But I have reached the valley floor, and She has come in sight.
Her chariot is unlit, for radar eyes and inertial guides need no lamps, nor sun nor stars. Wheelless, the steel tear rides on its own roar and thrust of air. The pace is not great, far less than any of our mortals’ vehicles are wont to take. Men say the Dark Queen rides thus slowly in order that She may perceive with Her own senses and so be the better prepared to counsel SUM. But now Her annual round is finished; She is homeward bound; until spring She will dwell with It Which is our lord. Why does She not hasten tonight?
Because Death has never a need of haste? I wonder. And as I step into the middle of the road, certain lines from the yet more ancient past rise tremendous within me, and I strike my harp and chant them louder than the approaching car:
The car detects me and howls a warning. I hold my ground. The car could swing around, the road is wide and in any event a smooth surface is not absolutely necessary. But I hope, I believe that She will be aware of an obstacle in Her path, and tune in Her various amplifiers, and find me abnormal enough to stop for. Who, in SUM’s world—who, even among the explorers that It has sent beyond in Its unappeasable hunger for data—would stand in a cold wildcountry dusk and shout while his harp snarls.
The car draws alongside amid sinks to the ground. I let my strings die away into the wind. The sky overhead and in the west is gray-purple; eastward it is quite dark and a few early stars peer forth. Here, down in the valley, shadows are heavy and I cannot see very well.
The canopy slides back. She stands erect in the chariot, thus looming over me. Her robe and cloak are black, fluttering like restless wings; beneath the cowl Her face is a white blur. I have seen it before, under full light, amid in how many thousands of pictures; but at this hour I cannot call it back to my mind, not entirely. I list sharp- sculptured profile and pale lips, sable hair and long green eyes, but these are nothing more than words.
“What are you doing?” She has a lovely low voice; but is it, as oh, how rarely since SUM took Her to Itself, is it the least shaken? “What is that you were singing?”
My answer comes so strong that my skull resonates; for I am borne higher and higher on my tide. “Lady of Ours, I have a petition.”
“Why did you not bring it before Me when I walked among men? Tonight I am homebound. You must wait till I ride forth with the new year.”
“Lady of Ours, neither You nor I would wish living ears to hear what I have to say.”
She regards me for a long while. Do I indeed sense fear also in Her? (Surely not of me. Her chariot is armed and armored, and would react with machine speed to protect Her should I offer violence. And should I somehow, incredibly, kill Her, or wound Her beyond chemosurgical repair, She of all beings has no need to doubt death. The ordinary bracelet cries with quite sufficient radio loudness to be heard by more than one thanatic station, when we die; and in that shielding the soul can scarcely be damaged before the Winged Heels arrive to bear it off to SUM. Surely the Dark Queen’s circlet can call still further, and is still better insulated, than any mortal’s. And She will most absolutely be recreated. She has been, again and again; death and rebirth every seven years keep Her eternally young in the service of SUM. I have never been able to find out when She was first born.)
Fear, perhaps, of what I have sung and what I might speak?
At last She says—I can scarcely hear through the gusts and creakings in the trees—'Give me the Ring, then.”
The dwarf robot which stands by Her throne when She sits among men appears beside Her and extends the massive dull-silver circle to me. I place my left arm within, so that my soul is enclosed. The tablet on the upper surface of the Ring, which looks so much like a jewel, slants away from me; I cannot read what flashes onto the bezel. But the faint glow picks Her features out of murk as She bends to look.
Of course, I tell myself, the actual soul is not scanned. That would take too long. Probably the bracelet which contains the soul has an identification code built in. The Ring sends this to an appropriate part of SUM, Which instantly sends back what is recorded under that code. I hope there is nothing more to it. SUM has not seen fit to tell us.
“What do you call yourself at the moment?” She asks.
A current of bitterness crosses my tide. “Lady of Ours, why should You care? Is not my real name the number I got when I was allowed to be born?”
Calm descends once more upon Her. “If I am to evaluate properly what you say, I must know more about you than these few official data. Name indicates mood.”
I too feel unshaken again, my tide running so strong amid smooth that I might not know I was moving did I not see time recede behind me. “Lady of Ours, I cannot give You a fair answer. In this past year I have not troubled with names, or with much of anything else. But some people who knew me from earlier days call me Harper.”
“What do you do besides make that sinister music?”
“These days, nothing, Lady of Ours. I’ve money to live out my life, if I eat sparingly and keep no home. Often I am fed and housed for the sake of my songs.
“What you sang is unlike anything I have heard since—” Anew, briefly, that robot serenity is shaken. “Since
