"My lord?" A guard blocked his path, eyes roving over Dumarest from head to foot. He wore his own clothes, refurbished, the plastic glistening with a liquid sheen, the grey in strong contrast to the profusion of color. Like himself they had been cleansed, checked, passed fit for normal circulation.
"My lord?" said the guard again, the title more a question than a deferential politeness. "May I be of assistance?"
"The Lady Dephine?"
"She is within." The guard gestured towards the curved entrance of the display. "And you? A patient? My apologies, but-" He broke off, a little discomforted. Those who could afford the expense of the Institute were not usually so sombre in their choice of dress. "To the left as you enter, my lord. The lady is probably in the inner chamber."
Music echoed with faint tinklings as Dumarest passed through the door, an electronic chime activated by his body-mass, serving both to announce his presence and to warn those within that a stranger had come to join them. A peculiarity for which he could see no need, as there had seemed none for the guard. Then, as he looked through the shadowed gloom, the reason became obvious.
The walls glowed with color, patches of flaming brilliance interspersed with areas of muted luminescence, a profusion of sparkles and shades, of glows and shafts and points, of pulses and ripples in each and every combination of hue. Works of art constructed of metal and crystal, of trapped gasses and seething liquids, of sponge-like ceramics and foils which hummed and moved as if alive.
Before one a woman stood, lost in rapture, her hands squeezing her naked breasts, her breathing a deep and quickening susurration. Beyond her a man crouched in an attitude of attack, lips drawn back over snarling teeth, hands lifted, fingers hooked, ropes of muscle standing clear on his naked arms and torso. A couple lost in each other, so interlocked that it seemed as if they were one. A young girl who simpered and ran to stand with her thumb in her mouth and invitation in her eyes. An oldster who drooled. A matron who stood with parted lips and cried in silence. A boy who talked to the air in muted gibberish.
Dumarest passed them all, his boots soundless on the padded floor, light from the display shimmering from his sterile clothing, the polished boots, the hilt of the knife riding above the right.
Dephine was in the inner chamber.
She sat on a circular couch which slowly turned in the centre of the floor so that one seated could see the entire extent of the inner display. It was in sharp contrast to that outside, sombre tones now instead of stimulating brilliance, lines and planes holding a subtle disquiet which seemed to darken the glowing constructs. Her eyes were blank, emerald pools which glistened with reflected light beneath the carefully dressed mane of her hair. Eyes which blinked and became alive when Dumarest stood before her.
"Earl!" She rose, hands lifted, the nails glowing as they turned to rest the palms against his cheeks. "Earl! At last!"
"You've been waiting long?"
"An eternity! Earl, you look so well!" Her palms stroked his cheeks, ran down the line of his jaw, the tips of her fingers resting on his lips, following the contours of his mouth. Her eyes were wide, luminous with unshed tears of joy, her face bearing the radiance of a young girl. "Earl."
A sudden flood of natural emotion or a reaction to his presence caused by the effects of the display? Dumarest stepped back, looking at her, conscious of the impact of her femininity, his own wakening desire.
"Dephine, you look well."
An understatement, she looked beautiful. Rich fabrics clothed the long, lithe contours of her body, gems shone at ears and neck, wrists and fingers. More from the auburn cloud of her hair. Her eyes gleamed beneath the slanted brows and, in the hollows of her cheeks beneath the prominent bone, luminous shadows danced to enhance the wide invitation of her mouth.
He said, a little unsteadily, "Let's get out of here."
"Why, don't you like it?" Sitting she patted the couch at her side. "Join me, Earl. Let me feel the warmth of your body close to mine. The life that is within you. The strong, so strong determination to survive. The only reason you are with me now. Did they tell you that when you woke? That a lesser man would have succumbed?"
"This place-"
"A work of genius, Earl. Krhan was a master of his art. A visionary who took inert material and imbued it with life." Her voice sobered a little. "He haunted the beds of the dying and recorded their every hope and fear and aspiration later to use those recordings to program the structure of the artifacts which now rest all around us. Extremes of emotion caught and reflected to be assimilated by those who come here to stand and concentrate and become one with the emanations. You've seen them, Earl, you understand."
Auto-hypnosis which stripped away layers of inhibition and released secrets, desires and aspirations. And here within the inner chamber?
"The culmination of his art, Earl," she said when he asked. "Sit and watch for long enough and time ceases to have meaning. Death is robbed of its terror. Life becomes a pulsing surge of demand. Life, Earl, and emotion, and the desperate hopes of those who have left their desires too late and, in dying, sent them to blaze in a final burst of emotive appeal. Do it now, Earl. Can't you grasp the message? Do it now before it is too late. Do it! Do it!" Her arms engulfed him, holding him with a desperate yearning, her body radiating a demanding heat. "Do it, Earl! Damn you, do it now!"
A bird descended with a flutter of wings to land on the fleshy petal of a flower, to peck, to whir into the air again. A free creature of the air, protected in this environment, a thing of grace and beauty.
As she watched it fly away Dephine said, "We need to talk, Earl."
He nodded, looking back at the building housing the Krhan Display. A trap set among riotous flowers, its insidious attraction as subtle as the scent emitted by the bloom of a carnivorous plant. To it would come the ambulatory patients of the Institute eager to taste the new excitement, experience the new thrills. To stand and release inhibitions and act the parts transmitted by those who had died, taken and adapted by the artist. To indulge in stimulated passion. To be watched by skeins of glowing luminescence.
To return again and again, drawn by the depictions as a moth is drawn to flame.
"How long?"
"Have I been waiting? Days, Earl, almost a week now. They had to check me out under slow-time. You needed specialized treatment-but you know all that." She looked back at the massed flowers, the building with its rounded roof. "The Krhan Display beguiled me. It was a way to pass the time. It holds truth, Earl."
"No. Dreams, illusions."
"The truth," she insisted. "How many die eaten with the regret of lost opportunities? The fury of having waited too long? Of building for a future which, for them, no longer exists? Do it now, Earl. A fact which life has taught me. A truth among others." Her voice grew hard. "So many others."
Too many, perhaps, and some of them only a facet of the truth she imagined she had gained. Glimpses of reality distorted by false imagery and garnished by faded tinsel; the lure of promised excitement too often turning sour. How often had she known disappointment? How often had she reached for a new thrill, a new experience, another adventure? How many layers of defensive protection shielded the real woman?
A path led to a bench ringed with scented shrubs and he led the way to it, sitting, waiting for her to settle.
"What happened, Dephine?"
"On the ship?"
"Yes… the others?"
"Charl died by his own hand. I went in to him and he pleaded with me to give him his compounds. One of them must have contained poison."
"Mayna?"
"Dead too."
"How?"
"Does it matter, Earl?" She refused to meet his eyes. "He died, that's all you need to know. His screams were driving me crazy and-" She broke off. "Forget it."
A knife plunged into the heart, the impact of a club against temple or spine, drugs to distort the metabolism, there were many ways to kill a man.