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  One he took as, laughing, he clapped his own hand on Dumarest's shoulder and called for wine to celebrate a draw.

  "To the finest companion any fighter could hope to find. One hard, fast, cunning-and who can take a joke." He lifted his goblet. "To Dumarest!"

  That toast was followed by others and it was late when Dumarest finally made his way to his room. His head ached a little though he was far from drunk, having pretended to drink far more than he had actually swallowed. Under the cold sting of the shower he thought of Massak and how he had left him; swaying, bawling mercenary songs and reliving old campaigns. A man who could have been an enemy but who now swore he was a friend. As Mirza Karroum had done. As Chenault had promised to keep his word.

  The spray ceased and Dumarest stepped from the shower to dry himself and, killing the lights, lay naked on the bed. Starglow from the window filled the room with silver, making a screen of the ceiling on which he projected mental images. Chenault standing in the clearing, tall, silent, almost as if graven from stone. Chenault in the hall leaning against the table as if for support. The same man who had spilled wine over his chin. Who had smashed a goblet in his hand.

  His face had been the same as it had in the study before his attack. His body, even his stance, but had there been a subtle wrongness? A man affected by drugs would have acted as he had done, a little unsteady on his feet, a shade unaware. Had Toyanna doped him so as to make a necessary appearance when Mirz had arrived with her demands? And, if she had, would he be fit enough to tell what he knew about Earth?

  A worry accompanied by another: if Avro was still alive then his personal danger was very real. He could have guided the woman to him-but no, the last thing he would want was for her to take her revenge. Instead he would use other methods and Dumarest never made the mistake of underestimating the power of the Cyclan.

  He dozed, starting awake to a faint rattle from the door, the sound as of someone trying to get into the room. Rising, he jerked away the chair holding it fast and opened the panel. In the passage outside Govinda shrank from the glittering menace of his knife.

  "Earl! I-"

  "Come inside." The door closed behind her, the chair again rammed into place. "What do you want?"

  A stupid question; the answer was in her eyes, her face. In the heat of her body felt as she stepped close to him. In the message of her arms as they lifted to close around his neck.

  In the burning demand of the kiss she imprinted on his lips.

  "I love you," she whispered. "Earl, my darling, I love you."

  He said nothing, the knife hanging at his side, his free hand rising to caress her hair.

  "Since the moment I saw you I knew we belonged together. I can sense such things. As I sense the void in your heart. The space you ache to fill." The pressure of her body was a warm and succulent invitation. "A space I can fill, my darling. My dearest darling. My love!"

  A woman enraptured, enamored, hopelessly in love-or one pretending to be.

  "Hold me, Earl! Take me in your arms, my darling. Kiss me! Kiss me!"

  Words to excite the senses, and gestures to match but all were the province of every actress and even the most inexperienced harlot knew how to emulate passion. Again he caressed her hair, running his hand over the contours of her body, finding nothing but heated flesh beneath the gossamer thinness of her robe. Yet weapons could be hidden in unsuspected places; drugs placed beneath the nails could bring quick unconsciousness once their points had pricked the skin and an ampoule, crushed between the teeth, could vent numbing vapors when impelled by a kiss.

  Yet she had kissed and touched him and he was unharmed.

  "Earl, what is wrong?" She stepped back from him, eyes wide, luminous in the starlight. Dark pools of shining brilliance as her hair was dark in the starglow. As were her lips and nails and darting tongue. As the thin fabric of her robe which showed betraying glints as she moved. As the dark areolas of her nipples surmounting the breasts which shifted with wanton, unfettered abandon. "Earl?"

  The magic was too strong. The web spun by perfume and starglow and warm, feminine flesh. Of soft lips and yielding contours and the ache in his heart which she seemed to know too well and which never ceased to hurt. The pain of what had been and would never be again. Could never be again until the end of time.

  "Earl?"

  "No!" He moved, reaching for the light, his head turned from her, eyes blinking, narrowing at the sudden, warmly yellow glare. "Don't say anything. Just leave me. Just-" He turned, falling silent as, around him, his universe collapsed.

  "Earl!" Kalin stepped toward him, arms lifted, mouth curved as he had seen it curve so often, eyes filled by the light he had never thought to see again. "Earl, my darling. My very own wonderful darling!"

  An illusion. Govinda using her talent and making herself appear to him as the thing he most wanted to see. The woman he most ached to possess. The one he missed most of all-and now had found again.

  Had found again!

  The joy of it blazed through him as he folded her in his arms. The touch of her lips, her hands, her body banishing all thought of illusion from his mind. She was what he wanted her to be and, becoming it, made him see her in that guise. See her and love her as he had never stopped loving her.

  "My darling! My love!" She cried out in the bittersweet pain of his caress. "My love!"

  Later, when again starglow filled the room, Dumarest turned to where she lay beside him, seeing the cascade of her hair spread on the pillow not black as it seemed but flaming red as he remembered. As red as the flame which she had set to burning within his heart.

  * * *

  In the dimness the lights were like the eyes of watching insects; red, yellow, blue, green, flashing and changing even as Kooga watched. The telltales on the instruments he had added; extra monitors which even now recorded every variation of the electromagnetic fields of the cyber's brain. Among them Avro lay like a corpse, mummified, immobile. The oxygen which kept him alive now pumped directly into his bloodstream by the mechanism which had bypassed both heart and lungs.

  A man, dying as all men must die, but the manner of his passing was something novel to Kooga's experience. The vitality was incredible as if, like an animal, the cyber clung to existence against all odds. And, as he sank even deeper toward final extinction, the cerebral activity increased against all logic. The patterns recorded by the pens of the encephalograph were of a complexity Kooga had never seen before: presenting a puzzle he itched to solve.

  "Doctor?"

  The nurse had arrived to make her routine check and stood, deferential, waiting for him to clear the area. A good worker, obedient, deft with her hands. Too deft for her to have done what he had told Vaclav she had done; such a nurse would never have disturbed any connection. But the lie had been a facile explanation of what he would rather the Chief did not know.

  "Doctor? Shall I attend the patient?"

  "A moment." Kooga forced himself to soften his normal, brusque manner. "Have you noticed any change in his condition?"

  "None that has not been recorded, Doctor."

  "No blame is intended," he said quickly. "I was thinking more of some intuitive feeling you may have had which did not register on the monitors. An impression," he urged. "A personal assessment which you may have felt. Such things happen." Too often for the peace of mind of those dealing with the bricks and mortar of ordinary medicine; sensations which defied analysis, guesses, hunches, odd certainties which led to unexpected results. He added, appealingly, "You know this is a special case and any help you can give will be appreciated."

  "I'd like to help, Doctor', it is my duty but-" She paused, frowning. "I don't think I can be of assistance."

  "Let me be the judge of that."

  "It's just that when I was attending him before the bypass was introduced I had the oddest impression that he was shouting at someone. It was as if-"

  "A moment, nurse. Was that after Mirza Karroum paid her visit?"

  "Yes, just
after you had attached the recorder to the patient's larynx." Her eyes met his, wide, innocent. "I noticed it, of course, while making the routine check. The higg-load light was showing on the encephalograph and, as I touched him, I seemed to hear a voice. Well, not hear it exactly, but-"

  "Sense it?"

  "Yes." She smiled her thanks at his help. "Almost as if a finger had touched my brain. But not quite that either. It was just a feeling. I can't explain it and, naturally, didn't report it. I'd almost forgotten it until you asked."

  A burst of cerebral activity which could have been triggered by her proximity and, because of the subtle affinity with the sick gained during her years of service, she had sensed it with a talent barely suspected. Kooga studied her as she stood beside the bed. An ordinary, honest, hard-working woman with an ingrained deference to those in authority. Questioned by the Cyclan physicians she would repeat what she had said and their questions as to the recorder he would do without. To discharge her would be simple yet that, in itself, could give rise to questions. Good nurses were simply not thrown aside without cause.

  He said, "As I remember it, nurse, you are due for a vacation. Certainly you merit a reward for your dedicated service. A month, I think, would not be too long. Starting immediately."

  "Doctor?"

  He saw her puzzlement and guessed its cause; he was not noted for generosity or undue concern with the welfare of those beneath him. Deliberately he grew brusque.

  "Aren't you due for vacation? I must be mistaken. However I am making other arrangements for this patient and you will no longer be needed. I was thinking of the Bilton Resort-you could fill in as emergency medical staff. I owe the resident practitioner a favor and you could help to repay it." To explain too much would be a mistake; one he avoided by an abrupt termination of the subject. "I will make all arrangements. Be ready to leave by morning."

  Alone he looked at the figure lying supine on the bed. Closing his eyes he tried to capture the feeling the nurse had mentioned but he lacked her affinity and gained nothing from the experiment. Opening his eyes, he studied the interplay of the telltales, the winking gleams which held a subtle mockery.

  The visible signs of cerebral activity of a man with a brain grown too big for his skull. One more dead than alive yet who, if the nurse was correct, was screaming for help.

  To whom?

  Chapter Eight

  Chenault said, "I owe you an apology, Earl. We should have met earlier."

  "Two days ago." Dumarest was blunt. "I had your promise."

  "I was not allowed to keep it." Chenault lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "At times Toyanna can be a veritable bully and she has the means to enforce her will. However, as I hear it, you have been pleasantly occupied."

  With the realization of a dream but Dumarest made no comment, looking instead at the study in which they sat. It was as it had been before; filled with the musty smells of old paper, leather, ancient oils. The repository of things long dead and things he hoped were still alive. On the table before him a decanter of ruby wine threw a warm patch of luminescence on the polished wood.

  "Legends," mused Chenault. "Stories from ancient times each holding a grain of truth. Dazym Negaso claims that a legend is, in reality, a means of passing a message from one generation to another. In order to be effective that message has to be simple and repetitious as well as holding its own attraction. So we talk of Eden, a place of ease and plenty. A place in which none knows pain. One in which all needs are satisfied. Things all find enticing. Bonanza is much the same; a world with seas of rare elixirs, mountains of precious metals, plains studded with gems. El Dorado much the same. Jackpot, Lucky Strike, a host of others." Pausing he added, softly, "And, of course, we have Earth."

  "Which is no legend."

  "As we agreed. The Original Home of Mankind from which they fled because of some devastating catastrophe." Chenault lifted his hands to make a T. "From Terra they fled-"

  "Yes," said Dumarest. "We've been through that."

  Chenault ignored the interruption, finishing the quotation, then, lifting his hands still in the position he had placed them, added, "The one became the many and the many shall again become the one. This in the fullness of time."

  A ritual and Dumarest repeated it.

  "You are wise." Chenault lowered his hands. "If we are to learn then we must learn to read what the ancients have left us. One race, leaving Earth and becoming the multitude of diverse types we now have. In time they will conjoin to become one again. This, I think, is clear. What is not is what they left behind. A planet devastated, destroyed, deserted-yet you are the living evidence that some remained. How did they survive? How far have they shifted from the original norm? What have they become?"

  Dumarest said, bitterly, "Savages."

  "You are sure? Remember, you can only speak from your own experience."

  "That and others. I was a boy when I left Earth. Stowing away on a ship and deserving to be evicted into space. The captain was kind, he spared me. He also kept a journal." Dumarest reached into a pocket and produced a folded sheet of paper. "Shakira had a sensitive, Melome, who had the ability to throw a person mentally backward through time. She managed to get me back in the ship, in the captain's cabin, looking at his open book. I read what he had written. This is it."

  Chenault took the paper, opened it, read aloud, " 'The cargo we loaded on Ascanio was spoiled and had to be unloaded at a total loss. A bad trip with no prospect of improvement so I took a chance and risked a journey to the proscribed planet. A waste of time-the place is a nightmare. God help the poor devils who lived here. Those remaining are degenerate scum little more than savage animals. Found a stowaway after we'd left, a boy who looks human. He claims to be twelve but looks younger and could be dangerous. Decided to take a chance and kept him but if he shows any sign of trouble I'll have to-' " Chenault looked at Dumarest. "It ends there."

  "I know."

  "Were you the boy he mentions?"

  "Yes."

  "Dangerous," murmured Chenault. "He was right in that but he should have added lucky as well. Not many stowaways are treated so gently. But this is no proof the planet he landed on was Earth."

  "I am the proof of that." Dumarest looked at his clenched hand, lifting it to slam hard on the table. "Damn it, man! I know where I was born!"

  Silence followed the fading drum-echo of the beaten table, broken by a soft click and, turning, Dumarest saw Baglioni standing before an open panel, one hand buried in a pocket.

  "It's all right," said Chenault. "It's quite all right." He smiled at Dumarest as the midget retreated behind the closed door. "I appreciate your impatience, Earl, but we must be objective. The evidence, alone, does not support your contention. Yet, obviously, you must have left the planet of your birth. A ship must have carried you. As you rode with it you must remember its name." He paused, waiting. "Do you?"

  "It had more than one name," said Dumarest. A fact he hadn't understood at the time. "When I joined the ship it was the Cucoco."

  "And the captain?"

  "Petrovna. Zuba Petrovna."

  "You see, we make progress." Chenault gestured to the wine. "Help yourself and relax. A tense mind and body do nothing to help solve any problem. One we can now look at from another angle. During your search you must have found clues. They are?"

  The spectrum of the sun which was Earth's primary; the Fraunhofer Lines forming a unique and identifiable pattern. The circle of the constellations forming designs when seen from Earth. A moon resembling a pocked skull when seen in the full. A direction. A region in which the planet must be; one toward the edge of the spiral arm where stars were few and the nights lacking the splendor of Lychen.

  Items over which Chenault mused as if he were a jeweler studying gems.

  "The spectrum will tell us where we are when we find it but to isolate one from so many stars is a formidable task. One you have tried, perhaps?"

  "Yes," said Dumarest. "The cost was prohibitive."

>   "Understandable and the effort would be wasted if the computer consulted lacked the essential data. As it is missing from the almanacs such a probability is high. The constellations?" A shrug dismissed their immediate value. "Like the spectrum they will only tell us where we are when we get there. The direction; the seventh decant, well, that covers a vast area. As does the bleak night-time sky. The moon is of little more help as many worlds have oddly fashioned satellites. You have more, perhaps?"

  "Names," said Dumarest. "Sirius 8.7. Procyon 11.4. Altair 16.5. Epsilon Indi 11.3. Alpha Centauri 4.3." He added, "The numbers are the distances of the stars from Earth's sun."

  "Signposts in the sky." Chenault nodded as he considered them. "Valuable data, Earl. A relationship could be established and the central point found. A simple matter of mathematical determination. Surely you must have checked the data?"

  Dumarest said, bleakly, "I tried. The stars are not listed."

  "Or their names have been changed. Even so, the correlation remains. The seventh decant, you say?" Again Chenault brooded over the data, leaning back in his chair, his eyes like glass as they gleamed with reflected light. "One other thing; the ship on which you left Earth."

  "The Cucoco?"

  "It must have had more than a name. What were its markings?"

  A device totally unfamiliar and now almost forgotten. One Dumarest drew with frowning slowness on the paper Chenault pushed toward him.

  "This? Are you sure?" Chenault looked up from the paper, rising as Dumarest nodded. "Let me see, now." He moved to a shelf, took down a heavy volume bound in cracked and moldering leather, riffled through the pages to stand, finger on an item. He said, "The clue, Earl. You've given me the final clue. I know where Earth is to be found."

  * * *

  It was something he had dreamed of a thousand times; the occasion when, in answer to his question, he would receive not blank stares or mocking laughter but the affirmative which would signal the end of his quest. The person who knew where his home was to be found. Now, incredibly, he had found him.