She looked up over the snifter. “What’s that?”
“Persuading Emil to leave you out of it.”
She dropped the snifter. It hit the indoor grass rug and rolled under the coffee table, while Margo stared at me as at a stranger. Finally she said, “You’re hard to read. How long have you known?”
“Practically since your friends took Lloobee. But we weren’t sure until we knew Bellamy really had him. You’d lied about his ship.”
“I see.” Her voice was flat, and the sparkle in her eyes was a long-forgotten thing. “Emil Horne knows. Who else?”
“Just me. And Emil owes me one. Two, really.”
“Well,” she said. “Well.” And she went to pick up the snifter. Right then, the rest of it fell into place.
“You’re old.”
“You’re hard to fool, Bey.”
“I’ve never seen you move like that before. It’s funny; I can tell a man’s age within a few decades, but I can’t tell a woman’s. Why don’t you move like that all the time?”
She laughed. “And have everyone know I’m a crone? Not likely. So I hesitate when I move, and I knock against things occasionally, and catch my heel on rugs…Every woman learns to do that, usually long after she’s learned not to. Too much poise is a giveaway.” She stood with her feet apart, hands on her hips, challenging. Now her poise was tremendous, a shocking, glowing dignity. Perhaps she had been an actress, so long ago that her most-devoted admirers had died or forgotten her. “So I’m old. Well?”
“Well, now I know why you joined the kidnapers. You and Bellamy and the rest; you all think alike. No persuasion needed.”
She shook her head in mock sadness. “How you simplify. Do you really think that everyone over two hundred and fifty is identical under the skull?
“Piet Lindstrom disliked the idea from the beginning, but he needed the money. He’s been off boosterspice for years. Warren’s loved hunting all his life. He hadn’t hunted a civilized animal since the Kzinti wars. Tanya was in love with Larch. She’ll probably try to kill you.”
“And you?”
“Larch would have gone ahead without me. Anything could have happened. So I saw to it that I was flying Lloobee’s ship, and I declared myself in.”
She was so damn vivid. I’d thought she was beautiful before, but now, with the little-girl mannerisms gone, she glowed.
I thought of the brandy.
“You loved him, too,” I said.
“I’m his mother.”
That jolted me to my toes. “The brandy,” I said. “What was in the brandy?”
“Something I developed long ago. Hormones, hypnotics…a love potion. You’re going to love me. Two years from now I’ll abandon you like an empty beer-bulb. You won’t be able to live without me.” Her smile was cruel and cold. “A fitting revenge.”
“Finagle help me!” I hadn’t drunk the brandy, of course, but what the hell…Then it penetrated. Two years. “You know about Sharrol?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t drink the brandy.”
“There’s nothing in it but alcohol.”
We grinned at each other across the length of the couch. Then the ghost was between us, and I said, “What about Bellamy?”
“Larch took his chances. He knew what he was doing.”
“I can’t understand that.” I couldn’t understand why she didn’t hate me. Worse, all my questions were sure to be the wrong ones. I picked one that might be right and asked, “What was he doing?”
“Dying. He’d run out of things to do. He’d have taken greater and greater chances until one of them killed him. One day I’ll reach the same point. Maybe I’ll know it in time.”
“What will you do then?”
“Don’t ask me,” she said with finality. I never did again.
“And what will you do now?”
“I have an idea,” she said carefully, watching me. “Sharrol Janss is bearing children on Earth for you to raise. I can’t have children myself. My ovaries have long since run out of ova. But is there any reason why we shouldn’t spend two years together?”
“I can’t think of any. But what would you get out of it?”
“I’ve never known a crashlander.”
“And you’re curious.”
“Yes. Don’t be offended.”
“I’m not. Your flattery has turned my head.” After all, there were two years to fill, and Margo was lovely.
I was alone on Jinx, two years later, waiting for the next ship to Earth. As it turned out, Lloobee’s latest works were there too, on loan to the Institute of Knowledge. To the Institute I went, to see what my protégé had produced.
Seeing them was a shock.
That was the first shock: that they should make sense when seen. Touch-sculpture is to be felt: it has no meaning otherwise. But these were busts and statuettes. Someone had even advised Lloobee on color.
I looked closer.
First: a group of human statuettes, some seated, some standing, all staring with great intensity at a flat pane of clear glass.
Second: a pair of heads. Human, humane, handsome, noble as all hell, but child’s play to recognize nonetheless. I touched them, and they felt like warm human faces. My face and Emil’s.
Third and last: a group of four, a woman and three men. They showed a definite kinship with the ape and a second admixture of what must have been demon blood. Yet they were quite recognizable. Three felt like human faces, though somehow…repellent. But the fourth felt horribly dead.
The kidnapers had neglected to include Lloobee in their contract. And Lloobee has been talking to newsmen, telling them all about how his latest works had come to be.
Larry Niven, Neutron Star
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends