Symbol of Terra

Chapter Seven

Lifting his goblet Massak said, "A thing neatly done, Earl. If ever you are in need of employment I know a dozen who would give you rank and a command. I salute you!"

He drank and Lopakhin followed his example. "Fast," he said as he lowered his glass. "The way you moved in, dodged, reacted-like lightning. Mharl didn't stand a chance."

A lie as he must have known; no fight could ever be a certainty and Mirza's champion had been dangerous with speed and skills of his own. Dumarest turned from the group around the table set in the great hall. Vosper's doing or Baglioni's, though neither was to be seen. An oddity; the midget was never far from his master yet now there was no sign of him. As there had been none during the fight when, surely, a bodyguard would have felt his charge needed protection.

A fact Dumarest noted as he moved to stare through the open doors. Mirza had gone, taking her rafts with her, her guns, her dead and hurt. Now the valley lay in shrouded darkness, the glow of starlight broken by the brilliant streaks from the firebirds, the fan of brilliance spilling from the open portal, diminishing as the panels closed to seal the house as it was before.

"Earl?" Govinda was beside him. "Earl?"

She looked lovelier than ever, the mane of her hair a cascade of flame, the lines of her body delineated by the close-fitting gown she wore. One which left her shoulders bare, her arms, revealing the long, silken curve of her thigh at every other step.

"I was worried, Earl," she said. "When Mharl hit you I felt my heart move as if it would burst. Then, when you didn't go down, I knew you would be victorious."

Had she been watching? Dumarest frowned, trying to remember, but Mharl had demanded all his attention and she could have stayed in the shadows.

"Tama was worried too," she said. "I sensed it. As I sensed how that old bitch felt toward you after you'd won. At that moment she would willingly have made you her equal had that been your ambition. It made me jealous." Govinda rested her hand on his arm. "Would you have gone with her had she asked?"

"No."

"Refused the chance to share the power of the Karroum? Do you mean that?"

He said, bluntly, "I'm not in the habit of lying."

"But-"

"It would be power short-lived. No Family would tolerate the introduction of a stranger on such terms. There are too many with too much to lose." A threat settled by the use of an assassin, a subtle poison slipped into food or drink, a convenient accident-there were too many ways of dealing with the unwanted. "Where is Toyanna?"

"What?" The question startled her. "Why, with Tama, I suppose."

"No." He looked to where Chenault stood at one end of the table, leaning against it, using the board to steady his balance. "No, she isn't there."

"Why do you want her?"

"To talk." He smiled at the expression in her eyes. "To share a drink with her. To enjoy her company."

For a moment her face seemed to blur, to become hateful, ugly, then it smoothed and she smiled as she looked up at him, the gleam of her eyes emerald in the shadow of her brows.

"You're teasing me, Earl. Trying to make me jealous. You're not really interested in Toyanna. No more than you are in Hilary. Not as a woman, that is. Not as someone you need to hold close."

"Need?"

"Need." Her voice lowered as she repeated the word. "There is an ache inside of you which has lasted too long. A yearning for something you once had and hope to have again. Can you deny it?" Then, as he remained silent, she laughed and moved away. "Perhaps you will find it, Earl. Stranger things have happened."

She moved on, passing the group at the table, the servants attending them, becoming a blur as she blended in with the decor of the hall. The circus adornment he had seen before; the bars and cages and visage of clowns. The smoldering colors, the bizarre and fanciful decorations. Symbolism he could appreciate and a message which was plain; he had been accepted by the others of the entourage of Chenault. Tama Chenault who had once owned a circus-and the circus took care of its own.

"A happy ending." Chenault nodded a greeting as Dumarest joined him at the table. "A difficult situation neatly solved. For that you have my gratitude; I have no wish to be enemies with the Karroum."

"Gratitude." Dumarest helped himself to wine. "Is that all?"

"I don't understand."

"Words are only vibrations of the air. The cheapest form of repayment there is. From you, Chenault, I want more."

"Such as?"

"You know the answer to that. The reason I came to see you. When are you going to give me what you promised?"

"Soon." Chenault lifted his goblet, wine spilling to stain his chin. "It will be soon."

"Tomorrow?"

"I think so. Yes. Tomorrow."

"I'll anticipate the meeting." Dumarest took the goblet from Chenault's hand, refilled it, handed it back. "A toast, my friend. To life!"

"To life!"

Again wine stained Chenault's chin, the goblet shattering as he lowered his hand. Dumarest reached for a cloth but Toetzer was before him, a napkin busy as it soaked up the wine. If the hand had been cut there was no trace but the red wine could have masked any blood.

"You must pardon me." Chenault swayed a little as he straightened. "Stress and fatigue together with my recent indisposition-I'm sure you understand. A momentary weakness but I think it best to retire. Jem, please attend me." He turned as he neared the side of the hall, Toetzer at his side. "Goodnight all." He waved his hand at the assembly. "I bid you all good night."

As he left the hall Massak turned to Dumarest, smiling. "Well, Earl, what now?"

They gambled, one against the other, elbows to the table, biceps straining as each tried to force the other's hand to the board. Mercenary's fun with a candle glowing to give added incentive to win. A game Dumarest had played often enough with glowing coals instead of candles and, at times, the bared steel of a naked point. A hard game for hard men and he guessed why Massak insisted on playing it.

"You're hard, Earl." Massak rubbed the back of his hand. "Hard and fast and as tricky as they come. The kind of man good to have at your back when the trouble starts. Once more for luck? Double or quits?"

"Try it with someone else."

"I can beat them all. Even Shior." A man hurt with a dislocated shoulder; the last of his targets had been alerted and had fought back. Now Shior rested in drugged slumber and Massak was impatient to regain his eminence. "Once more, Earl. I insist."

And, losing, would be sullen. Dumarest knew the type too well and, even if he beat the man, would gain nothing from his victory. Yet to yield was not enough; like the mistress of the Karroum, the mercenary had his own concept of honor.

"The last time, then." Dumarest took his place at the table. "Double or quits."

"As you say." Teeth flashed white as Massak grinned. "The candles, Tyner." He waited as flames rose from the wicks Lopakhin kindled. "Now!"

A surge and he had thrown all his strength into the combat. Dumarest felt his arm begin to yield and fought back, not to win but to give the illusion of a hard-won battle. A moment of strain and, slowly, Massak's hand was forced back, to stand almost upright, to bend slowly toward the other side. Sweat shone on his face as, baring his teeth, he resisted the pressure, forcing Dumarest's arm back, back, bending it until the back of his hand hung over the leaping flame of the candle.

Lifting as Dumarest fought back.

Falling again to hover as hair singed and the flame licked flesh. A guttering flare which died as Massak forced the hand to quench the wick.

"I won!" His roar of triumph filled the hall. "By God, I won!"

"Try him with knives!" Toetzer, returned, yelled the challenge. "Face him with naked steel and I'll give you odds of twenty to one."

"No!" Dumarest was curt.

"Why not?" Elated by his victory Massak was eager for combat. "First blood, Earl. Just a touch to decide who is the better man."

A single cut which would lead to others and to final maiming or gory death. A combat without reason, profit or cause. Dumarest recognized this but knew he could never get Massak to accept. The mercenary was too much a barbarian for such logic and, his blood heated, wanted nothing but to fight.

"Wait!" Dumarest looked at the ring which had formed, the avid faces. "You want a battle, right? Then we'll give it to you. Here!" Steel flashed as he drew his knife and sent it to quiver, point in the board, halfway down the table. "You at the far end, Ian. Jem, give us full goblets." Dumarest lifted his own, Massak doing likewise. "We drink and go for the blade. Who'll give the word?"

"I will!" Toetzer shouted down the others. "You ready? Go!"

Dumarest sipped his wine, threw the goblet and its contents at Massak, was down the table and gripping the freed knife before the mercenary guessed what was happening. His roar of anger echoed from the roof.

"You cheated! By God, you cheated!"

"Did I say we were to drink it all?" Dumarest sheathed the knife, smiling, one hand falling on Massak's shoulder in apparent friendship. "If you can't win fair, my friend, then you have to win foul." In a lower tone he added, "Stop this before one of us winds up dead."

And Massak had no doubt as to who that would be. The shower of wine had sobered him, that and the sight of the naked blade, the face of the man who had held it pointed at his throat. Death had been close then and he knew it. Knew too that Dumarest, by cheating, had given him an out.

One he took as, laughing, he clapped his own hand on Dumarest's shoulder and called for wine to celebrate a draw.

"To the finest companion any fighter could hope to find. One hard, fast, cunning-and who can take a joke." He lifted his goblet. "To Dumarest!"

That toast was followed by others and it was late when Dumarest finally made his way to his room. His head ached a little though he was far from drunk, having pretended to drink far more than he had actually swallowed. Under the cold sting of the shower he thought of Massak and how he had left him; swaying, bawling mercenary songs and reliving old campaigns. A man who could have been an enemy but who now swore he was a friend. As Mirza Karroum had done. As Chenault had promised to keep his word.

The spray ceased and Dumarest stepped from the shower to dry himself and, killing the lights, lay naked on the bed. Starglow from the window filled the room with silver, making a screen of the ceiling on which he projected mental images. Chenault standing in the clearing, tall, silent, almost as if graven from stone. Chenault in the hall leaning against the table as if for support. The same man who had spilled wine over his chin. Who had smashed a goblet in his hand.

His face had been the same as it had in the study before his attack. His body, even his stance, but had there been a subtle wrongness? A man affected by drugs would have acted as he had done, a little unsteady on his feet, a shade unaware. Had Toyanna doped him so as to make a necessary appearance when Mirz had arrived with her demands? And, if she had, would he be fit enough to tell what he knew about Earth?

A worry accompanied by another: if Avro was still alive then his personal danger was very real. He could have guided the woman to him-but no, the last thing he would want was for her to take her revenge. Instead he would use other methods and Dumarest never made the mistake of underestimating the power of the Cyclan.

He dozed, starting awake to a faint rattle from the door, the sound as of someone trying to get into the room. Rising, he jerked away the chair holding it fast and opened the panel. In the passage outside Govinda shrank from the glittering menace of his knife.

"Earl! I-"

"Come inside." The door closed behind her, the chair again rammed into place. "What do you want?"

A stupid question; the answer was in her eyes, her face. In the heat of her body felt as she stepped close to him. In the message of her arms as they lifted to close around his neck.

In the burning demand of the kiss she imprinted on his lips.

"I love you," she whispered. "Earl, my darling, I love you."

He said nothing, the knife hanging at his side, his free hand rising to caress her hair.

"Since the moment I saw you I knew we belonged together. I can sense such things. As I sense the void in your heart. The space you ache to fill." The pressure of her body was a warm and succulent invitation. "A space I can fill, my darling. My dearest darling. My love!"

A woman enraptured, enamored, hopelessly in love-or one pretending to be.

"Hold me, Earl! Take me in your arms, my darling. Kiss me! Kiss me!"

Words to excite the senses, and gestures to match but all were the province of every actress and even the most inexperienced harlot knew how to emulate passion. Again he caressed her hair, running his hand over the contours of her body, finding nothing but heated flesh beneath the gossamer thinness of her robe. Yet weapons could be hidden in unsuspected places; drugs placed beneath the nails could bring quick unconsciousness once their points had pricked the skin and an ampoule, crushed between the teeth, could vent numbing vapors when impelled by a kiss.

Yet she had kissed and touched him and he was unharmed.

"Earl, what is wrong?" She stepped back from him, eyes wide, luminous in the starlight. Dark pools of shining brilliance as her hair was dark in the starglow. As were her lips and nails and darting tongue. As the thin fabric of her robe which showed betraying glints as she moved. As the dark areolas of her nipples surmounting the breasts which shifted with wanton, unfettered abandon. "Earl?"

The magic was too strong. The web spun by perfume and starglow and warm, feminine flesh. Of soft lips and yielding contours and the ache in his heart which she seemed to know too well and which never ceased to hurt. The pain of what had been and would never be again. Could never be again until the end of time.

"Earl?"

"No!" He moved, reaching for the light, his head turned from her, eyes blinking, narrowing at the sudden, warmly yellow glare. "Don't say anything. Just leave me. Just-" He turned, falling silent as, around him, his universe collapsed.

"Earl!" Kalin stepped toward him, arms lifted, mouth curved as he had seen it curve so often, eyes filled by the light he had never thought to see again. "Earl, my darling. My very own wonderful darling!"

An illusion. Govinda using her talent and making herself appear to him as the thing he most wanted to see. The woman he most ached to possess. The one he missed most of all-and now had found again.

Had found again!

The joy of it blazed through him as he folded her in his arms. The touch of her lips, her hands, her body banishing all thought of illusion from his mind. She was what he wanted her to be and, becoming it, made him see her in that guise. See her and love her as he had never stopped loving her.

"My darling! My love!" She cried out in the bittersweet pain of his caress. "My love!"

Later, when again starglow filled the room, Dumarest turned to where she lay beside him, seeing the cascade of her hair spread on the pillow not black as it seemed but flaming red as he remembered. As red as the flame which she had set to burning within his heart.

In the dimness the lights were like the eyes of watching insects; red, yellow, blue, green, flashing and changing even as Kooga watched. The telltales on the instruments he had added; extra monitors which even now recorded every variation of the electromagnetic fields of the cyber's brain. Among them Avro lay like a corpse, mummified, immobile. The oxygen which kept him alive now pumped directly into his bloodstream by the mechanism which had bypassed both heart and lungs.

A man, dying as all men must die, but the manner of his passing was something novel to Kooga's experience. The vitality was incredible as if, like an animal, the cyber clung to existence against all odds. And, as he sank even deeper toward final extinction, the cerebral activity increased against all logic. The patterns recorded by the pens of the encephalograph were of a complexity Kooga had never seen before: presenting a puzzle he itched to solve.

"Doctor?"

The nurse had arrived to make her routine check and stood, deferential, waiting for him to clear the area. A good worker, obedient, deft with her hands. Too deft for her to have done what he had told Vaclav she had done; such a nurse would never have disturbed any connection. But the lie had been a facile explanation of what he would rather the Chief did not know.

"Doctor? Shall I attend the patient?"

"A moment." Kooga forced himself to soften his normal, brusque manner. "Have you noticed any change in his condition?"

"None that has not been recorded, Doctor."

"No blame is intended," he said quickly. "I was thinking more of some intuitive feeling you may have had which did not register on the monitors. An impression," he urged. "A personal assessment which you may have felt. Such things happen." Too often for the peace of mind of those dealing with the bricks and mortar of ordinary medicine; sensations which defied analysis, guesses, hunches, odd certainties which led to unexpected results. He added, appealingly, "You know this is a special case and any help you can give will be appreciated."

"I'd like to help, Doctor', it is my duty but-" She paused, frowning. "I don't think I can be of assistance."

"Let me be the judge of that."

"It's just that when I was attending him before the bypass was introduced I had the oddest impression that he was shouting at someone. It was as if-"

"A moment, nurse. Was that after Mirza Karroum paid her visit?"

"Yes, just after you had attached the recorder to the patient's larynx." Her eyes met his, wide, innocent. "I noticed it, of course, while making the routine check. The higg-load light was showing on the encephalograph and, as I touched him, I seemed to hear a voice. Well, not hear it exactly, but-"

"Sense it?"

"Yes." She smiled her thanks at his help. "Almost as if a finger had touched my brain. But not quite that either. It was just a feeling. I can't explain it and, naturally, didn't report it. I'd almost forgotten it until you asked."

A burst of cerebral activity which could have been triggered by her proximity and, because of the subtle affinity with the sick gained during her years of service, she had sensed it with a talent barely suspected. Kooga studied her as she stood beside the bed. An ordinary, honest, hard-working woman with an ingrained deference to those in authority. Questioned by the Cyclan physicians she would repeat what she had said and their questions as to the recorder he would do without. To discharge her would be simple yet that, in itself, could give rise to questions. Good nurses were simply not thrown aside without cause.

He said, "As I remember it, nurse, you are due for a vacation. Certainly you merit a reward for your dedicated service. A month, I think, would not be too long. Starting immediately."

"Doctor?"

He saw her puzzlement and guessed its cause; he was not noted for generosity or undue concern with the welfare of those beneath him. Deliberately he grew brusque.

"Aren't you due for vacation? I must be mistaken. However I am making other arrangements for this patient and you will no longer be needed. I was thinking of the Bilton Resort-you could fill in as emergency medical staff. I owe the resident practitioner a favor and you could help to repay it." To explain too much would be a mistake; one he avoided by an abrupt termination of the subject. "I will make all arrangements. Be ready to leave by morning."

Alone he looked at the figure lying supine on the bed. Closing his eyes he tried to capture the feeling the nurse had mentioned but he lacked her affinity and gained nothing from the experiment. Opening his eyes, he studied the interplay of the telltales, the winking gleams which held a subtle mockery.

The visible signs of cerebral activity of a man with a brain grown too big for his skull. One more dead than alive yet who, if the nurse was correct, was screaming for help.

To whom?