The Dark Lady

is an afterlife, do you not want to know?”
    “I'll know soon enough,” he replied.
    “But— ”
    “Look,” he said. “I've never been the kind of person who reads the last chapter of a mystery novel first. It's cheating. Well, this is the same thing.”
    “Since when did cheating bother you?”
    “Touché,” he said.
    There was a brief silence.
    “You have not answered my question,” I said at last.
    “Leonardo,” he began with a sigh, “one of the reasons I prefer to think that when we die everything we are dies with us is that if there are any ground rules for getting into heaven, any at all, then I'm condemned to eternal damnation. The Dark Lady can tell me only two things: that there is an afterlife, or that there isn't. If there isn't, nothing I believe in has changed; and if there is, I'd rather not know about it. Does that answer your question?”
    “Yes, Friend Valentine.”
    “Do you plan to ask her anything?”
    “Possibly,” I replied.
    “What?”
    “I am not sure yet.”
    “Well, you'd better make up your mind soon; we'll be landing on Saltmarsh in about five hours.” Heath paused thoughtfully. “You know,” he said, “Saltmarsh is only about four days from Benitarus II. Maybe when we're done, I'll take you home and you can try to patch up your troubles with your Pattern Mother.”
    “I thank you for the thought, Friend Valentine,” I said. “But I have been forbidden to set foot on Benitarus II.”
    “Maybe she'll change her mind if she knows we're practically on her doorstep.”
    “She will not.”
    “You never know,” he replied.
    “ I know,” I replied. “My Acceptance Day passed while we were in Deepsleep, yet she left no message and sent no gift of food.”
    He laughed. “We're fugitives from the law, Leonardo! Nobody except Tai Chong knows where we're going, and we haven't broken radio silence for close to thirty days. How would your Pattern Mother know where to send a message?”
    “That is true,” I answered.
    “And as for a present, we've been traveling at light speeds for a month. Even if she knew how to find us, how do you think she could deliver it?”
    “Thank you for your observations, Friend Valentine,” I said sincerely. “I find them most comforting.”
    “Then do you want to visit her when we're through here?” he asked again.
    “I will never be allowed to see her again,” I explained patiently. “Furthermore, I will probably perform the ritual of suicide within the next few days.”
    “Again?” he demanded. “Don't you have any other topic of conversation?”
    “Yes, but none is as important. I may be morally compelled to— ”
    “Spare me your compulsions,” he interrupted. “I want you to give me your word that you won't take your life, or talk about taking your life, until Tai Chong has a chance to get the police to exonerate us.”
    “I give you my word that I will not talk about taking my life until Tai Chong has a chance to exonerate us,” I said carefully.
    He threw up his hands in exasperation. “You're a very difficult person to talk to, do you know that?”
    “You have said so before.”
    “Well, I'm saying so again!”
    “I am sorry if I have offended you, Friend Valentine,” I said.
    “And stop being so damned apologetic for everything!” he said irritably. “If you're going to be a successful criminal, that's the very first thing you've got to change!”
    “I am not going to be a successful criminal,” I replied.
    “Then you're going to be a damned hungry one.”
    He stalked off to his cabin, while I remained in the galley, chewing absently on some soya by-products and wondering what advice my Pattern Mother could give me that might help me prepare myself for a life of crime.

20.
    Heath put the ship into orbit around Saltmarsh, then contacted the planet's only spaceport.
    “This is the Pablo Picasso, Charlemagne registry, thirty-one days out of Far London, Valentine Heath, race of Man, commanding. We require landing coordinates.”
    “Please state the nature of your business on Saltmarsh,” replied a feminine voice.
    “Commerce.”
    “What type of commerce?”
    “I buy and sell artwork.”
    “The Saltmarsh economy is based on the New Kampala shilling. Will you require local currency?”
    “Are credits accepted?”
    “We are a member world of the Oligarchy,” the voice replied archly.
    “Then I won't need to convert any money,” said Heath.
    “Our atmosphere contains 16.23 percent oxygen