Who, or what, and, above all, why?
* * * * *
The room was as Arbush had said, a nest of luxury by any standard; the carpets soft, the draperies rich, the furnishings of the highest quality. Alone Dumarest moved from one chamber to the other; the well-equipped bathroom, the bedroom with its wide couch, the coverings of fine material, light as gossamer, bright with abstract designs. Back in the living room, he opened the curtains and stared thoughtfully outside. The room was high, the view superb, the air clear and giving perfect vision.
He looked at the distant wall of ice, the level ground at its foot, the precise arrangement of the buildings. A city built like a gem. A complete, self-contained unit set in the wilderness.
Why?
And why had Arbush thought it necessary that he retain the knife?
An instinctive caution on first wakening, perhaps? The minstrel was shrewd, experienced in the devious ways of divergent cultures; it would have been natural for him to seek an advantage. To retain access to a weapon. Had softness later changed him?
Dumarest remembered the conversation over the wine, the enthusiasm which had accompanied every step of the tour which Arbush had conducted. To him, the city had fulfilled an ancient yearning.
"Instone," he murmured. "Instone."
"The name of the city," said a voice behind him. "Do you find it such a wonderful sound?"
She had entered silently and stood, tall and splendid in a gown of gold-laced crimson; golden sparkles on the veil of gossamer which wreathed her hair.
"Your door was open," she said. "I took it as an invitation."
A lie, the door had not been open: but it could not be locked. Custom made that unnecessary; a room was a private place not to be entered without invitation. A custom she had broken and, in so doing, had revealed herself.
"You're Eloise," he said.
"And you are Earl Dumarest." She came towards him hands extended, palms outward, fingers upright. As he placed the flat of his own palms against hers she said, "Welcome to Instone. Did Arbush tell you about me?"
"Your name, nothing else."
"I'm glad of that. It gives us something to talk about, a chance to get to know each other. Are you going to offer me something to drink?"
"I have nothing to offer."
"A deficit quickly remedied." She crossed the room to where a ledge protruded from the wall, a hatch above it. "This isn't a terminal, you'll find those in the corridors and assembly rooms; but this is how you get food and drink if you want to remain alone." Placing the flat of her palm on the ledge she said, "Eloise. Room 731. Red wine and two glasses."
She drank quickly as he sipped his own, and he guessed that she had already had enough. There was a sparkle to her eyes, a flush to her cheeks, a restless impatience which consumed her.
"Do you always identify yourself when ordering?"
"Always."
He remembered Dras; the same placing of the palm, the announcing of a name. A check on palm print and identity. A means to tally what was asked for, and the information demanded.
"Earl, we have a lot in common. Like you, I'm a stranger here. I wasn't born in the city. Tell me, what did it feel like to be falling?"
"You saw?"
"I was on the upper platform. I had a feeling, an instinct, call it what you like. I was searching the barrier and saw you. There are instruments," she said, anticipating his doubt, "Telescopes. Luck guided me to look at that spot, where you were. I watched as you were rescued. Tell me, what did it feel like when you fell?"
A rush of air, the numbing certainty of imminent death and then the shock, as something impacted his chest, the instant oblivion.
He said, "How did you get here?"
"An accident." She poured herself more wine, frowned at his barely touched glass. "I'm a dancer. On Lamack, I joined up with an entrepreneur who formed a small troupe and brought us here to Camollard. There's a city, Breen, and we made out for a while. Then he had a bright idea. There were rumors of a city far to the north and he guessed that, in such a place, we would be popular. He bought a flyer and we started toward it. A storm rose and we got lost. Finally, we crashed."
"Here?"
"A mile away, on the ice. I was lucky. Adara, a friend, you'll meet him later, saw what had happened. He persuaded Camolsaer to send out Monitors and he went with them. It took half a day to find me. The others were all dead." Pausing she added, "That was five years ago."
"Camollard," he said thoughtfully. "The name of this world. Do you have the coordinates?"
An unexpected question which caused her to frown. Then, face clearing, she smiled. "Of course, the warp; you don't know where you are. I haven't the coordinates, but Camollard is close to the Elmirha Dust. You can see it from the southern hemisphere."
A half million light years from Tynar-the warp had thrown them far.
"Are there ships?"
"Not many, and those that call land at Breen. It's a small place on the equator. There's a mine working a seam of thorenite, but mostly they hunt. Furs and the fruit of doltchel. A small plant growing in sheltered nooks. It's a narcotic."
A bleak world with but a single town, a single space field. Such worlds were common.
She said, "You aren't drinking, Earl. Have I offended you?"
Caution she decided, as he shook his head. Such a man would always be cautious. Careful of each step he took until he was sure of where he was going, and then nothing would stop him. A man who had come in answer to her prayer. A strong man, hard, ruthless; she could tell it by the set of his mouth, the line of his jaw. Her eyes dropped to the knife in his boot. A knife was nothing, a strip of edged and pointed steel; substitutes could be made from a broken bottle, a host of items-by itself a blade was harmless, certainly against the Monitors which was possibly why Camolsaer had allowed it. Allowed it-unaware that it wasn't the knife which was dangerous, but the man.
Her man, she had known it from the first. One way or another, he would be hers.
He said, "How do you get from here to Breen?"
"You don't."
"Can't?"
"Both. There is no contact with any other city. No ships, no flyers, nothing. Instone is isolated; a vague rumor which no one will ever take the trouble to investigate. Even if you could climb the wall, there would still be the Krim to contend with. Savage animals who roam the ice."
"We saw them-they were men."
"Or things which looked like men," she corrected. "When they get too close, Camolsaer sends the Monitors out against them. If you tried to escape it would send them against you."
"Escape?"
"Escape, Earl. Haven't you grasped it yet? This isn't just a city, it's a jail. A prison in which we're all under sentence of death. And you, Earl; you'll be one of the first to go!"
Chapter Ten
The work was a mindless routine, taking packets from a machine to where others would feed them into different machines. Made work, unessential, something to occupy the time of humans while machines ran the city. Machines and Camolsaer, who controlled them.
At the bell Dumarest returned to his room, changed, and continued his inspection of the city. It had lasted more than a week; a close scrutiny of every available chamber and compartment, each corridor and passage on the entire complex.
If Instone was a prison, he was determined to find a way out. And it was a prison; in that the woman, though hysterical, had been right. Without roads, contact with other places, a means to cross the ice, it could be nothing else.
"Earl!" A man called to him as he entered the gymnasium. "Care to wrestle?"
"Later perhaps."
"I was telling Sagen about that throw you showed me." The man was insistent. "He's willing to bet a turn of duty that you couldn't best him within five minutes."