Iduna

Chapter Three

"Slaver gas." Gustav Acchabaron lifted his goblet and studied the wine within. "A compound designed to serve a specific purpose and I think you will admit most useful in certain emergencies."

"Such as the release of a hostage?"

"Certainly." Gustav sipped then lowered his goblet. "But come, Earl, you aren't eating and the physicians tell me that nourishment is essential after treatment with slow-time. Incidentally, how is the head?"

Healed, the wound nothing but a trace of scar tissue beneath the cover of his hair, the internal inflammation cured in a matter of hours during which he had lain unknowing and unconscious as drugs had accelerated his metabolism. Slow-time which had compressed the hours so that he'd had the benefit of long, natural healing.

And stranger still had been his welcome after waking.

Leaning back Dumarest looked at the chamber to which he had been guided, the man who was his host. The husband of the Matriarch who, in such a society, would take a minor part in public affairs. Private ones too if the culture followed the patterns of others he had known. Yet the man, for all his apparent show of kindness, was being cruel.

Dumarest said flatly, "What is my position now?"

"You are my guest."

"And?"

"You expect retribution?" Gustav shook his head and smiled. "I am remiss but you must remember that days have passed since the gas rendered you unconscious. Time in which things have been decided. Time too for anger to cool. The Lady Kathryn is a firm ruler but not a sadistic one. She would not allow you to be plied with wines and viands before your execution. She would consider it a waste."

"She would be right." Dumarest helped himself to more meat and ate it, chewing well before swallowing, merely wetting his lips with the wine. Gustav could be honest and mean what he said but he did not rule. "Your wife, my lord, is a most unusual woman."

"You think so?"

Dumarest nodded, remembering the hard lines of the body he had held, the firmness beneath the clothing. She had never, at any time, displayed fear. She had made no attempt to struggle, knowing it was useless. She had made no threats or protestations and she had offered no bribes.

And now, for some incredible reason of her own, she had spared his life.

And spared his neck the weight of a collar. Gustav saw the lift of Dumarest's hand to his throat and guessed the thought behind the gesture.

"You taught her something," he said quietly. "No man should wear a collar such as that."

"Nor should anyone be a slave."

"True."

"You agree? And yet you tolerate it?"

"I tolerate what I must." Gustav drank wine, remembering, finding no pleasure in the memories. "We are all the victims of our culture, Earl. On Esslin slavery is common. An ancient tradition which has been maintained and it has all the strength of established habit. The fields must be tended and the crops harvested and who else is to do the work if not slaves?"

"Machines. Free men and women. Paid workers."

"So I have argued. I know that slavery is uneconomic and inefficient aside from being inhumane. I know too that those who buy slaves are worse than those who raid for them, for without a market such creatures would cease to exist. But logic and sense have little weight against rooted conviction and there are few who dare to stand against the present order of things." Gustav helped himself to more wine. "It is a pleasure to talk to a man like yourself. You are a breath of fresh wind tearing away cobwebs. A man who has traveled far and seen much. Neiras, perhaps? Subik? Anchayha?"

Names lost among a mass of others and all to the forgotten. Planets and worlds which spun about their suns and with each revolution falling farther into the past. Points on a seemingly endless journey which had merged to form a pattern illuminated by violence and blood and pain and aching loss.

"No," said Dumarest. "I know none of the worlds you mention."

"But others?"

"Others, yes.'"

"Many like Esslin?"

Too many. Small worlds with limited areas and scant populations. Static cultures frozen in ancient moulds with the dead hand of long-established expediency stifling further growth. Clans, Houses, Families, Tribes-some locked in the maw of Unions and Guilds and none wholly free. Backwaters among the stars. Bad worlds for a traveler on which to land. Some of them almost impossible to leave. Planets on which men starved because they could find no work. Others in which savagery ruled in places, as isolated communes slid back down the ladder of evolution.

Perhaps, somewhere, there was a world which had forged ahead and on which all men were at liberty to make any choice they wished. A truly free world on which liberty and the concept of equality was accepted in the purest sense. One on which no man sought to impose his will on another.

It could exist.

Dumarest had never found it.

"Slavery," mused Gustav. "How did you come to be a slave?"

"Luck."

"Luck?"

"Bad luck. I was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Another day and I wouldn't be sitting here now." Dumarest selected a fruit from a bowl and peeled the scarlet rinds from the crisp flesh of the violet pulp. "What is to happen to me?"

"Now?" Gustav gestured at the table. "You eat and drink and enjoy the moment."

"For tomorrow I die?" Dumarest dropped the fruit and leaned toward his host. "What happens to me when this farce is over?"

"No farce, Earl. But to answer your question, we talk."

"Talk now."

Gustav sighed and moved a scrap of food on his plate then, as if arriving at a decision, thrust the plate to one side and rested his elbows on the cleared space.

"I will be blunt, Earl. Your position is not good."

"As a slave?"

"That is academic. You have killed. You have attacked the Matriarch and threatened her life. The penalty for such an offense is to be impaled. And I tell you now that unless Kathryn pardons you that is exactly what will happen."

Taken and mounted on a slender point to have it thrust into the space between his thighs then to be left for his own weight to drive it deeper into his body. A long, cruel, lingering death.

"You are being watched," said Gustav quickly. "Even if you kill me it will make no difference. And, unlike the Matriarch, I am of little importance."

Which was why he acted the host. Dumarest forced himself to relax. Now was not the time for action and the mere fact that he had been healed and fed and treated as he was at this moment showed there was hope. But the threat had been real. Of that he had no doubt.

"After the feast, the reckoning," he said. "Well, how much will it be?"

"A journey into hell," said Gustav seriously. "One from which no one has yet returned."

Waiting was a torment and yet there was nothing she could do other than wait. Gustav had insisted and she had to admit his logic in the matter. To demand, to bluster, to threaten- how would that serve if met with stubborn refusal? She could kill, true, but what would that gain? And the chance must not be lost. Never, perhaps, could it be repeated. Against that what was a little time?

Locked in the humming fields of Tamiras's magic Kathryn turned and fought the tension which not even the electronic wizardry could dissolve. To remain idle when so much of importance was at stake!

"My lady?" Shamarre was at her side apparently summoned and yet Kathryn had no memory of calling the woman. Or of wanting her. But now that she was here it would be wise to find something for her to do. An errand to save her pride if nothing else.

"Check with the observers and report as to progress."

Shamarre made no attempt to move. "Progress is as expected, my lady. The initial barrier had been safely passed and the rest should be relatively simple. I must confess I did not think your consort had so much delicacy in him. I know some women who could learn from his tact."

Words! Empty praise! A sop to calm her fears!

"Is that what you came to tell me?"

"There has been another death. From the north. Two victims of hnaudifida have been reported from the adjoining sector."

"Complete restriction of all movement in the area. Send guards to patrol the boundaries and warn all residents they will shoot to kill if my orders are disobeyed. This applies to citizens as well as slaves."

"Yes, my lady." Shamarre hesitated. "Shall I check with the physicians as to their work on a vaccine?"

"Leave that to me. Do as I have ordered. Move!"

Now, at least, she had something to do and an excuse for visiting the laboratories. A genuine one and Gustav would have no reason to think that she was checking up on him, doubting his ability to perform the task they had agreed should be his alone. A wise decision, she hoped, and his arguments had carried weight. But if anything should happen to him. If Dumarest should turn out to be even more violent and savage than she had guessed then his death would not be easy. There were worse things than impalement.

"My lady!" The technician bowed. "You were not expected and the Director is with your consort and his companion. A moment and I will summon her."

"Never mind." The girl was trying too hard to please. "Where are they? The compound? No, don't bother to guide me. I know where it is."

A place set deep within the building and shielded for always against the sun. A circular area some hundred yards across capped with a domed roof now glowing with a soft emerald to emulate the natural sky. The floor was of polished stone patterned in a wild variety of flowers and benches ran around the walls. Mirrors had been set in them, planes of reflective glass graced with pastoral scenes, but Dumarest didn't look at them, guessing them to be more than they seemed. Instead he looked at the creature who shambled in a continuous circle in the center of the compound.

Once he had been young and good looking with strong bones and square-set shoulders and lips which smiled to show flashing teeth and hair which framed a strongly-boned face with an ebon aureole. A tall, lithe athlete proud of his trained and harnessed skills. A man able to run and jump and wrestle.

Now a man without a mind.

A caricature which drooled as it moved and moved as if muscle and bone had been warped and distorted into alien configurations. A thing which had no control over its bodily functions.

"Muhi," said Gustav quietly. "A friend. There are others and some of them are worse than what you see. None is better. Some have died. None have recovered."

"Treatment?"

"The best available. Skilled psychologists and trained practitioners of the mental arts. Even a monk of the Church of Universal Brotherhood. All have failed."

"To treat the symptoms or the cause?" Dumarest stepped toward the shambling figure and halted before it. As it neared he placed both hands on the rounded shoulders and pressed as he stared into the eyes. They were vague, the pupils dilated, the balls rolling, shifting in a continual refusal to focus on any one object. For a moment Dumarest maintained the position then, dropping his hands, he stepped back. "Drugs?"

"We have tried them all. Sedatives, tranquilizers, stimulants, herbs and elaborate compounds. Even charms and spells."

"Alcohol? Have you tried getting him drunk?"

"What good would that do?"

"Alcohol is a depressant. If his condition is due to hyperactivity of the synapses then slowing that activity could show an improvement." Dumarest suddenly swung his fist at the patient's face, halting it a fraction from the skin. "No reaction. He seems to be in a totally different world."

"He is."

Mentally, of course, but that was enough. Watching the shambling movements, Dumarest could sense the alien atmosphere the man emitted, a strangeness as if he were something other than human. That continual flicker of the eyes as if he were impelled to watch the darting motion of a heated molecule or the random flight of an insect. The odor which he exuded. The odd configuration of his limbs.

Muhi, a friend so Gustav had said-what if he had been an enemy?

To the Director he said, "What is your opinion as to the cause?"

"A progressive breakdown of the autonomic functions," she said without hesitation. "As you must be aware, many physical operations are conducted without the need for mental directives. For example we breathe and blink our eyes without conscious direction. Our hearts beat without voluntary directives. Our digestion, liver functions and so on work as a near-automatic unit. This attribute has given rise to the theory that the body has a subconscious life of its own on a basic primeval level. I think this assumption is false and what we have seen tends to prove it. The patient no longer has mental control and his physical body is suffering from accumulated errors which would normally have been corrected by the mental process. Think of a machine," she suggested. "One which runs perfectly for a while without attendance but which, if left too long, will become erratic because minor faults aren't checked early enough."

"Like the flight computer in a ship," said Dumarest. "It bases its program on received information but can deliver some pretty wild figures unless checks are made to erase accumulated garbage. A correct analogy?"

"Yes."

"And you can't erase the garbage?"

She frowned and glanced at Gustav, who shrugged.

"We aren't dealing with a machine," she said stiffly. "The patient is a human being."

"Is he?" Dumarest met her eyes. "How far does he have to go before he ceases to be that? I didn't see a man just then. I saw a lost animal. If anything of the original man remains it is frightened and hiding. Where, Director? Where could it hide? What section of the brain can it run to?" Then, before she could reply he said, "A serious question this time. What would you say is the breaking point of a man like the patient? How far can he be pressed before his mind will snap?"

"I don't know," she said. "I doubt if anyone could answer that with any degree of certainty. There are too many variables. A coward can display unexpected courage in times of stress. An apparently brave person can panic for no obvious cause. Heroines are born of the moment."

"But all are subject to weaknesses?"

"Of course."

"Do the patients have any in common? Did they all have a fear of falling, for example, or of fire?"

"I know what you mean. The answer is not as far as we are aware."

"You checked?"

"No," she admitted. "Not before it was too late to make personal examination in depth. Even then the results could have been negative. Some fears are so deeply buried they only surface beneath the impact of extreme stimuli." To Gustav she said, "Are there any further questions?"

"Earl?"

Dumarest shook his head and watched as the woman left, the patient with her. Quietly he said, "Was Muhi a traveler on that journey you mentioned?"

"Yes."

"And the others?"

"Yes," said Gustav again and felt relief now that it was out. "Volunteers, all of them, heroes each and every one."

"Heroes?"

"You probably think of them as fools. But to me they are heroes. Brave men who took a terrible risk and were willing to pay the price if they failed. Well, they did fail. Somehow they weren't strong enough and now they are dying. Soon they will all be dead." Gustav glanced at the mirrors, wondering behind which Kathryn would be standing. Knowing she had to be there, watching, hoping. Knowledge which prompted him to add, "As you will be dead unless you are willing to cooperate."

Dumarest said dryly, "You offer me a poor choice. Death in one way or death in another. Looking at your friend I think I'd prefer to be your enemy."

"You refuse!"

"To walk blindly into a trap, yes. To take a chance with the prospect of reward is another matter. You offer a reward?"

"Isn't your life-" Gustav broke off then continued, "There will be a reward if you are successful. That I promise. And it will be large. The Matriarch will be generous to the man who restores her daughter to a normal life."

"Her daughter?"

"And mine." Gustav looked at the mirrors. "Our only child."

"Iduna," said Kathryn. "We named her Iduna. It was a name found by Gustav in an old book."

"One a trader brought me, Earl. The name is that of an ancient goddess of spring, the guardian of the golden apples which the gods tasted whenever they wished to restore their youth."

"Legend."

"Of course, but what of that? And surely you have no quarrel with legend? A man who dreams of finding Earth?" Gustav smiled and gestured with both hands. "A scrap of delirium, Earl. You raved a little as they operated on your wound. Nonsense, naturally, but interesting as a matter of speculation. Mysterious planets, lost and forgotten which offer tremendous riches to those who are fortunate enough to find them. Earth is but one. Paradise is another. Eden another, I think, and Bonanza too if I am not mistaken. I have a list here somewhere."

"Leave it," said Kathryn as he turned to rummage among his papers. "We have other things to discuss."

They were in Gustav's study where she had joined them together with wine. Glasses to ease the tension and to occupy hands, though Dumarest needed no such aids. A mistake, she thought, the careful manipulation had been unnecessary. A direct proposition would have worked just as well but it had seemed wise to be sure. And she had doubted her own reaction to his presence. Anger, aroused at memory of his touch, his threats could have overwhelmed her. Even now she had to remember that he was to be used and was worth more alive than dead. Remembering that she held his life in her hands helped her to retain her equanimity. And she needed him. If he could win where the others had failed all would be forgiven.

The wine slopped in her glass as she lifted it to her lips and drank, barely tasting the wine, feeling only its needed warmth.

"Iduna," said Dumarest meeting her eyes. "Your daughter who is lost."

"Not lost. Not exactly. That is-Gustav, why don't you explain?"

"You saw the man in the compound," he said. "Would you say he was lost?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes."

"And Iduna is lost in a similar way. That is we have her body safe on Esslin. We even know what happened to her. We can guess where her mind, her intelligence must be. But we can't find it, Earl. We can't get to her. We can't guide her back to us!"

A mystery. Dumarest waited for him to explain.

"I collect old things." Gustav gestured toward his desk, the crammed files standing against the wall, the shelves holding enigmatic objects. "Traders bring them knowing of my interest and usually they ask little for what, to them, is rubbish. To others too, perhaps, but to me it is an entrancing hobby. To piece scraps together to form a whole, to build from it, to guess and surmise, to indulge in fantasy and explore myths such as that of Earth. It began when, as a boy, I was given an old almanac. Then a recording of a play in which strange names were used. I've them both somewhere and used to value them highly. Now I wish to God I'd never seen them!"

The man was distraught. Dumarest poured wine and handed him the goblet.

"Thank you," Gustav drank and sucked in his breath. "I digress. Iduna, I must tell you about Iduna. Of the thing she found while I was away. That damned, cursed thing found on a blighted world!"

"Gustav!"

"Yes." He looked at the woman, responding to the iron note of command. "Yes, my dear."

"You were not to blame!"

"So you tell me. But if it hadn't been for my interest. If I had been more careful. If I hadn't-"

"Luck," said Dumarest. "We spoke about it, remember? Bad luck which causes you to do the wrong thing at the wrong time. The kind which made me a victim of slavers." He glanced at the woman. "Which almost cost me my life."

Without looking at him she said, "Continue, Gustav."

"A thing," he said. "A trader bought it, he said, and thought of me. If he told the truth about its origins it was found when an earth-mover dug up a mass of debris and dropped it on the surface. The story could be true, stranger things have happened, and at the time I wasn't interested. The thing itself was enough. An artifact of some kind and one never made by man. You realize what I am saying, Earl? I held the product of an alien civilization in my hands."

Dumarest wasn't impressed. "In some sectors such things are common. Bricks fashioned by some ant-like creature with rudimentary intelligence. Pots made of dust cemented with spittle. Discs scored with lines which could be equations of some kind. And-"

"Rubbish!" Gustav was impatient. "I know of such items and they prove nothing but that certain life forms constructed certain patterns which need have nothing to do with true intelligence. But can you deny that others must have lived in the galaxy before us?"

"No."

"Then you can understand my excitement. I had examined it in a dozen ways and finally gained a response to certain stimuli. A reaction which registered on a dozen instruments. I couldn't wait. I ran to the laboratory to gain the aid of experts and, while I was gone, Iduna entered the study."

Memory of it made him weak, events long past suddenly alive again so that he could hear the thud of his feet as he ran, instinct warning him something was wrong. Feel again the pounding of his heart, the empty sickness in his stomach, the shouts which tore his throat, the tears which stung his eyes.

See again the small, limp figure lying before the damned artifact.

A sacrifice to his alien god.

"Here!" He looked up and saw Dumarest standing close with a glass in his hand. Dutifully he took it and drank and coughed as the contents caught at his throat. Brandy this time, distilled energy, an anodyne to the pain which had been obvious for all with eyes to see. "And then?"

"Nothing!" The glass shattered in his hand and he stared at the blood marring the whiteness of his palm. "Nothing!"

Nothing but endless grief, endless regret, the hollow emptiness and the accusation, never admitted, which he saw in Kathryn's eyes. Or imagined he saw-what did it matter? The guilt was his.

"We tried," said Kathryn. "My technicians aren't fools and it was obvious the collapse had to be connected somehow with the Tau." She noticed Dumarest's frown. "We had to call it something."

"Isn't the word connected with something precious?"

"Anything connected with my daughter is that. But as I was saying tests were made on the Tau and others made on Iduna. She seemed to be asleep but for no apparent cause. No trace of drugs, injury, shock or the passage of any kind of energy. It just seemed that, somehow, she had been sucked from her body. Her awareness, that is, her basic self."

"A working hypothesis," said Gustav. "We had to begin somewhere."

And later facts had supported it. Dumarest listened as they were enumerated, the checks, tests with beasts, tests with the girl, and then, after a long while, the first volunteer.

"He was mad," said Kathryn. "Insane. He had to be to plunge into the unknown. But I think he loved me and certainly he loved my child." She paused then said softly, "He was the first to die."

"How?" Dumarest snapped his impatience. "Save the wake until later, my lady, grief for those I have never known is a luxury I cannot afford. How did the hero die?"

His insult worked as he'd intended. The flush on her cheeks matched the sudden flare of anger in her eyes and, at that moment, she would cheerfully have watched him die. Then Gustav, more perceptive, said, "Earl is right, my dear. He needs to know."

"He died," she said stiffly. "Quickly, thank God, but he taught us a little even as he did so. The next lasted longer and after him came others. You've seen one of the latest."

"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."

The harsh glare faded as he began to walk toward the Tau, dulling even more as the complimentary lights died so as to leave the enigmatic object apparently unsupported and shining with a soft effulgence as if oil had been spread on glowing water.

Dumarest stared at it, concentrating, adjusting his attitude, blanking out the threat of guards and possible horror. Forgetting those who had gone before aside from one. Iduna who now lay quietly sleeping in a room of sterile whiteness.

And, walking, he stepped through time and space to a point years in the past when a happy, carefree child came skipping into a deserted study to discover something new and wonderful which held an immediate fascination. A bright and glowing object illuminated by the dusty light of the setting sun. Enigmatic, mysterious, magical.

And he became that child, running now, entranced, eager to discover what a doting parent had bought. To reach out with open arms. To fold them around the Tau. To hug it close and to press his face against the bright enchantment. To feel the faintest of tingles and to see the luminosity suddenly expand to engulf him. To take him elsewhere.