The Dark Lady

them, nor does he keep them for visitors, of which he has absolutely none.
    His library, both of books and tapes, is virtually nonexistent, nor has he an entertainment center in his house, and yet he rarely leaves, preferring to monitor his investments and issue his orders via his computer. He claims to have no interest in alien races, and yet whenever I mention the Bjornn, he always has questions about them. He is especially interested in the organization of the House, but seems totally incapable of understanding that it is the Pattern that determines the House rather than the reverse. And he is alternately mystified and outraged by the concept of blood mothers and Pattern Mothers, and although he disdains his own daughter's company, he cannot comprehend why I have no interest whatsoever in my blood mother. He is furious that his daughter married a man of whom he disapproved, which is perfectly understandable; while at the same time, he is mystified by the fact that I have no objection to the House having selected my Pattern Mate for me while I was still a child.
    Perhaps the most fascinating thing about this singularly fascinating man is his obsession with a woman who may never have existed, and who, if indeed she did exist, has been dead for at least seven millennia.
    In fact, it is this obsession that led to my current employment, for in his quest for artwork featuring this woman, Mr. Abercrombie has retained me in the dual capacities of purchasing agent and researcher.
    My first assignment was to fly to Binder X to obtain a hologram featuring this particular woman. The voyage took five uneventful days, during which time I made the acquaintance of a number of Declanites and Darbeenans, who were making connections at Binder to their own distant planets.
    Once on Binder X it took me two days to trace the hologram, and finally I presented myself to its owner, a woman named Hannah Comstock. She was not the person who had purchased it when I attended the auction at which it had been sold a few years ago, but had evidently bought it privately in the intervening years.
    The attitude toward non-humans is considerably more liberal on the worlds of the Inner Frontier, and I had no difficulty securing an invitation to visit her at her home, which was about five miles from the center of Fort Rodriguez, the smallest of Binder X's five cities.
    Upon arriving, I explained the purpose of my mission— that I had been authorized to purchase the hologram for Malcolm Abercrombie— and after her initial protestations that she admired it too much to ever part with it, she named a price that I considered to be at least half again what it was worth. I relayed this information to Mr. Abercrombie, who contacted her himself and concluded the purchase while I was sleeping at my hotel.
    When I arrived at Mrs. Comstock's house the next morning to take possession of the hologram, I asked her if she knew anything about its history. She did not, but had purchased it because of the artist, a man named Peter Klipstein. His name was unfamiliar to me, and she explained that he was the man who had opened up the Corvus system to human colonization, and that they regard him as a great hero. She had therefore concluded that Klipstein's name probably made the hologram quite valuable, at least to the Corvus colonists, and had purchased it primarily as an investment.
    I inquired if she knew of any other Klipstein holograms, and she replied that she was unaware of the existence of any, and had indeed been surprised to find that he had created this one, although she had the signature authenticated before purchasing it.
    Since my ship did not leave for New Rhodesia, my next port of call, for another day, I stopped by a local library and had the main computer bring up Peter Klipstein's biographical data for me. This was a mistake, since he has been the subject of no less than twenty-seven full-length biographies. Finally I had the computer sift through the biographies and supply me with a ten-thousand-word history of the man, which I shall now condense even further for you.
    Peter Klipstein was a member of the Pioneer Corps, that branch of the government charged with charting and exploring new worlds for human colonization in the early days of the Republic, some twenty-five centuries ago. (Evidently the Pioneer Corps had been created at the onset of the Galactic Era, survived through both the Republic and the Democracy, and was disbanded only after the