Gorla touched a switch on the wall and light flooded the room. On the great bed near the far wall, the girl sat, bedclothes held to her breast, staring at them curiously. It was strange, thought Telis, that she showed no fear. And stranger still was the fact that her face was encased now in a bag-like contraption made of the same unusual material as the jumper he remembered seeing her wear. It was stretched tight by internal pressure that apparently came from a small cylinder at her bedside and connected to the mask by a flexible metal tube.
Some new and strange addiction, wondered Telis? It was not unknown upon Laurr for some to succumb to the lure of narcotics, what with the incessant warfare jangling the nerves and the ever-present spectre of doom hanging over the whole planet. Telis himself had tasted gas from a similar contraption on one of his hedonistic revels....
Whatever the drug was, he had seen her without the bag-like helmet in the Central Temple. Addiction might account for her seeming illness that he so well remembered from the previous day.
There was no sign of illness about her now! He stared at her, his breath catching in his throat.
Exotic woman!
Near at hand, her beauty was almost a living, tangible thing. Her hair gleamed, and her skin was palely translucent, like purest alabaster. The refraction of the light through the transparent mask surrounded her face with a glowing nimbus that made Telis think of the solideographic icons of the Goddess. Her lips were full, almost sensuous, and her great dark eyes looked at him quizzically but unafraid.
"There is no time to explain," he said rapidly. "We are leaving this place. Now."
She nodded without surprise, as though she had known exactly what he was going to say.
Telis motioned for her to get up. For a moment she waited, but when Telis showed no sign of turning around, she slipped out of bed and covered herself quickly with the blouse and harness that lay on a chair nearby. As she did so, she slipped the transparent mask off and, even as Telis watched her appreciatively, he could see the illusion of health fade from her face. A pinched look appeared, and a thin line of blue formed around her mouth. She seemed short of breath.