The Quillian Sector

Chapter One

A great bowl of flowers had been set on a small table close to the window so that their petals reflected the light in a mass of glowing scarlet necked with amber, the stamens a brilliant yellow around styles of dusty black. The bowl itself was of veined porphyry, shaped with a rare elegance, curves melting one into the other to form an object of both visual and tactile beauty. A thing of delicate elegance in direct contrast to the room itself, which was bleak in its Spartan simplicity, all white and functional, the walls devoid of any decoration, even the carpet a neutral gray.

A room in which to work, to study and to plan with all distraction kept to a minimum. Something Irae could appreciate, as he could not the flowers. They were an anomaly and he crossed the room to stand before them, studying their form and arrangement before lifting his head to stare through the window itself.

It was set high in the building and framed a view of grim desolation. The soil had been leached to expose the underlying rock, the vegetation which once had covered it long since gone, as were the minerals once contained within the stone. Machines had dug and ripped and crushed and spewed their detritus, turning a pleasant landscape into a barren wilderness. Exploitation had left nothing but sourness and acid rains which, even as he watched, came to add more corrosion to the thick pane and the metal in which it was set.

Looking down, he could now understand the presence of the flowers; the contrast they provided to the desolation outside.

"Caradoc's work," said a voice behind him. "He said that a touch of color would help."

Turning, Irae said, "Help whom? You?"

An accusation, which Yoka dismissed with a small gesture of a hand which seemed to be fashioned from transparent porcelain. No cyber was ever fat, for excess tissue lessened the efficiency of the physical machine which was the body, but Yoka was skeletal in his thinness. Beneath the scarlet robe, his body was reed-frail, his throat a match for the gaunt face and sunken eyes which, with his shaven pate, gave his head the appearance of a skull. A skull set with the jewel of his eyes which burned now, as always, with the steady flame of trained and directed intelligence.

He said, "No, Cyber Irae, the flowers are here to set at ease those ushered into this chamber to wait. Naturally, you grasp the underlying purpose."

A statement, not a question. For him to have framed the sentence otherwise would have been tantamount to insult. No cyber could avoid seeing the obvious, and now that Irae knew the purpose of the room, the presence of the blooms and the position they occupied was plain. A contrast and a good one; outside, the bleak desolation of Titanus-within, the glowing color and beauty of the flowers and what they, by association, represented. The security of the Cyclan; the rewards and wealth and comfort the organization could provide to any who engaged their services. A contrast too subtle to be immediately appreciated by any visitor, but it was there and would be noted on a subconscious level.

"Caradoc shows skill and intelligence. An acolyte?"

"No longer." Yoka lifted a hand and touched his breast, fingers thin and pale against the rich scarlet and the design embroidered on the fabric, A gesture signifying the acolyte had passed his final tests and was now one of their number. Beneath his hand the Seal of the Cyclan glowed and shimmered with reflected light. "A young man who shows promise. He should give good service and rise high."

And would, unless he committed the unpardonable crime of failure.

Irae looked again at the flowers, at the window and the desolation beyond, thinking of others who had shown promise and who had failed. Those who had paid with their lives because of their failure. Others who had been broken. He did not intend to become one of them.

He said, "You are certain Dumarest is not on this world?"

"I am."

"The prediction that he could be found on Titanus was of seventy-three per cent probability."

"Not high."

"No, and obviously there were factors we could not take into account. Even so, we must be close."

As they had been close before, each time to miss the quarry by a few minutes of time, by coincidence, by the luck which seemed to follow Dumarest from world to world. A trail marked by the death of cybers he had killed in order to ensure his escape.

The irrevocable loss of trained and dedicated intelligences which should have gone to swell the complex of Central Intelligence.

The reward of every cyber who proved his worth.

"It is against all logic," said Yoka. "How could one man have eluded capture for so long?"

Luck, and more than luck. The instinct which gave warning when danger was close. The intelligence which recognized the threat and remained alert for the little things which gave warning-a stare maintained too long, a glance, a too-fortuitous meeting, a proffered friendship, an unexpected invitation-who could tell?

And yet, the Cyclan should be able to tell. The cybers, with their trained minds which could take a handful of known facts and from them extrapolate the logical sequence of events encompassing any imaginable variation. To arrive at a deduction and make a prediction which was as close as possible to actual prophecy. They should know where a man on the move would come to rest, had known, but still he had managed to dodge, to stay one jump ahead.

For too long now. Too long.

Irae studied the flowers. Had an insect hummed among the blossoms he would have been able to predict on which it would next settle, on the pattern it would follow. Had he wanted to snare it, he would have known exactly where to apply the compound which would hold it fast.

An insect-why not a man?

He said, "We know that Dumarest is among the worlds of the Rift. That is a probability of ninety-nine percent. We have checked the course of each vessel leaving relevant worlds and have agents alerted at each port of call. All precautions have been taken."

And still they hadn't proved enough. Like a ghost, Dumarest had vanished, aided by the unpredictable, riding his luck until even those searching for him had begun to doubt their powers.

"The Rift," said Yoka. "A good place for a man to hide." Too good. A section of space in which suns burned close and worlds were plentiful. An area in which opposed energies created dangerous vortexes and regions in which matter itself could cease to exist. A place in which planets rested in isolation in whirls of dust, rolled hidden in masses of interstellar gloom, hung like glittering gems in a web of destructive forces. A haystack in which a wisp of straw could so easily be lost.

Irae lifted his eyes from the bowl of flowers and turned like a scarlet flame to where Yoka stood respectfully waiting. "Your conclusions?"

"Based on all available data, the probability of capturing Dumarest at this time is fifty-three percent. Not until he is located can we hope to gain information on which to base a more favorable prediction."

"Fifty-three percent?"

"Low," admitted Yoka, "but I said 'capture,' not 'discover'. The probability of spotting him is higher-seventy-six percent."

"Eighty-seven point five," corrected Irae. "You are too conservative. Even if he is now in space he must eventually land and when he does, an agent could spot him."

"If the man is at the right time, at the right place." Yoka had the stubbornness of age. "It comes to a matter of logistics. In order to maintain surveillance at every probable port of call at all appropriate times, we need the services of an army of men. Add to that the probability that he is on a planet and, unless he makes a move, locating him will be far from easy. And we must check all worlds." He ended, "In the Rift they are many."

He said it without change of the smooth, even modulation, devoid of all irritant factors which all cybers were trained to adopt. And yet, Irae caught the irony beneath the apparently flat statement.

"You repeat the obvious, Cyber Yoka. I am fully aware of the problem but we can eliminate a large area of low-order probabilities. We have information as to where Dumarest was last located, together with the names and routes of the vessels which left at the critical time."

"Data?" Yoka stood, immobile, as he listened to the stream of facts and figures, his mind assimilating, correlating, selecting and discarding various possibilities until he reached a decision. "You are correct. The probability that Dumarest will be discovered within the Rift is as you say. The Quillian Sector. He could be there now, but to locate him will not be easy."

"For a cyber?"

"For anyone but an expert hunter of men." Yoka added, "I have one at hand."

Leo Bochner didn't look the part. While tall, he appeared slim, almost womanish, his face unlined, his hands smooth, as was his voice as he announced himself. He stood waiting with an easy grace. Instinctively, he selected the one in authority, turning a little to face Irae, recognizing that while younger than Yoka, he held the command. A point Irae noted as he did the clothing; good, yet not obtrusive; fine woven cloth cut to emphasize good taste and not vulgar ostentation. Clothing which somehow added to the effeminate impression he had gamed and which lessened the threat of the man.

A mistake?

A less experienced man could have thought so and wondered at Yoka's judgement, but Irae had long since learned to look beneath the surface of apparent truth. Now, looking, he noted the smooth pad of muscle beneath the skin of face, throat and wrists. The iron beneath the smooth set of lips and jaw. The carriage. The ingrained confidence in words and manner. The eyes.

The eyes which, even as he watched, changed to give the lie to the polished dress and manner; turning into those of a beast, a wolf, a tiger, a hunter of prey.

Then, in a moment, they were again a part of the disguise, calm, bland, faintly mocking.

Irae said, "Tell me something of yourself."

"I have, shall we say, a certain skill." Bochner's voice carried no pride, it was merely a vehicle used to convey a fact. "I realized I had it when very young and took steps to cultivate and perfect. I have an affinity with wild things. I sense their habits and, knowing them, can anticipate what they will do." He added with the same easy tone, "I am probably the finest hunter ever to be born on Pontia, and on that world you hunt or you starve."

"Animals." Irae watched the eyes as he spoke. "Beasts operating on instinctive patterns of behavior."

He had looked for anger. None came, nor did the eyes change as they had before. That, he knew, had been a demonstration, a dropping of the veil to show a little of the real nature of the man.

Bochner said, "Beast or man, my lord, they are the same."

"A man can think."

"And for that attribute, has lost others. But we talk to little purpose. My record is known to you."

A good one or he would not now be standing before them. A noted hunter, a skilled assassin, but this time such skills would be unwanted.

Bochner shrugged as Irae made that clear. "I understand. I find Dumarest and hold him with the least amount of force necessary until he can be handed over to your agents. Of course, it may be that I shall have to cripple him to ruin his mobility. Break his legs, for example, and even his arms. But his life will not be in danger. That is acceptable?"

"We want the man unharmed and in full possession of his mental faculties."

"You want the man in any way he can be delivered," said Bochner flatly. "As long as he is alive on delivery. If that isn't the case, why send for me?" His eyes moved from one to the other of the scarlet figures. "I shall not let you down, my lords. My reputation was not gained by bungling my commissions. And, speaking of commissions my fee-"

"Will be paid," said Yoka. "The Cyclan does not break its word."

A bow was Bochner's answer, but Irae added more; it was well that the man should remember the power of the Cyclan, and that it could take as well as give.

"You will be rewarded," he said, "with wealth and property should you succeed. With something less pleasant should you fail."

"I shall not fail."

"How can you be sure? How can you even know you will find him?"

"When you cannot?" Bochner was shrewd. "Or when you do, you always seem to arrive too late? The answer is basically simple; you hunt a man but I hunt a beast. You operate on the basis of pure logic, but a man is not a logical creature and does not follow a nice, neat, predictable path. Not a man with sense. Not one who knows he is being hunted. Not one who is afraid. Such things confuse the normal pattern. Watch such a man as I have and you will see his instincts guide his decisions. A ship arrives-shall he take it or wait for the next? The same with a raft, a cab, a caravan. The same with a hotel, a meal, a drink in a tavern. The shape of a door can send quarry scuttling into hiding. The whisper of a woman who, by chance, speaks his name. The look of an official which, misunderstood, can lead to flight. How can you predict exactly where he will go when he doesn't even know himself? What he will do, when what he is permitted to do depends on chance?"

He was over-simplifying and was wrong in his assessment of the ability of the Cyclan, but Irae did not correct him. Neither he, nor any cyber, wished to advertise their abilities to those who had not hired their services. And the 'chance' to which Bochner referred was not a matter of infinite variables, as he seemed to think, but a limited set of paths determined by prevailing factors. A man stranded on an island could only escape by sea or by air. Without the means to fly, he was limited to the sea. Without the means to construct or obtain a boat, he could only swim. If unable to swim, he would be forced to wade the shallows. Knowing the man, the circumstances, there was nothing hard in predicting what he would do and where he would go.

Irae said, "Do you know the Quillian Sector?"

"As much as any man can know it."

"Which is to say?"

"Parts well, other parts not so well, a little not at all. But then," Bochner added, "no one knows them-the worlds hidden in the dust and those caught in the mesh of destructive forces. There are rumors, but that is all."

"Expeditions sent and lost," said Yoka. "Companies formed and dissolved, as the investigations they made turned to nothing. We are not interested in such planets. We are only interested in your quarry."

"Dumarest."

"Yes, Dumarest You are confident you can track him down?"

"Guide me to a world and if he is on it, I will find him. More, give me a cluster of worlds and I will show you which he will make for. You think I boast?" Bochner shook his head. "I speak from knowledge. From conviction. From experience."

"A claim others have made. Now, they are dead."

"Killed by Dumarest?" Bochner looked at his hands. "I can take care of myself."

A conviction shared by others before they had died, but Irae didn't mention that. Instead, he said, "Tell me one thing, Bochner. Aside from the reward, why do you want to hunt Dumarest?"

"Why?" Bochner inhaled, his breath a sibilant hiss over his teeth. "Because if half of what you've told me is true, then he is the most wily, the most dangerous and the most interesting quarry I could ever hope to find."

The ship was small, unmarked; The crew, taciturn servants of the Cyclan. Alone in his cabin, Bochner went through his routine exercises, movements designed to keep his muscles in trim and his reflexes at their peak. When Caradoc opened the door he was standing, dressed only in pants, shoes and blouse, a knife balanced on its point on the back of his right hand, which was held level at waist height. As the young cyber watched, he dropped the hand and, as the knife dropped towards his foot snatched at it with his left hand, catching the hilt and tossing it upwards to circle once before catching it in his right.

"A game," he explained. "One played often on Vrage. There we stood naked and held our hands at knee height. Miss and you speared a foot. There was a more sophisticated version played for higher stakes in which, if you were slow, you usually died." Idly, he spun the knife. "You have used a blade?"

"No."

"You should. The feel of it does something to a man. Cold, razor-sharp steel, catching and reflecting the light, speaking with its edge, its point, words of threat and pain. Watch a man with a knife and see how he moves. A good fighter becomes an appendage of his weapon. A man with a gun gives less cause for concern. Why? Can you tell me why?"

"A gun is dispassionate. Everyone knows what a knife can do."

"Cut and slash and maim and cripple. True, but a gun can do that and more. But still the psychological factor remains." Then in the same tone of voice he added, "Is that why Dumarest carries a knife?"

"You have read the reports."

"Words on paper-what do they tell me about the man? I need to know how he looks, how he walks, the manner in which he snuffs the air. You think I joke? Smell is as important to a man as to a beast, even though he may not be aware of it. And a man hunted and knowing it seems to develop his faculties. So what is Dumarest really like?"

"I have never seen him."

"He wears gray, he carries a knife, he travels. High when he can afford it low when he cannot. Space is full of such wanderers. What makes him so special?" It was a question to which he expected no answer, and gained none. Either Caradoc didn't know or had no intention of telling, but it was early yet and, later-who could tell? Gesturing to his bunk, he said, "Sit and join me in some wine."

"No," said Caradoc.

"No to the wine, to the offer of rest, or both?"

"I need neither."

A thing Bochner had known but had deliberately ignored, Caradoc was a cyber and the nearest thing to a living machine possible to achieve. To him, food was mere fuel to power the body. He was a stranger to emotion and unable to feel it by virtue of the operation performed on his cortex shortly after reaching puberty. A creature selected and trained by the Cyclan, converted into an organic computer, a metabolic robot who could only know the pleasure of mental achievement.

Sitting, Bochner stared at him, wondering what it would be like to have been like him, to have worn the scarlet robe, to have relinquished all the things which most men held dear. Caradoc would never know the thrill of sitting in a hide waiting for the quarry to appear, to aim, to select the target, to fire, to know the heady exultation of one who has dispensed death. The sheer ecstasy of pitting mind against mind in the hunt for one of his own kind-the most exciting and dangerous quarry of all. To kill and to escape, which often was harder than the kill itself. To outguess and outmaneuver. To anticipate and to watch the stunned sickness in a quarry's eyes. To hear the babble for mercy, see the futile twitches as the demoralized creature tried to escape, to plan even while it begged to die, finally, when the hunter had become bored.

No, Caradoc would never know what it was to be bored and for that alone, Bochner could envy him.

The wine was in a bottle of crusted glass, the crystal flecked with inner motes of shimmering gold, the liquid itself a pale amber, holding the tart freshness of a crisp, new day. Bochner poured and lifted the cap which served as a cup.

"To your health, my friend." He drank and refilled the small container. "You object?"

"I wonder."

"Why I drink?"

"Why any man of intelligence should choose to put poison into his body."

"A good point," mused Bochner. "Why do we do it? To find escape, perhaps to discover a world of dreams. Some cannot do without the anodyne of alcohol, but I am not one of them. Listen, my scarlet accomplice, and try to comprehend. The quarry I hunt lurks in unsuspected quarters and must be sought in regions you may not understand. At times, I must sit for long hours in taverns and what should I drink then? No, I drink as a part of my camouflage and must maintain my tolerance for alcohol. As a runner must practice to keep up his acquired ability. A swimmer, his mastery over water." Again he emptied the cup and again refilled it. "Test me now and you would find me as sober as yourself. Give me a mark and a gun and I will hit it as many times as you choose to name. In any case, it helps to pass the time."

"Quick-time will do that better."

"The drug will shorten the days and little else." Bochner slowly finished his wine. "But no compound ever yet discovered or invented can ease the weight of boredom."

An alien concept which Caradoc could understand only on an intellectual level How could anyone ever grow bored in a universe filled with an infinity of questions awaiting answers? Even the cabin in which they sat offered endless scope for mental exercise connected with its structure, stress factors, cubic capacity, resonance, relationships of planes and divergences from the mathematical norm.

Bored?

No cyber could ever be that while two atoms remained to pose a problem of interrelationship proximities. While life remained to set the eternal question of what and why it existed at all.

But lesser beings needed the convenience of quick-time; the drug which slowed the metabolism so that normal days passed in apparent minutes. A means to lessen the tedium of ship life on journeys between the stars.

The steward brought it an hour later when the vessel was aligned on its target star and safely on its way. He nodded to Caradoc and, without a word, lifted the hypogun he carried, aimed it at Bochner's throat and pressed the release. Air blasted the charge through skin, fat and muscle directly into the bloodstream. Bochner should have immediately turned into the rigid semblance of a statue. Instead, he slumped and fell unconscious on the bunk.

"Minimum dose as ordered, sir," said the steward. "Another?"

"No. You have all that is necessary? Good. Stand aside while I work."

Caradoc turned the unconscious man on his back, handling the bulk with surprising strength. From a packet the steward handed him, he took a slender instrument and a small capsule together with a can of anesthetizing spray fitted with a slender nozzle. Thrusting the nozzle into Bochner's right nostril, Caradoc hit the release, numbing and sterilizing the inner membranes. With the instrument, he quested the nasal passage and located the entrance to the sinus cavity. Removing the instrument, he fitted the capsule to its end, thrust the small package into the nostril, pressed and pushed it into the sinus. There it expanded, thin filaments attaching themselves with minute hooks to the inner lining, they and the capsule both coated with numbing and sterile compounds.

As he withdrew the spray after a final treatment Caradoc said to the steward, "Now. Neutralize and administer quick-time."

A metabolic shock, but Bochner was fit and could stand it, and what did it matter if the jar to his system should have later repercussions? He was a tool to be used for the benefit of the Cyclan and nothing more. The instrument planted within his skull was a device which, on receiving a signal, would respond with a burst of coded emissions. No matter where or how he tried to hide, he could be found, and the capsule itself could be exploded by remote control.

No one living had ever betrayed the Cyclan and Bochner would not be the first.

Caradoc watched as the steward set him upright, deftly triggering the hypogun, seeing the slow movements of the hunter's hands and eyes. Movements which jerked to normal as his own metabolism responded to the impact of the drug blasted into his bloodstream. The door blurred and they were alone.

Bochner wished he was more so. He hadn't wanted the company of the cyber but had known better than to protest Irae's decision. Later, if the need arose, he would slip away and certainly, if necessary, the cyber would have to change his appearance. The scarlet robe and naked scalp were signals the quarry couldn't miss.

Thinking of the hunt, he said, "How can you be so sure he is within the Quillian Sector?"

"Dumarest?" Caradoc leaned back to rest his shoulders against the wall. Bochner had noticed nothing wrong and that was proof of his own efficiency. He sat as Bochner remembered, the cabin looked the same. To Bochner, his temporary unconsciousness would have seemed no more than the blink of an eye. "A matter of applied logic."

"A guess?"

"No."

"And yet you can't be certain. I mean, you might know about where he is but not exactly where. If your logic and skill were good enough surely there could be no doubt?"

"Doubt?"

"Uncertainty. You would be certain."

"Nothing is ever that," said Caradoc. "Always there is the unknown factor which must never be ignored. No matter how certain a thing appears to be, it must never be considered an absolute event. The probability may be high but, always, it remains a probability."

Bochner nodded, remembering a time during his early youth. A copse in which a beast was lurking, himself set and armed, the weapon lifted, aimed, the butt hard against his shoulder, the sights leveled on the spot in which the creature was sure to appear. A long, delicious moment of savored anticipation. The nearing climax of the hunt was like the climax of sex itself, though far more satisfying.

And then the shadow, which had crossed the sun. The raft, which had appeared in a cloudless sky and, as it threw a patch of darkness over the front sight, the quarry had appeared to turn, to run, to dodge the bullet which should have brought it low.

Revenge had done little to ease the hurt and after the dead man had toppled from the raft, and the vehicle itself risen to vanish into the distance, the penalty had waited at the end- the blood-price paid in money and sweat and exile from his home world.

A little thing. One he should have taken into consideration. A neglect which had altered the trend of his life.

Watching him, Caradoc said, "Imagine a container of boiling liquid containing tiny motes of solid substance. They are in continuous, restless activity. The Brownian Movement. The tiny particles are in motion because of the irregular bombardment of the molecules of the surrounding medium. Now, imagine one of the particles to be colored for easy identification. We can tell where it is in relation to the whole. We can tell where it has been. We can even predict where next it might be, but never can we be utterly and absolutely certain."

"Dumarest? The colored particle is Dumarest?"

"The analogy will serve."

"And you know about where he is to be found. In the Quillian Sector." Bochner's face became taut ugly, the skin tightening so that his cheeks looked like scraped bone. "The place where space goes mad. Where the suns fight and fill the universe with crazed patterns of energy so that men kill at a glance and women scream at imagined terrors. Ealius and Cham and Ninik."

"Swenna," said Caradoc adding to the list. "Vult and Pontia-" He paused, then said again, "Pontia."

"Where I was born." Bochner's voice matched the taut ugliness of his face. "I told you I knew the area well."