Iduna

'And you want me to join them?'

'No! No, Earl, the very opposite.' Gustav was emphatic. 'We want you to succeed where they failed. To go after Iduna wherever she might be, to find her, to bring her back to us. And, if you do that-'

'Freedom,' said Kathryn. 'Full citizen status, land, money, slaves if you want them.'

And death should he refuse. Dumarest glanced at the litter of papers, the files, the shelves then at the faces of the others.

The man would be reluctant but not the woman. And she had the power.

'Well?'

'Iduna,' said Dumarest. 'It's time that I saw her.'

The room was a womb, a place in which to hold a precious egg, the walls of softly shimmering satin, the floor piled with sterile whiteness. The bed was long and wide and as starkly white as the rest of the furnishings. On it, covered by a single sheet, rested a girl.

She was small, delicately boned, fashioned with an elfin grace. The face was pert, the chin pointed, the eyes closed, lashes lying like resting moths on the smooth alabaster of her cheeks. Beneath the cover her body held an immature softness. Hair spilled from her rounded skull to frame her face with a tapestry of jet.

Dumarest had expected a child. He saw a young and lovely girl.

'She was eleven when it happened,' whispered Gustav. 'That was years ago now. She has grown since then.'

Fed by machines, massaged by devoted servants, her physical well-being monitored every moment of the day. Dumarest could see the thin lines of monitor wires, the staring eyes of electronic alarms.

'Does she move?'

'At times, yes. Turning as if dreaming in her sleep. At first, during such times, we hoped she was about to recover but always we were disappointed. Now we have almost ceased to hope.'

'The others who followed her, did they follow the same pattern?'

'For a while but never for long. Deterioration was present almost from the first. They would fall and seem to be asleep but then display symptoms of unease. Then, when they woke, they were not whole. You've seen Muhi. You know what I mean.'

Struggling back to a parody of life to shamble like mindless beasts as their bodies spun into dissolution. The men but not the girl. She had lain quietly for years without apparent harm. Her sex?

'No,' said Gustav when Dumarest asked the question. 'It can't be that. We had a few female volunteers in the early days but they failed as did the men. And the technicians assure me there is no difference in the structure of a male and female brain.'

'We are retreading old ground,' said Kathryn. 'Let us see the Tau.'

It was close, housed in an adjoining chamber, one which had been enlarged to hold a battery of instruments and testing devices all centered on the alien thing which stood at chest height on a stand of polished rods. A light shone down on it, a cone of harsh, white brilliance balanced by others focused from ground level so as to eliminate all shadow.

A thing double the size of a man's head, rounded, nodulated, alien-and beautiful!

Dumarest walked toward it, seeing the shimmering interplay of light on the granulated surface, the birth and death of living rainbows, wells of luminescence which winked and shifted to glow again and to vanish as the eye attempted to examine their configurations.

Light from the focused brilliance caught and reflected into breathtaking splendor. Or was it just the light?

Dumarest said, not turning his head, 'Is this the usual arrangement? Are things as they were when the volunteers took their chance?'

Kathryn said, 'Marita?'

The technician was old, her face smooth, her hair a crested mass of silver, yet there was nothing soft or weak about her eyes and nothing indecisive in her voice. 'Things are exactly the same, my lady.'

'Speak to Dumarest. Answer his questions. Explain if he needs explanations.'

'Facts will do.' He stared into the woman's eyes and saw the reflected glow of the cones of brilliance, the sparkling shimmer of the Tau. 'Always it is the same?'

'There have been variations. We are not fools. Temperatures have ranged from freezing to half again the heat of blood. There has been calculated vibration and electronic blankets of silence. It is all in the reports.'

'I've no time to read them. Turn off the lights.' Dumarest looked again at the Tau as, reluctantly, she obeyed. The rainbows had not died. The coruscations of color seemed even brighter than before, sparkling and whirling, spinning, holding, expanding to contract to expand again in an attention-holding succession of enticement. 'Lights!'

He narrowed his eyes as they blazed into life and turned from the enigmatic object they illuminated. After- images danced to form shifting blurs of color, and he waited until they had gone. From across the room a technician studying monitors coughed and swallowed, the sound oddly loud.

'Well?' Marita was looking at him. She radiated the impatience of an expert to one who had interloped into her field. 'Is there anything else?'

'Did the volunteers take any precautions? Make any preparations?'

'What would be the point? Clothing and weapons would be useless.'

'I was thinking of less tangible things. Appeals to the gods, perhaps. Prayers. Mental adjustments of some kind. Deep breathing, even.' His voice hardened. 'I'm serious, woman!'

'Some, yes,' she admitted. 'They would vocalize their mental attitudes. Others seemed to meditate before taking the final step. You know what that is, of course?'

'I know what it has to be.'

'Then-'

'That will be all. Thank you for your courtesy.' He looked at Gustav. 'Did Iduna often play with the things she found in your study?'

'Yes.'

'There was no rule against it? No prohibition she could be conscious of breaking?'

'No, of course not. Why do you ask? What are you getting at?'

Questions Dumarest ignored as he stood thinking, remembering, assessing the information he had gained. It was little enough but it would have to do.

'The time,' he said. 'When you found Iduna in your study what time was it?'

'Late afternoon.' Gustav sounded baffled. 'Earl, I don't understand what you are getting at. What does the time matter?'

'You have only one window and the sun sets to one side. Am I correct?'

'Yes. The window faces to the north and the sun sets in the west.' Sudden understanding warmed the man's voice.

'The light? You think the intensity of light had something to do with it?'

'Perhaps. Marita, lower the brilliance of the lights.' Dumarest frowned as they died. 'Don't kill them, woman! Just dim them.'

'How? We have no rheostat in the circuit.'

'Then fit one!' Kathryn was sharp. 'And be quick about it!' As the technician hurried to obey she said to Dumarest, 'You have discovered something? You have a plan?'

'An idea. It may be nothing.' He knew she wanted more. 'A question of attitude,' he explained. 'I feel it could be important.'

'Is that all?' She frowned her disappointment, the frown clearing as Marita called that all was ready. The woman had worked fast. 'Have you seen enough?'

Dumarest nodded. The gamble had to be taken, there was no point in extending delay.

'Then commence!'

Guards stepped from where they had been lurking in the shadows, armed, armored, strong women dedicated to the Matriarch. Invisible until now but always Dumarest had been conscious of their presence. Watching, waiting for him to move, to make the journey which others had taken and which, for them, had ended in mindless dead. One he had no choice but to take in turn.

'Dim the lights,' he ordered. 'More. More-keep dimming until you emulate a shadowed room.'