Lallia

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 received 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.

Yalung 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.

"The ring," he said, and raised himself on one elbow. "The secret, what-" He broke off as a thin, shrilling note echoed over the trees, the entire region. It was sweet, high and painful in its keening poignancy. "Look!" Yalung reared up shy;wards to rest on his heels. "The ring!"

On the flat surface of the stone shone fifteen points of brilliance.

"A sonic trigger," gasped the Kha'tung fighter. "The cor shy;rect sequence of the affinity twin. And you didn't know. You didn't know!" He fell, lips twisted in an ironic smile. "All I had to do was to kill you and take the ring. I had a dozen opportunities but I used none of them. I even saved you from the beast on Joy. I thought you were valuable, that you would have known that-"

He died as a second chime rang through the air. The summons to the guardians which announced the coming of a vessel to the Place.

The handler was an old man with silvered hair and lines meshed thickly on his face. He stood at the foot of the ramp, his eyes misted with gentleness.

"This job doesn't pay much," he said. "But it has its com shy;pensations."

"The pilgrims?" Dumarest looked at the column filing down the avenue. Their progress was slow, those who could not walk being carried by those barely able to hobble. Leading them was the enigmatic figure of a guardian. Others stood between the sparing trees. Watching? Counting? It was impossible to know.

"I was one of them once," said the handler. "Twenty years ago. I had a malignancy of the blood impossible to cure. Shrine was my last hope." He breathed deeply, inflating his chest. "I was cured," he said quietly. "It seems to me that I owe something to all those seeking health."

"It's a nice thought," said Dumarest.

"You crashed, you say?"

"That's right."

"You were lucky," said the handler. "And did you-?"

"Yes," said Dumarest quickly. "I visited the Place. And," he added slowly. "I think I gained what I had been lacking."

Gained and lost, both within the span of hours. From where he stood Dumarest could see the spot where they had slept, where Lallia had been murdered and where Yalung had died. The bodies were gone, lifted away by the birds to be disposed of somewhere, perhaps fed to the spine-trees. As others would be disposed of, those who would die, as some must die, at the center of the clearing.

He looked again down the avenue. The dying sun threw a ruby light in the natural arch, a dim, mysterious, lumi shy;nescence in which the slowly moving band of pilgrims ap shy;peared to be walking through water, marching into the gate of another world. A concentration of pain and suffering, of desperation and hopefulness. Did the entity within the wrecked vessel live on such Para physical emanations? Did it need the psychic energy of those who came to rest their hands on the mound? Giving, perhaps as a by-product, some shy;thing in return?

"They go," mused the handler. "They crawl and skip and drag themselves down to the Place. And when they come back, those that do, they march like men. They fall into the ship and sleep solid for ten, twelve hours. Sometimes longer. And when they wake you can see paradise in their eyes."

"A good feeling," said Dumarest.

"The best." The handler sucked in his breath as a cone of coruscating brilliance leaped from the surrounding area. "It won't be long now."

His face was livid in the glow. Dumarest turned, looking at the radiance, wondering what it could be. The discharge of natural energies? A waste product of the alien entity? Or was it, perhaps, the visible by-product of a supralight message aimed at some distant galaxy?

"They'll be coming back soon," said the handler. "And we'll take them home."

"And me?" Dumarest looked at the man. "You can give me passage?"

"If you can pay."

"To outside the Web?"

"To Thermyle; you can get an outward-bound ship from there." The handler hesitated. "We won't be going direct and you know the system. But if you're short of money you can ride Low."

"I've got money," said Dumarest.

He had Yalung's pouch of precious gems and they would carry him to where he wanted to go. To a flaring red point on a pictured galaxy or as near as he could get to the sector in which it was held. It would be a long journey and there would be too much time to remember what might have been. Of a girl with lustrous black tresses, the pressure of her arms, the promise of her body, the future they would now never share.

"That's all right then," said the handler. "Just you?"

"Yes."

"Then you're alone?"

"Yes," said Dumarest bleakly. "I'm alone."