She moved away, the man with her, others following to leave Dumarest in a cleared space with only Ragin at his side.
"So much for popularity, Earl, but Enid was right. A pity. You would have livened things up."
"I haven't gone yet."
"But you will." Ragin was shrewd. "I've a feeling about you, Earl. The academic life isn't for you. It's too petty, too limited. There's too much spite and too much fear. Take Enid, now. If her contract were terminated where could she find other employment? Look around-they're all in the same position."
And all from the same mold-students who had graduated to stay on and take post-graduate studies and then to become assistants and gain doctorates and gain a professorial chair; prisoners in a system which fed on itself to create more; academics lacking the spirit or courage to break free of the surrogate womb and blinding themselves to the reality beyond the university walls.
Yet at least one had managed to break free.
Ragin frowned when Dumarest mentioned him. "Rudi? Rudi Boulaye? You knew him?"
"Did you?"
"To my cost I admit it. I donated a hundred veil to his crazy enterprise. Well, I wasn't alone. Tomlin had a share and Seligmann-he's dead now. Collett put in a thousand but he could read the writing on the wall and it was his only hope. Dying," he explained. "Rotting inside. All his money could buy him was drugs to ease the pain so he gave all to Rudi and went into freeze. That was a long time ago and when they tried to revive him it was wasted effort."
"Cucciolla?"
"He was against it and with reason but I have a suspicion he chipped in just the same. Another romantic who wanted to believe the impossible could be true and that legend needn't be all lies. But Rudi made it all sound so logical. He always was a persuasive bastard as Myra could tell you, but, on second thought, you'd better not ask. You knew him, you say?"
"He's dead." He added, "Isobel too."
"A pity." Ragin looked around and found glasses filled with streaked amber fluid. Emptying a couple, he refilled them from a flask he took from his pocket. "A toast," he said, handing one to Dumarest. "To the last journey."
It was the same brandy that he had tasted before and Dumarest took enough in his mouth to perfume his breath.
"A dreamer," mused Ragin. "A fool in many ways but show me an idealist who isn't. Weak too, but does that matter if you're lucky? Rudi had a way with women and Isobel was an angel." He sniffed and poured himself more brandy. Lifting his glass he said, "Well, Earl, let's drink to the death of a dream."
"It wasn't a dream," said Dumarest. "Rudi found his mine."
"Mine? Who the hell is talking about a mine?" Ragin shook his head. "I'm talking about the search he made before he left to make his fortune. The thing I and Tomlin and Cucciolla and all the others had shares in. The search for Earth," he explained. "Rudi swore he knew how to find it."
They had called it the Forlorn Endeavor and of them all only a handful were still alive.
"Time," said Cucciolla. "The years take their toll and many of us were old at the instigation. You've heard of Seligmann?" He glanced at Ragin as he nodded. "I see Carl has told you. He was dying at the time and the only real difference was he knew it. Consciously knew it, I mean, others refused to admit the possibility. Pantoock, Klugarft, Kepes, Bond-the list is long, my friend. Gone now. All dead and dust and ashes. Sometimes I think I hear their voices in the wind."
Calling him to join them, perhaps, for Cucciolla, too, was old. He moved slowly about the room, taking care as he brewed a pungent tisane, lacing it as if the act of adding the spirit were of momentous importance. Taking his cup Dumarest examined the chamber, noting the small, telltale signs of poverty. Dust lay thick on the row of books standing on a shelf, each volume protected by transparent plastic. More durable were the cassettes and recordings, the models and spools which added their litter to the home of a man who had spent his life in the halls of wisdom. A man who now waited to die, glad of the company, the opportunity to talk, to relive old dreams.
"Tomlin should have been here," he mourned. "A pity he left two months ago for the eastern peninsula. His health," he explained. "The sea air will do him good and he is lucky enough to have a son willing to share his home."
"And the rest?"
"Zara's teaching at a small school to the north. Nyoka is on a sabbatical-and he'd be a fool to return. Luccia-" The old man shrugged. "I'm the only one available, Earl. I and Ragin, who was one of the youngest at the time. As I remember it Rudi asked you to go with him, Carl. For some reason you refused."
"A moment of sanity." Ragin looked up from his cup, scented vapor wreathing his face. "I had a new appointment which would have been lost had I absented myself, and you know how hard it is to get a place with the Tripart. And, to be frank, I thought of the whole thing as a kind of joke. Earth-how can it exist? It's the same as Bonanza and Jackpot and Eden and all the rest. A name given to a dream of eternal happiness. You must have heard the stories, Earl. The legends. The world on which there is no pain or hurt or fear. The trees grow food of all descriptions, the rivers are wine, the very air is a perfumed caress. The sun never burns, the nights never chill, garments are made as needed from leaves and flowers." He drank some of the tisane, frowned, added spirit from his own flask. "The concept is intoxicating and we become drunk on wild hopes and fantastic optimism. To find Earth. To dip our hands in its inexhaustible treasure. To cure all our ills and slake all our desires. Paradise!"
Dumarest said, carefully, "Did Rudi actually know the coordinates?"
"I don't know. I don't think so but, as I told you, he was a persuasive bastard. He could talk the leg off a dog if he wanted. He managed to convince us he knew something and we backed him to follow it through." He glanced at the old man. "Some of us have reason to regret it."
"I'm not one of them."
"Not you, perhaps, but Luccia?"
Cucciolla shrugged. "Life is a gamble, Carl, as you must be aware. Some win and others lose, but it all evens out in the end. She doesn't regret the money she invested. Like us she wanted the results. She wanted Rudi to find Earth."
And he had.
He had!
Dumarest looked down at his cup and saw the shimmer of light reflected from the surface of the liquid it contained. Radiance reflected from the surging tisane as it flowed in a series of mounting ripples from one side to the other. The movement amplified the quivering of his hands.
Rudi Boulaye had cheated and lied for reasons he could guess. He had found the coordinates of Earth; the essential figures which alone could guide a ship to where it hung in space. The figures which were absent from all navigational tables and almanacs. Data which had rested inches from his hand and was now irretrievably lost.
Could a copy have been made?
"He returned," said Cucciolla. "He was absent a year or more and he came back and we met and he told us the bad news. Earth is a lie. It is nothing but a legend. The planet simply does not and has never existed."
"Yet you backed him to look for it." Dumarest was sharp. "You-all intelligent people-you believed the legend could be true."
"It was a game," said Ragin. "Something to amuse us. A childish fantasy."
"No!" Dumarest set aside the tisane and rose to pace the floor. Tiny plumes of dust rose from the carpet beneath his booted feet. "That's what you told yourselves after Rudi had returned to report his failure. An easy way of salving your pride. But before that, when you gave him your money, you had a belief in the enterprise. A conviction that he could succeed. Why?"
Cucciolla blinked. "Your meaning eludes me, my friend."