Iduna

Chapter Ten

There had been headaches and fatigue and irritation and, later, a fever and aching of the joints but, thank God, it had not been hnaudifida.

"You are sure?" Gustav looked at the report in his hand, seeing the notations and knowing what they signified but wanting reassurance. "There is no doubt?"

"None." The technician was patient. "We've run treble checks, my lord, and there is no possibility of error. The Matriarch had a chill and a slight infection which has already responded to treatment. A short rest and she will be as fit as ever." She smiled at the relief on his face; it was good that a man should be concerned for his wife. "Would you care to see her?"

She sat propped in a wide bed, the air tainted with the odor of antiseptics slight but unmistakable beneath the perfume. Her favorite, he noted, the clear, crisp scent of pine which became her so well. The open suited her, the rolling plains and forests and mountains. A creature of the wild tamed and channeled but never wholly free of the spaces which called her their own. A fanciful impression but one he nurtured as compensation for the cramped life of the city.

"Kathryn?" She was awake and opened her eyes as he came to sit beside her. "You're looking well."

A banality and a lie-she seemed shrunken and smaller in the face than she had. The result of the wide bed, the recent illness, her own expression which held a haunted introspection.

"Gustav." Her hand closed on his with the old strength. "They've told you?"

"Yes. A chill." He drew in his breath with an audible rasp. "It seems my prayers were answered. Thank God it wasn't-"

"Hnaudifida?" Her smile was reassuring. "What are the reports on that?" The outbreaks were under control, no new cases reported for a day now, and the monks, working like men possessed, had organized isolation sheds and manned them with willing volunteers immunized with vaccines obtained from their blood. Details she heard without expression. "I'm glad," she said when he had finished. "We must do something for them."

"The monks? Of course, when you are on your feet, my dear. Some land might be best, a small farm so as to provide food and sustenance. And a little space in the city for them to erect a larger church. We can talk about it later."

She nodded and one hand traced patterns on the smooth cover of the bed. Looking at it she said, "I've been dreaming, Gustav. I think it was a dream. Of Iduna."

He said nothing, waiting.

"She was so lovely. Do you remember when she was a baby how odd she looked? Everyone said how beautiful she was but they were only trying to be kind. But later, when she filled out and could sit upright, there was no need for them to flatter. The child was lovely. So very lovely. Gustav! Oh, Gustav!"

His arms closed around her as her head came to his shoulder and he could feel beneath his hands the wracking as she yielded to grief. Tears which wet the fabric of his blouse and misery which stung his own eyes as he shared the pain he could not alleviate. So many years now. So many, many years.

And again he saw the small shape lying on the floor of his study and the cursed orb of the Tau glowing to one side.

He should have followed her then but he hadn't known, hadn't guessed what happened. A child who had collapsed- first had to come the medical diagnosis, the tests, the investigations. Then he had yielded to Kathryn's dictates and had let others go where he had not. A coward, he thought bitterly. One who had died many times and still held back from dying once.

Now all he could do was to hold his wife and kiss her and wait for the sobbing to quiet and give her what comfort he could until, finally, she slipped into a doze. Chasing the illusion of a lost daughter, perhaps. He had no way of knowing.

But, perhaps, he could give her news when she next woke.

Tamiras was where he had left him, a small figure in the harsh confines of the chamber, flanked by guards who watched as he studied the Tau. From the bank of instruments standing to one side Marita studied dials and called figures at his command.

"No change." Tamiras sucked in his cheeks. "No discernible lift in emitted radiation. No alteration in temperature. No-a complete stasis, my friend. As I could have told you. As I have told you many times in the past. The Tau is a closed system and so, by definition, cannot be affected in any way. If it could it wouldn't be a closed system." His shrug added a single word.

Elementary.

Gustav said tightly, thinking of Kathryn, "This isn't a lecture hall, Tamiras, and you don't have to be clever. As our foremost electronic expert I'd hoped you could help."

"If I could I would-can you doubt that?" Tamiras met his stare, his own eyes direct. "From the beginning I have worked on the problem but, always, the answer is the same. To began investigating the Tau I must risk destroying it. In fact it is possible that only by destroying it can anything be learned."

"No!"

"You refuse as you have done before and I can understand the reasons for your refusal. Can you understand mine for not wanting to waste time on a problem I have no hope of solving? And you could be wrong. Destruction of the Tau could be the only method of achieving the desired end."

"Can you be positive as to that?"

"No. How could I be? The Tau is a mystery which we, as yet, have only tackled with measurements and the application of logic. The measurements prove, if they prove anything, that we are dealing with a closed system. As yet that is the sum total of our knowledge. The rest is speculation. Is Iduna within the Tau? For want of any better explanation as to what happened to her we must assume that she is. Can others follow her? We have idiots and the dead to prove the inadvisability of trying. Can she be rescued? A question without an answer and one based on the viability of the original speculation. If Iduna did not enter the Tau then she cannot be rescued. If she did we do not know how." He ended bleakly,

"There you have it, my friend. The poor fruit of what you are pleased to term an expert mind."

"Logic," said Gustav impatiently. "Pick your premise and by the use of logic you can prove anything you want to. Forget logic-what we need here is intuition. Logic will tell us a thing is impossible but still that thing can be done. Too often logic is nothing but a wall halting progress."

Gently Tamiras shook his head, "No, Gustav, you are wrong?"

"Wrong? What of your own field-baths? I remember when to mention them was to invite scorn and laughter. How could invisible energies relax and comfort? And rafts? They are heavier than air and so obviously could never fly. It is against all logic-so why bother to look for an answer? The men who found it in use of antigrav units didn't listen to that kind of logic and neither will I. We have facts. Work on them. Iduna is in the Tau. How?"

Old ground and Tamiras sighed as he answered the question. But Gustav was strained, too tense for his own good, and the answer might serve to unwind him a little.

"There is only one way. Physically, of course, she remained here so all that could have been transmitted is the mesh of electromagnetic micro-currents housed by her brain. Not all of them, some residue must have remained to activate the autonomic process and we can speculate that the residue must belong to the sub-frame of human development and is in fact a part of the basic metabolic structure. Elg Barham has done some work on the subject and read a paper at the Arteshion University which I was fortunate enough to hear. He contends that the mind, the intelligence, is a later addition to the actual physical body, and therefore could be divorced from it. If true this would explain certain claims made by those who swear they had left their own bodies either to travel vast distances to observe events or to have actually inhabited others and shared their lives and experiences. There could also be an association with the belief that individual awareness does not become erased at death but moves on in some way as a disembodied intelligence. An intelligence which retains, perhaps, the conviction that physically it is still alive which would account for the phenonema we know as "ghosts." The intelligence, trying to communicate, adopts a familiar form or impresses itself on another's sensory apparatus in a recognizable shape."

"A ghost," said Gustav. "You are saying Iduna is a ghost."

"In a manner of speaking she can be nothing else." Tamiras gestured at the Tau. "A mind trapped in a closed environment. A charge in an accumulator, an intermeshed potential-how can I describe it?"

A drop of water in a soaking wet sponge-Gustav could provide his own analogies but none of them helped.

Distance seemed to be important, when she wasn't close it was possible to obtain a degree of detachment and now, lying on the edge of a beach of glittering sand, Dumarest watched the girl as she sported in the surf.

A lovely woman and one who dispensed madness so that when they were close he was helpless to do other than obey her wishes.

Turning he looked at the sky, a bowl of clear azure tufted with fleecy cloud, the sun a glowing ball of lambent yellow fire. The clouds shifted as he concentrated, merging to form a pattern, a construction of lace which shielded the glare of the sun and sent patches of shadow scurrying over the sand. A triumph, but it brought no satisfaction. If anything it demonstrated the magnitude of his power. A few clouds, the wash of the sea, the shape of the dunes-all things of no importance. Yet when he tried to oppose her will Iduna was always the victor.

"Earl!" She came running toward him over the sand. "Earl, come and join me!"

A vision of loveliness, white skin glowing with a rich, soft sheen, dappled with the pearl of water which also graced the dancing tresses of her hair. The uptilted breasts bounded in their pride and her thighs were twin columns of artistic yearning. Naked, unblemished, unashamed. A woman who reached her hands toward him.

"Come, Earl. Let us ride the waves."

A moment and then he was standing on a narrow, pointed board riding the rolling crest as the wave surged to break on the shore. To be back again this time with the girl, her arms locked around his waist as, legs straddled, he maintained his balance on the shifting support. To fall and spout water and laugh and be back again on the long, smooth slope of a breaker.

Pleasure without pain. Joy without effort.

And later, when the heat of her body had consumed him and they lay on a bed of scented heather there was time for talk and words hung like glittering spangles in the sultry summer air.

"This is wonderful!" Iduna stretched, satiated, muscles writhing beneath velvet skin, eyes half-closed in sensual delight. "Earl, you must never leave me. You don't want to leave me, do you? No, of course you don't. You will stay and be my consort and together we shall rule. Rule and have fun."

Live and play games and after? When she had tired of the games?

"Don't you ever miss anyone, Iduna? Your father, for example?"

"Daddy comes to visit me often. We talk and then he goes away but he always comes back when I need him."

"Anyone else? A friend? A-" Dumarest broke off, knowing it was useless. What she wanted she created and if the people were less than real what difference did it make? They were her conception of reality and so far more satisfying than any other. In her universe Gustav would never scold, her friends never be less than attentive, her lovers other than ideal. "Travel, then," he said. "Have you never wanted to travel? To see other worlds and other ways of living?"

"I have traveled."

To Katanga over the Juntinian Sea. To the Burning Mountains and the Eldrach Jungles. To lands of make-believe inhabited by deliciously frightening monsters and patroled by true and loyal guards.

"Really travel, I mean," said Dumarest. "To take a ship and visit another world. One with a different sun and new cultures. To see strange things and beautiful sights. To have adventures."

"I have them." Her hand reached out to touch him. "I have everything I want, Earl."

Even himself in her image. Dumarest saw his body and knew it had changed. The skin was roseate, the scars vanished, the muscle firm and the proportions now arranged in a pattern not designed by a life of arduous activity. His face too now held softness where once harsh reality had set its mark.

"Earl!"

He fought her attraction as he had before, biting on the inner flesh of his cheek, resisting the sweet temptation to yield, to enjoy the moment, to forget everything but the joy of pleasure. For a moment the woman at his side seemed to waver, to become young and gawky and awkward as she lifted herself on the heather, then the moment had passed and Iduna was beautiful again.

"Earl, why be so foolish?" she said quickly. "All this talk of travel-why should you bother? What could you find you haven't here with me? A castle, lands, servants, fine clothing, good food, all the sweets you can eat and think of the wonderful games we can play. Look, you can be King of the Castle if you want and…"

He leaned back, letting her words drift over him, using the one great advantage he had over the girl he had come to find. The hard-won experience of years which had hammered an iron resolve into his being. A maturity and determination which Iduna had to lack. A reluctance ever to yield his fate to another.

And he could recognize the trap which had closed around him.

While in Iduna's universe he was helpless to be other than a puppet moving to her whims. To escape her domination he had to establish his own superiority. But how? And even if he did would things be as they seemed?

"Earl, you-" She blinked as he gestured her to be silent. "What is it? Earl?"

"A message," he said. "I am receiving a message."

"From Earth? Earl, I am tired of you playing that silly game. There is no such world."

"There is if I say so."

"No, there is only if I say so." Her face, suddenly, was ugly. "And I say that you will never mention that place again."

"Earth," he said.

"Earl!"

"Earth! Earth! Earth!"

"You're horrible!" Her face wrinkled as her eyes filled with tears. "Everything was so nice and now you've spoiled it all. I hate you!"

"Earth!" he said again. "Earth! Earth! Earth!"

A boy playing a childish game, obtaining a childish revenge by demonstrating his infantile defiance. Dragging her down to his depicted level, keeping her off balance with adult calculation.

"Stop it!" Her voice rose in a raucous scream. "Stop it, I tell you! Stop it at once!'"

"Earth! Earth! Earth!"

The word a bullet fired again and again at her defenses. An irritation which grew until it dominated her being. Dumarest saw her face change, become young, spiteful, twisted with angry passion.

Then it was gone with the sky, the heather, the sea and glittering sand. The sun and breeze and the scent of flowers. All vanished in a flash to be replaced by a writhing mist in which something screamed.

And the thing which screamed was himself.

Dumarest turned, feeling agony sear every nerve, and together with the physical pain came a mental torment which sent him to double and keen and stare as he threshed and spun in the clammy mist. A vapor which burned like acid and held torments unseen but real and things which lived in his body and mind and increased his agony so that he became something less than human in a blind, primitive, mewing, screaming parody of a man.

The dungeon to which all who offended Iduna were sent.

The place he had seen with himself contained in it-the product of a vagrant thought which had anticipated later events or perhaps Iduna had always carried its concept in the back of her mind and his incarceration would be his punishment had he not played her game.

He had been warned and had ignored the warning and now must pay.

But he was free of her domination.

The pain was bad but he could live with agony which did not kill and it would only take a thought to escape. A little concentration and the mist would vanish and the pain and he would be his own master and able to plan and… and…

The pain! Dear God, the pain!

The screaming went on and he made no effort to stop it.

Made no effort either to halt his weaving and turning in the stinging mist. To have done either would rob his mind of the power to concentrate on a single, overwhelming thought. To escape. To move from this dungeon and Iduna's vengeance and go somewhere else. To escape… escape…

And it happened.

The screaming stopped and the mist vanished and he was, suddenly, in limbo. In a region without shape or form but one filled with the aura of lurking horror. A place-no, The Place. Hell.

He had been naughty and Mommy had punished him and locked him in the dark place where things waited to pounce and eat his eyes and drink their moisture and burrow into his body and there lay their eggs which would hatch and turn into maggots which would gnaw at the living flesh and all the time he wouldn't be able to do anything about it. And there would be ghosts which would come and gibber in his ears and suck at his mind so that when they came for him he would be a shambling idiot And the dark would press close and crush him. And he was blind and would never see again. And there was no sound. And they would forget him and he would die of thirst and starve and have to eat his own hands and be unable to stand even if they did come for, him and would grow into horrible shapes and people would laugh and he would be miserable forever and he hated her… he hated her… he hated her…

The dark place of punishment for a willful child which he had entered. The one filled with the terror of the unknown. A terror he was now sharing and which held all the ghastly fantasies of an imaginative child. Had Iduna ever been locked away in a dark place? Was that why she hated her mother?

Dumarest forced himself to think of Kathryn, to see her face limned before his eyes. A hard face and one which knew little of compassion. The face of a woman who had learned to rule and who would tolerate no weakness in the one she intended should follow her. Spoiled, cossetted, yet Iduna would have felt the weight of the Matriarch's displeasure if she stepped over the line.

And so The Place.

A child's conception of hell-but Dumarest was not a child.

He straightened and rose, feeling solid ground beneath his boots. Overhead the sky began to lighten with a blaze of stars, winking points set in remembered constellations; the Scales, the Archer, the Heavenly Twins. Signs of the zodiac which circled Earth. And the moon. He must not forget the moon.

It glowed in silver luminescence, dark mottlings giving it the appearance of a skull, wisps of brightness haloing it and adding an extra dimension of enchantment. The air which touched his face was soft with summer warmth and carried the odor of growing things. Earth. His world. Earth!

He could create it and be with it and rule it like a god. The hills which rolled endlessly beneath the sky and all covered with woods and forests in which creatures lived and bred. Fields of crops ripening as he watched, rich ears of swollen grain culled from the bounty of the soil. Fruits and seeds and nuts and streams filled with water like wine-all the things of paradise. He could do it. He could make his own world. Why continue the search when there was no need?

"It wouldn't be the same, boy." The captain, sitting on a rock to one side, his head gently shaking in negation. "It just wouldn't be the same."

"It would be as good."

"No. Think about it for a minute and you'll realize why. You thought of fields and forests and streams and warm breezes-was that the Earth you knew? The one you risked death to escape?"

"It could be. It was once."

"Maybe, but you can't be sure of that. Oh, you have clues and they tend to give that impression, but how genuine is it? A world cultivated from pole to pole. Every coast inhabited, every island, every scrap of terrain owned and worked and occupied. Can you even begin to imagine how many people there must have been to achieve that?"

Dumarest glanced at the sky and thought of dawn. The stars paled as the sun warmed the horizon, the moon seeming to gain a transparent unreality as it climbed to cast an orange-ruby-amber sheen over the terrain. In the distance mountains soared, their summits graced with snow. From a copse birds began to greet the new day.

"People," said the captain. Despite the sun his face remained in shadow, the features now growing indistinct. "So many people. How could they ever manage to get along with each other? Not that it matters. You can't create Earth and you know it."

"I can!"

"No. You haven't the skill it would take. You haven't the knowledge and you haven't the time. How long did it take to make the real Earth? Millions of years-it doesn't matter just how many. Ages in which each little scrap of living matter learned to live with other scraps and to become dependent on them and to achieve a balanced harmony. To create a thing which cannot be duplicated anywhere. Earth is unique. You belong to it and you have to find it. Find it, Earl, not construct a replica. Find it… find it… find it…"

"How?" The figure was becoming as indistinct as the face. "How?" demanded Dumarest again. "How?"

"You know." The voice was a sigh. "You know."

"Tell me!"

But he had left it too late. The figure slumped as he touched it to dissolve in a cloud of drifting sparkles which spun and spread and became a patch of cloud.

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?