Arthur Clarke - Imperial Earth

Calindy had recovered some of her poise. She stopped pacing around, and rejoined Duncan on the divan.

“I was not sure whether I really wanted to see him again, after all these years, but I knew how determined he was; it would have been useless trying to keep him away. So—I suppose you can say I took the line of least resistance.”

She managed a wry smile, the continued: “It didn’t work, of course, and I should have known it. The we saw a newscast that you’d just arrived on Earth.”

“That must have been a shock to Karl. What did he say?”

“No much; but I could see that he was upset and very surprised.”

“Surely he must have made some comment.”

“Only that if you contacted me, I was not to tell you that he was on Earth. That was the first time I suspected something was wrong, and started to worry about the titanite he’d asked me to sell.”

“That’s a trivial matter—forget about it. Let’s say it was just one of the many tools Karl used to reach his objective. But I’d like to know this—when we met aboard Titanic , was he still with you?”

Another hesitation, which in itself supplied half the answer. Then Calindy replied, rather defiantly: “Of course he was. And he was very angry when I said I’d met you. We had a bad row over that. Not the first one.” She sighed, slightly too dramatically. “By that time, Karl realized that it wouldn’t work—that it was quite hopeless. I’d warned him many times, but he wouldn’t believe me. He refused to face the fact that the Calindy he’d known fifteen years before, and whose image was burned in his brain, no longer existed...”

Duncan had never thought that he would see tears in Calindy’s eyes. But was she weeping for Karl, he wondered—or for her own lost youth?

He tried to be cynical, but he did not succeed. He was sure that some part of her sorrow was perfectly genuine, and despite himself was deeply touched by it. And more than touched, for now, to his great surprise, he found that sympathy was not the only emotion Calindy was arousing in him. He had never realized before that shared grief could be an aphrodisiac.

This was a development that he did nothing to discourage, but he did not want to hurry matters. There was still much that he hoped to learn and that only Calindy could tell him.

“So he was always disappointed when we made love,” she continued tearfully, “thought at first he tried to conceal it. I could tell—and it wasn’t pleasant for me. It made me feel—inadequate. You see, by this time I’d learned a good deal about imprinting and knew exactly what the trouble was. Karl’s case isn’t unique...”

“So he got more and more frustrated—and also violent. Sometimes he frightened me. You know how strong he was—look at this.”

With another theatrical gesture, she slipped open her dress, displaying the upper left arm—not to mention her entire left breast.

“He hit me here , so hard that I was badly bruised. You can still see the mark.”

With the best will in the world, Duncan could discover no trace of a bruise on the milky-white skin, smooth as satin, that was exposed before his eyes. Nevertheless, the revelation did not leave him unmoved.

“So that’s why you switched off the viddy,” he said sympathetically, and edged closer.

“Then Ivor’s friend called me, with that query about Titan. I thought it was an odd coincidence... you know, Duncan, that was an unkind trick to play on me.”

She sounded more sad than angry; and she did not move away from him. Almost half of the sofa was now unoccupied.

“And then everything started to happen at once. Did you know that Terran Security sent two of its agents to interview me?”

“No, but I guessed it. What did you tell them?”

“Everything, of course. They were very kind and understanding.”

“And also clumsy,” said Duncan with deep bitterness.

“Oh, Duncan, that was an accident! You were an important guest—you had to be protected. There would have been an interplanetary scandal if something had happened just before you were going to address Congress. But you should never have gone after Karl, in such a dangerous place.”

“It wasn’t dangerous—we were having a perfectly friendly discussion. How did I know that trigger-happy idiot was lurking in the next antenna?”

“What was he to do? He’d been ordered to protect you at all costs, and had been warned that Karl might be violent. It looked as if you were starting to fight—and that laser blast would only have blinded Karl for a few hours. It was all a terrible accident. No one was to blame.”

Perhaps, thought Duncan; it would be a long, long time before he could view the whole sequence of events dispassionately. If there was blame, it was spread thinly, and across two worlds. Like most human tragedies, this one had been caused not by evil intentions, but by errors of judgment, misunderstandings...

If Malcolm and Colin had not insisted that he have a showdown with Karl, confronting him with the facts... if he had not wanted Karl to prove his innocence, and deliberately given him the opportunity to assert it, even to the extent—unconsciously, but he was aware of it now—of putting himself in his power... Perhaps Karl had been really dangerous; that was something else he would never know.

It seemed as if they had both been enmeshed in some complex web of fate from which there had never been any possibility of escape. And though the scale of that disaster was so much greater that the very comparison appeared ludicrous, Duncan was again reminded of the Titanic . She too had been doomed, as if the gods themselves conspired against her, by a whole series of apparently random and trivial chances. If the radioed warnings had not been buried under greetings and business messages... If that iceberg had not sliced so incredibly through all those watertight compartments... If the radio operator on the ship twenty kilometers away had not gone off duty when the first of all SOS signals was flashed into the Atlantic night... If there had been enough lifeboats... It was like the failure of a whole series of safety devices, one by one, against incalculable odds, until catastrophe was inevitable.

“Perhaps you are right,” said Duncan, trying to console himself as much as Calindy. “I don’t really blame anyone. Not even Karl.”

“Poor Karl. He really loved me. To have come all the way to Earth...”

Duncan did not answer, though for a moment he was tempted. Surely Calindy did not believe that this was the only reason! Even a brain-burned man, imprinted by one of those diabolical joy machines, was driven by more than passion. And Karl’s main objective had been so awesome that, even now, Duncan could scarcely believe the picture that was slowly emerging from his sketchbook and the guarded portions of his Minisec.

Karl had had a dream—or a nightmare—and Duncan was the only man alive who even partially understood it. How utterly baffled and bewildered the Argus Committee must be! That thought gave Duncan a heady sense of power, though there were times when he wished that the burden of knowledge had reached him in some other way, or had not come at all...

For power and happiness were incompatible. Karl had reached for both, and both had slipped through his fingers. How Duncan could profit by that lesson he did not yet know; but it would be with him for all the years to come.

But if happiness was perhaps unattainable, at least pleasure was not beyond his grasp, nor was it to be despised. For a few moments he could forget the affairs of state and turn his back upon an enigma far more profound than any of those that Calindy peddled to her clients.