"Earl!" Jussara smiled at him from the screen. "How nice of you to remember me!"
"How could I forget?"
"You flatter me."
"No-I simply tell the truth."
"Which could be flattery in itself." Her smile faded a little. "I was sorry to hear about Myra. A tragic loss and you must be desolate. Why didn't you call me before?"
"I was otherwise engaged," said Dumarest dryly. "As you can imagine."
"The proctors-I'd forgotten." Her smile was that of a vixen. "Am I going to see you?"
"It is my dearest wish." He smiled in return. "Just as soon as I clear up a few things. Tonight if I can manage it. Are you free?"
Regretfully she shook her head. "Not tonight, darling."
"Tomorrow?" Without giving her time to answer he added, "I'm too impatient and you must forgive me for being impetuous. Blame your own attraction. I forget I have things to do and could use some help if it's available. At the party you mentioned a name-someone you thought had helped Myra. Okos-if he's good I could use him."
"A cyber doesn't come cheap, darling. Why not try the university computer system? They are adapted to give analogues on stated problems. I assume you're concerned about your future now that poor Myra is dead. Did you actually see her fall?"
"Yes."
"And you tried to save her?"
"Of course, but that isn't why I'm calling. About my future, I mean."
"Of course not." Her smile turned cynical. "You must tell me all about it. Not tomorrow, but the day after? Can you make it then, Earl?"
"The day?" His tone left no doubt as to his meaning. "I was hoping to share dinner with you."
"That would be nice. Call me in the afternoon and we'll fix the time and place."
A smile and she was gone, the screen turning a nacreous white as the connection was broken. A doubt resolved but it brought little comfort. Myra had known the cyber. If she had seen him Okos would know of his presence, had anticipated it, perhaps, the prediction later verified. Was that why she had invited him to be her guest? Bribed to hold him in a silken snare? Did it account for the wine-lying in a drugged sleep he would have been easy prey. And why had Bartain held him so long?
He had phoned from a hotel and outside the streets were waking to a sluggish activity as shadows clustered at the foot of buildings and darkened the mouths of alleys. Dumarest plunged down one, took another, traced a wide-flung path of apparently aimless movement, finally plunging into an area of small shops and winding paths. In a store he bought a student's robe, picking one too large, worn, not torn but far from new. When next he hit the streets his face was shielded by a cowl, his bulk swollen by the voluminous garment, his height lessened by a stoop. His camouflage was less efficient than it seemed-putting a man into uniform does not make him invisible to his fellow soldiers. And aping a student meant he had to act like one.
"Not here!" A young man, hard, brash, his robe clean, bright with badges, held up a blocking arm. "This tavern's reserved for Schrier." He saw the badges on Dumarest's robe. "You don't even belong to the Tripart-this area's not for you."
Dumarest looked at him, at the pair who had come to join him. Relatively rich, spoiled, enjoying their moment of power. The owner of the place would tolerate them for the guaranteed custom they brought. To argue was to invite attention and worse.
He said, "I'm new. Just landed. Looking for somewhere to spend the night."
"Enrolled?"
"Yes."
"At Brunheld," said the youth. "At Nisen and Kings if those badges are to be believed. You'll find a place over to the west. Angeer's-they take anyone."
Dumarest moved down the street, masking his gait, eyes watchful from beneath the shadow of the cowl. Soon there would be a reawakening of gaiety with crowds thronging the main avenues in dancing processions, with women shrieking their mirth or outrage, men drunk and poised on the edge of violence. Thieves would be busy and assassins unseen. At such a time a wise man sought refuge.
Dumarest moved on toward the field, swinging away from it as the ships came into sight, heading north in the thickening shadows. The festival was ending-tonight was its finish. When the ships left tomorrow he wanted to be with them. But first he had to pass the night.
The woman said harshly, "You want more soup?"
Dumarest shook his head.
"Then out!" She jerked her thumb at the shelves lining the far end of the room behind the counter, the hourglasses on them. "You've had your time."
To stay he would need to buy more soup; a small bowl of tasteless swill, but if that was the cost he would pay it. He scowled as, delivering it, she demanded the money.
"A quarter? It was-"
"The price doubles after dark." Impatiently she snapped her fingers. "Give! The heat's got to be paid for, the lights, the shelter from the wind. The bench you're sitting on, the table, the bowl, the whole damned setup. If you don't like it the door's over there."
Outside, the street was now scummed with ice, wind carried the burning touch of iced razors. A bleak area lacking the warmth of crowds, the shelter of massive buildings.
But, as a student, he was expected to complain.
"It's robbery. I'll report you to the university council and the student body. I'll have you-"
"Blasted and blacklisted and bedeviled-I've heard it all before. Now that's off your chest you staying or not?" Her fingers snapped again. "A quarter and no more argument."
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?