The Quillian Sector Read online

  "Earl?"

  "I'm thinking."

  "Of us?"

  Of Jumoke, and the expression he'd seen in the navigator's eyes on their return to the ship. Of the way the man had watched Dilys. His hurt when she had turned from him. His pain when she had praised what Dumarest had done.

  "It's normal," she said quietly. "Ship-marriage, I mean. To last as long as either of us wants it to. No obligations."

  "I know."

  "You've had one before?"

  "Yes." He looked at her and, in the moonglow, saw Lallia with her mane of ebon hair. Lallia, now long dead and long since dust. "Yes," he said again. "I've been ship-wed. But not again. Not with you."

  "Am I so repulsive?"

  "No." How could he explain? How to tell a woman in love that her love was not returned? How to be kind when he was being cruel? "Listen," he said, "and try to understand. You are a lovely woman and an intelligent one. Too intelligent to act the child and cry when you can't get your own way. And I think too much of you to lie. I like you, yes, but I don't want to marry you. Not even ship-marry you. I-"

  He broke off as she rested her fingers against his lips. They were soft and held the scent of perfume, a heady fragrance which strengthened as she leaned forward to look into his eyes.

  "No," she whispered. "Say no more. I understand. You are trying to save me from hurt, but when has pleasure ever been free of pain? You are kind, Earl, and gentle. And you care. My darling, you care!"

  Chapter Five

  On Ellge, they picked up a dancer, a woman of fading beauty with a heavily painted face, hands which held the likeness of claws, eyes the bleakness of glass. A creature long past her prime, now moving to worlds of lesser competition. Those with a cruder appreciation of her art, on which she could still earn a living and, perhaps, find a man to support her to the end of her days.

  On Vhenga, they took on a dispenser of charms; a thin-faced man with an embroidered cloak and a box filled with strange nostrums and exotic ointments. The dancer stayed on, finding a kindred soul in the seller of charms, spending long hours huddled with him over the gaming table in the salon, where she played her cards as if they were pieces of her own flesh.

  On Cheen, they were joined by two dour engineers, a time-served contract man from the mines and a minor historian from the Institute.

  On Varge, they took on a professional dealer in items of death.

  Like the dispenser of charms, he was tall, thin-faced, sparse in body, but where Fele Roster had crinkles in the corners of his eyes and a wry smile wreathing his lips, thin though they might be, Shan Threnond's face was a mask from which he looked with cynical indifference on a universe he had taken no part in making, and which he understood all too well.

  A man of business, who wasted no time in setting up his trade in the salon, unwilling to waste a moment as the Entil hurtled through the void, wrapped in the humming, space-eating power of its Erhaft drive.

  "Here we have a small item which must hold interest for all who value the safety of their skins," he murmured as, with deft hands, he set out his wares on the rich darkness of a velvet cloth. "In the shape of a ring, as you see, and the stone and mounting are of intrinsic value. But note, the stone is drilled and contains three darts, each of which can be fired by a simple contraction of the muscle. The stone can be removed and recharged so as to allow practice. Observe." He slipped the ring on a finger, aimed it at a scrap of board, lowered the appendage at the second joint. Those watching heard a barely audible spat and, on the board, a thing shrilled with vicious life. Almost immediately, it created an area of disintegration around it; a pit which dribbled a fine dust and from which, finally, it fell.

  "The harmonics are destructive to all organic matter," said the dealer quietly. "The area affected is half as deep as it is wide. In flesh there are toxic side effects. The shock-impact is vast, the pain is great and, aimed at the throat, death is certain."

  "Unless the dart is quickly removed?"

  "Yes." Shan Threnond glanced at the dancer. "You know of these things, madam?"

  She ignored the stilted courtesy. "I've seen them before. And, on Heldha, I saw a man whipped to the edge of death for owning such a thing."

  "A backward world, my lady."

  "A logical one." One of the engineers rasped a hand over his chin. "They don't like assassins."

  "Does anyone?" Threnond lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "But a man must protect himself. Surely you would not deny anyone that right? And a woman must take elementary precautions against those who would do her harm. You, my lady, must have had experience of such dangers. At least, felt at times the need to reduce the pressure of an unwanted passion, shall we say? This will do exactly that." He lifted another item from his store. "A ring again-but what better place to carry a weapon than on a finger? There it can remain, always in clear view, apparently harmless, yet ready for immediate action should the need arise. This contains a pressurized drug which can be blasted into a face. Within two seconds, the recipient will be stunned and helpless long enough for the user to escape, change the situation, or summon aid."

  "A whore's device." Fele Roster shook his head in distaste. "No decent woman would ever allow herself to become involved in the kind of situation you mention."

  "You talk like a fool," snapped the dancer. "Decency has nothing to do with it. How much?"

  "For the ring? In gold, with a genuine ruby, three hundred urus. With a synthetic gem, a hundred less. For paste and gilt, a hundred-the cost of the inner mechanism and charge must, of course, remain the same."

  "I'll take a synthetic." The dancer pointed with a hooked finger. "That one. And another with the darts. How much for both?"

  Later, lying beside him in the snug confines of his cabin, Dilys said, "Why did she buy such things, Earl? An old woman like that."

  "She is afraid."

  "And so arms herself? Against what?"

  Against the terrors of the mind, which were often more frightening than those of reality. Against age itself, and imagined hunger. Against potential illness and poverty and neglect. Against threats she had known and dangers she had passed and could meet again. Like the scum they had met on Vult, and others who haunted the dark corners of primitive worlds.

  Dilys said, after he'd explained, "Those rings won't give her much protection if she is attacked. She could miss, or the attacker could be armored, or there could be more than one. And the mere attempt to defend herself could anger them."

  "So?"

  She flushed, grasping his meaning, sensing his lack of sympathy with any who thought that way, or who imagined trouble could be avoided by the closing of eyes.

  "Do you think I'm a coward, Earl?"

  "No."

  "But-?" She broke off as if waiting for an answer, and when none came, continued, "It's my size. Just because you're big, people think you must be hard and tough and aggressive, but it isn't like that at all. At least, not as far as I'm concerned. I hate violence, and always have. When I see it, I want to run away from it, and when I get mixed up in it, like on Vult, I-well, I just can't handle it. If that isn't being a coward, what is?"

  "I don't know."

  "Don't lie to me, Earl."

  "I'm not." Dumarest turned to look at her in the soft, nacreous lighting. Moonglow touched her cheeks and shadowed her eyes, glimmered from the rich, full contours of her naked body, touched breasts and hips and the curve of thighs with creamy halations. "Cowardice is determined by other people on the basis of what they think someone else should have done in a particular situation. It's also a cheap term of abuse. What we're really talking about is survival. Sometimes, in order to survive, you have to kill. At other times, you have to run. If you try to kill and fail, then you aren't brave, you're dead. If you run and escape, you aren't a coward, you're alive."

  "Black and white," she said. "You make it sound all so simple. Either a thing is or it isn't, but surely there are shades of gray? Possibilities in between?"

  "A man
is either alive or dead," said Dumarest. "How can there be degrees between? He can be crippled or ill or diseased, but those are degrees of efficiency, not of life. He is alive until he is dead."

  "And to stay alive, sometimes he has to run." She turned her head to look at him, the helmet of hair catching and reflecting the light to make a golden haze framing the broad planes of her face. "Have you ever had to run, my darling?"

  "Yes."

  "From home?" She repeated the question wanting, womanlike, to know of his early days. "Did you run away from home in order to seek adventure?"

  "To avoid starvation," he said bluntly. "I was little more than a boy and I stowed away on a ship. I was more than lucky-the captain could have evicted me. Instead, he allowed me to earn my passage. A long time ago, now. A long time."

  Long enough to have moved deeper into the galaxy where suns glowed hot and close, and shipping was plentiful. Into a region where even the very name of Earth had become the subject of humor. A planet forgotten, but one which he had to find. Would find.

  "Home," she said gently. "Earth is your home and you want to return. But why, Earl? If there was nothing for you there when you left, what can be waiting for you now?"

  "Nothing."

  "But-"

  "You said it, Dilys. Home. A man can have only one."

  A place to call his own. A world on which to settle and on which to make his mark. To build a house and raise a family, to find happiness and contentment. A dream, one born during the long, lonely journeys between the stars. An ideal nurtured to give a meaning to life, a reason for existing. A determination which drove him to find his world or die trying.

  A waste! God, such a waste!

  She felt his warmth close beside her, the comfort he gave, the sense of security she enjoyed when she was with him. A man of whom any woman could be proud. As she was proud when watching him at work in the salon, gambling with calm efficiency, apparently unaware of the stares thrown at him by women, the calculating appraisal of their eyes.

  Could they sense the loneliness she had recognized? The bleak isolation in which he lived, the cold emptiness of life spent journeying from world to world, the frustration of an endless, hopeless search? And always a stranger among strangers, any liaison only temporary, any love doomed to wither, to fade, to die.

  "Earl," she whispered, "don't you ever get tired? Don't you ever want to stop and settle down and live as most men do?" A question she waited in vain for him to answer. "I've some property on Swenna. It isn't much, a farm and enough ground to keep a dozen alive, but there is a river and the mountains are close and, at night during summer, the air is so sweet with perfume it can make you drunk. If you ever get tired, Earl, if you ever want a place to stay and rest and maybe relax awhile, it's yours. I'd be there, if you wanted me. And you wouldn't regret it, I swear to that." Her hand reached out to touch him, to glide in a possessive caress over his shoulder, his arm. "Think about it, darling. At least think about it."

  In the shadows, something moved, a click and a portion of the chamber bloomed with variegated lights, the hologram seeming to hang suspended in the air, to have brought a literal section of space itself into the confined boundaries of the room.

  "The Rift," said the technician, "As you ordered, my lord."

  Caradoc said, "You are mistaken. I asked for a detailed display of the Quillian Sector."

  "I-my apologies. A mistake. It will be corrected immediately."

  And would never be repeated. A word, and the technician would be demoted, branded as an indifferent worker, denied access to the sophisticated equipment housed in the building of the Hafal-Glych-a slur on his reputation which he would never live down. And the word would be given. Cyber Caradoc had no time for carelessness and no patience where inefficiency was concerned. Now, as the display changed, he nodded and gestured dismissal. Only when alone did he step toward the shimmering profusion of multicolored lights and smoky blotches of roiling ebon which constituted the Quillian Sector.

  A region of space overcrowded with suns, over-profuse with worlds, hyperactive with electronic forces. Energies which nullified the normal use of radio-even the high-beam transmitters operating at maximum power and negating the limitations of light were, at the best, erratic. An irritation and a danger, but steps had been taken and all was proceeding according to plan.

  Soon, now, the man would be taken.

  Soon, now, the long chase would be over and Dumarest would be held by the Cyclan to yield the secret he possessed and which they rightfully owned.

  A step, and lights reflected their images on the taut features and the scarlet robe, little dots of blue and green, yellow and amber, violet and ruby-the latter lost against the fabric but showing like sores against the skin of Caradoc's face. A good analogy; the ruby points were planets on which humanoid life was impossible; worlds of reeking vapors, tormented volcanoes, boiling, acid seas, poisonous atmospheres.

  The dots of other colors showed worlds and suns in various stages of development and activity.

  The ebon blotches were the dust clouds which held the Quillian Sector as though in the palm of a close-cupped hand.

  "Master." An acolyte had entered the room on silent feet. "A message from Edhal. The Belzdek reports negative."

  So the woman had lied. Caradoc was not surprised; he had expected nothing less. Bochner could have been mistaken, or could have lied in turn for some devious reason of his own. A matter of small probability, but even though small, it existed and had to be taken into account. As all things had to be taken into account, each given a measure of relative importance and relevance, each set against all other available facts in order to arrive at an extrapolated prediction.

  An exercise of a mind chosen and trained by the Cyclan, which judged intellectual ability to be prized above all else.

  Again, Caradoc studied the glimmering display, mind active as he assessed various probabilities, traced various paths between the stars. Only when he had exhausted all applicable combinations did he step back and head toward the door leading to the small private room placed at his disposal by those who ran the Hafal-Glych for the combine's true owners.

  "Total seal," said Caradoc. "I am not to be disturbed for any reason."

  "Master." The acolyte bowed and moved to take up his position outside the door. His life would be spent in guarding it, should the need arise.

  Within the room, Caradoc touched the wide bracelet banding his left wrist. Invisible energy streamed from it, creating a zone of force through which no electronic eye or ear could operate. An added precaution to ensure his absolute privacy, as was the curtained window and the locked and guarded door.

  Taking his place on a narrow cot, Caradoc closed his eyes and concentrated on the Samatchazi formulae. Gradually, his senses blurred and lost their function. Had he opened his eyes he would have been blind. Isolated in the prison of his skull, his mind ceased to be irritated by external stimuli and by means of the self-induced sensory deprivation, became a thing of pure intellect; its reasoning awareness the only conscious link with life. Only then did the engrafted Homochon elements become roused from quiescence. Rapport was soon established.

  Caradoc took on a new dimension of life.

  It was as if his mind had expanded to become a shimmering bubble which drifted among a host of other bubbles, all resplendent in variegated colors. A universe filled with glowing beauty which merged and wended one against the other to swirl and adopt new and ever-changing patterns of mathematical symmetry. Light which burned away the darkness of ignorance. Colors which expanded the visual spectrum. Form which held content. Content which held truth. Truth fashioned in a web which spanned the universe of which he was a living, active part. A part even as, at the same time, he was the whole. A bubble among other bubbles which were one bubble reflected to infinity.

  At the heart of the shimmering beauty, at the very epicenter of the shifting patterns, rested the headquarters of the Cyclan. Buried far beneath the surface of a remot
e world, the central intelligence absorbed his knowledge as a desert absorbs water. A mental communication of almost instantaneous transference against which mechanical means of supralight contact were the merest crawl.

  A moment, and then it was over.

  The rest was sheer enjoyment, a mental intoxication which flooded his being and filled his brain with dancing motes of euphoric delight. Always was this period after rapport during which the Homochon elements sank back into quiescence and the machinery of his body began to realign itself with mental harmony. Caradoc floated in an ebon nothingness while he experienced strange, unlived situations, scraps of memory, fragments of exotic experiences, memories filled with outr? images-the residue of other intelligences, the overflow of other minds.

  It came from the aura surrounding the tremendous installation of central intelligence, the radiated power of the great cybernetic complex which was the heart of the Cyclan. One day, he would be a part of that installation. His body would age and fail but his brain would be saved, removed from his skull and joined in series with the millions of other brains taken from cybers who had lived before him and now continued to live as disembodied brains in vats of nutrient fluid. He would live as they lived, totally divorced from the irking irritations of the body, able to concentrate on matters of pure thought. A time of endless tranquility in which he and they would work to solve each and every problem of the galaxy.

  The reward of every cyber, but one which would be denied to him should he fail.

  Opening his eyes, Caradoc stared at the ceiling, waiting for his motor functions to reach optimum before rising from the couch. A touch, and the bracelet was deactivated. The acolyte bowed as he left the room and entered the chamber to stand once again before the display.

  "Master?"

  The acolyte was bold, but Caradoc could appreciate his interest. And no potential cyber could be other than proudly alert-a trait to be encouraged as long as that pride did not usurp respect.