“I have seen such things. It is a very old custom.”
“I feel like straw.”
“Go to sleep, little one. No one will touch the field.”
“I could almost smell the roses in your mind,” she murmured sleepily.
“Sleep, then, and dream of roses.”
Gilhame studied the line of her back, her spine straight even in sleep. He longed to reach out and touch her with his whole being. The smell of her warm body was almost unbearable, so close and touchable. He looked away, staring up at the ceiling, and tried to remember some other scent. He closed his eyes, tired now, and thought of all the flowers on all the worlds he had known.
Apples. The word came unbidden into his mind. He saw Alvellaina’s mother, golden-haired and azure-eyed, smiling at him. Her gown was blue, and she held a golden apple in one hand. A scrap of verse bubbled up from some time past.
I am the ancient Apple-Queen As once I was, so I am now,
Forevermore a hope unseen Betwixt the blossom and the bough.
Then slumber captured him and bore him away.
Chapter XIV
Gilhame awoke because he could barely breathe. Alvellaina had rolled over and pillowed her head on his good shoulder. Her eyes moved beneath her eyelids, and her arm, flung across him, twitched. The pard had curled up almost under his chin and was purring happily.
He debated whether to wake her, then took advantage of the moment to hug her a little closer. It was difficult to see her, the pard being very much in the way, in the manner of its race, but he hesitated to attempt any alteration of the arrangement, lest the sleeper awake and end the unexpected but welcome intimacy.
Alvellaina stirred and muttered in her sleep. Gilhame lifted the pard off his chest and set it on the bed beside him. Then he rolled Alvellaina off his chest, brushing her forehead with a kiss, and pulled himself a little further up in the bed. He sighed and tried to relax his injured shoulder. The pard rearranged itself in an unlikely position, and the woman seemed to settle back to sleep.
He stared and thought of roses and apples and the symbols of love on a thousand worlds. Finally, he realized that his body was in need of immediate relief. Gilhame ruthlessly disturbed the pard and got out of bed. He was surprised at how weak his legs were as he went into the privy.
He was still sitting there, wondering if he could make it back to his bed unassisted, when he heard a slight slithering
noise in the room. Gilhame envisioned assassins coming to complete the job Marpessa had botched, and looked for a weapon.
“Gilhame!” Alvellaina appeared at the door of the bathroom, looking frightened and knuckling her eyes.
“Yes?” He felt glorious. She had finally used his real name!
“I woke up, and you were gone!” She sounded peeved.
“I did not mean to frighten you, m’alba, but nature called.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“I did not realize I needed permission for my bodily functions.”
She looked at him and chuckled. “Come on, brave soldier, let me help you back. You are the color of a winding-sheet.”
“Well, I was wondering how I would manage it,” he said, with as much dignity as the situation permitted. He tugged up his shorts.
Alvellaina drew his right arm over her shoulder and tried unsuccessfully to stop laughing. He leaned against her, glad that she was a tall woman, and enjoyed the nearness.
When she had gotten him back into bed, Gilhame asked, “What are you laughing at?”
“Is there anything sillier in the cosmos than an undressed male? I wonder what the Creatrix was thinking of?”
“Even the gods have a sense of humor,” he answered calmly. “You have a real talent for making me feel foolish. But, enough of that. I am hungry, still—‘yet,’ ‘again’? Please, no paste this time. Could you get me a bowl of rice meal, with milk, sugar and dried grapes? And some real tea. No more vile herbs. I am still burping that whatever-it-was. Ugh! And get me a medic. The shoulder is driving me crazy.”
“Yes, master,” she said with a suppressed smile.
“Was 1 peremptory?”
“No, just your normal self.”
“Oh.” She was gone.
The next four days consisted of eating, sleeping and
arguing, the latter with Alvellaina and old Vraser. They insisted on constraining him; he pushed himself and then was forced to admit that they had been right.
Alvellaina did not share his couch again, but returned to her rooms on the other side of the suite. Gilhame offered no comment on this nor on her single use of his given name. Alvellaina went back to “Admiral,” and he continued to call her “lady.”
On the fifth day, Vraser grudgingly declared him fit, if not completely recovered. “I would appreciate it if you would not damage yourself again! I would rather single-handedly nurse a platoon with blood-flukes than you!”
“Farren, you act as if I got my shoulder hurt just to aggravate you.”
“And you behave as if I were forcing you to bed for my pleasure.”
As there was no answer to this, Gilhame just got dressed in a black, floor-length caftan embroidered with golden dragons doing a number of unlikely and obscene things. The lack of a weapon fretted him, even in the safety of his apartments, but he could not find the little wrist-knife which Alvellaina had used, and his boot-knife was gone too.
He went to the comm and called a meeting of his senior staff. Alvellaina found him there a few minutes later. She looked at the gown in wonder, moving around him and studying the embroidery. “Where in the cosmos did you get that?”
“I believe it was made for me by . . . her name escapes me . . .in commemoration of an incredible affair. Where is my small knife?”
“Your knife? I don’t know. 1 think the security people may have it. How much of that is possible?” She seemed fascinated by the caftan.
“I would like it back. It has a good balance. Possible?” He looked at the reflection of himself in the mirror. “I suppose, if one is sufficiently athletic, highly trained in the arts of sexual gymnastics and has a reptilian spine, all of it. I personally find the achievement of this sort of extraordinary couplings rather unpleasant. One is so busy concentrating on subduing one’s muscles to reach some exotic climax that all the intimacy vanishes and one is left with an odd kind of emptiness. Still, if you are intrigued? No,.I see you are not. But I am glad the gown amuses you.” Alvellaina gave him a cold green stare, then returned to her study of the work. “If you didn’t do all those things, why did she put them on the gown?”
“She had quite an imagination, I seem to recall. Or perhaps she was rebuking me for my pedestrian tastes.” “There’s the door. I’ll be in my room if you need me.” Gilhame looked into her face. “I always need you, m’alba.” Alvellaina blushed and fled. Gilhame went to answer the door.
It was Ven Frickard, his flag captain, wearing his tan recreation uniform and frowning. He looked at Gilhame’s caftan, checked his timepiece and frowned more deeply. The buzzer sounded again, and Gilhame admitted E-varit and A-gurit. Gilhame quickly adjusted the lights to accommodate the Coalchee sensitivity. Buschard arrived. He gave ur Fagon a careful appraisal as he entered.
Frikard and Buschard had both visited him a few times during his recovery, supervised somewhat hostilely by Alvellaina, who tended to behave like a pard with one kitten. Each man had behaved quite characteristically. Frickard had struggled to determine precisely what data was absolutely necessary to impart and which could wait, and Buschard had tried not to fuss, and failed signally. Vraser had commented that Buschard had been more trouble than he was worth during Derissa’s illness— Bushard had a fairly high Healer potential, but was untrained.
Gilhame waved the men towards the refreshment center and waited until they had each gotten their particular preferences.
“Shall we begin then? Frikard, you go first. Whatever is bothering you may be less painful if shared.”
“Ye
s, sir. As I was coming over, a fac arrived. It appears . . . appears that an invasion of curthels is about to occur in the Faldarian sector.”
Gilhame attempted to rein in his very active imagination. Faldar, the world of the Living Dream, turned into a world of nightmare, despite his efforts? The curthels—the plague which had, to some degree, caused the Kardusian Empire to exist! Only a name, for no one had ever seen one, but the planet-wide madness they created was a matter of history. The madness had sent dozens of worlds back into savagery. But, for over two hundred years, it had seemed that the threat no longer existed.
Gilhame ur Fagon felt a stirring of the being whose body he inhabited. “He” had grown up on Faldar. There is sister Coralys and his son Hamecor still lived. Once in its history, Faldar had been a rather ordinary world, engaged in commerce and agriculture. But after the last curthel invasion, the culture had retreated into aesthetic contemplation. Now all Faldar exported was dreams and drugs. Oaths on Faldar were sworn “until the curthel return.” Unless dreams were a shield, there was no defense.
“I see. What, precisely, has occurred?”
“A ship—a trader called Himez—came into Copia three days ago. That’s a little mining world at the edge of the Faldar sector, where it abuts Nabatean space. He, this Himez, was concerned when he couldn’t raise anyone on the comm. Copia used to have a population of a little more than a thousand. When Himez and his people arrived, there were three. One was still engaged in violating the dead. The other two were busy hammering themselves to pulp. Typical CMrt/ie/-insanity, historically speaking. Himez froze the survivors and ran like the devil for Narbute. It’s the closest world with proper medical facilities.”
“What is the status of the fleet?” Gilhame asked.
“We can be out of here in six hours.”
The communicator made a rude noise. Gilhame rose to answer it. “What about your people, E-varit?” he asked as he crossed the room.
“We are ready, sir.”
“Good.” Gilhame picked up the pack of flimsies which the machine had coughed out. He turned over the pages swiftly. “We have twelve hours.” He continued to read. “I had no idea the Admiralty had a sense of humor.”
“What the devil are you talking about, Gil?” Buschard demanded.
“Our orders are to work in concert with the Eighth Fleet. That should be fascinating. No doubt dear old Guthry is as charmed by the notion as I am. Speaking of Gyre, what has been done with Marp—Captain Devero? Since she’s Gyre’s flag, has she been returned?”
Buschard grinned. “Gyre has registered several complaints—with us, not with the Admiralty—but we seem to have ‘lost’ Captain Devero. He seems to want her back rather badly. So, she isn’t in the fo’c’sle of the Harbinger, which, I believe, is the impression you had. She’s in the deep freeze.”
“Now, why would he want her back, other than because she’s his flag captain? It needs consideration, but it will have to wait. Meanwhile . . He began outlining the order of the fleet. The five men spent half an hour in this discussion. Then they emptied their cups and glasses and left.
Gilhame walked to the door of Alvellaina’s rooms and opened it. “Pack!” he shouted.
She came out in the green-and-silver uniform of a non-combatant attached to a fighting force. “I already have,” she said coolly. “Shall I pack your things?”
“If you would be so kind. The shoulder is still touchy, But, how . . .?”
“Frikard broadcasts.”
Chapter XV
Fourteen hours later the command staff of the Twelfth Fleet and their seconds sat in the darkened theater on board the Black Dragon and watched history tapes of the curthel invasion and the film taken by the trader Himez on Copia. A number of people left the room rapidly and returned whitefaced and sweaty. A few didn’t make it to the privy, and the room began to smell of nervous perspiration and vomit. Gilhame watched it all with a dispassionate eye as he paced back and forth at the front of the hall.
The lights came up, and he looked over his audience, noting the range of pallors from chalk to chartreuse. He waited until everyone had stopped fidgeting and coughing. “Are there any questions?”
“Has anyone ever seen one of these things?”
“No record of any sighting exists,” Gilhame answered. “Lieutenant Darkcut?”
She was frowning. “This is not precisely a question. It occurred to me that . . . what happened on Copia was somehow different from the tapes. I realize that the tapes are reconstructions and that there must be inaccuracies, but . . .”
“Sir?”
“Yes, Major Hameth?” Hameth was a historio-technician.
“If the Lieutenant is asking if the tapes have been
modified, the answer is no. The tapes are reconstructed from the Faldarian Dreamers, and record the actual memory of some of the survivors. The Kardus Historical Academy feels they are accurate. I have also seen records kept by the Havassit and the Orcadians, and they are identical.” “Thank you, Major Hameth,” Gilhame said. The sturdy little man looked startled. Gilhame frowned over Darkcut’s question. It was the psycho-historians’ job to interpret data, the historio-techs’ to gather and sort it. As a result, the two arms of the discipline rarely communicated and exhibited a rather muted hostility. ‘Herodotus, where are you now when I need you?’ he thought.
“I think I see what disturbs Lieutenant Darkcut. If the film sent by the trader and the records are both accurate, then the curthel have . . . what, mutated?”
“Sir?”
“Yes, Lieutenant Darkcut.”
“All the records show that curthel attacks have caused widespread hysteria and madness, but it appears that they were uniformly inner-directed. The incident on Copia is clearly otherwise. The bodies, particularly those of the women, show they were brutally abused, repeatedly raped, then smashed a little at a time with a blunt object. That they fought back is also clear. All of that is inconsistent with a curthel invasion. In a curthel invasion, the victims appear to have either battered themselves to death or immolated themselves in the fires of the cities.”
“Quite. There is a distinct, if subtle, difference in the actions of the Copians,” Gilhame answered. “Do you have any conclusions, Darkcut?”
“No conclusions, sir, but I do have some ideas I want to think about,” she answered.
“Think quickly, will you?” he replied, smiling. He glanced around at the raised hands. Of the hundred or so people in the room, only about six seemed to have questions or comments. He chose one. “Major Avillar?” Avillar—a tall, bony woman somewhere between forty and a hundred—stood up, the oyster-white of her Foreseer Corps uniform contrasting badly with her sallow skin and unkempt hair. Gilhame wondered why being a full-time
precognitive always seemed to produce such desperately unhealthy-looking people. Still, he saw, she carried herself with a kind of fragile dignity.
“Admiral, it was not a curthel invasion. It was intended to simulate one.”
One did not question a foreseer’s pronouncements. Unlike his var-produced visions, a foreseer’s were considered admissible in a court of law. They were a cautious, closemouthed bunch, and the problem was not the accuracy of their foresight, but getting them to say anything at all. It was rare that they volunteered information. Still, he felt relieved that he was not facing a curthel invasion. But what was it, then? “Thank you, Major.”
“It was in the nature of an experiment,” she continued as if he had not spoken. “A one-eyed. . . woman oversaw the preparation. She is an ally planning betrayal. The next attack will be on the Rope Dancers.” She crumbled back into her seat like a collapsing air sack.
Gilhame watched the frightened glances go from face to face around the room. Foreseers spoke in riddles and metaphors much of the time, which was one of the reasons they rarely volunteered information. Much of the knowledge they received was subjective, like his var visions. Always, the problem was interpretation.
On this occasion, ther
e was little doubt as to Major Avillar’s meaning. The Emperor’s sister, Araclyde, whose name meant “one eye,” and who was the wife of the Nabatean monarch, came into everyone’s mind. Araclyde had been a problem to her family almost from the moment of her birth. She had grown from a strong-willed and spoiled child into a woman of ungovernable passions and ambitions, ruthless and cunning.
The Rope Dancers? That was not clear. “Does anyone have any other questions or anything else to add?” He was suddenly very weary.
“Admiral?”
It was the chief of his chemistry staff, Lieutenant Commander Greyfus. Greyfus was a long, narrow man with a vague expression on his thin face. His eyes were so pale
that from a distance they seemed to be all white. “Yes, Greyfus?”
“Were water, soil and air samples taken by this trader fellow?”
Gilhame looked at the written report in his hand. He turned the pages over rapidly. “Yes. No analysis yet. Some samples are coming to us soon. Captain Leelial?”
“Were any of the victims dead-brained?”
“No. Himez didn’t have the facilities.”
“I’d like my people to go over a few of the victims, then.”
“Fine. Frikard, will you take over?” He handed the papers to the man and left the room. He loped through the corridors, wondering exactly what to report to the Admiralty. One did not accuse the wife of a ruling monarch lightly.
Alvellaina was curled up with the pard on her lap when he came into his rooms. He unbuttoned the front of his tunic and reached in to scratch the still-healing shoulder. Gilhame twisted his head from side to side to loosen his neck muscles, then noticed the table was set with food and drink.
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