"No," said Dumarest. "We'll ask the captain."
Frome matched his ship, a small, hard man with filed teeth over which his lips fitted like a trap. He scowled as he came to the door leading into the control room.
"You're off limits. Return to the salon at once."
"Willingly, Captain, as soon as you have eased our minds." Dumarest kept his voice casual. "We are a little concerned about the delay. Is something wrong with the ship?"
"No."
"I'm glad to hear it. The ladies were anxious. Then it's true we are being diverted? The steward mentioned-"
"What he shouldn't have done." Unthinkingly the captain fell into the trap. "The fool should have known better than to relay ship business to passengers."
Dumarest said, flatly, "Our business too, Captain. Where are we heading?"
"Harge."
"Harge?" Carl Santis thrust himself forward, his face ugly. "I booked to Fendris. I can't afford the delay."
"You leave the ship on Harge. You all leave it."
Dumarest dropped his hand to the mercenary's arm, feeling the tense muscle as he restrained Santis's lunge. Frome was armed, a laser holstered at his waist, one hand resting close to the butt-an unusual addition to any captain's uniform and a sure sign that he anticipated trouble. The navigator too was armed. He stood back in the control room, his weapon aimed at the group beyond the door.
Kemmer snapped, "That isn't good enough. I demand an explanation."
"Demand?" Frome bared his pointed teeth. "Demand?"
The trader had courage. "A deal was made, passage booked, money handed over. A high passage to Fendris. That's what I paid for and that's what I want."
"What you paid for was passage to my next planet of call and that's exactly what you're getting."
"You-"
"It should have been Fendris," said Dumarest quickly. Kemmer was about to lose his temper and, once antagonized, the captain would tell them nothing. He might even use his laser-Frome was the type. "But in space things can happen," continued Dumarest evenly. "The unexpected and the dangerous and the more so when in the Rift. Is that what happened, Captain? Some danger you had to avoid?"
"A warp," said Frome after a moment. "We hit one and it created strain in the generator. To proceed to Fendris would be to take too big a risk. That's why I headed for Harge." He added, "We'd have landed by now if it hadn't been for the storm."
The girl was careless, setting down the cup with too great a force so that the delicate china rang and a little tisane slopped from the container to puddle in the saucer. A puddle she quickly removed with the hem of her dress but the damage had been done and the very act of cleaning the mess had been an affront. To use the hem of her dress! The action of a common strumpet in a low tavern or of a slut from the Burrows!
"My lady, will that be all?"
"Yes." Even the thick tones of the girl created irritation. "No! Take the cup away. The saucer too, you fool! And change into a clean dress."
And, she thought, for God's sake learn how to act like a product of civilization instead of an ignorant, stupid peasant. Words she left unsaid as the girl picked up the tisane and hurried it from the room. Alone Ellain Kiran stared at the window.
A swirling brown grayness stared back.
An illusion, of course, the dust didn't possess eyes but always when looking at the wind-blown grains she could see them; the eyes of the dead, the eyes of those who would die and were even now dying. And other eyes, less human, those of the inimical forces which created the storms, the dust, the death it carried. The hatred of nature for man and his works. The eyes of a thing bent on destruction.
And yet, still, it held a strange and tormented beauty.
It drew her closer, naked feet padding over the tufted carpet, her gown rustling as the fabric dragged over the surface of a low table, small chimes spilling from disturbed bells. A tintinnabulation she ignored as, halting, she stared at the smooth curve of the plastic, the fury of the storm beyond.
The air, the dust, all were joined in seething turmoil. Winds sweeping from the distant mountains, lifting sands from the deserts, catching them, driving them in a composite whole. Grains of silica, basalt, granite, manganese. Crystalline particles formed of minute rubies, agates, diamonds, emeralds. The detritus of ancient cataclysms which had taken the mineral wealth of Harge and pulverized it and spread it wide and far to be the sport of surging winds. Crystals each facet of which were knives, each point a needle. Carried by the winds at fantastic velocities, they scoured the world.
Nothing unprotected could live a moment in such a blast. Even the toughest suit and thickest pane would fret and wear and shred into particles. Cracks would form, widen, open to expose the skin and flesh and muscle beneath. A moment and it would be ripped away by the ravening fury of countless minute teeth. Even now men lost in the storm could be dying, screaming as the acid of the blast flayed them raw, turning them into grinning parodies of men before even bone and teeth vanished with the rest.
The thought created a tension in her loins and she shuddered, drawing a deep breath, inflating her chest as she stared at the fury beyond the window. The pane itself was unmarked, protected from the scouring dust by an electronic field which kept the particles at bay. An expensive installation but one Yunus could afford. As he could afford so much.
She looked down and saw her hand, the fingers spread, the skin pale in the soft light from the room. Yunus Ambalo, a member of the Cinque; the five families which owned Harge. The Ambalo, Yagnik, Khalil, Barrocca and Tinyeh owning water, food, power, accommodation and transportation. On Harge you lived by their sufferance or you didn't live at all.
The hand had closed into a fist, the nails digging into her palm and in imagination she could feel that same hand closed around her body, holding her, tightening, making her a helpless prisoner of the Cinque. How long could she retain even a fraction of personal integrity? How long before she turned into something as coarse and crude as the girl who had served her?
Outside the dust turned black, lights brightening within the room, the pane becoming a mirror holding her reflection. An image taken from a tapestry; tall, the oval face slashed with a generous mouth betraying in its sensuosity, the eyes, deep-set, vividly green. The hair which hung like a cascade of flame, ruby tints reflected from cheeks and chin and the long column of her throat. The body hugged by gossamer fabrics, the fullness of breasts and hips emphasized by the narrow waist.
"Beautiful! Ellain, my darling, you are beautiful!"
Another image joined her own in the reflective pane, this taken from a frieze; the face of stone, flared nostrils, a cleft chin, a dark mass of hair tightly curled on a peaked skull, the nose aquiline, arrogant, proud. A man taller than herself who stepped close to stand behind her, arms circling her body, the hands rising, cupped, toward her breasts.
Hands which closed to rest on her shoulder blades as she turned to look up into his smiling face, seeing the smile turn into a frown, the amber eyes blaze then turn cold as, deftly, she slipped from the circle of his embrace.
"No, Yunus."
"You object? But why? May not a man appreciate beauty?"
"From a distance, yes."
"This to me?" Again a controlled anger burned in the catlike eyes. "Is the past so easily forgotten?"
"The past is just that-the past." She moved from the window as the cloud of ebon dust yielded to a swirl of paler hue; chalk white touched with scabrous gray laced with somber umber flecked with pearl. "You presume too much."
"Presume?" His gesture embraced the room, the soft furnishings, the things of value which graced the surfaces of small tables, pedestals, cabinets. Statuettes, carved gems, small figurines some in suggestively erotic poses, others screaming in silent agony. In a bowl stood crystalline flowers with petals exuding an induced scent; rich, heavy and sensuous odors which hung like fragrant clouds over the shimmering petals. "Must I remind you to whom this belongs?"
"You own the room," she admitted. "The whole, damned apartment and everything in it. But never make the mistake of thinking you own me."
A matter he could have argued but knew better than to press the point. Later, perhaps, when his interest had waned and she annoyed him too much with her stubborn independence, but not now. Now it pleased him to be gracious, acting the sophisticate, crossing the room with casual indifference to pour wine from a crystal decanter into goblets engraved with interwound figures of classical proportions.
"The storm," he said gently. "Always you are like this during a storm. And yet your very anger accentuates your loveliness. And I? I cannot help but to respond."
"You flatter me, Yunus."
"When has truth ever been flattery?" Smiling, he handed her one of the goblets. "Come, let us drink to a cessation of hostilities between us. To your beauty, my dear! May it never wane!"
A toast in which she could join-God help her should she ever grow ugly. The thought of it made her swallow the wine, feeling its warm comfort as it ran down her throat to blossom in her stomach. His smile grew wider as she handed him the empty container.
"More?"