Dumarest 33 - Child of Earth

by Tubb, E. C.

  As he fell Dumarest moved on. Into the next room where a second man, warned, stood in a fighter’s stance. He raised his blade to strike, dying as Dumarest ducked beneath his arm to send his own weapon deep into the exposed armpit. To twist the blade. To sever arteries and tissue as he dragged it free. Before he hit the floor Dumarest was in the bedroom facing their opponent. One who reared upright from the edge of the bed, a smoking iron in his hand, and terror in his eyes as steel flashed towards them.

  “No! No! Please! No!”

  Dumarest glanced at the bed. Sardia lay there and one look was enough. Her tormentor shrieked as the knife closed the gap between throat and edge. As he fell the woman stirred on the bed.

  “Earl? Earl is that you?”

  “Sardia.” He touched her, held her, the knife still in his hand. “You are safe now,” he soothed. They are all gone. They can’t hurt you now.

  “They have hurt me enough.” Her voice was a whisper, the grip of her hand merely a gesture. But one with meaning. “Listen, Earl, you’ve got to look after yourself. I have money. It’s yours if you can find it. I’ve some gems, in a box, you know where to look. Take them, take everything of value you can find. Get to the field. A ship is due, the Ellermand. It’s got a handler, ask him for passage. Mention my name. Don’t tell him more.” Her voice changed, the whisper becoming a scream. “The pain! Earl, I can’t stand the pain! Help me! Help me!”

  She had been burned, blinded, seared into a thing of horror. Money could restore her. Buying regrowths, new organs bred from her stem cells, the use of an amniotic tank in which to grow new and healthy tissue. But it would take time and exposure and would be far from cheap.

  But he had no money, no friends or contacts, no drugs to ease her agony. Only a knife, newly bought as a gift, now a bitter reminder of what he had allowed to happen. If he hadn’t wasted time in the market. If he had returned to the apartment straight after the bout. If he had been present when the thugs had arrived to torment and destroy for the sake of what they could steal.

  If.

  The word had a sour taste.

  Yet if he couldn’t save her he could join her. In death, if what some said was true, they would be reunited for eternity.

  The blade moved in his hand, the point aiming at his throat, his muscles tensing for the effort to drive it deep.

  “No!” The work was a command. “No, Earl, don’t!”

  Jarl Raven, stood in the doorway of the bedroom, a gun in his hand.

  “Lower the knife, Earl. Do it!”

  Dumarest said, “If I don’t you’ll use that gun? Then use it. Do me a favor.”

  “You want to die?”

  “I want Sardia to live. To get over this mess. Look at her. She’s in agony and there’s nothing I can do to help. I haven’t even the guts to pass her out.” The knife fell from his hands and he stared at his quivering fingers, fighting to be calm. “I didn’t do this to her. You must know that. I killed the scum who did but there has to be more. Someone passed them into the building. Someone told them the door code combination. I want to get that filth no matter who they are and what it costs.”

  “I’ll take care of that.”

  “Just take care of Sardia.”

  “I’ll do that as soon as you’ve left.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure she is safe.”

  “I told you. I’ll take care of that.” Raven was impatient. “Don’t waste time, Earl. I’ll phone for an ambulance and they will take her to where she can get all the help she needs.” He stepped towards the bed. “Now get out of my way and let me do what needs to be done.”

  Dumarest looked at his face, the gun in his hand and knew better than to argue. To Raven he was nothing. To him Sardia was the world. The woman he obviously loved and now was apparently going to kill.

  “Steady, girl,” he said. “This is Jarl. You know I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Jarl? Her whisper was a prayer of thanksgiving.

  “That’s right.” He rested a hand on her throat, fingers hard against the flesh beneath her ears. “Just a little pressure on the carotid arteries to cut the flow of blood to your brain and the pain will be over. You’ll sleep like a log and when you wake all will be better than before. I promise that. Trust me!”

  Watching as the woman sighed and relaxed, Dumarest said, “Do you mean that? I need to know.”

  “I know what I’m doing. She’ll live. What did she say to you?” Raven nodded as Dumarest told him. “Good advice. You’d best take it.”

  “Not until I’ve taken care of those who did this.”

  “No!” Raven was curt. “I will take care of that.”

  “I can help you!”

  “You would do the reverse. I know those concerned. I know how to hurt them.” He thrust the gun into a hidden holster. “Now do as Sardia told you. Take what money you can find and go.” He gestured at the dead man. “Start with him. Search his pockets and take all he’s got. Then take care of the others. Be quick,” he added, “but get cleaned up before you leave.”

  Good advice and he followed it. Bathing and changing to remove the blood which had spattered him. Branding him with the mark of a killer. The man who had attacked and almost murdered Sardia. He would stand no chance if arrested. He knew the door codes, he could gain easy access, he was trusted as a supposed friend. The men who had died had walked in on him while committing the crime and had been slaughtered for their bravery. Those behind them would see to that.

  He could do nothing but take the money and run. To the field, the handler who, for a price, would arrange his passage. Shipping him to another world, there to begin the quest which would dominate his life.

  CHAPTER TEN

  An intriguing story.” Shandaha poured wine into two goblets, red and sparkling with drifting bubbles of a deeper hue. Red as the wine he had drunk with the grafter had been red, as the blood he had shed, as the water he had bathed in, as his discarded garments had displayed. Dumarest found the association distasteful. “You are disturbed, Earl?”

  “Disgusted would be a better word. There are some things better not remembered, still less to be relived.”

  “Yet, surely, it must be a comfort to know that all was not lost. The woman would have lived as the man had promised. He would have become her partner and guardian. And you escaped the trap with your life.” Shandaha paused then added, “You realise it was a trap? The woman, Yanya, set you up by hinting you were to be passed on. Naturally you would want to discuss it with Sardia. Knowing that those who intended her harm would have a perfect opportunity to dispose of her and to saddle you with the blame. Yanya would have known the entry codes. All they had to do was wait. They grew impatient when you failed to arrive on time and did what they came to do.”

  To maim, torture, rob and gloat at a helpless woman’s pain. But Shandaha was right. On reflection the trap had been obvious, but he had been too young to recognise it, too emotionally involved to retain mental clarity.

  “Drink, Earl, forget.” Shandaha passed him the goblet. “On the whole I would say it would be best to regard the incident as your rite of passage. You first met the woman as a boy and left her as a man. An unusual episode but often followed in many cases mostly by those alone and isolated. In modern cultures, naturally. In primitive societies they know how to conduct ceremonies.”

  With rituals, with trials of endurance, of hardship, of combat. With struggle and introspection and visions summoned by various hallucinogens. The survivors were accepted as men.

  “Earl?”

  “You could be right.”

  “You know I am right.” Shandaha lifted his goblet. “To you, Earl Dumarest! I greet you as one who has earned the right to be accepted as a man among men!”

  One who had learned to love, to struggle, to fight, to kill. Who had run and who had been running ever since.

  Dumarest reached for the brimming container. The wine was like water but it was far from that. Something within himse
lf seemed to be a barrier against the effects of alcohol. He knew what it was.

  He said, “We had an agreement. Will you keep to it?”

  Shandaha frowned. “An agreement?”

  “Provisions, transport, tools, release from this place for Chagal and myself. All in return for allowing you to drag me through a trip to hell. My hell—you probably enjoyed it.”

  “It was interesting.”

  “But, for you, disappointing,” said Dumarest. “It wasn’t the journey you wanted. Not the ending you hoped for.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You wanted to accompany me on the most important journey of my life. One which would dominate my future. You gained what you asked for but it wasn’t what you intended. You wanted to be with me, inside my head, watching through my eyes when I was given a gift stolen for the Cyclan. But you would have made another mistake. I didn’t know I had been given the gift. You would have been no wiser.”

  And now would never be. The secret of the affinity twin, as far as Dumarest was concerned, would remain that. The possible sequences in which the fifteen biological units could be assembled ran into millions. The Cyclan knew their composition but had lost the sequence in which they had to be assembled.

  Shandaha said, “I don’t understand. I agree we had an agreement. I will double the items you desire if you will—”

  “Grant you another trip into my past?” Dumarest shook his head. “No.”

  “Must I remind you that I need give you no choice?”

  “And give me further proof of how badly I was mistaken?” Dumarest drank more of the wine enjoying the moment. “The second time when I returned to the chamber in which you had arranged the chess pieces I sat and studied the situation. Only the Cyclan could have gained control of Earth. A Cyclan vessel attacked our ship and brought us down. The Cyclan could have spotted our signals and known of our position and our hopeless situation. They probably thought I was dead but, being what they are, they had to be sure. So they sent you. I assumed you were a cyber masking himself in a bizarre disguise. Creating a habitation out of illusion. Now I know that cannot be the case.”

  “Then who and what am I?”

  Dumarest paused before answering, studying the man, noting small details which increased his conviction. Things overlooked before had grown a new clarity and, within his skull, he felt what seemed to be a subtle movement of cranial tissue.

  “Who you are is a matter of title. What you are is a farmer.”

  “A farmer!”

  “Or a herdsman. The title isn’t important. My guess is that you are a minion of the Cyclan. You have been given the task of rearing and breeding cattle to be checked and tested and then to be harvested when the crop is ripe.” Dumarest leaned forward, his words like ice. “Cattle, Shandaha. Men and women. The children of Earth. People just like me!”

  “No, Earl! You are mistaken!”

  “Why bother to deny it? What difference can it make? You and others like you scattered over the planet, have a single task. That of selecting, rearing, and farming humans to gain an ingredient vital to the Cyclan. The homochon elements growing in the mutated brains.”

  “This is madness!” Shandaha’s hand shook as he poured the goblets full of wine, the ruby liquid splashing to soil the table. “Earl, what has come over you? Shall I summon Chagal?”

  “Do you want him to hear what I have to say?” Dumarest paused, waiting, then as the other remained silent said, “As I thought. Now take a drink, you are shaking and we both know why. You have tried to control me and have failed to do so. And if the Cyclan discover what you have tried to do they will not be gentle.”

  “Dare you tell them?”

  “When you have lost everything then what do you have to lose?” Dumarest drank and shrugged. “It seems we are back on logic, again. Of question and answer. So tell me this—how can a blind man complete a jigsaw?”

  “By touch.”

  “You are correct but most would say it was impossible as he could not see the picture or pattern and so would have no visual guide. But he has hands and fingers and could feel, imagine and remember. As I did when I tried to find a way out of this maze. To find motive, means and opportunity. I found them, but I had some help. In the secret chamber I fell into after I had broken the wall. The barrier of crystal which you said didn’t exist,” he explained. “The odd area in an odd place which also had no existence. But it held something else and it taught me things I had never suspected.”

  Shandaha said nothing, waiting, looking at his wine.

  “All planets have their speciality,” continued Dumarest. “But none the exact history of Earth. The surface ravaged by cycles of destruction from meteoric impact and climatic change and, always, the lashing storms of solar radiation. Then the suicidal impact of atomic wars. The climax which slaughtered billions and started the panic which caused those who could to leave and find other worlds to live on. To abandon those who couldn’t to survive as best they could.”

  A time long before he’d been born but his own childhood had taught him how it must have been. To huddle in deep caverns, to eat what could be eaten no matter in what shape or flavour it came. To die young, to breed fast, to survive no matter what the cost. To live but to be changed by the mutated symbiote which gave as it took.

  The homochon elements which had become the heritage of the children of Earth.

  Which were now a part of his brain.

  Shandaha said, “You trouble me, Earl. I would never have taken you for one who dwelt in fantasy yet what else can you call the things you seem to believe are the truth. Mutated brains. Symbiotes nestling in the cortex. The Cyclan owning and ruling this planet. Proscribing it. Why should they do that?”

  “To prevent contamination.” Dumarest was blunt. “To keep their herds free of disease. The reason why you slaughtered those with me. The people of Earth are unique in their heritage. The Cyclan cannot risk losing it.”

  “But you are losing me.” Shandaha reached again for the flagon, this time pouring with a steady hand. “Come, now, let us not be enemies. Drink to understanding and prosperity. All things can be settled.”

  “With honesty, yes.” Dumarest lifted his goblet and said, over its rim, “How did you know Earth was proscribed?”

  “Did I? You must have mentioned it.”

  “Not to you.”

  “To Nada, then. That must be it!” Shandaha drank and waited until Dumarest had followed suit, then said, “When you were together in close embrace and you were telling her of your travels. Worlds you have seen, planets you have touched on. A life of adventure. A wealth of experience. Hers has been much different.”

  “I suppose it has.”

  “You could make it otherwise, Earl. She loves you and would willingly remain at your side. All I ask in return is a little cooperation.”

  “And if I don’t give it?”

  “I will kill you. You will leave me no choice.”

  The man was not bluffing. Dumarest knew it as he knew the wine was red, as he knew how it would be done. Lasers were focused on his chair. At a word of command, even a directed thought, they would send searing beams into his flesh. His legs would be burned from his body, the heat cauterising the wounds and preventing the loss of blood. He would be alive but crippled, unable to stand, unable to walk, to escape the clutches of the Cyclan.

  “I mean it, Earl.”

  “I know you do. But your masters will not be gentle with you if I should die.”

  “I have no masters! I am the Lord of my domain!”

  “Yes,” said Dumarest. “Of course you are.”

  A man living a fantasy born of isolation and frustrated ambition, of limited power and small achievement. One driven by the desire for fame, respect, acknowledgment of his capabilities. A dangerous adversary walking on a razor’s edge.

  “I recognise your power, my Lord,” he said, taking care to be diplomatic. “Your shrewdness also. Few men would have recognised the magnitude
of the opportunity sheer chance threw in your direction. A wrecked vessel,” he explained. “An order for you to close in, to watch and wait, then to take action. But you learned a little more. The fact that the probability existed that I had been on the vessel and could have survived. That I was of immense importance to the Cyclan. That I held the secret of the affinity twin.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.” Dumarest apparently relaxed, letting his muscles loosen, the tension-lines in his face smooth. “It is an artificial symbiote which was constructed for a specific task. A biomolecular entity which comes in two parts. One determines the dominant, the other the submissive. Inject the first into your body and the other into your chosen host and you will become that host. You will live within his head, see through his eyes, hear through his ears. All his senses will be yours. His youth, his appearance, his strength. His body will be your body for as long as he lives.”

  “The secret?”

  “The twin is constructed of fifteen units which have to be assembled in the correct sequence. The secret stolen from the Cyclan is the order of the sequence. The possible combinations are immense. The time needed to construct and test each affinity twin is a matter of centuries. But of course,” he added. “It could be discovered at the very next attempt.”

  “I see.” Shandaha leaned back in his chair. “In which case you would lose your value. There would be no reason to keep you alive.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Then why should I?”

  “Because, my Lord, to kill me would be throwing away the possibility of ruling the galaxy.”

  Dumarest let the statement hang as he leaned forward, his right hand falling to rest on his knee, fingers close to the knife in his boot. A movement shielded by the table.