He paid and lifted the bowl as she slouched back to the counter there to turn the hourglass. A woman with lank, dirty hair, a long, skinny body covered with a dingy gown, she matched the place she ran, the stained benches, the scarred tables, the uneven floor. The roof was low, the lights dim, other customers bulks of shapeless anonymity. Voices stirred the air like the rustle of dead and drifting leaves; arguments, discussions, the balancing of relative values as applied to certain teachers, the rare chuckle of amusement, the more common rising of an insistent tone.
"Pell has something, I swear it. The experiment was startling in its implications. He got his sensitives-you know that bunch of freaks he uses in his paraphysical studies at Higham — and directed them to apply their combined intelligence on the selected victim."
"A student in his class?"
"Yes, of course, but one chosen at random and the whole point is that the subject didn't know he'd been chosen. Well, after a while we all began to notice signs of abnormal behavior. He grew irritable, seemed unable to relax, made stupid mistakes. Then he grew terrified and swore that people were after him. A classic case of paranoia. And all caused by the product of directed thinking."
"Maybe." His companions wasn't impressed. "There are other explanations. I've heard of Pell and he isn't too reliable. He isn't above managing things so as to get a positive result of an experiment if he has to."
"You accuse him of fraud?" The speaker snorted his impatience. "That's the easy way out-blame the man conducting the experiment and just ignore his findings. They were genuine, I tell you."
"But hardly as startling as you seem to think. It's well-known that one subject can influence another-any mental health worker will tell you that. One of the occupational hazards of dealing with the insane is the danger of distorted reality. So just what has Pell proved?"
"Induced paranoia by directed mental concentration. It must be obvious that the implications…"
The voice died to a whisper as if the speaker had suddenly become aware of the others in the room. In a corner a man woke to the woman's prod, to gasp and fumble for a coin for the soup she served him. Stuff he didn't want and he slumped to snore again over the cooling bowl. When his time was up she would throw it back into the pot to be sold again.
A shrewd operator, thought Dumarest, watching her. The price fixed at just the right level. A quarter veil an hour-but in the winter the nights were twelve hours long. Three veil a night for the sake of watered mush and a score rested on the benches. Most would stay-for two veil they could buy space in a community dorm and get eight hours use of the floor, but they would get no food. And in a dorm there was no light by which to study.
He slumped, pretending to doze, thinking of Myra and the way she had died, seeing her face as she had fallen, hair and gown fluttering in the wind, the oval of her face a screaming blob as she had dropped to smash into a bloody pulp on the ground below. A woman misjudged, perhaps, she could have been nothing more than she had seemed, the wine a foolish prank or the result of ignorance. Yet for him to trust another was to place his life in their hands. And she had died too soon-there had been questions he'd wanted to ask, details he needed to know. She and Boulaye had spent time together on Alba as she had admitted, but she had returned alone and long before the man had resumed his duties at the university. Where had he gone during that time? What had he found?
Things now he might never know and Dumarest tasted the bitterness of regret. If he had asked while he had the chance, forced the pace, demanded her full attention-but to press too hard would have been to lose all. A woman sensitive, easily alienated, once she turned stubborn what could he have done?
Now it was too late and what had he gained?
A name, Erce, another, Circe, or perhaps the two were one, the first a distortion of the second or the other way around. This discovery was denied by the man who had later claimed to his wife to have made it-a claim Dumarest believed. The possibility that Boulaye had visited more than one world but no proof as to which. The attention of the Cyclan could lead to his death.
When would they strike?
He shifted on the bench as the night dragged on, easing his weight to avoid cramps, acting the part of a man sleeping and uneasy in his rest. There were shiftings as students left, their places taken by new arrivals who sat shivering despite the thermal protection of their robes. The bad turn of the weather would hasten the end of the festival. Near to dawn a crowd thrust into the room, cowled figures with snow thick on their robes. Two came to sit beside Dumarest, pressing close on either side, bringing the touch of blizzard cold.
"Soup!" one yelled then added, "It's bad out there. You could fall and freeze and never be noticed."
This was an unasked-for comment and Dumarest wondered why he had made it. Wondered too why the men sat so close. As the woman left after serving the soup he moved, trying to rise, to find himself trapped by the bodies which pressed against him. The bodies retched and doubled beneath the stabbing thrust of his elbows.
Outside wind and snow had turned the streets into a blurred and freezing confusion.
Dumarest ran, stumbled over a curb, fell to roll and rise wearing a white camouflage. From behind him he heard shouts, saw a glow of light quickly extinguished by the closing of the door, tensed as the sharp blast of a whistle cut through the wind. The men were acting in concert and he could guess why.
He moved on, head bent to avoid the driven flakes, boots padding on a cushion of snow. The wind was from the north and he headed away from it, letting it urge him south toward the field. An obvious path to take but it was a time for simplicity and those hunting him could think him too devious to do something so natural. At a junction wind, caught by the buildings, rose in a twisting vortex which funneled snow up and outward to create a node of clarity. In the pale light of imminent dawn Dumarest saw the waiting bulk of a man, another to one side, figures which advanced as he watched, hands lifting to point as if holding weapons.
"You there! Halt! We are proctors!"
Dumarest didn't wait to test this claim as he darted down a side street, plunged again into snow to turn at the mouth of an opening and again head south. The freak storm which had brought the blizzard ceased as rapidly as it had come and, when he reached the field, only vagrant gusts sent clouds of snow streaming like mist over the dirt and the ships standing on it.
Vessels touched now with masking whiteness, rearing like the towers of fantasy, some blotched with light from open ports, others dark, a few with men busy at their bases. Other figures, apparent loungers, but who would stand around in such weather and what was there to see?
Dumarest studied the ships. The nearest was locked and dark, that beyond had an open port with a couple of men inside, the one after had men busy loading bales from a snow-covered pile-work which meant the vessel was in a hurry to leave. Beyond it was a ship with an open port, the next had gaping hatches, the one after was dark.
To gain passage on any would take time but details could be settled once he was aboard. The one loading-an extra man among the rest could easily be missed. The one with two men? Added numbers could increase the chance of argument. One with an empty port could be the best choice-if he were given a choice at all.
Dumarest tensed as the whistle shrilled from behind. It sounded close, riding high against the wind. Gusts suddenly combined to create a brief resumption of the storm, sending clouds of snow over the field in a blinding swirl of whiteness-hiding the ships, the men, the figure of Dumarest as he raced from his position toward the field, the vessels he had noted.