Love? Not as I knew the word. But understanding, and implicit trust. I would have trusted her with my reputation, my fortune, my sanity — my life.
But I trusted her brothers about as far as I could see through the hull of the Southern Cross. And I couldn’t quarrel with them — not yet. I tried to make this clear to Dio without hurting her feelings, but it wasn’t easy. She sat sulking and swinging her feet while I paced up and down like a trapped animal. Just having her here in my rooms could be dangerous if her family got wind of it — however innocent. And I knew if we were together very much it wouldn’t be innocent. Dio’s murmured, “I understand,” made me angry because I knew she did not really understand at all.
Her restless glance fell on the camouflage sword, lying across the bed. She frowned and picked it up.
Not pain, exactly, but a tension gripping me, a fist squeezing my nerves. I cried out, wordlessly, and Dio dropped it as if it burned her, staring open-mouthed. “What’s the matter?”
“I — can’t explain.” I stood regarding the thing for some minutes. “Before anything else, I’d better fix it so it’s safe to handle. For the one who handles it and for me.”
I rummaged my luggage for my matrix technician’s kit. I had only a few lengths left of the special insulating cloth, but now I was back on Darkover, I could have more made for me. I wrapped the stuff around and over the juncture of hilt and blade until I could no longer feel the warmth and tingle of the matrix; frowned and held it away. I wasn’t even sure if ordinary safeguards would work with this matrix.
I handed it to Dio. She bit her lip, but took it. It hurt, but manageably; a small nagging tension, no more. That much I could stand.
“Why ever did you leave a high-level matrix uninsulated?” Dio demanded, “and why did you let yourself be keyed into it that way?”
It was a very good question, especially the last. But I ignored that one. “I didn’t dare bring it through customs under insulation,” I said soberly. “Earthmen know, now, what to look for. As long as it was just a sword, no one would look twice at it.”
“Lew, I don’t understand,” she said helplessly.
“Don’t try, darling,” I said. “The less you know, tie better for you. This isn’t Vainwal, and I’m — not the man you knew there.”
Her soft mouth was trembling, and in another minute I would have taken her in my arms; but at that moment someone banged on the door again.
And I had thought I’d have privacy here!
I stepped away from Dio. “That’s probably your brothers,” I said bitterly, “and I’ll have another intent-to-murder filed on me.”
I stepped toward the door. She caught my arm. “Wait,” she said, urgently. “Take this.”
I stared without comprehension at the thing she held out to me. It was a small propulsion pistol; one of the Terran-made powder weapons which do unbelievable havoc for their size and simplicity. I drew back my hand in refusal, but Dio thrust it into my pocket. “You don’t have to use it,” she said, “just carry it. Please, Lew.”
The knock on the door was repeated, but Dio held me, saying, “Please,” again, until at last, impatiently, I nodded. I went and opened the door a crack, standing in the opening so the girl could not be seen.
The boy in the hallway was stocky and dark, with heavy sullen features and amused dark eyes. He said, “Well, Lew?”
And then the presence of him was tangible to me. I can’t explain exactly how, but I knew. All at once it was unbelievable that Rafe could have fooled me for a minute. Proof, if needed, that I’d been operating at minus capacity when I landed. I said huskily, “Marius,” and drew him inside.
He didn’t say much, but his awkward grip of my hand was hard and intense. “Lew — father?”
“On Vainwal,” I said. “There is a law. It is forbidden to transport bodies in space.”
He swallowed and bent his head. “Under a sun I’ve never seen—” he whispered. I put my good arm round him, and after a minute he said thickly “At least you’re here. You did come. They told me you wouldn’t.”
Touched, a little ashamed, I let him go. It had taken a command to bring me back, and I wasn’t proud of that, now. I looked around, but Dio had gone. Evidently she had slipped out of the room by the other door. I was relieved; it saved explanations.
But in a way I was annoyed, too. Entirely too many people had been turning up and vanishing again. All the wrong people, for all the wrong reasons. Dyan Ardais — picking my mind on the skyliner. The girl on the spaceport, who looked like Linnell and wasn’t. Rafe, passing himself off as my brother when he wasn’t. Dio, turning up for no good reason, and disappearing again. And now Marius himself had turned up! Coincidence? Maybe, but confusing.
“Are you ready to leave?” Marius asked. “I’ve made all the arrangements, unless you’ve some reason for staying here.”
“I’ve got to pick up my matrix certification at the Legation,” I said. “Then well go.” Maybe the sooner I got out of here, the better — or half of Darkover would be bursting in on me playing games!
“Lew,” Marius asked abruptly, “do you have a gun?”
Rafe’s question — and it grated on me. I was readjusting my thoughts, taking the fake Marius — Rafe — out of my thoughts and putting my brother where he belonged in them. I said curtly, “Yes,” and let it go at that. “Will you come to the Legation with me?”
“I’ll walk across the city with you.” He looked around the closed-in room and shuddered. “I couldn’t stay in this beast-pit. You weren’t going to sleep here tonight, were you?”
The Trade City had grown during my absence; it was larger than I remembered, dirtier, more crowded. Already it seemed more natural to call it the Trade City than by its Darkovan name, Thendara. Marius walked at my side, silent. At last he asked “Lew, what’s it like on Terra?”
He would ask that. Earth, home of the unknown forefathers he resembled so much. I had resented my Terran blood. Did he?
“It would take a lifetime to know Terra. I was only there for three years. I learned a lot of science and a little mathematics. Their technical schools are good. There was too much machinery, too much noise. I lived in the mountains; trying to live at sea level made me ill.”
“You didn’t like it there?”
“It was all right. They even fixed up a mechanical hand for me.” I made a grim face. “There’s the Legation.”
Marius said, “You’d better give me that gun,” then stared, in consternation, as I turned on him. “What’s the matter, Lew?”
“Something very funny is going on,” I said, “and I am getting suspicious of people who want me unarmed. Even you. Do you know a man called Robert Kadarin?”
When Marius looked blank, that dark face could be a masterpiece of obscurity, as unrevealing as a pudding. “I think I’ve heard the name. Why?”
“He filed an intent-to-murder on me,” I said, and briefly drew the pistol out of my pocket. “I won’t use this. Not on him. But I’m going to carry it.”
“You’d better let me—” Marius stopped and shrugged. “I see. Forget I asked.”
I rode the lift upward in the HQ building, past the barracks of Spaceforce, the census bureau, the vast floors of machines, records, traffic, all the business of the Empire. I walked down the corridors of the top floor, to a door that said: DAN LAWTON-Legate of Darkovan Affairs
I’d met Lawton briefly before I left Darkover. His story was a little like mine; a Terran father, a mother from the Comyn. We were remotely related — I’d never figured out how. He was a big, rangy redhead who looked Darkovan and could have claimed a place in Comyn Council if he’d wanted it. He hadn’t. He’d chosen the Empire, and was one of the top-ranking liaison men between Terran and Darkovan. No man can be honest who lives by Terra’s codes; but he came closer than most.