by E. C. Tubb
To one side Yalung groaned, falling to sit upright blinking and shaking his head.
"Strange," he said thickly. "So strange. And I feel now now discomfort. My thirst has gone, my hunger. But how?"
Dumarest frowned, flexing his back and shoulders. The nagging discomfort of his barely healed wounds had total shy;ly vanished and he too felt neither hunger or thirst. Lallia?
She lay sprawled on the grass, hands touching the mound, her face a strained mask of torment. As Dumarest watched, it contorted and writhed, adopting a snarling mask of hide shy;ous aspect. Then it relaxed to reveal the familiar planes and contours.
"Lallia!" He knelt at her side, touching her skin, the pulse in her throat. Her muscles were like iron.
"No!" she screamed as he tried to pull her hands from the mound. "No!" and then, quieter, "Dear God, how long, how old!"
Yalung rose, a yellow shadow to kneel at her far side. "She is ill," he said. "A fit perhaps?"
It was no fit, not unless psychic shock could be called that. Too late Dumarest remembered her wild talent, the ability to remember the past of any object she touched. The ancient book should have warned him but he had been engrossed in the possibility that it could help in his search. He had not thought of the possibility that the mound could hold a similar danger. Not even when he had recognized it as an artifact.
And now it was too late for regret.
"Earl!" She writhed again, sensing an agonizing past, the dusty span of painful years. "Three suns," she whispered. "A fault in the engines. Suspended animation and millennia of travel. Such darkness and chill and then the dust and the wakening. Too late. The crash and the waiting, the endless waiting." She twisted and moaned, midnight hair wreathed on the grass. "It's alive, Earl. Still alive. Waiting and hoping. Such forlorn longing, Earl!"
She stiffened, and from the very pores of her skin seeped a lambent effulgence, a mist of luminescence which flowed down her arms to the material of the ancient wreck and, as it finally separated from her body, she sighed and totally relaxed.
"Is she dead?" Yalung's face was a yellow mask in the shadows.
Dumarest examined her body, heart pounding with the fear of what he might find. Relieved he sat back and looked at the other man.
"Not dead," he said. "Exhausted by tremendous psychic shock. You understand?"
"Yes," said Yalung. "I understand."
"All of it?" Dumarest glanced at the mound. "It is a wrecked spaceship. It came from God alone knows where, but I will guess that it was never made in our galaxy. And, somehow, something within it is still alive."
Crippled, perhaps, hurt, but still aware. For unguessed millennia it had lain within the vessel tended only by the repair mechanisms the ship had contained-and by the enigmatic guardians if there were more than one? It was possible, they could have bred the birds and the protoplas shy;mic machines which tended the field and the Place itself. Or perhaps they were extensions of the entity within the ship, prosthetic devices governed by its intelligence. Who could begin to guess at the mental structure of an alien race?
And, by means of her talent, Lallia had contacted it. She had sent a part of her mentality back down through the ages, barely understanding, capable only of feeling the terrible shock and despair, the age-long time it had traversed the endless dark, the indescribable alienness of its emotions as it waited and waited for years without end.
For rescue, perhaps? For death? For someone to come who would know and understand?
Dumarest looked at the mound and then back at the girl. She was not dead and that was the important thing. She would lie in a coma for a while and then wake as she had back on the Moray, alive and sane and well. They would still have a future.
Stooping he lifted her in his arms.
"Where are you taking her?" Yalung glanced around the clearing then down the length of the avenue to the gate and high fence at the end. "Perhaps close to the landing field would be best. Anywhere away from this mound which seems to have distressed her."
Away from the ancient vessel, the enigmatic guardian who stood, still immobile, dancing flickers gleaming from the shadow of its cowl. Away from the brooding stillness of the Place, the psychic influences which seemed to pervade the very grass and trees.
Dumarest began to walk down the wide avenue.
He staggered and frowned. The girl was not that heavy and he felt strong enough. Strong but suddenly weary as if he had suffered some tremendous strain and fatigue was the natural aftermath. Yalung tripped and almost fell, shaking his head as he recovered his balance.
"I am fatigued," he said. "Filled with the desire to sleep. At the end of the avenue, perhaps? There is open space between the trees."
He led the way, falling to sprawl on the grass as Dumarest gently set down the body of the girl. For a long moment he stared at her, drinking in the smooth beauty of her face, the lustrous waterfall of her hair. She stirred a little sighing like a child in a pleasant dream, full lips parted to breathe his name.
"Earl, my darling. I love you so very much."
He moved a coil of hair from her cheek and arranged her limbs so as to avoid later cramps then, barely able to keep open his eyes, lay down beside her on the soft and yielding turf.
He fell asleep immediately, falling into a dreamless, time shy;less oblivion.
When he woke Lallia was dead.
XI
she looked very small and helpless as she lay on the grass. She rested on her side, the long curves of her thighs white beneath the hem of her dress, the dark tresses of her hair covering cheek and throat. One arm was lifted, the palm close to her mouth, the other rested in her lap. She looked as if she would wake at a touch, a word, springing to her feet, red lips smiling, warm flesh pulsing with the desire of life, but he had tried both word and touch and she was dead. "She could not have survived the psychic shock she re shy;ceived at the mound," said Yalung quietly. He stood beside Dumarest looking down at the kneeling man, the dead body of the girl. "It is unfortunate but it would appear to be the case."
"No," said Dumarest. "It wasn't that."
"How can you be sure?"
"I'm sure."
She had spoken his name, rising up from the deathlike coma of shock to drift into normal sleep, yielding to the strange fatigue which had gripped them all. Dumarest looked at the grass, the trees, lifting his face to search the soaring arch high above, the fading light of the sun. If she had died because of subtle emanations then why not all? The guard shy;ians, perhaps? But then, again, why kill the girl and not those with her? And how had she died? He could see no mark or injury, no fleck of blood from a minute puncture which would have betrayed the injection of poison from sting or needle.
Reaching out he caught the rounded chin and turned the dead face towards the sky. He stooped, bending his face close to the skin, moving so as to see it against the light. Faint against the marbled whiteness he could see the smudge of bruises against nostrils and mouth.
Rising he looked at Yalung. "You," he said. "You mur shy;dered her."
"You wrong me." Yalung raised his hands in denial. His eyes were wary in the yellow mask of his face. "Why do you say that? You have no proof."
"She was smothered to death by a hand which closed her nostrils and covered her mouth." Dumarest fought to control his rising anger. "I did not do it. We are the only humans in the vicinity. You must have woken earlier than I did and you killed the woman. But why? What harm had she done you?"
"None," admitted Yalung. He moved a step nearer to Dumarest, yellow and black rippling as he moved his arms, extending the broad spades of his hands. "But alive she was an inconvenience."
"You admit it?"
"But, of course. What point is there in denying the ob shy;vious?"
Dumarest moved, stooping, his hand flashing to the hilt of the knife in his boot, lifting the pointed, razor-edged steel. Sunlight gleamed from the blade as he swept it back and then forward, the point aimed at the other man's stomach.
Y
alung sprang forward and to one side, his left hand dropping to grasp the knife-wrist; twisting, his right hand jerking free the steel. As Dumarest struck at his throat he moved again, stepping to avoid the blow, the stiffened fin shy;gers of his left hand stabbing like blunted spears.
Dumarest staggered, fighting a red tide of agony, his right arm numbed and paralyzed.
"You are fast," said Yalung. "Very fast. But not fast enough to one who has trained on Kha." He looked at the knife and tossed it casually to one side. Dumarest watched its flight.
"You? A Kha'tung fighter?"
"You know of us?" Yalung's smile was a facial distortion without real meaning. "Can you imagine what it is like? For twenty years I trained on a high-gravity planet with pain as the constant reward for laggard reflexes. You should be proud that I was chosen. No lesser man would have been able to overcome you so easily."
He was confident but with justification. Fighting the pain of impacted nerves Dumarest studied the figure in yellow and black. The round plumpness wasn't the fat he had as shy;sumed but a thick layer of trained and hardened muscle. The broad hands, soft as they appeared, could smash timber and brick, stab deep into vital organs. A Kha'tung fighter was a deadly machine.
Dumarest said, "Why?"
"You are curious," said Yalung. "Well, we have time to spare until a ship arrives. He stepped close and stared into Dumarest's eyes. "Sit," he ordered, and pushed.
The blow was the thrust of an iron ram. Dumarest fell backwards, staggering, falling to roll on the soft grass. Awk shy;wardly he sat upright, his left hand massaging his right arm. A random shaft of light caught the gem on his finger and turned it into ruby flame.
"The past," said Yalung. "Let us throw our minds back into time." He sat crossed legged, facing Dumarest at a safe distance of a dozen feet, his back towards the dead body of the girl. "Let us talk of names. Of Solis, of Brasque, of Kalin. I am sure that you remember Kalin."
"I remember."
"An unusual woman," said Yalung. "Most unusual. But let us start with Brasque. You never met him because he died before you reached Solis, but before he died he gave his sister the gift of life. Real life in a warm and healthy body. That secret he stole from the laboratory of the Cyclan. It must be returned."
Dumarest sat, patiently waiting, his left hand continuing its massage.
"The secret was that of an artificial symbiote named an affinity twin. It consists of fifteen units and the reversal of one unit makes it either subjective or dominant. Injected into the bloodstream it nestles in the rear of the cortex, meshes with the thalamus and takes control of the central nervous system. I need hardly tell you what that means."
The intelligence of a crippled body given active life in a healthy host. The ability of one brain to completely dominate another. Dumarest had good reason to know what it meant.
"No," he said. "You don't have to tell me."
"The path Brasque took has been followed and all pos shy;sibilities of his passing the secret to others eliminated. The probability that he delivered the secret to his sister on Solis is one of the order of 99 percent-practical certainty. In shy;vestigations have proved that the secret is not on that planet so, logically, it must be elsewhere. Do you agree?"
"You talk like a cyber," said Dumarest. "A thing of flesh and blood, a machine, a creature devoid of the capability of emotion."
Yalung's eyes glittered in the round blandness of his face. "You think you insult me," he said. "Let me assure you that to be called a cyber is far from that. To belong to the Cyclan is not easy. To wear the scarlet robe is to be clad in honor."
Did the voice hold pride? Pride was an emotion and no cyber could feel anything other than pleasure in mental achievement. An operation on the sensory nerves leading to the brain removed all pain, hurt, anger, love, the pleasure to be found in food and wine, the caresses of women.
Dumarest eased himself a little, moving on the grass. "I follow your argument and admit your point."
"The rest is simple, a matter of extrapolating from known data. You were on Solis at the time. You were close to the sister of Brasque. You were given the gift of a ring. The probability of the ring holding the secret is in the order of 90 percent."
"And you killed Lallia for that?" Dumarest glanced to shy;wards the dead girl, then at the squatting figure before him. "I have the ring. Why not kill me and take it?"
"Because that would be illogical," said Yalung. "Too much time has passed. You could have learned the secret or have changed the ring. To kill you would have been to lose a source of information for all time." He paused, eyes watch shy;ful. "The secret is a matter of the correct sequence of the molecular units composing the chain. There are fifteen units. Their nature is known. All that remains is to discover the order in which they must be united. But the task is not easy.
If it were possible to test one combination every sec shy;ond it would take over four thousand years to test them all. And there are reasons why the Cyclan cannot wait. Good reasons. But now they need wait no longer."
"The ring is just what it seems," said Dumarest. "It con shy;tains no secret."
"I think that you lie. Twice I offered to buy it from you and each time you refused to sell. The price was high for such a bauble and your refusal convinced me that you were aware of its true worth." Yalung glanced once be shy;hind him as if sensing the presence of some entity, but the avenue and the space between the trees was deserted. "I should have had you safe on Aarn. I killed the thief who tried to rob you in the hotel. Normally the police would have arrested you and the ring would have come into my possession while you would have been kept safely in prison. But you were too quick. I could do nothing but follow you into the Web. Once in, I had no choice but to continue as I had begun."
An accident, thought Dumarest. The unpredictable work shy;ings of destiny. A primitive sense of danger and the quick grasping of an opportunity. Who could have predicted that one man would kill another at that exact place and time? Or that he would have been given the dead man's job?
Quietly he said, "And now?"
"You are my patient. A poor fool touched in the brain who is not responsible for what he says and what he does. I shall take passage on the next ship for us both and you will be drugged and bound for the entire journey. I have the means to charter the vessel if that will be necessary." Yalung slapped his belt. "My pouch of precious stones. Genuine jewels of high value. Ten times their worth will be mine when I have delivered you to the Cyclan."
Dumarest lifted his left hand from his right arm and looked at the ring. The impacted nerves had recovered a little but the arm still felt numb, was still unreliable. He raised his right hand and began to fumble with the ring.
"You want this," he said. "You had better take it."
His fingers were too awkward. He lifted the ring and held it between his teeth, pulling until it slipped free. It fell and he scrabbled for it, easing himself back over the grass. Picking it up with his right hand he held it so that it caught the light.
"If this contains such a valuable secret then perhaps you are selling it too cheap?"
"The bargain is satisfactory."
"We could make much more than you hope to gain. I know what the affinity twin can do. Together we could dominate a dozen worlds."
"And live for how long?" Yalung gestured his contempt. "You underestimate the power of the Cyclan. Should I try to play them false my death would be certain."
"All men die," said Dumarest flatly. "And all women." He glanced once at the body of the girl. "But not often does a man get such an opportunity as now lies within your grasp. You want money and power? I give it to you."
He threw the ring.
It spun high in the air, glittering, a thick band of gold holding a flat, ruby like stone. Yalung snatched at it as he would a fly, missed, and automatically turned to follow its flight.
Dumarest flung himself at the knife.
It lay where it had fallen, where Yalung had casually tossed it, the
spot to which Dumarest had rolled after the Kha'tung fighter had pushed him. He reached it, scooped it up, sprang to his feet as Yalung realized his error.
"You fool," he said, already on his feet. "Do you think to beat me with that toy?"
Toy or not, the knife was the only advantage Dumarest had. He held it in his left hand, not trusting his right, hold shy;ing it ready to throw. Yalung sneered at his indecision.
"Throw it," he invited. "Or use it to stab at me as you did before. Hurry and let us dispense with this farce. You are defeated before you can begin."
He crouched, thick arms folded over the massive muscles of his chest and stomach, complete protection to vital organs against a thrown blade. His chin lowered to shield his throat and his slanted eyes were watchful.
Dumarest studied him, knowing that he had only the one chance and that he had to make it count. He raised his hand and swept it forward in quick pretense. Yalung skipped backwards, hands lifting to beat aside the thrown knife, grunting as he recognized the feint.
A second time he took the same evasive action. The third his backward skip carried him to where the dead girl lay on the grass. His foot hit the obstruction and he staggered, off-balance and exposing his throat.
The knife ripped into the flesh below his ear.
It was a shallow cut but it was enough. Blood fountained in a scarlet stream, raining on the yellow and black, the grass, the body of the dead girl. Yalung clapped his hand to the wound, the fingers immediately turning red, more red spurting from the severed artery. He stooped, snatched up the knife, and threw it all in one quick movement. The point slammed against Dumarest's chest, tearing through the plastic to be halted by the protective mesh beneath.
"Armored!" Yalung swayed, already weak from the loss of blood. "I should have aimed for the face." He slumped to his knees and fell sideways, but he was not yet dead.
Dumarest walked to where he lay. A gleam of gold gave the position of the ring. He picked it up and slipped it on his finger, watched all the time by the slanted almonds of Yalung's eyes.
