by E. C. Tubb
"Now tell me how you're going to get it to him?"
"By ship, of course, how else? I'll-" Vardoon broke off and said slowly, "No. No, he wouldn't do it. He can't."
"Kalova?"
"The Maximus. He holds the field but he can't stop free trade. He daren't." He sounded as if he wanted reassurance. "Earl, he can't do that."
"Then maybe you should tell him." Dumarest took a sip of his own wine. "And while he's giving you the answer he might tell you the real reason he was so eager to find and stop us. Or maybe you've worked it out for yourself by now. Remember those rafts which appeared in front of us? The argument as to permissions? They came from ahead, right? From the north. And did you see the glint of copper? Domes among the rock? Places camouflaged so as to look natural?"
Hints, truth mixed with suggestion but suggestion used to illuminate one facet of the truth.
"A monopoly!" Vardoon slammed his hand hard against his knee. "Somehow he's found how to breed vreks and so ensure a high and steady revenue. No wonder the bastard has managed to stay Maximus for so long!"
"Was he that when you were here?"
"No, he took over about fifteen years ago."
"A long time to stay on top?"
"Too damned long, but the revenue could account for it. And he holds the field." Vardoon drank and looked into his empty goblet. "A search," he said. "He'll make a search and confiscate any ardeel he finds. He'll say it was poached and so justify the act. If we complain who will listen? What holder would care?"
"Our hostess," said Dumarest. "Our partner."
"Yours, Earl. Not mine. So you've shown me I'm in a bind but I'll work it out somehow. Come to a deal of some kind."
If he guessed of the cyber's interest the temptation could be too strong, the deal too enticing. The ardeel, passage, every obstacle moved aside-for Dumarest safely delivered.
"I've made a deal," said Dumarest. "And you're a part of it. You can come in willingly or not but either way you come in. A part of what we found isn't enough. We need it all. She needs it. Fiona."
"Revenue to back her play," said Vardoon. "Earl, you're crazy! You don't know what it's all about!"
"And you do?" Dumarest pressed on. "But you would, you've been here before. You know all about the system. Too much about it, maybe. The shale, for example, and your interest in the holders. The equipment you bought-a good guess if it was a guess. Do you remember what I told you back on Polis? How I hate to be cheated?"
"How cheated? I promised you ardeel and you have it."
"Which is why you're still alive." Dumarest leaned toward the other man, the fingers of his right hand resting on the hilt of the knife riding above his boot. "While you were healing I got to thinking about a few things. Emil Velen, for example, his sister, his uncle, the way he is said to have died. Not in the hills but in the sea. Now how could you have made such a mistake?"
"I didn't." Vardoon met the cold, hard eyes. "People lie when it suits them. Carmodyne would have wanted to save the girl. Emil-"
"A young hothead," interrupted Dumarest. "Chafing at his dependence on his mother. Not liking the way she handled things and impatient to get in on the game. That's what you call it, isn't it? The game? But to buy in he needed a lot of money and could think of only one way to get it. So he hired a companion and headed into the hills. Or maybe he went alone. In which case-"
"He wasn't alone!"
"So something happened." Dumarest reached for the decanter and poured a ruby stream into Vardoon's goblet. "They may have got caught in a storm or found by guards or hit by other poachers. In any case one was killed and the other hurt. Did he hurt someone in return? Kill the wrong man?"
"Earl! I told you what happened!"
"Hurt," said Dumarest softly. "His face burned, caught alone in the hills. Who took care of him until he'd healed? Got him safe passage away from Sacaweena? Told an invented tale of Emil being drowned at sea? Carmodyne?"
Vardoon looked at his wine, drank, stared at the little remaining in the goblet. It shimmered with the amplified vibrations received from the quiver of his hand.
"It makes sense," continued Dumarest. "A man on the run, scared, trying to build a stake to get back. It's something you can't live without once it gets into the blood. The excitement, the fever, the lure of the game. Gambling for life and fortune. Something bred into the bone if you were born here and of the Orres. How long has it been now? Twenty-five years? Moving from world to world, working, trying to build a fortune, losing it as you tried to make it larger. Hitting the bottom and trying again."
Trying and failing until, on Polis, he had met the one man who could provide the answer. A desperate gamble won at the cost of another's safety. Something he couldn't have known.
"You think I'm Emil Velen?"
Dumarest shrugged and sipped again at his wine. "I don't know. I don't care. But if Kalova thinks you are it could be the reason he wants to ruin Fiona. An old blood feud. A relative dead, a friend-what does it matter? You're here that's all that matters."
"But-" Vardoon broke off, shaking his head. "I could never prove it," he muttered. "God, what a mess! If Fiona loses-"
"Kalova moves in. He gets the holding and you with it. Still want to hold onto your share?"
Marc Bulem was old, stooped, his eyes suspicious beneath tufted brows. He received Dumarest in a chamber filled with the scent of age; books, tapestries, scrolls-decaying parchments and papers yielding their insidious effluvium. An atmosphere which suited his thin, scholastic face, his gnarled and blotched hands. A man lost in a world of the past, of speculation and legend, of great deeds done in remote times, of sagas and chants and litanies. Of forgotten crusades.
"Dumarest," he said. "Earl Dumarest. I don't know you but all visitors are welcome. Do you have books to sell? Some retrieved information? Facts as yet unknown to me?"
The wrong man but a natural mistake. Dumarest had asked for the head of the house; a title Marc must hold by courtesy. He blinked when Dumarest explained.
"You must want Melvin. My younger brother but far more clever than I. Our fortunes depend on him. A moment while I correct the error."
He moved away to leave Dumarest standing before the long windows at the far end of the chamber. Overhead the sky was dull with cloud and a mist of rain had wetted the panes with a scatter of droplets. To the north clouds were darker, roiling beneath the impact of high winds.
"He will be with us in a while," said Marc as he returned. "A matter of business, you understand. At times it never seems to end. Well, I've been done with that for years now. It was never my strength, you understand. I lack the quickness of mind, the skill, the killer instinct needed to survive. Which is why Melvin was voted Head at a Family Council. No disrespect, you understand, but even I could recognize the need."
One admitted too late, perhaps; Bulem was tottering on the edge of ruin. A fact Dumarest did not mention as he listened to the old man.
"My interest has always been in the past. Books, records, old artifacts, old legends. Did you know that Eden actually exists? The fabled world of comfort and luxury often mentioned in old stories?"
A common name; Dumarest had visited three worlds bearing it. "Is that a fact?"
"I could give you the coordinates. Bonanza, too, a world of incredible mineral wealth. One day, if things get too bad, I will arrange an expedition to go there and restore our fortunes."
A madman, or a man made mad by the pressure of life on Sacaweena. One living in a dream, finding comfort in false resources, strength in his supposed knowledge. Now he bustled about the room, lifting books, setting them down to handle a scroll, a file from which he blew dust.
"It's all in here; facts and coordinates and all the old legends sifted and turned into concrete fact. Did you know that, at one time, all men lived in a single world? They left it to reach out to form new settlements. Thousands of them! Millions! Small groups wanting to live as they decided, free from all restraint and compulsion. A long time ago now but s
uch great events. See! Let me show you! I have the proof!"
Dust faded print on moldering pages. Stained lists and scrawled annotations. Insertions from other sources, references legible only to the old man, notes of complex ambiguity. The gossamer fabric of hope and fantasy.
"You see? They're all here. Worlds of wealth and promise. We have no need to worry. No need at all." He held out the book. "Jackpot, Avalon, Erce-they're all here!"
"Erce?" Dumarest reached for the book. "The old name of this world?"
"Yes, but it was borrowed from another. The mother planet, perhaps. The source of all life as we know it. The pure, original world." Pages fluttered in the thin hands. "Look! See this reference! This deposition! All life stemmed from the primordial egg. The fruit of cosmic forces which sparked off sentient awareness. One original race which later split into the factions we know. One original world which held that new and pristine life. A state of grace which lasted for millennia and then something happened. The race split and fragmented to leave the home they had known. They scattered and spread as if from a point of utter corruption. To fly in terror to find new places on which to expiate their sins. Only when cleansed will the race of Man be again united."
The creed of the Original People. Could this man be one of them? The Orres itself be a part of the sect? The name itself held significance; the Original Residents-the Original People. Given their known love of secrecy such a change would be logical.
Did the coordinates of Earth lie in those moldering pages?
"No!" The old man snatched the book away from the reaching hand. "You are after my secrets!"
"You offered to show me the book."
"You tricked me." The suspicious eyes became cunning. "You are trying to steal my knowledge. Who sent you here? The Maximus? Helm? Ashen? Chargel? Enemies all of them. I am surrounded by enemies. They would ruin my House. Steal my fortune. Help! Help!"
He backed, the book clutched tight in mottled hands, pressed hard against the hollowed chest. A man terrified by the ghosts of his own distorted imagination. He spun as servants ran into the room, a tall, well-built man at their head. "Melvin! Be warned! The man is an enemy!"
The wine was sweet, touched with honey and roses, holding a golden warmth which added brightness to the musty chamber and helped to dispel a little of the external gloom.
Lifting his glass, Melvin Bulem said, "I am in your debt, Earl. I drink to your health." A sip. "To your fortune." Another sip. "To your success."
Dumarest followed the ritual as he studied the other man. He was younger than his brother, hard instead of soft, direct instead of devious, the eyes shrewd but free of the suspicious cunning. Even so he betrayed the signs of anxiety which had marked Fiona's face with premature lines, his own now a mask of studied courtesy.
He said, "I must apologize, Earl. Need I explain that my brother is not wholly as other men? His illusions, at times, threaten to overwhelm him. The talk of all men having lived on a single planet, for example. An apparent absurdity; how could such divergent types rise on a single world? A common environment must lead to a common race. And the talk of a cosmic egg and the babble he repeats about the need for men to expiate sin. Did you examine the book? No? A pity, if you had you would have seen it composed of rubbish. Even his talk varies at times; today it will be an expedition to Bonanza to restore our fortunes, tomorrow Avalon, the day after he will have wrested a secret from an old parchment and boast of immortality."
"When young did he travel?"
"Marc? No. Why do you ask?"
"His ideas. He could have learned them on other planets."
"He has never left Sacaweena. His notions are due to lies told by visiting captains and traders who beguiled him when young. A poison which produced wild blooms when, later, he had to manage our affairs." Bulem took a sip of his wine. "But enough of my unfortunate brother. In your travels you must have seen many like him."
"He could be helped."
"Helped," mused Bulem. "An odd word for you to have used. Most would have said 'cured.' Well, we shall see, perhaps the monks could aid him with their skill." He took another sip of wine, a gesture which terminated the subject. "I am pleased to see you, Earl, but may I ask the reason you came?"
"You mentioned it. A matter of debt."
"I see."
"You acknowledge it?"
"I, my Family, and most certainly Ivor are grateful to you for having saved our honor. The boy is young in heart if not in body and, it could be, he takes after Marc in certain ways. That is not important. If you wish me to reassure you of what we owe then consider it done."
"I do," said Dumarest. "But I was thinking of repayment."
"Of course." A veil dropped over Bulem's eyes, adding to his earlier detachment. "I had thought that-well, we are often mistaken. It's a matter of payment, then. The cost of a High passage? Travelers, I understand, are used to such calculations. Would you be satisfied with that?"
"No."
"Double then? Double-I refuse to bargain."
"I want your aid not your money."
"What?"
"I have money," said Dumarest. "With your help I can get more. An arrangement which will benefit us both. Have you a map of the northern sectors?" He waited as the other fetched it. "There!" His finger marked a point, moved on to others. "And here and here!"
Bulem said, "You spoke of an arrangement?"
"These are Kalova's holdings? And these?"
"Those also."
"And here?" Dumarest nodded at the answer. "Do they come with the title or does the Maximus have to earn them?" Facts he knew but wanted Bulem to elaborate. "He has to earn them. Good. That means he can lose them. Can he be forced to sell?"
"The rules apply to all; if two or more holders offer at least twice the recorded value it has to be offered to all. A forced auction. But there are penalties against those forcing the sale of any holding if the price they offered is not reached." Balance and counterbalance; details designed to prevent stagnation. Bulem added, "A forced attack can lead to vicious repercussions."
The weight of the Maximus used to frighten off potential nuisances. Insidious threats to maintain hard-won power.
Dumarest said, "I'm offering you a chance to get rich. With my help you can increase your assets, but I want my fair share. If you aren't interested just say so and I'll leave. If you are I'll show you proof of what I mean."
Bulem poured them both more wine. "Show me."
He sucked in his breath as Dumarest opened the lid of a box he took from his tunic to reveal the massed glow of golden pearls. Their sheen dulled the glow of the wine, seeming brighter because of the clouded sky, the misted air.
"Ardeel," said Dumarest. "I don't have to tell you what these are worth but this is only a sample. Imagine you had a hundred times this amount. A thousand. Such assets would restore your House to its former position." He tilted the box, letting the glow shift as sunlight shifted on the naked steel of a blade. Eye-brightness to catch and hold the attention. "I know just where they are to be found."
"The north?"
"On Kalova's holdings." The lid snapped shut, hiding the lure. "I've traced the breeding path of the vreks and know where and when they deposit their eggs. Kalova thinks he has a monopoly but it can be broken if you-or someone-obtains certain holdings. I'll tell you which if you agree to yield me my share."
Bulem said slowly, "If you have money why ask for more?"
"I'm human." Dumarest thrust the box back into his pocket and rose to his feet. "Such a stupid question means you aren't interested. There's no point in either of us wasting any more time."
"You are too hasty," said Bulem. "Sit, have some more wine, remember we are friends. And let us talk about the size of your share."
It was late when Dumarest returned to Fiona's house to find Vardoon long asleep, the woman herself dressed for bed. She watched with eyes narrowed with jealousy as he bathed and rubbed himself dry.
"You look tired, Earl. Busy?"
> "Yes."
"With whom? Lynne? Myra? Some other woman you met at the pool?" Her anger increased as he made no answer. "Are you going to tell me you haven't been seeing them? Talking to them? Drinking with them? Making love to them-you bastard!"
He said flatly, "I did what had to be done. Now do I stay or do I leave?"
To arms more than willing to embrace him; Fiona could guess where they could be found. Guess too at the sniggers which would follow her once he had left her alone. A woman unable to hold even a dependent lover-how the bitches would gloat!
She said, demanding reassurance, "It was just business, Earl? For me?"
"For you."
"Then come to bed!"
To play an old and familiar game and later to lie and review the events of the day. Had he left anything out of his calculations? Made too great a mistake? Bulem had been only one and others had been tempted even as Vardoon had spread the same, glittering lure to his own prospects. Hints dropped, arrangements, pacts and promises made. Bargains struck over wine and in some cases sealed with a kiss. A kiss and more-pride had no place in the need to survive.
He sank deeper into the fog between sleep and waking, drifting into a doze, into a dream, a universe filled with a single golden egg.
One with a surface marred with teeming life; swarms of black motes dulling the shimmering glory, moving, bunching, spreading as if it had been a vicious mold. A parasitic growth which killed the thing which gave it life; demanding more than was available, taking more than could be spared.
And, as he watched, the egg died.
The surface cracked in a multitude of tiny lines, fragmentation which grew, expanding to reveal the sullen glow of inner fires. A red anger which faded to a dark and useless slag, the darkness edging out to dull the gold, to turn it dark in widening striations of mounting ugliness.
Life died with it; the teeming masses shriveling, burning, turning to crisp and char, to drifting ash, to writhing, tormented shapes. Some rising to stream away as if driven by gusting winds. Some dispersed like a cloud of thinning smoke. Some to hang, crying, lost in the dark and empty void.
