“And in your country?” Christine asked. “What year is it now in your country, Thimiroi? 2600? 3100?”
He pondered that a moment. “We use a different system of reckoning. It is not at all analogous. The term would be meaningless to you.”
“You can’t tell me what year it is there?”
“Not in your kind of numbers, no. There was—a break in the pattern of numbering, long before our time. I could ask Kadro. He is our tour guide, Kadro. He knows how to compute the equivalencies.”
She stared at him. “Couldn’t you guess? Five hundred years? A thousand?”
“Perhaps it is something like that. But even if I knew, I would not tell you the exact span, Christine. It would be wrong. It is forbidden, absolutely forbidden.” Thimiroi laughed. “Everything I have just told you is absolutely forbidden, do you know that? We must conceal the truth about ourselves to those we meet when we undertake The Travel. That is the rule. Of course, you don’t believe a thing I’ve just been telling you, do you?”
Color flared in her cheeks. “Don’t you think I do?” she cried.
Tenderly Thimiroi said, “There are two things they tell us about The Travel, Christine, before we set out for the first time. The first, they say, is that sooner or later you will feel some compulsion to reveal to a person of ancient times that you are a visitor from a future time. The second thing is that you will not be believed.”
“But I believe you, Thimiroi!”
“Do you? Do you really?”
“Of course it all sounds so terribly strange, so fantastic—”
“Yes. Of course.”
“But I want to believe you. And so I do believe you. The way you speak—the way you dress—the way you look—everything about you is foreign, Thimiroi, totally foreign beyond any ordinary kind of foreignness. It isn’t Iran or India or Afghanistan that you come from, it has to be some other world, or some other time. Yes. Yes. Everything about you. The way you played the piano yesterday.” She paused a moment. “The way you touch me in bed. You are like no man I have ever—like no man—” She faltered, reddened fiercely, looked away from him a moment. “Of course I believe that you are what you say you are. Of course I do!”
When he returned to the Montgomery House late that afternoon he went down the hall to Laliene’s suite and rapped angrily at the door. Denvin opened it and peered out at him. He was dressed in peacock splendor, an outfit exceptional even for Denvin, a shirt with brilliant red stripes and golden epaulets, tight green trousers flecked with scarlet checks.
He gave Thimiroi a long cool malevolent glance and exclaimed, “Well! The prodigal returns!”
“How good to see you, Denvin. Am I interrupting anything?”
“Only a quiet little chat.” Denvin turned. “Laliene! Our wandering poet is here!”
Laliene emerged from deeper within. Like Denvin she was elaborately clothed, wearing a pale topaz-hued gown fashioned of a myriad shimmering mirrors, shining metallic eye-shadow, gossamer finger-gloves. She looked magnificent. But for an instant, as her eyes met Thimiroi’s, her matchless poise appeared to desert her, and she seemed startled, flustered, almost frightened. Then, regaining her equilibrium with a superb show of control, she gave him a cool smile and said, “So there you are. We tried to reach you before, but of course there was no finding you. Maitira, Antilimoin, and Fevra are here. We’ve just been with them. They’ve been holding open house all afternoon, and you were invited. I suppose it’s still going on. Lesentru is due to arrive in about an hour, and Kuiane, and they say that Broyal and Hammin will be getting here tonight also.”
“The whole clan,” Thimiroi said. “That will be delightful. Laliene, may I speak with you privately?”
Again a flicker of distress from her. She glanced almost apologetically at Denvin.
“Well, excuse me!” Denvin said theatrically.
“Please,” Laliene said. “For just a moment, Denvin.”
“Certainly. Certainly, Laliene.” He favored Thimiroi with a strange grimace as he went out.
“Very well,” said Laliene, turning to face Thimiroi squarely. Her expression had hardened; she looked steely, now, and prepared for any sort of attack. “What is it, Thimiroi?”
He drew forth the little silvery pellet that he had found attached to the underside of the Sipulva table, and held it out to her in the palm of his hand.
“Do you know what this is, Laliene?”
“Some little broken toy, I assume. Why do you ask?”
“It’s an erotic,” he said. “I found it in my rooms, where someone had hidden it. It began broadcasting when I went to sleep last night. Sending out practically irresistible waves of sexual desire.”
“How fascinating. I hope you were able to find someone to satisfy them with.”
“The images I was getting, Laliene, were images of you. Standing naked next to my bed, whispering to me, inviting me to come down the hall and make love to you.”
She smiled icily. “I had no idea you were still interested, Thimiroi!”
“Don’t play games with me. Why did you plant this thing in my room, Laliene?”
“I?”
“I said, don’t play games. You were in my room the other day. No one else of our group has been. The erotic was specifically broadcasting your image. How can there be any doubt that you planted it yourself, for the particular purpose of luring me into your bed?”
“You’re being absurd, Thimiroi. Anyone could have planted it. Anyone. Do you think it’s hard to get into these rooms? These people have no idea of security. You ask a chambermaid in the right way and you can enter anywhere. As for the images of me that were being broadcast to you, why, you know as well as I do that erotics don’t broadcast images of specific individuals. They send out generalized waves of feeling, and the recipient supplies whatever image seems appropriate to him. In your case evidently it was my image that came up from your unconscious when—”
“Don’t lie to me, Laliene.”
Her eyes flashed. “I’m not lying. I deny planting anything in your room. Why on earth would I, anyway? Could going to bed with you, or anyone else, for that matter, possibly be that important to me that I would connive and sneak around and make use of some kind of mechanical amplifying device in order to achieve my purpose? Is that plausible, Thimiroi?”
“I don’t know. What I do know is that what happened to me during the night happened to me, and that I found this when I searched my rooms.” He thought for a moment to add, And that you’ve been pressing yourself upon me ever since we began this trip, in the most embarrassing and irritating fashion. But he did not have the heart to say that to her. “I believe that you hid this when you visited me for tea. What your reason may have been is something I can’t begin to imagine.”
“Of course you can’t. Because I had no reason. And I didn’t do it.”
Thimiroi made no reply. Laliene’s face was firmly set. Her gaze met his unwaveringly. She was certainly lying: he knew that beyond any question. But they were at an impasse. All he could do was accuse; he could not prove anything; he was stymied by her denial, and there was no way of carrying this further. She appeared to know that also. There was a long tense moment of silence between them, and then she said, “Are you finished with this, Thimiroi? Because there are more important things we should be discussing.”