"Since I'm unsuitable, I won't bother you further." He felt quite awkward, sorry he had come here, yet also deeply regretful. He had been braced to meet a different sort of woman; for one like this, he would do almost anything.
"No, wait," she said quickly. "I didn't mean to—please, sit down, have some tea."
"That's not necessary, thank you. I'm intruding. This whole business—" He turned away—and paused. Gawain was right there behind him, spreading his arms to block his retreat. He did not want to walk through the ghost.
Orlene came up and took his arm. Her touch was light and gentle and utterly right; he had a momentary mental picture of a porcelain statuette, a work of art, inconceivably delicate, precious, and cool. "Please," she repeated.
"He set it up," Norton said, indicating Gawain.
"You don't have to say that," Orlene said, sounding just a bit nettled. "You don't have to justify yourself."
"Yes, I do! He's your husband! I can't simply—even if I were satisfactory, I mean, it would still be wrong."
"My husband is dead," she said.
"I know. That's why—" Norton shrugged, confused about his own emotions, wishing he were back in the forest. "How can you face him like this and—?"
"Me?" she flared. She was one of those few women who really did seem as pretty angry as happy. "How can you men exchange stories, and use a great warrior's death to try to—to—!"
"But he told me!" Norton said. "Gawain brought me here! Ask him! He'll tell you!"
She looked into Norton's face, then turned away, hurt. He felt like a monster who had just pulled the wings off a dozen beautiful butterflies.
"She can't see me," Gawain said. "She can't hear me. I told you that. She doesn't really believe in me."
Norton was shocked. "You mean she thinks this is just a scheme to—to hit on—?"
"I told you you'd have to handle the introduction yourself," the ghost reminded him. "She's ready to accept you; don't mess it up."
Norton turned to Orlene again. "You really can't see or hear—Gawain?"
"Of course I can't," she said, her face still hurt. "Only his picture." She gestured to a framed painting on the wall inside.
Norton turned around to get a better view. It was Gawain, garbed in his armor, with a dragon painted on his shield and X'd out. The bold killer of dragons.
Norton shook his head. "This is all wrong. I think I have insulted you, Orlene. I misunderstood—the situation. I apologize and I'll leave."
"Oh, you mustn't leave!" she protested. "I don't care what brought you here, really. You glow so brightly! I never expected to see—"
"I glow?"
"Her magic power," Gawain said from outside. "The right man glows. You're it, all right."
"It's hard to explain," Orlene said. "It doesn't mean I like a man, or want to. It just means that, objectively, he is—" She spread her hands helplessly.
"I think I understand," Norton said. He had thought he would be rejected, once he saw how lovely she was; now he was unable to turn down what was offered, though he remained disturbed by the situation. "Perhaps I will accept your tea after all." He stepped back into the apartment.
Orlene closed the door behind him, shutting out the ghost. That was a small relief. Norton sat in a comfortable chair while she bustled in her kitchenette, dialing the tea.
The problem was that she was too pretty, too obviously nice. Norton felt subjectively as if his touch would despoil her. This was no one-night-stand woman, and it would be a crime to treat her that way. Especially since she herself was not aware of the ghost's active participation. She would think that he, Norton, was simply a man taking advantage of a widow. Well, not exactly a widow. But it bothered him.
Except for one thing—she saw him glow. She had no need to accept him; she could tell him to go and he would go. Why should she claim he was right for the purpose? Was her magic real, or was it a pretext to pick and choose? Was she in fact any better than she took him to be? She seemed like the ideal woman, but appearances could be deceptive. Especially when a ghost was involved.
Oriene brought the tea in an old-fashioned pot and poured cups for them both. This wasn't tea time, but time was not of the essence here. What was required was something to occupy their hands and eyes and nominal attention—a pretext to be somewhat at ease together. That was, Norton suspected, the true basis of tea; it was a social amenity.
But it wasn't enough. There was only so long a person could nurse along a cup of beverage, and it was necessary to make small talk meanwhile. How long could they postpone getting down to the subject?
Norton's desperately wandering eyes spotted a large, pretty, parlor-style book, the kind with phenomenal illustrations and very little text, as befitted the fashionable, wealthy nonreaders of the day. He reached for it.
"Oh, that's the picture-puzzle guide," Orlene said quickly. "Magic technology art. I haven't gotten into the puzzle, though I've been meaning to. I understand it's very difficult."
"I like puzzles." Norton opened the book. The first picture was of a section of the city park, with its tall trees seeming almost alive. Almost? Now he saw their leaves fluttering in the wind. It was a moving picture and it was three-dimensional; his eyes shifted focus as he peered into its background. He had heard of books like this, with holographic illustrations, but never handled one before.
Experimentally he poked his forefinger at the picture, for his eyes had lost track of the surface of the page. His finger penetrated beyond that surface, finding no resistance. Startled, he drew back.
"It's a window to the park," she explained. "You could climb through it, if you could fit."
Impressive magic! Intrigued, Norton turned the page. The next was of the nether transport center, with the escalator belts leading down to the matter transmitters. People were stepping off the belts, inserting their talismans in the MT slots, and moving through to their destinations. A big clock on the wall showed the present time and date; this was live! He wondered whether, if he should somehow squeeze into that picture, he would then be able to take a matter-mit window to another city or planet. No—he lacked the necessary token and lacked credit to buy one. Too bad; he really loved to explore, and if he had ever been able to afford interplanetary travel—
He turned another page. This picture-window showed another planet directly: the blazing sunside surface of Mercury, so bright that the heat seemed to radiate out from the sheet. He touched his finger to the nearest baked rock—and drew it back quickly. That was hot!
"You say this one is merely a puzzle guide?" he asked, perplexed.
Orlene rose gracefully and went to a cupboard. Her dress rustled, and for the first time he became aware of what she was wearing: a kind of golden-tan wraparound affair, obviously intended for convenience rather than for presentation, but it fitted her marvelously. He suspected she would look wonderful in anything, however.
She brought down a box. "To the jigsaw puzzle," she explained. "Of course, it's been decades since they actually cut them out with saws, but the name sticks." She cleared away the pot and cups and set the box down.
Norton opened it. It was filled with bright, curly, flat fragments, indeed very much like the pieces of a jig-sawed puzzle. But these glittered with animation. Moving images here?
He picked one up and squinted at it. Sure enough, it showed several leaves of a tree, and they did indeed flutter in whatever wind there was. It was a section of the first illustration in the book.
"But there are a number of scenes in the book," he said.
Orlene touched a button on the side of the box. Abruptly the image on the piece Norton held changed. Now it appeared to be part of the wall of the subterranean transport station. He looked at the other pieces in the box and saw one that displayed part of the face of the station clock. Its minute hand showed exactly the minute that Norton's own watch did. It was now only a fragment, but it kept accurate time.
"All the scenes are available," Orlene said. "You just set i
t for the one you want to do—or change it in the middle. There's another button to change the shapes of the pieces so they don't get too familiar. I understand it's a lot of fun, especially since the completed puzzle is large enough for a person to step through and enter the scene."
"Science and magic are merging faster than I knew!" Norton exclaimed, impressed.
"Well, they always were pretty much the same thing," she pointed out. "Once the Unified Field Theorem merged the five basic forces, including magic—"
"I think I've been spending too much time in the wilderness!"
"The wilderness is nice too," she said. "We mustn't sacrifice the old values for the new."
He glanced at her with fresh appreciation. "You like the wilderness?" He remembered Gawain's remark about her affinity for animals.
"Oh, yes! The estate has a section of the park; I go there often. Somehow it seems less lonely than the city."
What a delight she was! But still he wasn't sure. He was not able to view people with a magic glow. "Let's do this puzzle," he suggested. "The park picture."
Orlene smiled with glad acquiescence. "Let's!"
And that finessed the main issue nicely. She did want him to stay, for otherwise she would not have agreed to get into a project like this that could take days. And—he did want to stay. Not necessarily to honor the ghost's request, but to explore the possibility. The notion of helping Gawain in this fashion no longer seemed so unreasonable.
They labored on the puzzle, first sorting the colors of the park scene, then aligning the straight-edge pieces, getting the border done. Norton was an old hand at this sort of thing, except that his experience had been with the old-fashioned kind of jigsaw. This magic-picture variety was new, but the fundamental principles of strategy and matching remained. A picture was like a story, with rules of structure that were vulnerable to exploitation in a case like this.
Orlene turned out to have a good eye for color and shape and was able to locate pieces he needed. She was assisted by her magic, she said; the particular piece she looked for tended to glow. He saw no such effect, but her accuracy in drawing pieces from the great mixed pile lent credence to the claim. The two of them were working well together.
Norton glanced at the clock and discovered that three hours had flown by. They had completed the border and much of the forest path and were working on two trees, but there was a long way to go. Edges and paths filled in deceptively rapidly; the solid masses of single-color regions would be much slower. "Maybe we'd better let it rest for the night," he said.
"Yes. Let me get you some pajamas." They both understood that he would be staying here indefinitely. The agreement had formed, unvoiced, as the outline of the puzzle took form. Like the puzzle, the details remained inchoate.
Norton did not ordinarily use pajamas, but he didn't argue. He was a guest of this estate, and it was no place to flop in his clothes. Except—"Pajamas? Do you have male clothing here?"
"They were Gawain's," she said delicately. "You're close enough to his size, and I'm sure he would have wanted them to be used."
Surely so. Norton squelched his misgivings and accepted the pajamas. Orlene showed him to a well appointed room, separate from hers; their relationship had not progressed to the critical stage. As he had known from the moment he first saw her, she was no one-night-stand girl. And he, abruptly, was no love-'em-and-leave-'em guy. He was committed for the full route, whatever it might be.
He discovered that he was quite tired; it had indeed been a long day. He undressed, stepped into the sonic cleaner, stepped out dry and tingly clean, then got into Gawain's pajamas, reluctantly accepting their symbolism. They hung on him somewhat baggily.
He got into bed and realized that this was not the ordinary flophouse bunk he was used to. It was an oil sponge couch. His weight caused the sponge oil to give way and shift, but not instantly; it was more like sinking into thick mud. The truth was, mud was excellent stuff, as children instinctively knew, despite the bad press provided by their mothers. It offered enough support to prevent drowning, while being malleable enough for freedom of action. It was also fascinating stuff in itself, suitable for splashing or mudballs and body-paintings. Of course this bed was not mud and would not splash or separate, but the feel was similar. Norton let himself descend into its enfoldment with sheer bliss.
"How did it work out?" a voice asked.
Norton opened his eyes, annoyed. Gawain the Ghost was there, standing expectantly beside the bed. "I had almost forgotten you," he said.
"I certainly hadn't forgotten you!" the ghost replied. "Three hours—did you beget my offspring?"
"What the hell are you doing here?" Norton demanded. "I thought you couldn't enter this apartment."
"You misunderstood. I can't enter the room in which my wife stays, and she can't directly perceive me regardless of where we are. But I can enter my own residence when she's absent. I do it all the time."
"She's absent? I thought she was in her bedroom."
"She is. She's absent from this room," Gawain clarified. "If she entered it, I'd have to vanish. I'd just step through the wall until she was gone."
Norton thought of something else. "I understood it was death to see a ghost. That's why people don't like it! Does this mean I am going to die?"
Gawain laughed. "Yes, in a manner of thinking. You will die—in due course. Maybe fifty years hence. Every living person will. But seeing me won't hasten your demise one whit, unless you should happen to die of fright." He put his forefingers in the corners of his mouth and pulled his lips open in a grotesque face. Because he was insubstantial, he was able to stretch his mouth entirely beyond the borders of his face. "I'm not that kind of ghost. You're thinking of Molly Malone of Kilvarough. She's a nice and lovely ghost indeed; if I weren't already married—" He left it unfinished.
"Well, to answer your question," Norton said shortly, "I did not have any intimate relation with Orlene. She's not that kind of woman, any more than you're that kind of ghost. And I can't guarantee that I will have that kind of relation, or when."
"Now look, sport," Gawain said indignantly. "You're here accepting the hospitality of my estate. You owe it to me to deliver!"
"To cuckold you?" Norton demanded, again expressing his inner irresolution. "To seduce your pristine, faithful wife?"
"It's not like that, and you know it. You're here to perform a service."
"I thought I was here to do you a favor."
"Same thing. Once you do it, you can leave. Except I still have to teach you how to slay dragons."
"Well, Orlene is no dragon! The fact is, she is really a nice person, not a gold digger at all. If she decides not to—to want the favor, I'm not going to force it on her."
"What do you think she's here for?" Gawain demanded. "She's a guest of my estate too!"
"She's your wife!" Norton shouted. "She has a perfect right to be here!"
"Not if she doesn't produce! Listen, Norton, I'm locked in this state until I have a proper heir. She owes it to me to generate him promptly."
"Well, then, why didn't you marry some slut who spreads her legs for any man who looks at her? Why inflict this on a nice girl?"
"I told you," the ghost responded hotly. "There are standards to maintain. Our family is of noble lineage."
"Well, I have standards to maintain, too—and so does she."
"Anyway, I didn't select her; my family did. They—"
The ghost vanished in mid-sentence. Norton looked about, startled—and saw Orlene at the doorway.
"Are you all right, Norton?" she asked worriedly. "I heard you shouting—"
And she couldn't hear the ghost! He'd have to watch that. What had she heard? He felt a slow flush nudging up his neck and cheeks as he considered that. "I—I don't suppose you would believe I was talking to the ghost?"
"I really wish you wouldn't—"
"Call it a bad dream, then. I'm sorry I disturbed you."
She looked doubtful. "You're such a
good man. Do you really suffer from—"
Norton laughed, somewhat too heartily. "How can you know I'm a good man? I'm an ordinary man, perhaps less than ordinary, since I have never had much success in life. Not like you."
"Oh, no! I am nothing!" she protested. "You glow!" Norton studied her. She was in a pinkish-white peignoir, and her honey-golden hair hung loose about her shoulders. There was something enormously appealing about her, and it was not mere beauty or sensuality. But he resisted that appeal, choosing instead to challenge her. "You refuse to believe I can see a ghost, but you expect me to believe you see a glow? When the ghost and the glow say the same thing?"
She smiled wanly. "I suppose it is inconsistent. But so many men have come with stories about the ghost of my husband, I know it's a crude male game. I would like to believe you are different."
Somehow Norton felt rather small. "I did see the ghost—but I don't necessarily agree with what he said."
"I do see the glow," she said. "But I don't—" She smiled. "Good night, Norton."
"Good night, Orlene."
She retreated and closed the door.
Gawain reappeared. "I see the problem," he said. "Neither of you is a dragon slayer; you don't like to go at it directly. But if she says you glow, she'll accept you. It's just a matter of time. All you need to do is stay here and—"
"And be supported by a woman," Norton finished. "I find that hard to accept."
"It's my estate, damn it!" Gawain swore. "She doesn't have a thing of her own. It's all mine. She won't inherit; only the son she bears will. She knows that."
"Suppose it's a daughter?"
The ghost looked blank. "A what?"
Norton was beginning to appreciate the fact that Gawain's purpose did not align perfectly with Orlene's purpose. He wanted to preserve the estate; she wanted a proper personal situation. He wanted a son to inherit and carry on the line; the personality of that son was not a concern. She surely wanted a fine child who would be a joy to her and to Gawain's family and to the world and a credit to the estate. He was concerned about money and power, she about quality and love. She would prefer to have an attractive, intelligent, and sweet girl—like herself—while he would be outraged by anything less than a strapping, bold boy—like himself. Norton's sympathy was sliding toward the woman's view.
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