She had never been his slave, though. He had been hers.
Sabrina's trail circled back into the grove and left the place-time by a different route. Immediately it became erratic again. It was evident to Blake that she was searching for a particular memory-image and that she was having trouble finding it. Perhaps she knew of some moment in his past where she would be safe even from him.
When he stepped into the little Dubhe 4 settlement he instinctively assumed that it was on the same chronological plane as the plantation place-time. However, the darkness that instantly enclosed him and the stars that sprang to life in the sky apprised him that such could not possibly be the case. This was the Dubhe 4 settlement of seven years ago. This was the night he had sat in the chocoletto cafe and watched Eldoria dance—the night he had kept a tryst with her in her hut; the night he had first seen Deirdre.
But why had Sabrina come here? Where in this wretched little memory-image did she expect to find sanctuary?
Suddenly he knew. Eldoria's hut. He would rather die than enter it again, and somehow Sabrina must have discovered his attitude. Probably even now she was within those four remembered walls, laughing at him.
Anger kindled in him. The effrontery of her! Daring to pre-empt a moment that belonged solely to him! He would enter the hut if it killed him. If he had to, he would tear down its walls and banish its memory forever from the country of his mind.
With the aid of his pocket torch, he found her footprints in the dust. He followed them down the street, the three Erinyes tagging doggedly along behind him. The trail, erratic no longer, led straight to the labyrinthine alleys of the native sector and thence along the shortest route to Eldoria's hut. For a person who had never been to Dubhe 4, Sabrina York certainly knew her way around.
Maybe, though, she had been to Dubhe 4. He knew very little about her. He knew nothing at all, in fact, save that she had murdered her father. He did not even know how she had murdered him, or why. Abruptly Blake shoved the matter from his mind. It wasn't his business to know how or why she had done the deed. It was his business to find and apprehend her.
Presently, in the darkness before him, he made out a motionless white-robed figure. He approached it warily, found to his consternation that it was frozen in the act of taking a step forward. He shone his light into the face. It was dark bronze in hue. The eyes were wide apart, and the teeth showed in a vivid white line between half-parted purple lips. Eldoria, on her way to keep her tryst with him....