"You-"
He caught her wrist as she swung her hand at his cheek.
"Don't, you're hurting me!" Her eyes widened as she looked into his face. "Earl! Don't look at me like that! Don't make me feel so unclean!"
He dropped her hand, fighting his sudden, inexplicable anger. Who was he to judge? Like himself she was a trav shy;eler making out as best she could. And if she used her woman's wiles to get her way, was that any different to him using his natural speed and acquired skill? Was it worse to hurt a man's pride than to gash his body with blades?
"I'm sorry, Lallia," he said. "I'm tired and spoke without thinking. Please forget it."
"I'm sorry too, Earl. Sorry that we didn't meet years ago. Things could have been so different if we had." She dropped her right hand to his left, squeezed, her fingers tight against his ring. "Earl!"
"What is it?" He stared into her face. It was pale, beaded with perspiration, suddenly haggard with lines of strain. "Lallia!"
"Death," she muttered. "And pain. So much pain. And a hopeless longing. Oh, such a hopeless longing!"
And then, abruptly, she collapsed, falling to lie sprawled on the table, naked arms and legs white against the ir shy;idescence of her dress, the dingy plastic of the surface.
Nimino rubbed the side of his chin with one slender finger and looked thoughtfully down at the girl on the bunk. "A sensitive," he said wonderingly. "Who would have suspected it?"
"Are you sure?" Dumarest had carried the girl into his cabin and now stood beside the navigator.
"I'm sure. She has all the characteristic symptoms of one who has suffered a severe psychic shock. I have seen it many times before." Nimino leaned forward and lifted one eyelid exposing the white ball of the eye. "You see? And feel the skin, cold and clammy when it should be warm and dry. The pulse, too-there can be no mistake."
Dumarest stared curiously at the girl. She lay at full length, the mass of her hair, which had become unbound, a midnight halo around the paleness of her face. The long curves of arms and legs were filled with the clean lines of developed muscle covered with scanty fat. The breasts were full and proud, the stomach flat, the hips melting into rounded buttocks. A courtesan, he thought, the typical body of a woman of pleasure, all warmth and smoothness and femininity.
And yet-a sensitive?
He had met them before, the sports of mutated genes, the products of intense inbreeding. Always they had paid for their talent. Sometimes with physical weakness or ir shy;regular development of body or mind. But always they had paid. Lallia?
"You said that she claimed to be able to read palms," mused Nimino. "Not a clairvoyant then, not even a telepath as we understand the term, neither would have allowed themselves to fall into the position in which we found her. But she could have some barely suspected ability. Barely suspected by herself, I mean. How accurate was the read shy;ing?"
Dumarest looked up from the girl. "It was nothing," he said flatly. "A jumble of nonsense. I could do as well myself."
"Perhaps she was not really trying," said the navigator shrewdly. "She is a girl who has learned the value of cau shy;tion. And she is beautiful," he added. "Not often have I seen a woman of such loveliness. You have won a remarkable prize, my friend."
"Won?"
"But, of course, Earl. To the victor the spoils. Both of you must surely be aware of that." Nimino smiled and then grew serious. "Tell me exactly what happened just before she collapsed."
"We were talking," said Dumarest. "She dropped her hand to mine and touched my ring. That's when it hap shy;pened."
"Your ring?"
Dumarest lifted his left hand. "This."
"I see." Nimino brooded as he examined the stone. "I ask no questions, my friend, but I will venture a statement. This ring has high emotional significance. To you and perhaps to the one who owned it before. Am I correct?"
"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."