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which he supposed might have been started by his disturbance of the thing, or by the presence of warm
air around it now.
Subtle machinery at work. And then another sound, quite regular. It took Sabel's memory a
little time to match it with the cadence of a living human heart.
He had forgotten about time, but in fact not much time had passed before he considered that he was
ready for the next step. The outer casing opened for him easily. Inside, he confronted great complexity;
yes, obviously sophisticated life-support. And within that an interior shell, eyed with glass windows.
Sabel shone in a light.
As usual in suspended-animation treatment, the occupant's skin had been covered with a webbed film of
half-living stuff to help in preser-vation. But the film had torn away now from around the face.
And the surpassing beauty of that face left Sabel no room for doubt. Helen Dardan was breathing, and
alive.
Might not all, all, be forgiven one who brought the Queen of Love herself to life? All, even good-life
work, the possession of restricted devices?
There was also to be considered, though, the case of a man who at a berserker's direction un-earthed the
Queen and thereby brought about her final death.
Of course an indecisive man, one afraid to take risks, would not be out here now faced with his problem.
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Sabel had already unslung his emergency medirobot, a thing the size of a suit-case, from its usual perch at
the back of the flyer, and had it waiting inside the tent. Now, like a man plunging into deep, cold water,
he fumbled open the fasteners of the interior shell, threw back its top, and quickly stretched probes from
the
medirobot to Helen's head and chest and wrist. He tore away handfuls of the half-living foam.
Even before he had the third probe connected, her dark eyes had opened and were looking at him. He
thought he could see awareness and un-derstanding in them. Her last hopes on being put to sleep must
have been for an awakening no worse than this, at hands that might be strange but were not metal.
"Helen." Sabel could not help but feel that he was pretending, acting, when he spoke the name. "Can you
hear me? Understand?" He spoke in Standard; the meagre store of Dardanian that he had acquired from
ancient recordings having. completely deserted him for the moment. But he thought a Dardanian
aristocrat should know enough Standard to grasp his meaning and" the language had not changed
enormously in the cen-turies since her entombment.
"You're safe now," he assured her, on his spacesuited knees beside her bed. When a flicker in her eyes
seemed to indicate relief, he went on: "The berserkers have been driven away."
Her lips parted slightly. They were full and perfect. But she did not speak. She raised herself a little, and
moved to bare a shoulder and an arm from clinging foam.
Nervously Sabel turned to the robot. If he was interpreting its indicators correctly, the patient was
basically in quite good condition. To his not-really-expert eye the machine signalled that there were high
drug levels in her bloodstream; high, but falling. Hardly surprising, in one just being roused from
suspended animation.
"There's nothing to fear, Helen. Do you hear
me? The berserkers have been beaten." He didn't want to tell her, not right away at least, that glori-ous
Dardania was no more.
She had attained almost a sitting position by now, leaning on the rich cushions of her couch. There was
some relief in her eyes, yes, but uneasi-ness as well. And still she had not uttered a word.
As Sabel understood it, people awakened from SA ought to have some light nourishment at once. He
hastened to offer food and water both. Helen sampled what he gave her, first hesitantly, then with evident
enjoyment.
"Never mind, you don't have to speak to me right away. The-war-is-over." This last was in his best
Dardanian, a few words of which were now belatedly willing to be recalled.
"You-are-Helen." At this he thought he saw agreement in her heavenly face. Back to Standard now. "I
am Georgicus Sabel. Doctor of Cos-mophysics, Master of... but what does all that matter to me, now? I
have saved you. And that is all that counts."
She was smiling at him. And maybe after all this was a dream, no more...
More foam was peeling, clotted, from her skin. Good God, what was she going to wear? He bum-bled
around, came up with a spare coverall. Be-hind his turned back he heard her climbing from the cushioned
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container, putting the garment on.
What was this, clipped to his belt? The newly-charged video recorder, yes. It took him a little while to
remember what he was doing with it. He must take it back to the lab, and make sure that the information
on it was readable this time. After that, the berserker could be destroyed.
He already had with him in camp tools that could break up metal, chemicals to dissolve it. But the
berserker's armor would be resistant, to put it mildly. And it must be very thoroughly de-stroyed, along
with the rock that held it, so that no one should ever guess it had existed. It would take time to do that.
And special equipment and supplies, which Sabel would have to return to the city to obtain.
Three hours after she had wakened, Helen, dressed in a loose coverall, was sitting on cush-ions that
Sabel had taken from her former couch and arranged on rock. She seemed content to sim-ply sit and
wait, watching her rescuer with flatter-ing eyes, demanding nothing frqm him except, as it soon turned
out, his presence.
Painstakingly he kept trying to explain to her that he had important things to do, that he was going to have
to go out, leave her here by herself for a time. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]