* * *
The rain eased a little as he climbed the slope towards the landing field where the only really permanent buildings on the planet were clustered. Here were the warehouses, the stores, the factor's post, processing plant, commissary and the raised and sheltered dwellings of Hightown. They were empty now. Tourists came only at the beginning of summer, but others resided all the year round.
One of the buildings, built solidly of fused stone and with a transparent roof which could be darkened during the time of sun and heat, shone like a lambent pearl in the darkness. Underfoot the yielding mud gave way to a solid surface and Dumarest lengthened his stride. Light shone on a trough of running water and he stepped into it, washing the slime from his boots before reaching for the door. Hot air blasted as he stepped into the vestibule; the air was replaced by a spray of sterilizing compounds as he shut the door. Three seconds later the spray ceased and the inner door swung open.
"Earl!" A man lifted his hand in greeting as Dumarest stepped from the vestibule. He sat at a table littered with cards, dice, chips and a marked cloth. Three hemispheres of plastic about an inch wide stood ranked before him on the table. "Care to play?"
"Later," said Dumarest.
"Well, come and test my skill." The gambler was a jovial man with a round paunch and thick, deceptively agile fingers. Busily he moved the three hemispheres. Under one he slipped a small ball, moved them all and looked questioningly at Dumarest. "Well? Where is it?"
Dumarest reached out and touched one of the shells.
"Wrong! Try again."
"Later, Ewan."
"You'll come back?"
Dumarest nodded and moved across the room. Tables and chairs littered the floor. An open bar stood against one wall, a closed canteen against another. The remaining space was filled with counters fashioned for display. Men sat or sprawled and talked in low whispers or moved languidly about. Del Meoud, the local factor, sat at a table and brooded over his glass. He wore the bright colors of his guild, which gave him a spurious appearance of youth; but his face was etched with deep lines beneath the stylized pattern of his beard.
His eyes flickered as Dumarest approached him.
"Join me," he invited. Then, as Dumarest took the proffered chair he said, "I warned you: do a woman a favor and she will reward you with anger. Your face," he explained. "You were lucky that she did not get an eye."
Dumarest touched his cheek and looked at the blood on his fingers. He remembered the razor-edged steel Brephor had flung at his eyes. Looking down he saw scratches in the gray plastic of his tunic. They were deep enough to reveal the gleam of protective mesh buried in the material. He dabbed again at his cheek.
"Let it bleed," advised the factor. "Who knows what hell-spore may have settled on the wound?"
"In winter?"
"Winter, spring, summer-Scar lives up to its name." Meoud reached for his bottle. "Join me," he invited. "A man should never drink alone, not when he is haunted by specters of the past." He filled a second glass and pushed it towards his guest. "I was the second highest in my class," he mourned. "Everyone predicted a brilliant future for me in the guild. It seemed that I could do no wrong. So tell me, friend, what am I doing on this isolated world?"
"Growing old." said Dumarest dryly. "You had too much luck, all of it bad."
Meoud drank, refilled his glass and drank again. "No," he said bitterly, "not bad luck, a bad woman-a girl with hair of shimmering gold and skin of sun-kissed velvet, slim, lithe, a thing of sun and summer-she danced on my heart and brought nothing but sorrow."
Dumarest sipped his wine. It had the harsh, arid taste of the local production and still contained the drifting motes of unfiltered spores.
"She gave me a modicum of pleasure," continued the factor, "but I paid for it with a mountain of pain. A high price, my friend, but I was young and proud, and ambition rode me like a man rides an animal." The bottle made small crystalline noises as he helped himself to more wine. "Was it so wrong to be ambitious? Without it, what is life? We are not beasts to be born and breed and wait for death. Always we must reach a little higher, strive to obtain a little more, travel a little faster. The philosophy of living, ambition!"
He drank and set down the empty glass. Reaching for the bottle he found it empty and irritably ordered another. He poured the glasses full as the barman walked away.
"Her father was the Manager of Marque," he said.
"True, she was but his seventeenth daughter, yet she was still of the ruling house. I thought my fortune assured when I contracted for her hand-the influence, the high associations! The guild is kind to those who have influence in high places, kinder still to those with connections with rulers. I tell you, my friend, for a time I walked on golden clouds." Meoud drank. "It was a dream," he said bitterly. "All I had accomplished was to engineer my own ruin."
Dumarest thought he understood. "She left you?"
"She made me bankrupt," corrected the factor. "On Marque a husband is responsible for the debts of his wife. The guild saved me from bondage, but I ended with nothing: no wife, no position, nothing but a limited charity. And so I wait on Scar."
"Brooding," said Dumarest, "dreaming of what might have been, obsessed with past opportunities and past mistakes, looking back instead of forward. You surprise me-a man of business to be so sentimental! How many of your guild suffer from such weakness?"
"How many travelers chase a legend?" Meoud was sharp. He had drunk too deeply and confessed too much, but the winter dragged and the future was bleak. "I have heard the stories, my friend. I know why you chose to live in Lowtown instead of taking a cubicle here at the station, of your searching and questioning. Earth," he said. "How can a world have such a name? It has no meaning. All planets are made of earth. Why not then call Scar dirt, or soil, or loam, or even ground? It would make as much sense."
Dumarest looked down at his hand where it was clenched around the glass. "Earth is no legend," he said flatly. "The planet is real and, one day, I shall find it."
"A legend." Meoud poured them both more wine. "Is that what brought you to Scar?"
"I was on Crane," said Dumarest. "Before that on Zagazin, on Toom, on Hope,"-he looked at his ring- "on Solis and before that…" He shrugged. "Does it matter? The ship which carried me here was the first to leave when I sought passage on Crane."
Meoud frowned. "And you took it? Just like that?"
"Why not? It was heading in the right direction, out, away from the center. The stars are thin as seen from Earth."
"As they are from many lonely worlds," pointed out the factor.
"True," admitted Dumarest. "But it was a world with a blue sky by day and a silver moon by night; the stars made patterns which wheeled across the sky. I shall recognize them when I see them again. In the meantime, if you should hear anyone speak of Earth, you will let me know?"
Meoud nodded, staring into his glass. I should tell him, he thought, convince him that he is chasing an illusion, a dream world fabricated when he was a child as a region in which to escape harsh reality. But who am I to rob a man of his dream, his dream and his reason for existence?
He lifted his glass and drank, knowing that some things are best left unsaid.
Dumarest left the factor to the consolation of his wine. The buildings of the station were dreary with winter inactivity, the residents those who had to stay from reasons of investment or duty. Others, whom the vagaries of space travel had brought early to the planet, rested in deep sleep until the summer. Still more huddled miserably in their damp quarters in Lowtown: the travelers whom chance had stranded on a non-productive world, the desperate who lacked the cost of a low passage to some other planet.