“How many eyes do I have?” he heard Vhotan’s voice rumbling.
Two eyes swam together, like two yellowish-green suns, burning before him. They tried to become one. Jim felt a pressure upon him like that of the hypnotic influence Afuan had tried to bring to bear on him before the bullfight. He stiffened internally, and the eyes separated.
“Two,” he said.
“You’re wrong, Wolfling,” said Vhotan. “I have one eye. One eye only!”
“No,” said Jim. The two eyes remained separate. “I see two.”
Vhotan grunted again. Abruptly his gaze ceased burning down upon Jim, and the hypnotic pressure relaxed.
“Well, I see I’m not going to find out that way,” said Vhotan, almost to himself. His gaze sharpened upon Jim again, but in an ordinary rather than a hypnotic fashion. “But I suppose you understand that I can easily find out if you’ve been telling the truth or not.”
“I assumed you could,” said Jim.
“Yes…” Vhotan became thoughtful again. “There’s a good deal more here than surface indication implies… Let’s see, the Emperor can act on Slothiel’s application for sponsorship, of course. But I think you’ll need more than that. Let’s see…”
Vhotan turned his head abruptly to the right and spoke to empty air.
“Lorava!”
The thin young High-born appeared.
“The Emperor is appointing this Wolfling to an Award Commission as unit officer in the Starkiens. See to the details and his assignment to a section of the palace guard… And send Melness to me.”
Lorava disappeared again. About three seconds later another, smaller man materialized where he had stood.
He was a slim, wiry man in typical white tunic and kilt with close-cropped reddish hair and a skin that would almost have matched the color of Jim’s own if there had not been a sort of sallow, yellowish tinge to it. His face was small and sharp-featured, and the pupils of his eyes were literally black. He was clearly not one of the High-born but there was an air of assurance and authority about him which transcended that even of the armed bodyguards called Starkiens.
“Melness,” said Vhotan, “this man is a Wolfling—the one that just put on the spectacle in the arena a few hours ago.”
Melness nodded. His black eyes flickered from Vhotan to Jim, and back to the tall old High-born once more.
“The Emperor is appointing him to an Award Commission in the Starkiens of the palace guard. I’ve told Lorava to take care of the assignment but I’d like you to see to it that his duties are made as nominal as possible.”
“Yes, Vhotan,” answered Melness. His voice was a hard-edged, masculine tenor. “I’ll take care of it—and him.”
He vanished, in his turn. Vhotan looked once more at Jim.
“Melness is majordomo of the palace,” Vhotan said. “In fact, he’s in charge, at least in theory, of all those not High-born on the Throne World. If you have any difficulties, see him. Now, you can return to your own quarters. And don’t come here again unless you’re sent for!”
Jim visualized the room where he had left Ro and Slothiel. He felt the slight feather touch on his mind, and at once he was back there.
Both of them, he saw, were still there. Ro rushed at him the minute she saw him and threw her arms around him. Slothiel laughed.
“So you came back,” said the languid High-born. “I had a hunch you would. In fact, I offered to bet on the point with Ro here—but she’s not the betting kind. What happened to you?”
“I’ve been given an Award Commission in the Starkiens,” said Jim calmly. His eyes met Slothiel’s. “And Vhotan tells me that the Emperor will act promptly upon your offer to sponsor me.”
Ro let go of him and stepped backward, staring up at him in astonishment. Slothiel condescended to raise his eyebrows in surprise.
“Jim!” said Ro in a wondering tone. “What—what did happen?”
Briefly Jim told them. When he was done, Slothiel whistled admiringly and cheerfully.
“Excuse me,” he said. “This looks like a good chance to clean up on a few small bets before the rest of the Throne World hears about your promotions.”
He disappeared. Ro, however, had not moved. Looking down at her, Jim saw that her face was tightened by lines of worry.
“Jim,” she said hesitantly, “Vhotan did ask exactly that about me, did he?… About whether I might’ve suggested that you go to the Emperor that way? And he asked that after he remembered that I was in Afuan’s household?”
“That’s right,” said Jim. He smiled a little bleakly. “Interesting, isn’t it?”
Ro shivered suddenly.
“No, it isn’t!” she said tensely but in a low voice. “It’s frightening! I knew I could teach you things and help you survive here in the ordinary way. But if things are going on in which others of the High-born want to use you…” Her voice trailed off. Her eyes were dark with unhappiness.
Jim considered her in silence for a moment. Then he spoke.
“Ro,” he said, slowly, “tell me. Is the Emperor ill?”
She looked up at him in astonishment.
“Ill?… You mean, sick?” she said. Then, suddenly, she laughed. “Jim, none of the High-born are ever sick—least of all the Emperor.”
“There’s something wrong with him,” said Jim. “And it can’t be much of a secret if it happens the way it happened in the arena after the bullfight. Did you see how he changed when he started to speak to me after the bull was dead?”
“Changed?” She literally stared at him. “Changed? In what way?”
Jim told her.
“…You didn’t see how he looked, or hear the sounds he made?” asked Jim. “Of course not—come to think of it, you probably weren’t sitting that close.”
“But, Jim!” She put her hand on his arm in that familiar, persuasive gesture of hers. “Every seat in the arena there has its own focusing equipment. Why, when you were fighting with that animal”—she shuddered briefly, in passing, then hurried on—“I could see you from as closely as I wanted, as if I were standing as close to you as I am now. When you turned toward the Imperial box, I was still focused right in on you. I saw the Emperor speak to you, and if he’d done anything out of the ordinary, I’d have noticed it too!”
He stared at her.
“You didn’t see what I saw?” he said after a second.
She continued to meet his eyes in a pattern of honesty; but with a sudden sensitivity inside himself, he seemed to feel that, within, she was somehow refusing to meet his eye—without being really aware of this herself.
“No,” she said. “I saw him speak to you and heard him invite you to visit him after you’d had a chance to rest. Nothing more than that.”
She continued to stand, gazing up into his eyes in that pattern of exterior honesty, with the inner aversion of her gaze unknown to her but evident to him. The seconds stretched out, and he suddenly realized that she was fixed. She was incapable of breaking the near-trance of this moment. He would have to be the one to interrupt it.
He turned his head away from her and was just in time to see the gray-skinned, bald-headed figure of a Starkien appear in the room about five feet away from them.
Jim stiffened, staring at him.
“Who are you?” Jim demanded.
“My name is Adok I,” responded the newcomer. “But I am you.”
Chapter 6
Jim frowned sharply at the man, who, however, showed no reaction to his frown at all.
“You’re me?” Jim echoed. “I don’t understand.”
“Why, Jim!” broke in Ro. “He’s your substitute, of course. You can’t actually be a Starkien yourself. Any more than a—” She fumbled for a parallel and gave it up. “Well, look at him. And look at yourself!” she finished.