by E. C. Tubb
"Such as?"
"Take a raft and go to the Chameon Hills. I've a place out there and we could spend a few hours searching for hilex and wild choum. Interested?"
"I might be."
"You'd love it. We could spend a few days if you wanted. At dawn the mists come to hide everything in purple veils and the hilex, when they wake, fill the air with soft susurations." He stepped a little closer. "Please say you'll come."
For answer she nodded at a tall woman who had just joined the throng. One regal in a shimmering gown of golden threads which hugged the contours of her body. Long streamers fell from both shoulders and a tall hat crested a wealth of golden hair. Beneath it her face was hard, arrogant, wearing paint like a mask.
"Who's that?"
"Where?" Gergio looked to where she pointed. "She's Tammi Canoyan."
"Is that all?" She smiled at his expression. "No financial report or social status? Come on, Gergio, tell me something about her."
"She's rich," he said. "And ambitious. Some say she would like to rule. Treason, of course, but who can stop gossip?" He drew in his breath at a sudden flurry in the hall. "That's odd. The guards are closing the doors. I wonder why?"
Ysanne paid him no attention. She was looking at the matriarch, who had just entered the hall with Dumarest at her side.
The warm bath had helped but her brief sleep had been tormented by dreams so that now, despite her gown and the cosmetics masking her features, she felt old and vulnerable, her fear exposed for all to see.
"Steady, my lady! Steady!"
Dumarest was at her side, his arm firm beneath her hand, his voice a comfort in her ear. So Donal would have spoken at such a moment of crisis-but he would never have urged her to take such a gamble.
But was it a gamble when she had no choice?
"Silence!" Venicia called from her place at Su Posta's side. "Silence for the Matriarch of Jourdan! Our ruler by tradition and by right!"
A novelty, it had to be that. Ysanne heard the soft buzz of speculation as, leaving Gergio, she made her way to where Batrun stood with Craig, amid a glitter of medallions; Shandhar came to join them but Olga remained out of sight.
A blare of trumpets drowned the soft murmurings and in the following silence Venicia's voice rang with the clash of iron.
"I speak for my lady. Does any deny my right?" A formality and she continued, "The charge is one of treason against established authority. Of murder planned against my lady and her granddaughter during their return voyage to this world. To expose the culprit has this assembly been gathered. Does any question the right?"
Again the silence and then the soft whispering as questions rippled across the gathering.
"Madness," said Shandhar. "What the hell's going on?"
"It's tradition," corrected Batrun. "Trial by consensus."
"Either way it could be trouble." Craig lifted his mask and let it ride on his cropped hair. "And Earl's caught up in it."
"Hear me!" Venicia's voice lifted as the trumpets ceased their demand for silence. "Does any deny the right?" A pause, then, for the third and last time, "Does any deny the right?" A longer pause then her hand lifted to point. "Tammi Canoyan! Step forward so you may be judged!"
"What?" Anger flushed the cold features with a tide of red beneath the paint. "This is insanity. You accuse me of attempted murder. Of treason. On what grounds, for God's sake? I wasn't even with you."
"You were the instrument."
"Of what?" Canoyan glanced around for support. "The woman's gone mad, can't you see that? Who will she accuse next? You, Belle? You, Fleur? Let her get away with this and who will be safe?"
"You deny the charge?"
"What charge? I traveled to Lomund with the matriarch and her party. I fell sick and needed medication. The Galya left without me. Later when I'd recovered, I took passage to Jourdan and arrived to learn the Galya hadn't arrived. I was as distraught as anyone at the thought of what could have happened. As relieved as the next when I heard of the rescue. Now I am being accused of attempted murder. Where is the evidence? The proof?"
Dumarest said, "The proof lies in what happened and how it happened. Sabotage and the one who arranged it."
"Proof?"
"Some may think it so." Dumarest looked at the ring of attentive faces. "I speak for the matriarch but have no personal interest. I shall have no vote in the final decision. I am only-"
"Get on with it, man!" Canoyan was impatient, already tasting the final victory. This apologetic fool could have nothing but empty words to back the accusation. "Where is your proof?"
"It is circumstantial," admitted Dumarest. "But, I think, conclusive. The background is common enough; a ship chartered to conduct a party, a usual arrangement. But the handler fell sick after departure with a virus condition which affected his mind and caused him to run amok. He killed, was restrained, broke free and ran into the engine room and opened the casing of the generator. The point is-why did he run into the engine room at all?"
"He was mad. You said so."
"No," said Dumarest. "I said his mind was affected. It's only a guess but I think he must have been ill for some time prior to the Galya's leaving Lomund. The condition could have sharpened his senses which is probably the reason he ran amok. An attempt to escape from overwhelming sensory stimulation." Pausing, he added, "The stimulation could have affected his hearing and that enabled him to learn something he was never intended to know."
"So?"
"A handler doesn't have much interest in the engine room. His job is to stack cargo, check supplies, take care of any passengers riding Low and livestock if any are carried. So what made him run into the engine room and remove the cover of the generator? To me there is only one logical answer-he tried to get rid of the device he knew had been planted there. The attempt triggered it with the results we know."
"So he heard something. What?"
Instead of answering the question Dumarest said, "Who would have been most suited to have set the device? It would need knowledge, skill and unquestioned access to the generator. Of the entire complement of the vessel the best person to do the job would be the engineer." Raising his voice, he called, "Guards! If you have arrested Olga Wenzer bring her here!"
She was still small, still brown, but now there was nothing meek in the way she stood and glared at Dumarest.
"Clever," she sneered. "You're too damned clever. Why should I have wanted to blow the generator? It was my neck too."
"Maybe not," he said. "I checked the sacs in the hold and one was equipped and supplied for a flight of long duration. And the handler jumped the gun. What if you'd left the Galya at a predetermined spot? The generator would have blown to leave it helpless but you could have altered course and drifted to a rendezvous, where you could have been picked up-maybe."
"Why should I have done all that?"
"That question bothered me but the answer lies in the records. Your sister was maimed for having stolen a collection of gems. Your mother was exiled. You have had good reason to hate the matriarch for years. Who found you, Olga? Learned you were a native of Jourdan? Got in touch with you and fed your hatred? Who suggested getting revenge?"
"No one!"
"So it was all your own idea? The device to blow the generator? The sac in which you hoped to escape? But there would have been no escape, Olga. You were to have been abandoned. Left to drift in the void, hoping for a rescue which would never come. Rescue had never been intended- dead you would no longer be an inconvenience."
"No!" She turned, her eyes, searching the crowd, setting on the tall figure of Tammi Canoyan. "No, she wouldn't-"
"Don't be a fool," snapped Dumarest. "What would she care about you? You're already frightened of her so why not make a clean breast of it? Tell the truth and the matriarch will be merciful-I promise it in her name. Why protect someone who would have left you to die?"
"Mercy?"
"I promise it."
"Then-" She turned, hand lifting, to stagge
r and slump, blood welling from her throat, the humming dart which spun in the center of a growing crater of cellular disruption.
The dart fired from the ring, which glowed like a baleful eye on the pointing finger of Tammi Canoyan's hand.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Standing at the open window Dumarest squared his shoulders and drew air deep into his lungs as he looked at the balcony outside, the expanse of the city beyond. The execution was over; Tammi Canoyan had paid the price of reckless ambition and was now nothing but a part of the heap of ash smoldering in the main square. He remembered the flames, the screams-Su Posta had not been gentle.
"It was necessary." She had come up from behind to stand at his side, guessing, with her woman's intuition, his thoughts. "An example had to be set to stop others from trying the same thing. A ruler dare not be gentle. And never forget that it could have been me out there."
He would but she would never rid herself of the fear she had known when, at the last, she had realized just how unpopular she had become. A gamble-so nearly lost! A word could have swayed the consensus to back her rival, a look, a tonal inflection-their faces had worn the feral hunger of beasts!
"It's over," said Dumarest, watching her. "Don't keep thinking about it."
Good advice but hard to follow. If Canoyan had fired at herself instead of silencing the engineer. If she had contained herself a while longer. If she had maintained her protestation of innocence-but the guards had prevented her from firing again and the dead woman had been proof enough of the accusation.
Details which now had no meaning. Dust to add to the rest, carried by the smoke, left to soil the gaudy pennons and streamers displayed throughout the city. It had begun to rain and in the dull harbinger of evening they hung like a collection of rags from their standards.
As she shivered, Dumarest reached forward and closed the leaves of the window. Wine stood on a low table and without asking her permission he poured, taking a sip before handing her the glass.
"Drink, my lady. It will warm you."
"And you made sure I knew you hadn't poisoned it."
"A custom on many worlds. Another glass?"
"This will do." She sipped, savoring the wine, watching as Dumarest moved about the room, sensing his restless impatience, his desire to be gone. "You still haven't changed your mind?"
"No, my lady."
"I shall not ask again." She finished the wine and set down the glass and looked at her hands, now so wrinkled and blotched where once they had been so smooth and vibrant with life. "All this means so little to you. An old woman, a child, an accident in space. Even the threat you did so much to solve. All unimportant. Just another episode in your travels. Soon you will have forgotten us all."
"I shall not forget."
"No," she admitted. "Only idiots and fools do that and you are neither. But you will not bother to remember. We shall be lost among all the other memories you have accumulated and, one day, when someone mentions Jourdan you will need to pause and think where you have heard the name before."
Memories, she thought, the sum total of existence, and he had so many while she had so few. Her childhood, Donal, others who had registered their presence on her emotions. Her children, Lucita-at least she could remember every tiny line of that small and wonderful face. Dumarest who had saved them both.
She said, "I must not detain you. But before you go there is a gift I must make. Here." She delved into a pocket and produced a heavy ring, which she slipped on his finger. From a wide band of gold the ruby stared at him like a watchful eye.
"Thank you, my lady."
"You will treasure it?" A stupid question and she was quick to rectify it. "Never mind. I am being maudlin. It is because I am tired. Venicia will escort you as you leave."
She waited outside and began to walk as he reached her, saying nothing until they had reached a passage in the lower region where she halted and faced him with an air of defiance.
"There's a question I must ask," she said. "The woman was your engineer-why did you accuse her?"
"She wasn't my engineer."
"Even so-"
"She begged for a berth," said Dumarest. "She was a skilled engineer yet she was willing to work as a handler. It only made sense if she wanted to hide. So I guessed that someone on Jourdan had reason to want her dead."
"Canoyan-the bitch!"
"So it turned out."
"You weren't certain?" She didn't press. "Well, she's dead now and that's all there is to it. But I had to ask."
A matter of loyalty, he guessed. Of the duty owed and returned by the one to whom it was given. To her it would be important, the code trapping her in a framework no less rigid than that which had led Canoyan to her death. The arrogance which had been as much a part of her as her skin. The inability to regard others as more than inferior. To consider herself inviolate because of birth and position.
Dumarest said, "I understand."
"Yes," she said. "I thought you would." Then, "Come, my lord. We haven't much farther to go."
Elge closed the door and leaned against it as he looked at the glowing depiction of the galaxy illuminating his office. A toy, it was no more than that, but on it one could build entire universes of fantastic complexity. The stars were not suns but solid balls of ice at the temperature of absolute zero. The planets not as cold but still frigid when compared to the smoldering energy of space. And beyond the galaxy, in the vast spaces between the island universes lay regions of heat so incredible as to baffle the comprehension.
A simple reversal-and to what realms of speculation it could lead!
Yet such a universe could exist and he had formulated the physics which would govern it. In this new regimen light was a variable governed by magnetic flux and temperature-variation. Gravity was a matter of pressure and life a facet of condensation.
"Master!" The voice came from his communicator. "Master may I attend you?"
Jarvet-why couldn't the aide leave him alone?
"What do you want?"
"The matter of the Illanian Combine, Master. Your final decision has not yet reached the programmers."
A moment, then, "Have all factories in the Harganian Sector of the Combine cease production of bacteroid 2427H. Within two harvests the blight it controls will have reduced the sector to starvation. Once that happens the Hegonians will have the lever they need to demand the dispensations they require."
"Yes, Master. And-"
"Enough!" Tedious detail when universes waited to be constructed. "Have all but urgent problems handled in the usual way. What news of Dumarest?"
"None."
So he had not touched at Millett or Emney as had been predicted. Which meant that an unknown factor had been introduced and with it a complexity of variables. Elge sat at his desk as he considered it. Where would he be heading for now? Or had he landed? If so, it had to be within a certain area of where he was last reported.
Those details clustered around his mind like bees around blossoms.
Later he would attend to them. Later. But for now there was more important work to be done. The last batch of recordings had to be studied and assessed before he could finalize his report to the Council. Obviously his previous conclusions had been at fault in certain aspects and efficiency demanded that he check and reexamine before crystallizing his findings.
The communicator hummed to be ignored. The voice of his aide echoed to be similarly treated. Then there was silence broken only by his own breathing, the soft rustle of his robe as he slipped lower in the chair. Silence and the shimmering glow of the depicted galaxy which filled the room with points of brilliance. Tiny fires reflected from the attachments of the recorder and turned them into things of brightness.
Jarvet saw them as he opened the door and lifted them from the shaven skull before looking at the man in the chair. Elge didn't move but remained with his face toward the profusion of light, his opened, unwinking eyes filled with reflected gleams.
"Master?" The ai
de received no reply and had expected none. Stooping, he waved his hand before the staring eyes then rested the tips of his fingers on the lids and lowered them over the glazed orbs. Activating the communicator he said, "Send Icelus to the office of the Cyber Prime."
He arrived within minutes, prepared for what he saw. With deft skill he made a preliminary examination then stood back. "Catatonia." His diagnosis was terse. "Complete withdrawal."
"There is no doubt?"
"None." Icelus lifted Elge's arm and released it. The limb stayed where he had left it. "You see? He has relinquished all mental control. The autonomic system of his body continues to function, naturally; if that had ceased he would be dead."
A word-Elge breathed, his heart beat, blood flowed through his organs but, as far as a living creature was concerned, he was dead. Without a mind he was little more than a vegetable.
"How?" Icelus looked at the attachments which Jarvet had removed and which now lay on the desk. "I see. You warned that something like this could happen. Did he leave notes?"
A tape to which they listened then; as it fell silent, Jarvet said, "It is obvious he became a victim of the same malady which had affected so many units of Central Intelligence. However he was certain that the condition was not caused by any disease or sickness. That it is, in effect, an acute heightening of the perceptions leading to an alteration in the viewpoint which leads to a change of mental frames of reference which had little or no association with the universe as we know it."
"A good definition of insanity," said Icelus. "What happened to his theory that the derangement was due to sensory deprivation?"
The tape gave the answer, Elge's voice coming in its even modulation from the speaker as Jarvet found the place.
"As a theory it has served its purpose and can now be discarded. From our experiments we have learned that there is a close correlation between catatonic withdrawal and mental ability. The higher the intelligence and the more disciplined the mind the greater is the ability to survive sensory deprivation. All cybers have a trained and finely edged mind. All suffer from some form of sensory deprivation for the major part of their lives. All anticipate the total cessation of bodily stimuli as the reward for dedicated obedience to the Cyclan. The laws that apply to emotionally crippled organisms do not apply to those free of such handicaps. The conclusion, therefore, is that the apparent derangement must be due to a growing awareness of mental capability on the parts of the units affected. To discover the real nature of this development is the basis of my experiments."
