Captives of the Flame Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  She made a note on her pad, put down her slide rule, and picked up apearl snap with which she fastened together the shoulder panels of herwhite dress. The maid said, "Ma'am, shall I do your hair now?"

  "One second," Clea said. She turned to page 328 of her integral tables,checked the increment of sub-cosine A plus B over the _n_th root of A tothe _n_th plus B to the _n_th, and transferred it to her notebook.

  "Ma'am?" asked the maid. She was a thin woman, about thirty. The littlefinger of her left hand was gone.

  "You can start now." Clea leaned back in the beauty-hammock and liftedthe dark mass of her hair from her neck. The maid caught the ebonywealth with one hand and reached for the end of the four yards of silverchain strung with alternate pearls and diamonds each inch and a half.

  "Ma'am?" asked the maid again. "What are you figuring on?"

  "I'm trying to determine the inverse sub-trigonometric functions. DalenGolga, he was my mathematics professor at the university, discovered theregular ones, but nobody's come up with the inverses yet."

  "Oh," said the maid. She ceased weaving the jeweled chain a moment,took a comb, and whipped it through a cascade of hair that fell back onClea's shoulder. "Eh ... what are you going to do with them, once youfind them?"

  "Actually," said Clea. "Ouch ..."

  "Oh, pardon me, I'm sorry, please ..."

  "Actually," went on Clea, "they'll be perfectly useless. At least as faras anyone knows now. They exist, so to speak, in a world that has littleto do with ours. Like the world of imaginary numbers, the square root ofminus one. Eventually we may find use for them, perhaps in the same waywe use imaginary numbers to find the roots of equations of a higherorder than two, because cosine theta plus _I_ sine theta equals _e_ tothe _I_ sine theta, which lets us ..."

  "Ma'am?"

  "Well, that is to say they haven't been able to do anything like thatwith the sub-trigonometric functions yet. But they're fun."

  "Bend your head a little to the left, ma'am," was the maid's comment.

  Clea bent.

  "You're going to look beautiful." Four and five fingers wove deftly inher hair. "Just beautiful."

  "I hope that Tomar can get here. It's not going to be any fun withouthim."

  "But isn't the King coming?" asked the maid. "I saw his acceptance notemyself. You know it was on very simple paper. Very elegant."

  "My father will enjoy that a good deal more than I will. My brother wentto school with the King before ... before his Majesty's coronation."

  "That's amazing," said the maid. "Were they friends? Just think of it?Do you know whether they were friends or not?"

  Clea shrugged.

  "And, oh," said the maid, continuing, "have you seen the ballroom? Allthe hors d'oeuvres are real, imported fish. You can tell, becausethey're smaller than the ones your father grows."

  "I know," smiled Clea. "I don't think I've ever eaten any of Dad's fishin my life, which is sort of terrible, actually. They're supposed to bevery good."

  "Oh, they are, ma'am. They are. Your father is a fine man to grow suchgreat, good fishes. But you must admit, there's something special aboutthe ones that come from the coast. I tasted one on my way up through thepantry. So I know."

  "What exactly is it?" Clea asked, turning around.

  The maid frowned, and then smiled and nodded wisely. "Oh, I know. Iknow. You can tell the difference."

  * * * * *

  At that moment, Jon Koshar was saying, "Well, so far you've been right."He appeared to be more or less standing (the room was dim, so his headand hands were invisible), more or less alone ("Yeah, I trust you. Idon't have much choice," he added.) in the pantry of his father'smansion.

  Suddenly his voice took a different tone. "Look, I _will_ trust you;with part of me, anyway. I've been caged up for nearly five years, forsomething stupid I did, and for something that no matter how hard I try,I can't convince myself was all my fault. I don't mean that Uske shouldbe blamed. But chance, and all the rest ... well, all I mean is it makesme want out that much more. I want to be _free_. I nearly got myselfkilled trying to escape from the mines. And a couple of people did getkilled helping me. All right, you got me out of that stainless steelgraveyard I wandered into back at the radiation barrier, and for that,thanks. I mean it. But I'm not free yet. And I still want out, more thananything in the world.

  "Sure, I know that you want me to do something, but I don't understandit yet. You say you'll tell me soon. Okay. But you're riding around inmy head like this, so I'm not free yet. If that's what I have to do toget free, than I'll do it. But I'm warning you. If I see another crackin the wall, another spot of light getting in, I'll claw my hands offtrying to break through and to hell with what you want. Because whileyou're there, I can't be free."

  Suddenly the light in the pantry flipped on. His sudden face went fromthe tautness of his last speech to fear. He had been standing by theside of a seven-foot porcelain storage cabinet. He jumped back to thewall. Whoever had come in, a butler or caterer, was out of sight on theother side. A hand came around the edge of the cabinet, reaching for thehandle. The hand was broad, wiry with black hair, and sported a cheap,wide, brass ring set with an irregular shape of blue glass. As the dooropened, the hand swung out of sight. There was a clatter of dishes onthe shelves, the slide of crockery slipping over plastic racks, and avoice. "All right there. You carry this one." Then a grunt, and the_ker-flop_ of the latch as the door slammed to.

  A moment later, the light, and John Koshar's hands and head, went out.When Jon stepped forward again, he looked at the pantry, at the doors,the cabinets. The familiarity hurt. There was a door that opened intothe main kitchen. (Once he had snagged a kharba fruit from the cook'stable and ran, as behind him a wooden salad bowl crashed to the floor.The sound made him whirl, in time to catch the cook's howl and to seethe pale shreds of lettuce strewn across the black tile floor. The bowlwas still spinning. He had been nine.)

  He started slowly for the door to the hallway that led to the diningroom. In the hall was a red wood table on which sat a free formsculpture of aluminum rods and heavy glass spheres. That was unfamiliar.Not the table, the sculpture.

  A slight highlight along the curve of crystal brought back to him for amoment the blue ceramic vase that had been there in his memory. It wascoated with glaze that was shot through with myriad cracks. It wascylindrical, straight, then suddenly veering to a small mouth, slightlyoff center. The burnished red wood behind the vivid, turquoise blue wasa combination that was almost too rich, too sensual. He had broken thevase. He had broken it in surprise, when his sister had come in on himsuddenly, the little girl with hair black as his own, only more of it,saying, "What are you doing, Jon?" and he had jumped, turned, and thenthe vase was lying in fragments on the floor, like a lot of bright,brittle leaves made out of stone. He remembered his first reaction hadbeen, oddly, surprise at finding that the glaze covered the inside aswell as the outside of the vase. He was fourteen.

  He walked to the family dining room and stepped inside. With theballroom in use, no one would come here. Stepping into the room was likestepping into a cricket's den, the subtle _tsk-tsk_ of a thousand clocksrepeated and repeated, overlapping and melting, with no clear,discernible rhythm. The wall by the door was lined with shelves and theywere filled with his father's collection of chronometers. He looked atthe clocks on the shelf level with his eye. The last time he had been inthis room, it had been the shelf below. The light from the door made arow of crescents on the curved faces, some the size of his little fingernail, others the diameter of his head. Their hands were invisible, theirsettings were dim. (In his memory they went from simple gold to ornatelycarved silver, and one was set in an undersea bower with jeweled shellsand coral branches.) There must be many new clocks after five years, hethought. If he turned on the light, how many would he recognize?

  (When he was eighteen, he had stood in this room and examined the thin,double prong of a fire-blade. The li
ght in the room was off, and as heflicked the button on the hilt, and the white sparks leaped out and upthe length of the blade, the crescents flamed on the edges of the clockfaces, all along the wall. Later, at the royal palace, with that sameblade, there had been the same, sudden, clumsy fear at discovery, fearclotting into panic, the panic turning to confusion, and the confusionmetastasizing into fear again, only fear all through him, dragging himdown, so that when he tried to run down the vaulted hall, his feet weretoo heavy, so that when he tripped against the statue in the alcove,whirled upon the pursuing guard, and swung the white needle of energydown and the guard's flesh hissed and fell away--a moment of bloodspurring under pale flame--almost immediately he was exhausted. Theytook him easily after that.)

  Clumsy, he thought. Not with his fingers, (He had fixed many of theseclocks when his father had acquired them in various states ofdisrepair.), but with his mind. His emotions were not fine and drawn,but rather great shafts of anger or fear fell about him without focus orapparent source. Disgust, or even love, when he had felt it was vague,liable to metamorphasize from one to the other. (School was great; hishistory teacher was very good.... School was noisy; the kids were pushyand didn't care about anything. His blue parakeet was delicate andbeautiful; he had taught it to whistle ... there were always crumbs onthe bottom of the cage; changing the paper was a nuisance.)

  Then there had been five years of prison. And the first sharp feelingpierced his mind, as sharp as the uncoiled hair-spring of a clock, assharp as jewels in a poison ring. It was a wish, a pain, an agony forfreedom. The plans for escape had been intricate, yet sharp as thecracks in blue ceramic glaze. The hunger for escape was a hand againsthis stomach, and as the three of them had, at last, waited in the rainby the steps, it had tightened unbearably. Then ...

  Then with all the sharpness, what had made him lose the others? Why hadhe wandered in the wrong direction? Clumsy! And he wanted to be free ofthat! And wonder if that was what he had wanted to be free of all alongwhile he had sputtered at the prison guards, choked on the food, andcould not communicate his outrage. Then, at the horizon, was the purpleglow of something paler than sunrise, deadlier than the sea, aflickering, luminous purple gauze behind the hills. Near him were theskeletons of broken, century-ancient trees, leafless, nearly petrified.The crumbly dirt looked as if it had been scattered over the land inhandfuls, loosely, bearing neither shrubs or footprints. By one bouldera trickle of black water ran beneath a fallen log, catching dim light inthe ripples on either side. He looked up.

  On the horizon, against the lines of light, as though cut--no,torn--from carbon paper was the silhouette of a city. Tower behind towerrose against the pearly haze. A net of roadways wound among the spires.

  Then he made out one minuscule thread of metal that ran from the city,in his general direction but veering to the right. It passed him half amile away and at last disappeared into the edge of the jungle that hecould see, now, behind him. _Telphar!_ The word came to his mind asthough on a sign attached with springs to his consciousness. Theradiation! That was the second thing he thought of. Once more the nameof the city shivered in his brain: _Telphar!_ The certain, very certaindeath he had wandered into caught the center of his gut like a fist. Itwas almost as if the name were sounding out loud in his skull. Then hestopped. Because he realized he had heard something. A ... a voice! Verydefinitely he heard it--

  Music had started. He could hear it coming from the ballroom now. Theparty must be under way. He looked out into the hall. A fellow in awhite apron, holding an empty tray on which were crumbs from smallcakes, was coming toward him.

  "Excuse me, sir," the man in the apron said. "Guests aren't supposed tobe in this part of the house."

  "I was trying to find the-eh-er ..." Jon coughed.

  The man in the apron smiled. "Oh. Of course. Go back into the ballroomand take the hall to your left down three doors."

  "Thank you," Jon smiled back and hurried up the hallway. He entered theballroom by way of a high, arched alcove in which were small white meat,red meat, dark meat of fish ground into patties, cut into stars, stripsof fillet wound into imitation sea shells, tiny braised shrimp, andstuffed baby smelts.

  A ten-piece orchestra--three bass radiolins, a theremin, and six blownshells of various sizes--was making a slow, windy music from the dais.The scattering of guests seemed lost in the great room. Jon wanderedacross the floor.

  Here and there were stainless steel fountains in which blue or pinkliquid fanned over mounds of crushed ice. Each fountain was rimmed witha little shelf on which was a ring of glasses. He picked a glass up, leta spout of pink fill it, and walked on, sipping slowly.

  Suddenly, the loudspeaker announced the arrival of Mr. Quelor Da andparty. Heads turned, and a moment later a complex of glitter, greensilk, blue net, and diamonds at the top of the six wide marble stepsacross the room resolved into four ladies and their escorts.

  Jon glanced up at the balcony than ran around the second story of theroom. A short gentleman in a severe, unornamented blue suit was comingtoward the head of the steps which expanded down toward the ballroomfloor with the grace and approximate shape of a swan's wing. Thegentleman hurried down the pale cascade.

  Jon sipped his drink. It was sweet with the combined flavors of a dozenfruits, with the whisper of alcohol bitter at the back of his tongue.The gentleman hurried across the floor, passing within yards of him.

  Father! The impact was the same as the recognition of Telphar. The hairwas thinner than it had been five years ago. He was much heavier.His--father--was at the other side of the room already, checking withthe waiters. Jon pulled his shoulders in, and let his breath out. It wasthe familiarity, not the change, that hurt.

  It took some time before the room filled. There was a lot of space. Oneguest Jon noted was a young man in military uniform. He was powerful,squat in a taurine way usually associated with older men. There was amajor's insignia on his shoulder. Jon watched him a while, empathizingwith his occasional looks that told how out of place he felt. He tookneither food nor drink, but prowled a ten-foot area by the side of thebalcony steps. Waiting, Jon thought.

  A half an hour later, the floor was respectably populated. Jon hadexchanged a few words at last with the soldier. (Jon: "A beautifulparty, don't you think?" Soldier, with embarrassment: "Yes, sir." Jon:"I guess the war is worrying all of us." Soldier: "The war? Yes." Thenhe looked away, not inclined to talk more.) Jon was now near the door.Suddenly the loudspeaker announced: "The Party of His Royal Majesty, theKing."

  Gowns rustled, the talk rose, people turned, and fell back from theentrance. The King's party, headed by himself and a tall,electric-looking red-headed woman, his senior by a handful of years,appeared at the top of the six marble steps. As they came down, rightand left, people bowed. Jon dropped his head, but not before he realizedthat the King's escort had given him a very direct look. He glanced upagain, but now her emerald train was sweeping down the aisle the peoplehad left open. Her insignia, he remembered, told him she was a duchess.

  Coming up the aisle in the other direction now between the bowing crowdswas old Koshar. He bowed very low, and the pale blond young man raisedhim and they shook hands, and Koshar spoke. "Your Majesty," he beganwarmly.

  "Sir," answered the King, smiling.

  "I haven't seen you since you were a boy at school."

  The King smiled again, this time rather wanly. Koshar hurried on.

  "But I would like to introduce my daughter to you, for it's her party.Clea--." The old man turned to the balcony stairs, and the crowd's eyesturned with him.

  She was standing on the top step, in a white dress made of panel oversilken panel, held with pearl clasps. Her black hair cascaded across oneshoulder, webbed and re-webbed with a chain of silver strung withpearls. Her hands at her sides, she came down the stairs. People steppedback; she smiled, and walked forward. Jon watched while at last hissister reached his father's side.

  "My daughter Clea," said old Koshar to the King.

  "C
harmed."

  Koshar raised his left hand, and the musicians began the introduction tothe changing partners dance. Jon watched the King take Clea in his arms,and also saw the soldier move toward them, and then stop. A woman in asmoky gray dress suddenly blocked his view, smiled at him, and said,"Will you dance?" He smiled back, to avoid another expression, and shewas in his arms. Apparently the soldier had had a similar experience,for at the first turn of the music, Jon saw the soldier was dancing too.A few couples away, Clea and the King turned round and round, white andwhite, brunette and blond. The steps came back to Jon like a poemremembered, the turn, the dip, separate, and join again. When a girldoes the strange little outward step, and the boy bows, so that for amoment she is out of sight, her gown always swishes just so. Yes, likethat! This whole day had been filled with the sudden remembrances oftiny facts like that, forgotten for five years, at once relearned withstartling vividness that shocked him. The music signaled for partners tochange. Gowns whirled into momentary flowers, and he was dancing withthe brown-haired woman the soldier had been dancing with a momentbefore. Looking to his left, he saw that the soldier had somehowcontrived to get Clea for a partner. Moving closer, he overheard.

  "I didn't think you were going to get here at all. I'm so glad," fromClea.

  "I could have even come earlier," Tomar said. "But you'd have beenbusy."

  "You could have come up."

  "And once I got here, I didn't think we'd get a chance to talk, either."

  "Well, you've got one now. Better make it quick. We change partners in amoment. What happened to the scouting planes?"

  "All crippled. Didn't sight a thing. They got back to base almost beforeI did this morning. The report was nothing. What about the picnic,Clea?"

  "We can have it on ..."

  A burst of music signaled the change. Jon did not hear the day, butexpected his sister to whirl into his arms. But instead (he saw herwhite dress flare and turn by him) an emerald iridescence caught in hiseye, then rich mahogany flame. He was dancing with the Duchess. She wasnearly his height, and watched him with a smile hung in the subtle areabetween friendship and knowing cynicism. She moved easily, and he hadjust remembered that he ought to smile back to be polite when the musicsounded the change. The instant before she whirled away, he heard hersay, very distinctly, "Good luck, Jon Koshar."

  His name brought him to a halt, and he stared after her. When he didturn back to his new partner, surprise still on his face, his eyes werefilled with sudden whiteness. It was Clea. He should have been dancing,but he was standing still. When she looked at his face to discover why,she suddenly drew a breath. At first he thought his head had disappearedagain. Then, as shock and surprise became suddenly as real as her wideeyes, her open mouth, he whispered, "Clea!" And her hand went to hermouth.

  _Clumsy!_ he thought, and the word was a sudden ache in his hands andchest. Reach for her. Dance. As his hands went out, the music stopped,and the languid voice of the King came over the loudspeaker.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of Toromon, I have just received amessage from the council that necessitates an announcement to you as myfriends and loyal subjects. I have been requested by the council to maketheir declaration of war official by my consent. An emergency meetingover sudden developments has made it imperative that we begin immediateaction against our most hostile enemies on the mainland. Therefore,before you all, I declare the Empire of Toromon to be at war."

  In the silence, Jon looked for his sister, but she was gone. Someonenear the microphone cried out, "Long live the King." Then the cry echoedagain. The musicians started the music once more, partners found oneanother, and the talking and laughing grew in his ears like waves, likecrumbling rock, like the cutter teeth clawing into the rock face of theore deposits....

  Jon shook his head. But he was in his own house, yes. His room was onthe second floor and he could go up and lie down. And by his bed wouldbe the copper night table, and the copy of _Delcord the Whaler_ which hehad been reading the night before.

  He'd left the ballroom and gotten halfway down the hall before heremembered that his room was probably not his room any longer. And thathe certainly couldn't go up to it and lie down. He was standing in frontof the door of one of the sitting rooms that opened off the hall. Thedoor was ajar, and from it he heard a woman's voice.

  "Well, can't you do something about his index of refraction? If he'sgoing to be doing any work at night, you can't have him popping on andoff like a cigarette lighter." There was silence. Then: "Well, at leastdon't you think he should be told more than he knows now? Fine. So do I,especially since the war has been officially declared."

  Jon took a breath and stepped in.

  Her emerald train whirled across the duller green of the carpet as sheturned. The bright hair, untonsured save by two coral combs, fell behindher shoulders. Her smile showed faint surprise. Very faint. "Who wereyou talking to?" Jon Koshar asked.

  "Mutual friends," the Duchess said. They were alone in the room.

  After a moment, Jon said, "What do they want us to do? It's treason,isn't it?"

  The Duchess' eyes went thin. "Are you serious?" she asked. "You callthat treason, keeping these idiots from destroying themselves, eatingthemselves up in a war with a nameless enemy, something so powerful thatif there were any consideration of real fighting, we could be destroyedwith a thought. Do you remember who the enemy is? You've heard his name.There are only three people in Toromon who have, Jon Koshar. Everyoneelse is ignorant. So we're the only ones who can say we're fullyresponsible. That responsibility is to Toromon. Have you any idea whatstate the economy is in? Your own father is responsible for a good bitof it; but if he closed down his aquariums now, the panic he would causewould equal the destruction their being open already causes. The empireis snowballing toward its own destruction, and it's going to take it outin the war. You call trying to prevent it treason?"

  "Whatever we call it, we don't have much choice, do we?"

  "With people like you around, I'm not sure it isn't a bad idea."

  "Look," said Jon. "I was cooped up in a prison mine way out beyondnowhere for five years. All I wanted was out, see. All I wanted was toget free. Well, I'm back in Toron and I'm still not free."

  "First of all," said the Duchess, "if it wasn't for them, you wouldn'tbe as free as you are now. After a day of clean clothes and walking infresh air, if you're not well on the road to what you want, then I'dbetter change some ideas of my own. I want something too, Jon Koshar.When I was seventeen, I worked for a summer in your father's aquarium.My nine hours a day were spent with a metal spoon about the size of yourhead scraping the bottoms of the used tank tube of the stuff that eventhe glass filters were too touchy to take out. Afterwards I was tootired to do much more than read. So I read. Most of it was aboutToromon's history. I read a lot about the mainland expeditions. Then, inmy first winter out of school, I lived in a fishing village at the edgeof the forest, studying what I could of the customs of the forestpeople. I made sketches of their temples, tried to map their nomadicmovements. I even wrote an article on the architecture of theirtemporary shelters that was published in the university journal.

  "Well, what I want is for Toromon to be free, free of its own ridiculousself-entanglements. Perhaps coming from the royal family, I had a easierpath toward a sense of Toromon's history. At its best, that's all anaristocracy is good for anyway. But I wanted more than a sense, I wantedto know what it was worth. So I went out and looked, and I found out itwas worth a whole lot. Somehow Toromon is going to have to pick itselfup by the back of the neck and give itself a shaking. If I have to bethe part that does the shaking, then I will. That's what I want, JonKoshar, and I want it as badly as you want to be free."

  Jon was quiet a moment. Then he said, "Anyway, to get what we want, Iguess we more or less have to do the same thing. All right, I'll goalong. But you're going to have to explain some things to me. There's alot I still don't understand."

  "A lot we both don't," the Duchess said.
"But we know this: they're notfrom Earth, they're not human, and they come from very far away.Inconceivably far."

  "What about the rest?"

  "They'll help us help Toromon if we help them. How, I still don'tunderstand for sure. Already I've arranged to have Price Let kidnaped."

  "Kidnaped? But why?"

  "Because if we get through this, Toromon is going to need a strong king.And I think you'll agree that Uske will never quite make that. Also,he's ill, and under any great strain, might die in a moment, not tomention the underground groups that are bound to spring up to underminewhatever the government decides to do, once the war gets going. Let isgoing where he can become a strong man, with the proper training, sothat if anything happens to Uske, he can return and there'll be someoneto guide the government through its crises. After that, how we're tohelp them, I'm not sure."

  "I see," said Jon. "How did they get hold of you, anyway? For thatmatter, how did they get me?"

  "You? They contacted you just outside of Telphar, didn't they? They hadto rearrange the molecular structure of some of your more delicateproteins and do a general overhaul on your sub-crystalline structure sothe radiation wouldn't kill you. That, unfortunately had the unpleasantside effect of booting down your index of refraction a couple of points,which is why you keep fading in dim light. In fact, I got a blow-by-blowdescription of your entire escape from them. It kept me on the edge ofmy seat all night. How was I contacted? The same way you were, suddenly,and with those words: _Lord of the Flames_. Now, your first directassignment will be ..."

  * * * * *

  In another room, Clea was sitting on a blue velvet hassock with herhands tight in her lap. Then suddenly they flew apart like springs,shook beside her head, and then clasped again. "Tomar," she said."Please, excuse me, but I'm upset. It was so strange. When I was dancingwith the King, he told me how he had dreamed of my brother this morning.I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was just small talk. Then,just after I changed partners for the third time, there I was, staringinto a face that I could have sworn was Jon's. And the man wasn'tdancing, either. He was just looking at me, very funny, and then he saidmy name. Tomar, it was the same voice Jon used to use when I'd hurtmyself and he wanted to help. Oh, it couldn't have been him, because hewas too tall, and too gaunt, and the voice was just a little too deep.But it was so much like what he might have been. That was when the Kingmade his announcement. I just turned and ran. The whole thing seemedsupernatural. Oh, don't worry, I'm not superstitious, but it unnervedme. And that plus what you said this morning."

  "What I said?" asked Tomar. He stood beside the hassock in theblue-draped sitting room, his hands in his pockets, listening withanimal patience.

  "About their drafting all the degree students into the war effort. Maybethe war is good, but Tomar, I'm working on another project, and all atonce, the thing I want most in the world is to be left alone to work onit. And I want you, and I want to have a picnic. I'm nearly at thesolution now, and to have to stop and work on bomb sightings and missiletrajectories ... Tomar, there's a beauty in abstract mathematics thatshouldn't have to be dulled with that sort of thing. Also, maybe you'llgo away, or I'll go away. That doesn't seem fair either. Tomar, have youever had things you wanted, had them in your hands, and suddenly have asituation come up that made it look like they might fly out of your gripforever?"

  Tomar rubbed his hand across his brush-cut red hair and shook his head."There was a time once, when I wanted things. Like food, work, and a bedwhere all four legs touched the ground. So I came to Toron. And I gotthem. And I got you, and so I guess there isn't anything else to want,or want that bad." He grinned, and the grin made her smile.

  "I guess," she started, "... I guess it was just that he looked so muchlike my brother."

  "Clea," Tomar said. "About your brother. I wasn't going to tell you thisuntil later. Maybe I shouldn't say it now. But you were asking whetheror not they were going to draft prisoners into the army; and whether atthe end of their service, they'd be freed. Well, I did some checking.They are going to, and I sent through a recommendation that they takeyour brother among the first bunch. In three hours I got a memorandumfrom the penal commissioner. Your brother's dead."

  She looked at him hard, trying to hold her eyes open and to prevent thelittle snarl of sound that was a sob from loosening in the back of herthroat.

  "In fact it happened last night," Tomar went on. "He and two othersattempted an escape. Two of their bodies were found. And there's nochance that the third one could have escaped alive."

  The snarl collapsed into a sound she would not make. She sat for amoment. Then she said, "Let's go back to the party." She stood up, andthey walked across the white rug to the door. Once she shook her headand opened her mouth. Then she closed it again and went on. "Yes. I'mglad you said it. I don't know. Maybe it was a sign ... a sign that hewas dead. Maybe it was a sign ..." She stopped. "No. It wasn't. Itwasn't anything, was it? No." They went down the steps to the ballroomonce more. The music was very, very happy.