The Return

Chapter Thirteen

There was nothing unusual on the screen. Stars, thinner now, made brilliant points of light against the dark space beyond the galaxy. Hanging like skeins of jewels other galaxies, incredibly distant, showed as luminous smears.

Patches of dust made enigmatic pools of darkness edged with stars scattered like a profusion of jewels. The normal visual spectrum as relayed by the scanners.

Together with something as yet unseen.

"Someone in trouble." Chapman touched a control. "Listen."

Sound murmured from the speakers. The whispering echo of tremendous forces blended into a susurration which held eerie connotations. The normal background radiation registering as sound, forming the siren-lure which could bring insanity. Over it, loud, harsh, demanding, rode a wailing ululation as if a hurt and wounded creature was crying in the void.

An emergency alarm from a vessel in distress.

"It's lying ahead and getting closer." Chapman studied his panels. "We'll be in contact before long.

Dumarest leaned closer to the screen. A wasted effort; no naked eye could pick a vessel from the immensity around them. Yet one lay out there, damaged, its field down, drifting and helpless, its radio-beacon calling for help. A forlorn hope. Rescue in space was rare. Here, so close to the Rim, those in distress were hoping for a miracle.

"Twenty!" Niall called the warning from his station. "We're almost on target. Nine! Mark!"

As the Erhaft field vanished and the Geniat ceased its hurtling progress a ship sprang into visibility on the screen. One small, battered, scarred, the markings blurred, the name barely discernible.

"The Evoy," mused Niall. "Too small for a regular commercial. It could be a free trader or a private vessel belonging to a wealthy House or ruler. In that case I'd expect it to be in better condition."

"Any communication?"

"No." The captain adjusted the image. "Schell's been trying ever since we heard the beacon. All we get is the alarm."

Which could mean that the ship was nothing but a drifting coffin. Dumarest studied it as it came closer. The hull was apparently intact so the damage had to be internal. A faulty ventilation system could have poisoned the atmosphere but would not have collapsed the field. Had the generator failed? Had there been some other reason? Mutiny? Murder? Madness? The impact of interstellar forces could give birth to bizarre consequences.

"We'll have to investigate," said Chapman. "Send over a team. Badwasi — "

"Have him scan the area," said Dumarest. "Check for another vessel."

"There could be people in there," protested the captain. "Sick, starving, dying."

"A little longer won't make that much difference. We should be prepared in case others have heard the beacon."

And be coming in to claim what was to be found. Salvage was rare in space and ships were valuable. Fights between rescuers were not unknown and only a fool would neglect to take elementary precautions.

"Nothing," said Chapman after Badwasi had reported. "But I'm having him maintain a watch. Now let's see what we've found."

"I'll attend to it," said Dumarest. "Have Zehava pick a few men. I'll meet them at the loading port. Try and get us closer."

Zehava was ready for space when arrived, suited, line and reaction pistol at her belt, helmet open. "I'm coming with you, Earl. Treibig and Lowish will make up the team." She gestured to where two men, suited, stood at her side. "Any objections?"

"Have they had experience? Have you?"

"Yes, to both questions."

"Then let's get going."

Suited, sealed, Dumarest led the way into the vestibule of the air lock. Lights flashed as, the cycle completed, the outer door opened to expose them to the void. Framed in the portal the Evoy, closer than it had been, still seemed very small and distant. A hard target to hit and one easy to miss.

Treibig's voice came over the radio, thin against the wail of the alarm. "What the hell is a ship like that doing out here?"

"That's what we're going to find out. You go first. We'll follow your line. Try not to miss."

"I won't miss."

Confidence matched by action. Snapping the end of his line to a ringbolt on the hull Treibig stepped from the lock. Magnetic boots held him fast as, tensing, he judged angle and distance. Flexing his knees he jumped into space, the line trailing behind him. For a moment it looked as if he would miss the target then, firing his reaction pistol, he made good his boast.

"You next." Dumarest slapped Lowish on the arm. "Wait where you land. Do nothing until I join you. Go!"

Zehava followed. She stepped back as Dumarest landed close. "What now, Earl?"

"We'll check the hull. Everyone spread out and search for damage. It needn't be major. Report anything you find."

He moved to the rear of the vessel as they obeyed, checking entry ports, the loading area, the door through which the ramp would be lowered after landing. All were intact and secure. Kneeling he ran gloved fingers over the plating. The signs of erosion were clear and he could feel a series of irregularities. Flakes of paint rose beneath his touch to dot his faceplate with a scatter of reflective brilliance. Wiping it clean he rejoined the others.

"Anything to report?"

"Nothing," said Treibig. "All seems as it should be aside from the attrition of the hull." His voice struggled against the noise of the alarm. "We'll have to force an entry and turn off the damned beacon!"

"No!" snapped Dumarest. "I don't want it touched!"

"But-"

"That's an order. If you want to argue report back to the ship!" More softly Dumarest added, "Something happened to this ship and we don't yet know what. Treat it as you would a bomb. The emergency hatch should be operational. Find it and get inside. Touch nothing."

As the two men moved away Zehava touched Dumarest's arm and, as he turned to face her, sliced the edge of her hand across her faceplate in an unmistakable signal.

Switching off his mike he touched helmets.

"Something wrong?"

"You tell me, Earl. Why all this fuss over a wreck?"

One traveling in the same direction as themselves. In a region of space where no ship could be expected. A coincidence he found hard to accept.

"We don't know how long it's been drifting. Those inside could have died of disease. They could even have rigged the ship to blow. Some people don't like to leave anything behind them."

The rich, the selfish, the arrogant. Those who would cling to life until the last then take a belated revenge on rescuers who arrived too late. Something she could understand.

"If this belonged to a wealthy ruler there could be treasure, Earl. The hold stuffed with riches. Valuable cargo. If-"

"Commander!" Treibig's voice cut her short. "Commander? Commander — respond!"

Dumarest activated the mike. "What is it?"

"We've gained entry. The pressure is low but the air is sweet and breathable. From what I can make out the generator failed."

"Don't touch anything! "said Dumarest sharply. "Check for life but do nothing else!"

He followed Zehava through the emergency hatch, Lowish coming towards them as they entered the ship. His helmet was open, his eyes open with excitement. If the air carried lethal bacteria he was already contaminated but the probability was slight and the risk small.

One Dumarest accepted. Treibig had been right about the air. The pressure was about half normal but it held an unexpected freshness.

"I smell something." Zehava sniffed the air as she removed her helmet. "Incense? Perfume? Are there women aboard?" She misunderstood Lowish's hesitation. "Don't be squeamish. I realize they could be dead by now, but did the ship carry women?"

"At least one," he said. "She isn't dead. She's lying in a casket."

Through the transparent lid her hair was a blaze of scarlet glory. Strands of flame wreathing the clear alabaster contours of her face, the long column of her throat. She was nude, the skin of her body almost translucent, unblemished as if she had been a statue carved by a master sculptor from a block of rare and precious marble. A figure he remembered. A face he would never forget.

"Earl!" Zehava was at his side. "What's the matter? You look as if you've seen a ghost."

He had.

Kalin.

Kalin of Solis lying before him as if space and time had no meaning.

"She's beautiful." Zehava drew in her breath as she looked into the casket. "God, but she's lovely!"

With a beauty which had been more than skin and hair and the moulding of flesh and bone. The inner spirit he had known, the person, the wonderful thing which had accentuated the outward form and made her unique among women. But the inner person had died and the shell, through still beautiful, had not been the same. Yet it was hard to remember that. Harder still not to respond in the way his nature demanded. To take her and hold and never, ever let her go.

"She is the Lady Lucia del Vigoda." Zehava read the name from a label on the casket. "Why would she be traveling without maids? A duenna, at least. The person in the next casket is a man. Calton Yemm."

His face was sharply aquiline, the hair a dark cap over a rounded skull, the closed eyes deeply sunken beneath strong brows. His body was slender, ribs prominent, skin taut over the pelvic area. The joints were delineated as if he were an anatomical specimen. His hands, folded on his chest, gave him the appearance of a corpse laid to rest.

Dumarest said, "Treibig, return to the ship and have Mauger come over to check the generator. We'll need the physician, too. Lowish, check the hold but watch out for booby traps. Zehava, see what's in the cabins."

"We'll do it together, Earl."

"No. I'm going to find the log."

He found it lying on the seat of the big chair in which the captain would have sat. Dumarest scanned it, frowning, then searched the bridge before checking both the radio-shack and the navigator's office. The steward's cabin was empty and unusually neat. The salon was too small, too bare. The spigots yielded neither water or basic.

"This is crazy," said Zehava, joining him. "No captain, navigator, steward, handler or engineer. No radio officer. Not even a maid, duenna or bodyguard. A woman like Lucia would never have traveled unaccompanied. What the hell happened?"

"It's in the log." Dumarest gestured towards it. "I'll explain what happened when we're all together."

It was a story stranger than most but not unfamiliar to those who spent their lives in the void. A private vessel making a routine journey from one star to another, falling victim to an unexpected disturbance, one which had brought disaster.

"They ran into a warp," explained Dumarest. "It sucked them in and, later, spat them back into normal space. Here." He gestured towards the hull, the void beyond. "They must have traversed almost half the galaxy. The navigator suspected they must have been held in stasis for a time. He wasn't sure. He was sure that the experience drove them insane. The steward and handler tried to rape Lucia, were beaten off by her duenna who was also her bodyguard and turned on her maids. They were — "

"The navigator?" Mauger frowned. "He wrote up the log? Why not the captain?"

"He died with the engineer when the generator blew. The maids were butchered and their killers died in turn."

"Which leaves just the duenna, Lucia, the navigator and the man in the other casket," said the engineer. "How is he, Chagal?"

"Fair enough," said the physician. He was a big man, older than most of the others, but sharing, despite his profession, their indifference to the value of life. "He'll make it. The woman too, but he's running out of time."

Lacking the essential body-fat which alone could maintain life while in the casket. Metabolism, slowed, still demanded energy and many traveling Low starved before or during resurrection.

Lowish said, "What happened to the others?"

'There are only two caskets," said Dumarest. "Did you find any food?"

"No food and no water. The cargo is made up synthetics and manufactured goods. Valuable but inedible."

"They starved," said Treibig. "But what happened to the bodies? Maybe they — " He broke off, shrugging. "Why guess? The man can give us the answer."

He sat beside the casket, shivering, the cup of basic trembling in his hands. Food brought from the Geniat together with other items. Patiently Dumarest waited until the container was empty.

"What happened? Tell me."

"Later," said Chagal. "He's in no condition yet."

"Have you ever ridden Low?" Dumarest stared at the physician. "I have. I know what he's capable of. What happened, Yemm? Tell me."

The story was much the same as he had read from the log. The warp, the strange forces which had seized the vessel. The death and despair. The grim, final decision.

"With the generator gone we had no hope. Madness had taken too many lives. The food and water were exhausted. There was only one thing to be done. We had to utilize the caskets."

"Why you?" Dumarest leaned towards the man. His recovery had been fast. Already Yemm had stopped shivering and was in command of himself. "The woman had a duenna. The navigator was still alive. Yet they allowed you to take the one remaining casket. Why?"

"It was necessary."

"Why?"

"The decision was made. It was the only one which could have been made. I had no choice but to abide by it. To have refused would have been illogical."

"Why you?" Dumarest added, coldly, "I shall not ask again."

A statement of intention more chilling than any threat. Watching, Zehava saw Yemm look at his hands as if to find comfort and strength in their familiar configurations. A man who must know the position he was in. The ship and all it contained was now the property of those who had found it. His own life had no value. If he was evicted into the void who would complain? Yet he had courage. Not until Dumarest turned, hand lifted to signal, did he speak.

"The Lady Lucia was bound for Kruge there to marry the younger son of Tyrant Manukian. You will have noticed the color of her hair, the translucent quality of her skin. Her eyes, if open, would be emerald. She is the product of centuries of selective breeding. The son of the Tyrant has similar characteristics. On both their worlds it is the mark of aristocracy. The cargo in the holds constitutes her dowry. The duenna had sworn to defend her charge with her life. She did what needed to be done."

"She killed the navigator?"

"It was painless. She evicted his body into space. Then she sealed me into the casket. Afterwards, I assume, she followed the navigator."

A quick death instead of starvation and the torture of thirst. But why had Yemm received special treatment?

"The Lady Lucia has a malfunction of her nervous system," he explained. "It became manifest when she reached puberty. A derangement of the synaptic responses caused, it is thought, by a wild mutation which releases hampering elements from the endocrine glands. The condition can be held in balance by the introduction of living cells which act as beneficial antibodies."

He glanced at the casket holding the woman then back at Dumarest, his eyes darkly enigmatic.

"My tissue culture matches that of the Lady Lucia. My glands have been adapted to produce the essential antibodies. My life maintains her own. Without me she dies."

The cabin held traces of her presence; silks and rich brocades, a cabinet which held gowns, a box which held a profusion of jewels. Things which held the ghostly scent of expensive perfume as did the air, the books and covers, the papers scattered on the bunk.

Dumarest watched as Chagal probed among them. "Is it true?"

"According to what's here,yes."The physician straightened a computer print-out in his hand. This is a report from the Sung-Hagen laboratories on Kruge. It deals with tissue matching and is a copy of one I found in his cabin. He appears to have spoken the truth."

"Appears?"

"Anything can be fed into a computer. What he claims is possible, but hard to prove without tests. I can't run them. I haven't the equipment or the skill. But why should he lie? What would be the point? What could he hope to gain?"

Questions to add to others. Dumarest moved about the cabin, touching, imagining the woman who had occupied it. One warm with vibrant life instead of lying wrapped in the chill of simulated death.

"What would happen to her if Yemm died?"

"She would follow him. The synapses govern the electrical impulses which pass along nerves. Block or distort them and you get paralysis, disorganized muscular responses, failure of the brain to receive and relay vital information. Death would be inevitable and not pretty to watch."

"Why Yemm? Why not drugs?"

"Her condition may not respond to synthetics. It is safe to assume they have been tried and failed. Fresh cells given at regular intervals from someone like Yemm could be her only hope." Chagal added, "Think of it as a blood transfusion. A living donor would ensure a continuous supply."

Neat, logical, all of a piece as was everything else about the Evoy. Too neat. Too logical. Like a puzzle which had been constructed to carry a specific message, to bear an unmistakable pattern. Somehow it didn't ring true. The vessel had known madness, death, violence, murder, sacrifice and suicide. There had been starvation and the horror of thirst. Yet everything was clean, neat, the air sweet with the hint of perfume. Even so there was nothing tangible he could regard as proof as his suspicions. Everything could be explained by madness, habit or blind, unthinking obedience. A discipline which had tried to find security in the continuing of unessential tasks.

Dumarest returned to the hold where the caskets were housed. Yemm, dressed now in dark fabrics, stood at the head of one holding the woman as if at his station or on guard. His face was impassive.

Zehava turned as Dumarest closed the distance between them. She too had been looking at the woman in the casket.

"Well?"

"There are valuables in the cabins. Collect them and have them ready for transfer."

"What about the woman?"

"She can wait."

"With respect, commander, I must disagree." Yemm laid a hand on the transparent lid. "Even though the metabolism of the Lady Lucia has been slowed the deterioration of her nervous system is progressing. Unless she receives treatment she will wake an imbecile. She might not even wake at all."

"Chagal?"

"He could be right." The physician scowled as he studied the figure in the casket. "It would be a damned shame to ruin a body like that. Resurrect her and I'll supervise the transfer of tissue. Yemm will advise me on the correct procedure. He has all the equipment needed in his cabin. Do it," he urged. "What have you to lose?"

Nothing or perhaps too much. Dumarest looked down at the woman in her frozen sleep, feeling the turmoil of conflicting emotions. Of caution against the urge of old associations. To arouse her could be to wake a demon better left asleep, but to allow her to die could bring eternal regret.

"Do it," whispered Zehava. "Earl, you must!"

To press the right controls and to wait, watching, counting as the seconds slipped by. Living again in memory the experience of resurrection. To rise through layers of ebon chill as the eddy currents warmed flesh and bone and interior organs. Sensing the injected drugs which guarded against the agony of returning circulation. Knowing when the electric stimulator ceased and allowed the heart to beat under its own power. The resuscitator yielding to allow the natural function of the lungs. To wake as if reborn, hearing the pneumatic hiss as the casket opened, rearing upright, glowing with the euphoria of resurrection.

Within minutes he could hold Kalin in his arms and know again the wonderful ecstasy of her love.

But later — for now it was best she stayed as she was.