Incident on Ath

Chapter Seven

Dinner was at midnight when the sun had long since died and the sky was ebon velvet dusted with gems. Stars which glittered with cold disinterest, curtains and sheets of luminescence occluded by the blotches of dust clouds, a haze which stretched like a coiled rope low on the horizon. A sky too bright to be that of Earth and one distorted by the electronic stresses found within the rift.

Not Earth but a world holding the knowledge of where it could be found. A woman who must surely know the secret.

Dumarest looked at her as they stood on a balcony prior to joining the assembly. Tall, lithe, her body displaying her innate femininity, touches of reflected light turning her eyes into stars. Below them the city rested like a scatter of jewels cupped in a protective palm. Dull gleams ringed the lake and others shone from houses shielded by shrubbery, masked by trees. The air held the rich, warm scent of natural perfume.

A paradise and Dumarest said so. Ursula shrugged.

"You are easily impressed, Earl."

"I've learned to evaluate what I see," he corrected. "This could match the pleasure gardens on a score of worlds and has something even the Tyrant of Meld couldn't achieve with a fortune spent over a dozen years. His landscape lacks what you have here, a softness, a snugness-it isn't easy to put into words."

"A work of art," she said. "Can any two artists produce exactitude? Always there must be the minor difference of personal temperament. The subtle distinction which spells the difference between competence and genius."

"So the city was made," he said. "Built as a whole?"

"No. It grew and then was planned. There was much alteration and true harmony was not achieved until the Ohrm were removed. As for the rest, well, perhaps it holds a certain charm."

Her tone held condescension, her attitude was one of boredom, things which Dumarest recognized and he was quick to change the subject. Only a little could be learned at a time and to press too hard would risk losing all. The woman knew of Earth. She had knowledge he must obtain. The trick was to make her want to give it to him.

Now he leaned forward, hands resting on the parapet of the balcony, head tilted a little as he looked at the sky.

"Odd how the stars look in the Rift. I'd guessed they would be less plentiful and there could have been the glow of opposed energies. Have you ever seen them? Certain areas seem to trap and enhance natural radiation and, if there should be a fluorescent dust in the vicinity a spectacle can be obtained which holds true majesty. There is one close to Zekiah and another, better, which can be seen from Schwitz. You should make the effort to visit it."

"No." Her voice held impatience. "We do not travel from Ath."

"Never?"

"No."

A thing which she had hinted at before when, eager for entertainment, she had pressed him for details of the worlds he had seen, the adventures he had known. Stories for children, tales to pass the time. Always he was conscious of the similarity-a city built as to a whim, stories garnered from passing strangers, hobbies tried and discarded, projects started and abandoned. And no sight of any servants as if the things which were done were best done in secret loneliness.

And yet she was not a child but a woman vibrant with a woman's need. A thing he sensed as she moved closer to him, to rest her hand on his own, to tighten her fingers and dig tiny crescents with the blue-stained nails.

"Earl, on these worlds you have known, have you met many women?"

"A few."

"And have they loved you?" She smiled as he made no answer. "You are discreet but the answer is plain. Tell me, were any of them like me?"

"No." He turned to face her, his hand falling from beneath her own. "You are unique."

As every woman was unique, every person ever born, for no two could be exactly alike and every individual was a thing alone. A fact disguised as flattery by the tone of his voice, the direction of his eyes. And, even when a boy, Dumarest had known that to lie was stupid when the truth would serve better.

"Unique, Earl? You mean that?"

"As far as I can tell, Ursula, you are the most unusual woman I have ever met." And then, for fear she might mistake his words for irony, he added, "And one of the most beautiful. On any of a dozen worlds you would be a queen. On any of a hundred you would be known and loved and hated in equal measure."

"By other women?"

"Of course." He lifted the hand which had rested on his own and touched it to his lips. The fingers were cool, scented, smooth to his caress. "And, perhaps, by some men."

Her laughter was rich, throaty, the peal of bells. A breaking of the momentary tension as she sought refuge in an appreciation of the incongruous.

"Earl! You are priceless!"

"Not quite, Ursula. It was fifteen thousand you paid?"

"Put into the common fund to be shared." The gesture she made diminished the sum. "A device invented by Garnar to add spice to certain moments. He is dead now but his work lingers on."

And would continue to do so as long as it provided entertainment. Dumarest said casually, "What are the Ohrm?"

"What!"

"You mentioned them." He gestured at the city. "When you spoke of achieving true harmony."

"The Ohrm," she said. "They are the ones who-the people who serve."

"A different race?"

"No. They are human. I-" She threw back her head, eyes misted. "The name is derived from Francis Ohrm who was elected spokesman for the passengers who traveled to Ath in the Choudhury. We are the Choud. The Ohrm are those who work and serve so that we can direct and control."

Servants or slaves?

"They serve," said Ursula. "They have always served. They tend the soil and grow the crops and do all things needing to be done under the direction of the Choud."

"For how long?"

"For always. No. Since the Choudhury landed on Ath. There was dissension and Francis Ohrm became more than just a spokesman. Punished, he died but his name lived on. Those who followed him became the Ohrm. They serve the Choud."

"Who do not travel?"

"No." Ursula blinked. "At least not to other worlds." Then, as a chime rose to hang quivering in the air,

"There is the dinner gong. It's time we joined the others."

They stood in a small cluster in a room graced with pendants of ice-like crystal all touched with an azure haze from lights shielded from direct view. A cold room with a floor of tessellated slabs all blue and silver. High arched windows framed the night, scalloped rims forming a surround for the stars. Natural pictures which would change as the hours passed to become flushed with the roseate light of dawn, the yellow blaze of day.

"Earl!" Sardia was among the assembly and came forward to greet him. "Earl, this is Cornelius. The artist we came to meet. Cornelius, this is Earl Dumarest. A friend."

If he noticed the slight hesitation he gave no sign but smiled and extended his hand and touched that which Dumarest had lifted. An old gesture and one common on worlds which had known strife; the empty palms visible proof of the lack of weapons. But when could Ath have known war?

"Earl. Sardia has told me about you. I hope that we, too, can be friends. Captain, I must thank you for my guest."

Tuvey had come to join them, his shoulder bare of his pet.

"Borol doesn't like too much company," he explained. "And festivities unsettle him."

"And that thing unsettles me." The woman Dumarest had seen before was at the captain's side and, while still revealing accumulated years, she no longer resembled a crone. Instead, metallic glints shone from lips and eyelids and darkness had hollowed her cheeks. Beneath her cunningly draped gown flesh swelled in enticing formations. "I'm willing to buy the man but not the beast. One day, perhaps, he'll agree to be bought for keeps."

"Maybe." Tuvey screwed up his eyes. "Who can tell, Etallia? If the price is right, who can tell?"

"Money!" The woman snorted her contempt. "That's all you think about. What is money against happiness? Stay with me and I'll give you more than you could hope to earn in the remainder of your life."

"And give me also what it could buy?" The captain smiled like a wrinkled gnome. "That, too, my sweet?"

"Greed! You lack blood, Lon Tuvey. In your veins is only money!"

"She's right," said Sardia as the couple moved away. "And the bastard isn't only greedy but cunning with it. I had a chance to speak with him about return passage. It's there if we can pay for it, Earl, but that's all. When I asked for the coordinates of Ath he laughed."

"Then ask your friend."

"Cornelius? He's an artist not a navigator."

"Someone must know." Dumarest stared at the woman, at her eyes. "There's something you've discovered. What is it?"

"I've found out how that cunning bastard tricked us, Earl. The passage and introduction, remember? Not one without the other. The long journey. The lack of coordinates. And Cornelius tells me that the Sivas is about the only ship that calls here. There's another, the Mbotia, but that hasn't called for months now. So it seems we travel with Tuvey or we don't travel at all." Her laugh was brittle. "He has us both ways. We get the paintings and pay through the nose to get them out Then we pay again to return to Ath for more."

"No." Why hadn't she seen the flaw in her argument? Then he remembered. "I see-Cornelius refuses to travel. We can't take him with us."

"No, Earl, we can't."

"But why not? Damn it, all he has to do is to get on the ship."

"He won't." She shook her head at his expression. "Don't ask me why. An artist is a delicate creature and, like a flower, needs a certain combination of associations in order to produce his best. Maybe he feels safe here. Maybe it's something else. But I'm trying to change his mind, Earl. I'm trying."

And might succeed, given time; using her charm, her femininity, spinning a web with the lure of her body as women had done since the beginning of time. The old, age-old magic which so rarely failed. The love which, once instilled, made a man helpless to refuse.

Perhaps, as yet, she hadn't thought of that, but it would come if Cornelius continued to be stubborn. No one who had not learned how to apply the charm of her sex could have risen so high and she had been at the top of her profession. And no one who lacked determination could have gained such fame. That same determination had brought her to Ath and it would not be denied. She would win the artist; one way or another she would win, and if she did, would he mind?

Dumarest looked at her, sensing her nearness, her warmth, remembering the times of close proximity on Juba and in the ship. The times of passion. The words which had been spoken. The promises she had made.

And yet did anything ever last forever? And how could he blame her when he was doing the same?

"Earl?" She frowned, conscious that something had come between them, a chill not born of the cold decor of the room, the blue and silver so symbolic of ice and snow. "Is something wrong?"

"No. I was thinking of how to handle Tuvey." Of the need for passage and the greater need to learn more from Ursula as to the whereabouts of Earth. But he didn't mention that. Instead, he said, "Don't worry about it now. Just concentrate on Cornelius. Will he cooperate?"

"He'll let me handle his work, Earl. I'm certain as to that. As for the rest-" She shrugged. "Well, I've met stubborn men before. But we're up against time. If we aren't ready when Tuvey decides to leave then we'll be stuck until he returns. Months at least."

Time in which enemies could smell out his trail. Time for the Cyclan to set a trap from which, this time, it would be impossible to escape.

Dinner was served in an adjacent room, one lit with diffused lighting, shadows thick against the carved panels of the ceiling, bright glows of warm color cast in patches over the central area. The table formed the three sides of an open square with the guests all sitting to face the space so formed. In it, a swirling mass of tinged mist, writhed a cloud of scented vapor which adopted new and peculiar shapes without end. A kaleidoscope of form and color, enticing, hypnotic.

"Debayo constructed it," said Ursula. "Before he grew interested in contacting the dead. Now he does little but squat before Hury waiting for revelations. Do you believe the dead can walk and talk as they did when alive, Earl?"

"On some worlds, perhaps."

"Do you know of one?" She shrugged, not waiting for him to answer. "The thing is ridiculous. Once dead, life is ended. All that can possibly remain is the residue of the electrical energy of the brain. A fragment of decaying energy spreading like the ripples on a pool into which a stone has been thrown."

"And yet, Ursula, if that energy could be isolated, trapped and amplified, what then?" A man sitting farther down the table twisted so as to face her. "Debayo has cause for his belief but I am certain he is trying the wrong approach. The method of using paraphysical energy was denounced in… in…" His eyes went blank. "In the fifty-eighth year after First Landing when Wendis Cormagh demonstrated by impeccable logic that it is impossible to utilize a form of energy we can neither sense nor devise instruments to measure. To us, that energy, even if it exists, must be and forever remain nonexistent. His analogy was that of a blind man searching a darkened room for a black animal which was not present." He blinked.

"Karg's Ultimate, Corbey." A man called from where he sat at another leg of the table. "Sometimes known as the ultimate in absurdity and old before Wendis was born."

"But if Debayo should succeed?" Corbey paused and looked at the assembled guests. "Remember, contacting the dead would be only the beginning. Once that secret is learned then the dead will no longer be divorced from us. They will, in a sense, continue to exist. And that which does not die is immortal. That is what Debayo is after. Not words spoken to ghosts but the secret which, will banish death forever."

An ambitious project but one in which Dumarest had no immediate interest. As talk flowed around and across the central mass of swirling vapor he leaned back and looked around. The guests were more soberly dressed now but still bizarre to one who had known the strict formality of High Families and ruling courts. No two gowns were alike and even the men wore clothing strictly to their personal taste. Blouses in a variety of colors, slashed, puffed, bound, ornamented, graced with fine tassels, decorated with intricate piping. Hair was streaked and blotched in rainbow hues, faces painted, eyes tinted, enlarged, enhanced with shaven brows and applied cosmetics. Among them he looked a drab fowl among peacocks. Even Sardia in her best gown of shimmering silk touched with ruffs of contrasting brilliance looked dull.

She looked at him and smiled then turned as a servant poured wine into her glass.

They had made an appearance for the first time and Dumarest watched them with interest. Small, delicately made, dressed in somber blue the color of lead, they drifted like wraiths, emotionless, soundless, unobtrusive.

Girls, he decided, or young boys, it was impossible to tell which. But they were nothing like the woman he had seen in the shadows on the path. Nor did they resemble the shapes he had seen lurking in the greenery. A different breed? The result of genetic selection which aimed at smallness and lack of sexual characteristics? A deliberate policy which ensured a supply of tamed and timid servitors?

One touched his arm as he moved and he felt thinness and fragile bone and saw wide, empty eyes which glanced at him once then lowered as if confused. A girl, he was sure. It had to be a girl, the contact had been female and the structure of the facial bone, the manner of walking due to a widening of the pelvis-it had to be a girl.

Or something which had been surgically achieved and which now had no sexual definition at all in the accepted sense.

Would they have done that?

He glanced at Ursula, leaning back in her chair, breasts prominent, mouth open to reveal the flash of teeth as she smiled. A lovely woman-but never had beauty been a guarantee of gentle behavior. Cornelius? No, he was too much an artist to subject flesh to such distortion, and yet cities had been burned in the name of art and men and babies set to die screaming for a musical accompaniment. How to tell? How ever to be sure?

"Your wine, Earl." Ursula was looking at him. "Is it to your taste?"

He hadn't touched it and she had noticed. A breach of etiquette in any such gathering. Now, lifting the goblet, he tasted sweetness and a cloying something which stung his tongue with acrid prickles. It vanished when he ate a cake containing tart fruits and a savory paste.

Meats followed, a variety of vegetables, compotes of fruit and nuts, wafers of spiced bread, cakes containing savory delights, sweets which stung and pastes which tantalized.

Then, the tables cleared of dishes, came the entertainment.

It was new to Dumarest's experience.

No performers made their entry and no musicians provided accompaniment. Instead, a man rose from where he sat, stepped into the writhing mist and began to sing in a cracked voice. Another followed him and jumped and twisted in a series of involved acrobatics, hands and feet vanishing into the mist which now had lowered to spread like an insubstantial carpet over the floor. A woman shrilled like a captive bird, another played an instrument like a guitar and harp combined.

Two men played at war.

Sardia laughed as they faced each other with blades carefully blunted. Knives which would have required an effort to cut butter and lacked the edge even to sever string. Mock blades used for practice, clashing as they met, ringing, cutting through the air as the men crouched and emulated fighters.

No, not emulated. Dumarest stared at them, his eyes narrowed, watching, evaluating. The feet moved as they should, the hands were correctly poised, the movements were those lauded by the classical school which was not necessarily the best. That title was reserved for the teaching which a man followed and won by following. But for the dilettantes the men provided a spectacle which they could appreciate.

Only Sardia mocked.

"Look at them, Earl! Ten to one you could take them both with only one arm. Twenty, you would gut the pair within five minutes!"

She had indulged herself with wine and was, while not drunk, not so sober as she thought. Her voice rose again over the clash of steel.

"They want entertainment, Earl! Give it to them!

Give them real blood and real pain! Give them something to think about!"

"Sardia!"

"Shut up!" She threw off Cornelius's hand. "Don't try to stop my talking. I've had enough of that. Talk is for fools. Words to entertain the passengers you've bought and carried home like toys. Well, I'm not a toy. And I don't entertain for nothing. You want real entertainment? Ask Earl to give it to you. That man can fight He can fight as well as I can dance."

"Dance?" Ursula reared up in her chair. "You claim to be able to dance?"

"I make no claims." Sardia shook her head, suddenly aware of what she had done. "And I mean no offense. It was just that I was-"

"Bored?" Ursula's smile was devoid of humor. "You, bored? My dear, you don't know the meaning of the word. But you mentioned dancing."

"She's drunk too much," said Cornelius. "You have potent wine, Ursula. And the children were over-generous."

Children? Dumarest looked for the servants but they had gone. Had they been children? It was possible as most things were. Or was that just a euphemism?

"They do as they are ordered," said Elittia from where she sat at the captain's side. "But I am intrigued. A dancer, you say?"

"No. Not now. The wine-"

"Oiled your tongue. I understand. But once, surely, you could claim to know a little of the art."

Tuvey said, "Leave it, woman."

"Orders, Captain?"

"Sense. Drink some wine and sing us a song or something. Don't throw oil on a flame."

Advice she didn't follow and Dumarest sensed why. Jealousy showed in her painted face, in the glitter of her eyes, a flame which leaped and died but which he noticed before the bland mask was again in position.

"A dancer," she mused. "And, why not, a challenge? Now for the prize. This, perhaps?" Color glowed as she produced something from beneath her robe. "How about this?"

"My cube!" Sardia rose to her feet "My music cube."

Bought be Tuvey from Ahdram as a gift to his hostess or as an item of trade. Used now by its present owner as bait.

"Your cube? Not yet, my dear, but if you can dance better than Ursula it is yours. You agree?" Then, as Sardia hesitated, her voice grew harsh. "You had enough to say before and were eager enough to boast of the prowess of your friend. Are we to assume that it was only the wine at work? If so, an apology-"

"No!" The old woman had been clever with a cunning learned from her paramour or one he had learned from her. Sardia fell into the trap. "I've nothing to apologize for. If it will entertain the company I will dance. And if the cube is a prize I will try to win it."

But not too hard, thought Dumarest. Remember you are a guest. Don't try too hard.

Advice she didn't hear and, if she did, would have ignored.