Part-5
And so Clarey to Earth on the staff ship. Once its luxury would have him pleasure; now the with its that gave out plain water, salt water, water, and no charm; neither did the self-contained tri-di projector-receiver. The only he there most of the time was to avoid the others. However, he couldn't avoid up in the for meals. The his sorrow, the his appetite.
One day after lunch, Han stopped him forcibly, his arm. "I've got to talk to you. Afterward you can go off and if you want to. But we're going to make in a days. It's necessary to discuss your now."
"I have no future," he said.
"Come this way, Clarey. That's an order!"
Obediently, he her into a that was a of color and splendor. There were eight pseudo-windows, each a pseudo-scene of a different at a different season. The harsh, of Mars, the cold, winter of Ksud, the green of Earth.... It must be a park, he knew; in no other place on Earth be manifest—and yet it gave him a little to look at it. He his away to turn them toward the others, and then up at the ceiling, to a sky with clouds across it. A ... and he of the of Damorlan, light-years away among the stars....
"I'm the décor's a gaudy," Han apologized. "We didn't check the decorator's past performance until it was too late. But it's comfortable, anyway. Try one of these chairs. They themselves to the form."
She herself on a that itself perfectly to her form. She wasn't her garb, but something of that occasionally transparent. So we're to the movement, Clarey though wearily.
He sure that the chair opposite her was old-style he himself into it. "Where's the general? I he always sat in on these conferences."
"The are over now," she said, up at him. "Besides," she added, "if he doesn't take a after lunch, it with his digestion. Afraid to be alone with me, Clarey?" she asked huskily.
"Yes," he said, rising, "as a of fact, I am, now that you mention it."
She sat up. "Sit down!"
He sat down.
She didn't again. Her dress opaque, but her voice once more. "Listen, Clarey, I don't want you to think we're you out of anything we promised. Even though you only five years, you're going to have it all. You'll have U-E status—"
"What do I want that for?"
"Doesn't it anything to you any more, Clarey? It used to a lot, though you it to yourself."
"Did it?" He his through time. "I it did. But I've changed. You know, those five years on Damorlan like—"
"Like a lifetime," she finished. "Couldn't we with the clichés?"
"On Damorlan the I said were fresh and interesting. On Damorlan I was somebody special. I'd be a big second-hand fish in a small puddle. Isn't there some way—"
"No way at all, Clarey! The puddle's up. We've got a for you. Why not in gracefully?"
"It was my puddle," he said. "I belonged."
She closed her and into the chair which to meet the of her body. Lying down, she didn't look nearly as tall. "All right, let's give the whole one final run-through. Nobody for you on Earth; on Damorlan your friends liked you; your wife loved you. On Earth you welcome and/or appreciated; on Damorlan you welcome and appreciated. On Earth—"
He was out of his apathy. "That's right! I'm not saying I'm unique, only that I fitted—"
"How about trying to look at it from another point of view? Did it to you that, if the Damorlanti you, so might your own people, if you approached them in the same way? Did you try to make friends on Earth?"
"But on Earth I shouldn't have to. They were my own people."
"Aha!" she gleefully.
"I mean—well, General Spano said it would be to to to win the of my own people; that, if I did, their wouldn't be anything. You can't friendship."
"You your ulerin. Does it play any the you paid for it? Does it any the less to you?"
"What you're at," he said cautiously, "is that that's the way to make friends? By being a hypocrite?"
"Was it a with the Damorlanti?"
He had to stop for a moment he out an answer. "It started out as a sham—but I got to like them afterward. Then it was real."
"So then you weren't a hypocrite, Clarey." Her voice more resonant. "Open to people, them that you want to be friends. Basically, everybody's and inside."
"Like you?" he said, an at her dress.
"That's still the outside," she smiled, making no move to it. "Listen to me, Clarey, and don't go off on sidetracks: The people of Earth are your own people. Your have always been with them."
She had almost had him convinced, but this he couldn't swallow. "If my had been with Earth, I would have sent reports of the trouble. But I didn't. I to stop it from happening. There just wasn't anything I do."
"The deep-probe lies, Clarey. You didn't try to stop it." She paused, and then on deliberately: "Because you have stopped it, you know easily."
"There was nothing I have done," he stated. "Nothing."
"Remember the time the staff ship came? Just you left for Barshwat, the woman told you she you were an Earthman. You were for her. Do you that?"
He nodded. Yes, he how he had been then, how afterward, was going to be all right. Lucky he hadn't the truth, or he wouldn't have had those years of happiness.
Han on remorselessly: "And you if only something would to you en route, she would be safe. We might why it had happened, but we couldn't know for sure. We'd have had to start all over again."
He couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't think. She each word carefully, sweetly. "You were right. Because you were the only man on Earth, Clarey, who had the particular physical and the particular of that we needed for the job. You just said you weren't unique, Clarey. You were too modest; you are. If you'd killed then, your death would have a purpose; you would have died a hero. Kill now and you die a coward."
"But at least I'd be dead. I wouldn't have to live with a for the of my life."
"You're not a coward, Clarey," she said. "You wouldn't admit it, but you are and always have been a patriot. To you, Earth came first. It's as as that."
She had deep-probed his mind. She must know his true feelings. There was no that. He know only his surface thoughts; she what and beneath. And, he himself, at the end the Damorlanti were actually on him.
"Try to think of the whole thing as a in that you've passed with colors," she said.
"It an way of making me charming," he couldn't help saying, with the last of something that was in him, something that should have been there in the place.
"Whole have been for nothing at all. This one will not be sacrificed, only quarantined. But its be of magnitude."
"Now what are you going to try to sell me?" he asked drearily. "Are you saying that the of the Damorlant is going to live on in me, that I its myself, and so I have a to the Damorlanti on my shoulders?"
She laughed. "You're sharp, Clarey. If you in the service, you be one of our best operatives. But you're not going to in the service. Yours is a higher destiny. Here, catch!"
She him something that as it through the air.
It was a U-E identcube, out in his name. He had only them at a distance, and now he was one warm and in his hand, with his name and his in it. His ... and yet not his face.
"That's what you're going to look like when the through," she explained. "They'll your and skin and hair, and they may be able to add a to your height. Though I think you actually have a little. Something about the air, or, more likely, the food."
"Embelsira I was the way I was. Embelsira...." But Embelsira was light-years away. Embelsira was part of a dream—and he was now to reality.
"Look at the cube. Look at your symbol."
He looked at it, and he on looking at it. He couldn't tear his away. He was by the of it, the meaning of it. "Musician," he said aloud. "Musician...." A word, a magic word. He hadn't of it for years, but this he didn't have to for. Once touched on, it over him, complete with its memories.
But she had it meaningless, too. He managed to tear a laugh out of his throat. "Spano said I'd be able to the Musicians' Guild when I had my and a half. Apparently you've been able to them down."
"This cost nothing the fee," she told him. "You came by it honestly—through your music, nothing else. And you have more than a and a credits, Clarey—nearly ten times that, with more in' every day."
She touched a on the of her chair and white light around them. "I think we're close to Earth to some of the high-power tri-dis," she said, "although we can't perfect reception."
Blurrily, a formed—a show. At it the same of thing that he dimly, more now it had almost the of novelty. Then an man appeared and it took significance. He was a instrument—refined, machined, pitched. He played music on the while a sang Terrestrial words. "Love Is a Guiding Star" they called it, but that didn't matter. It was one of the Clarey had taped.
She touched another boss. The to a orchestra, playing as music to a with another ulerin. "That's your First Ulerin Concerto," she said. "There are three more."
Another program was beginning, an account of the of an Plutonian family. It in to the of music, to a of Clarey's. If they have it to the end, she told him, it would have out the same way. "Every time they play it," she said, "somewhere on Earth a cash register for you. And this one's a daily program."
He and as program after program his music, his ulerin.
"Not just on Earth," Han said, "but on all the planets, in a of the more ones. You're a famous man, Clarey. Earth is waiting for you, and figuratively. There'll be to you at the field; we sent a ahead to let them know you were coming."
But his mind was slowly itself. "And where am I to be from, then, since they're to about Damorlan?"
"They've been told that you retired to a to work—to perfect your art and its instrument."
Of they couldn't the truth about Damorlan. "It a little unfair, though," he said.
"Why unfair? After all, Clarey, the music is yours. You took Damorlan's and them into music. You took their and it into a instrument. They're all yours, every note and of them."
She over and put out a hand to him. "And I'm yours, too, Clarey, if you want me," she breathed. There was no in her mind that he did want her. And in his, too. One didn't reject the Secretary of Space.
He took the hand in his. The skin was odd in texture. I'm things, he thought. It's a long time since I touched a female's hand.
"I must be a very Musician," he said aloud.
She nodded, not to misunderstand. "Yes, to the original and not a facsimile. You're a lucky man, Clarey." And then she up at him. "I can be warm and tender, I you."
It took him a moment to what she meant. For a moment he had that again. She would be the same as Embelsira, but a man needed to develop.
He was still troubled, though. "I want to do something. Even an empty gesture's than none at all. The last months, I started together a longer thing; I it be a symphony. When I it, I'd like to call it the 'Damorlant Symphony.'"
"Why not?" she said. He she was him, but she added, "They'll think you just the name from an chart."
In a final of he the "Damorlant Symphony" to the race, but, as usual, he was misunderstood. In fact, one of the music critics—all of were over the new work—wrote, "At last we have a great who is also a great humanist."
Eventually Clarey his original and came to it himself.
