Authors: Mike Resnick
The Dark Lady (20 page)
“I never said otherwise.”
“I thought you told me that almost none of the men who painted the Dark Lady were artists.”
“That is true,” I agreed. “But he has almost four hundred paintings and holograms in his collection, and most of them are not portraits of her.”
“Does he have any Moritas?”
“I will not discuss his collection with you, Friend Valentine.”
“I'm going to steal something from it whether you help me or not, Friend Leonardo,” he promised. “But you could make my life a lot easier by giving me the information I need.”
“That would be unethical.”
“True,” he admitted. “But it could also be profitable. I'd make you a partner.”
“I want neither half the profits nor half the guilt,” I said.
“No problem at all,” responded Heath smoothly. “If you'd prefer to live with a fifth of the guilt, I'll cut you in for twenty percent of the profit.”
“No.”
“You're absolutely sure?”
“I am absolutely sure.”
“Positively?” he persisted.
“Yes!”
“We'll discuss it again later,” he said.
“My answer will be the same,” I replied.
“You can't possibly feel any loyalty toward him.”
“He is my employer,” I said.
“Claiborne is your employer.”
“And Claiborne says that I am to work for Malcolm Abercrombie,” I replied. “I must fulfill my contract to the letter.”
“So that you can kill yourself when you've completed it?” he said sharply.
“How did you know that?” I asked, startled.
“Tai Chong told me.”
“She had no right to.”
“We're old friends,” he replied. “We don't have a lot of secrets from each other.”
“She is guilty of a breach of confidence,” I said.
“Because she doesn't want to see you kill yourself.” He paused awkwardly. “Neither do I— especially if you're doing it because of what happened on Charlemagne or Acheron.”
“I had spoken to her before I went to Charlemagne. Although,” I added truthfully, “very little has happened since that moment to weaken my resolve.”
Heath laughed heartily. “You're a master of understatement, Friend Leonardo.”
“It is not necessary for you to call me Friend,” I said.
“Why not?” he asked. “We're friends, aren't we?”
“Only until you steal Malcolm Abercrombie's artwork.”
He shrugged. “Nothing lasts forever.”
“You are wrong, Friend Valentine.”
“Oh? What do
you
think lasts forever?”
“The Dark Lady.”
He snorted in annoyance. “Forever, hell! She couldn't even last long enough to get back to Far London.”
“She is not dead,” I said.
“I have a horrible premonition that you're right,” he admitted. He paused. “I wonder what race she
really
belongs to?”
“Yours,” I said.
He shook his head emphatically. “I keep telling you, Leonardo: She can't be human. She's got to belong to a race that can teleport. That's the only way she could have gotten off the ship.”
“And I keep pointing out that the only race of true telepaths are the Dorban, who breathe chlorine and are too large to fit inside your ship.”
“Then there must be another race of teleporters that we know nothing about.”
“If you say so, Friend Valentine.”
“You don't believe it for a second, do you?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “Do you?”
He sighed deeply. “Not really.” He paused thoughtfully. “Whatever she is, I wish I knew what quality she possesses that makes men who don't know the first thing about art suddenly decide to paint her portrait.”
“Even to my inhuman eyes, she is very beautiful,” I said. “And yet there is a certain ephemeral quality about her. Possibly they wished to capture her likeness because they knew she would soon be gone.”
“Most of them seemed to have died pretty terrible deaths. I wonder if they painted her because they knew
they
would soon be gone?”
“I do not think so,” I replied. “A number of them died of natural causes. And it seems to me that if they had a premonition of death, they would hardly take that as a mandate to paint her portrait.”
Heath sighed. “I suppose not. Anyway,
I've
seen her and I don't have any urge to take up painting or sculpting.” He paused and suddenly stared inquisitively at me. “Well?”
“I have drawn an ink sketch of her,” I admitted.
“When?”
“Last night, after you went to sleep.”
“Where is it?”
“I am not a very good artist, and it was not a very good rendering,” I replied. “I destroyed it.” I sighed unhappily. “I was also unable to capture the beauty of the ‘Mona Lisa.'”
“The ‘Mona Lisa,'” he repeated. “Is that how you got your name?”
“Yes.”
“Just out of curiosity, Leonardo, why did you want to draw the Dark Lady?”
“She is the most interesting human I know, and the most beautiful.”
“
If
she's human,” he said.
“If she is human,” I agreed.
“Who was the most interesting and beautiful human you knew before you met her?”
“Tai Chong,” I replied promptly.
“Did you ever feel compelled to draw a portrait of Tai Chong?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then I come back to my original question: What is it about the Dark Lady that makes people want to sit down and paint her?”
“I do not know,” I said. “Perhaps it was because I wanted to preserve my memory of her face.”
“But you can see her face whenever you want,” Heath pointed out. “You can have the nearest computer track down some likenesses of her and make prints of them for you.”
“That would only show me what others saw,” I said. “I wanted to draw what
I
saw.”
“Spoken like an artist,” he said wryly.
“I am not an artist,” I replied. “I wish that I were, but I lack the necessary talent.”
“So did Mallachi, but he painted her anyway.” Heath frowned. “I just wish I knew why.” He got to his feet. “A person could go crazy trying to come up with an answer. I don't know about you, but I'm going out for a walk.” He paused at the door. “Are you sure you won't come along?”
“I am sure,” I replied. “The paths are very slippery, and I am not well coordinated.”
“So what?” he said. “Neither am I.”
“You are very graceful,” I said.
He snorted contemptuously. “You always wanted to be an artist. Well, I always wanted to be a cat burglar, dressed in black, climbing up the sides of buildings and sneaking into milady's boudoir to steal her jewels.” He smiled wryly. “The one time I tried I slipped off a roof, fell onto a balcony, and broke my leg in three places.” He shrugged. “So much for graceful— and so much for the romantic life of a cat burglar.” He opened the door, and a blast of cold air blew past him. “If I'm not back in an hour, call the authorities and tell them to start looking for my frozen corpse. I'd like a modest funeral: four or five hundred floral wreaths, video coverage, nothing special. And don't tell my family— Heaths die in bed, not falling down mountains.”
“I will observe your wishes,” I said.
He grimaced.
“That was a joke, Leonardo.”
“Oh.”
He muttered something that the wind drowned out, and then closed the door behind him.
I waited for a moment, then walked to the desk in the living room and pulled out my stylus and stationery, intent upon finishing the letter I had begun writing earlier in the day.
My Revered Pattern Mother:
Yes, you were right. I have indeed become contaminated by my association with Men. I do not deny it... though I am certain that if you would relent and just consent to speak to me, I could explain how the present situation came to pass.
Tai Chong has assured me that I am in no trouble with the human authorities. Although I was an unwitting participant, I neither initiated nor contributed to the theft of the art objects on Charlemagne nor the kidnapping of the Dark Lady. Once I realized what Valentine Heath's intentions were, I did everything within my power to dissuade him. Such is the Rule of Honor; I live by the Rule of Honor.
And yet you tell me that my contamination is such that it cannot be expiated, and that I may not return to Benitarus II. You are my Pattern Mother, and your voice is one with the House of Crsthionn, so I must obey you.
Please know, though, that while my conduct has dishonored the House, I shall nonetheless try to comport myself in a manner that will bring no further discredit upon the race of Bjornn during the few months that remain before my contract with the Claiborne Galleries has been fulfilled.
And yet, I have a terrible premonition that this will not be the simple task that, in my ignorance, I thought it would be when I first left the House. It seems like I have been abroad in the galaxy for a century, though in fact it has been little more than five Galactic Standard months. And the more I associate with Men, the less I understand them.
Tai Chong, for instance, has been in every way a surrogate Pattern Mother to me. She is always considerate of my needs and thoughtful of my comfort, and constantly urges me to follow the moral dictates of my conscience. Yet I have come to believe that she knows full well that some of the paintings she purchases and resells have been illegally obtained, and she neither reports the transgressors to the authorities nor cancels the transactions. Hector Rayburn has always behaved in a cordial manner, yet he assumes that the eventual termination of his employment contract is a foregone conclusion, and the fact seems to amuse rather than horrify him. Valentine Heath is quite the most charming Man I have ever met, and at the same time I cannot conceive of a crime that he would not be willing to perpetrate. Malcolm Abercrombie donates millions of credits to charity, and yet, unbelievably, he has totally rejected the responsibilities of House and Family.
How am I to understand these strange beings, Pattern Mother? How can I purify myself when I must remain constantly in their company? At a time when I need your guidance most, it has been denied to me.
The only course open to me in my situation is ritual suicide, and yet that is the one act explicitly denied me by your insistence that I fulfill the contract between the House of Crsthionn and the Claiborne Galleries. Thus, cast out and isolated from all that I hold dear, I must make my way alone among this almost incomprehensible race in whose company I have been thrust.
Strangest of all is the Dark Lady. In a universe that seems progressively less logical to me, she is the least logical facet of all. I call her human, but in truth she is neither human nor non-human, neither real nor ethereal, neither presence nor manifestation. She is of this time, and yet she lived eight millennia ago. Nor is she a reincarnation, for reincarnations are born and live and die; they do not vanish from an enclosed environment in the vacuum of space.
I have seen her, have met and spoken to her, and still my questions about her continue to mount: Why does she appear when and where she does? What is she? Who is she? What made her beckon her lover to his death? What was her connection to an obscure botanist who lived on distant Earth six thousand years ago? Why do men believe that she haunts a spacemen's graveyard on Peloran VII? What was her relationship to a circus performer who was crippled in a fall from a trapeze three centuries ago?
And what am I to say when Reuben Venzia discovers that I have returned from my mission and offers to exchange information about the Dark Lady with me? If I tell him the truth, he will assume that I am lying; if I do not tell him the truth, I will actually be lying. In either case, I will dishonor the House of Crsthionn. And if I refuse to speak to him after Tai Chong has ordered me to, I will still bring dishonor to the House.
I require ethical guidance, and yet I am forbidden to speak to you, so I shall have to depend upon Tai Chong, who accepts stolen paintings and reveals confidences, to supply me with it. With all contact with my own race forbidden to me, she is the only female I know other than the Dark Lady, and I do not know where to find the Dark Lady. Therefore, Tai Chong will have to serve the function of my Pattern Mother until I fulfill my obligation to the Claiborne Galleries and perform the ritual.
Please believe that I am sorry for the pain I have caused. I truly never intended to
A burst of cold air swept over me, and as I put my stylus down, Heath reentered the room. He stamped his feet until most of the snow had fallen off them, then removed his gloves and blew heavily onto his hands.
“It's really starting to come down,” he announced, walking over to me. “I think I'll enjoy the rest of my day's supply of majesty and grandeur through the window, with a drink in my hand.” His gaze fell on the letter I had been writing. “May I?”
“If you wish,” I said.
He picked up the letter and stared at it. “What the hell is this? I can't read a word of it.”
“It is a letter to my Pattern Mother.”
“That's the strangest script I've ever seen,” he said. “It looks more like a graphics design.”
“I have written to her in the Bjornn language, in the Dialect of Regret.”
He handed it back to me. “I thought you'd done another drawing of the Dark Lady.”
“I am not a good enough artist,” I said. “Perhaps someday in the future I will be able to create a rendering worthy of its subject.”
“Of course, to do that, you'd probably have to have another look at her, wouldn't you?” asked Heath thoughtfully.
“Perhaps,” I agreed. “Although her face was quite memorable. When I close my eyes and remember, I can still see its every detail.”
“So can I,” acknowledged Heath. “But memory can be deceptive. I think you'd be better able to create your portrait if you saw her again.”
“Friend Valentine,” I said wearily, “I will not help you to steal Malcolm Abercrombie's art collection.”
“Have I suggested it?” he asked innocently.
“Many times.”
“You're a very distrusting fellow, Leonardo.”
At that instant there was a series of three high-pitched mechanical whines.