Alone Dumarest stared at his world. The cloud had gone now, dispersed, a thing as insubstantial as the rest. To create was to waste time playing with toys and yet what else was there to do? Return to Iduna and again play her games and follow her rules? To win dominance-but how could he ever be sure that the girl he ruled was the real person? And how was he ever to get back? How could he break free of the trap he was in; the insidiously attractive world of the Tau?
Chapter Eleven
Nothing!
Kathryn stared bleakly through the transparent partition separating her from Iduna. It was her right to have entered the room and the technicians had assured her there could be no danger of infection, but the risk was one she refused to take. A chill, a fever-to her a temporary indisposition but how could she ever forgive herself if the girl caught the infection? Protected as she was, cosseted, nurtured with the aid of machines, her resistance would be low. It was wiser to keep her distance.
Wiser, but not easy. The child looked so helpless lying on her snow-white bed. So young and so pitifully vulnerable. Kathryn ached to take her in her arms, to run her hand over the rich tresses of her hair, to comfort her, to mother her. An ache made all the more poignant by the dream.
Closing her eyes, she thought about it. A field of dappled flowers, the sun warm in the emerald sky, a soft breeze carrying the perfume of summer. A cloth spread on the sward and all the furnishings of a picnic. And Iduna, running, laughing, playing with a natural, childish grace. A dream so real that she had been reluctant to wake and, waking, had hurried to the room full of hope that Iduna would be sitting up, awake, restored.
Nothing!
Nothing had changed. The slim figure still rested on the soft bed, the eyes closed, the lashes making crescents on the cheeks, the hair a gleaming halo. The dream had been a lie as all dreams were lies. Wishes dragged from the subconscious and given a surrogate life. Illusions which tormented and shattered into the broken mockery of ill-kept promises.
'My lady?' A technician was at her side, face anxious, and Kathryn realized she had been leaning with, her forehead resting against the partition. 'Are you well?'
'Yes.'
'You look pale. A stimulant, perhaps?'
'No! Nothing!' The woman was being kind and Kathryn softened her tone. 'I shall be all right in a moment. A little giddiness, that's all.'
'To be expected after your recent illness, my lady. The blood sugar is low but that can easily be rectified. A cup of tisane with glucose will adjust the balance. I will order it immediately.'
It was easier not to argue and the tisane did help. Kathryn sipped the hot, sweet fluid in an adjoining chamber barely finishing the cup as Gustav arrived. His expression changed to one of relief as he saw her.
'Kathryn! I understand-'
'That I was sick and wandering and delirious,' she interrupted. 'How rumor exaggerates. I felt a little giddy and sat down to rest with a cup of tisane. You would like some?' She ordered without waiting for his answer. The technician had been right, the glucose had given her strength, and Gustav looked as if he could use a little. Had he, too, been the victim of dreams?
'You left your bed too soon, my dear,' he said. 'And will try to do too much too quickly. If the Matriarch cannot set an example of intelligent behavior then who can?'
'Don't nag. Gustav. I wanted to see Iduna.' She read the question in his face. 'I hoped there would be a change,' she explained. 'It's been so long now since Dumarest went after her and still we wait.'
As they had waited for years and it hadn't really been all that long since the man had entered the Tau. Not really long-but, dear God, long enough!
She heard the thin ringing and looked down and realized the cup in her hand was rattling against the saucer. A sure betrayal of the trembling of her hand which in turn was a betrayal of her over-strained nerves. The waiting. Always the waiting and, already, she was sure there could be no hope. Dumarest would follow the others into insanity and death. A condemned slave who had gambled and lost-what did it matter how they treated his body?
Gustav looked at her as she rose. 'Kathryn?'
'Something Tamiras mentioned,' she said. 'Electronic stimulation of muscle and sinew. If we use electroshock therapy on Dumarest the impact might produce an interesting reaction.'
'No.' Rising, he caught her arm, talking as he followed her from the room. 'Kathryn, you can't. The man is at our mercy. To sear his brain with current-no! No, I won't allow it!'
'You won't allow it?' You? For a moment her eyes held him and he was reminded that she was the Matriarch and he a lower form of life. 'Your wishes have nothing to do with it. My orders will be obeyed. We have waited too long as it is.'
'And his brain? You could destroy it with what you intend.'
'A chance he must take.'
'And our word? Your word as Matriarch?'
'Dumarest is a slave who merited death. He was offered a chance to redeem himself. As yet he has failed to do that. I have beeen patient long enough.' Too long and now patience was over. Why didn't Gustav understand? 'He is expendable,' she reminded. 'If he should die what have we to lose?'
He looked odd lying on the bed. An appararent contradiction as a wild creature looked out of place when held in a cage. Standing, watching the technicians as they fussed about their business, Kathryn studied the hard lines of the face, the mouth, the jaw. The face which had looked so bleak and the mouth so cruel when he had held her at his mercy. An animal fighting to survive-could she blame him for that? And could he blame her for having the same attributes as himself? She was a mother fighting for her child and if she had to kill for Iduna's sake then she would not hesitate.
'All ready, my lady.' A technician straightened from where she had been applying electrodes to Dumarest's skull. Others snaked from his torso, stomach and groin, a mesh of wire set to monitor his every physical and mental reaction. To one side a machine waited, a battery of pens hovering over an endless roll of paper, and panels studded with dials and telltales added to the laboratory-like appearance, of the room. 'I suggest we commence with a short burst of high-level current applied directly to the thalamic area.'
'Wait!'
'You have another suggestion?' She had denigrated her consort and regretted it. Now Kathryn wished to make amends. 'Gustav?'
'Just wait,' he begged. 'Make more tests on minor physical stimuli. Try hypnotic therapy. Try drugs-but don't rush to burn his brain.'
The technician was affronted. She said, stiffly, 'We are not ignorant savages and neither are we sadistic torturers. Stimulus applied to the area I have specified has resulted in beneficial results in a great majority of cases of personality maladjustment.'
'A great majority,' said Gustav. 'And the others? Cabbages? Mindless idiots who would be better dead? Can you honestly claim to know exactly what you are doing?' He turned to Kathryn as she made no answer. 'At least the woman is honest. She would be more so if she admitted that her treatment was like throwing a jigsaw up into the air. It sometimes could fall into a new and pleasing shape but more often it lands as a jumble.'
'You're wasting time, Gustav.'
'We have time. A day, a week, a year even, what does it matter? Dumarest is surviving which is more than the others did. By this time they were idiots, already dying, some even already dead. He could have found Iduna and be leading her back to us. Kathryn-dare you risk our daughter for the sake of a little more delay?'
A good argument and she pondered it, looking at the wire-wreathed man on the bed. A dedicated servant fighting on her behalf or a self-seeking mercenary only out for what he could get? Neither, she decided, but a man who was doing what had to be done.
'My lady?' The technicians were waiting. Kathryn looked at her hands, the knuckles, the gleam of the polished nails. 'Shall we begin?'
'An hour,' said Kathryn. 'We'll give him an hour.'
