My father had been crippled for years; one of my earliest memories was of the hot springs at Armida, and soaking, after an icy day in the saddle, neck-deep in the boiling water. It was not only the lame or infirm who enjoyed that. But all over the Empire, and more especially on pleasure-worlds where nothing is taboo, bathhouses serve as a gathering place for those whose interest is in something other than hot water and soothing mineral baths. Maybe the atmosphere of relaxed nudity contributes to the breakdown of inhibitions. Many sorts of entertainment are offered there which have little to do with bathing.

My father’s infirmity and his noticeable lameness gave him the most obvious and respectable reasons for being there; also, he found masseurs who could give his aching muscles considerable ease. I seldom visited such places—there had been a time when it was agony to me to be in the midst of such things, and the women who gathered there seeking men whose inhibitions had been loosened by the atmosphere of the baths were not, to put it mildly, the kind of women who attracted me much. But my father seemed more lame than usual, his steps more uneasy. He could have called to summon a masseur who would have accompanied him there, or even someone to carry him in a sedan chair—on Vainwal you can have literally any kind of attention or care, for a price—but in his present condition I would not leave him to hired attendants. I accompanied him to the bathhouse, took him to the door of the hot pools, and went off to the restaurant for a drink. There I sat watching a group of dancers doing the most astonishing things with their anatomy, later waved away the women—and men—who went round afterward trying to find clients sufficiently roused by the display to pay for a more private exhibition. Later I watched another entertainment, this time in hologram, a musical drama telling an ancient legend of the love and revenge of the fire-God; one of his fellow-Gods had had his wife stolen, ravished away by a third, and the fire-God had declared her chaste, though the one who had lost his wife was jealous and would not accept assurances. But the illusion of flames surrounding the actor who mimed the fire-God made me nervous, and I rose and uneasily left the restaurant. I went into one of the bars for another drink, and there my father’s masseur found me.

“You are Lewis-Kennard Lanart—”

Quickly, I was troubled, knowing something was wrong, braced for more tragedy. “My father—what is wrong with my father?”

“He is not in danger now,” the masseur said, fidgeting with the towel in his hands, “but the heat of the steam room was too much for him, and he collapsed. I sent for a medic,” he added defensively. “They wanted to take him to the Terran hospital, but he would not go. He said all he wanted was a few minutes of rest, and for you to come and take him home.”

They had sent for a valet to help him dress, and he was sipping a glass of strong brandy. He looked very pale, thinner than I had noticed. Pain and compunction struck me. I said, “Let me take you home, Father,” and sent for one of the little skycabs which lifted us directly to the roof-platform of our own building.

I had not felt his distress, nor his collapse; I had been watching the stupid dancers!

“It’s all right, Lew,” he said gently. “You’re not my keeper.” And somehow that made me feel raw-edged too, troubled. For once, instead of staying on his feet, he was willing to lie down on a piece of furniture, a soft flotation couch in the apartment, though he would not go to bed.

“Father, you’re not planning, surely, to travel to Darkover in five days? You’ll never be able to endure the trip! And the climate of Thendara—”

“I was born there,” he said tightly. “I can endure it. And I have no choice, unless you choose to go and save me the trouble.”

I said, anger and pity fighting in me, “That’s not fair! You can’t ask it—!”

“I do ask it,” he said. “You’re strong enough, now, to do it. I didn’t ask it of you before you were ready. But now there is no reason you should not—”

I considered it. Or tried to. But everything in me flinched away. Return; walk back on my own two feet into that corner of hell where I had found death and mutilation, rebellion, love and treachery—

No. No. Avarra’s mercy, no…

He sighed, heavily. “You’ll have to face it some day, Lew. And I don’t want to face the Council alone. I can count on only one ally there—”

“Dyan,” I said, “and he’ll do more for you if I’m not there. He hates my guts, Father.”

My father shook his head. “I think you’re mistaken. He promised—” and then he sighed. “Still, be that as it may, you’ll have to go back some day—”

You cannot live like this, Lew. On Darkover there are some experts in matrix technology who might be able to find a way to free you from Sharra—

“They tried,” I said. “You told me they tried before you brought me offworld, and they couldn’t; which is why we had to bring the matrix offworld, you couldn’t separate me from it without killing me—”

“You were weaker then. That was years ago. You could survive it, now.”

A thousand regrets, terrors, agonies flooded me; if it had not been for my illfated attempt to monitor her, perhaps Dio would not have gone into premature labor…

And that monstrous horror might have lived, breathed…

But Dio might have understood. Might not have—loathed me. Might not have shrunk in horror from the monster I had fathered, the monster I had become—

Free of Sharra, might the damage somehow have been reversed? The link with that giant matrix which had somehow damaged my very cells…if I had had the courage to endure it, being freed of Sharra, perhaps the horror would not have reached out and touched our child…at least I could have been monitored, to know enough, beforehand, avoid fathering a child… could have warned Dio, so she need not have suffered that loss—

“I don’t think it would have made any difference. The damage was done before ever I met Dio.” I knew he shared the image in my mind, of that monstrous failure with my hand… but we would never be sure.

“Some day. Some day. Maybe.”

He started to speak; then shut his mouth, and although I could hear the words he did not speak, clearly in his mind… I need you, Lew, I cannot go alone… I was grateful that he did not use that last weapon, his weakness, to persuade me. I felt guilty that I did not offer it, unasked. But I could not, I could not—

He shut his eyes. “I would like to rest.” I went out and left him alone.

I paced the apartment, debating whether or not I should go down into the multiformed world of the pleasure planet below me, get myself blind drunk; too drunk to know or care what horrors pulled at my mind, what guilt and self-blame. My father needed me; he had done, unsparing, whatever I needed when I was sick and helpless, and now I would not, could not force myself to give to him as generously as he had given to me. But I would not leave him alone. I could not do what he wished of me; but I would do what I could.

I do not know how long it was before I heard his voice, that cry of terrible pain, ringing and echoing in my mind and crashing through the rooms. I know, now, that there was no cry, it had been so swift that he could never have uttered a sound, but it was a scream of agony. Even as I ran toward his room, stumbling in haste, his voice crashed through my mind as it had done in that first rapport where he had shocked my laranawake when I was eleven years old; pain like death and the harsh command, inflexible, that I could not shut out.

LEW! YOU MUST GO, I CANNOT—YOU MUST GO BACK TO DARKOVER, FIGHT FOR YOUR BROTHER’S RIGHTS AND FOR THE HONOR OF ALTON AND THE DOMAIN—YOU MUST GO BACK AND FREE YOURSELF FROM SHARRA—LEW, I COMMAND YOU. IT IS MY DYING WISH, THE LAST WISH—