's command and Dumarest looked at the product of their labors.
The carvings were incomplete as yet but recognizable. A row of tiny depictions ran around the upper surface of the interior-animals, birds, people, fish, insects-a gamut of life-forms, each image a potential gem. The artistry converted something hard and cold and efficient into something no less efficient but far more pleasing.
As yet the outside was untouched, smooth surfaces bearing a soft sheen. The lack seemed to make the container larger and uglier than the one Carina had depicted. Perhaps she had distorted its true dimensions to achieve an artistic symmetry. Dumarest measured it with his eyes: twelve feet long, half as much high and wide. Huge for a coffin, large even for a sarcophagus, but small for a miniature world.
'The outside?'
'Will be decorated in due time.'
'According to instruction?'
'Naturally.' Nisbet lifted his head as the deep notes of a bell echoed from somewhere outside. 'The evening bell and the time of relaxation.'
'About the decorations,' said Dumarest. He raised his voice against the bustle of noise as craftsmen rose and stretched and put aside their tools. 'Could you-'
'Later,' said Nisbet. He was curt though his tone remained polite. 'For today, work is over. Come again tomorrow.'
The tavern provided accommodation as it provided a meal.
Dumarest sat with Carina in the long, low-roofed chamber and ate succulent vegetables served with tangy sauces and a variety of nuts. A dish between them held livers of meat roasted and spiced and set on long skewers. The bread was rough but pleasingly flavored. The wine the same.
'Nice.' Carina leaned back and sighed with enjoyment. 'At times, Earl, everything seems to be just right. This place, the food, the atmosphere-it's what they mean when they talk of perfection.'
'Who?'
'All those who've never had it but have imagination enough to guess what it must be like.' She sobered a little. 'Of course the right company helps.'
He said nothing, looking through the window toward the hills, dusted with gloom now but still bright with their golden mantle.
'In a few weeks the ships will come,' she said as if reading his mind. 'The blooms will be near-venting then and, when they open, the air will be a cloud of spores and perfume. Golden spores in a scented mist.' Her eyes, her voice, held the fascination of a dream. 'A time of wonder, Earl, when reality yields to magic and all things are possible. Love, friendship, companionship.' Her hand reached out to rest fingers on his own. 'That, I think, is the most important. To be close to someone on equal terms. To share his life yet to remain an individual. Something a wife can never do.'
'Or a lover?'
'What is love? A man says he loves you and what he really means is that he wants you to love him. For some, it seems, it is enough but there is so much more. To stand beside someone, to be important to him, to be a comrade, a friend.' Carina shook her head and sipped at her wine, then, apparently casual, changed the subject. 'What do you think of life here?'
'It goes on.'
'But better than most. To sit and create a thing of beauty for its own sake and the pleasure of doing it. To sell it or not as you please. A man could work for a year and set his work in a window and wait for someone to offer something he is willing to take in exchange.'
'Money.'
'No, Earl, not always. That's what I like about this world-they are not contaminated by greed. And they are right. Money isn't everything. There are so many things it can't buy.'
He said, smiling, 'Name three.'
'You're a cynic.'
'Name them!'
She responded to his challenge. 'Happiness, honesty, health.'
'How about truth?'
'Truth?' She picked up a scrap of bread and crumpled it between her fingers, not meeting his eyes, her own fastened on the dusty hills. 'A thing to be searched for and not often to be found. Still less to be recognized when it is. Always to be hated when revealed. Truth is reality. Dreams shield us from it.'
As the boxes shielded those who used them. Dumarest looked at the window; her face was dimly reflected in the pane. Like these people Carina had built defenses against a universe not to her liking. Did she travel to find one she could accept?
Gently he said, 'Why don't you stay here? As an artist you would be welcome. You could make a home here for yourself. A place to call your own.'
'I could,' she admitted, and turned to face him. 'I've thought about it and been tempted. My work on display for those who come to look and examine and buy. But I'm a creator, Earl. I need stimulation-what did you think of Nisbet?'
He sensed her meaning. 'Old and rigid in his ways.'
'A stickler for tradition and this world is full of others like him. It's a good world, Earl, a kind one, but the price you pay to enjoy living here is to yield your independence of thought and imagination. To stop wanting to know what is over the next hill. To live by the sound of a bell.'
The curfew at dusk and morning signaled the time to eat, sonorous echoes which punctuated the hours of existence.
The echoes to Dumarest would have been the bars of a cage. He said, 'Stay here and finish your wine. I'm going to take a walk outside.'
He stepped with long strides away from the building, heading west down the main street, taking the next left and then another. He slowed as he neared the corner forming the last side of the square he had traversed, halting at the junction to look at the tavern. Carina was nowhere in sight and he moved up the street to examine the blank
