John Rackham (19 page)

"Can
I help with it, in any way?" he asked. Haldar shook his head.

"Offering
to help again? I know what you can do. We haven't had any wine yet. Perhaps
you'd like to take a flagon and some glasses and bring them back here to Lady
Silvana?" He looked to her, and she nodded.

"That would be kind.
We have things to talk about."

Talking
was what Jack had in mind, too. He hurried to where he had put the discarded
helmet, and felt happier when it was snugly in place over his hair. Then he
went to where Haldar was persuading the food-machine to bring forth tall
bottles beaded with sweat. He grinned at Jack understandingly.

"I
don't know how you reckon time, but anyway, Fve set this thing to sound an
alarm in two time units from now. And if you watch that red pointer sweeping
around, that takes one hundredth part of a time unit to make one round of the
dial. For what help that might be to you."

Beyond
the fact that two time units seemed a long time, it meant not very much to
Jack. He reached for a bottle and two glasses, and Haldar grew serious, all at
once. "She's a beautiful girl, Jack, and a very talented girl too. On our
planet we rate crafts and talents very highly. But remember
...
she is an entertainer!" Jack
frowned at him, and the goldsmith sighed. "I see it doesn't mean much to
you. Nor does it help that I feel very much like a father to you. We all have
to make our own mistakes, I suppose."

"You look very like my father did,"
Jack told him. "And I think you mean to be kind. For that I thank
you."

Haldar
grinned, grabbed his shoulders in exactly the same way his father had done
often. "You go on with that wine.
I’ ll
put a
pile of cushions over there, see?
By the door.
And a blanket.
When you're ready for
it."

NINE

Like Haldar, he rapped a knuckle by the door,
heard her call, and this time understood it just as words, without the
overtones. For a moment he was undecided, half minded to rip the helmet off
again, but then he armed the curtain aside and went in. She was still seated by
the mirror, but a second look told him she had moved and returned. Her dress,
that dreamlike assembly of folds and flounces and lace that had held her like a
bud pushing out of its leaves, lay in a pile of blue across the bed. The golden
waterfall of her hair lay down her naked spine. She turned to point with the
brush in her hand.

"Set
the wine there,
then
come and brush my hair, as you
wanted to. If you still want to, that is."

He
set down the glasses, poured both, looked at her, and her eyes grew wide as she
saw him properly, but she handed him the brush without a word. He moved to
stand behind her, seeing her glowing face in the mirror, her eyes on him in a
strangely wondering expression. Her hair was heavy and soft, the brush absurdly
small. He took a thick tress and began persuading it into order.

"Why
am I so strange to you?" he prompted. "Can you explain?"

"Perhaps
strange is not the best word. But what else can one call it when so many things
disagree with each other? And why have you put on that strange headpiece
again?"

"I
had it from Jasar. It carries a word-changer. Without it, you do not understand
my words, nor I yours."

"Oh,
Jack!" Her reproach was immediate. "You really believe that we do not
understand each other? Didn't you ask to brush my hair? And aren't you now
doing it? And I wanted you to bring wine, and there it is!"

Desperation put words into his mouth. "I
am not used to talking with my feelings, Silvana. In my life my feelings
...
my thoughts
...
have always been my own, not shared with everyone."

"Oh!"
She looked thoughtful now. Then she shrugged.
"Very
well.
No matter. What were we saying? Ah yes, you. You dress
...
at least you were in tie dress of a
woodsman, and it was no disguise, not like the uniform of a surgeon-general of
the Fleet, that you are wearing now."

"Is that what is meant
by all these stripes and patches?"

"And
there you are again. If you speak true
...
and you have so far as I know
...
then you must be the only man in the Salviar Fleet not to recognize a general's
insignia."

"But I am not of the
Salviar Fleet!"

She
drew a quick, deep breath that lifted her breasts fully,
then
let it out again in a gust that was half laugh, half irritation. "Contradictions
pile on each other. You dress as a woodsman, you use a bow and arrows in the
way of one who has done it often and welL
You
say you
are a nobody, a yeoman farmer. And yet
...
you work together with a Salviar Fleet scout who treats you as an equal and
comrade. You carry an energy-
weapon,
you wore a
deflector-rig. You came in a ship. You wear a translator-device. These things
do not gibe. But strangest of all
...
you speak straight, direct and true, as a man who is very sure of himself. Your
companions heard my singing, but only you came to rescue me, alone. You have a
look
...
not exactly a proud look
...
but in some way noble! And you seem
always to know exactly what to dol Oh, Jack!" Her breasts and face were
alike agitated now as she cried, "Please do not feel uncomfortable at my
words. They are the truth, not meant to offend!"

"I'm
not offended," he muttered, holding the heavy tress like a smooth golden
rope, "only well aware that I do not deserve such praise."

"And
humble, too! You are all contradictions. And yet
...
and yet
...
I find
it all so right, somehow, as if you belong to a kind I have never known before.
Whatever you do, it is well. Even your touch on my hair
...
feels right and good.
Kind, yet
strong."

He
could think of no reply to that. Staring at the rope of hair in his fingers he
thought to ask, "Shall I do it in a crown around your head? My mother
wears it that way sometimes, for neatness."

"A
crown?
Is
that how you see me?"

"As
a princess?
Yes. From the first time I saw you."

"Oh!" She didn't look too happy at
that, and for a moment he wished he could see her thought, but either the
helmet was barring it, or she had a curtain over her mind. "There is such
a thing as being too humble," she murmured. "Still, I will strike a
bargain with you, my Jack. You shall crown me, but only if you will, for me,
take away that headpiece, and then tell me all about your home, your world, and
your life there. I know that your father died, and that you chose to partner
with Jasar to do your mother the best service possible by leaving
...
you told me that But now tell me all
the little things. How you live."

With
a feeling that he was somehow committing himself, Jack peeled off the helmet
again, shook his hair free, and as he began braiding the first tress, so he
began telling her about home. Again her glowing, attentive face in the mirror
spoke to him, but now it was curiosity and sharing, as he told her of the
cottage that was
all the
home he knew, the labors of
holding back the wild forest, persuading scanty crops to grow, weeding and
watering and tending to amiable cows. Then there were his valiant dreams of
service with Earl Dudley in the Holy Land, and the patient hours of practice
with the bow, until that dream died with his father, and brought a series of
blows from a malicious fate in its train. Steadily as he spoke he made braids
and looped them about her head, watching her in the mirror, seeing the color
come and go in her face, the lift and glide of her shoulders, the rich fullness
of her bosom surging with her breath.

"My future was dark," he said,
"until Jasar
came
dropping out of the sky. I
could not believe the tenth part of what he told me, at first. It smacked too
much of fairies, and goblins, and magic. And no one really believes that, not
after childhood is past." He set the last braid in place, gave her back
the brush, and moved to sit on the end of the bed to look at her. She turned to
him with a hint of mischief and that dimple in her cheek again.

"You
are so old that you do not believe in magic; is that it?"

"Not that kind,
no
.
But I know now that there is another kind, and that you have it." She met
his gaze steadily, and all at once there was a hammering in his ears again and
a strange unsteadiness of everything.

"You
have told me nothing of all the girls you have known." Her voice was as
unsteady as he felt.

"There have been none,
until you." He wanted her to see the truth now. A flood of scarlet flowed
from her cheeks down over her body, lighting her like a flame, but there was
something in her eyes that stung him.

"You
have crowned me. You have told me of yourself. In your way, your straight and
direct way
...
now you reproach me,
make me feel humble.

"Am I doing something
wrong, Silvana?"

"The
wrongness is in me, my Jack, and what I have done. I asked you, remember, never
to leave me alone again? And I meant it, my love. But it can not be that way.
Whatever happens to us, we must part."

"I
don't understand. I will never leave you again, I promise."

"The
choice is not yours to make, my love. Should we survive the hazards ahead, and
escape, I have a duty to do. I must do it!" She rose suddenly, in a fluid
movement, and held out her arms to
nim
so that he couldn't help standing, looking
down at her, feeling her arms go around him. "Don't look at me like that,
Jack. I have no choice. Remember how you've told me that you deemed it better
to go and leave your mother alone, even though you didn't want to? My duty is
like that." Her fingers came to the clasps of his tunic, slowly and gently
setting them free, pushing the stuff away from one shoulder so that she could
grip it, then the other, so that it slipped to the floor.

"Strella was my home planet, Maramelle
my home ground. They don't exist any longer. But Strellans will fight on in the
Fleet, and I am a Strellan. I must do my share, little as it is." She
pressed her nakedness close to his bare chest, a contact that burned
nim
like
fire. "How can I make you understand that?"

"I
do understand," he said soberly, trying not to melt entirely as her hands
began with the fastenings of his remaining garment. "If you have a duty,
then it must be done. I wouldn't want to stop that. But can I not serve on the
side of Strella too, and so stay with you?"

"You
have not understood yet." Her voice was very soft, almost a whisper, as
she persuaded the last coverings out of her way, and clutched him close to
herself
.
Now his fire was something new,
something almost a pain, and an overpowering eagerness.
He had the urge
to crush her close in violence, yet at the same time a fear of injuring someone
so soft and precious. "You will not hurt me," she murmured, rubbing
her face against his chest. "But it may be that I'm going to hurt you. Where
I go, in this war, there is no place for you, Jack. I am an entertainer. On my
world people with talents are honored and encouraged to develop them. I have a
voice which you have heard, bodily charm that you have seen
...
and I also have great skills in making
men happy, which I want to do for you. This is how I fight my war, Jack. I have
made many men happy, for at least a little while.
And now
you.
But"—she drew her head back suddenly to look up into his face—
"all I ask is that you believe me when I say that it is no duty, nor
skill, nor profession that burns me now. Were it possible, I would stay with
you and love you for always, as I have never felt like this for any other man,
nor ever will again. If you have any understanding at all, look at me, and see
that it is true."

What
he saw in her face, and in her mind, needed neither words nor any reply except
to take the lips that she offered, and to know by the quiver of her body
against his that she was satisfied about his understanding. From that moment
on, time and reality stopped having any meaning for him. Guiding and leading
him with all her arts, she showed him a world of fire, excitement, savagery
that half frightened him, emotions that drowned him, sensations that made him
hope to die before they could destroy him utterly, and time and again she took
him to the shivering edge of annihilation and brought
him
safely back
...
until he knew that he had spoken no
more than the literal truth in saying she had a magic in her. After what could
have been half a lifetime of wordless delights she said, all at once:

"It
is never enough, love, I know. The more I have you, the more I want you, and
there never was a man like you before, for me. But all things should come to a
good end if possible, and soon now we have to run for our lives. As I
understand it, Garmel will have eaten heartily, drunk too well, and that will
be our best chance. So you must go, my love, and we both must sleep."

"How
can I ever leave you, now?" He sighed. "I want to go on this
way."

"I
know. So do
I
. With you
...
it is so different. But
life, too, is
sweet, and would you have Haldar, or Jasar, risk
his life to make up for
your neglect? Go, my Jack, but know that you take all my love with you,
always."

And
so, struggling into the unfamiliar clothes, he went as far as the curtain,
turned to look back at her for a last time
...
and cringed in shock as a vast metallic voice suddenly bawled:

"...
dock
and
repair facilities, urgent Need tractor assist. Repeat, tractor assist. Main
drive severely damaged. This is
Provena
to
BB7 Arc... red
..
red
...
red! Do you receive? Do you
receive?"

He
was through the curtain and running before the message sank home. By the door
Haldar was already scrambling to his feet, scowling savagely, putting up a hand
to halt him. "Let's not panic, Jack! Things are bad enough without that.
Of all the infernal bad luck.
You heard the transmission,
Jasar?" The little scout came, nodding.

"One of their ships, hit and needing help.
It'll rouse Garmel, of course?"

"It
will. He carries a relay, naturally. But what's worse, as soon as he's fully
awake, he will come here, to that desk out there. That's his control point. And
he is bound to notice that some of the sensor fields are off-critical.
Which will make him suspicious.
No telling what he will do
after that. There's nothing else for it
...
we have to get away from here, and fast! You heard all that, Silvana?" She
was at the curtain, staring,
then
nodding.

"You
gave the best advice, Haldar, in the first place," Jasar growled. "No
panic. We hurry, certainly, but let us not lose our heads. Help each other.
Forget nothing!"

Jack
scrambled furiously to get everything right, weapon-belt, harness, quiver and
bow, then jewel bags in such a way that they did not hinder his bow handling. Then
he went to aid Silvana. To his surprise she was nearly ready in a shape-hugging
dark knitted thing, stuffing her blue dress into the least full of her jewel
bags. "I had my eye on this jersey," she told him, "right from
the start, when I knew we were going to have to make a run for it." By
tugging, she made it come below her hips. In that simplicity and her black
boots, she looked quite different, almost boyish, and positively eager as she
ran with him to the door where Haldar was already waiting. The emergency
message had
come
twice more in the interval, and they
needed no other reminder.

"When
we go out," Haldar said, "we go straight across the floor and down
the hole. That's easy. After that you will just have to follow me, and keep up,
no matter what Silvana, you at my heels. Jack, Jasar, you'll bring up the rear;
all right?"