The Dark Lady

“They might be there already!”
    “If they are, it's too late to worry about it.”
    “You don't understand!” I cried. “This would be the ultimate disgrace!”
    “Look,” he said. “Once we're done here I'll come with you to Far London. You can deliver the painting to Abercrombie, and I'll explain the situation to Tai Chong, who can fix things with the Charlemagne police. Then you can go anywhere you want to go.”
    “That may be too late!” I insisted.
    He shrugged. “All right,” he said soothingly. “I'll contact her now, while we're approaching Acheron. Will that make you happier?”
    I nodded, momentarily unable to speak. Heath spent the next few minutes sending a subspace message to Tai Chong, summarizing what had happened and exonerating me of any wrongdoing, and asking her to relay his message to my Pattern Mother.
    “Satisfied?” he asked when he had finished.
    “Why are you doing this for me?” I asked.
    “Because I'm an exceptionally decent and caring person.”
    “Very few Men perform acts of charity without the expectation of some profit,” I said. “You have done nothing during our period of association to convince me that you are one of them.”
    Heath seemed amused. “What a cynic you've become, Leonardo,” He paused. “In point of fact,” he added, “I'm also very curious about the Dark Lady. You've made her history seem most intriguing.”
    “So intriguing that you would transport me here and then to Far London at your own expense, with no thought of recompense?” I asked dubiously.
    “Let us say that my interest in her is not entirely philanthropic, and let it go at that,” he replied.
    The ship suddenly shuddered, and I almost fell down.
    “We're braking to sublight speed,” Heath announced. “We ought to be able to see something now.”
    He activated the viewing screen.
    “There it is,” he said. “It even looks hot. Let me get a readout on it.”
    He instructed the computer to provide him with the essential data on Acheron, a reddish world perhaps five thousand miles in diameter, with two small oceans and almost no cloud cover. The surface was pockmarked with impact craters, the poles were the same color as the equator, and it had a single moon, no more than twenty-five miles in diameter, which raced across the sky as if trying to escape from the uninviting world below it.
    “Why would anyone choose to live here?” I asked, staring at the world in the ship's viewing screen.
    “It used to be a mining world,” replied Heath.
    “Has it been mined out?”
    He shook his head. “No. They simply found a number of richer worlds and abandoned it.”
    “Then who lives here?”
    He glanced at the readout. “Hardly anyone. The population is less than three hundred. It's just an outpost world now, a drop point for traders and miners.”
    “Does it ever rain?” I asked.
    “Not very often,” he replied. He referred to the readout again. “Let's see. The average temperature at the equator is thirty-four degrees Celsius, average at the north pole is twenty-nine degrees Celsius. Average annual rainfall at the equator, six inches; at the poles, zero.” He grimaced. “The gravity is a little lighter than we're used to— not so much that we'll be doing backflips when we walk, but enough so that we won't have to expend too much energy, which will help to make up for the heat. Sentient races: none. Local fauna: none. Local flora: sparse and primitive.” He looked up at me. “I'm surprised they found three people to live here, let alone three hundred.”
    “What is the atmospheric content?”
    He checked the readout. “Thin, but breathable. Given some of these trace elements, I have the awful premonition that it will smell like raw sewage.”
    We spent the next few hours recuperating from the effects of the Deepsleep chamber and watching as the red globe became larger and larger and finally filled the entire screen.
    “We are getting quite close,” I noted. “Should you not request permission to land?”
    “They don't seem to have a spaceport,” he replied. “The ship's sensors have located a small town with about two dozen ships parked just north of it. I suppose that's where we're expected to put down.”
    “I hope they do not view this as an act of aggression.”
    He laughed. “What have they got that anyone could possibly want?”
    We entered the atmosphere a few minutes later, and shortly thereafter set down at the edge of a ramshackle town that