World of Promise

Chapter Five

"Earl!" Sheen Agnostino smiled as she came toward him. "It's good to see you again."

"You will help me?"

"Of course, but I'm not too sure of what you want. You were a little vague when you called. The computers, you said? You want to use the computers?"

"I want you to use them for me. Is it possible?" As she hesitated he added, "It's a matter of urgency or I wouldn't ask. That's why I don't want to use the normal channels- there would be delay and I'd have to hire an expert and, well, you know the system." One feeding on another and charging as much as the traffic would bear. Cost he could meet but time he could not afford to waste. "I'll pay, naturally, just let me know the fee."

"Earl, surely you don't think I'm that mercenary?"

"I will pay." He was firm. He'd learned her financial condition as they had traveled together and was glad of it; now he had a lever to gain her cooperation. "Don't refuse, Sheen, on this world you can't afford to be generous." He delved into a pocket. "Will this be enough?"

She looked at the coins, thick octagonals each set with a precious gem, each enough to support her in comfort for a month. A dozen of them lying in the hollow of his hand. "Earl, I can't-"

"There will be a fee for use of the terminals, right?" He knew better than to bruise her pride. "Please, Sheen, I need your help."

His appeal held more weight than the money he offered and he relaxed as, slowly, she took the coins. Money to ease her tension, to provide sustenance, to gain her a coveted position. To provide security and, for him, her aid now and her silence later if she should be questioned.

"We'd best go to the central node." The decision made, she was all efficient action. "I'll get you a technician's smock and you'd best carry a clipboard. Just look thoughtful and act deaf if anyone should talk to you. If you can't avoid a reply say that you're checking on the monitor system." A suspicion verified. He said, "So records are kept?"

"Of course-how else to know the information flow and dispensation of charges." She added further explanation as, after seeing him muffled in a smock, she led him into the underground depths of the computer system. "At first each university had its own computer and data banks but it was decided that it would be more efficient to combine all resources. After all there is nothing really secret about knowledge and a data bank is basically only a library, so all gained by the pooling of facilities. Arrangements had to be made for the dispersement of income but that was a relatively minor problem. The main trouble came in arranging a feedback of resolved data into the general banks."

She talked on, explaining, acting as one colleague to another, her voice low enough to avoid being overheard by those who passed by-technicians, Dumarest noted, wearing smocks similar to his own. Mature men and women with a scatter of younger types who, like Sheen, were taking a postgraduate course. At a corner a grizzled oldster wearing the crossed flashes of electronics snapped, "Your business?"

Dumarest gave it, waited as Sheen spoke in turn, moved on as the man waved permission.

"A check," she explained. "Sometimes students try to sneak into the central node and gain the answers to various test papers. It means nothing."

Dumarest wished he could share her confidence. If the man were efficient he would check, and if he did a record would be made. If nothing else, he could be evicted with his business undone.

"Here." Sheen paused at a door. "We'll use this terminal."

It was a screen above a keyboard set before a chair in a room painted a drab gray. The light did nothing to soften the bleakness. Dumarest looked at each corner, checked the rim surrounding the screen, finally leaned his back against a side wall with the door to his right. Sheen Agnostino frowned as he told her what he wanted.

"To track a man, Earl? His absences, journeys, returns? Is that all?" Her white teeth gnawed at her lower lip as she listened. "I see. Well, let's start with the name. Boulaye? Rudi Boulaye?" Words danced in whiteness over the screen to steady into marching columns. "Excellent qualifications," she murmured. "High reputation as far as academic achievement was concerned. All history, of course, he is no longer connected with the faculty of any university."

"But the records remain?"

"Unless erased, yes." Her fingers moved as Dumarest spoke. "Ten years, you say? Ten?"

"From twelve to ten." This was a guess but the time bracket should be wide enough. "He went on a journey and returned to take up his duties again until he left after his marriage about eight years ago." Unnecessary details, the entire known life-span of the man should be stored in the data banks. Dumarest scanned the words appearing on the screen, heard the woman's comment.

"Nothing unusual there, Earl."

Nothing-but there had to be more. Dumarest narrowed his eyes as he checked the columns; lists of classes, periods of study, absences, illnesses; the trivia of normal existence. An inexperienced operator would have wasted time checking them all but Sheen knew what she was about.

"A journey," she said. "He could have booked through an agency." The words flickered and changed on the screen. "Thirteen years too far back?"

"Check it out."

A long time but not impossible, yet if the man had found what he had been looking for how had he managed to restrain his impatience for so long? Another question to be added to the rest-another answer impossible to find.

"He took a ship to Karig just over twelve years ago." Sheen glanced at Dumarest from her position before the screen. "The only journey he took before leaving for Elysius about-"

"I know about that. How long was he away?" Dumarest frowned at the answer. "Ten months? Are you sure?"

"That's what the data says." Sheen touched more keys as she made a cross-check. "From time of obtaining leave of absence to time of resuming his academic duties a total of ten months eleven days." She anticipated the next question. "It would have taken six months normal to reach Karig."

Which meant Boulaye had never reached the world he had booked as his destination. Again Sheen, anticipating, provided the needed data.

"The vessel was the Mantua, a free trader operating on the fringe of the Iturerk Sink. It would have called at Alba and Cilen before reaching Karig."

If it had followed its posted schedule, but free traders followed profit not routine. It could have missed either or both the named worlds if Boulaye had paid high enough to gain a private charter. Or had the man left the ship at the first port of call? If he had then where would he have gone?

Ten months-in a sector of space in which suns were close and worlds numerous the choice was large.

"Earl?" Sheen Agnostino was waiting at the screen. "Is there more?"

"Check Varten and Hutz." Names gained from Tomlin and Cucciolla as planets visited while on the quest. Lies to add to the rest; neither could have been reached in the available time. Yet Boulaye had found something-where? "Check the transit time to Alba," said Dumarest. "Double it and deduct it from the total. Halve the remainder and check on what worlds could be reached in the available time."

An elementary exercise but even as he gave the instructions Dumarest realized its futility. There were too many imponderables: had ships been available? Had Boulaye retraced his path exactly? Had he even left on the Mantua at all? A passage booked was not necessarily a passage taken as he well knew. A man, suspicious, hugging a rare and precious secret, could well have taken a few elementary precautions to avoid potential followers.

"Two worlds, Earl." Sheen turned to face him as she made her report. "Tampiase and Kuldip."

"Kuldip?"

"The closest." Her face glowed with reflected light as she turned again toward the screen. "You know it?"

"I've heard of it." He remembered Charisse, the Chetame Laboratories-could there be a connection? A moment's thought and he dismissed the idea-what would a geologist have in common with a genetic engineer? But what connection could Boulaye have had with any of the named worlds? What clue had guided his search? Where could he have obtained it? Dumarest said, "Can you run a wide-spectrum search pattern, Sheen? I want anything which could tie Boulaye in with Earth."

"Earth?" She turned toward him, her profile etched with light, but she did not smile. "Earth," she said again and busied herself at the keyboard. Words flickered to form a column. "Earth," she read. "Ground. The home of a small animal. An electrical connection. Soil. A mythical planet. The opposite of sky. Crude as in 'earthy.' To-"

"The world," interrupted Dumarest. "Check Boulaye with that."

A moment then, "That's odd." Her voice carried surprise. "There seems to have been a deletion. I'll try rerouting." Her hands moved with skilled practice as she explained what she was doing. "There is more than one way to ask a question, Earl, and a good computer operator knows how best to get the desired information. If you can't pass it then go around if or over it or attack it from the rear-ah!" She fell silent, looking at the screen. At the single word it contained.

"Erased," said Dumarest. "Everything?"

"Not the data."

"Then-"

"No," she said. "It can't be done. Think of a room," she urged. "One filled with a billion books. Books which hold the answer to every question you care to ask. If you wanted to build something, a raft, for example, they could tell you how. But you'd have to dig. One book might teach you how to temper steel, another how to cut a thread, a third how to weld. More would teach you how to mine for minerals, smelt metals, process the raw supplies. Then you'd need to discover the correct alloy for the antigrav units and how to make the generator and all the rest of it."

A lifetime of work and that was knowing what you wanted to begin with. But, once done, others could follow.

"Boulaye?"

"He erased the program," she said. "Whatever he was looking for he didn't want others to find." Pausing, she added, "I'm sorry, Earl. It's a dead end."

"No!" He had worked too hard, risked too much, come too far to give up so easily. More quietly he said, "Check it out, Sheen. Try everything you know. Perhaps there could have been an accompanying program, dual references, something like that." He waited as her fingers manipulated the keys, spoke again before she could shake her head, "Erce. Try Erce."

Nothing. She said, "It's not even listed, Earl. Is it a word? A name?"

A dream or a lie, something culled from a rotting book or a device to gull others-Dumarest thought of Boulaye, of how the man had died. Would he have enjoyed such a jest? Who would have known if he had?

The day had darkened with a bitter wind whining from the north, the air filled with stinging pellets of ice which settled to form a slick film on the streets and buildings. High above the flags streamed from their poles, ranked as sentinels against the sky, their gaudy hues paled against the leaden clouds. Soon it would be dark with manmade stars illuminating the heavens; patches of glow from serried windows, pools of lambence from lanterns, light which would mask but not remove the misery of those caught in the storm.

"Please, mister, I'm in the third year. One more semester and I'm home dry." A hand opened at the end of a swaddled arm. "A veil, mister. Just a veil."

A student at the edge of desperation or a beggar pretending to be just that; the voice was one Dumarest had heard on a thousand worlds, the whine as much a part of poverty as were sores and rags and skeletal faces. He walked on, turning into a narrow alley, leaving it to cross a wide avenue, skirted a bunch of students studying beneath a suspended lamp to watch others busy getting garlands on lines set high across the thoroughfare. The holiday gaiety was unmatched by the dour foreman who shouted instructions as he beat his hands against the cold.

"Tighter! Get them tight, damn you! Unravel that streamer and space the ornaments out evenly. You want to get paid let me see you move!"

The orders were fretted by the wind as were the flags and streamers, the garlands and gaudy decorations. Dumarest moved on, conscious of the grit of fatigue in his eyes, the ache of tension maintained too long. With steam and icy showers, hot blasts and relaxing heat he tried to get rid of them both, ending after the treatment lying on a soft couch wrapped in a fluffy blanket attended by an obsequious girl.

"You wish to sleep, sir?" Smiling she lifted the headband she carried. "An hour or a day it makes no difference. A touch and microcurrents will impinge on the sleep center of the brain and bring instant rest. The cost is small. For a little extra you could enjoy a sensatape attuned to the sleeping condition which will induce fantastic and erotic dreams. No? A tuitional tape, then? We have a wide variety covering a multitude of subjects." Her smile became more personal, more inviting. "Of course if you wish for something other than sleep that, too, can be arranged."

"Some coffee," said Dumarest. "And something to eat."

The coffee came in a pot decorated with shimmering butterflies, the cakes molded in a variety of shapes: cones, diamonds, hearts, loops, squares, tetrahedrons, all tinted in a diversity of hues. Luxuries Dumarest could have done without; the coffee was for the caffeine it contained, the food for its energy content. Eating, he thought about Myra Favre.

Why had she lied?

The men she had promised to introduce him to had not been at the party. Tomlin had moved long before and Cucciolla was almost housebound; things she must have known when she had so casually mentioned their names. Or had it been as casual as it had seemed? And why the invitation to be her guest?

Dumarest ate a cake and tasted mint and honey as he sought for reasons other than the obvious. She was not a creature of passion though she played at being passionate. A woman in her position with her influence would not want for lovers even if the partners she chose acted from self-interest. A reluctance to give cause for gossip? A possibility and he considered it, remembering the acid comments made by Jussara at the party. The spite of a jealous woman or a natural-born bitch-would Myra have wanted to avoid creating potentially awkward situations?

He drank more coffee, needing the stimulus it gave. Fatigue brought its own dangers; accumulated toxins could slow reflexes and dull the intellect and now he had to make a decision while knowing, inwardly, what that decision had to be.

If wise he would ignore the woman, but, unless he saw her, he would never resolve the one chance he had of finding the truth.

Outside the night had turned savage with ice crusted on the drooping garlands, adding a frosty haze to the lights as it sharpened the teeth of the wind. Dumarest walked quickly, following a memorized route, heading toward the tall building where Myra Favre had her apartment. It was high toward the roof, faced with a narrow patio edged with a parapet from which could be seen the loom of distant hills on a fine day, the glare of the field at night. At the street door he paused, wondering if she had changed the lock setting, but the mechanism operated and he stepped into enveloping warmth.

Riding up in the elevator, he wondered if she would be at home. He could have phoned but had preferred to arrive unexpected and unannounced. A gamble; he did not have access to the actual apartment only to the building; if she was out he had wasted his time.

A gamble he won-she opened the door at his ring and, suddenly, was in his arms.

"I was a fool," she said. "Stupid. But those bitches and Jussara-Earl, can't you understand?"

He said nothing, looking at the apartment, the woman standing before him. She wore a loose, one-piece garment which clothed her in glinting drapes from neck to ankle, the sleeves wide, banded at the wrists. The shoes she wore were thin and ornamented with sparkling gems. Her hair had been dressed in a style he had not seen before; locks touched with gold, set in sinuous waves, adding height and zest to her normal coiffure. Touches reflected in her makeup made her mouth seem larger, her eyes brighter. The artifice had given a temporary youth.

"You should have phoned," she said. "I waited for you to call."

"I was busy." He smiled and added casually, "And I thought you could be engaged."

"With Moultrie? Earl, must you remind me of my folly? Must I admit I was jealous?" Her hand rose to touch his arm, the fingers caressing. "Jealous and a little afraid. Happiness is such a fragile thing, Earl. A look, a word, and it can shatter into misery. Sometimes our own fear of losing it makes it happen. And some of us have too much pride." Her hand fell from his arm as she turned to where a table stood bearing a flagon filled with emerald and drifting flecks of ruby. "Some wine, my dear?"

It was new as was her gown, her appearance, the scent which hung in the air. Items bought to ease her misery or gifts for duty done? Dumarest remembered the greeting, the heat of her body, the pressure, the muscular quiverings as if she had exploded in a paroxysm of gladness or relief.

"You look tired." Again her hand rose to touch him, the fingers lingering in a caress, nails smooth and cool on his cheek. "I worried about you, darling. What were you doing?"

"Walking. Talking."

"To Ragin and his cronies?" Her shrug dismissed them. "Are you hungry? Shall I cook you something? Do you want to bathe?" Light flashed from the gems in her shoes as she crossed the floor to switch on a player. "Ieten's Seventh," she said as music throbbed in a low, passionate threnody. "Why don't you drink your wine?"

She had served it in a crystal container no larger than an eggcup set on a spiraling stem. Dumarest lifted it, let the liquid rest against his lips, tasted the ghost of fire and chill.

As he lowered it he said, "Why didn't you tell me you'd been Rudi's mistress?"

For a moment she froze, an image of glittering drapes caught in a fraction of time then, as fast as it had come, the moment had gone and she turned, smiling with her lips if not her eyes.

"Does it matter, darling?"

"Of course not. But it's a matter of mutual interest. Why not mention it as we're so close?"

"Perhaps that's the reason." She finished her wine and stood twirling the glass in her fingers. "Anyway it was a long time ago."

"Twelve years," said Dumarest blandly. "Nearer thirteen. Just what did happen on that journey?"

"Earl?"

He said flatly, "Rudi booked passage on a ship bound for Karig but we both know he never intended to go there. In fact I doubt if he left on the Mantua at all. What he actually did do was to join you on the Toratese. Or did you rendezvous on Alba?"

A guess but a good one and he saw by her eyes that he had hit the target. This luck added to that he had gained at the last when Sheen Agnostino had gained the item of information from the computer banks.

"You shouldn't keep such things secret, my dear," he said quietly as he took the glass from her hand and poured her more wine. "What did it matter what you did or where you did it? A relationship-who could have denied your right?"

"A man," she said. "My professor at the time. His name is unimportant but he had influence and he wanted me and I was ambitious. And Rudi was wanting in courage-I realize that now if I didn't then. We were lovers but to him it was a game. He wanted company on the journey and I hoped to-well, what does it matter now? It didn't work out."

"But you traveled together?"

"Yes." She looked at her glass and drank and set it down empty to straighten and look at Dumarest with bold admission. "A game, he called it, and he played it as if acting a part. The passages booked, the separate embarkations, the later meeting in a hotel on Alba. Our honeymoon he called it-the bastard!"

She was a woman hurt and unable to forget the pain of the wound, the damage to her pride. A promise had been broken and her body used as a convenience by a man from whom she had expected love. This passion had been little more than lust when robbed of affection.

Dumarest said, "But you lived together. You hoped he would draw closer. You spoke of his hopes and plans and ambitions." His hope, the only one left, that Boulaye would have told her what he had erased from the computer. The clue he had gained-the answer, perhaps. "Myra?"

"We talked," she admitted. "Or rather he talked and I listened. You must understand the situation," she added as if it were of momentous importance. "You've seen Jussara and the others. You know how spiteful they can be. The academic world isn't a gentle one, Earl. It's dog eat dog all the way. That's why I had to be careful. A matter of self-preservation. You can appreciate that."

"Of course. What did you talk about?"

Her hand rose to touch her hair as if seeking reassurance as to her appearance. Crystal tinkled as she refilled her glass, the thin tintinnabulation blending with the pulse of sound from the recording. Emerald and ruby gave her lips the moistness of newly shed blood.

"Things," she said when the need to answer became a demand. "General things."

"Did he ever mention Erce?"

"I'm not sure."

"Try to remember," he urged. "Try."

Remember the nights and the whispers in darkness, the voids needing to be filled when desire had fled and only emptiness remained. When the ego needed to reassert itself and savor the sense of mastery and a joke could be enjoyed if a joke had been played. He saw her eyes veil with ruptured time and her mouth grow hard before she shrugged and laved her lips with more wine. She drank too much wine for her own good but it could provide the key to unlock repressed memories.

She smiled as he handed her more.

"Aren't you drinking with me, Earl?"

"Of course." A lie compounded with further pretense. "To a happy meeting, Myra!"

"To love!" She looked at her empty glass. "Rudi never knew what it was," she said to the crystal. "To him it was a joke-why else should he have laughed?"

Dumarest's silence was question enough.

"I thought at first he was laughing at me but it was more than that. He had nothing but contempt for those who'd trusted him. An educated man, a professor, taking pleasure in his ability to lie and cheat and delude." She looked up with a sharp movement to hold Dumarest's eyes with her own, "Erce? You said Erce?"

"You've heard of it?"

"I'm not sure." Her frown traced creases between her eyes.

"There was something like it-a scrap of legend he mentioned one night after he'd rutted like a beast. Erce? No- Circe. That was it. Circe. Something to do with an ancient who had turned men into swine. A woman, naturally, who else would be to blame?"

Dumarest watched as, again, she helped herself to wine. The level now was low in the flagon, small motes of ruby clinging like miniature wounds to the upper crystal, scarlet tears suspended over an ocean of green. She moved with the careful precision of a person who lacks true coordination, over-reacting as the wine spilled over her hands, her laughter false and brittle.

"Green, Earl, the color of jealousy. Did you know I was jealous?"

The fruit of insecurity, of fear and hurt. Yes, he had known.

"As a child I did nothing but study. Learn and learn and learn all the time. Stuffing my brain with facts and figures until I dreamed of equations. A computer could have done better with far less effort and far greater efficiency, but my family was ambitious. Learn," she repeated savagely. "Deny yourself any pretense of childhood, sacrifice all your natural yearnings, eliminate all joys-and one day you'll win a degree and be rich and respected. Lies! God, Earl-how can they so torment a child?"

The glass snapped in her hand, the twisted stem turning into small spears which gashed her palm and sent red to mingle with the green. She dropped the shards with a small cry of pain, her lips gaining added color as she sucked at the wound.

"Let me see that!" The wound was nothing but his touch brought calm. He felt the quivering lessen as he wiped the flesh with a tissue, felt the heat, the sudden dawn of mounting desire. An emotion he did not share.

"Earl!" Her free hand rose to touch his hair. "Why do we waste time in stupid memories?"

"Circe," he said. "Was there more?"

The caressing fingers froze against his hair and her voice shared their sudden ice. "You prefer words to love, Earl? Talk to me?"

He said gently, "You spoke of ancients-let me tell you of something once told me on a distant world. To all things there is a season; a time to eat, to sleep, to taste the wine. A time to sow and a time to reap. A time to rest and a time to love." He paused while around them the pulsing music surged like the beating of muffled drums. "A pleasure anticipated is a pleasure doubled, Myra-or did they fail to teach you that?"

"That among other things-but since when has wisdom been found in books?" Her hand lowered from his hair and she turned again to the wine, shrugging as she saw the broken glass, turning again to face him, to look at him with a new confidence. "Wisdom," she mused. "You have it, Earl, the kind that must be learned and can never be taught. Kindness, too, so that you are gentle with a woman who lacks your strength. Compassion so you do not mock. Tolerance for her stupidities and, I hope, a measure of affection." Her eyes grew bright with unshed tears. "That, at least, Earl-do not deny me that."

The moment lengthened as the music came to an end, the sudden silence seeming to gain added dimension from the tension between them. The silence shattered as, from beyond the windows, came a sudden crackling and flicker of light.

"What-"

"It's the tests, Earl. The decorations-didn't you see them?" She was at the window before he could answer, the doors swinging wide to reveal the night, the small balcony, the railed parapet. More light shimmered on the frost and ice on both.

"Myra!"

"Come and look!" She smiled before stepping from the warmth of the room. "See? It's for the festival. The Ludernia-Earl, we'll have such fun! Look, darling! Come and look!"

The wind caught her hair, pressing the gown against her body as she moved toward the parapet and Dumarest saw her sway, one foot slipping on a patch of ice as she reached for the railing.

"Myra-be careful!"

He was moving as she stumbled, diving forward fast and low, seeing her turn, the sudden, startled look on her face, the eyes widening with horror as she fell back against the parapet. For a moment she seemed to hang suspended on the knife edge of a balance and then she had vanished and he was left with the wind in his hair, a shoe in his hand as he listened to her fading, dying scream.