Science Fiction: Welcome to my Worlds

entire cliff. “Scanner,” muttered Daren. “What could they be looking for?”

The ship was only a speck in the distance and he thought they were leaving. Then it grew rapidly larger until it hovered over the cliff dwelling. Daren could see everyone had gone inside after the first pass.

“No!” This beam was high violet and barely visible. The mark of an energy weapon. The ship held position with the beam on for barely a minute then flew on. The rock beneath it sagged and ran molten. It cooled to mere red-heat as they watched in horror.

“Gone. They’re all gone,” Daren whispered. He felt dead inside. His face should be streaming with tears for all the loved ones he’d lost. That he’d never even gotten to say goodbye to. But right now he felt frozen like the land around him.

Belatedly he hugged Cesily to him trying to give her warmth and hope and, perhaps, get some for himself.

“We should search. There might be survivors.” She looked up into his face as if hoping to find something there.

“There is no one. I could feel them snuffed out in an instant like Mayday candles.”

“Why would someone do this? First my family, now yours. They just, just exterminated them, like bugs.”

She was crying again into his shoulder and Darin knew he should be too. The cold anger squeezed his heart like an extension of this frozen planet. He had no idea why they’d done it, but he knew they would pay.

Darin had always liked Cesily and she looked so miserable and lonely that he wanted nothing more than to hug her close and tell her that everything would be all right. But he knew it wouldn’t. In the tests he’d been given he’d always scored at the bottom in precognition but right now something was screaming in his brain that they had maybe a fractional chance to live through the next ten minutes. He grabbed Cesily’s arm and dragged her under a natural stone arch where there was a fallen stone slab miraculously clear of ice. “Put them on now!” It came out too harsh and she gave him a hurt look. He would have to explain later.

The skates were too small but he strapped them on tight to his boots and waited impatiently while Cesily fumbled with hers. Skating in a grav-and-a-half on uneven ground was the height of stupidity, even if you were born here. Take a spill and the damage could be severe. But he’d been a kid once too and you had to do something for entertainment on Targus.

A screeching roar split the air overhead, and in its wake Darin could hear a faint challenging roar from the hill cat along with the ringing in his ears. Glinting golden in the setting rays of the sun, a squat starship flew over the arch toward the Cliffside dwelling of his family. A faintly green beam fanned out covering the

Cesily shrugged. “Either several barrels of it got accidentally spilled when a caravan went through or…”

“What?”

“Someone put it there deliberately to slow down travelers.”

“Hmm.” Darin didn’t care much for that idea. They’d have been completely helpless if an attack had come while they were occupied there. He couldn’t help casting a few extra glances over his shoulder. There was nothing to see or hear, but his half-trained psi sense told him there was something coming. Something he didn’t want to meet.

“Cesily we need to hurry and get there. I can feel it.” Darin could plainly see the cliffside where his family home had been carved even though he knew they were still more than a kilometer away. Tiny dots out in front were some kids playing and adults soaking up the sun as best they could. He certainly knew from experience that you couldn’t spend all your time in a cave. If only he could just teleport them there. Some of the masters at the school could do it but he was nowhere near that level of proficiency.

Cesily pulled two pairs of skates from her pack and handed one set to him. “I was going to give those to my brother for his birthday.” She looked like she was going to start crying again.

“Dead?” Darin felt a twinge from his newly sharpened senses. He’d known that he needed to get home, but he still wasn’t good enough to get a clear why. “How can they all be dead? Your cousins and uncles and others too?” She nodded miserably, tears leaking from closed eyes. “Who killed them Cesily?”

“Outworlders I think. Rumor has it there’s something here they want.”

“On Targus?” Darin would have laughed if Cesily wasn’t hurting so much. Everyone knew there were no gems or precious metals here. Targus was a dense world so there had been a lot of speculation, when it was settled, about the possibility of heavy metals. Nothing was ever found but rock and snow and ice. He looked across the chasm to the glazed hills beyond. Lots and lots of ice.
Darin wanted to ask her more questions about what happened to her family but his psi sense was telling him to get moving. “You’re coming home with me,” he decided.
“Thanks,” she said, the quiver in her voice tearing at him. “That’s where I was headed. I was hoping they’d take me in. I have nowhere else to go.”
They stepped very carefully through the oily spot on the path and managed to get by it without any further mishap. “What do you think the story is on the oil?”

slivers of ice that curled around it’s legs but Darin could see it wasn’t going to be enough. It was going over the edge. Cesily screamed and Darin grabbed for the cat’s heavy tail as it whipped by and thumped him in the stomach, nearly knocking the breath out. Now he was being dragged along sliding behind the hill cat. He knew he should have gotten his old boots restudded.

Darin grabbed the climbing pick from his pocket and swung it as hard as he could into the ice under his feet. He felt a muscle tear in his arm as the pick dragged out a foot-long furrow, then they were stopped. The cat’s front paws dangled helpless over the edge. Cessily grabbed it’s tail too and together they managed to pull it back to firm footing. Darin could tell it was not a happy cat, but its rough tongue gave each of them a lick of thanks.

Cesily dropped to her knees, wrapped her arms around the cat’s neck and began to sob uncontrollably.

“Easy, easy. He’s okay. We’re okay. Everything’s—okay—now,” he finished a little lamely. Then Darin winced as his arm reminded him that not quite everything was as normal.

“You don’t understand Darin. Purz is all I have left. They killed my family. Everyone is dead.” A tear dripped from her cheek landing on silver fur. The big cat gave her another lick.

confident and even ready to commit deadly actions on someone she considered a stranger and a threat. What had been happening here? “Cesily, it’s me, Darin. Don’t you remember me?”

She backtracked, crossing the chasm on the bridge connecting it’s narrowest points, and came toward him with her weapon still pointing in his general direction. As she got closer, he could see the puzzled look on her face. “I don’t know any Darin. Not since…” Then her face cleared. “Darin Salorin? I remember you always talked to me when my family visited. But you’ve been gone for, for, years!”

“Only two years,” Darin protested. “I’ve been learning things. Amazing things.” He moved toward her then, but a warning snarl from above reminded him that the hill cat was still watching. To demonstrate his education for Cesily, he pocketed the needler and sent soothing waves of warmth and assurance reaching out to the big cat.

“ROWWWH!” Spitting its displeasure, it leaped from the ledge above, a silver streak arching toward him in midair.

“No Purz! Don’t hurt him. He’s a friend.”

The big cat landed ten feet from him on the ledge, nearly in the middle of the oily spot. Surprise let its momentum carry it toward the edge and spin the cat around twice before it’s claws came out. They scraped off great

his nose, sniffing. It smelled like grill cakes. No, like the oil his mother cooked them with. Why would cooking oil be on the path?

Above him something coughed. Or growled. Darin looked up and found himself staring into the violet eyes of the biggest hill cat he’d ever seen. Reflex brought his hand out of his pocket with a needler at ready. This was crazy. What was a hill cat doing here at this time of year?

“Shoot him and I’ll drop you like a cheese-stealing rat.”

Startled, Darin almost dropped the needler, catching it with the tips of his fingers. The voice came from across the chasm sounding like it meant business. It also sounded oddly familiar. “I’m not going to let it eat me.”

“Purz won’t hurt you. Unless I tell him to, of course.”

Darin squinted at the bundled up figure across the chasm, sure he’d seem him before somewhere. No, wait, it wasn’t a him at all. What was he thinking. All that training should be of some use. Carefully, he let his mind open a bit and began to pick up impressions of the other. Familiar, and definitely female, though not as he remembered. “Cesily? Is that you?”

Two years ago she’d been a shy adolescent, barely able to speak in the company of adults. Now she seemed assured,

Cold Comfort

by Don

Chapter One

What a homecoming this was. Darin groaned, reaching for his head. The ice-covered shelf of rock he lay on was smeared with a reddish stain from the blood seeping out of his scalp. He couldn’t be that out of shape; he’d only been away for two years training in the Psi program. The grav-and-a-half of Targus clutched at his body and dragged him to it’s surface as though he were an immigrant outworlder just stepping on the planet.

Darin levered an elbow under him and started to get up from the icy surface, pulling the parka hood back over his head. Better he bloody it than freeze his face. “Uuuh!” His foot slipped and dropped his butt back to the ice with a painful thump. Even short falls were no joke on Targus and a chasm yawned to his right. Getting clumsy, he thought, then he noticed a liquid sheen on the ice. It was all around him on the ledge, like a big water spill, but he knew it couldn’t be water. It was mid-Spring on Targus but the temperature was still thirty degrees below freezing. He dipped a gloved finger in the liquid and brought it to

table, then his gaze calmly swept the room. Her eyes widened in shock. “These worthless texts were taken from a Roman galleon. You will return them. Now.”

The sharp steel piercing her arm hurt terribly, but it was as nothing compared to the Vision imposed by contact with the soldiers’ knife. In a distant time, she saw the soldier laughing as the library burned. But overlaying that, she saw herself married to this hard-eyed oaf before the moon changed phase.

do the same—preferably on documents dealing with magic and the arcane, but nearly any subject would be of some interest. Patiently, she waited for Tellus to notice her.

“Yes, what is it boy?”

“Diokles sent me to help with the translations sir.”

Tellus raised his bushy brows. “You are familiar with Sumerian?”

“Yes sir.” She might be only nineteen but she had no doubt her gift with language would soon put her far ahead of most of those here.

Tellus gaze swept the pile available, pulled out one of the smaller volumes and handed it to her. A quick glance showed her it was a book of children’s stories. Certainly not what she would have chosen, but it was a place to start. She settled into an empty desk by the doorway and began immediately writing the Greek version into a blank codex that had been provided. Intermediate notes would not be required for this. She settled into a routine of the translation and could not keep the smile from her face. She was home.

She was so deeply engrossed in transforming the Sumerian tales to her native Greek that she didn’t hear the heavy footfalls in the corridor until it was too late. A Roman soldier entered the room, his arms bigger around than her thighs and his eyes cold and contemptuous. He pulled a dagger from his belt and drove it through Calixta’s arm, pinning her to the

like and none of those she had seen so far looked likely.
By now she must be far outside the walls of the Library building above. Down another corridor, she saw workers removing dirt and stone, hauling it up to the street above in baskets attached to a long rope. Moles building a maze of muddled meandering, she marveled.

She slowed as the corridor ahead became dark. One of the torches placed at regular intervals had gone out and no one had, as yet, come to replace it. She picked up her pace and stayed to the center, not liking the feel of that section at all. Great Athena, she had watched Heropholus cut open a living man and now she was letting a little darkness spook her!

Still, she felt better once she reached a lighted section once more. Ahead, she recognized the familiar face of Tellus and heaved a small sigh of relief. He was moving among several small tables offering advice on particularly tricky bits of translation. The bins here contained no papyrus scrolls but were stuffed and piled with bound vellum codex’s.

Each of the translators at the tables—all older than her and at least in their late twenties, she noted-- had a codex they were poring over and making notes on scraps of papyrus. Some of those further along in the process were already meticulously transferring their Greek translations of the Sumerian texts to another codex. This looked like home to Calixte and she wanted nothing more than to settle in here and

Leonides behavior was still an open wound, but the other was probably one of those who felt strongly women should be kept as cattle. He would be a problem even if Herophilus decided to keep silent.

Herophilus noticed her gaze on the guard. “I will speak nothing of your secret, little one.” He raised his voice and a steely note of threat crept in. “Neither will they, if they don’t wish to become the next subjects on my dissection table.” They didn’t move physically but their expressions changed to blank masks and Calixte could feel them cringe inside. She could feel Herophilus’ gaze on her again. “Perhaps you should move along now. You wouldn’t want to be tardy for your appointment with Tellus.”

Grateful for the escape, Calixte moved quickly down the hall away from Herophilus and the stench of his experiments. She had never met anyone she’d felt so ambivalent toward. It was probably stupid of her but she preferred bad people to be just plain bad.

The Archive was beginning to come alive now as others woke and resumed their studies or research in the tunnels below the main library. Several times she noticed things of interest in rooms along the way. One had wooden models of buildings and odd machines—she recognized a sort of catapult—and she was sorely tempted to stop and investigate, but she vigorously resisted the impulse and kept going. She had an idea of what Tellus looked

naked, exposed also in heart and mind. “How did you know?”
He smiled, and Calixte was surprised to see genuine warmth reflected there. He might be crazy, but she thought he wasn’t evil—exactly. “I search for the secrets of the human body child. I wouldn’t be much good at it if I couldn’t tell a girl from a boy, now would I?”

She decided to beg. “Please don’t tell the others, sir. This library… I need to be here…” She caught herself short of saying she would do anything. Most men would just ask for her virgin body, but this one might insist she inflict unspeakable horrors on others.

He put a finger to her lips. “I know. I see it in you. We are not so unlike, you and I. You feel the burning need to know as well. And some day, I think, you will find you are prepared to go further to satisfy that urge than you now think.”
She started to deny that she would ever go as far as he had in his quest, then stopped. The thought of killing this man, and his body guards, to keep her secret had occurred. That she had no idea how she might have done that was not relevant. It showed there might be more truth to what he was saying than she would like to believe.

Calixte noticed both of Herophilus’ body guards staring at her. One had a look of disgust on his face and the other open lust. She wasn’t worried by the lust, she’d seen that often enough before she was pretending to be a boy—and after too,

The man named as Herophilus looked up from making another cut. “It’s not torture child. We are trying to learn how the body works. And what would a scribe know of torture anyway?”

Calixte knew far more of it than she wanted. She had many uncles and one had a job in that very profession. He extracted confessions from suspected criminals, many of whom, she thought, would probably say anything just to get the torture to stop. Then there were her Visions, too, which often showed her things from contact with others that she would rather not have seen.

The two large men standing to either side of Herophilus—body guards, she supposed—moved toward Calixte menacingly. “No, no, leave her alone. She has done nothing wrong. Compassion is a positive quality. My dear, this work is born of compassion. One day you and the other nay-sayers will thank me for my curiosity and devotion to unraveling the nature of the human body. We shall be able to fix untold ailments and, yes, even extend the span of human life. Perhaps indefinitely.” He paused and looked at her thoughtfully. “You know, I could use an assistant. Someone with intelligence, smaller hands, and a delicate touch, like you. Would you be interested?

Violently she shook her head. “No, no, I couldn’t,” she managed to get out through teeth clenched to shut off the gorge rising in her throat. “I’m to work with Tellus on the Sumerian… Then she realized what he’d said. She. The fanatical light of his gaze pierced her and she felt completely naked. Worse than

might have just offended someone who could have her drawn and quartered without a second thought. “I, I, was sent here by Master Diokles, sir. No offense intended. I am to help Tellus with the Sumerian translations.”

The old man showed a brief spark of surprise but his gaze was quickly recaptured by the open pages beckoning. “Well, off with you then.” He waved vaguely in the direction she’d been traveling. “He’s down there somewhere.”

Calixte let her breath out, not realizing she’d been holding it. He was so absorbed he wasn’t likely to notice her further, so she slipped quietly away down the wide corridor. She hadn’t realized the Archive was so big. And had so many odd smells. Her nose wrinkled as she tried to shut out a sharp sour stench that drifted from a doorway ahead. Curiously she peered in, then gasped in dismay. A naked man lay tied to a table moaning in agony.

“Curses on you Herophilus and your ancestors to the end of time,” the man on the table gasped in Egyptian. “Plagues and poxes aplenty, though even that is too good for the likes of you who would defile the human form and cut it open like a sow to be slaughtered.”

Now she could see that the chest of the man on the table was sliced and torn and his ribs were held apart by wooden sticks, exposing his beating heart. Calixte couldn’t help herself. “Why have you done this? Such torture is barbaric!”

Calixte found the cool stones of the underground stairway soothing under her feet, in contrast to the heated whirl of her thoughts. The workmanship was good and the stones were smooth but not as smooth as they would be, she knew, after the passage of years and many feet polished them further. She was not surprised the Archive halls were nearly deserted at this early hour of the morning. This was not the usual domain of scribes and philosophers of status were not known to be early risers.

She couldn’t help taking a peek into the open doorways as she went along. There were rooms much like those in the main library above where scrolls were pigeonholed in bins and labeled in meticulous script. She noticed that most of the scrolls seemed much older, some almost crumbling with the effects of time, and none were written in Greek.

She passed another room that had no scrolls but there were tomes with pages of beaten gold and even fragile looking clay tablets with a curious form of writing she’d heard about only in legend. This, she knew, was where she belonged. Calixte’s excitement blotted out her reason. She reached for one of the clay tablets sprawled open on the table.

“Don’t touch that!” barked a grey-haired man whose toga bore an interlaced pattern of ink stains and, from the look of it, yesterday’s lunch. “What are you doing in the Archive boy?”

Calixte kept her eyes on the floor. She didn’t recognize the man and the great library drew people from all around. She

lanky form watching her from across the room. Perhaps she was a bit too pretty a boy, she thought uneasily.

"Report to Tellus in the Archive then; he's heading the Sumerian translation," Diokles said, then bent down to scold one of the boys for making a smudge.

"Thank you sir!" She couldn't wait to see what the Sumerian scrolls had in them. Calixte turned and started to dash toward the stair leading down to the Archive then skidded to a halt as Leonides boney form stepped in front of her.

Leonides reached out a hand to steady her and touched her arm. Then the world fell apart and the Vision took Calixte’s sight. She saw him writhing, entwined naked with another boy. She really didn't want to see this. Somehow she reached back to her physical self and jerked her arm from Leonides grasp. "What's the matter?" he asked looking hurt.

"I have to go. I'm needed in the Archive." She knew she mumbled the words but she didn't care. She had to get away. Leonides seemed so nice. He was the only one who'd welcomed her to the library and tried to make her feel at home. She'd avoided spending much time with him because she was afraid he might suspect she was a girl. But now she knew the truth. His was more than a friendly interest; he lusted for the pretty boy he thought she was! She probably wouldn't have given it a second thought if it was someone else, but she liked him. To think of him.... it was too much.

vellum copy of some ribald verses that needs to be finished by the end of the week. Can you do it and not make a mess of it?"

"Of course sir, but..."

"But what, boy? Out with it."

"It's just that I was hoping to get to help with the texts from Samaria."

"You can translate Sumerian?"

Calixte heard the disbelief in Diokles voice and added a small lie quickly. "My uncle taught me. I'm quite good really." Her uncle could barely speak Greek, but Calixte had a knack for languages and was certain she could pick it up quickly from the scraps of knowledge she already had. She'd heard some of the Sumerian documents were about magic and she itched to read them.

"Really? I suppose that would be a better use of your time then, though I can't imagine a young boy who'd rather translate dry foreign philosophy when they could be copying raunchy verse." He shrugged then squinted at Calixte. "Any more hidden surprises I should know?”

Caliste's breast flattener band itched under her tunic and it was all she could do not to scratch. It was uncomfortable, but not too high a price to pay to have access to the Library. She smiled at Diokles brightly. "No sir. No surprises." She was nineteen now but with the band she could easily pass as a slightly built fourteen year old boy. She noticed Leonidas tall

Alexandrian Visions
by Don

Chapter One

"Calix. Calix! Are you deaf boy?"

Calixte looked up from the scroll she was copying to see the red face of scribe master Diokles glaring at her. "No Sir." Sometimes the male form of her name just didn't register yet. She'd have to be more careful; if they discovered she was a woman she'd be sent home in disgrace. Some of the great ladies might enter the Library, but no one expected them to actually read anything. Ironic, she thought, when Athena was the patron of knowledge.

"Pay attention when I'm talking to you then. I'll get someone else to finish what you're working on. I've got a fancy

didn't think he would be moving again any time soon.

"Your son's out in their car Sylvia." He could hear her rush out as Dora's footsteps came through the kitchen doorway.

"The big goon is dead." Isaac thought she sounded quite satisfied with herself. "Nice move with the gun. You are quite the old coot, aren't you?"

Again he felt the fan of air as she picked up the painting. He waved goodbye. "Be careful Dora. You were a good housekeeper."

"Yeah. For too many years. But that's gonna change now." Dora’s footsteps went out the back just as he heard Sylvia came back in the front with her son.

"Thank you Isaac. I don't know how to thank you enough for helping me get my son back."
He felt her arms around his neck and a kiss on his cheek. This time he was almost blinded by the flash. They were all sitting at the kitchen table-- the boy obviously three or four years older and the two of them holding hands with sappy smiles on their faces. He smiled. "I think you'll find a way."

"I'll be gone before they get here anyway." Dora’s footsteps headed toward the door and then the screech of braking tires on asphalt outside obscured the sound. A thump signaled the painting being set down. "What do you think we should do?"

Isaac positioned them quickly then removed his hand from the bug saying, in his best querulous old man voice, "Ladies... Don't leave me alone with them... It will take me too long to get to the back door." He removed the bug from the wheel, stuck it to his chair arm, and started bumping his chair noisily into the doorway to the kitchen.

In back he heard a crash as the door was kicked in-- probably by the hired goon, he thought. A gun fired and there was silence from that direction. Footsteps on the carpet told him the strawberry-marked boss was entering through the still open front door. A loud meaty 'thwack!' and a thud on the carpet told him that one was down.

Isaac’s finger brushed the bug again triggering another frozen flash. This time he saw the aristocrat raise his gun to fire at Sylvia as she turned to see what was happening in the back. "Sylvia, look out!" He jerked his chair forward and chopped down with the edge of his hand. The gun made a soft thud on the carpeted floor then there was a satisfying crunch as Sylvia struck the man. Isaac

conversation! A bug had fallen off and stuck to his chair wheel. He had to guess that those who had hired Sylvia were on their way over because Dora was out to transfer the painting-- and whatever its illicit contents were-- to a different buyer.

This just kept getting worse. But at least he and Sylvia hadn't walked into a trap with them. They certainly knew about his 'helpless blind man' ploy. Isaac didn't know for sure how far away they were but he had a sense of short minutes. Unless he could do some fast thinking none of them would survive the encounter.

He put his hand over the bug as well as he could and spoke softly, "Forget the painting. Sylvia's employers will be here in less than five minutes and we'll all be dead shortly thereafter if we don't cooperate. There is a bug under my right hand on the wheel of my chair they are listening to right now." He put a finger to his lips, raised the hand covering the bug and pointed.

"Don't be trying to pull something funny. How could you possibly know that?" Dora snorted.

Isaac clapped his hand over the bug at her first syllable. He just hoped it wasn't sensitive enough to pick up her voice through it.

"He does! He has visions, or something."

A gun complicated things. He couldn't see where it was pointed nor could he really move fast enough to get out of the way. The scent of lilacs grew stronger as Dora approached. "Why did you do it Dora? What's in the painting?"

"Lot's of money. Don't care."

Isaac could feel a fan of air brush his face and assumed that Dora had grabbed the painting.

"Don't even think about it, sweety."

He could hear a hard edge to Dora's voice that had never manifested during her time as his cleaning lady. "Easy Sylvia. You are no use to your son dead."

"They'll kill him!"

Isaac knew the women were in a faceoff. He could feel the tension in the air. He had never felt more useless than he did right now. Anything he did was likely to get someone killed and unlikely to help the situation at all. He gripped the wheels of his chair fiercely, wanting to do something. Then his fingertip slid across something metallic stuck to the rubber wheel.
Another flash went off in his head and he was presented with a slice of frozen time. It was a still picture of the two men and Sylvia's son in a car. But over it he could hear voices. Echoes of Dora and Sylvia's

It was her turn to laugh. Her laughter quickly became hysterics mixed with hiccups and sobs. Isaac aimed a moderated slap at where he knew her face must be and she subsided into snuffles. "I would have killed you."

"I know."

"Why would you help me?"

"Because I know Mothers must try to protect their young. It's built in." And because there is something about you that reminds me of my Angela, he thought.

"But how?"

Isaac smiled with only a touch of humor. "No one notices a blind man. They won't check to see if I'm armed if I go in with you."

"No, but I will," a new voice came from the open door.

"Dora. Your timing is…"

"Impeccable?"

"I was going to say regrettable." He'd figured it had to be her that placed the painting. No one else had access to the house. You just couldn't trust anyone anymore. She was older than he was and he would have sworn that she was as boring as his old maid aunt.

"She's got a gun," Sylvia hissed.

He could hear Dora moving across the carpet toward him. He had no weapon but his muscles tensed in readiness.

his cheek you will die. Your son may not fare much better."

"How did you know… You're just saying that so I won't take the painting!"

"I don't care about the painting. It isn't mine and I don't know where it came from. It isn't even good art. I have no idea why someone would kill for it, but that is what will happen." He also didn't know why he cared about this woman and her son, but it seemed that it was so.

Isaac could hear the woman sink onto the cushions of his couch. No one had sat there since his wife… He wrenched his mind away from that thought. Her low sobs tore at him. "Why do they want this painting? It isn't worth anything."

"I don't know. They just told me to bring it or they'd kill my son." She took a deep breath and he could hear a wheezy rattle as if her chest was congested.
He was no doctor, but he'd had enough medical training in the military to know an early sign of pneumonia. She hadn't been taking care of herself. There really was no excuse for anyone getting pneumonia these days. He almost mentioned it, then decided it really wasn't the time.

"Look-- uh-- what is your name?"

"Sylvia."

"Sylvia, I'll help you if you'll let me."

There was a long silence then, "You can't stop me from taking it."
"I'm sure you can fashion an excellent career around stealing from blind men." He heard her moving and it wasn't long before there was a thump on the carpeted floor in front of his feet. Curiosity, he knew, was a powerful force. It had certainly gotten him in trouble enough times. He reached out, his fingers encountering a rough canvas surface.

Isaac's mind lit as if by an exploding flashbulb, searing a scene into his consciousness. The painting was there. Not the work of an old master at all, he noted. But the rather ordinary pastoral scene depicted in the painting seemed unimportant as he noticed that the woman in the black jumpsuit was also there bleeding on the floor, and apparently dead. Two men stood over her: A short heavyset man, whose face seemed to be mostly eyebrows and pug nose, wiped off his knife. A younger aristocratic gentleman, appearance marred only by a red strawberry mark on his cheek, admired the painting while holding onto a crying boy.

His mind faded into its usual formless blankness as some of the things he'd seen clicked into place. "If you take this painting to the man with the strawberry mark on

lot of trouble for nothing."

"Ahhh." Her neck turned under his arm. "None except that one, I suppose." The sarcasm in her voice was hard to miss. "Clever making it look like part of the wallpaper. I'd have seen it earlier, though, if it weren't so damn dark in here. I'm only looking for one and that certainly appears to be it."

What could she be talking about? She seemed to think there was a painting here in his living room. The sharp sweetness of her perfume distracted him as he tried to think. He had a hunch that he needed to make the right choices and make them fast. He didn't want to kill her, and he was beginning to realize that he didn't want her to kill him either. At least not now. Something about this painting was important, although perhaps not to him exactly. But he did need to know about it.

"Bring it to me." Isaac released her throat and gave her a firm push away from him.

"What?"

He could tell from the tremor in her voice that he had taken her completely by surprise. He just hoped that he was right about her. "Bring the painting to me and let me touch it. Then you can either take it or I will give you what you think it is worth."