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  Chapter Nine

  Halvo and Perri worked on the Space Dragon for several hours shortly after sunrise, with Halvo inside the ship and Perri, again wearing the space suit, performing some simple repairs to the outer hull. The sun was not very high before they were forced by lung-searing heat to race back to the cave. There they sheltered until nightfall brought cooler temperatures that would allow them to go out and work again.

  The emotional distance Halvo maintained from Perri, coupled with his crisp orders and unembroidered instructions about the work she was to do, provided a constant irritation to her. She could not imagine why any man would be annoyed with a woman who had offered, with the best of intentions, to ease his urgent discomfort.

  Her own discomfort was another matter. Perri had never heard of a woman feeling the way she did. Thus, she did not know how to help herself. She arrived back at the inner chamber of the cave tired, overheated, and thoroughly out of sorts.

  “Do you know how to prepare the food in those packets?” Halvo asked with cold detachment in his voice. “I want to eat at once, before I start the repairs on Rolli. I didn’t get much accomplished the last time I tried, so I don’t want any interruptions this time.”

  “Of course I know how to prepare food!” Perri snapped, adding with great irritation, “What other purpose is there to a woman’s life but preparation of meals and supervision of the servants who clean a man’s house?”

  She did not mention the third thing a woman was expected to do for a man. Having stripped off her space suit and folded it, Perri was clad in her purple-blue tunic, trousers, and boots. She snatched up the water container and headed for the pool to fill it.

  “You are capable of far more than traditional tasks,” Halvo said as she stalked past him. “Your assistance on the Space Dragon has been exemplary.”

  “Thank you, Admiral,” she said. “I trust you will note that fact on my personnel report.”

  “Perri, you are making this situation more difficult than it has to be.” He sounded weary.

  “I,” she said with great dignity, “was only trying to make you more comfortable. You are the one who is making your situation difficult.” She pretended not to hear the unrepeatable oath he swore beneath his breath.

  Certain she was in the right and still deeply offended by Halvo’s rejection, Perri barely deigned to speak to him while they ate. Once the meal was over, Halvo spread out his sleeping blanket on the sand and arranged his tools on it. He positioned their two lights exactly as he wanted, then he picked up Rolli’s head. At that point Perri forgot her injured feelings in favor of open curiosity. Being careful not to disturb anything on the blanket, she went to her knees beside Halvo to watch what he was doing. He acknowledged her presence with a quick glance and a nod before he began to investigate the opening at the base of Rolli’s head, where the neck fitted to connect the robot’s head to its metallic body.

  “If I tell you to run for the corridor,” Halvo said a few minutes later, “don’t stop to ask me why. Just follow my orders.”

  “I must ask questions,” she said. “If I do not, no one tells me what I need to know.”

  “Very well, then. What you need to know here is that I am certain there is still a danger lurking in Rolli’s head. I have some mechanical ability and I understand how computers and robots function, but I am not a surgeon. I cannot repair damaged human bodies.”

  “Nor can I,” she said, meeting his eyes. For the first time since their quarrel they regarded each other without anger or reservation. Perri could see that he was worried. “Be careful, Halvo. In this environment, our lives depend upon each other.”

  “That is what I have been most afraid of.” The look in his eyes was unreadable, but a faint smile curved his lips. “I have been lying to myself about my motives,” he added quietly.

  “I cannot imagine you afraid of anything,” Perri said, and she got in response another long, searching look.

  “Not even of a young woman’s scorn if I do not measure up to her expectations?”

  “Halvo, you have always exceeded my expectations.”

  “You really don’t know what I am talking about, do you? Perhaps it’s just as well,” he said and returned his attention to the metal head in his hands. “We can discuss it later, if you like. Shall I explain what I am doing to Rolli?”

  “Yes, please.” She settled herself more comfortably in the sand. “Halvo, several times I have attempted to tell you about Rolli’s memory banks. There is something you ought to know that might help you in your repairs.”

  “Oh? And what is that?” As he spoke, Halvo lifted away the faceplate to expose the inner workings of Rolli’s head. To Perri, it was a confusing tangle of wires in many different colors that connected together square or oblong pieces of metal or plastic. What she saw made little sense to her, and the sight made her queasy, as if she were watching actual surgery and the doctor had just opened the skull of a dear friend. Her stomach churning, she looked elsewhere, preferring to watch the icy water of the pool. But she did answer Halvo’s question.

  “When I was a little girl still living in my parents’ house, I had a nurse named Melri to care for me.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” Halvo said. “From what Rolli told me of your past, I thought you were raised by a robot.”

  “In a way, I was. Shortly before my ninth birthday, which was the date designated for me to go into Elyr’s household, Melri fell ill and the doctors told her she would die soon.

  “No companions are permitted to go with a girl into the home of her betrothed. Such lingering ties to her old life can only impede adjustment to her new circumstances. But a robot, presented to the girl as a gift, to be a personal servant and guardian of her safety, would be allowed, and in fact, such robots are common on Regula.

  “My father was a brilliant man, a famous inventor. He built Rolli for me. And on the last evening before my betrothal, knowing she had at most only a day or two more to live, Melri asked my father to drain her mind of memories and then transfer those memories to Rolli.” At this point in her story Perri stopped talking because Halvo had just made a strangled sound.

  “By all the gods of Demaria,” he said angrily, “what was done to Melri was neither morally right nor legal. Mind draining is forbidden on every world of the Jurisdiction!”

  “It was Melri’s last wish,” Perri said, “her own idea, done willingly, because she loved me. She knew we would be parted forever within a day, by my betrothal and her inevitable death. And she did die of natural causes, Halvo! She and my father assured me it was so, and I have no reason to doubt either of them. Rolli’s memory banks are their dearest gift to me.

  “What neither Melri nor my father foresaw,” Perri went on, “was the change that being a robot would impose upon Melri’s memories. Melri is truly dead. Her physical body died, still holding my hand, early on the morning of my betrothal. Rolli is a new and different entity, with all the deficiencies and the superiorities of a robot. But Rolli can recall my birth and all of my childhood. And like Melri, Rolli loves me.”

  “No wonder you have been so worried about her,” Halvo murmured. “Does anyone else know about this?”

  “Only my father and Melri, both of whom are dead, and Rolli and myself. We agreed not to tell my mother. She would have been appalled.”’ Perri said with a little laugh.

  “I am appalled,” Halvo said.

  “No harm was done to Melri,” Perri said, “nor anything against her will. She died at peace. And for her devotion, I have blessed her every day of my life since then. Halvo, you will not tell anyone about this, will you? You are the only other person who knows.”

  “You were only nine years old, too young to be responsible for what was done, and far too young to bear the burden of an illegal secret. The adults who were responsible and who laid that burden upon you are dead, and thus beyond punishment. No, I cannot see any reason to reveal the truth to anyone else. You are the one who would suffer if I did,” Hal
vo paused, squinting a little, looking hard at the exposed circuitry. “I cannot see anything in Rolli’s head that is different from any other robot. I doubt if the Chief Hierarch’s technicians, who were only interested in putting a new program into Rolli’s main circuitry, could have discovered anything unusual. So Rolli’s secret is probably safe.”

  “If Rolli appears to be a normal robot, then where does the danger she warned us about lie?” Perri asked.

  “That is what I intend to find out right now.”

  Taking up the long tweezers he had used for previous repairs, Halvo began to move some of the brightly colored wires aside, disconnecting a few of them so he could lift out a metal piece and gain access to the next layer of wires. So precise and delicate were the movements of his fingers that Perri did not dare to move or ask questions about what he was doing. She held her breath, watching. As Halvo moved deeper into Rolli’s head, Perri thought he had stopped breathing, too, and his tension communicated itself to her. After a while, he let out a long, low whistle.

  “Very clever!” With great caution, Halvo lifted the tweezers away from Rolli. Caught between the pointed tips was a red triangle so small that Perri could barely see it. “This is what was troubling Rolli.”

  “What is that thing?” Perri asked. “And how were you able to find it?”

  “I found it because it is the only mechanical anomaly inside Rolli’s head. If I am right, this innocent-looking object was planted as a well-hidden backup weapon that would instruct Rolli to blow up the Space Dragon and anyone on it. It was to be used in case you should by some slim chance slip past the Regulan warships that were sent to intercept the Space Dragon. The Chief Hierarch never intended for you to return to Regula alive, Perri.

  “Melri may have done more for you than make your life in Elyr’s household more pleasant,” Halvo said, holding up the tiny red triangle so the horrified Perri could see it more closely. “I suspect it took the combined power of Melri’s loving memories of you and Rolli’s primary programming to protect you, to overcome the commands issued by this lethal weapon. The safeguards your father planned for your protection are why Rolli was trying so frantically to get out of the Space Dragon and as far away from you as possible.”

  “Is it still dangerous?” Perri cried, wishing she could close her eyes and shut out the hideous proof of the treachery of those whom she had trusted.

  “Not at the moment.” Halvo turned the tweezers this way and that, holding the triangle up to the light. “Not unless it is re-implanted into some poor robot’s main circuitry.”

  “Throw it away!” Perri was on her feet, putting space between herself and the hateful object. “Get rid of it! I don’t want to see it, Halvo.”

  “I can’t get rid of it.” From the first-aid supplies he had brought from the ship, Halvo took up a clean medical specimen capsule about an inch long and sealed the red triangle into it. “This is evidence. When we reach an inhabited planet – and we will, I promise you – this will be our protection against Elyr and the Chief Hierarch. In fact, this little piece of technology could bring down the entire present Regulan Hierarchy.

  “I believe,” Halvo said, “that there is a lot more to my kidnapping and to the Chief Hierarch’s desire to see you dead than we have yet realized. This entire affair is a mystery – and I do not like unsolved mysteries.”

  Perri was scarcely listening to him. She was trying to absorb everything she had just learned. She was disgusted by the immorality involved in the subversion of Rolli’s primary programming, and she was terrified by the thought of what might have happened to Halvo and herself if the weapon implanted in Rolli’s main circuitry had succeeded in its deadly purpose.

  Over and above those terrible emotions was the realization of a perfidy so complete that she could barely comprehend it. An anger beyond ordinary rage filled her to the depths of her being, demanding an outlet and transforming her from a hurt and bewildered young woman into a vengeful fury.

  “They wanted us dead.” She repeated that unquestionable fact in a voice cracking with emotion. “The Chief Hierarch and Elyr, too, connived at my death and yours – and Rolli’s. Liars! Wicked, wicked – If those are the leaders of Regula, then I will no longer be counted a Regulan or a member of the Amalini Kin, for I belong to the Amalini only by my betrothal to Elyr.

  “I renounce them all!” Flinging her arms in the air with clenched fists, she screamed the words at the top of her voice. “I will be a homeless wanderer all of my days rather than belong anymore to the despicable Regulan Race!”

  Her words echoed and reechoed, the sound bouncing off the rock cavern walls. To Halvo, watching and listening to the outburst from where he still sat on the blanket, Perri appeared to change in a moment. Her pale cheeks were reddened with the flush of the blood heating them, her deep green eyes sparkled with a dangerous fire, her lips were drawn back over her teeth. And her hair curled and writhed about her face and her shoulders like seething tongues of flame, swinging and swirling with each step she took as she paced across the sand.

  Never before had Halvo heard her use her voice in such a manner. It ranged from a low, throbbing pitch to the high screech of an enraged harridan. If Perri could have cast a spell from where she stood to entrap and torment Elyr and the Chief Hierarch for all eternity, Halvo had no doubt that she would have done so without present compunction or later regret. She was magnificent, the very image of avenging, wronged womanhood.

  Halvo understood the loss and pain that accompanied Perri’s outrage. Her pain touched his heart, for he, too, had known pain both physical and spiritual. He, too, had lost that which was most important to him in life. Like Perri, he was forced to rebuild his broken existence, to try to find new meaning in a life that had left him with nothing that mattered to him save his own self. Hearing Perri scream curses against the men who had betrayed her, Halvo knew that only with her would he ever again be able to make sense of his own life.

  In that moment, all of Halvo’s qualms and qualifications about the matching of a young woman with a much older and more experienced man, all his needs for masculine freedom and for a position approximating the one he had once held – all these misgivings, whether scrupulous or not, vanished, and in their place came absolute certainty. He had been right about one thing: Joining with Perri would bind them together forever. The difference was that he no longer feared their joining or the responsibilities it would entail. He wanted to be bound to Perri.

  And she did not know it. She thought of him as someone whose manly discomfort required periodic easing, and she believed that service was all he wanted of her. What a lot she had to learn. How joyful would the learning be for both of them. Laying Rolli’s open head down on the blanket, Halvo rose to face Perri.

  “Fix the Space Dragon!” she commanded him, her eyes still blazing with all the righteous wrath she felt. “We will return to Regula. No, we will go instead to Capital, where you can tell your father what crimes have been committed. Surely, Leader Almaric will want to see justice done! He will destroy those villains!”

  “Indeed, he will.” Approaching Perri, Halvo took her by the upper arms. She grasped him, too, holding on as if she thought her companion in vengeance might decide to soften his attitude. She did not seem to understand that revenge was not on Halvo’s mind at the moment. “Perri, please try to calm yourself. You cannot stay this angry for long without becoming sick.”

  “I cannot be calm,” she cried. “Don’t you understand what has been done to me and to Rolli – or to you, Halvo? Those wicked men meant to take your life, too!”

  “I do understand.” Halvo could feel through her hands and arms the tremors that shook her body. He heard her sobbing breath and knew she was near to collapse. The emotions she was experiencing were out of her control. There was only one way to subdue them and that was to direct them toward a new object.

  “Halvo.” She sounded as if she could not catch her breath. Her eyes rolled up, her lids closed, and she fell against
him. Halvo caught her in his arms, then carried her to her sleeping blanket, which was still spread neatly at the far side of the rock chamber. There he laid her down. Her eyelids flickered, tears rolling from beneath them. “What are you doing?”

  “Hush, my love. It’s time for me to ease your discomfort.”

  “I am not uncomfortable, but if you are, I will -. No, I will not!” With a strength Halvo did not expect from her, she pushed him away. “Why should I?” she demanded, her fury renewing itself. “I always did what Elyr wanted, but no more. No more!”

  “Good. I am happy to hear you say so.” Ignoring the fluttering hands that still pushed at his shoulders and his chest, Halvo caught her face between his palms. “I will do what you want, Perri, and only what you want.”

  “I don’t know what I want!” she yelled. “Oh, Halvo!”

  Then she was clinging to him, but she was not crying and she was no longer hysterical with rage. She was just holding on to him as tightly as she could, and Halvo was content to hold her with equal tightness. Some time later she began to pull away. True to his word, Halvo loosened his embrace.

  “What I want,” Perri whispered, “is for you to kiss me.”

  “Gladly.” Halvo moved to do so, but she stopped him.

  “Would you put your tongue into my mouth?” she asked. “I think it is not a very proper thing to do, but I like it.”

  “I like it, too.” He did not mention what he understood from her innocent statement. Elyr had never kissed her in such a passionate way. Halvo was beginning to think Elyr had never done anything to Perri’s benefit, least of all in matters sexual. Swearing to himself that he would make certain she found complete fulfillment with him, he lowered his mouth to hers.