Auto-hypnosis which stripped away layers of inhibition and released secrets, desires and aspirations. And here within the inner chamber?

"The culmination of his art, Earl," she said when he asked. "Sit and watch for long enough and time ceases to have meaning. Death is robbed of its terror. Life becomes a pulsing surge of demand. Life, Earl, and emotion, and the desperate hopes of those who have left their desires too late and, in dying, sent them to blaze in a final burst of emotive appeal. Do it now, Earl. Can't you grasp the message? Do it now before it is too late. Do it! Do it!" Her arms engulfed him, holding him with a desperate yearning, her body radiating a demanding heat. "Do it, Earl! Damn you, do it now!"

* * * * *

A bird descended with a flutter of wings to land on the fleshy petal of a flower, to peck, to whir into the air again. A free creature of the air, protected in this environment, a thing of grace and beauty.

As she watched it fly away Dephine said, "We need to talk, Earl."

He nodded, looking back at the building housing the Krhan Display. A trap set among riotous flowers, its insidious attraction as subtle as the scent emitted by the bloom of a carnivorous plant. To it would come the ambulatory patients of the Institute eager to taste the new excitement, experience the new thrills. To stand and release inhibitions and act the parts transmitted by those who had died, taken and adapted by the artist. To indulge in stimulated passion. To be watched by skeins of glowing luminescence.

To return again and again, drawn by the depictions as a moth is drawn to flame.

"How long?"

"Have I been waiting? Days, Earl, almost a week now. They had to check me out under slow-time. You needed specialized treatment-but you know all that." She looked back at the massed flowers, the building with its rounded roof. "The Krhan Display beguiled me. It was a way to pass the time. It holds truth, Earl."

"No. Dreams, illusions."

"The truth," she insisted. "How many die eaten with the regret of lost opportunities? The fury of having waited too long? Of building for a future which, for them, no longer exists? Do it now, Earl. A fact which life has taught me. A truth among others." Her voice grew hard. "So many others."

Too many, perhaps, and some of them only a facet of the truth she imagined she had gained. Glimpses of reality distorted by false imagery and garnished by faded tinsel; the lure of promised excitement too often turning sour. How often had she known disappointment? How often had she reached for a new thrill, a new experience, another adventure? How many layers of defensive protection shielded the real woman?

A path led to a bench ringed with scented shrubs and he led the way to it, sitting, waiting for her to settle.

"What happened, Dephine?"

"On the ship?"

"Yes… the others?"

"Charl died by his own hand. I went in to him and he pleaded with me to give him his compounds. One of them must have contained poison."

"Mayna?"

"Dead too."

"How?"

"Does it matter, Earl?" She refused to meet his eyes. "He died, that's all you need to know. His screams were driving me crazy and-" She broke off. "Forget it."

A knife plunged into the heart, the impact of a club against temple or spine, drugs to distort the metabolism, there were many ways to kill a man.

Dumarest said, "Remille wanted to be alone. How did you talk him into landing?"

"I didn't. He made a recording and set the computer to throw the ship into orbit. They picked up the appeal and came up to see what was wrong. Remille was dead. They sent the vessel into a collision-course with the sun and brought us both to the Institute." She added, bleakly, "I think they would have sent us with the ship if I hadn't been able to pay."

The jewels they had found in the loot-the answer to the expensive treatment which had saved his life.

Dumarest said, sincerely, "Thank you, Dephine."

"For what?"

"Doing what you could to save me. The doctor told me about the burns. Without those inoculations I wouldn't be alive now."

"No, Earl, you wouldn't."

"And so I thank you."

"You thank me," she said, dryly. "Is that all? A few words quickly spoken?" And then, as he made no comment, added, "If so it isn't enough. I want more, Earl. A lot more."

"There is little I can give," said Dumarest evenly. "But you have the jewels and can retain most of my share."

"It still isn't enough."

Simple greed? He doubted it, but had to be sure. "What then?"

Her answer was direct. "You, Earl. I want you."

Marriage? In the display they had been governed by passion, riding a tide of sensual pleasure, of desire, of lust. She had been wild in her abandon, surrendering all restraint, concerned only with their union and careless as to who might be watching. An abandon he had shared in an explosive release of primeval energy. There had been words in the glowing dimness, things whispered in the language of lovers. Terms of endearment, protestations of affection, promises which he had heard from other women and which he had learned to discount-when passion died such things were often forgotten. And, influenced by Krhan's genius, neither had been wholly normal.

"Earl?"

She expected an answer, but he delayed giving it, letting the silence grow as he studied the lines of her face. It was hard, cold, a tiny muscle twitching at the corner of her mouth. Her nails made little scratching sounds as they rasped over the rich fabric of her gown.

Not the face of a woman declaring her love to a potential mate. But if not marriage then what?

"You're cold," she said at last. "Had I said that to another man he would have leapt to the obvious and be talking of our future life together. Especially after what happened between us in the display. Yet you say nothing. Why, Earl? Am I so repulsive?"

"Say what you mean, Dephine."

"Cold and hard and direct." She looked down at her hands as if reluctant to meet his eyes. "You're an unusual man, Earl, but I knew that before we left Hoghan. And in the Varden you proved it again and again. The Varden- how can I ever forget it? Days spent with death all around, not knowing if I would contract the disease, not even knowing if Remille had sent the ship to plunge into a sun. Can you imagine it, Earl? Can you?"

The cold glare of light and a silence broken only by moans and screams of the sick and insane. Alone in a ship which had become a tomb, the air tainted with the stench of burning flesh, filled with the restless mutters of nightmare.

"It's over now," he said. "Over."

"Yes, Earl. A danger passed and a problem solved and for you that is the end of it. You will move on, visit other worlds, meet other women, but you don't carry, as I do, the curse of your heritage. I had thought myself rid of it, but in the Varden, and later when I felt the impact of Krhan's genius-Earl, it isn't easy to forget the past."

"Can you ever, Dephine?"

She caught the sombre note in his voice and with an impulsive gesture reached out a hand and touched the side of his face. A touch which turned into a caress as her fingers moved softly over his cheek, to rest on his lips, to lift and be pressed against her own. A kiss by proxy; a thing often done in taverns by harlots with eyes as hard as the metal which graced their nails. But this was no tavern but a bench set among scented bushes and the woman was regal in self-assured pride.

A pride which crumpled as, tremulously, she said, "Earl! I need you! Please don't make me beg!"

"Need me for what?"

"For your strength, your courage, your skill. Because you are a man in every sense of the word. Because I am afraid."