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  She gave it to him in a cup, pouring from a pot damp with moisture which she took from a recess in the wall. He sipped and tasted a faint salinity. Had hers been a hot and arid world?

  "No," she said when he asked. "There are mountains and seas and fertile land and everything is clean and bright as if it were new. You'd never see a cripple in the streets and no one would have to live as Anton does." Pausing, she asked, "Why, Earl? Why spend what you did on his welfare?"

  "Bells."

  "What?"

  "Bells," he said again. "They warned me. Down in the basement when I hunted Ca Lee. I saw Anton move and thought he was the man I was after and sprang forward-"

  "And would have killed him if you hadn't heard the bells." She nodded, understanding. "Then Ca Lee would have had you at his mercy. But were you kind only to repay a debt?"

  A boy, handicapped, fighting to survive in a hostile environment, Anton could have been himself. Dumarest rose from the chair and stepped toward the window to look at the stars, the slope of the foothills now dark and solid in the silver light. A boy's hunting ground-his own had been far less gentle-but no child should have to creep among thorns to harvest a little fruit.

  Turning, he said to lighten his thoughts, "Tell me about your home. What color are the seas? The sky? Do you have a moon?"

  "Green," she said. "And azure and, yes, we do have a moon. Two of them in fact but one is very small. At times it glows scarlet."

  "Bad times?" He saw the movement of her eyes, the tensing of small muscles in her face and took another sip of water, knowing he had touched a sensitive area. "Why don't you go back to bed?"

  "I couldn't sleep. The bed's yours if you want it."

  "Later, perhaps." His nerves were too edgy to permit of deep and restful sleep and it would be better for him to stay awake. Dumarest drank the rest of the water and set down the cup. It fell to the floor, and as he picked it up his hand brushed the edge of the stacked paintings. "You've been busy," he commented. "May I see them?"

  "Why not?" She snapped on the light and lifted them and set them on the table face upwards. "I'll have to make a decision about them soon."

  "Too many?"

  "Too heavy. I like to stay mobile."

  He nodded and looked at the paintings. Each was on a thin sheet of metalized paper and could be flexed and rolled without damage. Final products; the one she had made of himself had been crude by comparison. She guessed what he was thinking.

  "I was in a hurry but I'd like to paint you again. I'd be able to achieve greater depth this time now that I know you better. What do you think of that?"

  A rose lay on a cushion, the petals dewed, the stem with its spines so real that he could almost smell the perfume.

  "And that?"

  An egg, broken, the bird newly hatched, struggling with tiny wings to free itself from the smooth prison. Each feather was a fluffed gem. The gaping beak seemed to be sounding all the fury of all the creatures ever born. The eyes held in their orbits the panoply of worlds.

  "And these?"

  Dumarest leafed through them, pausing to look at the woman. "Did your father ever see any similar work?"

  "Of mine? No."

  "A pity. If he had he wouldn't have died a disappointed man."

  Frowning, she said, "I don't understand, Earl."

  "He wanted you to be a genius, you said." Dumarest touched the painting in his hand. "This is proof of it. The proof of his success-your success. I-" He broke off, looking at the next to be revealed.

  A woman, seated on a casket, and she was old.

  Old!

  The accumulated weight of years piled invisible mountains on her shoulders, bowing them, hollowing the thin chest to match the hollows of her cheeks, the sunken pits in which dwelt her eyes. Her hair was a cloud of whiteness holding the fragile delicacy of gossamer. The hands resting on her lap were brittle straws ending pipestem arms which matched the reed-like figure. The face was creped with a countless mesh of lines, the lips thin and bloodless, the whole giving the impression of a mask.

  Old!

  Old-and patient.

  The impression was almost tangible and dominated the portrayal. The woman was old and yet not ugly. She held the same beauty as a tree that is old or a lichened wall or the worn hills of ancient worlds. The mask-like face looked at things created by time beyond normal comprehension-the span of years which had passed in a ceaseless flow from the time of her conception and would continue long after she was dust. Time spent in waiting as she was waiting now. Waiting with the incredible patience of the very old.

  "Who-?"

  "She isn't real," said Carina, anticipating his question, "Not an actual person. She symbolizes an ideal."

  Age and patience and waiting-but waiting for what?

  Dumarest closed his eyes, pressed the lids tightly together, looked again at the timeless face of the old woman. An ideal, Carina had said. An artist's impression-but of what?

  "The box," she said when he asked. "I saw it and was curious and made some inquiries. It looks like a shipping container but it isn't that and neither is it a coffin. I thought it was at first, despite its size, but I was wrong. It's the reverse, in fact. A survival-casket."

  That was new to him. Ships carried life-support sacs for use in emergency but they were a last hope and a desperate gamble. The usual caskets were strictly functional affairs shaped by the need to achieve a low temperature in the minimum time and to keep it stable once obtained. And why the old woman? The impression of limitless patience?

  "They wait," said Carina. "Those who use the boxes, I mean. I depicted an old woman but it could have been a man. And I guess neither had to be old but that's how I felt it. Old people lying in their boxes in a form of suspended animation while the years spin past outside. Just lying there, waiting. Patiently waiting."

  "For what?"

  She shrugged, indifferent. "Who knows? They are crazy, of course, they have to be. To waste a life just lying in a box in the hope you'll be able to last long enough to be around when whatever you're waiting for happens. The end of the universe, maybe. The discovery of immortality. Who knows?"

  And who cared? Oddities were common in a galaxy thick with scattered worlds bearing a host of varying cultures. Societies with peculiar beliefs and customs strange to any not of their kind. Frameworks of reference which turned madness into normal behavior. Freaks and fanatics going their own way, tolerated or ignored as long as they did no harm.

  Dumarest put down the painting, half-turned, then reached for it again with belated recognition. The woman dominated the scene or he would have noticed it before. Had noticed it but fatigue had delayed his reaction. Now he studied the painting again, concentrating, not on the woman but on the box.

  It was decorated with a profusion of painted symbols.

  "Earl?" He turned and saw her face, the anxiety in her eyes, and realized he had stood silent and immobile for too long. "Earl, is anything wrong?"

  "No. Where did you see this?"

  "The box? Why, Earl, is it important?"

  "Where!"

  "On Caval," she said quickly. "The Hurich Complex- Earl, please!"

  He turned from her, smoothing his face, forcing himself to be calm. She didn't know. She couldn't know-to her the box was nothing more than an oversized sarcophagus. An amusing novelty which had triggered her creative artistry. The symbols adorning the casket merely vague abstractions.

  Symbols which could guide him to Earth.

  Chapter Five

  Caval rested on the edge of the Zaragoza Cluster, a small, fair world of balmy air and rolling fields, devoid of the stench of industrial waste, the bleak shapes of functional machines; a world in which time seemed to have slowed, even the clouds drifting with stately grace across the pale amber of the sky. The people matched their world, adapted and conditioned by inclination and environment: slow, stolid, a little bovine but far from stupid.

  The Hurich Complex lay thirty miles from the landing field on t
he far side of a ridge of rounded hills now bright with yellow flowers which covered crests and slopes with a golden haze. The place itself was wrapped in the easy somnolence of a tranquil village; wide streets flanked by open-fronted shops in which craftsmen plied their trade. The air carried the endless tap of hammers, the scuff of files, the echoes of saws and planes. The place was a hive of industry devoid of the mechanical yammer of machines-all work was done by hand.

  "There!" Carina lifted a hand, pointing. "It was down that street, I think. Yes, it was down there-I recognize the sign over that shop."

  A swinging plaque bore the imprint of a rearing beast adorned with a crown-carved wood touched with gilt and paint bearing a startling likeness to a living creature. The street itself was given to residential establishments, only a few of the houses with the familiar open front, some closed with broad windows displaying the goods within.

  "On the left," said Carina. "About halfway down."

  She had insisted on accompanying him as a guide when he had left Shard. Now she walked three paces ahead of him as if eager to prove her memory correct. She wore the slacks and tunic she had donned when leaving Shard: loose fabric of dull green which disguised her femininity. Her boots were high but soft, the belt wide and fitted with pouches. She carried no visible weapons.

  "Here!" She halted and looked to either side, frowning. "I'm sure it was here. Over there, I think."

  Dumarest looked at a blank wall.

  "I'm sorry, Earl. I'm sure it was there."

  He said, "When you left here did you go straight to Shard?"

  "No. I shipped to Mykal and moved around a little. I did the painting there and worked in the local hospital for a while. Then I got bored and went to the field and tossed a coin and moved on."

  To Shard, and more time had been spent on the return voyage. Time enough for the shop to have closed, the owner to have died.

  Had he arrived too late?

  The sign of the rearing beast had denoted a tavern, and, in a long, cool room adorned with masks and weapons all carved from wood, the owner served beer and nodded in answer to Dumarest's inquiry.

  "The shop down the street? Jole Nisbet sold it about a month ago. Young Zeal's taken it and should do well. A fine worker in glass and ceramics. He'll be open in a couple of weeks if you're interested."

  "Nisbet?"

  "To another shop, of course. It's on Endaven… Turn right at the junction and it's three hundred yards down."

  They came to a big, bustling place filled with the scent of wood and resin and paint, littered with shavings and dust and scraps of metal. Jole Nisbet, old and gnarled, with the strength of a tree, looked at Dumarest, then at Carina. For a long moment he said nothing, then smiled.

  "The artist. You are the artist-am I right?" He beamed as she nodded. "And you've come back to us and with a friend. I hope you will stay. We need such talent as yours."

  "Thank you, Jole."

  "And you?" The shrewd eyes met Dumarest's. "Not an artist, I think, though I could be wrong. A hunter? A farmer? No, your eyes are too restless. A hunter, then-but what else?"

  "A student," said Dumarest.

  "Of what? War?" The old man shook his head. "We have no place for such a thing here on Caval. A man is born and he works and develops his skills and he lives at peace. He has pride in what he has made or what he does for not all can create things of beauty. Even so someone must sweep the shop and sharpen the tools and carry the timber-no man need consider himself a failure."

  A philosophy with obvious results. Since landing on Caval Dumarest had seen no beggars, no signs of abject poverty. Work and pride in work united all in a common bond. Ambition lay in producing something others would admire and their praise was reward enough. And a clean floor could be admired as sincerely as a carved statue, a well-cooked meal as much as any fabrication of metal.

  Carina said, "The last time I was here I saw a box in your old shop. I asked about it, remember?" She continued as the old man nodded. "My companion is interested in it."

  "Why?"

  Dumarest said, "I told you I was a student. It poses a mystery to me which you could answer."

  "Why anyone should want to stretch their life-span at the cost of living?" Nisbet shook his head. "I can't help you. I don't know. To be cooped is always bad but to spend a life in sleep and dreams-" He broke off, shaking his head. "Why anyone should do that is beyond me. You must find your answer somewhere else."

  He had jumped to the wrong assumption but Dumarest didn't correct him. Instead, he said, "Who could that person be? The owner of the box?"

  "Perhaps."

  "Who would that person be?" In a moment Dumarest recognized the mistake he had made. "I apologize," he said quickly. "The question could have been misunderstood. It was badly phrased. I was not, of course, asking you to divulge a confidential matter." His tone lowered a little. "As an intruder into your life I ask your tolerance for any unwitting errors I may make or insults I may tender as the result of my ignorance. Of your charity I beg that you take no offense where none is intended."

  The old man relaxed beneath the formal intonation. Politeness, in his culture, ranked with deference to acknowledged skills and the respect due to age.

  "Confidence must be respected," he said. "Even if only implied. Now, as to the box, some things I can tell you for they are common knowledge. The contents, for one, though they could be varied aside from the essential basics. We are actually at work on one now. If you would care to see it?"

  He led the way into a back room where the casket stood supported on stands in the center of the floor. Men were busy at work within the interior, soft scrapings coming from beneath their hands, small tappings, rasps, the sound of abrasions. They rose and stepped back at the old man's command and Dumarest looked at the product of their labors.

  The carvings were incomplete as yet but recognizable. A row of tiny depictions ran around the upper surface of the interior-animals, birds, people, fish, insects-a gamut of life-forms, each image a potential gem. The artistry converted something hard and cold and efficient into something no less efficient but far more pleasing.

  As yet the outside was untouched, smooth surfaces bearing a soft sheen. The lack seemed to make the container larger and uglier than the one Carina had depicted. Perhaps she had distorted its true dimensions to achieve an artistic symmetry. Dumarest measured it with his eyes: twelve feet long, half as much high and wide. Huge for a coffin, large even for a sarcophagus, but small for a miniature world.

  "The outside?"

  "Will be decorated in due time."

  "According to instruction?"

  "Naturally." Nisbet lifted his head as the deep notes of a bell echoed from somewhere outside. "The evening bell and the time of relaxation."

  "About the decorations," said Dumarest. He raised his voice against the bustle of noise as craftsmen rose and stretched and put aside their tools. "Could you-"

  "Later," said Nisbet. He was curt though his tone remained polite. "For today, work is over. Come again tomorrow."

  The tavern provided accommodation as it provided a meal.

  Dumarest sat with Carina in the long, low-roofed chamber and ate succulent vegetables served with tangy sauces and a variety of nuts. A dish between them held livers of meat roasted and spiced and set on long skewers. The bread was rough but pleasingly flavored. The wine the same.

  "Nice." Carina leaned back and sighed with enjoyment. "At times, Earl, everything seems to be just right. This place, the food, the atmosphere-it's what they mean when they talk of perfection."

  "Who?"

  "All those who've never had it but have imagination enough to guess what it must be like." She sobered a little. "Of course the right company helps."

  He said nothing, looking through the window toward the hills, dusted with gloom now but still bright with their golden mantle.

  "In a few weeks the ships will come," she said as if reading his mind. "The blooms will be near-venting then and, when
they open, the air will be a cloud of spores and perfume. Golden spores in a scented mist." Her eyes, her voice, held the fascination of a dream. "A time of wonder, Earl, when reality yields to magic and all things are possible. Love, friendship, companionship." Her hand reached out to rest fingers on his own. "That, I think, is the most important. To be close to someone on equal terms. To share his life yet to remain an individual. Something a wife can never do."

  "Or a lover?"

  "What is love? A man says he loves you and what he really means is that he wants you to love him. For some, it seems, it is enough but there is so much more. To stand beside someone, to be important to him, to be a comrade, a friend." Carina shook her head and sipped at her wine, then, apparently casual, changed the subject. "What do you think of life here?"

  "It goes on."

  "But better than most. To sit and create a thing of beauty for its own sake and the pleasure of doing it. To sell it or not as you please. A man could work for a year and set his work in a window and wait for someone to offer something he is willing to take in exchange."

  "Money."

  "No, Earl, not always. That's what I like about this world-they are not contaminated by greed. And they are right. Money isn't everything. There are so many things it can't buy."

  He said, smiling, "Name three."

  "You're a cynic."

  "Name them!"

  She responded to his challenge. "Happiness, honesty, health."

  "How about truth?"

  "Truth?" She picked up a scrap of bread and crumpled it between her fingers, not meeting his eyes, her own fastened on the dusty hills. "A thing to be searched for and not often to be found. Still less to be recognized when it is. Always to be hated when revealed. Truth is reality. Dreams shield us from it."

  As the boxes shielded those who used them. Dumarest looked at the window; her face was dimly reflected in the pane. Like these people Carina had built defenses against a universe not to her liking. Did she travel to find one she could accept?

  Gently he said, "Why don't you stay here? As an artist you would be welcome. You could make a home here for yourself. A place to call your own."