Spectrum of a Forgotten Sun - E.C Tubb

The walls glowed with color, patches of flaming brilliance interspersed with areas of muted luminescence, a profusion of sparkles and shades, of glows and shafts and points, of pulses and ripples in each and every combination of hue. Works of art constructed of metal and crystal, of trapped gasses and seething liquids, of sponge-like ceramics and foils which hummed and moved as if alive.

Before one a woman stood, lost in rapture, her hands squeezing her naked breasts, her breathing a deep and quickening susurration. Beyond her a man crouched in an attitude of attack, lips drawn back over snarling teeth, hands lifted, fingers hooked, ropes of muscle standing clear on his naked arms and torso. A couple lost in each other, so interlocked that it seemed as if they were one. A young girl who simpered and ran to stand with her thumb in her mouth and invitation in her eyes. An oldster who drooled. A matron who stood with parted lips and cried in silence. A boy who talked to the air in muted gibberish.

Dumarest passed them all, his boots soundless on the padded floor, light from the display shimmering from his sterile clothing, the polished boots, the hilt of the knife riding above the right.

Dephine was in the inner chamber.

She sat on a circular couch which slowly turned in the centre of the floor so that one seated could see the entire extent of the inner display. It was in sharp contrast to that outside, sombre tones now instead of stimulating brilliance, lines and planes holding a subtle disquiet which seemed to darken the glowing constructs. Her eyes were blank, emerald pools which glistened with reflected light beneath the carefully dressed mane of her hair. Eyes which blinked and became alive when Dumarest stood before her.

"Earl!" She rose, hands lifted, the nails glowing as they turned to rest the palms against his cheeks. "Earl! At last!"

"You've been waiting long?"

"An eternity! Earl, you look so well!" Her palms stroked his cheeks, ran down the line of his jaw, the tips of her fingers resting on his lips, following the contours of his mouth. Her eyes were wide, luminous with unshed tears of joy, her face bearing the radiance of a young girl. "Earl."

A sudden flood of natural emotion or a reaction to his presence caused by the effects of the display? Dumarest stepped back, looking at her, conscious of the impact of her femininity, his own wakening desire.

"Dephine, you look well."

An understatement, she looked beautiful. Rich fabrics clothed the long, lithe contours of her body, gems shone at ears and neck, wrists and fingers. More from the auburn cloud of her hair. Her eyes gleamed beneath the slanted brows and, in the hollows of her cheeks beneath the prominent bone, luminous shadows danced to enhance the wide invitation of her mouth.

He said, a little unsteadily, "Let's get out of here."

"Why, don't you like it?" Sitting she patted the couch at her side. "Join me, Earl. Let me feel the warmth of your body close to mine. The life that is within you. The strong, so strong determination to survive. The only reason you are with me now. Did they tell you that when you woke? That a lesser man would have succumbed?"

"This place-"

"A work of genius, Earl. Krhan was a master of his art. A visionary who took inert material and imbued it with life." Her voice sobered a little. "He haunted the beds of the dying and recorded their every hope and fear and aspiration later to use those recordings to program the structure of the artifacts which now rest all around us. Extremes of emotion caught and reflected to be assimilated by those who come here to stand and concentrate and become one with the emanations. You've seen them, Earl, you understand."

Auto-hypnosis which stripped away layers of inhibition and released secrets, desires and aspirations. And here within the inner chamber?

"The culmination of his art, Earl," she said when he asked. "Sit and watch for long enough and time ceases to have meaning. Death is robbed of its terror. Life becomes a pulsing surge of demand. Life, Earl, and emotion, and the desperate hopes of those who have left their desires too late and, in dying, sent them to blaze in a final burst of emotive appeal. Do it now, Earl. Can't you grasp the message? Do it now before it is too late. Do it! Do it!" Her arms engulfed him, holding him with a desperate yearning, her body radiating a demanding heat. "Do it, Earl! Damn you, do it now!"

* * * * *

A bird descended with a flutter of wings to land on the fleshy petal of a flower, to peck, to whir into the air again. A free creature of the air, protected in this environment, a thing of grace and beauty.

As she watched it fly away Dephine said, "We need to talk, Earl."

He nodded, looking back at the building housing the Krhan Display. A trap set among riotous flowers, its insidious attraction as subtle as the scent emitted by the bloom of a carnivorous plant. To it would come the ambulatory patients of the Institute eager to taste the new excitement, experience the new thrills. To stand and release inhibitions and act the parts transmitted by those who had died, taken and adapted by the artist. To indulge in stimulated passion. To be watched by skeins of glowing luminescence.

To return again and again, drawn by the depictions as a moth is drawn to flame.

"How long?"

"Have I been waiting? Days, Earl, almost a week now. They had to check me out under slow-time. You needed specialized treatment-but you know all that." She looked back at the massed flowers, the building with its rounded roof. "The Krhan Display beguiled me. It was a way to pass the time. It holds truth, Earl."

"No. Dreams, illusions."

"The truth," she insisted. "How many die eaten with the regret of lost opportunities? The fury of having waited too long? Of building for a future which, for them, no longer exists? Do it now, Earl. A fact which life has taught me. A truth among others." Her voice grew hard. "So many others."

Too many, perhaps, and some of them only a facet of the truth she imagined she had gained. Glimpses of reality distorted by false imagery and garnished by faded tinsel; the lure of promised excitement too often turning sour. How often had she known disappointment? How often had she reached for a new thrill, a new experience, another adventure? How many layers of defensive protection shielded the real woman?

A path led to a bench ringed with scented shrubs and he led the way to it, sitting, waiting for her to settle.

"What happened, Dephine?"

"On the ship?"

"Yes… the others?"

"Charl died by his own hand. I went in to him and he pleaded with me to give him his compounds. One of them must have contained poison."

"Mayna?"

"Dead too."

"How?"

"Does it matter, Earl?" She refused to meet his eyes. "He died, that's all you need to know. His screams were driving me crazy and-" She broke off. "Forget it."

A knife plunged into the heart, the impact of a club against temple or spine, drugs to distort the metabolism, there were many ways to kill a man.

Dumarest said, "Remille wanted to be alone. How did you talk him into landing?"

"I didn't. He made a recording and set the computer to throw the ship into orbit. They picked up the appeal and came up to see what was wrong. Remille was dead. They sent the vessel into a collision-course with the sun and brought us both to the Institute." She added, bleakly, "I think they would have sent us with the ship if I hadn't been able to pay."

The jewels they had found in the loot-the answer to the expensive treatment which had saved his life.

Dumarest said, sincerely, "Thank you, Dephine."

"For what?"

"Doing what you could to save me. The doctor told me about the burns. Without those inoculations I wouldn't be alive now."

"No, Earl, you wouldn't."

"And so I thank you."

"You thank me," she said, dryly. "Is that all? A few words quickly spoken?" And then, as he made no comment, added, "If so it isn't enough. I want more, Earl. A lot more."

"There is little I can give," said Dumarest evenly. "But you have the jewels and can retain most of my share."

"It still isn't enough."

Simple greed? He doubted it, but had to be sure. "What then?"

Her answer was direct. "You, Earl. I want you."

Marriage? In the display they had been governed by passion, riding a tide of sensual pleasure, of desire, of lust. She had been wild in her abandon, surrendering all restraint, concerned only with their union and careless as to who might be watching. An abandon he had shared in an explosive release of primeval energy. There had been words in the glowing dimness, things whispered in the language of lovers. Terms of endearment, protestations of affection, promises which he had heard from other women and which he had learned to discount-when passion died such things were often forgotten. And, influenced by Krhan's genius, neither had been wholly normal.

"Earl?"

She expected an answer, but he delayed giving it, letting the silence grow as he studied the lines of her face. It was hard, cold, a tiny muscle twitching at the corner of her mouth. Her nails made little scratching sounds as they rasped over the rich fabric of her gown.

Not the face of a woman declaring her love to a potential mate. But if not marriage then what?

"You're cold," she said at last. "Had I said that to another man he would have leapt to the obvious and be talking of our future life together. Especially after what happened between us in the display. Yet you say nothing. Why, Earl? Am I so repulsive?"

"Say what you mean, Dephine."

"Cold and hard and direct." She looked down at her hands as if reluctant to meet his eyes. "You're an unusual man, Earl, but I knew that before we left Hoghan. And in the Varden you proved it again and again. The Varden- how can I ever forget it? Days spent with death all around, not knowing if I would contract the disease, not even knowing if Remille had sent the ship to plunge into a sun. Can you imagine it, Earl? Can you?"

The cold glare of light and a silence broken only by moans and screams of the sick and insane. Alone in a ship which had become a tomb, the air tainted with the stench of burning flesh, filled with the restless mutters of nightmare.

"It's over now," he said. "Over."

"Yes, Earl. A danger passed and a problem solved and for you that is the end of it. You will move on, visit other worlds, meet other women, but you don't carry, as I do, the curse of your heritage. I had thought myself rid of it, but in the Varden, and later when I felt the impact of Krhan's genius-Earl, it isn't easy to forget the past."

"Can you ever, Dephine?"

She caught the sombre note in his voice and with an impulsive gesture reached out a hand and touched the side of his face. A touch which turned into a caress as her fingers moved softly over his cheek, to rest on his lips, to lift and be pressed against her own. A kiss by proxy; a thing often done in taverns by harlots with eyes as hard as the metal which graced their nails. But this was no tavern but a bench set among scented bushes and the woman was regal in self-assured pride.

A pride which crumpled as, tremulously, she said, "Earl! I need you! Please don't make me beg!"

"Need me for what?"

"For your strength, your courage, your skill. Because you are a man in every sense of the word. Because I am afraid."

"Afraid?"

She said, dully, "I belong to an old and honored family. One so steeped in tradition that it has become a way of life. Can you understand that? To live by a code which must not be broken. Of pride which can admit of no weakness. Of reputation which must be maintained no matter what the cost. I was a rebel and when the chance came to escape I took it. Since then I have done many things." Light glittered as she lifted her hands and looked at her nails. "Things which could be regarded as having sullied the good name of my House."

"So?"

"I want to go back, Earl. I want to go home. Yet how can I be sure of a welcome? I could be challenged-there is nothing so cruel as outraged pride. So you see why I need you. I must have a champion. A man to stand at my side and to shield me with his strength. Just for a while, Earl, until I am accepted, then you can go your own way if you want."

She had tended him and saved his life-he couldn't refuse.

"Very well, Dephine," he said. "I'll take you home."

Chapter Nine

Home was Emijar, a small world lying at the edge of a dust cloud, the solitary planet of a dying sun. From his balcony Dumarest studied it, looking at the distant loom of hills, the rolling swell of terrain. From below came the sound of voices and, leaning over the parapet, he could see small and colorful figures busy driving horned beasts from pasture into stalls for milking. Boys at their labors as the girls would be hard at work spinning and weaving. The children of the Family learning the essential disciplines of husbandry.

With his elbows leaning on the carved and weathered stone Dumarest examined the exterior of the house. It was a big, rambling structure which had grown over the years, yet the new additions had blended with the old adding to instead of detracting from the original conception. The tower in which he stood reared towards the sky, walls enclosed small courtyards and the thick, outer walls were topped with crenelations. A house which was a combination of farm and fortress. A building which had stretched to embrace generations of residents as it had expanded to contain the accumulation of centuries.

A place of dust and cobwebs, invisible, intangible, but there just the same.

Dumarest straightened and turned and stepped back into the room he had been given. It was shaped like a wedge, the floor of polished wood, the ceiling thick with massive beams, the walls softened by an arras of brightly decorated fabric. The bed was wide and covered with a quilt stuffed with feathers. A chest stood at its foot and a low table at its side held wine in a crystal decanter together with two goblets. The door was of solid wood, barred with metal straps and thick with the heads of nails.

A knock and it opened.

The man standing outside said, "My apologies if I have disturbed you. Am I permitted to enter?"

"Do so."

"You are most kind, Earl. I have neglected you, an unforgivable lapse, but I crave your indulgence. The excitement of Dephine's arrival-you understand?"

"I think so."

"To return after so many years!" The man made an expressive gesture. "An event which must be celebrated. Already word has been sent to all members of the Family. But I am remiss. You are comfortable? The room is to your liking? You have bathed?"

Dumarest nodded, studying his visitor. Hendaza de Monterale Keturah was Dephine's uncle, a man of late middle-age, his short, stocky body clothed in sombre fabrics, his tunic alone bright with the encrustation of colorful badges. Symbols of achievement and rank, Dumarest knew. As important to the man as the bolstered weapon he carried at his waist, the firearm no adult would ever be seen without.

Dumarest said, flatly, "How is Dephine? Has she been accepted?"

"By me, certainly, but I have traveled in my youth and know that tolerance is a part of civilized living. Others are less generous, but they will be won over given time and, if the worst should happen, well, she has her champion."