"Yes," said Dumarest shortly.
"Then I think I understand what could have happened to Lallia. She is a sensitive of undeveloped and probably unsuspected power. There is an ability possessed by some by which they are able to tell the past of any object they may touch. It is almost as if they had a vision in which time unrolls before their awareness. I put it crudely, but you understand what I mean. And if the object has a strong emotional charge then the vision can become overpowering. I suggest that is what happened in the salon. She was ex shy;cited, emotionally sensitive, and she touched your ring. It was as if she had received a sudden electrical discharge through the brain."
"And now?"
"Nothing, my friend." Nimino gripped Dumarest's shoul shy;der. "She will sleep a little and wake as good as before. Her talent is untrained and undemanding and, as I said, probably she is not even aware of it other than the ability to read palms and tell fortunes. For time runs in both directions and such a one could have a limited awareness of events to come. Events appertaining to the object held, I mean. She is not a clairvoyant-as we both have reason to know."
Nimino dropped his hand as he moved towards the door of the cabin. "Let her wake and find you here, Earl. And, if you are afraid of demons, I know seven effective rites of exorcism. But I think the one she would appreciate most can only be performed by you."
Alone, Dumarest sat beside the bunk and closed his eyes as weariness assailed both mind and body. Demons, he thought, remembering Nimino's offer and suggestion. An old word for old troubles. The demons of hopelessness and hunger, of hate and the lust for revenge. The demons of ambition and greed, envy and desire. And the worst demon of all, perhaps, the cold, aching void of loneliness. A demon which could only be exorcised by love.
"Earl."
He opened his eyes. Lallia was awake, lying with her eyes on his face, the long length of her body relaxed, a thick coil of hair shadowing one side of her face. Her arms lifted as he stooped over her, white restraints pulling him down, holding him against the yielding softness of her body while her lips, soft and avid, found his own.
"Earl, my darling!" she whispered. "Earl!"
He could do nothing but sink into a warm and comforting sea.
They slept and woke to drink cups of basic and slept again in the warm cocoon of the cabin, lulled by the soft vibration of the Erhaft field as it sent the Moray arrowing to a distant world. Dumarest moved uneasily in his sleep, haunting dreams bringing him a montage of faces and places, of violence and blood, of hope and arid disappointment.
Finally he woke, refreshed, stretching his body and open shy;ing his eyes. Lallia stood at the side of the bunk, smiling, vapor rising from the cup in her hand.
"You're awake," she said. "Good. Now drink this."
It was basic but with an unusual flavor. He sipped ap shy;preciatively before emptying the container.
"I was a cook once," she said. "There's no need for basic to taste like wet mud. A few drops of flavoring can make all the difference."
He smiled. "And the flavor?"
"A few drops of the captain's precious oil. I raided the hold," she admitted. "That was after I'd fixed my passage with the navigator. He said that he could talk for the big boss. Can he?"
Dumarest nodded, Nimino handled details while the cap shy;tain dreamed under the influence of his symbiote. "You didn't have to pay for passage," he commented. "That was a part of the deal."
"I know that, Earl." She sat beside him, serious, her eyes soft with emotion. "But that was only to the next planet of call. I want to stay with the ship, with you, so I arranged to ride all the way." She leaned towards him, the perfume of her body a clean scent of femininity. "We're married, Earl. A ship-marriage but married just the same." Her hand found his own, tightened. "You object?"
"No," said Dumarest. "I don't object."
"It will last as long as you stay on the Moray" she said. "As long as you want it to. A month, a year, ten years, a week, even; it doesn't matter. A marriage is good only as long as both partners want it to last. And I want it to last, Earl. I want it to last a long, long time."
She meant it, he decided, and found nothing objectionable about her or the idea. Lallia was all woman, a soft, yielding assembly of curves and tender flesh; but she was more than a sensuous animal designed to give pleasure. She was a crea shy;ture who had learned to survive, a fit mate for a lonely traveler, a woman who could tend a wound and live on scraps as well as wear fine gowns and dine with nobility.
Someone, perhaps, with whom to make a home.
He looked at her, reluctant to give up his dream of finding Earth, yet knowing that reality was preferable to a romantic quest. And yet need the dream be wholly discarded? Two could search as easily as one and it would be good not to have to travel alone.
"Earth?" She pondered the question, white teeth biting at her lower lip. "No, Earl, I've never heard of it. A planet, you say?"
"An old world, the surface scarred and torn by ancient wars, yet the interior holds a strange life. I was born there. I'm trying to get back."
he frowned. "But if you left the place you must know where it is. How to get back. Surely you have the coordi shy;nates?"
"No, Lallia, I haven't."
"But-"
"I was very young when I left," he interrupted. "I stowed away on a ship, frightened and desperate and knowing no better. The captain was an old man and treated me better than I deserved. He could have evicted me into space; in shy;stead he allowed me to join his crew under an oath of secrecy. That was a long time ago now and he is safely dead. I moved on, always heading deeper into the galaxy, moving from world to world towards the Center. And Earth has become less than a legend. The charts do not show it. No one has ever heard of it. The very name has become mean shy;ingless."
"It must be a very long way away," she said quietly. "You must have traveled for a long time, Earl, my darling. So long that your home planet has become lost among the stars. And you want to find it again. But why? What is so special about the place you ran away from that you must find it again?"
Dumarest looked down at his hands and then back to meet the level gaze of the woman. "A man must have some reason for living," he said. "And Earth is my home."
"Home is where you make it, the place where you want to be." Her hand fell to his arm, pressed. "Mine is with you, Earl. It would be nice if you felt the same way about me."
He said, quietly, "Perhaps I do."
"Darling!"
He felt the soft touch of her hair as she pressed against him, the smooth roundness of her cheek, the warmth of her full, red lips. Her hand rose, caressing his hair, his face, running over his shoulder and down his left arm, the fingers pressing, moving on. He heard the sharp intake of her breath as she touched his ring.
"Lallia?"
"I'm all right, Earl." She kissed him again then moved away, eyes curious as she looked at the gem on his hand. "When I touched that ring I felt the strangest sensation. It was as if I heard someone crying, sobbing as if their heart would break. Where did you get it, Earl?"
"It was a gift."
"From a woman?"
He smiled at the sharpness of her voice. "It came from a woman," he admitted. "She is gone now."
"Dead?"
He nodded and she smiled, coming close to him again, a female animal purring her satisfaction.
"I'm glad she's dead, Earl. I don't want to share you with anyone. I think I'd kill any woman who tried to take you from me. I know I'd kill anyone who hurt you. I love you, my darling, always remember that."
Dumarest closed his arms around her as she again pressed close. She was a creature of emotion, as honest as her tem shy;perament allowed, with the fiercely possessive nature of a primitive. But was that so very bad? She would be true to him according to her fashion and who could do more than that? And she was his wife, married to him according to Web trader custom, jealous of her rights.