The Dark Lady

completed it?” he said sharply.
    “How did you know that?” I asked, startled.
    “Tai Chong told me.”
    “She had no right to.”
    “We're old friends,” he replied. “We don't have a lot of secrets from each other.”
    “She is guilty of a breach of confidence,” I said.
    “Because she doesn't want to see you kill yourself.” He paused awkwardly. “Neither do I— especially if you're doing it because of what happened on Charlemagne or Acheron.”
    “I had spoken to her before I went to Charlemagne. Although,” I added truthfully, “very little has happened since that moment to weaken my resolve.”
    Heath laughed heartily. “You're a master of understatement, Friend Leonardo.”
    “It is not necessary for you to call me Friend,” I said.
    “Why not?” he asked. “We're friends, aren't we?”
    “Only until you steal Malcolm Abercrombie's artwork.”
    He shrugged. “Nothing lasts forever.”
    “You are wrong, Friend Valentine.”
    “Oh? What do you think lasts forever?”
    “The Dark Lady.”
    He snorted in annoyance. “Forever, hell! She couldn't even last long enough to get back to Far London.”
    “She is not dead,” I said.
    “I have a horrible premonition that you're right,” he admitted. He paused. “I wonder what race she really belongs to?”
    “Yours,” I said.
    He shook his head emphatically. “I keep telling you, Leonardo: She can't be human. She's got to belong to a race that can teleport. That's the only way she could have gotten off the ship.”
    “And I keep pointing out that the only race of true telepaths are the Dorban, who breathe chlorine and are too large to fit inside your ship.”
    “Then there must be another race of teleporters that we know nothing about.”
    “If you say so, Friend Valentine.”
    “You don't believe it for a second, do you?” he asked.
    “No,” I said. “Do you?”
    He sighed deeply. “Not really.” He paused thoughtfully. “Whatever she is, I wish I knew what quality she possesses that makes men who don't know the first thing about art suddenly decide to paint her portrait.”
    “Even to my inhuman eyes, she is very beautiful,” I said. “And yet there is a certain ephemeral quality about her. Possibly they wished to capture her likeness because they knew she would soon be gone.”
    “Most of them seemed to have died pretty terrible deaths. I wonder if they painted her because they knew they would soon be gone?”
    “I do not think so,” I replied. “A number of them died of natural causes. And it seems to me that if they had a premonition of death, they would hardly take that as a mandate to paint her portrait.”
    Heath sighed. “I suppose not. Anyway, I've seen her and I don't have any urge to take up painting or sculpting.” He paused and suddenly stared inquisitively at me. “Well?”
    “I have drawn an ink sketch of her,” I admitted.
    “When?”
    “Last night, after you went to sleep.”
    “Where is it?”
    “I am not a very good artist, and it was not a very good rendering,” I replied. “I destroyed it.” I sighed unhappily. “I was also unable to capture the beauty of the ‘Mona Lisa.'”
    “The ‘Mona Lisa,'” he repeated. “Is that how you got your name?”
    “Yes.”
    “Just out of curiosity, Leonardo, why did you want to draw the Dark Lady?”
    “She is the most interesting human I know, and the most beautiful.”
    “ If she's human,” he said.
    “If she is human,” I agreed.
    “Who was the most interesting and beautiful human you knew before you met her?”
    “Tai Chong,” I replied promptly.
    “Did you ever feel compelled to draw a portrait of Tai Chong?” he asked.
    “No.”
    “Then I come back to my original question: What is it about the Dark Lady that makes people want to sit down and paint her?”
    “I do not know,” I said. “Perhaps it was because I wanted to preserve my memory of her face.”
    “But you can see her face whenever you want,” Heath pointed out. “You can have the nearest computer track down some likenesses of her and make prints of them for you.”
    “That would only show me what others saw,” I said. “I wanted to draw what I saw.”
    “Spoken like an artist,” he said wryly.
    “I am not an artist,” I replied. “I wish that I were, but I lack the necessary talent.”
    “So did Mallachi, but he painted her anyway.” Heath frowned. “I just wish I knew why.” He got to his feet. “A person could go crazy trying to come up with an