“You can tell what I’m thinking right now, can’t you?” she said.
Magnus’s face broke into a sharp smile, amused. “Yes, but it doesn’t take telepathy.”
She stared at him, paling, then turned away, flushing. “I thought you were attracted to me … Magnus. When we first met.”
“And every time I’ve talked to you since,” Magnus said softly. “Oh yes, I’ve been attracted, painfully attracted—and you didn’t just think it, you knew it.”
She turned back to him with a lazy smile of amusement, eyes half-lidded. “Yes, and it was wonderful. Every woman wants to feel wanted. I was quite flattered—really.”
“Why, thank you.” Magnus inclined his head gravely.
“Oh, can’t you stop that?” she cried. “Can’t you drop your guard, just for an instant? Can’t you talk to me as man to woman for a little while?”
“Why, of course.” But for a fleeting instant, Magnus wondered if he still could. “However, if I did, could you talk to me without thinking of me as a potential asset? Could you talk to me without being aware of how I could help you, be useful to you? Could you talk to me as just Gar Pike, forgetting that I’m Magnus d’Armand?”
“Of course I couldn’t!” she cried. “Could you talk to me without being aware of my body, my face, my hair? What you can do, who your father was, they’re as much a part of you as my beauty is a part of me! Can you talk to me without being aware of what I can do for you?”
“Of course,” Magnus said, “beyond the immediate and personal.”
“Oh, so sex isn’t part of what I can do for you!”
“I would be quite content,” Magnus assured her, “if sex was the only thing you wanted of me.”
“It’s not the same!”
“I think it is,” Magnus said, “but even if it is not, it is certainly analogous.”
“Must you be so damn formal!” she cried, clenching her fists.
“Yes,” Magnus said, “I must. You know I must.” She glared at him, outraged, then remembered herself and dropped her gaze, forcing her fists to unclench, her emotions to smooth out. Finally, she looked up at him with a smile that held some fraction of her usual allure. “All right. If I do what you want, will you do what I want?”
“No,” he said. “That would be wrong now.”
“But why!”
He gazed down at her for the space of ten heartbeats while she glared back up, and he debated whether he should say it or not, whether it would hurt her or not, then decided that it would hurt right now, but help her later.
“Because,” he said, “it would need love.”
She stared at him, her face slowly blanching, then finally looked down, but he could tell from the set of her shoulders how enraged she was.
“At least do me this much,” she said, her voice low and strained, not looking at him. “If you won’t help me, at least don’t louse things up for me. All right?”
“Certainly.” Magnus inclined his head. “I will go.”
She looked up, startled by the ease of her victory. “Go? Where?”
Magnus shrugged impatiently. “Wherever the mood takes me.”
“Of course,” she whispered. “You can, can’t you? You’re rich.”
Magnus didn’t disillusion her. After all, he was rich, in a fashion—he could make gold whenever he wanted to, or diamonds.
“I’ll tell them to watch out for you,” she said softly.
“Thank you.” Magnus bowed again. “That tells me where not to go.”
She smiled, amused for a second, solacing herself with a small victory. “I don’t believe you.”
Magnus gave her a real smile in return. “You’re wise.”
They stood a moment in silence, as the sun painted the sky in voluptuous tones behind her. Then finally she whispered, “Will you ever come back?”
Magnus shrugged. “I doubt it—but I’m not promising anything.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” she said, with irony. Then she pulled herself together, turned the soulful eyes on him, and made one last try. “I could have loved you, Magnus—but I’m hurt, I’m so terribly hurt, by your turning against me.”
He realized the name of the game, the theatrical aspect of it, and gave her the solace she was asking for. “Forgive me.”
“I might.” She looked up at him through long lashes again. “I could love you again, even now—if you could join with me once more, and help me undo the damage you’ve done.”
Magnus tried to look anguished. “But what about the people? What about the sufferings of the ones who are alive today? Of their children? Their children’s children?”
She stared—this wasn’t what she had been expecting—but she said, mournfully, “We have to learn who we can help and who we can’t, Magnus, and be content with doing what little we can that will someday result in everyone being free.”
“But I cannot stand by and watch others suffer. I lack the self-discipline.” Magnus smiled sadly for her. “I could have loved you mightily, Allouene—but the good of the people has come between us.”
She held still for a moment, staring, her eyes growing large Then she said, her voice husky, “Promise it to me, after all—promise you won’t come back.”
He bowed his head. “As you wish. Yes. I owe you that much.”
And the great golden ship fell down from the sky.
After he was aboard, after they had hovered over Castlerock and dropped a parachute with a transceiver into Siflot’s waiting hands, after the hatch had closed safely behind him again, he turned away to collapse into his acceleration couch and let the despair overwhelm him for a few minutes—overwhelm, and recede, and dwindle. Then he could think once again, and reflect in bitterness that love had once more passed him by, that Cupid had once again led him to a woman who was far more interested in using him than in loving him. He began to suspect that the Archer had a grudge against him, that True Love might be the reality for some, but would probably prove only a myth for him.
Finally, he roused himself, sitting up a little straighter and telling Herkimer, “Prepare to leave orbit.”
“Prepared,” the robot confirmed. “Where would you like to go, Magnus?”
Magnus waved a hand. “Oh, someplace interesting. Look through your files and see what you can find.”
“What parameters shall I look for, Magnus?”
“Oppressed peasants.” Magnus’s voice took on strength and conviction again. “Dissipated, tyrannical lords. Leaders who recruited a bunch of ordinary people and went off with them to try to build their own private kingdoms. Someplace where my life might do some good.”
“Searching.”
So was Magnus.