"Have you tried her?"
"No. I've no love for terror and the sight of those who've tasted it is enough to tell me I'm right. Still, I can't complain, it's good for business if nothing else."
Dumarest looked at his glass. "I guess it is. Has she been here long?"
"I wouldn't know. I only relieved my partner a week ago. She was here then."
"Alone or-"
"With the woman. Kamala's hard in her way but I guess she's fair enough. Someone has to look after the girl and Kamala knows how to take care of a valuable property. She could do worse." The vendor wiped his hands again. "More wine?"
A hint, even on Baatz information had to be paid for, but the wine was good and helped to dispel the chill induced by remembered terror. Or had it been simply remembered?
Dumarest recalled the face, the details he had noted, the pain he had experienced. Real pain as the lights had been real, the knife in his hand, the avid faces. A montage of isolated incidents? A possibility but he doubted it; somehow the song had opened a door in his mind. Touching a node and triggering a total recall of an emotion-loaded incident. One unique to himself.
To one side a juggler wafted a dozen glittering balls into the air, keeping them spinning as he danced on a floor spiked with points. Next to him a girl undulated in an erotic rhythm while beyond a man with a stall loaded with hoes frowned his displeasure. Dumarest ignored them all, seeing nothing but the trembling of his own hand, feeling nothing but the surge which warmed his blood. Luck-it had always been with him, but now it seemed overwhelming.
The girl, Melome, could give him far more than a song.
Kamala said, "My lord, it is not wise. You should not-"
"Here!" Dumarest cut her short, thrusting money into her hand, snatching a spool from the fingers of another. "Let us begin."
Impatience rode him, displayed in the small act of violence which made him the center of attention, a thing he ignored as he sat, looking at the metallic strand, the girl standing within her web. One who seemed to blur as the throb of the drum merged with the wail of the pipe, to become a focus, an instrument he sought to use.
A key to explore the past.
He concentrated, narrowing possibilities, honing his mind to a single thought and then the terror came, the fear, the sick and hollow feeling in his guts.
The wind like a razor on his cheeks.
The cold, the hunger, the feel of the gritty soil, the desperation.
The conviction that he would die.
Before him the bulk of a ship rested in a strange and enigmatic beauty. The first he had seen but, young though he was, he knew it held the warmth and food he needed if he hoped to survive. He edged toward it, a child older than his years, one who had killed and was ready to kill again. The crew were careless, not seeing the small shape which darted from point to point, freezing, moving again with frenzied urgency.
To reach the port, to dive inside, to find a nook in which to crouch. To wait, dozing, as the unaccustomed warmth gave a false security, to jerk to awareness, to doze again.
To wake heart pounding with terror at the touch of a hand, the sight of a startled face, another which scowled.
"By God, look what we have here! A damned stowaway."
"A kid."
"Still a stowaway. That's what you are, boy. Know how we treat scum like you? Into the lock and out, that's how. Dumped into the void. Your eyes'll pop out and your lungs will become balloons frothing from your mouth. You'll look like raw meat- ruined but still alive. A hell of a way to go."
"Don't make a meal of it." The other man was uneasy. "You don't have to gloat. Anyway, it's up to the skipper to decide."
The captain was old, his face lined, graced with tufted eyebrows, his nose pinched and set above a firm mouth.
"How old are you, boy? Ten? Eleven?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yes, what? Eleven?"
"Twelve, I think, sir. I'm not sure." The face before him blurred, jarred to clear focus. "Sir?"
"I could dump you but I won't. You can ride with us, working your passage. A hard life but better than what you've known." Again the blurring. "Food, warmth, security-but you'll earn it all."
"Sir? I-sir?"
But the face had gone and he looked at a glittering strand and the girl to which it led while, from the circle of which he was a part, came the groans and wails of those who had tasted an evil fruit.
"Wine?"
Kamala was beside him with her tray of beakers and Dumarest bought and sipped while retaining his place. The moment had been too short; memories revived and speeded by subjective time so that he had lived an hour, more, in a few minutes. Or was it simply that? Did the moment of terror, once experienced, form the whole of the incident?
He had been a boy again, back home on Earth, and only the ship and the captain's kindness had saved him from death. But there had been other moments of terror; times when through ignorance he had known the fear of a trapped animal. One augmented by the threats of sadistic members of the crew who had taken a perverse delight in relating stories of dreadful punishments inflicted for small wrongs.
Of burnings, beating, maiming, blinding-things which his experience had told him were all too possible.
Time had negated them; the savagery he had known had no place in any civilized community, but, until he had learned, terror had been a close companion.
"My lord?" Kamala again, looking at his barely touched wine, the spool still held in his free hand. "Is something wrong?"
Dumarest realized that he alone was left of the circle. Finishing the wine, he handed the woman the empty beaker. He followed it with coins.
Kamala refused them with a shake of the head.
"No, my lord, it would not be wise. I warned you against hearing the song again so soon. Yield again to terror and-"
"I won't go mad."
"So you say and it could well be true but others have made the same boast and failed to live up to it. I want no trouble."
Dumarest said, flatly, "I've the money and I'm in position. Rattle your chimes, woman, and stop wasting time."
"No."
"You want a higher fee? Double, then. Triple. Damn it, name your price!"
"No!" She backed from the anger blazing in his eyes, one hand lifting, steadying, the massive ring she wore on the index finger glowing with a metallic sheen. A weapon he recognized. "Baatz is a peaceful world," she said. "But a woman would be a fool to be without protection on any world and, my lord, I am not a fool. It would be best for you to leave now."
Advice he was reluctant to take. Pressed, he could negate the threat of the weapon, moving before she could discharge its darts, reaching her, twisting hand and wrist so as to obtain the ring. But if he used his superior speed and strength he would ensure her enmity. It was better to master his impatience.
"My lady, I must apologize." A smile replaced the anger which had frightened her. "I mean no harm and want no trouble. It was just that-well, I'm sure you understand."
"You're holding the spool."
"Is that bad?"
"Release it."
"Of course." He let it fall and watched as it moved toward the girl, the reel climbing the strand to hang at her belt. "I would like to talk business." He added, as she frowned, "At least let me make the offer."
"Melome sings no more today." Kalama was adamant. "She is tired and soon it will be dark. Not even for two hundred kobolds will she sing."
Twice what she would earn in a session; a score of spools hung at her waist. But if he should offer more? Dumarest decided against it; as Kalama had said, the girl was tired and the sky held the hint of coming darkness. In the softening light Melome stood like a broken animal, one which had been ridden too hard and too far. The lowered face was ghastly in its pallor, the bruised eyes ugly smears.