The Dark Lady (10 page)

“That is correct,” I said. “He is interested only in the subject herself. He has no interest in the portraits.”

“No interest?” Abercrombie yelled. “He went to 350,000 credits for the Kilcullen painting, you lying, tiger-striped bastard!”

“But he never had any intention of purchasing it,” I explained.

“Just how gullible do I look to you?” demanded Abercrombie coldly.

“He says that he was merely trying to... ”

I suddenly realized that the screen was blank and I was talking into a deactivated vidphone. I checked to make sure that we hadn't been inadvertently disconnected, and then, experiencing a surprising sense of elation, I returned to the computer. I was unhappy that I had upset Abercrombie, of course, but I was also relieved that I would be able to continue my researches rather than have to go out to his house to explain in detail what I had learned. (Not that I couldn't have told him just as easily by vidphone or even computer, but he preferred to have his employees meet him in person, which made no sense to me at all, since once I appeared on his premises he usually ignored me for hours and then insisted that I cover everything we had to discuss in a brief sentence or two.)

I spent the next three hours having the library computer check various sources for more information about Shareen d'Amato, but it was unable to add anything substantive, though it supplied me with a number of romantic legends concerning her ghost, which supposedly haunted the cemetery, greeting the shades of departed spacemen and offering them drink and sexual comfort on their way to the next life.

Then, as I was about to leave the library to obtain nourishment, the computer came to life again.

“In my continuing search for data, I have found a book containing material on Brian McGinnis,” it announced.

“Where is it?” I asked.

“In a small local library on Aguella VII.”

“Aguella VII is not a human colony,” I said. “I wonder how a book about an African botanist came to be there?”

“The book is not about McGinnis, but rather about the early days of Great Britain's colonization of Uganda,” replied the computer. “It was donated, along with 308 other volumes about Uganda, by Jora Nagata, a structural engineer of Ugandan ancestry who emigrated to Aguella VII in 2167 G.E. and worked on several projects as a consultant to the Aguellan government.”

“Can I access the book?” I asked.

“I have committed the pertinent sections to memory, and will reproduce them on the screen,” answered the computer.

There followed some fifteen hundred words on McGinnis, whose primary claim to fame seemed to be that he occasionally displayed more bravery than intelligence in his dealings with the local fauna. Once, by the simple expedient of yelling and fluttering a white handkerchief in the wind, he diverted a stampeding herd of buffalo from a native village that he was visiting, and on numerous other occasions he went alone and unarmed into the jungle to observe the various carnivores. His discovery of the two new orchid species, one of which bore his name, was not even mentioned.

“Is that all?” I asked when I had finished reading.

“That is all the written text.”

“You say that as if there's something else.”

“There is a photograph of Brian McGinnis.”

“Please let me see it.”

Suddenly the screen was covered by a sepia-toned print of a young man, clad in short pants and short-sleeved shirt, his rifle cradled in his arms, a look of enormous pride on his bronzed face, standing with his foot on the neck of a large spotted cat which the caption said was believed to be a man-eater. There were four figures standing behind him: three were dark-skinned, obviously his assistants or colleagues. The fourth was pale-skinned, a woman, and I knew who it was before I ordered the computer to enlarge her image, since she alone was clad in black despite what I had read of the intense heat and sunlight that one encounters in Earth's equatorial zone.

It was
her.
She had the same sad eyes, the same prominent cheekbones, even the same hair style.

“Who is the woman?” I demanded.

“I cannot answer that,” responded the computer. “There is no mention of her in the book, and she is not identified in the photograph.”

“Do you recognize her?”

“She is the subject of the portraits that you have been seeking.”

“Why did you not tell me about this photograph?”

“You specified that you were only interested in works of art, and while some photographs do indeed qualify as art, it is my best judgment that this photograph is primarily one of documentation.”

“I am now interested in all photographs of this woman as well as all other artwork,” I said. “Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Do your memory banks contain any others?” I persisted.

There was a fifteen-second pause.

“No.”

“I want you to reaccess all the library computers you have contacted on my behalf and determine if any of them contain photographs of the woman, and then continue your search for her among those computers that you have not yet accessed.” I paused. “Start with the library on Peloran VII and see if it possesses a photograph or hologram of Shareen d'Amato.”

“Have you any further instructions?”

“No. You can contact me at my hotel or Malcolm Abercrombie's residence as soon as you have further data.”

I left the cubicle, walked to the vidphone booth, and placed a call to Abercrombie to tell him what I had learned— and also to get his input, since I now had proof that his mystery woman had lived at the turn of the twentieth century A.D., some two thousand years
after
her image began appearing in various human artwork. I knew that the science of cloning had not existed prior to the time of the photograph, but I was unable to formulate any other logical explanation that would encompass all the facts I had thus far amassed.

There was no answer, and, assuming him to be asleep or busy at his computer, I decided that I might as well begin the journey to his house, since he would doubtless demand my presence the moment I contacted him. I left the library with great reluctance, for I was certain that a photograph or hologram of Shareen d'Amato must exist somewhere within the Oligarchy and I was unbearably anxious to see it, but I realized that it would take the computer a considerable amount of time to arrange for its networking, and I decided that the sooner I left, the sooner I would be able to return.

It took me almost forty minutes to reach Abercrombie's estate, for the streets were crowded with lunch-hour traffic, and I lingered amid the crush of bodies, enjoying the sensation of warmth and security they inadvertently provided. Eventually I reached the outskirts of the city, and a few moments later I stepped onto the automatic walkway that led to Abercrombie's mansion.

“Please identify yourself,” said the mechanical voice of the security system.

“I am Leonardo.”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“I do not need an appointment,” I replied, surprised by the question. “I work for Mr. Abercrombie.”

“I have no record of a current employee named Leonardo.”

“This is ridiculous. I was here two days ago.”

“Two days ago you were employed by Mr. Abercrombie,” replied the voice. “This afternoon you are not.”

“There must be some mistake,” I said uneasily. “Please check your records again.”

“Checking... You are not in Mr. Abercrombie's employ.”

“Please let me speak to him,” I said.

“His standing order is that he will not speak to strangers.”

“But I am
not
a stranger!” I protested.

“I am prohibited by my programming from contacting him on your behalf.”

“Then I will approach the house and speak to him in person,” I said, taking a step forward.

“I cannot permit entrance by unauthorized personnel,” said the voice. “Please step back. In five seconds the walkway will possess a lethal electrical charge. Four. Three. Two.”

I quickly moved backward.

“The walkway is now impassable,” announced the voice. “Please do not approach the house via the lawn as precautions have been taken to prevent your access.”

“Get the idea, you turncoat alien bastard?” boomed Abercrombie's amplified voice.

“Mr. Abercrombie, what is the meaning of this?” I asked, confused and frightened.

“It means that when I hire someone, even someone like you, I expect his loyalty!”

“I have given you my complete loyalty,” I responded.

“I paid you to get me some background on that sonofabitch, not to consort with him!” he roared.

“I have not consorted with him,” I explained. “He sought me out, and I rejected his proposition.”

“Then why did you hide it?”

“I hid nothing.”

“Bullshit! You met with him two weeks ago, and I still wouldn't know about it if you hadn't blundered and let it slip out!”

“I thought it too trivial to mention,” I said. “He asked for my help and I refused it.”

“You should have gone with him when you had the chance,” said Abercrombie. “Now it's too late.”

“I do not understand what you are saying, Mr. Abercrombie.”

“Nobody double-crosses Malcolm Abercrombie! I paid you ten times what you're worth to help me get the only thing in the universe that I want, and the second you're out of my sight you start cozying up to that little wart Venzia. It serves me right for trusting an alien. That's one goddamned mistake I'll never make again.”

“You are totally misinterpreting what I have said to you, Mr. Abercrombie.”

“I'm properly interpreting what you haven't got the guts to say to me!”

“If I could just speak to you in person... ” I pleaded.

“I've seen more of you than I care to see,” he replied. “Now get the hell off my property.”

“But this is just a misunderstanding!” I continued. “I implore you to give me the opportunity to explain!”

“It's over,” he said. “I've already served notice to the Claiborne Galleries and the House of Crsthionn that I've terminated your employment because of your disloyalty. Now, unless you want me to report you to the police for trespassing, I think you'd better crawl off to whatever hole you came out of.”

“You've told the
House
?” I repeated, as the full impact of what he said struck me.

“You heard me.”

“The
House
?” I said again, my limbs so numb I could barely keep my balance.

There was no answer.

“But why?” I asked, still stunned. “I have served you faithfully. I have obtained your portraits. I have not betrayed you. You have everything you could possibly want. Why would you do such a thing?”

“Because I didn't get what I paid for.”

“You did! I went to New Rhodesia and to— ”

“I paid for your loyalty!”

“You received it. You have been too long alone, and you see enemies everywhere, but you have none.”

“I'll be the judge of that. And after I finish with that little bastard Venzia,” he promised, “you're going to wish
you
didn't have any enemies!”

“But— ”

“If you're still on my property in thirty seconds, I'm calling the police.”

And so, humiliated and miserable, I returned to my barren room, more isolated than I had ever been in my life.

Perhaps twenty times I began to write to my Pattern Mother, to explain the situation and Abercrombie's paranoid interpretation of it, but each time I got no more than two or three lines into the letter before I stopped. There was simply no way I could explain or excuse the fact of my termination. Personal dishonor would have been reprehensible enough, but I had dishonored the House, perhaps the entire race of Bjornn.

Suicide seemed the only possible course of action, yet suicide at this moment might bring even greater dishonor upon the House of Crsthionn, since I was still officially on an exchange program with the Claiborne Galleries and I had commitments to keep. In truth, I needed the ethical guidance of my Pattern Mother, but since it was she whom I had dishonored, I could not bring myself to ask for it.

I finally decided that I would tender my resignation when Tai Chong reopened the gallery the next morning, and the moment she accepted it I would return to my room and find the oblivion I now longed for.

I went to the Claiborne galleries the next morning and asked for an audience with Tai Chong. While I was waiting to see her, I paced restlessly through the public display area, staring at the various pieces without really seeing them. After a few minutes had passed and she still had not called me into her office, I walked to the back of the gallery and sat down at my desk, glancing at the data that had accumulated in my computer file without reading it. A moment later Hector Rayburn approached me with an amused grin on his face.

“I hear Abercrombie finally sacked you,” he said.

“That is true, Friend Hector,” I replied.

“Well, you stuck it out longer than any of us thought you would,” he continued. “Welcome back.”

“I am only here to see Tai Chong.”

“Oh? Are you going back to Bjornn?”

“My world is Benitarus II,” I replied. “My
people
are the Bjornn.”

“Same difference,” he said with a shrug. “Is that where you're going?”

“No, Friend Hector,” I said truthfully, since the dishonored are not permitted burial within the Benitarus system.

He seemed to lose interest in my future. “What's Abercrombie like?” he asked eagerly. “Is he as rich and crazy as they say?”

“He is quite wealthy, Friend Hector,” I said, sneaking a brief look at Tai Chong's closed office door. “I am not competent to analyze his mental state.”

“Did you find any paintings of that woman for him?”

“A few,” I said.

He stared at me. “What's the matter with you today, Leonardo? Usually you're so full of talk and questions that I can't keep up with you. Today you're acting like you've lost your best friend.”

“I have been disgraced.”

“How?”

“Malcolm Abercrombie fired me for disloyalty,” I said, my color reflecting my humiliation.