The Currents Of Space

He was saying, "Don't be frightened, my dear. It's just a picture. A photograph, you know."

Valona looked about. The Townman was still sitting there. He wasn't looking at her.

She pointed a finger. "Isn't he there?"

Rik said suddenly, "It's a trimensic personification, Lona. He's somewhere else, but we can see him from here."

Valona shook her head. If Rik said so, it was all right. But she lowered her eyes. She dared not look at people who were there and not there at the same time.

Abel said to Rik, "So you know what trimensic personification is, young man?"

"Yes, sir." It had been a tremendous day for uk, too, but where Valona was increasingly dazzled, he had found things increasingly familiar and comprehensible.

"Where did you learn that?"

"I don't know. I knew it before-before I forgot."

Fife had not moved from his seat behind the desk during the wild plunge of Valona March toward the Townman.

He said acidly, "I am sorry to have to disturb this meeting by bringing in a hysterical native woman. The so-called Spatioanalyst required her presence."

"It's all right," said Abel. "But I notice that your Florinian of subnormal mentality seems to be acquainted with trimensic personification."

"He has been well drilled, I imagine," said Fife. -

Abel said, "Has he been questioned since arriving on Sark?"

"He certainly has."

"With what result?"

"No new information."

Abel turned to Bik. "What's your name?"

"Rik is the only name I remember," said Elk calmly.

"Do you know anyone here?"

Rik looked from face to face without fear. He said, "Only the Towriman. And Lona, of course."

"This," said Abel, gesturing toward Fife, "is the greatest Squire that ever lived. He owns the whole world. What do you think of him?"

Bik said boldly, "rm an Earthman. He doesn't own me."

Abel said in an aside to Fife, "I don't think an adult native Florinian could be trained into that sort of defiance."

"Even with a psycho-probe?" returned Fife scornfully.

"Do you know this gentleman?" asked Abel, returning to Elk.

"No, sir."

"This is Dr. Selim Junz. He's an important official at the Interstellar Spatio-analytic Bureau."

Elk looked at him intently. "Then he'd be one of my chiefs. But," with disappointment, "I don't know him. Or maybe I just don't remember."

Junz shook his head gloomily. "I've never seen him, Abel."

"That's something for the record," muttered Fife.

"Now listen, Elk," said Abel. "rm going to tell you a story. I want you to listen with all your mind and think. Think and think! Do you understand me?"

Rik nodded.

Abel talked slowly. His voice was the only sound in the room for long minutes. As he went on, Elk's eyelids closed and screwed themselves tight shut. His lips drew back, his fists moved up to his chest, and his head bent forward. He had the look of a man in agony.

Abel talked on, passing back and forth across the reconstruction of events as they had originally been presented by the Squire of Fife. He talked of the original message of disaster, of its interception, of the meeting between Elk and X, of the psycho-probing, of how Elk had been found and brought up on Florina, of the doctor who diagnosed him and then died, of his returning memory.

He said, "That's the whole story, Bik. I've told you all of it. Does anything sound familiar to you?"

Slowly, painfully, Elk said, "I remember the last parts. You know, the last few days. I remember something further back, too. Maybe it was the doctor, when I first started talking. It's very dim… But that's all."

Abel said, "But you do remember further back. You remember danger to Florina."

"Yes. Yes. That was the first thing I remembered."

"Then can't you remember after that? You landed on Sark and met a man."

Rik moaned, "I can't. I can't remember."

"Try! Try!"

Elk looked up. His white face was wet with perspiration. "I remember a word."

"What word, Rik?"

"It doesn't make sense."

"Tell us anyway."

"It goes along with a table. Long, long ago. Very dim. I was sitting. I think, maybe, someone else was sitting. Then he was standing, looking down at me. And there's a word."

Abel was patient. "What word?"

Rik clenched his fists and whispered, "Fife!"

Every man but Fife rose to his feet. Steen shrieked, "I told you," and burst into a high-pitched bubbling cackle.

17. The Accuser

FifE said with tightly controlled passion, "Let us end this farce." He had waited before speaking, his eyes hard and his face expressionless, until in sheer anticlimax the rest were forced to take their seats again. Rik had bent his head, eyes screwed painfully shut, probing his own aching mind. Valona pulled him toward herself, trying hard to cradle his head on her shoulder, stroking his cheek softly.

Abel said shakily, "Why do you say this is a farce?"

Fife said, "Isn't it? I agreed to this meeting in the first place only because of a particular threat you held over me. I would have refused even so if I had known the conference was intended to be a trial of myself with renegades and murderers acting as both prosecutors and jury."