E.C Tubb: Iduna

"She is happy as she is. Leave her alone."

"And me?"

"You have your memories. The knowledge that your daughter is safe and happy as I've told you. Take care of her body and you'll do all that can be done."

He was telling her something, warning her, perhaps, and she said with sudden insight, "She hates me, is that it?" She saw by his tension she had scored. "Don't be so astonished- all children hate their parents at times as I've cause to know and, as a mother, I was far from being the best. Iduna was willful and headstrong and impatient to rule. Always she wanted that. To give orders without first learning how to obey. An essential-how else to avoid an absolute lack of restraint?"

A barrier which no longer existed. And how could a child have understood the necessity of such teaching? To realize that untrammeled despotism led inevitably to cabals, assassinations, civil wars.

Kathryn said, "I will treble your reward if you take me into the Tau." She read the answer in his face and was suddenly aware of the reason behind the refusal. Not the simple fear she had imagined or the willful stubbornness of ignorance but something far beyond that; the awful longing once again to act the god. How had he managed to tear himself from such temptation?

"I died," he said when she asked. "I chose to die. I think it is the only way a human can leave the Tau."

Died? She restrained the obvious question. The mechanics were unimportant but how had it felt? To have willingly faced extinction. To have actually experienced it-but had it been like that? Had he really died or had he been convinced, deep inside, that it was just an extension of the game? But if the world of the Tau were as real as the one she now experienced wouldn't death hold the same terror?

Dumarest said, "My lady, you spoke of a reward."

"What?" She was startled at the intrusion into her thoughts, the abrupt change of subject. "Reward-you are impatient to leave?"

"Yes, my lady." Before her gratitude waned in the face of her urgent desires. "There is nothing more I can do here."

He had earned the reward and Gustav would condemn her for withholding it. He had the money together with Dumarest's clothing, his knife, a certificate of citizen status and a grant of land which would be his should he choose to stay. Bribes which she now recognized as worthless. He would not stay. If the Tau couldn't hold him then nothing could and to use restraint was to invite destruction. Yet she was reluctant to see him go.

"Earl-we shall remember you."

"For a while, my lady, perhaps. But you have other things to occupy your attention."

The ravages the disease had left, the organization waiting to be done, the arranging of affairs so as to ensure the safety of her rule. Tamiras had been one but there would be others and they would have to be discovered and dealt with. Duties-always there were duties. But, for now, she would indulge herself in a brief time of pleasure. As a moth turning toward a flame she turned to face the Tau.

"My lady?"

"You are so impatient, Earl. So impetuous. Shamarre, our guest is leaving us. Escort him to where Gustav waits in the study."

"My lady! And leave you alone?"

At another time the protest would have annoyed her and brought a swift rebuke. Now she only smiled. "Alone? How can I be alone? I have Iduna with me. My child."

Trapped to wander in the maze of her mind, but Dumarest said nothing of that. He turned as he reached the end of the chamber to look back at where the Matriarch stood like some priestess at the ancient altar of a pagan god. The light caught her, haloed her with a rainbow nimbus, bound her as if entranced and, already, she was doomed.

An hour, a day, a week-the period was unimportant but, inevitably, she would succumb. She would approach the Tau and caress it and become as a child and enter into the world it provided. A victim. A god. Always a slave.

"Hurry!" Shamarre was impatient to return. "Gustav will be waiting." As were the ships, the stars, his freedom.