E. Tubb - Web of Sand

Marta Caine had a singing jewel which she took from its box and held cupped in her palms as she stood in the salon of the Urusha.

"From Necho," she said, her eyes on the crystal. "I bought it when young and have carried it with me ever since. A long time now. Too long."

"It looks dull," said Kemmer. "Dead."

"It's fatigued."

"Why haven't we seen it before?" Grish Mettalus leaned forward from where he stood behind Chai Teoh. Like the girl, he was tall, slim, eyes slanted beneath narrow brows but where her face held a high-boned delicacy his features bore a broad and flattened stamp. "You are unkind, Marta. The gem would have helped relieve our boredom."

"As I said, it is tired." The veined hands seemed to press reassuringly against the crystal cupped in the palms. "I have kept it cooped in darkness too long. When we reach Fendris I shall set it on a high and open place where it can feed on sunlight and starlight, be caressed by soft breezes and laved with gentle rains. Then it will regain its vitality and become young again." Bitterness edged her voice. "Would to God that it was as easy for others to restore their beauty."

"You are beautiful enough," said Kemmer with heavy gallantry. "With a warmth no stone can possess."

"You are kind to say so, Maurice-but my mirror tells a different story."

"Mirrors can lie. The beauty of a woman is more than a patina of skin. It is the need within her, the spirit, the response she creates in those who watch her walk and talk and smile. A thing of the heart. Am I not right, Earl?"

Dumarest nodded, making no comment as he watched the jewel cupped in the woman's hands. It no longer looked gray and dull like flawed glass but had gained an inner luminescence as, triggered by the metabolic heat and stimulation of flesh, it responded in vibrant light and sound. The glow became brighter, splintered in a sudden mass of broken rainbows which filled the salon with swaths of drifting color, a kaleidoscopic brilliance which gave the chairs, the tables and fittings a transient and enticing magic. And as with the furnishings so those who stood bathed in the splendor now streaming from the jewel; Kemmer, suddenly no longer the gross trader he was but now a figure of dignity as the harsh and somber shape of Carl Santis the mercenary took on hints of a chivalry he had never known from a tradition he had never suspected. Mettalus, the girl standing before him, Dumarest who now wore a shattered spectrum to decorate his face and hair and clothing. But of them all Marta was the most transfigured.

She stood like a priestess of some esoteric cult, hands lifted now, the effulgence of the jewel bathing her uplifted face and robbing it of the scars and marks of time. The skin had smoothed, the mesh of lines marring the flesh at the corners of the eyes lost in flattering glows. The lips had gained fullness, the chin liberated from sagging tissue, the bones of cheeks prominent above exotic concavities. The nose had thinned, become arrogant in haughty affirmation of youthful pride, age and dissolution stripped away to show the girl she once had been. The hair, too, had changed, now displaying glints and glimmers of vibrant hues, of sheens and enticing softness.

The light gave her beauty and she drank it and returned it through the touch of her hands, the emitted nervous tensions of her body which stimulated the symbiote she held into a higher plane of existence.

Chai Teoh gasped as it began to sing. "Grish! What-"

"Be silent, girl!" Santis rasped the command. "Be still!" His tone held the snap of one accustomed to obedience, but more imperious in its demand for attention was the song of the jewel itself. It lifted, keening, undulating, a note of crystalline purity which penetrated skin and bone and muscle to impact on the nerves and brain and the raw stuff of emotion itself. A song without words and without a predictable pattern but one which held love and hope and joy and all the promise there ever could be and all the happiness ever imagined.

"God!" Kemmer's whisper was a prayer as he stood, tears streaming over his rounded cheeks. "God-dear God!"

A man lost in the past or dreaming of what he had known or touched by a gentleness hitherto unsuspected and frightening in its overwhelming tenderness. He did not weep alone. The face of Chai Teoh glistened with moist color, shimmering pearls falling unheeded from the line of her jaw as she stood lost in a radiant pleasure. As Santis stood, his scarred face a prison for his eyes, the eyes wells of somber introspection. Mettalus said, "This is fantastic! I've never-"

"Be silent!" snapped the mercenary. "Hold your tongue!" His scowl deepened as the singing faltered and then, reluctantly, faded to quaver and finally to cease leaving a silence so intense that it could almost be felt as a tangible presence. As the sound died so the shimmering colors diminished, closing in to form a luminescent cloud, a ball, a tinge on the surface of the crystal, a memory.

For a long moment Marta Caine held her poise then, slowly, she lowered her hands to stand looking at the dull surface of the gem. Robbed of its magic she looked as she was, a woman too old for comfort, one who had lived hard and who showed it. The face, lax, showed the marks of cheap cosmetic surgery; subtle distortions of ill-matched implants giving her a pathetically clownish appearance. Her hair looked like the graft it was. Her eyes when she finally raised her head, betrayed her misery.

For a moment only and then the mask reappeared, the hard cynicism which was her defense against misfortune and her shield against derision. "Well? Did you like it?"

"It was superb!!" Chai Teoh dabbed at her eyes. "So wonderful! I felt as if-oh, how can I explain?" Grish Mettalus was direct.."How much?"

"For what?"

"For the jewel, of course, what else? I want it. How much?"

"It isn't for sale."

"And if it were I would buy it," said Kemmer. "Marta, you have been most gracious. I think I speak on behalf of us all when I thank you for having let us share the pleasure given by your jewel. From Necho, you say?"

"Yes."

"Necho." Kemmer pursed his lips. "A long way from here but, perhaps, not too far if a high profit is to be made. Your home world?"

"No." Gently she restored the jewel to its box. "I was bora on Lurus. My people owned a farm but the climate changed and what was once fertile ground turned into desert. A solar imbalance-" She shrugged. "The details are of no importance. I was young and decided to help as best I could. I traveled-it's an old story."

And one printed on her face. The mercenary said, "Did you ever return?"

"Does anyone?" The lid snapped shut on the box. "Did you?"

"No."

"Nor I," said Kemmer. "How about you, Earl?" He smiled as Dumarest shook his head. "Once we leave the nest it quickly loses its attraction. Sometimes we choose to dream of a childhood more pleasant than it really was and of a life garnished with false tinsel, but when it comes to it who would go back home if given the chance?" He shrugged, not waiting for an answer. "Well, how now to pass the time? Some cards?"

The Urusha was a small vessel, a free-trader plying on the edge of the Rift, and the passengers were left to entertain themselves. No real hardship with planets close and quick-time turning weeks into days, the drug slowing the metabolism and relieving the tedium of the journey. But even so boredom was an enemy and one to be combatted. Grish Mettalus had found his own method, making it plain he regarded Chai Teoh as his personal property and she, for reasons of her own, had not objected.

Marta grunted as they left the salon. "The girl's a fool. She is selling herself too cheaply."

"How can you know that?" Kemmer dealt cards and turned one over. "A jester. Match, beat or defer?" He watched as they made their bets, small amounts as to whether their own cards could show a value equal, higher or lower than the one exposed. A variant of High, Low, Man-In-Between. "You win, Carl. Well?" He looked at the woman. "How do you know?"