The Unreasoning Mask (6 page)

 

 

Ramstan had run, crouching, a few feet behind and to one side of the chair,
his olson ready. He stuck his head out of the doorway, ready to yank it
back. But he saw nothing threatening in the hall. An arm with a human hand
extended along the floor from behind the massive bulk of the chair.

 

 

Ramstan duckwalked around the side of the chair, moving quietly. The man
on the floor might have an olson in his hidden hand. But that, too, was open
and still, and he was looking into the red-streaked and glazed eyes
of Benagur.

 

 

 

 

 

 

... 5 ...

 

 

 

 

Benagur's head was massive. His hair was as black and as coarse as a bear's
and fell past his shoulders. His beard was long and square-cut. His face
looked like the half-mad, half-divine face of a stone-winged bull-man
in front of an ancient Assyrian temple.

 

 

Benagur groaned and rolled over on his right side. The back of his head
was bloodied. On the floor by the chair, attached to a plastic cylinder,
was the tube which had been shoved through the massive keyhole.

 

 

Ramstan helped the commodore to his feet, but released him when he growled,
"I'm O.K."

 

 

Ramstan shoved the chair back into the room and turned the lights on.
Benagur staggered in and sat down on an inflatable chair. Ramstan brought
in the tube and cylinder and locked the door. "What happened, Benagur?"

 

 

"When I came down the hall I saw two cloaked, masked, and gloved persons
at your door. They looked up and saw me . . .'

 

 

"You didn't shout?"

 

 

"Yes. Didn't you hear me?"

 

 

"No. The wails and the door are too thick."

 

 

"The two ran away down the hall from me. One dropped the cylinder or
whatever it was. They didn't run exactly as humans do . . ."

 

 

"Tenolt?"

 

 

"I don't know. I started to push on the door, and that's the last I remember
until I woke up on the floor. My head hurts."

 

 

"There must have been a third. Maybe he was behind the door of the room
across the hall. He stepped out and hit you on the back of your head. You
regained some consciousness, got to your feet, and then I came through
with the chair. It knocked you down again."

 

 

Ramstan remembered that he had left the window open. Swearing, he shut it.
His own mask was still on, but Benagur had breathed in the spores. He would
begin to feel the effect of the psychedelics in about three to four hours.
It would be eight to ten days before his body would get rid of them.

 

 

Ramstan shut the door to stop the flow of breeze-borne spores from entering
the corridor.

 

 

"When you get back to ship, Benagur, report to sickbay."

 

 

"No! I won't be hospitalized again! I just got out! There's too much . . ."

 

 

"Too much what?"

 

 

"Too much going on. The Tenolt, everything . . . Why would they want to
gas you?"

 

 

Ramstan said, "I doubt we'll ever find out. What I want to know right now
is why you came here."

 

 

"Shouldn't you call for the sanitizers?" Benagur said.

 

 

Ramstan didn't like being told that he should do so. But Benagur was right.
He called ship and was put through to Chief Petty Officer Wang. She said
that she and a squad would be up in five minutes. Ramstan ordered her
to bring along a medic and a squad of marines.

 

 

Ramstan looked hard at Benagur, who was still on the inflatable.

 

 

"I'll ask you again. Why did you come here?"

 

 

Benagur straightened, and he winced.

 

 

"I wanted to have it out with you."

 

 

"Yes?"

 

 

"You know why," Benagur said loudly.

 

 

"You tell me," Ramstan said softly.

 

 

"I want to hear your explanations, privately, before I take action.
That is, if I have to do it. I hope I don't have to."

 

 

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ramstan said. "You sound as if
you're going to make charges against me. Is that it?"

 

 

"Why did you order the marines? So you can put me under arrest?"

 

 

"You keep sidling away from my questions. I decided that you should be
escorted to sickbay. There's no telling how fast the spores may affect
you. You might even . . ."

 

 

"What?"

 

 

"Become violent. It's for your own good."

 

 

"Sure it is!" Benagur cried. "Of course! Listen! I've been very much
disturbed -- and puzzled -- by your strange behavior on Tolt. You were
missing for some time from ship. Suddenly, there you were, like a thief
in the night, carrying that bag and shouting that ship must take off
at once. And you've never given a word of explanation. No one has dared
to ask you what was in it. But, believe me, everybody has been talking
about it. And I've not had one good night's sleep."

 

 

"'Like a thief in the night,'" Ramstan said. "Well, out with it, man!
Exactly what do you suspect?"

 

 

His face was expressionless, but his heart was thumping like an imprisoned
annual trying to butt its way through a wall, and he was sweating.

 

 

"I don't want to do this, Captain! That's why I came here, so we could talk
alone and solve this matter without the crew knowing about it. Maybe it's
not too late to rectify matters. Maybe we could go back to Tolt and just
leave it there and take off, hoping the Tenolt would be so happy to have
it back that they wouldn't bother us."

 

 

"What is
it
?" Ramstan said.

 

 

Benagur's face was red now. He shook as if his bones were crumbling.
Ramstan had seen him angry before, but he had never seen him fearful.
Or was he reading him wrong? Was it fury possessing him?

 

 

" It, it!" Benagur shouted. "You know what it is! The glyfa! The glyfa!
The Tolt idol!"

 

 

"You're accusing me of having stolen the glyfa?" Ramstan said. He was
surprised at the steadiness of his voice.

 

 

"I'm not accusing you!" Benagur said. "I'm telling you what you and I know!"

 

 

"I wonder if you haven't accidentally breathed in some spores before tonight.
There's no other way to account for this crazy accusation."

 

 

Benagur ground his teeth. He stood up, swaying, and took three steps toward
Ramstan. His huge hands were closed, but he did not raise them. His voice
was clotted with phlegm.

 

 

"What I'm telling you to your face is what the whole crew is saying
behind your back."

 

 

"I don't know why the Tenolt are here," Ramstan said. "Listen. Has it
occurred to you and those other idiots that I might be on a secret
government mission and that your idle curiosity is endangering it?"

 

 

He trembled. For the first time in forty-two years' he had lied. Al-Khidhr
forgive him. Allah forgive him.

 

 

Nonsense. Neither existed except as concepts. But concepts were as real,
as alive, as the person who thought they were real and alive.

 

 

"May God forgive you," Benagur said.

 

 

"May He forgive us all," Ramstan said, but he did not know what he meant
by that.

 

 

Benagur closed his eyes and moved his lips soundlessly. He was either praying
or using mental techniques to locate the injured cells on the back of his
head and then to summon the healing forces of his body. Perhaps he was
doing both.

 

 

Ramstan, hands locked behind his back, paced back and forth. When he passed
the ceiling-high mirror made to reflect behemoths, he saw a hunting falcon
whose hood had slipped onto the beak. His eyes were wide and shot with
madness and desperation. He must regain his composure or at least the
appearance of it. Otherwise, when the marines came to pick up Benagur,
they might think that he, too, had breathed in the spores.

 

 

A knock on the door. Ramstan used his skinceiver to make sure that it
was the ship's crew outside the door. He admitted Lieutenant Malia Fu'a,
a biochemistry officer, Chief Petty Officer Wang, and the PD and marine
squads. Fu'a was a pretty Samoan who'd parted with Ramstan on good terms
after she'd left his bed. She was the only ex-lover who didn't seem to
hate him. But she
could
be an excellent actress.

 

 

The marines were instructed to take Benagur to ship's hospital after he'd
been externally disinfected. Fu'a's squad sprayed his rooms and the hall
with a liquid which smelled like new lavender. Ramstan stripped and
showered while his clothes were sprayed. He put on pajamas and lit up
a cigar while the squad ran a scanner over the room and the hall. The
little pistol-shaped device flashed a red light now and then, and the
infected spots were then resprayed. By then, the liquid had dried,
but the lavender odor hung in the air.

 

 

Benagur had not spoken during the entire proceeding. When told by a marine
that he must come along now,
sir
, he walked out without a look behind.
Fu'a, the last to leave, carried the gas-expeller in a plastic bag.
Its contents would be analyzed before morning.

 

 

Ramstan explained that unknown persons had tried to shoot the gas into
his room and that Benagur had chased them away but had been hit on the
head. He said nothing about conducting an investigation later. Though Fu'a
had looked curious, she had not, of course, asked him questions. And all
the party had been ordered not to say a word to anyone else about the affair.

 

 

It would have been wise to station a guard at his door, but Ramstan did not
think that the Tenolt -- he was sure they were Tenolt -- would be back.

 

 

A few minutes later, just as he was about to fall asleep despite resonating
nerves, he heard a banging on his door. He picked up the olsons, rolled out
of bed, and walked to the door.

 

 

He spoke through the keyhole in Urzint and then in Terrish.

 

 

"Who is it?"

 

 

A woman's voice, speaking Terrish, came thinly. "Lieutenant Branwen Davis
of Pegasus, sir. I must speak to you. May I come in?"

 

 

She spoke with a lilt that seemed. . . what?. . . Irish? He looked through
the keyhole, straightened up, unlocked the door, and backed away. The door
swung open, and a very beautiful woman entered.

 

 

 

 

 

 

... 6 ...

 

 

She was approximately two meters tall, a little over average female height.
Her black, coarse, and straight hair was in a pageboy bob. Her eyebrows
were thick and dark. The wide-spaced, slanting eyes were large and as green
as the Persian Gulf. Her skin was a soft golden-brown. The facial skin
below the eyes was paler than that above. The contrast gave her features
an almost clown-like appearance.

 

 

Al-Buraq' a crew, when on Kalafala, wore green masks, in the corner of
which was a silver-winged mule with a woman's face. The scarlet mask
that hung around her neck was the regulation color used by Pegasus's
crew. In its lower right-hand corner was a silver-winged horse.

 

 

She wore a shimmering light-green dress, knee-length, flaring out at
the waist. The sleeves came to the elbow, and the V-neck was wide and
plunging. He did not need her to tell him that she had gotten it from
a Kalafalan. Her legs and feet were bare and dirty. She carried a small
leather bag in her left hand. Her right hand was heavily bandaged.

 

 

She put the bag down and saluted. His return salute was sloppy, resembling
a gesture for her to go away.

 

 

"You look tired, Davis. You must've had a long hard journey. Sit down
before you fall down. Before you report, would you like a drink?"

 

 

She smiled, showing beautiful white teeth. Sighing, she dropped onto
the inflatable chair as if her legs had given up the ghost.

 

 

"I'd love a drink, thank you."

 

 

He gestured at the bar, installed by the hotel for its smaller and more
recent guests. "There's plenty of native liquor there. But I have a bottle
of Scotch in my case."

 

 

"Scotch will more than do."

 

 

"On the rocks?"

 

 

"Rocks? Oh, you mean . . . It's been so long. I mean . . . I've been talking
Urzint so long that I forgot . . . Yes, Scotch on the rocks."

 

 

He asked her when she had discovered that al-Buraq was in port. She said
that she'd found out a few minutes ago. She'd returned to the hotel,
gotten a room and had fallen asleep at once, hadn't even bothered to
wash. But she'd awakened about fifteen minutes later and had seen some
Earthpeople on the street through her window. She'd gone downstairs
at once, and the clerk had told her that Captain Ramstan was in his
room. She'd come up at once.

 

 

He handed her the drink and sipped on his Djinn's Delight. Then he said,
"So what happened?"

 

 

"I'm a marine biologist. I was left behind, at my request, to continue
experiments at a Kalafalan station on the northwest coast. When it was
close to the time for Pegasus to return from the Raushghol system,
I packed up, said good-bye to my Kalafalan scientist and technician
Mends, and drove off in my jeep. Its a-g generator malfunctioned about
a thousand kilometers north of here. The jeep fell, but fortunately it
was only two meters above the ground. Unfortunately, it was on the edge
of a cliff. It went into the sea. I jumped out when it struck but almost
went over the edge, too.