Incident on Ath

Chapter Eight

The cube itself provided the music, a susurrating rhythm which held the sensuous beat of drums and the thin, frenzied wail of pipes. A tempo gaged to the beating of a heart so that, as it accelerated, so did the organ with the consequent release of adrenaline, the heightening of emotional fervor until pleasantry verged into hysteria.

Exciting music in a theater where space separated the audience from the stage and those performing. Insane to use a tavern where the dancer could be touched and men carried weapons and had the will to use them. Unwise even in this house before such people when it was played in the spirit of challenge.

Ursula said, "Will you dance first, Sardia, or shall I?"

"As you wish."

"Music repeated could be boring to those having to listen and if we dance one after the other the second will have the benefit of learning the other's interpretation. You have no objection to our both performing at the same time?"

"None."

"It won't detract from your concentration?"

Sardia almost laughed her contempt. How little this decorated and decadent fool really knew. She remembered the old days when she'd waited for hours dressed in her leotards, moving simply to retain warmth and muscular suppleness, running onto the stage to join a dozen others all eager to catch the producer's eye. A system which encouraged each to give of his best regardless of what another might be doing. To concentrate, to think of nothing, to feel nothing, to be nothing but a creature wedded to music. To become nothing but a priestess of the dance.

"No," she said. "It won't detract from my performance."

"Then let us begin."

A touch and the music died, another and it recommenced as the women took up their positions. Dumarest watched as around him rose a tide of murmured comment. Ursula was the younger and therefore should be more supple. Yet the other, older, could have gained the greater experience. Yet few offered to bet and those seeking wagers all wanted to back his hostess.

A matter of diplomacy?

Dumarest doubted it, the expressions in their eyes were enough to eliminate that consideration. Some of them, like Elittia, wanted Ursula to lose yet seemed to have no doubt of her ability to win. Others, interested more in the excitement of the dance rather than the challenge, settled down to drink and watch and drink again as they yielded themselves to the pulse of the music.

Listening to it, Dumarest studied the dancers.

Ursula was splendidly lithe, her gown a cerulean shimmer, darker hues accentuating the swell of breasts and the curve of hips, feet naked in thin sandals, the nails darkly painted. Her hair was a cloud touched with silver, her arms supple vines with extensions; fingers which flexed as did her thighs, her calves, the arches of her feet. A symphony in blue.

Sardia wore white and flame, the rich darkness of her skin a glowing contrast, her hair oiled jet which caught and held the light and transmuted it into ripples of flame. A goddess from the olden times when men had ventured into woods to worship trees and perform sacrifices to ancient deities.

A woman now reflecting her pride in the turn of her shoulder and the sweep of her hair. Hair which fell in a cascade as she freed it from its restraints. Cloth which ripped beneath her nails as she tore vents in the skirt to display the long, lovely curve of her thighs.

And yet, still, she did not dance.

The music was still relatively quiet, a thin wailing as of pipes beneath shadowed trees, the sonorous throb of drums in answer, the melodies building, blending, forming mental images of empty spaces and secret groves, of fires left abandoned to flare in guttering winds. Of the sound of distant seas and the relentless beat of natural forces.

Ursula moved to the rhythm as if it were a wind which gripped her and dictated the shift of her feet, the play of her arms, the sway of hips and shoulders, the jerk and thrust of breasts and buttocks. Sardia moved like a reed at the edge of a pond rippled by a gentle breeze, her eyes half closed, hands hanging lax, only the shimmer of light on her hair revealing the small movements of her body. A woman almost lost in a dream. A dancer, remembering.

An auditorium filled with waiting men and women, the air tense with expectation, the orchestra settled, the stage dressed, everything ready to go. And she, the prima ballerina, about to dance the difficult role of Hilda in Obert's Sacrifice to a Queen.

The part of a harlot who seduced men with the motions of her body as she danced in a tavern.

One who had to dance, finally, for life itself.

Again she remembered Obert's instructions.

"No techniques, no tricks, no pretty spinning on the points. Ballet training teaches you how to dance-now dance. With your body, with your mind, with your emotions-dance!"

Then she had won a standing ovation, awards, fame.

Now she could only win a cube.

The music caught her as she accepted it, yielding to it, letting her body become an extension of the beat, the rhythm. The ripple of muscle, the turn, the gesture, the sway of the hips all minor at first, all gentle, all helping to build the atmosphere and yet all hypnotic in their fascination.

Watching her Dumarest narrowed his eyes. Her face was different from that of Ursula and he glanced from one to the other, comparing, noting. The eyes half closed, the same but one held dreaming intent while the other had a detached glaze. And, too, Ursula's movements held a trace of deliberation as if she were listening to an instructor. A slight hesitation totally absent from Sardia's undulating grace.

Both interpretations of the music were basically the same-the rhythm left little choice. The beat was primeval and the dance was the same. Crudely done it would have been nothing more than a stylized depiction of sexual invitation; done as it was being done now it held connotations and subtleties which added layers of extra dimension to the elemental theme.

And Sardia was going to win.

There could be no doubt of it. Dumarest could see it, feel it, hear it as others shouted their approbation. It rose above the music now strident, dominating, driving the dancers as if it were whips. Thongs which lashed and sent yielding flesh into gliding postures, femininity exposed, displayed, flashes of curved limbs, hips which held the attention, gyrating, demanding, heating in wanton promise.

Ursula was accomplished but Sardia was transformed. A woman who had become a flame, dominating, destroying. One suddenly hurtful and cruel.

She had won, the yells had told her that, but still she continued to dance and each step, each movement, diminished Ursula's pretensions to ability. And still she continued, demeaning the other, belittling her, making her, by contrast, seem clumsy and totally inadequate.

"Enough!" Dumarest rose to his feet. "Captain, kill that music!"

The cube fell silent beneath Tuvey's hand as Dumarest strode through the wreathing vapor. Ursula ran past him, her face like ice, hard, cold, ugly, the tears in her eyes like glimmering pearls. Sardia turned toward him as he gripped her arm,

"Earl!"

"You bitch!"

"Why? because I did my best?"

"Because you didn't do enough." He stared at her, meeting her eyes, seeing in them a familiar expression. One mirrored on her face and which he had seen often when, after reaching th? climax of love, she had relaxed in his arms. "With your training you were certain to win-you knew that. So why the hell didn't you use a little charity?"

"Charity?" She almost spat the word. "That is for monks and fools! I can't afford to be charitable. Can you?"

"I try."

"You try?" Her laughter was shrill. "Were you trying when you cut Yhma's throat? Was that your charity? No, Earl, when I fight I fight like you. I fight to win."

And, winning, looked lovelier than ever before. He felt her attraction, his response to the sensual warmth of her flesh, the invitation of her body. She was his if he wanted her, he knew that. His for now and forever.

But Ursula knew of Earth.

She had run like a hurt and wounded animal and as such would have sought darkness and a place in which to hide. Dumarest passed through the door she had taken, saw a wide passage pierced with windows, a door which opened on darkness. It led to a small garden now brilliant with starlight, leaves catching the light from the windows which added a ghostly luminescence to the pale silver from the sky. Dropping to a knee he studied the grass and saw faint traces crossing the sward to where a clump of bushes cast a deeper gloom. Thin branches pressed against him and his nostrils were filled with the sickly odor of nocturnal blooms as he stepped into the clump. Three steps and he turned; dressed as she had been, Ursula would not have taken the path he was following. Back on the sward he dropped again, frowning at the traces he now spotted.

The marks of footsteps but more than one. Some light and another much heavier. A trampled place and then a wider swath leading toward the edge of the terrace. He moved forward, fingers questing, searching for torn grass and ripped loam but finding only smoothness. No struggle, then, just a meeting and a departure. Rising he saw a scrap of something hanging from a twig.

It was fabric, fine, blue, a part of the gown Ursula had worn and probably torn free when she thrust her way past the bush. Dumarest followed and found himself on a narrow, winding path. Pale, silver starlight made an elaborate chiaroscuro as if filtered through leaved branches. Something moved in the shadows and his hand dipped to rise loaded with the weight of his knife.

"Ursula?"

Nothing and Dumarest moved silently to one side. If an enemy were lurking in the darkness he had given him advantage enough. Now he edged forward, sliding from patch to patch of shadow, left hand extended, the knife in his right poised to strike.

Something moved before him, a blur which became solid as he lunged forward, a shape which held substance and which struggled against the grip of his left hand. It took form as he dragged it into the starlight, silver gleams reflecting from the edged and pointed steel he aimed at the face.

"No! Please, no!"

A woman and one he had seen before. In the starlight he examined the square-cut face.

"Your name?" The knife moved closer as she made no answer.

"Pellia," she said quickly. "Please! The knife!" Dumarest lowered it from where it had rested against her cheek, a spot of blood mute testimony to the sharpness of the point. A wound which would heal without trace but the threat of marring her beauty had been enough.

"I've seen you before. When the ship landed you were watching from beneath some trees. During the time of bidding. Why? What did you hope to see?"

"The bidding!" Her tone held contempt. "Why must you indulge their whims?"

"The Choud?" Dumarest eased his grip on the cropped hair. It was silken beneath his fingers, as soft as her voice, as the body he had touched beneath the blouse. A woman's softness overlaying firm muscle and well-constructed bone. As a child this one had never starved. "Why do you serve them? You do serve them, don't you?"

"I am one of the Ohrm, yes."

"And you serve?"

This time she made no answer but he needed no words. A servant, one who had learned to move quietly in the shadows and to watch and listen and learn-how little those who ruled realized how much they betrayed. And yet between her and those others he had seen in the house lay the difference between a pygmy and a giant. Were there others of as great a difference elsewhere?

She remained silent when he asked then shuddered as he lifted the knife.

"You would cut me? A woman!"

"I want answers. I'm looking for the mistress of the house. Ursula. Have you seen her?"

"No."

"People gathered on the lawn-yours?"

"A few. They come to watch but they did no harm. That I swear."

The truth or partly so, certainly they had done no harm to the sward and, had Ursula been attacked, she would have screamed or left traces he would have found. As it was he had only the fragment of cloth. Had she turned and gone the other way?

"Why are you watching?"

Again the silence, maintained even when he rested the knife against her cheek. For a long moment she stood rigid as the steel touched her flesh then, as it lowered, she released her breath in a gusting sigh.

"You didn't cut me."

"No, why should I?" Dumarest slid the blade back into his boot. "I'm just a visitor here and what lies between you and the Choud is your business. But take some advice, girl. When someone who threatens you asks a question give him an answer. It needn't be a true one as long as it satisfies." Then, without change of tone, he added, "Just why were you standing on the path?"

"Belain told me to. He-" She broke off, one hand lifting to her mouth. "You tricked me!"

"Yes. Is Belain your leader?" Her eyes gave him the answer. "Never mind. He set you to watch and to give a signal if anyone should follow, right?" Again he watched the flicker of starlight reflected from her eyes. As a conspirator she lacked practice. "What is going on?"

"You said you weren't interested."

"I'm not, just curious. Maybe I could help?" He waited then said, "Just as you wish. Are you sure you didn't see Ursula?"

"No, but I heard something before you came. Someone running up the path."

"A woman?"

"It sounded like a woman, yes."

Ursula, seeking heights and brightness and not depths and darkness, in that he had been wrong. Or she could have some private place in which she could sit alone to nurse her injured pride. To think and, perhaps, to plan her revenge. Sardia had been a fool and to delay longer would be to accentuate her folly with his own.

He said, "Pellia, tell me, has your mistress a favorite spot on an upper level? Ursula is your mistress?"

"No."

An assumption he had made without foundation- why should she belong to the household simply because he had discovered her close? And yet no establishment in a place like this was isolated; servants would talk, gossip would flow and the habits of one would be the knowledge for all.

"But you would know if she had such a place," he said gently. "Somewhere she would choose to be if hurt or upset in any way. I need your help. It is important that I find her and soon."

"Then ask another of the Choud."

"How would they know?" His hand fell to her shoulder, rose, a finger softly touching the spot of blood which marred her cheek. "For this I apologize. If you know where Ursula is to be found tell me and I will forget I've seen you here tonight. A bargain?"

"She is fond of heights," said the woman and her voice held bitterness. "It pleases her to look down on others. It pleases all the Choud. But if she has been thwarted you will find her on the upper terrace. There is a turret of stone surmounted by a crouching beast. In it she plots her revenge."

It rose like a ghostly castle in the starlight, a miniature palace set with fretted stone, dark with sprawling lichen, the beast above it a snarling, fanged shape radiating fury. Inside it was thick with shadows but the air held the taint of a familiar perfume and a section seemed lighter than the rest. A patch which moved and a face which caught the starlight and reflected it in the colorless semblance of a corpse.

"Ursula?" Dumarest stepped through the opening. "Are you here, my lady?"

"Why have you followed me?"

"I was concerned." The air held more than the odor of the perfume she wore, there was an acridity which spoke of insects and cobwebs and things which hid during the light of day. Imagination, probably, if she used this place then servants would have kept it clean. Or did she have a perverse attraction for mold and decay? "I came to escort you back to the house."

"So your harlot can gloat?"

"So she can apologize."

"Why?"

"She is a trained dancer, a prima ballerina. Almost her entire life has been spent in learning how to manipulate her body. The challenge was a farce from the beginning and one she should never have taken advantage of. It was the wine-she rarely drinks. And, too, I think she was more than a little jealous."

"Of me?"

"Can you doubt it?" Dumarest found a bench and sat down beside the woman. "Must I illustrate the obvious? You are younger than Sardia and she resented it. Your beauty also. Always until recently she has been the center of attraction and, in you, she saw mirrored what had been and would be no longer. Youth, charm, the ideal of men. Can you blame her for taking the only advantage she had?"

"The dance," said Ursula. "The dance."

"All she can do and even so her art is failing." It was no time to hesitate at a lie. "I watched you both. She bested you and you are woman enough to admit it, but in a year or two?" Dumarest shook his head. "A tree grows old and gains beauty with age. A woman gains maturity and can add to her attraction by the depths of her mind. But a woman who had nothing to commend her but muscular obedience-Ursula, she should be pitied, not blamed."

She said quietly, "I had planned to kill her."

And would have done and still could unless he could make amends. Sardia had been cosseted too long and had been forgotten if she had ever learned how vicious those born to wealth and power could be. The assassin, the subtle drug, the nerve-twisting poison, the killing bacteria-all were weapons easily at hand.

And who would mourn or revenge a lone traveler dying on a remote world?

"A guest," said Dumarest. "You would kill a guest?"

"Cornelius's, not mine."

"But still a guest of the Choud," he reminded. "At times, Ursula, we need to remember who and what we are. You are among those who rule on this world while Sardia is only a woman who acted unwisely while under the influence of wine. Already she regrets what she has done and wishes she could make amends."

"Such as an apology?"

An act she would detest but would do if he had to force her to her knees. Too much was at stake for him to pander to her pride.

"Yes," said Dumarest. "Even that."

"Even that?" Ursula lifted her eyebrows. "She means something to you?"

"We traveled together."

"And?" Her eyes watched his face; orbs filled with reflected starlight, pale ovals which glinted and looked as blind as glass. "Are you lovers?" She sighed at his nod. "So Tuvey mentioned to Ellitia. And yet you berated her for being less than kind. And you left her at the moment of her triumph when she needed you most. Your woman, Earl."

Dumarest said, "Not my woman, Ursula. Sardia isn't property. She isn't a slave."

"All women are slaves of their passion," she snapped. "As all men are victims of their ambition. It drives them like a goad and it can destroy them as love can destroy a woman. What is your ambition?"

"To travel."

"Why?"

"To search. To find."

"What? Happiness?" The turn of her head signaled her irritation. "What is happiness? Is it the contentment of a well-fed beast? Is it the lack of pain? Of hunger? Of doubt? Can you buy it? Make it? Find it in some forgotten place. Tell me, Earl, where can I find this precious thing?"

"In your heart, perhaps, Ursula. I know of nowhere else."

"Then why do you search?"

"For knowledge." He stretched and shifted so that his hand rested on his knee close to the hilt of the knife in his boot A habit born of time spent in shadowed darkness with things which threatened from the gloom. "It pleases me to discover odd facts associated with various legends. The mythical planets, for example. You must have heard of them?"

"No."

"Worlds that are supposed to exist and yet which no one seems able to find." His tone was casual. "Worlds such as Earth."

"Earth is no myth."

"So I am convinced and I came to Ath in search of it as I told you earlier. And you reaffirm my belief. The details you gave were fantastic. Such precision. You could even know the spatial coordinates. If so then it would be possible to locate the planet." He paused, waiting, but she made no response. "Do you know the coordinates?"

She said, "Earl, let us not concern ourselves with that now. Tell me, and be honest, do you find me more attractive than Sardia?"

"Yes."

"Are you positive?"

"Yes." She was talking about physical beauty and he was thinking of far more than that, but even so she held an attraction which set her high as the dancer though in a different style. Hers was the loveliness of carved perfection while Sardia held the warmth of all humanity, the fire and the passion of seeding and harvest. "Yes, Ursula. Yes!"

She came to him like a scented cloud, her arms lifting to fold around his neck, her body shifting so as to press against his own, the twin mounds of her breasts flattening beneath the pressure. And she was fire beneath the ice, long muscles rippling, hips moving as her lips sought his own, teeth and tongue adding their own urgency to the message she was sending, the need she made no attempt to hide.

It was natural to respond. To return the pressure of flesh against flesh, to lift his arms and to send his hand caressing her hair, the fingers gliding through the silken strands to follow the curve of the skull, to feel the odd roundness set firm beneath the scalp.

"Earl!" Her lips left his to rise over his cheek in search of his ear. To bite as she voiced her desire. "Earl, I need you! I need you!"

As he needed her, not for the brief satisfaction of relieved physical tension but for the knowledge he sensed she possessed. A need greater than any she could ever have known or dreamed could exist.

"My darling! Earl, my love!"

There was blood on her mouth, dark in the starlight, and warm wetness on his face where more had run from his bitten flesh. A harlot's trick once played on him in a tavern and rewarded then in a manner which had left its mark. Now he could not afford to be other than gentle. Other than kind.

"Ursula!"

"You love me, Earl? You love me?"

He had traveled incredible distances, fought, killed, suffered hardship and almost died in his search for Earth. A few pleasing words were nothing. Dalliance in this stone construction was nothing. Lies, promises, he would use them all to gain what he needed to know.

And then, abruptly, she stiffened.

"Ursula? What-"

"Be silent!" Her head tilted as if she listened to distant sounds. "Something is wrong."

She rose, suddenly cold, stepping to one of the slits which pierced the stone. Beyond rested the city, the lake, the field beyond. As Dumarest joined her, lights blazed from the houses and he could see running men head from the city, more on their way to the field. From behind the fence came little flickers of winking, ruby light.

They vanished in a gush of yellow flame.

A flame which limned the Sivas in harsh detail.

From somewhere below came Sardia's voice, high, shrill with shocked disbelief.

"The ship! My God, they've blown up the ship!"