The Return

Chapter Three

In a chamber sunken deep beneath the torn and ravaged surface of a lonely world Master Ryon, Cyber Prime, sat and fished in the waters of madness.

Around him surged an endless susurration of voices, music, prepositions, scales, mnemonic jingles, abstruse speculations all interwoven with vivid flashes of vibrant color forming bizarre geometric forms and mathematical concepts. Universes flowered based on distorted forms of logic. Symbols took on animate life and the stuff of creation itself swirled to settle in alien configurations, to blaze with enticing perfection, to swirl again in restless chaos.

Then, suddenly, it was over.

Ryon sat bemused, staring at his desk, the machine on its surface, the time-switch which had terminated the playback of the recording. A moment and he was himself again, assessing, evaluating, making calculations, reaching decisions. The recording must be destroyed together with the brain from which it had been taken. No others must be made; the insidious attraction of undisciplined thought held a subtle danger. Any further aberration must be confined to the brains affected and they too must be destroyed. Even if those intelligences measured their life in centuries.

Ryon visualized them, the massed racks holding the remnants of cybers who had served well and who had earned the reward of extended existence. Their bodies had been discarded, their brains sealed into ovoid containers, fed with nutrients, connected to others of their own kind. Freed of all physical distraction their only duty to think, to compute, to serve the organization to which they had dedicated their existence. Forming Central Intelligence which was heart and brain of the Cyclan.

As he was its head and master.

Ryon rose, standing tall before the desk, a living flame in the scarlet of his robe, the seal of the Cyclan shimmering on his breast. A man lean from the lack of unnecessary fat, his face gaunt, his scalp hairless. One taken when barely a child, training and surgery ridding him of the capacity of emotion. He knew nothing of hate, love, fear, joy. Food was nothing but fuel for his body. Tenderness and concern were abstracts without meaning. His only determination was the pursuit of efficiency. His only pleasure that of mental achievement.

"Master?" The voice of his aide whispered from the air. "The Council will be assembling in an hour."

A communication needing no response. Ryon moved from the desk towards the center of the chamber, halting as light blossomed before him. As he watched the air became alive with a multitude of glowing points as a depiction of the galaxy came into being. A masterpiece of electronic magic, each mote of light held in a complex web of electromagnetic forces. With such diminution detail had to be lost but the stars were present and among them scarlet flecks glowed in scattered profusion.

The power of the Cyclan.

Each fleck represented a world which had lost its self-determination to become a part of the master-plan which would result in the total domination of the galaxy. Flecks which would spread and increase until all worlds worked together in a common unity. Then there would be an end to waste, ignorance, misdirected effort, squandered resources. An end to war, poverty, disease, the idiocy of emotional distraction. Culled of undesirable traits, ruled by reason, bred for genetic advantage, the race would achieve its true destiny.

The plan would work as it had been designed to work, the only variable was time. The only threat was that residing within the massed minds of Central Intelligence.

Too many of those minds had gone insane.

A creeping, insidious, progressive degeneration which had claimed thousands despite the most rigorous efforts to halt its progress. As yet neither a cure nor the cause was known. All affected brains had been destroyed.

To his invisible aide Ryon said, "Report on the progress of Unit R."

"Three hours ahead of schedule, Master."

A satisfying response. Those busy recording the contents of brains as yet unaffected by the strange malady knew the urgency of their task. To lift skeins of knowledge from their organic prisons and impress them on sensitive, sponge-like nodes of fabricated metallic substance. An experiment with tremendous potential. One which could solve the problem.

As it could have been solved long ago if Dumarest had been captured. He alone knew the correct order in which the fifteen biomolecular units comprising the affinity twin had to be assembled. The artificial symbiote which could give the Cyclan irresistible domination.

Injected into the bloodstream it nestled at the brain of the cortex and became intermeshed with the entire sensory and nervous system. The brain holding the dominant half would engulf that holding the submissive. Each move, all tactile sensation, every visual stimulus and muscular determination would be instantly absorbed and assimilated. The effect was to give the host containing the dominant half a new body. A promise and bribe impossible to resist.

An old man could become young and virile. A crone beautiful. The hopelessly crippled and diseased could be whole and healthy again. A cyber could control the body and mind of the ruler of a world and guide it to a chosen future. The deranged brains could be given a life separate from the complex of Central Intelligence, probed, tested, treated, the mental deterioration isolated and cured.

A secret lost on the bleak world of Raniang where Dumarest had died, incinerated in the incandescent fury of an atomic explosion. He had to have died — the probability was ninety-nine point nine percent. As near to certainty as could be achieved.

The sparkling lens of the galaxy died as Ryon turned from the spectacle. He paused at this desk, unwilling to waste even a moment and he had time to spare before joining the Council. A touch and paper spilled from a slot bearing a resume of items considered by Central Intelligence to have special significance. Quickly he scanned them, assimilating details of ship movements, market trends, economic pressures, oddities of personal behavior in important people, the report of a raid.

An item followed by the account of a man having been killed by a thrown knife.

The Sabata was small, old, scarred. Within the hull were leaking tanks, worn filters, aging components, the dirt and grime of careless maintenance. The crew matched the vessel; vulpines who scavenged space for what trade they could find, sharing the profits and bearing the stamp of those who lived on the edge of danger.

Men familiar to Dumarest as was the condition of the ship. He shrugged as Zehava scowled her displeasure.

"Free Traders don't worry about unessentials. A good generator, a sealed hull and fuel to get where they're going is enough. That and a profit at the end of every journey. Just make the best of it."

"It's disgusting!"

"It isn't an hotel though I've lived in some that were as bad."

"There's no room. The walls are filthy. The bed's too narrow." She looked at the bowl and faucet standing between the cot and bulkhead. "Am I supposed to shower in that?"

"There is no shower. You use a sponge and don't use too much water. The other facility is at the end of the passage. You eat in the salon." He added, "I'm going there now. Don't join me. I want to learn what I can."

News, gossip, speculation, all diverted if a beautiful woman provided distraction and claimed attention. Journeys were tiresome even when relieved of tedium by quicktime and shipboard romance was not unknown.

Anjuli lifted a hand in greeting as Dumarest entered the compartment. He was small, round, a barely healed wound on the side of his face. A victim of the raid, the wound received as he ran from the warehouse. His loss had been a half share of a rich consignment of oil.

"We're away at last," he said. "I thought we'd never get settlement of our claim."

"You could have left it to the Hausi."

"For a commission," agreed Anjuli. "Had there been space available we'd have done that but all ships were booked solid." By owners eager to shift their stock, traders to escape the possibility of another raid. "We were lucky to get passage at all. We'd have preferred better but this will do. Schill is a busy world and we'll get passage easy enough. Right, Yusef?"

His partner nodded. "Did you hear the rumor? They figure a transient had something to do with the raid. I can't see it myself — who would work with that scum? My guess is that the authorities are trying to shift attention from their own carelessness. That ship should have been blasted as it landed. It certainly should never have been allowed to leave."

"Collusion." A man spoke from where he sat in a corner of the salon. "The raiders might even be splitting the take."

"Why should they?" Romar, the other occupant of the salon voiced his opinion. "They're heading back home now. We should be following them."

"Where and with what?" Anjuli was bitter. "Even if we had a ship and men with guts we still don't know where to look for them."

"Wrong," said the man in the corner. "I was on Biju when it was raided last year. They ran a computer analysis and decided the raiders came from somewhere in the Lonagar Drift. Not that it did any good. No one did anything."

"As expected," said Yusef. "How about a game?"

"Not poker," said Roar. "Not on this journey." He looked at Dumarest. "No disrespect, but I was in the casino when you had your big win. Polletin was supposed to be good but you took him for all he had. Let's play something less savage."

"High, low, man in between?" Dumarest produced a pack of cards as Romar nodded. "Any objections to my running the bank?"

It was an easy, monotonous, simple game. Three cards dealt face up in any order but the middle card determined the result. Pairs canceled. If a pair included the middle card the bank won all bets. Three of a kind made a void hand.

Dumarest dealt a five to his left, a lord to his right, a ten in the middle. "Man in between." He matched the stake of the winners and dealt again. A seven to his left, a nine to his right, a three in the middle. "Low wins." A four to his left, a lady to his right, a four in the middle. "Bank wins." A trey to his left, another to his right, a deuce between. "Low wins." Three eights and avoid hand. Nines to left and right with a ten between. "High wins."

The steward came to distribute quicktime, the drug easing the tedium of the journey. Beneath its influence the metabolism was slowed so that days became subjective hours.

"Where do you want it? Wrist? Throat? Where?"

"Wrist." Romar extended his hand, watched as the steward aimed and fired his hypogun. At the blast he froze, turning into a statue, all movement slowed to a fraction of normal.

"Throat." Bone and sinew in the wrist could slow the quick absorption of the drug. Dumarest felt the touch of the hypogun, heard the sharp hiss as the drug was blasted through skin, fat and muscle into his bloodstream. The lights flickered, then all seemed as before, but, on the next deal, the cards vanished from his hand to reappear immediately on the table.

After an hour Romar had lost enough. He rose from the table, stretched, crossed the salon to where a faucet yielded a thick, opaque fluid. Basic, the standard food of spacers. Rich in protein, sickly with glucose, laced with vitamins, tart with citrus. A cup provided nourishment for a day. A heating element in the base of the cup kept the fluid warm.

"If I can do anything for any of you don't hesitate to ask," Romar said. "I've a good selection of analogues and symbiotes which will give you really interesting experiences. I've also pills, sensitapes and some other things you'd find of interest."

Anjuli said, "Sensitapes? What kinds?"

"You name it, I've got it."

The other man said, "I'm interested in those analogues. All subjects?"

He followed Romar to buy the experience of being something other than human. Yusef and his partner trailed after him for sensitapes by which they would enjoy erotic dreams. Alone Dumarest pocketed his cards and left the salon.

Like the cabins the corridor was cramped, soiled, dimly lit. A brighter glow spilled from the partly open door of a cabin at the far end of the passage where the steward took his rest. Closer the hum of voices came from where the others bargained with Romar over his wares. The door of Zehava's cabin was closed. Dumarest opened it, looked inside, saw the empty compartment, the vacant cot.

Silently he moved to his own cabin and quietly opened the door.

Zehava was kneeling beside his bunk, a heavy satchel resting before her. She was busy working at the lock.

"Earl!" She looked up, startled, as he entered the cabin. "I was — "

"Go ahead. Open it." He closed the door behind him as he gave her the combination. "Take a look at what's inside."

Two hundred cylinders packed snugly in a stout container, the whole making a compact but heavy load.

"They belong to my stolen cargo," he explained. "Think of them as firing pins."

"For the weapons?"

"They were packed separately for obvious reasons. Without them the cargo is nothing but rubbish. Without the cargo these are nothing but scrap. That's why I'm carrying them. They'll be useful when I finally get to where we're going — if I ever do."

"You doubt me?"

He looked at the open satchel.

"I was feeling lonely," she said. "I came to see if you'd retired then I saw the satchel and wanted to find out what you were carrying. You can't blame me for that. You've got all the money and without you I'm helpless. I was curious and afraid. Earl! You must believe me!"

He said, dryly, "You should have locked the door."

"I tried. The lock doesn't work." She stared her defiance. "All right. So you caught me. I lied. I knew you wouldn't be in the cabin. You came back too soon. But I needed to know."

"Because you don't like operating in the dark?"

"Yes."

"That makes two of us. Exactly where are we headed?"

"I told you."

"You gave me a name. This time I want the truth." As she hesitated, he said, "We've left Arpagus so you're safe. I can't stop you running, but remember I've all the money. I also have what makes the cargo you stole worth more than junk. You could leave me and get by, but without these components the weapons are useless. How will they welcome you when you get back home?"

"Not with open arms," she admitted. "Damn you, Earl! Do you always win?"

"Where are we heading?"

"Kaldar."

"In the Lonagar Drift?"

"The Drift, yes. How did you know?" She relaxed as he told her. "Rumor — there are a dozen of them. Think nothing of it. Anyway it takes a special kind of skill to navigate through the Drift. Those who have it work for us."

And those who didn't stood little chance of hiring out their skills. No one would risk a vessel without good reason. No group would operate unless there was profit to be won. Zehava had been overly cautious. The raiders could have shouted out the name and location of their home world for all to hear and it wouldn't have changed a thing. The man he had hoped to question had died for nothing.

Dumarest turned on the cot, restless, unable to sleep. Zehava had acted as he had expected and was now in her cabin, curiosity satisfied, confident he trusted her. He had changed the combination on the lock so she would have no chance to steal the contents of the satchel. The money was in his belt. She could run but what would she gain? What else could she do but take him to her home world?

To Kaldar, the cargo, the chance she had offered. The ship which would carry him home.

To the world he had left long ago when a boy, stowing away on a strange vessel, hiding until inevitably discovered. The captain had been kind, instead of evicting him into the void he had allowed Dumarest to work his passage. Carrying him deep towards the center of the Galaxy where stars were thick and Earth had become nothing but a legend, a world of myth and dazzling promise.

One he had searched to find. Gathering hints, clues, scraps of information from a host of sources until he had found the essential coordinates engraved on stone in gleaming symbols of precious metals in a temple now nothing but dust.

The golden figures of Earth!

He turned again on the cot, drifting into a world filled with fire and searing brilliance and sleeting death. One on which the figures glowed with livid configurations as if incised on his brain. The secret he had searched so hard to find.

A companion to one he had been given by a woman he would never forget.

Kalin with hair of flame who had more than saved his life. Gone now as so many others were gone, victims to the relentless pursuit of those who wore the scarlet robe. The Cyclan which had hunted him from world to world. Which would still hunt him unless remaining convinced he was dead.

"Earl?" Zehava was at the door, wearing a thin robe, eyes widening as he rose to face her, knife in hand, his body naked but for shorts. "Earl, something's wrong, the noise — "

It came from down the passage, a low, snarling growl as if a predator was worrying a kill. Romar stepped from his cabin as they moved towards it.

"It's nothing to worry about," he said. "Just someone enjoying an analogue.

Dumarest remembered the man in the salon. "Anything dangerous?"

"No. I don't carry anything big or vicious and I wouldn't sell them on a ship if I did. Don't let the noise bother you. He'll be all right. After it's over he'll just fall asleep."

Zehava shook her head as she followed Dumarest back into his cabin.

"The things people do. Taking dope to pretend they are beasts. Smelling the things they do, tasting, feeling, acting as if they are no longer human. Have you ever taken an analogue, Earl?"

"Have you?"

"We don't need them on Kaldar. Life's exciting enough as it is." She stepped closer to him, eyes bright with invitation. "You'll find that out, darling. You won't need chemical diversions. Not while you have me."

"Is that a part of our deal?"

She smiled, not answering, moving even closer and he could smell her perfume and feel the radiated warmth of her body. A woman fighting with her own weapons as he had with his. Lifting a hand she touched his chest, ran her fingers over the scars marring the hard, muscular surface.

"Knives, Earl. On Kaldar we know about scars. Knives made these. In the arena. These are the signs of your apprenticeship. You're a fighter and you have to be a good one. How many have you killed?" She smiled as he made no answer. "You're not a braggart. Good, I like that, but on Kaldar it'll do no harm to let them know of your prowess.

Her hand rose to circle his neck, was joined by the other to seal him in a tender prison. Rising to her full height she kissed him on the lips her own softly firm, warmly moist, parted with mounting desire.

"Darling!" Her voice held an urgent huskiness. "Earl, my darling. Earl!"

She was naked beneath the robe, her flesh curved in a pattern of feminine perfection, glowing with passionate heat. He responded to it, closing his hands on her yielding flesh, lifting her toward the cot, joining her in naked abandon.

"Earl, my darling! My wonderful darling!"

A cry which masked a demand which he met to be engulfed and drained as he drained in turn.

Satiated they rested, locked in a close embrace while, down the passage, a man thinking himself to be a beast, writhed at collected scents of lust and slaked desire and howled mournfully at an imaginary moon.