Then the plates were cleared and the Queen and he whom she had considered her greatest enemy sat in apparent amity. From the front of his tunic Reddick brought forth a scroll which he spread flat on the table before him. While Roane could not read the words written there, she could see the black lettering, and ribbons of scarlet and black at the foot of the sheet, affixed by an irregular blob of purple of the hue of Ludorica’s gown.
The Queen leaned back in her chair, fanned herself with slow motions of the purple feathers. All the vivacity, those quick changes of expression which Roane had seen on her face in the past, had vanished. Her face was a mask under the piles and rolls of her hair. Even her eyes were half closed as if the lids and the long lashes acted to conceal what she thought or felt.
Reddick’s lips moved. He must be reading aloud what was written on the scroll. He glanced up at last, looking straight at Ludorica. And it seemed to Roane that he did so searchingly, as if he expected some protest, or at least some comment from her.
But if he did so, he was disappointed. She gestured with the fan, and the usher who had led her in came out of the shadows, took the scroll from the Duke, brought it to place before the
Queen.
She let it remain rolled. To all appearances she was not interested in what it contained, nor in what Reddick wanted from her. Perhaps he grew impatient, for Roane saw his lips move again.
For the first time Ludorica answered him. No show of emotion troubled her mask. Instead a faint flush arose on the Duke’s cheeks. If that was caused by anger he suppressed all other signs of resentment valiantly.
But, having perhaps rebuked her kinsman, the Queen laid down her fan, spread out the scroll with both hands. Perhaps she reread what was written there. At least she sat so for several long moments.
Then she spoke again. One of the waiting ladies brought forward a small tray on which was a box which she opened before presenting it. The contents seemed a solid black block. Ludorica raised her right hand, pressed her thumb firmly against the block, and then to the paper, leaving a clear print. She then dipped her hand in a small basin the lady was quick to offer and washed her thumb clean.
She still held the scroll in her left hand, but allowed it to re-roll as Reddick moved to draw back her chair. As she arose she left it lying.
Passing her kinsman as if he had become invisible, Ludorica left the room. The Duke caught up the scroll and tucked it once more within the security of his tunic before he followed her.
Roane stirred, or tried to stir. She had watched a very real scene which carried with it the conviction that by some weird chance she had been projected into Ludorica’s palace and there been witness to some dire action. But why—and how—
The room was gone suddenly. Instead she faced, for perhaps the length of one breath out of a lifetime, a single face. And that was going to haunt her—
“Roane!”
She was being shaken with increasing roughness, roused out of that state which did not seem wholly akin to normal sleep.
“Nelis!” Did she call that aloud? There was danger—
Roane opened her eyes. She was being drawn out of her bed roll by Sandar, and he was doing that shaking. But Sandar was not a part of—
“Roane! Wake up, can’t you? Wake up!” His last shake was hard enough to make her head roll on her shoulders. And she at last accepted that she was back from that strange far place. She lay in her cubicle at camp, and her cousin was using impatiently harsh means to acquaint her of that fact.
“Haabacca jet us to the Cloud!” he exclaimed. “Sniff this so you can see straight!” With one hand he pushed her head forward, with the other made a balled fist and then opened it under her nose, where the capsule he had so crushed could spend its fumes directly into her lungs. Sniffing those fumes cleared her head.
“What is the matter?” she asked sulkily. For all the ominous shadows which clung about that dream, she wanted to hold it —especially the very last—for a dream once gone is sometimes gone forever.
“We’re moving out.” He stood up. “Father let you sleep as long as he could. But we’re ready to collapse shelter now. Store your gear and do it fast!”
She crawled out of the sleeping bag, rolled it with the ease of long practice into a packet which fitted into a pocket in the wall. For the rest there had been a clean sweep here. All the possessions allowed her in this Spartan life had vanished. They must have been hard at work while she slept, slept and dreamed.
And out of that dream she carried the conviction that she had witnessed a true happening. Nelis Imfry—that was who it had concerned the most. The scroll that Reddick had produced and that the Queen had signed—and that last glimpse of a lean brown face before Sandar had shaken her awake—they were strung together as might be a necklace of view-pearls.
View-pearls? Roane paused in her sealing of the pocket. She had not the slightest esper rating. Had not Uncle Offlas had her tested long ago? An esper was invaluable to an archaeologist. Retrogressive hypnotherapy could be used by a sensitive to locate digging sites. There were those who could hold a circlet of view-pearls in their hands and read the authentic past. But she was not one of them. Then how did she know that she had done so now? And how had she been so empowered? Was it part of the same subtle influence which had drawn her to the Princess at their first meeting, forced her to serve Ludorica? But why should that influence now switch her concern to another? Roane’s hand went to shield her eyes. She tried to think nor- mally, to argue against this new compulsion. No—she was not going to— She was not! The installation was not going to use her, too. But it could not be that! The installation moved the Queen now and what she was doing was directly against her former will.
Could she herself now be a puppet—but whose?
“Roane, come on!” Sandar stood there. “What’s the matter, do you need another waking inhalation?”
“No!” She needed nothing except some quiet, a calm mind, and a chance to think. But when she would get all three she was not sure.
13
The shelter had been collapsed around the packed core of equipment. Unless someone stumbled upon it bodily, it was so well concealed that the camp could not be sighted by any forest traveler. With packs of emergency supplies the three withdrew to the cave passage.
There the elder Keil set a repell beamer working at the entrance, locked it on his thumb set so that no one else might turn it off. As long as he had Roane’s belt she would be a prisoner here, as safely captive as if she were chained by a collar, since without its force she could not go out as others could not enter.
Saying that there was no reason to waste time during their enforced stay in hiding, he and Sandar went back to the installation chamber. They had left a call beam at the dismantled camp to provide direction for their off-world rescuers.
Roane trailed the two men, but to watch those crowned pillars disturbed her. Was it true that the destruction of those inhuman controls might devastate Clio, bring about planet-wide chaos and death to peoples conditioned for generations as puppets? Or— but one could not be sure without careful study made by those trained to deal with such cases. And such study could take planet years.
In the meantime, Roane leaned her head against the wall and closed her eyes. She discovered she could pull from memory every vivid detail of that dream, if dream it was—from the gleam of the colors, the metals, the gowns, the high ceremony of the meal, to the expressions or lack of expression on the faces of those who had played out the scene.
Time. Her scratched hands balled into small fists which she wished she could use to batter her way out of here. Time was going to defeat her. She need only glance down that aisle of pillars to Uncle Offlas, wearing her belt draped over one shoulder. She had no plan—
Her head ached and the constant mutter of the machines seemed to match it throb for throb, until she could stand it no longer. The men were both intent upon what they were doing, studying the play of lights across those pillar surfaces. She gave a sigh and returned to the cave entrance where they had stacked their survivor kits.