Symbol of Terra

Chapter Five

Like a mouse the nurse moved down the corridor and into the room where Avro lay like a corpse on the bed. A routine visit; monitors did a good job and normally were trusted but this was a special patient and Doctor Kooga had made it plain that any failure would bring harsh penalties.

Quietly she stepped to the side of the bed, looking at the flaccid, skull-like face, one seeming more dead than alive, yet the monitors registered the beating of the heart, the passage of oxygenated blood through the brain. Only one thing seemed out of place: a tiny, flickering lamp on the panel of the encephalograph, the signal of high current demand. Nothing to worry about, activity of the recording pens always registered above a certain level, but this was unusual in terms of duration.

The cyber's mental faculties were working at high pressure and she wondered why. He should be comatose, drifting in a mindless lethargy, thoughts at a low ebb. Instead his mind seemed to be acting like a dynamo.

Leaning over the inert form she gently touched his face. A gesture without the intention of a caress; part of her duties was to administer drops in each eye. A thing done with practiced skill and she wiped the surplus from the waxen cheeks, trying not to think of the orbs she had seen, the spark which seemed to glow in their depths. The reflection of light, she guessed, it had to be that. The cyber was drugged, asleep, resting like the dead man he would soon be unless things took a turn for the better.

Even so she tiptoed quietly from the room when she left.

Avro didn't register her going. He floated in a void shot through with swaths of warmly glowing colors illuminating shapes of unusual proportions. Vistas which rolled endlessly through the chambers of his mind. Stored impressions, memories, speculations, all now released to flood his questing awareness, but confined to the limits of his brain.

A foretaste of what would be when his cortex had been removed from his body and sealed in a vat to become a part of the tremendous complex which was Central Intelligence. There he would become one with the gestalt which directed the Cyclan, using cybers and agents to spread the dominance of the organization until, in the end, it would rule the entire galaxy.

A concept which yielded mental pleasure and he swam in a sea of ceaseless attainment during which problems were solved, new worlds based on unusual chemical combinations created, new frames of reference established to bring into being new and exciting universes.

A time of euphoria which faded as the colors dulled and the vast shapes diminished to form a rocky plain on which stood a solitary figure. One clad in the scarlet robe he knew so well, the breast glimmering with the Seal of the Cyclan.

Marie? Had the Cyber Prime come to visit him in his vision? A companion? Someone he had previously known? Avro strained his eyes but could make out no detail; the drawn cowl masked the figure's face.

"Master?"

His words died without acknowledgment but he was not surprised. The vision matched others he had experienced before; illusions born of his distorted mind. The Homochon elements grafted within his brain were now growing like a cancer running wild. Normally, when activated, they established rapport with Central Intelligence, placing him in direct mental communication with the great complex. An organic communication which was almost instantaneous. But, illusion though it seemed, this too could be the product of rapport.

He said, "Who are you? Am I to be interrogated?"

Sound which did not exist beyond his enclosed world, just as the movement he made as he stepped toward the figure had no reality but in his mind.

"You failed," said the cowled figure. "You failed."

Not once but twice and Avro felt the shame of inadequacy even as he admitted the truth.

"I admit it," he said. "I failed. But it was not wholly my fault. The affliction I now suffer struck me down. I had Dumarest in my hand, safe, captured, but I collapsed at the wrong moment. Even so he should have been held. The arrangements had been made. Those with me should have taken him." In memory he was again the sight over the falls; the rafts almost touching, the flames, the bodies falling and Dumarest rising like a bird into the sky. "Luck," he said. "I knew of his luck but thought I'd taken every precaution. I made a mistake, one, but it was enough. Who could have known I would be stricken down when I was?"

"You had the data. You knew of your condition."

"Yes."

"You should have predicted the logical outcome."

"I did. But there was time."

"Time is a variable."

"A trait accounted for. The probability of my staying active and successfully completing the capture was 98.5 percent. Almost certainty."

But it nor any other prediction could ever be that. Always there remained the unknown factor which, as had happened, could negate the highest probability. A factor which seemed to act to Dumarest's advantage with consistent regularity.

"Even so you failed. A proof of your inefficiency. Can you deny that you merit the penalty of failure?"

Avro felt the cold chill of what was to come. A cyber did not fail. If he did not succeed then he ceased to be a cyber. The reward for which he had dedicated his life was denied him. Instead he was given total extinction.

And the colors would be gone, the shapes, the endless drifting in a void thronged with mental attainment. There would be no created worlds, no new universes, no communion with others of his kind. No near-immortality in which to plan domination and guide the Cyclan to the fulfillment of the master plan.

"No," he said. "I have not failed. Not yet."

"Then where is Dumarest? The secret of the affinity twin which he holds still eludes us. We must recover the sequence in which the fifteen biomolecular units must be assembled."

Avro said, "To repeat the obvious demonstrates a lack of efficiency. I am aware of the need to obtain the secret."

One which would give the Cyclan total domination over all others. By its use one intelligence could take over the body of another. Become that other, using the host as it willed, defying all barriers of time and space. Each cyber could control a ruler and the brains making up Central Intelligence could experience bodily life again and rid the Cyclan of the fear that they hovered on the brink of insanity.

"He must be found," said the figure. "Where is he? What happened in the main salon of the apartment by the falls. What happened?"

"Dumarest killed and escaped," said Avro. "Killed the man who had killed." He couldn't think of names but the incident was clear.

"Where is Dumarest?"

"Gone." Rising into the featureless sky on a trail of flame. "Gone."

"Where is Dumarest?"

A problem to be answered; find the man and find the secret and, at the same time, prove his efficiency, his right to his reward. Avro examined the evidence, the smattering of facts he had gleaned as to what Dumarest had done since his arrival on Lychen. The people he had met and the interests he had shown. Data which be incorporated into a web of other facts, isolating, evaluating, arriving at a logical conclusion.

"Where is Dumarest?"

A question answered then ignored despite repeated demands as he concentrated on the figure standing on the rocky plain before him. A simulacrum created by Central Intelligence? A novel means of rapport? Something special to himself or was the whole thing a fantasy?

"Who are you?" he demanded. "Show me your face."

He watched as a hand rose to throw back the cowl. He felt no surprise; logic had told him who and what the figure must be and he stood, in the world of his mind, looking at the accuser who was himself.

Vosper said, "Open for five. Jem?"

Toetzer took his time, pursing his lips as he studied his cards, the middle finger of his left hand flicking the pasteboards. A habit Dumarest had noticed since the man had joined the game hours ago. As he had noticed others from those who had joined the school.

"Call and raise ten."

Toetzer wasn't bluffing. He played with mathematical skill; paying strict attention to the odds, assessing the worth of each hand, the potential of each draw. Massak was different, using guile to mask his real intent.

"I'll just lift that another five."

A killer waiting to strike. To use the power of his money to crush the opposition as he would use the strength of his body to destroy an enemy. Shior matched him but in a more subtle fashion. A rapier as compared to a club smiling as he, too, lifted the raise by an equal amount. A ploy to test the opposition, buying the right to act in his own manner, one akin to Massak's but not so blatantly obvious. A man who would appear to be a reckless fool-and who would take those who thought so for all they had when the time was ripe.

"Earl?" Vosper looked to where he sat. "You in?"

Dumarest shook his head, following the instinct which told him to fold his hand. Lopakhin joined him, grunting when Vosper met the raise and doubled it.

"Here it comes. The hammer. The trouble with Ron is he's greedy."

But too engrossed in his own hand to pay due attention to the others. Dumarest sat back in his chair, looking, listening. The players had gathered as Vosper had said they might and, as was the habit of men playing cards, they talked. Small talk, banter, jests, idle remarks but, from such talk information could be gained. Dumarest had made the most of the opportunity.

Vosper was an engineer, Toetzer a mathematician, Massak a mercenary, Shior a fighter, Lopakhin, aside from an artist, was also a communications expert. Grain garnered from chaff and Dumarest added it to other facts. Toyanna a skilled doctor, Hilary a sensitive, Govinda?

He felt the touch on his shoulder as Massak, laughing, scooped up his winnings. The woman stood beside him, hair a scarlet aureole, her face smooth, her eyes luminous.

Vosper glanced at her and shook his head. Toetzer, cards in hand, paused as he was about to deal.

"No offense, Earl, but if Govinda stays then I'm quitting the game."

"You think she's helping me to cheat?"

"No, nothing like that, it's just that-" Toetzer broke off, then appealed to the others. "How can I explain? Can any of you tell him?"

"She reminds him of his mother," said Vosper. "The one who-"

"Not my mother!" Toetzer was harsh. "The bitch who bought me. Who defiled me. Who- The hell with it. She stays I go." He slammed down the cards. "What's it to be?"

"I'll go," said Govinda. Stooping, she whispered in Dumarest's ear. "I just wanted to be close to you. To ask if I'll see you again later. We could go for a walk or something."

"Yes," he said. "Later."

"Not now?"

He glanced at the cards, the players, the money on the table. As yet he still had to win. "Later," he said again. "I promise."

Massak shook his head as she left the room. "A beautiful woman," he said. "What do you see in her, Earl?" He hurried on as Dumarest frowned. "I mean what does she look like to you?"

"What you said-a beautiful woman."

"Yet she reminds Toetzer of everything he hates. To Vosper?" Massak looked toward him. "What do you see in her, Ron?"

"I had a sister once. She looks the same."

"Someone you loved and would never hurt, right?" Massak turned to Lopakhin. "And you? What do you see with your artist's eye?"

"Beauty." Lopakhin was curt. To Dumarest he said, "They're having a game with you. Toetzer doesn't like her, that's true, or he says he doesn't like her, which isn't the same thing. Personally I think he fell in love with the woman who bought him and taught him how to live. Certainly he can't forget her. If she stood naked and defenseless before him all he'd do would be to try and kill her with kisses."

Toetzer said, "That's a lie!"

"When you look at Govinda you see her. Right?"

"Yes, but-"

"That proves it." Lopakhin shrugged and again looked at Dumarest. "She's a mentamorph," he explained. "It's a survival trait, I guess. She appears to those who might possibly threaten her as something they would never hurt. With Vosper it's his sister. With me it's a model I knew once and for whom I'd have walked over burning coals. Who Massak likes is anyone's guess but Shior had to stop him once when he tried to get his hands on the woman. And you, Earl? What does she look like to you?"

A woman, soft, appealing, one haunted by a hidden yearning.

One who, twice now, had wrung the strings of his heart.

The first he mentioned, the second he did not. Shior nodded, understanding, his voice serious as he said, "You've hit it, my friend. Govinda is more than what she seems. Inside of her she carries a deep hurt. Of all the gifts that anyone could offer her, motherhood is the one she would take."

"She's barren," said Vosper. "Sterile. God knows how much she spent and how hard she's tried but-" He shrugged. "The thing she wants most is the thing she can't have."

"Adoption?"

"The easy answer, Earl, and the most obvious solution, but it's not for her. She needs to have an affinity with the child. She isn't an ordinary woman and can't accept an ordinary baby. Toyanna could tell you why; it has something to do with the rejection syndrome, a mental repulsion due to her attribute." Vosper shook his head and sighed. "A pity. I hate to see anyone living in hell especially someone like Govinda. She's a nice person."

"Maybe too nice." Massak frowned at Toetzer. "Are you making love to those cards or stacking the deck? Come on, let's play."

Vaclav came out of the dusk like a nocturnal bird of prey, scowling, infuriated at the brusqueness of the command which had brought him to Kooga's office. To the doctor when they were together he snapped, "You summoned and I've responded. But if you have any more complaints as to unauthorized parking I shall not be amused."

"Sit." Kooga waved to a chair. Like the office it was of good quality and excellent taste. "Let us understand each other. As Chief Guardian of Lychen you have a duty to-"

"Protect the persons, property and privileges of the ruling Houses," interrupted Vaclav. "Basically that is the sum total of my responsibility. To take care of the Insham, the Vattari, the Cerney, the Karroum. Especially the Karroum."

"You don't like them?"

"They own most of the planet. They crack the biggest whip. When they say 'jump' we ordinary people ask 'how high?' I think you know that, Doctor."

"And if I do?"

"You have the answer to your question." Vaclav added, impatiently, "There are things needing my attention. Why did you send for me?"

"A problem." Kooga opened a drawer and produced a recording. He laid it before him on the desk. "After our last meeting Mirza Karroum had me do something for her. She was convinced the cyber could help her locate Dumarest. At her insistence I connected a microphone to an electrode connected to the cyber's cranium so as to feed in the output of a tape. I also connected another from his larynx to a recorder. It was her hope that, by verbal stimulus, he would gain remission and be able to respond."

Vaclav said, "Would it work?"

"Theoretically, yes."

"Did it?"

For answer Kooga touched the recording with the tip of a finger and said, "We are dealing with the Cyclan. On Lychen the Karroum are powerful but we both know that if the Cyclan wished they would be ruined and destroyed. Also, and this you can understand, I do not take kindly to threats."

Vaclav studied the doctor's face, seeing beneath the surface to the injured pride, the resentment which he knew so well. Familiar emotions which he had seen and used often before, but Kooga was not the subject for interrogation even if a charge could be made. Even so he could be led.

"So you made a decision," said Vaclav. "What?"

"This is in the strictest confidence, Chief."

"Of course."

"I had to make a decision and arranged a compromise. I made sure that the skull-connection was inoperative. The connecting wire wasn't quite making contact."

"So you got nothing." Vaclav mimicked a report. "Too bad, my lady, I did my best but the cyber failed to respond." He shrugged. "Where's the problem?"

"A nurse went into his room to make a routine check. During it she noticed unusual activity of the encephalograph. She also made physical contact with the patient. This was within the scope of her duties but-" Kooga paused then finished with a rush. "She must have moved the wire or touched the skull-connector and made it operable. She probably thought it a part of the monitoring device and did a routine check. This is the result." Again he touched the recording. "The final part contains the cyber's prediction of where Dumarest is to be found."

"Where?"

"Chenault's. The Valley of Light."

"Are you sure?"

"No. How can I be? The prediction comes from the cyber, not myself, but how often are they wrong?" Kooga frowned. "You seem troubled."

Vaclav said, "At Mirza Karroum's insistence I ordered a wide-scan, high-fly survey. Costly, but what the Karroum want they get. Something which could have been the raft Dumarest used was spotted to the east of the mountain where Chenault has his home. But it was over a hundred miles distant. Why would he have wanted to walk so far?"

"To hide."

"From us?"

"From the Cyclan. Listen."

The voice from the recorder was weak, thin, drifting from fast to slow as if time, for the speaker, held a dimension different and more variable than for others. Words which blurred, changed, struck with sudden, crystalline clarity.

"It ends there," said Kooga. "The part where he mentions Chenault. That's the part Mirza took notice of."

"She heard it?"

"I couldn't stop her. I thought the recording would be blank so there was no need to antagonize her. Later, after I'd played it again, I sent for you."

"Why?"

"I told you the encephalograph showed unusual activity," said Kooga. "The wild variations from the normal seemed to be aligned to these spoken words. That was to be expected but there were other, wilder variations, all unfamiliar, but it's my guess there's a connecting link. The stimulus must have jarred his awareness and concentrated it on a special area. Now listen again. Really listen."

Again the words, the thread of varying sound, but this time Vaclav concentrated harder, using his skill and training to filter noise from the relevant data, to fill in the missing pieces.

As the recording ended Kooga said, "He was explaining what happened in the room. How Dumarest killed a man who had killed. That must have been Perotto. Then comes the interesting part; the reason the Cyclan are so interested in Dumarest. It seems he holds a secret they want. A pity it isn't made clear but there is no doubt as to his importance to them." Pausing he added, meaningfully, "His importance and his value."

"Alive."

"What?"

"Dead he would be valueless," explained Vaclav. "Mirza was right; he didn't kill Perotto in self-defense. If they fought it was because Perotto wanted to save his life. We know that he failed. Which makes Dumarest guilty of murder."

"A technicality." Kooga dismissed it with a gesture. "Avro was the only witness and he would never put the man he came to find in danger. Soon the representatives of the Cyclan will arrive on Lychen. If we can hand Dumarest over to them, alive and well, we can ask our own price. Do I make myself clear, Chief?"

"You want me to find him, hold him, keep him from harm while you negotiate with the Cyclan."

"Yes." Kooga nodded, satisfied. "I assume you have no objections to making a fortune? To being rich and freed of your present restraints?"

"None."

"Then we are partners?"

Vaclav said, dryly, "In what? If Mirza Karroum knows where Dumarest is she's on her way to kill him by now."