He followed her example, draining the bottle into their glasses as she lowered her own, giving her the lion's share. Accumulated fatigue must, by now, be dulling the sharp edge of her mind and the extra alcohol would help to loosen her tongue. She had mentioned Earth. She was a traveler and she had mentioned Earth!

Then he realized his own fatigue had bolstered false hopes. She had mentioned Earth but only in passing and with others accepted to be legends. To her as to others Earth was as unreal as the dream of an eternal paradise or a world made of solid diamond. No almanac listed it No navigational tables held its coordinates. No one he had ever met admitted it could be real.

But Earth existed-he was living proof of that. He had been born on that lost and forgotten world. One day, he would find it again.

The studio was as he remembered: the table, the bed, the paintings stacked against a wall. He closed, the door and jammed a chair beneath the knob, then turned to meet her wide, watchful eyes.

"I'm staying," he said. "A precaution." He saw her glance toward the bed, sensed her trepidation and added quickly, "Ca Lee could have had friends. Some of them might not like the way he died."

"But you killed him!"

"And you're easier to hurt." He remembered the woman in the dispensary with her lacerated face and put a snap into his voice. "Don't argue about it. Just go to bed-I'll take the chair."

She was like an animal, lying wakeful and tense and he wondered why. The way she had snatched her arm free of his grasp held a clue and he wondered what had been done to her to induce such fear. Or was it a fear of inner weakness? A need to which she dared not succumb? The questions ceased to have meaning as fatigue weighted his eyelids and drove him into restless sleep… broken as the woman moved.

"Earl?" She looked at his hand as he gripped her wrist, face ghostly in the starlight streaming through the window. "Please, Earl! Please!"

"You startled me." He released her hand. "You shouldn't have come so close to me." He rubbed his eyes, the sleep, though short, had removed some of the grit. "Have you water?"

She gave it to him in a cup, pouring from a pot damp with moisture which she took from a recess in the wall. He sipped and tasted a faint salinity. Had hers been a hot and arid world?

"No," she said when he asked. "There are mountains and seas and fertile land and everything is clean and bright as if it were new. You'd never see a cripple in the streets and no one would have to live as Anton does." Pausing, she asked, "Why, Earl? Why spend what you did on his welfare?"

"Bells."

"What?"

"Bells," he said again. "They warned me. Down in the basement when I hunted Ca Lee. I saw Anton move and thought he was the man I was after and sprang forward-"

"And would have killed him if you hadn't heard the bells." She nodded, understanding. "Then Ca Lee would have had you at his mercy. But were you kind only to repay a debt?"

A boy, handicapped, fighting to survive in a hostile environment, Anton could have been himself. Dumarest rose from the chair and stepped toward the window to look at the stars, the slope of the foothills now dark and solid in the silver light. A boy's hunting ground-his own had been far less gentle-but no child should have to creep among thorns to harvest a little fruit.

Turning, he said to lighten his thoughts, "Tell me about your home. What color are the seas? The sky? Do you have a moon?"

"Green," she said. "And azure and, yes, we do have a moon. Two of them in fact but one is very small. At times it glows scarlet."

"Bad times?" He saw the movement of her eyes, the tensing of small muscles in her face and took another sip of water, knowing he had touched a sensitive area. "Why don't you go back to bed?"

"I couldn't sleep. The bed's yours if you want it."

"Later, perhaps." His nerves were too edgy to permit of deep and restful sleep and it would be better for him to stay awake. Dumarest drank the rest of the water and set down the cup. It fell to the floor, and as he picked it up his hand brushed the edge of the stacked paintings. "You've been busy," he commented. "May I see them?"

"Why not?" She snapped on the light and lifted them and set them on the table face upwards. "I'll have to make a decision about them soon."

"Too many?"

"Too heavy. I like to stay mobile."

He nodded and looked at the paintings. Each was on a thin sheet of metalized paper and could be flexed and rolled without damage. Final products; the one she had made of himself had been crude by comparison. She guessed what he was thinking.

"I was in a hurry but I'd like to paint you again. I'd be able to achieve greater depth this time now that I know you better. What do you think of that?"

A rose lay on a cushion, the petals dewed, the stem with its spines so real that he could almost smell the perfume.

"And that?"

An egg, broken, the bird newly hatched, struggling with tiny wings to free itself from the smooth prison. Each feather was a fluffed gem. The gaping beak seemed to be sounding all the fury of all the creatures ever born. The eyes held in their orbits the panoply of worlds.

"And these?"

Dumarest leafed through them, pausing to look at the woman. "Did your father ever see any similar work?"

"Of mine? No."

"A pity. If he had he wouldn't have died a disappointed man."

Frowning, she said, "I don't understand, Earl."

"He wanted you to be a genius, you said." Dumarest touched the painting in his hand. "This is proof of it. The proof of his success-your success. I-" He broke off, looking at the next to be revealed.

A woman, seated on a casket, and she was old.

Old!

The accumulated weight of years piled invisible mountains on her shoulders, bowing them, hollowing the thin chest to match the hollows of her cheeks, the sunken pits in which dwelt her eyes. Her hair was a cloud of whiteness holding the fragile delicacy of gossamer. The hands resting on her lap were brittle straws ending pipestem arms which matched the reed-like figure. The face was creped with a countless mesh of lines, the lips thin and bloodless, the whole giving the impression of a mask.

Old!

Old-and patient.

The impression was almost tangible and dominated the portrayal. The woman was old and yet not ugly. She held the same beauty as a tree that is old or a lichened wall or the worn hills of ancient worlds. The mask-like face looked at things created by time beyond normal comprehension-the span of years which had passed in a ceaseless flow from the time of her conception and would continue long after she was dust. Time spent in waiting as she was waiting now. Waiting with the incredible patience of the very old.

"Who-?"

"She isn't real," said Carina, anticipating his question, "Not an actual person. She symbolizes an ideal."

Age and patience and waiting-but waiting for what?

Dumarest closed his eyes, pressed the lids tightly together, looked again at the timeless face of the old woman. An ideal, Carina had said. An artist's impression-but of what?

"The box," she said when he asked. "I saw it and was curious and made some inquiries. It looks like a shipping container but it isn't that and neither is it a coffin. I thought it was at first, despite its size, but I was wrong. It's the reverse, in fact. A survival-casket."

That was new to him. Ships carried life-support sacs for use in emergency but they were a last hope and a desperate gamble. The usual caskets were strictly functional affairs shaped by the need to achieve a low temperature in the minimum time and to keep it stable once obtained. And why the old woman? The impression of limitless patience?

"They wait," said Carina. "Those who use the boxes, I mean. I depicted an old woman but it could have been a man. And I guess neither had to be old but that's how I felt it. Old people lying in their boxes in a form of suspended animation while the years spin past outside. Just lying there, waiting. Patiently waiting."