The Light That Never Was Read Free Page B

fabric could be one composition, and even now it doesn’t often produce a large painting. With four of the eight I had to cut the fabric down to fit the part that it painted.”
    “Does it work all night?”
    “On a dark night. Tonight it’ll stop when the moons come up. It paints slowly, as you saw, and the next night it won’t always start where it left off. It took me four years to get those eight paintings. Drat Milfro—I just wanted an opinion, not a visitation. Anyway, L.H. can’t fire you for not putting this artist under contract. Sorry I can’t offer you a bed, but the only one I have you wouldn’t like. I can’t even lend you a light to walk back with, but I’ll go as far as my neighbor’s with you and see if you can borrow his.”
    “That’s very kind of you.”
    “And remember your oath!” Brance’s voice cut savagely through the darkness. “If a word of this leaks out, I’ll kill the person responsible.”
    Gwyll started back to Zrilund Town with the feeble beam of the neighbor’s small handlight picking out the uncertain borders of the road. His memory was still replete with what he had seen and smelled, and after a couple of miles he finally lost control, and along with it the scant lunch he had eaten on the ferry and the nutritious products of the kruckul root.
    At Zrilund Town he did something he wouldn’t have had the courage for as recently as that afternoon. He pried the fat com agent from his dinner to open the Zrilund Communications Center, and he kept him waiting—and fuming—until he got a clear channel to Donov Metro and routed Lester Harnasharn from his bed.
    Harnasharn, looking ludicrous with a night covering perched jauntily on his bald head, did not even seem perturbed. “Did you get him?” he demanded.
    Gwyll hesitated. The com agent stood looking on, and there were possibly dozens of people listening in. “There’s a very substantial matter of ethics involved,” he said.
    “I understand. He’s already committed himself elsewhere.”
    “Not that kind of ethics. I think it’s a matter that you’d want to handle yourself.”
    “I’ll leave at once.”
    “There’s no hurry. The only boat scheduled from the mainland operates at eight in the morning—which is afternoon to you.”
    “Then why did you get me out of bed?”
    “Because I haven’t been to bed, and once I get there, if I can find one, I’m not getting up in the middle of the night to send a message. Anyway, I thought you’d like to know.”
    Harnasharn chuckled. “Thanks. What happened to you? Is it raining mud on Zrilund?”
    “That’s as good a way to describe it as any.”
    “I’ll dress for it.” He chuckled again. “Before you look for that bed I suggest you find a bath.” He cut the connection.
    “I’d suggest the Zrilund Town Hostel,” the com agent said dryly. “Fourth right from the corner. Hylat’ll let you have the bath and bed and maybe a bit of supper, which you look as though you could use.”
    Gwyll thanked him and paid for the call. The bath and bed would be welcome, but his stomach wasn’t yet in condition to tolerate any thought of food.
    Twenty-one hours later, Lester Harnasharn perched on the edge of Brance’s pen peering in fascination as the slug hung over the art fabric, filaments tirelessly in motion.
    “If I wasn’t seeing it with my own eyes—” he muttered.
    Brance said nothing. Gwyll, holding the candle, was too preoccupied with his nausea to speak.
    “Are those things tongues? ” Harnasharn demanded.
    “They could be,” Brance admitted. “I’ve never been able to locate its head, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have one. I guess tongues is as apt a description as any.”
    “It dips each one into the paint, and then—where does it mix the colors? On its tongues, or right on the fabric?”
    “I don’t know. It may mix in some secretion of its own, which would account for the unusual texture. I do know it won’t use any kind of paint that