Symbol of Terra

Chapter Nine

He lay like a mummy in a crystal tomb; a pale shred of humanity festooned with wires and the pipes of a life-support system. His face was drawn, corpse-like, the mask of an ancient time. One shadowed by an elaborate construction of pads and lenses, microphones and receptors. Looking at him Dumarest was reminded of an insect caught and cocooned by a predatory spider. One who came to stand before him, tall, somber in her black. "You guessed," said Pia Toyanna. "How?"

"He seemed too young for the age he had to be." Dumarest looked at the figure in the transparent cabinet. "And the first time I sat with him in his study I felt there was something wrong. I couldn't hear his heartbeat or sound of breathing. Other things." Small things added to the one big thing his basic nature had recognized; the absence of a living organism. Sitting with Chenault had been like sitting with a machine. "How long?"

"Since shortly after he sold the circus. His health had been bad for a long time and, suddenly, it grew worse. Myositis, myotonia, myasthenia gravis-his muscular system just fell apart. Toward the end he couldn't even lift a finger."

And so the surrogate. The machine shaped like a man which reacted to the amplified impulses caught by the receptors covering Chenault's body. Lying in his box he would see what the machine saw, hear what it heard and, in return, it would move as he wanted to move, say what he wanted to say.

"Vosper built it," she said. "He's an engineering genius and Lopakhin helped. Basically it's just a sophisticated version of a remotely operated mining robot; one using radio to transmit the impulses instead of wires. A machine-but to Tama it is more than life itself."

"And to Baglioni?" Dumarest glanced at the midget where he stood before the door, silent, rigid in his anger. "He used it too, didn't he? When Chenault was too weak to operate it. The time Mirza came, for example, and the master of the house had to show himself."

"How did you know?"

"He was unsteady, unsure of himself and his control was bad. The glass he smashed by too great an application of pressure. The wine he attempted to pour into his mouth and sent to dribble over his chin. Other things. But it was a good try."

"But Baglioni? It could have been anyone."

"You? Hilary? Vosper at times? The rest were accounted for. And only Baglioni was so fiercely protective of Chenault. A return for Tama giving him the opportunity to feel a fully grown man." Dumarest looked at him, then at her. The midget's loyalty was accounted for but what held her to Chenault? The others?

She said, when he asked, "Tama is a good man. We owe him much."

For her the opportunity to stretch her skills to the ultimate, fighting death and decay with everything she had or could get. For Vosper the chance to prove himself a genius and the same for Lopakhin. For Hilary a refuge. For Toetzer the same. For Govinda?

A woman crippled with her need to become a mother. Toyanna shook her head when, bluntly, he asked the question.

"No, Earl, you can't father her child. No man living can do that. She is barren, sterile beyond all hope of ever bearing life. Transplants are rejected. I've put a half-dozen foeti within her womb and all have failed to survive. And yet still she hopes." Her face softened as she looked at him. "Take my warning, Earl, don't fall too deeply in love with her. Remember, she isn't what she seems."

Not to him or to any man but if the illusion was strong enough did the harsh reality matter? What if her hair lacked Kalin's true flame? Her body was not quite identical? Her mind not the savage flame of true affinity he had once known but a shadow of that overwhelming joy? It was there. It existed and against it the ghost of what had been had no chance. This was a woman he could hold in his arms, feel her, possess her, respond to her own passionate demands. And, on the foundation of wanting, grew the substance of fact.

He loved Govinda.

Govinda… Kalin… Kalinda.

Now, for him, the two were the same.

Baglioni said, "What are you going to do?"

"Do?" Dumarest saw the anxious inquiry in the midget's eyes. "Nothing."

"I don't understand. If it means so little to you then why force your way into here?"

"I wanted the truth," said Dumarest. "And I grew tired of being taken for a fool. I came here to learn something and I think you all know what it is. Chenault swore he could give it to me. He can still give it to me. Once I have it I'll leave."

"With Govinda?" Toyanna fired the question then shook her head as Dumarest nodded. "She won't go with you."

"I'd prefer her to tell me that."

"She'll tell it-her life is tied in with the rest of us. And we are bound to Tama."

"Bound? Held?" Dumarest echoed his impatience. "That mummery at the table? The secret society? The cult? There is nothing mystical about Earth. It is a planet. A world circling a sun. It knows heat and cold and bleakness but there are no ancient sages there, no magicians, no gods. No answers either," he added, "no matter what you may choose to believe. No superior race from which all others sprung. I know. I was born there."

"And so must be a part of that race if ever it existed." Toyanna pressed her point. "Be a child of those who were left. Carrying in your body their genes, their attributes-tell me, Earl, do you regard yourself as normal?"

He said nothing, staring at her, waiting.

"Your speed," she said. "I saw you fight and, at times, you seemed a blur. Such reflexes are rare. And the way you knew Chenault's surrogate was not really a human being-how many ordinary people would have sensed the difference? With Govinda you-but never mind that, enough to say that you have a certain charm which appeals to the basic in a woman. I've felt it, Hilary, even Mirza despite her age. A defensive mechanism, perhaps, certainly a survival trait. For your genes if not for yourself. And there is more. Why are you so enamored with returning to Earth? What attraction can that world have for you? Or is the need to return based on something deeper? A drive dictated by a compulsion beyond your comprehension?"

Questions for which he had no answers but only another question.

"Are you saying that I'm not human?"

"No, not that. If anything you could be more than human. An improvement, taking humanity as we know it, a better breed of person." Toyanna made a gesture of resignation. "As a doctor I've seen too many divergences from the norm. Any norm we care to establish so that now the word itself has ceased to hold meaning. A man is an animal who can breed with others of his kind. No matter what shape he has, what color, what size-as long as he can breed, he belongs to the same species. Even mutants as long as they remain sexually viable must be termed human no matter how they appear. Even freaks."

The disfigured and distorted and deranged. Those who drooled and lived in dreams and sloughed their skin as if they had been reptiles. Giants and midgets and women who had found another world within themselves. Artists and fighters and the woman he loved who was not what she seemed and could have no offspring.

Dumarest narrowed his eyes at the thought, wondering if Toyanna had deliberately planted it and why. Was Govinda a mutant who had progressed one step too far? Something which, despite her shape, could no longer be called human?

He said, "We've talked enough and I've waited too long. Wake Chenault and ask him what I want to know."

"He's worn out. The effort of your fight weakened him."

"A few words," said Dumarest. "A few numbers; the coordinates of Earth. Something he can give and lose nothing in the giving. He swore he could help me."

"He can."

"Then wake him." Dumarest stepped toward her as she made no move. "Do it!"

"And if I don't?" She added, quickly, "Don't answer that, I can guess. But why?"

"I warned him but he still tried to trick me."

"A fault, but-" She broke off, gesturing at the cabinet. "An old man, weak, dying, afraid, doing the best he could. Wanting to survive and knowing only one way to do it. Needing you as we all need you, Earl. Your speed, strength, courage, determination. Your luck." She met his eyes, his frown. "Yes, Earl, your luck. If we are to succeed we need all we can get."

"For what? Ryzam?" Dumarest thinned his lips with impatient anger. "You want me to join you chasing a fable, is that it? All right. I agree. Give me the coordinates of Earth and I'm with you all the way. That's what I told Chenault. The offer I made. He refused to accept it."

"He could have cheated you. Given you false data."

"He could have tried."

"But you would have made him verify the figures as far as possible. You wouldn't have trusted him. Yet you can't seem to understand why he couldn't trust you. You could have taken the figures and left."

Dumarest said, flatly, "I gave my word."

"One he should have taken, perhaps, but, in his place, would you?" She paused then said, before he could answer, "I promise you this; after we've been to Ryzam he will give you what you want to know. All you want will be yours."

Or Chenault would be dead and the knowledge he held lost with him. A gamble Dumarest was reluctant to take and yet there seemed to be no choice.

He said, bitterly, "The old and weak have a strength of their own. All right, tell Chenault he's won. I'll have to trust him-but if he cheats me not even Ryzam will save him."

On the side of the valley something flashed, died, flashed again. Gleams Dumarest noted, assessing time and direction before running toward the slope, bent low, blending into the vegetation his boots soundless on the loam. Halting to wait, to move again, to make a sudden dart and to lift Govinda high in his arms.

She squirmed, writhing, resisting his grip with spring-steel reaction, relaxing as she recognized him, slumping to lean against him, masking him with her hair, the mounds of her breasts warm against his cheeks.

"Darling!" She brushed back her hair as he set her down. "I didn't see you. What were you doing-spying on me?"

"I saw a flash and was curious."

"About this?" She lifted a pair of secateurs from the basket which had fallen to one side. Fronds covered the bottom. "I was collecting herbs. Hilary is going to make a potion for me. Something special. Once you taste it, my darling, you will never leave me."

"You don't need a potion for that."

"No?" Her eyes held his, bright yet vacant of humor, glinting with reflected light as they moved to search his face. "Do you mean that? Would you settle down here with me, grow old with me, spend the rest of your life in this one place so as to be at my side? Would you do that for me, Earl? Would you?"

Massak rescued him from the necessity of an answer. He called up, his voice flat, dampened by the contour of the terrain.

"Earl! Come down here. We need a referee."

He was stripped to the waist, his torso a mass of ugly scars, livid patches of paler hue which patterned his skin in abstract designs. Shior faced him, also naked to the waist, his hairless chest unmarked.

"A challenge," explained the mercenary. "I say Shior isn't fit yet and he claims he is. If he can beat me I'll agree. If he can't then he goes back to his bed."

Dumarest said, "Fit for what?"

"To live. To fight. To survive." Massak shrugged. "Does a man need an excuse for combat?"

"Not an excuse, a reason." Dumarest looked at the other man, smaller, slighter built, but equally as dangerous as the mercenary. One now completely healed. "Run to the end of the valley," he suggested. "The first to return will be the winner."

"Run?" Massak snorted his disgust. "What kind of combat is that? A warrior does not run."

"Sometimes it pays. Too often a stupidly brave man ends up a dead one."

"True." Shior nodded his agreement. "But some never learn. My thick-headed friend, for one. Even though his scars are a constant reminder. Fire," he explained. "Flame throwers on Appanowitz. I heard the warning and ran but he had to be stubborn. Gambled that he could cut them all down with a laser before they got him. Had there been one less he would have won the bet."

"As it was, Shior had to finish the job and, for me, the war was over." Massak scowled at the memory. "Fire," he muttered. "Those who use it should be roasted over a slow flame. Head-down over a camp fire as we did to the swine who tried to feed us poisoned wine. That was on Amara and it took him a long time to die."

"You fight old wars too often," said Shior. "Come, let's run. The exercise will do you good."

They vanished into the vegetation, Govinda watching them go, shaking her head as the rustling died.

"Men! Always they talk of death and battle and conflict. Why, when there are so many other things to talk about? Small, helpless, loving things to cherish and nurse and watch as they grow to full stature?" Without altering her tone she said, "Have you ever given a woman a child, Earl?"

Dumarest remembered what Toyanna had told him. "I can't give you what you want, Govinda. No man can."

"Is it so much to ask?" Her eyes, her face, mirrored her pain. "Why when I need it so much? Why must I be denied? Why? Why, Earl? Why?"

The question asked by all born to suffer. By all railing against their fate. Why? Why me? Why?

As always there was no comforting answer.

"You're wrong." She stepped back, shaking her head, chin lifted in sudden defiance. "There is a man who can give me what I need. Tama can. He promised. He swore that everything would be all right. Once we get to Ryzam-" As suddenly as it had come the brave defiance left her and she was weak again, sobbing, broken by the weight of too much yearning, too hopeless a dream. "Earl! Hold me! Tell me it will be all right!"

He obeyed, caressing her hair, holding her close as he murmured words of reassurance. Only when she had calmed did he rise, stooping to pick up her basket, the herbs it contained.

"We'll give them to Hilary," he said. "For that special potion."

"Do I need it?" Her eyes met his and she smiled at what she saw. "Never mind the herbs, Earl. Take me for a walk. To the edge of the valley."

Where the vegetation was thick and the ground soft and the air sweet with the scent of flowers. Where her hair spread in a scarlet mantle on the sward as she lay in the age-old attitude of demanding surrender. Where, afterwards, Dumarest turned to lie supine to stare at the burning vault of the sky through a screen of leaves. Seeing the sun and the tiny mote of the raft which hovered high above the valley like a watching bird of prey.

Vaclav was annoyed and showed it, making no attempt to mask his face as he glared at the image on the screen.

"I'm limited," he said. "I told you that. There's nothing more I can do."

Kooga, equally annoyed, maintained his professional calm. "We had an agreement, Chief. I can't understand why Dumarest isn't in your custody."

"I explained all that. Mirza Karroum has made her peace with him and has withdrawn all accusations. More; she seems to have become his friend. I can't defy the Karroum."

"And Chenault?"

"Alone means little but he also has friends. I can't break into his house to arrest his guest, especially as I've no reason. I've a raft watching the area. If he leaves I'll know it and maybe something can be done."

Justice outraged, his own concept of law turned into a mockery and his office used for personal gain. Things which made a sour taste in his mouth and the fading image on the screen didn't help. Kooga had his own world; one in which he was almost supreme, and the habit of demanding obedience was one which had become a part of his nature. A trait Vaclav found more than irritating and he sat back, glowering at the communicator, his desk, the far wall of his office.

A box in which he had spent too many years of his life.

Kooga had hinted of a means of escape; money to gain independence and freedom from the need of pandering to those who ruled Lychen. The big Families with their whims, their degenerate offspring, their cruelties and unthinking demands. Once he had accepted it and had been glad of the security the Guardians offered. An organization in which he had risen to become its Chief but Luccia had died and their child with her and the driving need to provide for them had ended with their funeral.

A bad time which work had helped to push to the back of his mind, but always their memories lingered, his wife with her youth and beauty and wonderful understanding and the child they had both wanted so much and which had cost so dear.

A drawer opened to reveal their faces; hers still beautiful but traced with lines of strain, the boy's empty, vacuous, a smiling mask which conveyed no humor. A fault in the cerebrum which normal medicine had been unable to cure. A genetic weakness, perhaps. One stemming from the mother but he hadn't been sure and had never wanted to risk repeating the tragedy.

So no wife, no child, just endless work which filled the hours, his only consolation that he was making sure the job was well done.

Now Kooga with his hints and promises and the growing pressure of his impatience. A man needing a cat's-paw and covering the need with lying talk of partnership.

Yet, if he was right, one thing at least was true. Dumarest could provide the escape he yearned to obtain. The way out if he could stomach the price.

Kooga had no such problems. Dumarest was an item which Vaclav should have collected by now- Mirza's change of mind had left the field wide open. The Chief had the men, the means, the authority to arrest on his own volition. Why did he delay? Was he hoping to deal with the Cyclan direct?

A thought which accompanied him as he left his office and made his way to the room where Avro was lying. It was as before; dimmed, the monitors flashing as they maintained and recorded their surveillance. On the print-outs the complex pattern of lines held their own fascination.

Kooga studied them as he had studied the earlier ones, adding minutes to the hours in which he had struggled to grasp their meaning. The normal encephalographic patterns could be ignored; to him they were as familiar as the fingers of his hand. But they only formed a background to the pattern obtained from the cyber. The added lines, their waverings, their codelike repetitions presented a mystery he felt on the edge of solving.

Communication?

He felt it had to be that. Comparison with the words gained by the recorder, matched to the wavering lines, showed a certain correlation. Elementary cypher-breaking techniques had shown certain positive extensions and a more sophisticated investigation must extend the range of that knowledge. In time, with enough data, he would be able to solve the mystery.

And with it the secret of the power of the Cyclan.

The print-out trembled in Kooga's hands and he let it fall as he indulged in the pursuit of a dream. Power and authority all guaranteed by the Cyclan in return for his silence. A vast medical complex in which his words would be law-and no arrogant bitch like Mirza Karroum would ever again make him feel like dirt.

He looked at the unrolling paper with its mesh of lines. Dumarest was money but this was power and, soon, it would be his.

"Doctor?" He turned, startled, meeting the eyes of the new nurse. "A message, sir. From the Cyclan." She glanced at the silent figure on the bed. "Cyber Zuber will arrive at dawn."