He looked at her, seeing her pleading expression, lifting his eyes to look around the chamber, at the solid walls decorated with the usual theme. As all walls were solid. In all he had seen of Zabul there had been no trace of a window and he could guess the reason.
The girl would help him verify it.
Althea said dully, "This is the best I can do, Earl, and I've done too much. No Outsider should learn what you have or see what you are to see now. I must be mad to cooperate."
But he had encouraged this madness, turning her passion against her conditioning and making her his ally as she had made him her lover. Now he watched as she manipulated dials and paused with her hand on a contact. A moment and it was done.
Dumarest stared at the naked glory of space. He had seen it before yet, always, it thrilled. The countless stars with their hosts of worlds, the blotches of darkness, the blurred patches which were other galaxies, the whole, incredible vastness of the universe. Then the scene changed as the scanner turned to portray Zabul. A ship, as he had suspected, but gigantic in size. Yet-was it a ship?
The form was wrong, the shape and balance, the beauty of functional design. There were too many towers, too many vanes and bulbous swellings and shadowed declivities. It was as if a giant had assembled scores of vessels and welded them into a shape dictated by whimsical chance, joining the hulls with sheets of curved metal, extra bubbles, scraps which had been ready at hand, expanding the original concept in dimensions determined by need and available material. Dumarest said, "How long?"
"I don't know, Earl. I told you that. I was born on Zabul and to me it has always been home. My world. One I have betrayed."
"No."
"Because you guessed? How?"
"Vibration," he said. "And other things." His instinct mostly; he had traveled on too many ships not to be sensitive to space. But the vibrations had triggered his suspicions: the blur of sounds which had come to him as music. On any isolated structure trapped noises tended to travel, to become amplified, to linger in telltale whisperings. "But you haven't betrayed anything. Others must know of Zabul. The Huag-Chi-Tsacowa, for example. And what of your other suppliers?"
She said, "You're just trying to be kind. No matter what you say, I have broken a trust. The Elders-"
"To hell with them!"
It would have been kinder to have slapped her in the face. She recoiled, eyes haunted, her hand shaking as she broke the connection. The screen went blank and a panel slid over it to turn it back into a part of a decorated wall that formed a small chamber fitted with chairs-part of an upper gallery.
Dumarest said, "You prate of finding Earth but what do you hope to find there? One thing must be freedom or all else is valueless. Why be afraid of the Elders? What are they but people who have clung to power for too long? Old, decaying, almost senile, close to being insane. Have spirit, Althea. Life is not to be lived in chains."
"No, Earl! You don't understand!"
He shrugged and looked at the panel covering the screen, the wall, the chairs set in neat array. An auditorium designed for a forgotten purpose or, perhaps, those for whom it had been built were no longer interested.
Quietly he said, "How did it all begin? Did the younger sons of some rich families unite in a common aim? Or did the rulers of some commercial empire look for a way to extend their lives and power? It's happened often in the course of history: those with wealth and authority chafing with the need to attend to every small detail. They hire or promote others to take over the worry of day-to-day business and turn to other, more enjoyable pursuits. But no matter what the reason, the result is always the same. Once power is yielded it is lost. Those promoted to handle the finances are reluctant to relinquish their positions. Normally it doesn't matter; those who have yielded their fight are too busy having pleasure, and they die before managing to disturb the existing state of affairs. But if they should live too long-what then, Althea?"
"What?" She blinked as if recapturing her thoughts. "I don't understand."
"I think you do. The Guardians-such a well-chosen word. The elect who look after those in the caskets and take care of all the tiresome details. What was it you told me? All the fruits of the universe come to Zabul-but who pays the price?"
"We help," she said. "Someone has to take care of things. The Guardians do good."
"Yes," he said dryly. "They do good. In fact they do very well."
She caught the tone, the meaning, the implied insult, and her hand rose, fingers curved, nails aimed to rip at his cheek. But her blow died as he gripped her wrist to hold it, staring into her eyes.
"Do you really want to find Earth?"
"How can you doubt it?"
"Do they? The Council?"
"Of course!" She winced and pulled at her wrist. Her hand had grown white beneath the pressure of his fingers. "Earl! My hand!"
"I come from Earth," he said as he released her. "By any form of logic here is a place where I surely should be welcome. To be questioned, tested, probed-at least to be listened to. Yet what happened? You were at the meeting and saw how they reacted."
"So?"
"They don't want to find Earth."
"Impossible! They, all of us, live only for the Event!"
"So they tell you and so you believe." Dumarest hammered the point. "But think of how they reacted, what they said and did, their final decision. I offered to be tested and was refused-can you agree with the logic of that decision?"
"Logan had her reasons."
"And her fears. What happens to the Council after the Event? Who will give the orders? Fill the seats of power? You have everything the universe can provide," he said bitterly. "Maybe some of the Council have developed expensive tastes."
"No!"
"Think about it. How can you be certain that I was not sent to examine you? To gauge your fitness to experience the Event. The one chance you will ever have, Althea. Thrown away by the greed of those who claim to rule you. Think about it, damn you! Think!"
Think and let the seeds of doubt he had planted sprout and grow into mistrust and suspicion. It was the only chance he had. To destroy the rule of the Council in order to gain his own freedom-from more than their decree. Zabul was a ship and, if he had been traced, was now a prison.
"Earl?" Her tone was pleading as were her eyes. "Help me, darling."
To think? No, it was more than that and he was suddenly conscious of her vulnerability. Sheltered from childhood, protected, raised in a culture which admitted of no question as to its destiny, fed on dreams in which no unpleasantness could exist-how could she be other than a victim of those used to the normal rigors of life? The cheating and lying and violence and mistrust which all took in from their earliest days. Assimilated it and learned to live with it And, like her, the Council.
"You must spread the word," he said. "To Volodya and Demich and those others who were more open-minded than Vole and the rest. Talk to them. Mention the chance they could be losing. Demand I be treated as what I am-the true representative of Earth. Unless you can demonstrate your desire for freedom you are not worthy of the Event."
Alone, he reactivated the screen, operating the controls she had touched and which he'd memorized. The stars were in their same, eternal splendor but his eyes shadowed as he looked at the spaces between.
How long did he have before the enemy would strike?
Nubar Kusche woke from a dream in which all he touched turned to precious metal to stare into the face hovering above his own.
"Earl!" He tried to rise, then fell back as something pricked his throat. Dabbing it, he saw a smear of blood on his fingers. "Earl, for God's sake!"
Dumarest lifted the knife to hold it poised in his right hand, his forearm resting on his knee, his right foot on the edge of Kusche's bed.