With a beauty which had been more than skin and hair and the moulding of flesh and bone. The inner spirit he had known, the person, the wonderful thing which had accentuated the outward form and made her unique among women. But the inner person had died and the shell, through still beautiful, had not been the same. Yet it was hard to remember that. Harder still not to respond in the way his nature demanded. To take her and hold and never, ever let her go.
"She is the Lady Lucia del Vigoda." Zehava read the name from a label on the casket. "Why would she be traveling without maids? A duenna, at least. The person in the next casket is a man. Calton Yemm."
His face was sharply aquiline, the hair a dark cap over a rounded skull, the closed eyes deeply sunken beneath strong brows. His body was slender, ribs prominent, skin taut over the pelvic area. The joints were delineated as if he were an anatomical specimen. His hands, folded on his chest, gave him the appearance of a corpse laid to rest.
Dumarest said, "Treibig, return to the ship and have Mauger come over to check the generator. We'll need the physician, too. Lowish, check the hold but watch out for booby traps. Zehava, see what's in the cabins."
"We'll do it together, Earl."
"No. I'm going to find the log."
He found it lying on the seat of the big chair in which the captain would have sat. Dumarest scanned it, frowning, then searched the bridge before checking both the radio-shack and the navigator's office. The steward's cabin was empty and unusually neat. The salon was too small, too bare. The spigots yielded neither water or basic.
"This is crazy," said Zehava, joining him. "No captain, navigator, steward, handler or engineer. No radio officer. Not even a maid, duenna or bodyguard. A woman like Lucia would never have traveled unaccompanied. What the hell happened?"
"It's in the log." Dumarest gestured towards it. "I'll explain what happened when we're all together."
It was a story stranger than most but not unfamiliar to those who spent their lives in the void. A private vessel making a routine journey from one star to another, falling victim to an unexpected disturbance, one which had brought disaster.
"They ran into a warp," explained Dumarest. "It sucked them in and, later, spat them back into normal space. Here." He gestured towards the hull, the void beyond. "They must have traversed almost half the galaxy. The navigator suspected they must have been held in stasis for a time. He wasn't sure. He was sure that the experience drove them insane. The steward and handler tried to rape Lucia, were beaten off by her duenna who was also her bodyguard and turned on her maids. They were -"
"The navigator?" Mauger frowned. "He wrote up the log? Why not the captain?"
"He died with the engineer when the generator blew. The maids were butchered and their killers died in turn."
"Which leaves just the duenna, Lucia, the navigator and the man in the other casket," said the engineer. "How is he, Chagal?"
"Fair enough," said the physician. He was a big man, older than most of the others, but sharing, despite his profession, their indifference to the value of life. "He'll make it. The woman too, but he's running out of time."
Lacking the essential body-fat which alone could maintain life while in the casket. Metabolism, slowed, still demanded energy and many traveling Low starved before or during resurrection.
Lowish said, "What happened to the others?"
'There are only two caskets," said Dumarest. "Did you find any food?"
"No food and no water. The cargo is made up synthetics and manufactured goods. Valuable but inedible."
"They starved," said Treibig. "But what happened to the bodies? Maybe they -" He broke off, shrugging. "Why guess? The man can give us the answer."
He sat beside the casket, shivering, the cup of basic trembling in his hands. Food brought from the Geniat together with other items. Patiently Dumarest waited until the container was empty.
"What happened? Tell me."
"Later," said Chagal. "He's in no condition yet."
"Have you ever ridden Low?" Dumarest stared at the physician. "I have. I know what he's capable of. What happened, Yemm? Tell me."
The story was much the same as he had read from the log. The warp, the strange forces which had seized the vessel. The death and despair. The grim, final decision.
"With the generator gone we had no hope. Madness had taken too many lives. The food and water were exhausted. There was only one thing to be done. We had to utilize the caskets."
"Why you?" Dumarest leaned towards the man. His recovery had been fast. Already Yemm had stopped shivering and was in command of himself. "The woman had a duenna. The navigator was still alive. Yet they allowed you to take the one remaining casket. Why?"
"It was necessary."
"Why?"
"The decision was made. It was the only one which could have been made. I had no choice but to abide by it. To have refused would have been illogical."
"Why you?" Dumarest added, coldly, "I shall not ask again."
A statement of intention more chilling than any threat. Watching, Zehava saw Yemm look at his hands as if to find comfort and strength in their familiar configurations. A man who must know the position he was in. The ship and all it contained was now the property of those who had found it. His own life had no value. If he was evicted into the void who would complain? Yet he had courage. Not until Dumarest turned, hand lifted to signal, did he speak.
"The Lady Lucia was bound for Kruge there to marry the younger son of Tyrant Manukian. You will have noticed the color of her hair, the translucent quality of her skin. Her eyes, if open, would be emerald. She is the product of centuries of selective breeding. The son of the Tyrant has similar characteristics. On both their worlds it is the mark of aristocracy. The cargo in the holds constitutes her dowry. The duenna had sworn to defend her charge with her life. She did what needed to be done."
"She killed the navigator?"
"It was painless. She evicted his body into space. Then she sealed me into the casket. Afterwards, I assume, she followed the navigator."
A quick death instead of starvation and the torture of thirst. But why had Yemm received special treatment?
"The Lady Lucia has a malfunction of her nervous system," he explained. "It became manifest when she reached puberty. A derangement of the synaptic responses caused, it is thought, by a wild mutation which releases hampering elements from the endocrine glands. The condition can be held in balance by the introduction of living cells which act as beneficial antibodies."
He glanced at the casket holding the woman then back at Dumarest, his eyes darkly enigmatic.
"My tissue culture matches that of the Lady Lucia. My glands have been adapted to produce the essential antibodies. My life maintains her own. Without me she dies."
The cabin held traces of her presence; silks and rich brocades, a cabinet which held gowns, a box which held a profusion of jewels. Things which held the ghostly scent of expensive perfume as did the air, the books and covers, the papers scattered on the bunk.
Dumarest watched as Chagal probed among them. "Is it true?"
"According to what's here,yes."The physician straightened a computer print-out in his hand. This is a report from the Sung-Hagen laboratories on Kruge. It deals with tissue matching and is a copy of one I found in his cabin. He appears to have spoken the truth."
"Appears?"
"Anything can be fed into a computer. What he claims is possible, but hard to prove without tests. I can't run them. I haven't the equipment or the skill. But why should he lie? What would be the point? What could he hope to gain?"
Questions to add to others. Dumarest moved about the cabin, touching, imagining the woman who had occupied it. One warm with vibrant life instead of lying wrapped in the chill of simulated death.