"By any chance, are you of Dutch descent?"
"No," Drake said, and left.
* * * * *
Three of the six months which Pastelsilks, Inc. had given Drake to sell
his cargo had now passed, and his cargo was undiminished by so much as
a single bolt of blue. His capital, on the other hand, was virtually
exhausted. Even _Der Fliegende Holländer_ had never had it so bad.
Drake had not expected to be able to sell any of the pastelsilk on
Worldwellost, nor, he realized in retrospect, had he expected to be
able to sell any of it on Azure. It was imperative, however, that he
sell it somewhere and sell it soon, for, unredeemed or not, he still
intended to go on living, and in order to go on living he needed a
means by which to make his daily bread, and while a ghost-ship left
much to be desired, it was better than no ship at all. He had known
all along that there was one place in the Sirian Satrapy where the
people were naive enough to barter worthwhile goods for "bolts of blue
and pastel nothingness", and that place was Iago Iago. However, he had
deferred going there for two reasons. The first reason had been his
eagerness to discredit Saint Annabelle Leigh, and the second had been
his fear that fencing the goods he procured on Iago Iago might get him
into trouble with the authorities and lead to the loss of his pilot's
license. But for all his seeming success in blackening the face of
the woman he wanted to hate, he had failed so completely to evoke the
desired emotion that he knew by now that the cause was hopeless; and in
view of the fact that his pilot's license would be worthless if he lost
his ship, the second objection was no longer valid. It had been in the
books all along for him to go to Iago Iago.
He lifted up from Heavenly and found the stars again, and the stars
were good. Madame Gin, he left behind. After turning over the ship to
the automatic pilot, he got out the realitape he had purchased from
King Tutankhamen and fitted it into the girlie realitape projector.
Presidently Mary Legs stepped out of the past. He propped the
stereo-snapshot Penelope had given him against the base of the chart
lamp, then he turned on the intercom. "I have chosen to speak to you
this day of the Potomac Peregrination, of the walking of His ghost
upon the land," said Saint Annabelle Leigh. Mary Legs cast her final
garment into the mists of time and walked lewdly down the ramp. Perfume
reminiscent of the vineyards of Azure permeated the room. Cancelling
out the background music, Drake discovered that her dance blended with
the words Saint Annabelle Leigh was uttering. No, not Saint Annabelle's
words exactly, but the rhythm and the resonance of her voice. What the
one was trying to express, the other was trying to express also. _Look
at me_, they "said" in unison. _I am lonely and afraid, and full of
love. Yes, yes!_ cried the girl _on the hill. Full of love, full of
love, full of love!..._ And in the cabin, vineyards blossomed, flowers
bloomed; there rose a blue-bright sun, and in its radiance the boy and
the girl walked, the boy Nathaniel and the girl Annabelle Leigh, and
the wind blew and the grass sang and the trees put their heads together
in rustling consultations ... and all the while, the hull-beams creaked
and the grav generator murmured, and the spectral _Fly by Night_ sped
on its way to Iago Iago.
It was fitting that a ghost should fall in love with a ghost.