"The box," she said when he asked. "I saw it and was curious and made some inquiries. It looks like a shipping container but it isn't that and neither is it a coffin. I thought it was at first, despite its size, but I was wrong. It's the reverse, in fact. A survival-casket."
That was new to him. Ships carried life-support sacs for use in emergency but they were a last hope and a desperate gamble. The usual caskets were strictly functional affairs shaped by the need to achieve a low temperature in the minimum time and to keep it stable once obtained. And why the old woman? The impression of limitless patience?
"They wait," said Carina. "Those who use the boxes, I mean. I depicted an old woman but it could have been a man. And I guess neither had to be old but that's how I felt it. Old people lying in their boxes in a form of suspended animation while the years spin past outside. Just lying there, waiting. Patiently waiting."
"For what?"
She shrugged, indifferent. "Who knows? They are crazy, of course, they have to be. To waste a life just lying in a box in the hope you'll be able to last long enough to be around when whatever you're waiting for happens. The end of the universe, maybe. The discovery of immortality. Who knows?"
And who cared? Oddities were common in a galaxy thick with scattered worlds bearing a host of varying cultures. Societies with peculiar beliefs and customs strange to any not of their kind. Frameworks of reference which turned madness into normal behavior. Freaks and fanatics going their own way, tolerated or ignored as long as they did no harm.
Dumarest put down the painting, half-turned, then reached for it again with belated recognition. The woman dominated the scene or he would have noticed it before. Had noticed it but fatigue had delayed his reaction. Now he studied the painting again, concentrating, not on the woman but on the box.
It was decorated with a profusion of painted symbols.
"Earl?" He turned and saw her face, the anxiety in her eyes, and realized he had stood silent and immobile for too long. "Earl, is anything wrong?"
"No. Where did you see this?"
"The box? Why, Earl, is it important?"
"Where!"
"On Caval," she said quickly. "The Hurich Complex- Earl, please!"
He turned from her, smoothing his face, forcing himself to be calm. She didn't know. She couldn't know-to her the box was nothing more than an oversized sarcophagus. An amusing novelty which had triggered her creative artistry. The symbols adorning the casket merely vague abstractions.
Symbols which could guide him to Earth.
Chapter Five
Caval rested on the edge of the Zaragoza Cluster, a small, fair world of balmy air and rolling fields, devoid of the stench of industrial waste, the bleak shapes of functional machines; a world in which time seemed to have slowed, even the clouds drifting with stately grace across the pale amber of the sky. The people matched their world, adapted and conditioned by inclination and environment: slow, stolid, a little bovine but far from stupid.
The Hurich Complex lay thirty miles from the landing field on the far side of a ridge of rounded hills now bright with yellow flowers which covered crests and slopes with a golden haze. The place itself was wrapped in the easy somnolence of a tranquil village; wide streets flanked by open-fronted shops in which craftsmen plied their trade. The air carried the endless tap of hammers, the scuff of files, the echoes of saws and planes. The place was a hive of industry devoid of the mechanical yammer of machines-all work was done by hand.
"There!" Carina lifted a hand, pointing. "It was down that street, I think. Yes, it was down there-I recognize the sign over that shop."
A swinging plaque bore the imprint of a rearing beast adorned with a crown-carved wood touched with gilt and paint bearing a startling likeness to a living creature. The street itself was given to residential establishments, only a few of the houses with the familiar open front, some closed with broad windows displaying the goods within.
"On the left," said Carina. "About halfway down."
She had insisted on accompanying him as a guide when he had left Shard. Now she walked three paces ahead of him as if eager to prove her memory correct. She wore the slacks and tunic she had donned when leaving Shard: loose fabric of dull green which disguised her femininity. Her boots were high but soft, the belt wide and fitted with pouches. She carried no visible weapons.
"Here!" She halted and looked to either side, frowning. "I'm sure it was here. Over there, I think."
Dumarest looked at a blank wall.
"I'm sorry, Earl. I'm sure it was there."
He said, "When you left here did you go straight to Shard?"
"No. I shipped to Mykal and moved around a little. I did the painting there and worked in the local hospital for a while. Then I got bored and went to the field and tossed a coin and moved on."
To Shard, and more time had been spent on the return voyage. Time enough for the shop to have closed, the owner to have died.
Had he arrived too late?
The sign of the rearing beast had denoted a tavern, and, in a long, cool room adorned with masks and weapons all carved from wood, the owner served beer and nodded in answer to Dumarest's inquiry.
"The shop down the street? Jole Nisbet sold it about a month ago. Young Zeal's taken it and should do well. A fine worker in glass and ceramics. He'll be open in a couple of weeks if you're interested."
"Nisbet?"
"To another shop, of course. It's on Endaven… Turn right at the junction and it's three hundred yards down."
They came to a big, bustling place filled with the scent of wood and resin and paint, littered with shavings and dust and scraps of metal. Jole Nisbet, old and gnarled, with the strength of a tree, looked at Dumarest, then at Carina. For a long moment he said nothing, then smiled.
"The artist. You are the artist-am I right?" He beamed as she nodded. "And you've come back to us and with a friend. I hope you will stay. We need such talent as yours."
"Thank you, Jole."
"And you?" The shrewd eyes met Dumarest's. "Not an artist, I think, though I could be wrong. A hunter? A farmer? No, your eyes are too restless. A hunter, then-but what else?"
"A student," said Dumarest.
"Of what? War?" The old man shook his head. "We have no place for such a thing here on Caval. A man is born and he works and develops his skills and he lives at peace. He has pride in what he has made or what he does for not all can create things of beauty. Even so someone must sweep the shop and sharpen the tools and carry the timber-no man need consider himself a failure."
A philosophy with obvious results. Since landing on Caval Dumarest had seen no beggars, no signs of abject poverty. Work and pride in work united all in a common bond. Ambition lay in producing something others would admire and their praise was reward enough. And a clean floor could be admired as sincerely as a carved statue, a well-cooked meal as much as any fabrication of metal.
Carina said, "The last time I was here I saw a box in your old shop. I asked about it, remember?" She continued as the old man nodded. "My companion is interested in it."
"Why?"
Dumarest said, "I told you I was a student. It poses a mystery to me which you could answer."
"Why anyone should want to stretch their life-span at the cost of living?" Nisbet shook his head. "I can't help you. I don't know. To be cooped is always bad but to spend a life in sleep and dreams-" He broke off, shaking his head. "Why anyone should do that is beyond me. You must find your answer somewhere else."
He had jumped to the wrong assumption but Dumarest didn't correct him. Instead, he said, "Who could that person be? The owner of the box?"
"Perhaps."
"Who would that person be?" In a moment Dumarest recognized the mistake he had made. "I apologize," he said quickly. "The question could have been misunderstood. It was badly phrased. I was not, of course, asking you to divulge a confidential matter." His tone lowered a little. "As an intruder into your life I ask your tolerance for any unwitting errors I may make or insults I may tender as the result of my ignorance. Of your charity I beg that you take no offense where none is intended."