by E. C. Tubb
A child, but like a child he would learn as all the Choud would learn. As they had to learn if they were to survive.
"A moon," said Dumarest. "Think of a moon. Describe it to me. Tell me where it can be found?" He looked at the blank face and uncomprehending eyes. "Terra," he said. "The moon as seen from Earth. "Where is Earth?"
A hope which died as Cornelius frowned and turned back to his painting. Once he could have answered with facts and figures, given the spatial coordinates and so pinpointed the location of the world which had become a legend. A simple question would have done it-why hadn't he asked it?
So close!
So very close!
"Earl! You're looking as you did in the garden! As if you wanted to kill someone. But Cornelius isn't to blame. You can't-"
"No." Dumarest shook his head. "No, he isn't to blame and I won't hurt him. Have you assembled his paintings? Are they here?" He walked across the room to where canvases lay piled on a table. "Tuvey is leaving at sunset."
"I know. I'm not leaving with him." Sardia came to stand at his side, to look as he was looking at the topmost portrait. It was of the degraded angel. "You spot the resemblance?"
"This isn't you."
"No? How can you be so sure, Earl? What do you know of me? Cornelius saw beneath the skin and into the heart." She reached out to touch it. "It's yours if you want it."
He lifted it without answering and looked at the one below.
"The suspended man," she explained, "He told me about it. He had yet to finish it. The face-" She drew in her breath.
"His face."
"Once, yes, but he must have added touches since I saw it last. Now it resembles someone else." She looked at him. "He must have done it after you'd met at the dinner. After I'd made a fool of myself."
"After you'd danced," he corrected. "If there is a fool on this world it isn't you. So you're staying?"
"Yes. They need help and I can give it. And I'm hoping that he'll get it back." She glanced at Cornelius. "It still has to be there. Genius isn't something you learn from a book or gain from a computer. He has it and maybe I can get it to flower again. It may take years, even a lifetime, but it's something I have to do. Can you understand that?"
"Yes," said Dumarest. "I can understand."
"We have an agreement, remember?"
"Forget it."
"I can't do that. These paintings are of value and should compensate you. You could take them to a man I know and let him sell them for you on a commission basis." She saw his expression. "No?"
"No." He added, "Cornelius could need them. They might trigger his latent talent or something."
"Then take one at least," she urged. "This one. I'd like you to have it. To give you something by which to remember me."
"I don't need that to remember you, Sardia." Dumarest made no move to take the painting. "And I need to travel light."
With his clothes and knife and little else aside from his memories but they would burden enough. As would be the pain he had known, the broken hopes, the aching loneliness.
She turned, looking at Cornelius, seeing him staring at her, one hand extended. He smiled as she took it in her own, comforted, satisfied and contented as a man could be who has found the thing necessary to his happiness. The thing most men needed; a woman who loved him and whom he could love. A simple thing but Dumarest-Dumarest needed to find a world.
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Document ID: fbd-f8a1d0-0533-1f4b-51aa-be6c-9642-3cb13b
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Document creation date: 07.03.2010
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