Child of Earth

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 himself 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.

“Why else do you imagine the Cyclan value it so highly? The Cyber Prime must be old and growing frail. Soon they will take him, remove his brain from his skull and immerse it in nutrient fluids in a sealed box. The homochon elements will enable him to communicate. Become a unit in Central Control as all cybers do. But how much better would it be for them to be given new, young, active bodies? How much better would it be for you? Potential immortality, my Lord. Immortality!”

The lure impossible to resist. Dumarest eased himself on the chair as Shandaha lost himself in contemplation of it. To rule! To order! To be obeyed! To be a virtual God, feared and revered! Worshipped on every inhabited world!

A moment in which he was vulnerable.

Dumarest rose, hand lifting with the knife from his boot, throwing himself clear of the chair, the area around it. Too late Shandaha recognised the danger, saw the glint of the blade, rose, hands lifting as it buried itself in the flesh.

Fell, dying as the lasers cut loose.

Dumarest rolled, feeling heat on his thigh where one of the beams had seared the plastic of his clothing to reveal the protective mesh. His only injury, luck had been with him and he rose to his feet as Chagal called from outside the chamber.

“Earl! What’s happening?”

He came stumbling into the compartment, almost falling over the dead man, grabbing at the table to regain his balance. It was half destroyed; the chair on which Dumarest had sat a total ruin. The lasers were dead now, their work done, but more than the chair had been destroyed.

The compartment was just that, a box of metal and smooth alloys, of sombre colours and Spartan furnishings. The fabrics and cushions and luxurious items had vanished. As had the other spacious chambers, the wending passages, the glint of transparent windows. The entire habitation had disappeared to be replaced by the functional compactness of a large raft. One with a canopy, small living quarters, a shower and engine room.

“How? How did this happen?” Chagal was bewildered. “I was asleep,” he said. “Dreaming. Delise was with me — or so I thought. But I was alone when I woke and everything had changed.” He looked at the dead man. “Is that Shandaha?”

The man had changed. The skin was still dark, but the pigment was swirled to give a peculiar, almost clownish appearance, one bolstered by the irregular contours of his face. The ornate clothing had gone, instead he wore a plain robe of grey and there was no ornamentation. No rings, crowns or gleaming touches.

Dumarest walked to the body, stooped and retrieved his knife. The blade was stained with blood and he wiped it clean before slipping it back into its sheath. The dead man stared with sightless eyes.

“He was a minion of the Cyclan,” he explained. “Sent to perform a simple task, but he was ambitious and saw his opportunity and tried to better himself. His motive was greed. His means were more than clever. He was a freak, a mutated genius, an illusionist of the highest order. Everything was a projection of his mind. He had delusions of grandeur, which is why he projected himself as he did. As his supposed habitation was so luxurious. None of it was real.”

“None of it? Delise?”

“She and Nada-both projections of his mind. Succubi to entertain us and divert any suspicions we might have had. I’d better tell you what kind of a mess you are in.”

Chagal drew in his breath as he listened. “Trapped by the Cyclan! I know of them, of course, but all this about cranial symbiotes which enable you to have instant communication with anyone anywhere as long as they have the same. And the proscription? That makes sense, I guess, no one wants contamination. But if all the others had been killed because they were not children of Earth then why wasn’t I one of them?”

“For insurance. You are a physician. Shandaha wanted to keep me alive.”

“And now?”

Dumarest said, “We have a functional raft. We have supplies. We can fly away from here and do what we need to do.”

“To do what, Earl?”

“There have to be others out there. Maybe some are rebels. Most must resent being treated as cattle. Others will be greedy for wealth and power. All will be potential allies.”

And he had the means to make them so. The affinity twin nestled in the hollow hilt of his knife, the empty space in the buckle of his belt. Dumarest smiled, feeling good. He was a child of Earth and he was home.