Jack of Swords

Chapter Seven

Timus Omilcar bent over the exposed interior of the generator and made a minor adjustment. Without looking up he said, "Earl?"

Dumarest called out the readings on the dials set in the console, adding, "That's optimum, Timus."

"And as good as we can get." The engineer straightened, satisfied. Closing and sealing the dust cover of the unit he wiped his hands on a cloth and reached for a bottle. "Join me?"

"Just a little."

"Why be so cautious?" Wine gurgled as the man poured a generous measure into each of two glasses. "On the Mayna each man is as good as the next. We're all partners. To success, Earl-by God, it's time some came my way."

He was a big man, thick-set, hair growing in thick profusion on his body and arms, more resting in a tangled mat on his head. Red hair, curled, reflecting the light in russet shimmers. His face was a combination of disaster, the nose squashed, eyebrows scarred, the lobe of one ear missing. An ugly man with the appearance of a brutal clown but whose hands held magic when it came to dealing with machines.

"A half percent added efficiency," he said, lowering his half-empty glass. "So much for those who swore the generator couldn't be improved."

"Who?"

"The engineers on Perilan." He squinted at Dumarest. "You don't know the history of this ship, eh? Interested?"

"No." Dumarest touched the wine to his lips, only pretending to swallow. "Just as long as it gets us to where we want to go."

"And back again," added the engineer. He finished the rest of his wine and poured more. "Don't worry," he said, catching Dumarest's eyes. "This stuff can't hurt me."

"I wasn't thinking about you."

"The ship?" Timus shrugged. "I've never lost one yet despite what they claimed. The generator didn't fail, it was the fool in command, but what is the word of an engineer against that of a master? Well, to hell with it-soon I'll have money to burn."

"Is that why you're with us?"

"Of course." The battered face showed amusement. "What else can anyone hope to obtain from Balhadorha? All this talk of joy unspeakable, of pleasure beyond imagination, a world on which can be found the answer to all problems- that is rubbish for fools. What can a man want that money cannot buy? With enough he can become the king of a world."

A simple ambition and one Dumarest had expected. The engineer at least was uncomplicated and had quickly wanned to friendly overtures, pleased at Dumarest's knowledge of ships and machines. A reaction different from that of the captain, who remained cold and aloof.

As the man sipped his wine Dumarest said casually, "Did you see the cyber who landed on Teralde?"

"No."

"But one did land?"

"It's possible. The other ship bore their seal and the red scum get everywhere. Why, Earl?" Timus narrowed his eyes a little. "What's your interest in the Cyclan?"

"I don't like them."

"You and me both." The engineer glowered at his wine. "I had a good thing going when I was young, then the Manager called in the Cyclan to increase efficiency. Their damned predictions cost me my job, my house, what I had saved, and the girl I intended to marry. You?"

"Something much the same." Dumarest lifted the glass and drank to avoid further explanation. "I'd better check the stores."

"Why? They're safe."

"I'd still better check."

The hold was small and full of bales, heavy packages wrapped in layers of thick cloth interspersed with waterproof membranes. Dumarest checked the restraints then, as the engineer, bored, left him to it, slipped the knife from his boot and thrust the point deep into a bale. Withdrawing it he smelled the blade, catching the odor of dried meat seasoned with spice. Cheiach meat processed for export-an unusual cargo to carry into the Hichen Cloud.

Thoughtfully he continued his examination. In one corner he found a heap of crates and with his knife levered one open. Inside lay an assortment of thick clothing, heavy boots, gauntlets with metal insets, thick metal mesh designed to protect the face and eyes. Another held the converse, light clothing suitable for a tropical climate together with curved, razor-sharp machetes. A box held stubby, automatic weapons, light machine guns together with ammunition. The rest of the crates held foods of various kinds; highly concentrated pastes, dried fruits, compotes of nuts mixed with berries, together with beads, knives, bolts of cloth, tawdry ornaments.

Trade goods for a primitive people and survival gear for a variety of climates. Weapons to crush opposition and food to maintain life. Clear evidence that Sufan Noyoka wasn't sure of what he would find if and when they reached the Ghost World.

In the salon Marek Cognez was telling fortunes. In his hands the cards rustled with a smooth deftness, falling to immediately appear on the table, their descent accelerated by the relative effects of time.

"An interesting life," he mused. "In youth you have known passion and I see traces of a great disappointment. There is pain and, yes an eroding despair. Yet there is hope." His finger touched a card. "Not great but present. Diminish the influence of the Lord of Fools and it will gain in dominance."

"Which tells me nothing," said Usan Labria sourly. "Is this your trade, Marek, to gull idiots at a fair?"

"My trade?" He smiled and gathered the cards, quickly dealing two hands, both good, one, his own, better than the other. "A man makes his way as best he can and who then can speak of trades? Let us say that I have a small ability, an attribute or a talent if you prefer to call it that. Give me the parts of a pattern and I will read you the whole."

"Like a cyber?" said Pacula.

"No. A servant of the Cydan works on a basis of extrapolated logic. From two facts he will build three, five, a dozen. Give him a situation and, for each proposed change, he will predict the most probable sequence of events. I work on intuition."

"But you both tell fortunes," said Usan. Her tone was contemptuous.

"No. I do not deal with the future." Marek shuffled and dealt and studied the cards. "Last night you dreamed of youth," he said. "Of firm young arms around you, of warm lips against your own. Am I wrong?"

The question shook her with its sudden demand, so that she sat, a dull tinge mottling her sunken cheeks, the hands clenching as they rested on the table.

Dumarest said quietly, "To be clever is one thing, Marek. To insult is another."

"So you spring to her defense?" The man's eyes were sharp, the interest masked by a smile. "An old woman and a fighter. Often the two are found together but this time, I think, not for the usual reason. And you, Pacula, did you also dream?"

This time it was her turn to flush and she glared at the man, hating him, wishing him dead.

"Marek, you go too far," said Jarv Nonach. "One day your humor will kill you."

The navigator sat slumped in a chair, a pomander in his hand which he lifted at intervals to his thin, hooked nose. His cheeks, blotched with scabrous tissue, were puffed, his eyes mere slits beneath swollen brows, the neck bulging over the collar of his uniform. The pomander was of a delicate filigree, the container filled with the aromatic drugs to which he had become addicted. A man who spoke seldom and who, when not on duty, spent long hours sunk into a mental stupor-a condition which seemed to banish his need for sleep.

Shrugging, Marek said, "To die with a smile is surely the best way to go. Earl, you agree?"

"Why ask when you claim to know the answer?"

"Each man holds within himself the absolute truth, yet that truth may not be in tune with that of others. Have you ever thought of that? Or are you too engrossed in small needs to open your mind to a greater universe? Tell me, Earl, when you fight and when you kill, is it only then you feel truly alive? There is a name for such men-shall I tell you what it is?"

A man weary of life, thought Pacula, one tempting destruction. Then, looking at Dumarest, she knew he was wasting his time. No insult could spur that man to action if he was conscious of a greater need. Later, perhaps, he would take his revenge, but not now and, she guessed, Marek must know it. Then why the gibes and sneers, the invitation to combat?

A weakness, she decided. A desire to prove himself or the pleasure he gained in risking danger as another would deliberately walk on the edge of a precipice for no good reason, tempting fate for a perverse amusement. The price he paid for his talent, though as yet she had seen nothing of it.

As if reading her thoughts he said, "You play chess, Pacula? Set up the board, arrange the men how you will, take any side, and in twelve moves I will beat you. Or give me a string of numbers and ask for any result, division, multiplication, the square roots, anything. The stanza of a poem-one you know-give me the first half and I will give you the second, and if I am at fault, it is the poet who will be wrong, not I."

"Games," said Usan. "How can they help us?"

"Who knows what we may find?" Marek dropped the cards, and no longer mocking, looked from one to the other. "A safe the combination of which is unknown? A situation we cannot recognize? A world of mystery in which only special talents can find a path? Sufan has an artifact-have you seen it? A mass of distorted metal found on a wrecked vessel. A scrap of debris, some would think, but I can fit it into a pattern. As I helped to fit other items into a whole. You think he guides you to Balhadorha?" His finger thrust at where Jarv Nonach sat sniffing his pomander. "He takes us only where it is determined we should go."

"On a route you have plotted?" Usan Labria stared her disbelief. "To the Ghost World?"

"No, to Chamelard. First to Chamelard." Marek scooped up the cards. "And now, Earl, shall we play?"

Sufan Noyoka sat in his cabin, the desk before him heaped with papers, graphs bright with colored lines. He looked up as Dumarest entered the room, saying nothing as the door closed, only his eyes moving, darting from one point to another as if he were an animal trapped in a cage.

Dumarest said flatly, "It is time we talked."

"More than time, Earl, I agree, but I have been busy, as you know, and you have had your own duties. You have assessed the crew?"

"Men united by greed."

"True," admitted Sufan, "but how else to persuade men to risk their lives? The danger will come when their determination begins to fail. Then they must be urged to continue the search. And when we find Balhadorha there will be other dangers." He touched a paper, moved a graph, rested his hand on a star map. "You remember the artifact I showed you? Once it was the part of a machine, probably the power supply, and it could have been of incredible value. Those on the wrecked vessel must have found it and then what? Did each try to gain it for his own? Greed knows no bounds, Earl-a danger I early recognized. And what can two women and an old man do against the rest?"

"You forget Marek."

"Who could instigate the trouble. What do you think of him?"

"I think he is a man in love with death," said Dumarest. "Only when dead will he know the final mystery of life. Where did you find him?"

"Does it matter? I needed him and so he is with us. As I needed you, Earl. The reason must be obvious."

A part, but not the whole. Men faced with sudden wealth could become intoxicated at a prospect of fortune and forget elementary precautions. A fact Dumarest had recognized, but he sensed there must be more.

"Why are we calling at Chamelard?"

"You know?"

"Marek announced it."

"Well, it is no secret." Sufan shrugged, a gesture which minimized the importance of the event. "I would have told you long before we landed. An essential part of the plan, Earl. Our number is not yet complete. There is another we have to collect."

"A man?"

"A woman."

"And the cargo of Chelach meat?"

"To buy her."

Sufan rose and stepped to where a container filled with a murky liquid stood on a small table beside the cot. Touching its base, he activated the device and watched as a pale luminescence grew within, swirls of color which gained strength to take on a vaguely amorphous shape, delicate membranes moving with slow grace in a sea of divergent hues.

Without turning he said, "To buy her. Earl. Money would have been simpler but my funds are exhausted. My herd, too, now that I have turned it into meat. Unless we find Balhadorha I am ruined."

A doubt, the first he had expressed, and Dumarest was conscious of the man's tension, the strain barely controlled, masked by his apparent interest in the luminous toy. As it glowed still brighter Dumarest leaned forward and switched it off. Even though never still the man's eyes could reveal hidden intent.

"Is Chamelard a slave world?"

"No, but the woman is special, a product of the Schell-Peng Laboratories. She has been trained, her special attributes strengthened, skills honed and developed to a high degree over the years. We need her if we are to navigate the Hichen Cloud."

Then, as Dumarest made no comment, he said, "The essence of my plan, Earl, If a few men and a ship could find Balhadorha, then why hasn't it been discovered before? The area around the Hichen Cloud is thick with worlds and traders are always on the search for a profit. Given time, it would have been found; instead it remains a legend. Why? A question I pondered for years and then had what must be the answer. Balhadorha is within the Cloud and the entire region is a mass of conflicting energies. In it normal instruments are distorted and true navigation impossible. You have been close to such regions, Earl, you know what happens."

Sensors at fault, readings turned into meaningless information, a ship twisted and torn, helpless to aim for safety, not knowing even where safety could be found. The generator would be overstrained, units fail, the Erhaft Field collapse. Once that happened, unless the vessel was crushed like an egg, it would drift helpless in a sea of destructive radiation.

Something the crew members would have known, and Dumarest wondered at their silence. Or perhaps, even now, they were ignorant of the true extent of the danger.

He said, "Does the captain know you intend to penetrate the Cloud?"

"Rae Acilus has my confidence."

"And the others? Do they think, as I did, that you merely intended to skirt the edges?"

"Does it matter?" Sufan was bland. "They have come too far to back out now."

A mistake-when the trouble began they would lose their hunger for riches, the need to survive would see to that. Then he remembered Usan Labria and her determination. She had nothing to lose. Neither did Pacula, who would take any chance to find her daughter. Marek? He would welcome the challenge.

It was enough to worry about himself. Once on Chamelard the expedition could go to hell without him.