Symbol of Terra dot-30 Page 9

  Yet he had to be sure. "You mean that?"

  "Yes, Earl. I mean it."

  Dumarest said, slowly, "I want the truth, Chenault. No guesses, wild assumptions or vague promises. If you know the coordinates set them down on that paper and I'll be in your debt. But if you're toying with me-" He broke off, looking at his hands resting on the table, the fists they made, the knuckles white beneath the skin. "I'm in no mood for games. Not now or ever on that subject. If you don't mean what you say admit it now."

  "Or you will kill me?" Chenault read the answer in the face turned toward him, the hard stare of the eyes. "A fair warning, Earl, but unnecessary. I know where Earth is to be found."

  "The coordinates-"

  "Have yet to be determined." Chenault lifted a hand to still any protest. "It is merely a matter of time. The puzzle is now complete. I promise you I know the answer. I swear it."

  His voice carried the truth and Dumarest relaxed. Wine gushed from the decanter as he tipped it over a glass, the ruby fluid like water in his mouth, warming as he refilled the glass, both drinks joining in his stomach to wash away the residue of tension. A time of celebration, the drinks a libation to ancient gods who, at last, had been kind.

  "You gave me the final clue." Chenault resumed his chair, the heavy volume to one side on the polished board. "The device was the sigil of the House of Macheng. They operated in the seventh decant, running a fleet of small trading vessels. The Cucoco must have been one of them." Pausing, one hand touching the book, he said with an abrupt change of subject, "Did Shakira ever tell you what his specialty was?"

  "He had the ability to recognize talent when he saw it. Even when it had still to be developed."

  "And mine is the ability to solve puzzles." Chenault stroked the book with a gesture like a caress. "Anagrams, acrostics, crosswords, riddles- all, to me, are difficulties which do not exist. Elaborate incantations containing hidden meanings, jumbled formulae, the mazes in which men try to hide true meaning all yield to my skill. Can you wonder why I turned to harder problems? Using my skill to unravel the truth hidden in legends? Most are just fanciful stories dreamed up by desperate people to provide a modicum of comfort in harsh and bitter times. The promise of pleasure to come in some distant time. Tales taken and embroidered with added glitter to become worlds of vast and incredible riches. Many such worlds are basically the same-Bonanza, Jackpot, Lucky Strike- all sharing the same promise of vast fortunes. Others offer different rewards; ease, health, youth, tranquility but, again, too many bear the same similarities. Eden, Avalon, Elysium, Heaven, Paradise-you understand the point I am making?"

  "Legends and the growth of legends," said Dumarest. "One kernel of fact becoming two, four, a dozen. But Earth is no legend."

  "Neither is Ryzam."

  Dumarest reached for the decanter and poured, looking at Chenault, setting aside the wine as the other shook his head.

  "Ryzam," said Chenault. "I'll wager you've never heard of it but you must know what it offers. Youth, restored vigor, health, the crippled made whole again, the maimed and the dying given new life. A magic place with a dozen names-give me one."

  "Argentis."

  "Argentis," murmured Chenault. "And Farnese, Djem, Delyon, Mytha, Elagon; the names are legion. But all stem from one and Ryzam is the source. Ryzam, the origin of a score of wonder-worlds, and yet it isn't a world at all. Just a place on a planet which legend has enhanced beyond all recognition. I must go there."

  Dumarest sipped at his wine and said, "We were talking of Earth."

  "And now we are talking of Ryzam. A fascinating place, Earl, one steeped in legend and fanciful tales but all stemming from undeniable truth. I stumbled on the essential data while pursuing my studies in kindred legends and soon decided that, somehow, various threads had become tangled to present a false whole. Unraveling them took years, isolating pertinent information occupied decades. Then a trader sold me an old log and in it I found the essential clue. As important to the solution as the one you gave me appertaining to Earth. Ryzam," Chenault looked at the decanter, the pool of ruby shadow at its foot. "A place as important to me as Earth is to you. As I said, I must go there."

  Dumarest said, "Do you know where it is?"

  "Yes."

  "Then you'll have no trouble finding it. As I'll have no trouble finding Earth once I have the coordinates." Dumarest paused then added, "The ones you will give me."

  "Give?" Chenault turned to meet Dumarest's eyes, his own direct. "Why should I give them to you?"

  "In return for the information I gave you. The clue you said was all-important."

  "And what of my years of study? The expense of rare and ancient books? Logs? Charts? A host of kindred data? And my skill-is that of no value? Come, my friend, be reasonable. Surely you don't expect charity?"

  The goblet Dumarest was holding quivered a little; the movement betrayed by the shimmer of the wine it held. Carefully he set it down, withdrawing his hand, feeling the polished surface of the table beneath his fingers. Wood which fretted beneath his nails.

  "I want those coordinates, Chenault."

  "And you shall have them. I swear it. But not as a gift but as a reward justly earned." Chenault made a gesture, smiling, but the iron of his voice matched the cold hardness of his eyes. "Earth, Ryzam, the two sides of a coin. You need to find one and I must go to the other. Help me and I will help you-it is as simple as that."

  * * *

  On the bed Govinda stirred, mumbling, uneasy in her sleep. Standing before the window Dumarest glanced at her then looked again through the pane. In the shadows fire burned as the nocturnal life of the valley followed its normal path. Streaks of color he noted but ignored as again he tasted the bile of angry defeat. To be so close, to have been led to believe so much-then to have the prize he valued so much snatched from his hand to be held at a tantalizing distance.

  If the prize existed at all.

  A thought which drove him from the window toward the door, halting as Govinda stirred again, mumbling, rearing up to cry his name.

  "Earl! Hold me-Earl!"

  The fragments of nightmare which he soothed away with gentle hands, feeling the warmth of her body close to him, the silken mane of her hair soft against his cheek. Only when, at last, she was sleeping quietly did he move, easing free the door, opening it, closing it behind him as he moved down the passage. The stairs were deserted, the great hall, the corridors beyond. The study door was firm and he leaned against it before lifting the knife from his boot and driving the steel to disengage the catch. Inside it was black with a smothering darkness, one destroyed as he found the switch and illuminated the room with an even glow.

  It was as he had left it, the wine still on the table, the goblets, one clean the other still holding what he had left. The chairs and, close to where Chenault had been sitting, the massive tome he had consulted. Dumarest opened it, finding the paper on which he had drawn the marking adorning the hull of the Cucoco. One repeated on a page followed by scant information.

  House of Macheng. Traders. Main field of operations 7th Dec. XVB34TYCS23R.

  The truth as Chenault had relayed it-the following figures and numbers were probably some condensed coding which told him nothing. Yet, to Chenault, they could hold the secret he had hunted for so long. In which case there would have to be an appendix.

  Dumarest lifted the pages, began to riffle them, then halted as, frowning, he looked at the symbols. Many were alike and he studied the one he had inscribed. Loops, bars, slanted lines and yet… and yet…

  Then, suddenly, he was a child again, crouched shivering behind a dune, staring at the strange vessel lying before him. The open, unguarded port, the daubed symbol plain against the scarred hull.

  Not the one he had shown Chenault but one almost like it. One with two extra bars and one less loop. One which he saw lower down on the same page.

  Ukmerge Combine. Traders. 7th and 8th Dec. Fringe. BAS92UGSA73C

  The same decant-but why had Chenau
lt made such a play on the importance of the clue? One Dumarest now knew to be false. If the code-figures were the heart of the matter then they couldn't have yielded the correct data. Which meant that Chenault had lied as to his knowledge or had known the answer all the time.

  Closing the book Dumarest looked around at the tomes, the charts, the latest introductions. Any researcher needed a system to enable him, if no one else, to file and retrieve his discovered information. The computer? A musty folder? One of the ranked books? If the entire program had been reduced to the essential coordinates it could be anywhere.

  Dumarest moved to the computer and tapped keys. The screen lit, flared with the negation symbol, went blank again. What he had expected: lacking the operating code the machine refused to obey his command. A folder marked with a crossed circle held nothing but sheaves of closely typed figures. Another contained computer read-outs useless without the cypher-code. A book yielded nothing and was tossed aside. Others followed it. As he reached for a mnemonic cube Dumarest heard the sound of movement and spun, hand falling to knife, staring at Chenault standing at the end of the table.

  "Wine, Earl?" He moved the decanter again, the glass rasping over the wood. "I offer it freely- you have no need to steal."

  "I'm no thief!"

  "No?" Chenault shrugged. "Then why break in here? What did you hope to find?"

  "You know damn well what I wanted." Dumarest took a step toward the other man, another, a third. "I warned you not to play games with me. Not to lie."

  "I haven't. I-"

  "You're using the oldest con trick ever known: sell someone a promise then make them sweat blood for fear of losing what they never had. You tried it on me. Dangled the carrot then demanded the price. All right, I'll pay it. Give me the coordinates and I'm with you every step of the way." His voice deepened to a snarl, matching the savage mask of his face. "Deliver, Chenault. Play it straight. I warned you what would happen if you didn't."

  Dumarest moved, jerking to one side as the decanter Chenault held hurtled toward him to splinter against the far wall with a crash of glass. As he lunged for the door the man caught him, gripping with fingers which reached bone, jerking him backwards with savage force. Dumarest twisted, snatched out his knife, drove the blade directly at the massive torso. It struck, grated, slipped from the chest to slash at the arm. The injury had no effect and Dumarest felt hands close around his windpipe.

  "Fool!" Chenault tightened his grip. "You fool!"

  Dumarest arched his back, drove up his knee, missed the groin and slammed the pommel of his knife hard on the other's forehead. A blow followed by another a little to one side, more as the hands eased their grip and he tore free.

  "No!" Chenault backed, hands lifted to protect his face. "No! Please I-" He broke off, slumping, one arm lifting in appeal. "Help. I need-please!"

  He caught at the table as Dumarest reached the door, falling to the floor as he dived into the passage. Turning to follow the path Toyanna had taken, halting as, again, Baglioni appeared before him, dart-gun in hand.

  "That's enough!" The midget lifted the weapon. "You know you can't beat this so-"

  He didn't see the knife Dumarest threw, didn't feel it until it slammed against his weapon and knocked it from his hand. Didn't see him move until, suddenly, he was suspended in the air, his face inches from Dumarest's own.

  "Where is he?" Dumarest snarled his impatience and shook the diminutive figure. "Where the hell is he?"

  "Who? What-" Baglioni squealed as Dumarest dug fingers into his neck. "Don't!"

  "Then take me to him." Dumarest slammed the man to his feet. "Take me to Chenault!"

  Chapter Nine

  He lay like a mummy in a crystal tomb; a pale shred of humanity festooned with wires and the pipes of a life-support system. His face was drawn, corpse-like, the mask of an ancient time. One shadowed by an elaborate construction of pads and lenses, microphones and receptors. Looking at him Dumarest was reminded of an insect caught and cocooned by a predatory spider. One who came to stand before him, tall, somber in her black. "You guessed," said Pia Toyanna. "How?"

  "He seemed too young for the age he had to be." Dumarest looked at the figure in the transparent cabinet. "And the first time I sat with him in his study I felt there was something wrong. I couldn't hear his heartbeat or sound of breathing. Other things." Small things added to the one big thing his basic nature had recognized; the absence of a living organism. Sitting with Chenault had been like sitting with a machine. "How long?"

  "Since shortly after he sold the circus. His health had been bad for a long time and, suddenly, it grew worse. Myositis, myotonia, myasthenia gravis-his muscular system just fell apart. Toward the end he couldn't even lift a finger."

  And so the surrogate. The machine shaped like a man which reacted to the amplified impulses caught by the receptors covering Chenault's body. Lying in his box he would see what the machine saw, hear what it heard and, in return, it would move as he wanted to move, say what he wanted to say.

  "Vosper built it," she said. "He's an engineering genius and Lopakhin helped. Basically it's just a sophisticated version of a remotely operated mining robot; one using radio to transmit the impulses instead of wires. A machine-but to Tama it is more than life itself."

  "And to Baglioni?" Dumarest glanced at the midget where he stood before the door, silent, rigid in his anger. "He used it too, didn't he? When Chenault was too weak to operate it. The time Mirza came, for example, and the master of the house had to show himself."

  "How did you know?"

  "He was unsteady, unsure of himself and his control was bad. The glass he smashed by too great an application of pressure. The wine he attempted to pour into his mouth and sent to dribble over his chin. Other things. But it was a good try."

  "But Baglioni? It could have been anyone."

  "You? Hilary? Vosper at times? The rest were accounted for. And only Baglioni was so fiercely protective of Chenault. A return for Tama giving him the opportunity to feel a fully grown man." Dumarest looked at him, then at her. The midget's loyalty was accounted for but what held her to Chenault? The others?

  She said, when he asked, "Tama is a good man. We owe him much."

  For her the opportunity to stretch her skills to the ultimate, fighting death and decay with everything she had or could get. For Vosper the chance to prove himself a genius and the same for Lopakhin. For Hilary a refuge. For Toetzer the same. For Govinda?

  A woman crippled with her need to become a mother. Toyanna shook her head when, bluntly, he asked the question.

  "No, Earl, you can't father her child. No man living can do that. She is barren, sterile beyond all hope of ever bearing life. Transplants are rejected. I've put a half-dozen foeti within her womb and all have failed to survive. And yet still she hopes." Her face softened as she looked at him. "Take my warning, Earl, don't fall too deeply in love with her. Remember, she isn't what she seems."

  Not to him or to any man but if the illusion was strong enough did the harsh reality matter? What if her hair lacked Kalin's true flame? Her body was not quite identical? Her mind not the savage flame of true affinity he had once known but a shadow of that overwhelming joy? It was there. It existed and against it the ghost of what had been had no chance. This was a woman he could hold in his arms, feel her, possess her, respond to her own passionate demands. And, on the foundation of wanting, grew the substance of fact.

  He loved Govinda.

  Govinda… Kalin… Kalinda.

  Now, for him, the two were the same.

  Baglioni said, "What are you going to do?"

  "Do?" Dumarest saw the anxious inquiry in the midget's eyes. "Nothing."

  "I don't understand. If it means so little to you then why force your way into here?"

  "I wanted the truth," said Dumarest. "And I grew tired of being taken for a fool. I came here to learn something and I think you all know what it is. Chenault swore he could give it to me. He can still give it to me. Once I have it I
'll leave."

  "With Govinda?" Toyanna fired the question then shook her head as Dumarest nodded. "She won't go with you."

  "I'd prefer her to tell me that."

  "She'll tell it-her life is tied in with the rest of us. And we are bound to Tama."

  "Bound? Held?" Dumarest echoed his impatience. "That mummery at the table? The secret society? The cult? There is nothing mystical about Earth. It is a planet. A world circling a sun. It knows heat and cold and bleakness but there are no ancient sages there, no magicians, no gods. No answers either," he added, "no matter what you may choose to believe. No superior race from which all others sprung. I know. I was born there."

  "And so must be a part of that race if ever it existed." Toyanna pressed her point. "Be a child of those who were left. Carrying in your body their genes, their attributes-tell me, Earl, do you regard yourself as normal?"

  He said nothing, staring at her, waiting.

  "Your speed," she said. "I saw you fight and, at times, you seemed a blur. Such reflexes are rare. And the way you knew Chenault's surrogate was not really a human being-how many ordinary people would have sensed the difference? With Govinda you-but never mind that, enough to say that you have a certain charm which appeals to the basic in a woman. I've felt it, Hilary, even Mirza despite her age. A defensive mechanism, perhaps, certainly a survival trait. For your genes if not for yourself. And there is more. Why are you so enamored with returning to Earth? What attraction can that world have for you? Or is the need to return based on something deeper? A drive dictated by a compulsion beyond your comprehension?"

  Questions for which he had no answers but only another question.

  "Are you saying that I'm not human?"

  "No, not that. If anything you could be more than human. An improvement, taking humanity as we know it, a better breed of person." Toyanna made a gesture of resignation. "As a doctor I've seen too many divergences from the norm. Any norm we care to establish so that now the word itself has ceased to hold meaning. A man is an animal who can breed with others of his kind. No matter what shape he has, what color, what size-as long as he can breed, he belongs to the same species. Even mutants as long as they remain sexually viable must be termed human no matter how they appear. Even freaks."