Steel dogs

… the warm, sweet scent of Mother's breasts. A viewpoint of such golden clarity, such liquid focus, as to be unmistakably that of a very young child. A caress from Mother's hand, a soft murmur, the touch of sunlight on new skin. A crowing laugh….

Droam tried again.

… a summer night, dense with the smell of the sea. Darkness on the beach, small festival fires glowing in the distance. Running over the white dunes with Mondeaux in pursuit. His hands when he caught her, hard from his work with the nets, gentle where they touched her. His breath, spicy with wine and desire. The hammering of her heart when he laid her down on his tattered cloak, the heat that flared when they touched, skin to skin, all down her long length….

Aandred had no heart to hammer, but he felt the pressure of some great unknown emotion, pushing from somewhere, desperate to escape. He shut his eyes, clenched his fists, swayed there for a moment until the mysterious sensation eased, Droam noticed nothing. The beautiful mask was distorted by frustration. «Useless, useless… I'm getting nothing but tangential deep memory. Nothing recent except for her capture; some trauma thwarts me. What's wrong with her?»

Aandred looked at Droam, full of weary astonishment. «What can it be? A mystery! Wait, a notion occurs to me — probably a foolish one — could it have anything to do with the fact that I murdered six of her friends an hour ago?»

Droam gave him a long, cool look. «You indulge your sense of humor dangerously, Huntsman.»

Astonishment drained away, leaving only weariness. «My apologies.»

«But of course you are correct,» Droam said. «She requires time to recover her faculties. I give her into your safekeeping. Cleanse her of vermin; feed and water her; see that no harm befalls her.»

«Where can I keep her? Would it not be better to give her into the care of one of those who are experienced at guesting? Garnet has volunteered.» As soon as he had spoken, Aandred regretted his words, remembering Garnet's face.

But Droam rejected his suggestion. «Keep her in the kennels; surely you have more than one empty run? As to Garnet and the other servitors — I fear they have gone a bit strange over these years of inactivity. When we reopen, I may well be forced to replace them with fresh revenants. Besides, the Picker is a prisoner, not a guest.»

Droam's hulk froze; the light went out of its glorious eyes. Aandred extricated the unconscious woman from the probe's chair. Her head fell back; her arms hung limply; her lips had a bluish cast. Inexplicably, he was filled by a sudden fear that she was dead — sometimes guests would not survive Droam's questioning. He held her closer. Breath wanned his damaged cheek; he detected a pulse at the base of her throat. Reassured, he-went out to the waiting dogs.

THE KENNEL consisted of a large common area, with the dogs' individual runs along one long wall, and the door into Aandred's small, bare apartment on the other. The walls were unadorned granite, windowless, but well-lit by ceiling light tubes. At one end stood a broad worktable and a bank of diagnostic equipment.

He brought the woman into his quarters and laid her in the wall niche in which lie slept away his inactive time, then locked the dogs in their runs.

Aandred considered. How to bathe her? No human facilities existed in the castle's crew quarters; Aandred would wash away the dust of his ride under a spray of oil-rich solvent. He almost decided to leave her as she was, but Droam's instructions had been explicit.

Eventually he carried her up to the level where live prostitutes had once been kept, for the use of those guests prohibited by religion or prejudice from copulating with the castle's revenants. The whores were four hundred years gone, but the taps still flowed clean water and nutrient broth.

He set her down on a bed of greasy plastic, stripped away her fringed leathers. The leather was well-tanned and supple, he noticed, not the work of primitives. Still, he pitched it fastidiously down the refuse chute.

When she was naked, he looked at her until his curiosity was satisfied. How long since he had seen a flesh-and-blood woman? He could not remember. She was tall, with small breasts and long, muscular thighs. Her body was imperfect, of course; old silvery scars marked one flank, perhaps the long-healed claw marks of some wild beast. Her pale skin was smooth, though nothing like the silken gloss of the revenant women who staffed the castle. Bruises flowered here and there, where Aandred had gripped her. Her hair… her hair was probably magnificent, though now it was a black tangle that obscured her features. He bent over her, parted her hair, searched for parasites. He was somewhat surprised to find none.

Aandred sponged her down with disinfectant solution, then dried her carefully. Strangely, he did not resent the domestic role into which Droam had thrust him. There was a certain fascination in touching the flesh of a living woman.