The Dark Lady Read online

“But I don't want her in my jail,” protested Peres. “She's nothing but trouble— and damned near everyone she latches onto ends up dead.”

  “Then convince her to leave Acheron with us.”

  “All right,” said Peres, though his expression implied that he didn't think she'd agree.

  “Look,” said Heath. “Would you rather I spoke to her?”

  Peres shook his head. “She'll take one look at the alien, and then nothing could get her to go with you. I'll take care of it.”

  “Fine,” said Heath. He glanced out the window and looked down the street toward the Kid's corpse, where four bounty hunters were arguing among themselves and gesticulating wildly. “As soon as they've settled their financial differences, we'll go directly to my ship.”

  “I'll meet you there in half an hour,” said Peres, opening the door and walking up the ramp to the street.

  “Well, Leonardo,” said Heath, smiling and rubbing his hands together, “we've got her!”

  “It was the only civilized thing to do,” I agreed. “I could not countenance her being forced to leave in the company of killers.”

  Heath chuckled. “In case it's escaped your attention, she came here after being in the company of a bounty hunter, and she then took up with an outlaw.”

  “Nevertheless, these are terrible men,” I said with a shudder. “How can they kill like that?”

  “You'd be surprised at what a man can do when there's money involved,” replied Heath. “And before you condemn them, don't forget that bounty hunters are the closest things that the Frontier worlds have to police.”

  “But it was brutal, premeditated murder!”

  “The Kid knew they were here. He didn't have to come.”

  “Why did he?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The Kid,” I said. “Why did he come back if he knew there were bounty hunters waiting for him? I do not understand his actions.”

  “You heard Peres,” said Heath. “He came back for the woman.”

  “But he must have known he would never live to rescue her,” I persisted. “Why did he willingly throw his life away?”

  “Maybe he thought he could make it,” said Heath without much conviction.

  “That is an unacceptable answer,” I replied. “I know he saw at least four of the bounty hunters; he had to know there were still more he could not see.”

  Heath shrugged. “I really don't know, Leonardo. Men under pressure do strange things.”

  “But he was not under pressure,” I pointed out. “He was safe out in the desert. He knew the mine tunnels so well that no one dared go after him.”

  “But he thought the woman would be killed tomorrow night.”

  “If he believed her plea for help, he must have known that he could not possibly save her. If he did not believe it, then he had no reason to come back.”

  “True,” admitted Heath thoughtfully.

  “Then what is the answer?”

  “I don't know,” he said, checking the window to see if the bounty hunters had dispersed yet. “Maybe we'll get it from the Dark Lady.”

  12.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” asked Heath.

  He had just put the ship on automatic pilot after leaving Acheron's atmosphere, and the three of us were sitting at a table in the galley, the one place in the tiny vessel that could accommodate all of us.

  “Something hot, please,” said the Dark Lady.

  Those were the first words she had uttered since Peres had delivered her, and I marveled at the musical quality of her voice. She seemed totally at ease, and her demeanor was still serene.

  Heath brought her a cup of coffee.

  “Thank you,” she said, holding it in both hands but not making any attempt to drink it.

  “Is there anything else I can do for you?” he inquired.

  She shook her head.

  Heath seemed to be considering how to engage her in conversation. It was not so much that she seemed aloof, but rather that in her absolute tranquility she seemed to barely be in contact with the reality that surrounded her.

  “That was a terrible ordeal you were forced to undergo back on Acheron,” he began awkwardly.

  She continued warming her hands on the coffee cup and made no reply.

  “We will do everything in our power to make you comfortable,” he continued. “Is there anything we can get for you— anything at all?”

  She stared at him for a long moment, and though her face retained its serenity, I had the distinct impression that she was amused by his discomfort.

  “You have questions to ask,” she said at last. “Ask them now.”

  “What is your name?”

  “You may call me Nekhbet.”

  He grimaced. “It may take me some time to learn to pronounce it properly.”

  “I have other names that are easier to pronounce.”

  “Would one of them be Shareen d'Amato, Great Lady?” I asked.

  I had thought my question would surprise her, but she merely turned and stared at me curiously.

  “And Eresh-Kigal?” I continued.

  “You are a very surprising alien,” she said with a hint of amusement.

  “And I'm a very confused human,” said Heath. “Who are Shareen d'Amato and this Erash-whatever?”

  “They are just names,” she replied.

  “Yours?” asked Heath.

  She nodded.

  “What's your real name?” he asked.

  “Ask your friend,” she replied. “He knows.”

  “Leonardo?” asked Heath, surprised. He turned to me. “All right— who is she?”

  “She is the Dark Lady,” I said.

  She smiled her acknowledgment.

  “May I ask you a question, Great Lady?” I continued.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever heard of a man named Brian McGinnis?”

  She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and gazed at a bulkhead as if she were staring through it into the dim and distant past.

  “Who the hell is Brian McGinnis?” asked Heath.

  “A man who died almost six thousand years ago,” I replied.

  “Brian McGinnis,” she said at last. “It has been a long time since I heard that name.”

  “Did you know him?” I asked.

  “How could she know him, if he died six thousand years ago?” demanded Heath, annoyed.

  “Your friend is right, alien,” she said with a smile. “How could I know a man who died so many years ago?”

  “I mean no offense, Great Lady,” I said, “but you have not answered my question.”

  “I have the impression you know the answer.” Her dark eyes locked on mine. “Am I correct?”

  “I believe so, Great Lady,” I said, surprised that I felt so little fear of her. “May I ask if you also knew Christopher Kilcullen.”

  “You have done your homework well, alien,” she said with no hint of hostility. “I commend you.”

  “But you do not answer me,” I said.

  “There is no need to.”

  “Still, I should like to hear it from your own lips, Great Lady,” I persisted.

  She smiled again. “No doubt you would.” She paused. “You are not destined to have everything in this life that you seek, alien.”

  There was a momentary silence.

  “You did tell us to ask questions,” said Heath at last.

  “You may ask them,” she replied.

  “Fine,” said Heath. “While we're on the subject of men you might know, what about Malcolm Abercrombie?”

  “Who is Malcolm Abercrombie?” she replied.

  “He collects your portraits,” said Heath. “In fact, he's spent a considerable fortune on them.”

  “What is that to me?” she asked serenely.

  “Would you like to meet him?”

  “I shall never meet him,” replied the Dark Lady. It was said not with a show of defiance, but as a simple statement of fact.<
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  “He would like to meet you.”

  “Then he shall be disappointed.”

  “In fact,” continued Heath persuasively, “I would venture to say that he would pay a great deal of money to make your acquaintance.”

  “I have no need of his money, and no desire for his company,” said the Dark Lady.

  “Then possibly you would do so as a favor to me.”

  “I owe you no favors.”

  “I realize that it is less than gallant to mention it, but we did rescue you.”

  “You are quite correct,” said the Dark Lady.

  “Then I'm sure we can reach an understanding,” said Heath with a smile.

  “You are quite correct about being less than gallant,” she replied. “And I understand you perfectly, Valentine Heath.” She took a sip of her coffee, then got gracefully to her feet. “Now, if you do not mind, I would like to rest.”

  “May I ask you one last question, Great Lady?” I said.

  She turned to me. “Only one.”

  “Are you human?”

  “Of course she's human,” interjected Heath. “Just look at her, Leonardo.”

  She stared directly at me, but made no reply.

  “Please, Great Lady,” I said. “I truly do not know the answer to my question.”

  “The answer is no,” she said at last.

  “You're an alien?” demanded Heath unbelievingly.

  “No, I am not.”

  Heath looked annoyed. “You've got to be one or the other.”

  “If you say so,” she replied tranquilly. “Now could you please direct me to my quarters?”

  “Certainly,” said Heath, getting to his feet and walking to a door. “You can have my cabin.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “That is very generous of you.”

  He flashed a smile at her. “What are friends for?”

  “You are not my friend, Valentine Heath,” she replied placidly as she walked into his cabin and closed the door behind her.

  “How did she know my name?” said Heath, returning to the table. “I didn't mention it to her.”

  “Perhaps Mayor Peres did,” I said without conviction.

  He nodded his head vigorously. “That must be it.” He pulled a bottle of liquor out of a cabinet, mixed himself a drink, and sat down. “Well, Leonardo, what do you think of our guest?”

  “She is the Dark Lady,” I said.

  “I know she's the Dark Lady. You told me she was the Dark Lady. She told me she was the Dark Lady.” He looked annoyed again. “Maybe I'd be more appreciative if someone would tell me just what the Dark Lady is.”

  “I do not know,” I said.

  “What was all this about Brian what's-his-name?”

  “He was a human who lived almost a millennium before your race achieved interstellar flight.”

  “What about him?”

  “He painted her portrait,” I said.

  “Obviously he painted someone who looked like her.”

  “I have seen a photograph of the two of them together.”

  “You're sure?”

  “I am sure.”

  “And Kilcullen? Was he another of the artists?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he, too, has been dead a long time, I presume?”

  “Yes, though not as long as McGinnis.”

  He frowned. “Interesting,” he mused.

  “I would say that it is frightening,” I replied. “Except that I am not frightened by her.”

  “Why should you be?”

  “Because she is not human and she is not alien.”

  “What she mostly is is not truthful,” scoffed Heath, sipping his drink. “She's as human as I am.”

  “Then how did she come to know about Brian McGinnis?” I persisted.

  “Probably the same way you did.”

  “I have seen representations of her that predate the McGinnis painting by over two thousand years.”

  “Do you think she's the only black-haired woman who ever lived?” demanded Heath.

  “No,” I said. “I think she is the only black-haired woman who has lived this long.”

  “Do you know what the human life expectancy is?” he snapped.

  “Yes,” I replied. “But she is not human.”

  “She looks human, she lives with humans, she gets painted and sculpted by humans, she takes human names, Does that sound like an alien to you?”

  “She said that she is not an alien.”

  He snorted contemptuously. “Once you've eliminated human and alien, what else is there?”

  “Could she be a psychic or spiritual manifestation?” I asked.

  He pointed to her half-empty cup. “Manifestations don't drink coffee.”

  “I was unaware of that,” I said. “Doubtless you have encountered manifestations before.”

  “Damn it!” he snapped, finishing his drink. “I know this is especially difficult for a Bjornn to grasp, but not all women tell the truth.” He put his drink on a table and walked to the ship's computer. “We'll solve this once and for all. Activate!”

  “Activated,” replied the computer. “Waiting... ”

  “How many sentient beings are aboard this ship at this moment?”

  “Three,” answered the computer.

  “Who?”

  “Yourself, a Bjornn named Leonardo, and a human woman whose name may or may not be Nekhbet, Shareen d'Amato, Eresh-Kigal, or the Dark Lady.”

  “Give me some physical data on the woman.”

  “Height, five feet six inches. Weight, 128 pounds. Hair, black. Eyes, black. Age, between twenty-eight and thirty-six years, based on skin texture and skeletal structure, with a possible error of... ”

  “Deactivate,” commanded Heath. He turned to me. “Does that sound like an apparition?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Then are you satisfied?”

  “No.”

  “No?” he repeated. “Why not?”

  “Your computer is a machine, and as such, it can only analyze the data it was programmed to analyze. It cannot take into account the facts I have accumulated about the Dark Lady's past.”

  He stared at me for a long moment.

  “You know, you're becoming rather argumentative,” he said. “I trust I'm not the cause of this newfound aggression.”

  “I apologize if I have offended you,” I said.

  “I'm not offended, just surprised.” He sighed. “All right, Leonardo, what do you think she is?”

  “I do not know.”

  “You've no explanation for why she claims to have known these long-dead artists?”

  “No,” I said. “And I should point out that most of the men who painted her were not artists.”

  “Oh?” he said, surprised. “What were they?”

  “I have been unable to establish a common link among them,” I admitted.

  He seemed to consider the problem for a moment, then shrugged and mixed himself another drink.

  “Well, there's no sense driving ourselves crazy worrying about it. Maybe Abercrombie will be able to figure it out.”

  “Why should Malcolm Abercrombie chance upon the solution?” I asked. “He knows even less about her than you do.”

  “We're going to deliver her to him,” said Heath.

  “I do not understand.”

  Heath smiled. “Perhaps ‘deliver’ is the wrong word. We're going to negotiate with him for the pleasure of her company.”

  “You cannot sell one sentient being to another!”

  “Nobody's selling anything, Leonardo,” he said easily. “We're just performing a social service for two people who might find out that they have a lot in common.”

  “She is not a piece of property to be rented by the hour!” I said, horrified.

  “Who said anything about prostitution?” asked Heath innocently. “From what you tell me, between his age and his tumor, Abercrombie's probably past the point of being able to do anything about it even if he
wanted to.” He leaned forward. “But he's spent tens of millions of credits buying paintings of her. The man's got an obsession that's taken up a third of his life. Surely the chance to actually see her in the flesh, to know that she exists, to talk to her and maybe commission an artist of his own choice... it's got to be worth something to him.”

  “She said that she will never meet Abercrombie.”

  “And I'm sure she believes it,” replied Heath. “But believing something doesn't necessarily make it true. Hell, she also believes that she isn't human.”

  “This is kidnapping!” I protested.

  “We would be guilty of kidnapping if we had taken her against her will,” he said. “She came with us voluntarily.”

  “But she did not know what you planned to do.”

  “You seem to think that she's some kind of royalty, to be treated with deference and abject respect,” complained Heath. “Let me remind you that she consorts with killers, she arranged for her lover to be brutally slaughtered by bounty hunters, she's been kicked off Acheron, and she hasn't got a credit to her name. She should be grateful that we consented to take her along at all.” He paused. “Look,” he said more reasonably, “if it will appease your conscience, I'll give her ten percent of whatever I can get from Abercrombie. It'll probably be more money than she's ever seen at one time.”

  “She will not accept it.”

  “Of course she will.”

  “She will not,” I repeated. “She has already said as much.”

  “She will, when she realizes that the alternative is being delivered to Abercrombie and not getting ten percent.”

  “I cannot permit this!”

  “Leonardo,” said Heath, “let me be absolutely straightforward with you. I find myself in a somewhat awkward financial position.” He paused and sighed. “In point of fact, I am currently a fugitive from justice. I can't go back to Charlemagne for the foreseeable future, and I'm sure the police have frozen all my assets there. They will doubtless have put a trace on all my credit accounts, so I don't dare use them either. I must have a prompt infusion of cash, and this seems to afford me the best opportunity of obtaining it.”

  “You will obtain money when Tai Chong pays you for the Mallachi painting.”

  He shook his head. “That will barely be enough to refuel the ship.” He paused. “I wasn't raised to mingle with the common herd, Leonardo. It may be unpleasant, but there it is: I require money to maintain the quality of my life.”