World of Promise

Chapter Twelve

There was beauty in madness. A burning, brilliant devastation of old restrictions and hampering patterns of thought. An opening of new dimensions of awareness and the appreciation of a vaster scope of achievement. Often while rising from rapport with those gifted brains in central intelligence he had experienced the ultimate in mental intoxication. An ecstasy he had never dreamed existed or could possibly exist. Even now he wasn't sure why, of all the servants of the Cyclan, he should have been chosen.

And yet it seemed so clear.

Despite their awesome intelligence the assembled brains depended on the use of men to execute their desires. Gifted men, trained, specially selected, but men just the same. And men held an ingrained weakness. Even the best must fall far short of the aspirations of those they were dedicated to serve. For long ages they had waited, hoping that their servants would rise to their needs and now, finally, they had decided to act.

The brains with whom he had been in direct contact. That part of central intelligence which had tested him and found him not wanting. Unhampered by established tradition. Unrestricted by artificial barriers.

Elge was wrong. The newly elected Cyber Prime was too cautious and, impatient, the brains had chosen him to take his place. Okos, Cyber Prime-the words had a ring like the throb of bells. And it could be done so easily. With the brains aiding him, no, showing him the need, all had become clear. Dumarest on Podesta. His prediction as to his movements- everything which had followed, all proved he should be the ultimate master. And now, aside from minor details, all was accomplished.

"You will remove the knife." Okos gestured with the laser. "Your left hand, first finger and thumb only, let it fall."

An inward glow as the man obeyed. As all would obey once he was the Cyber Prime. And soon, now. Soon.

"The woman is hurt," said Dumarest. "May I attend her?" A request he knew would be refused; one made only to gain her friendship. "No? Some wine, then? May I give her some wine?"

Poison to dull the intellect-why were these lesser beings such fools? Yet that same folly made them easy to manipulate. Greed and personal satisfaction and indifference to the welfare of others. A multitude would only be as strong as one. Cattle for harvesting-labor to build the new universe.

How clear it all was!

"Wine," said Dumarest. Then, to the woman, "You see how concerned your friends are about you? That shot could have taken off your hand. He could just as easily have sent it into your brain. Ask him why he didn't?"

Okos looked at her as she obeyed. "To kill you would be a waste. I may still require your assistance."

"And you hope to get it?" Her voice rose. "You scarlet swine I'll see you rot first!"

"To refuse aid will gain you nothing."

"I want only what you promised. The cure and-"

"The cure will be given you when it is discovered. The rest also as we agreed. I do not lie. The Cyclan does not lie." The tone was the careful modulation of all cybers but the words carried a chill. "Further argument is an illogical waste of time."

Was he alone? Dumarest looked around the chamber seeing nothing but a narrow panel, open, through which the cyber had come. Had the guards who had chased him worked for him or the woman? Why had the cyber fired?

The answers to those questions could mean life or death.

Dumarest looked at the tall figure, the face, the eyes, the set of the mouth. All cybers looked gaunt and all radiated the aura of protoplasmic robots, but Okos was unusual. A man who seemed to be gloating over some secret joy-and no cyber could experience physical pleasure. The joy of achievement, then, of having made a successful capture, but why was he alone? Knowing his movements as Okos had known, it would have been simple to have taken him on Podesta. Yet he had been allowed to escape. Apparently escape-but why?

Madness had to be the answer.

Insanity as defined by a cyber.

The touch of human ambition and greed.

A guess but the only logical answer if the known facts were to fit. An unsuspected weakness in the man's character had revealed its flaw under the pressure of staggering opportunity.

Dumarest said, "Charisse, do you know why the Cyclan consider me to be so valuable? Would you like me to tell you?"

"Silence." Okos lifted the laser. "You will remain silent."

"I have a secret," continued Dumarest. "One stolen from a Cyclan laboratory a long time ago. A biological chain consisting of fifteen units which enables an intelligence to-"

Smoke rose from the table beneath the touch of the laser's beam. It sent more smoke rising an inch from Dumarest's boot.

"You will remain silent or I will burn your vocal chords," said Okos. "The woman must not be told."

"Why not? What harm can it do? You will kill her anyway."

"Kill me?" Charisse lifted her arm, stared at the blackened wound, then at the cyber. "Okos! You promised!"

"You will not be harmed if he keeps silent."

"Look at your wrist if you believe that," said Dumarest. "His token of friendship. Do you know why he burned you? Ask him. He'll tell you it was because he feared you might fire and kill me. Or fire and kill him if we had made a deal. As he would still fire if I told him we had. Shall I prove it?"

"No!" She looked again at her wrist. "No!"

She believed him and Dumarest knew he had managed to drive a wedge into their mutual trust. Knew too that he held her life in his hand. Two words would do it. All he need say to the cyber was. "She knows."

Okos would do the rest.

But how to get rid of the cyber in turn?

Dumarest had the advantage of being physically safe as far as a threat to his life was concerned. His value lay in what he knew; the correct sequence of the fifteen units forming the affinity twin. The biological entity which enabled the dominant partner to take over the mind and body of a subjective host. Literally to become that host. With it Charisse could live and act and love and feel and be a young and lovely girl. The reflection she would see in her mirror would be that of the selected host.

Cybers could become the rulers of worlds and knit them into the common plan.

Okos could become the Cyber Prime.

That was the chance he had seen and taken-there could be no other explanation for his actions. The Cyclan had contacted Charisse. After learning he was not aboard why hadn't they concentrated on Podesta?

"I directed them to Quen," said Okos when Dumarest bluntly put the question, "The predictions were of almost equal probability that you could be on there or Ascelius."

And, as he hadn't been reported on Ascelius, they had directed their agents to look elsewhere. But Okos had known and had chosen to retain his knowledge.

The madness which would save him.

Dumarest said, "The coincidence of Charisse's ship? Arranged, I assume?"

"There was no coincidence. From the moment you set foot on Ascelius you were under constant observation. Used, hunted, driven like the animal you are to take the path I chose. It suited my plans to allow you freedom of movement until it was time to end the farce."

"The time in jail," said Dumarest. "Held while you waited for Charisse to arrive. Followed then attacked so as to be rescued." He added, bleakly, "Did Myra Favre have to die?"

An answer he knew; one way or another she had been doomed. Had she not fallen the wine would have killed her and the end would have been the same. He felt a renewed anger against the Cyclan, the organization which treated people as if they were pieces to be moved on a board. Things devoid of needs or feelings. Expendable pawns used in a game of conquest.

He controlled his anger-if he were to live he needed to be calm.

He looked at the woman. The illusion had slipped a little, the pain of her wound taking priority so that her face looked softened as if made of wax. A potential ally and the only one he had. But how to win her aid?

Okos provided the answer. He stepped forward, tall, arrogant, conscious of his power. Already the universe was his. Eyes, deep-sunken beneath ridged brows, stared with a burning intensity.

"You will arrange transportation," he told the woman. "I shall also need restraints and medication. Your own vessel will serve."

"A servant," said Dumarest. "Too bad, Charisse, but I did warn you."

"It is a privilege to serve the Cyclan," said Okos. "Obey if you hope for reward."

"And keep hoping." Dumarest moved to lean casually against the upended table. "What's the matter with your own acolytes, Okos? Did they turn against you when they realized you'd gone mad?" A guess but a good one and he tensed, gambling enough sanity remained for Okos to hold his fire. A risk taken and a gamble won and he was sure now the cyber was alone. "He needs you, Charisse," he said. "But once he's got what he asked for he'll kill you. If you don't realize that you're a fool. I suggest you do something about it."

"Remain silent." Okos leveled the weapon in his hand. "I shall not warn you again."

"Earl-"

"You too, woman." The laser moved a little, halted. "Must I teach you another lesson?"

She screamed as the laser fired, flame bursting from the mass of ebon hair, the wig catching, smoking, burning as she tore it from her head. The winking gems flared and died, robbed of life by the savage blast, only those at her throat struggling to maintain the illusion. A wasted effort and her parody of a face twisted in rage at the affront to her pride.

"You bastard, Okos! You'll pay-"

Again he fired, smoke rising from her shoulder, her scream echoed by something from above. A black shape which dropped from the clustered shadows to swing on a line of silk, to poise, to drop with scrabbling claws and gnashing mandibles on the head of the cyber.

A mutated spider set to keep the area free of other life forms, a guardian, an observer-a thing now wild with ravening fury.

Okos reared, his free hand tearing at the creature which covered his head and face. Blood ran in thick streams beneath the scrabbling limbs, staining the scarlet with a deeper carmine, dripping on the floor as, wildly, he fired and fired again.

Dumarest flung himself down, reached for his knife, lunged forward with it in his hand, the edge rising, touching, tearing through the flesh and bone of the wrist to send the hand and laser flying to one side. Blood fountained to join the rest, more following as he stabbed, the blade driving between the ribs into the heart. As the cyber fell the scrabbling shape rose, running back up its silk to hide and lurk in shielding darkness.

"Earl!" Charisse had been hit, blood welling from between the fingers she clasped to her side. The wound on her shoulder showed charred bone, that on her wrist had started to bleed. "Help me, Earl."

She was dying and knew it. She stared into his face as he knelt, shaking her head as he tried to examine her side.

"Leave it, Earl. The bastard got me."

"I'll call someone. Sayer-he could help."

"He could keep me alive, maybe," she corrected. "But alive for what? I don't want to be a freak, Earl. It's better this way. But call him. Tell him to help you clear up the mess. He's a good man. He'll-" She gulped and, with sudden clarity, said, "Earl. On Podesta. When we-did you love me then?"

"I loved you."

"You're a good liar, Earl." Her hand fell away to be stained by a gush of blood. "A good-"

"Charisse?"

She made no answer. She was dead.

Dino Sayer snuffled and touched his throat and said, "She was good in her way, Earl. I'll miss her."

"But not me?"

"No." The man was honest. "You've given me enough to remember you by. And I can't help but think if she hadn't met you she'd be alive now. Well, that's the way it goes. If it were left to me-but you won the wager and I guess you've earned the right." He gestured at the door. "The library. You'll find everything indexed. Armand's papers are in the end file. If you want anything just press the bell. It's at the side of the desk."

The room was filled with the scent of moldering paper, dust, dank air, neglect, creeping decay. The ubiquitous shadows masked whatever might be lurking in the molding running beneath the ceiling, but if any existed they would be harmless. As would be any eavesdropping devices such as Charisse had fitted to the bedrooms. How else had she known of his interlude with Linda Ynya? How better to gain an idea of distrust or need?

A woman tormented, who had played with fire and had been burned, and had paid the price of having trusted the deranged cyber.

Later he would think about Okos and what his condition had revealed. Now there was work to be done.

Dumarest made his way to the shelves, searched, found books which he placed on the desk. A lamp threw a brilliant cone of light over stained and mottled pages blurred beneath their protective coatings of transparent plastic. Lists of supplies, journeys made by ancient vessels, annotations in various hands, names underlined or scored through, neat symbols made with mathematical precision. Many of the pages bore obviously recent markings on the plastic made with a pointed instrument.

A wealth of rare and ancient treasure, logs, reports, surveys, assessments, journals, the whole needing months of careful sifting-but Rudi Boulaye's visit had been short.

Dumarest put aside the heap and moved to the file. Armand had been a methodical man and would have condensed essential data while eliminating duplication and irrelevancies. The file opened to reveal neatly stacked folders each carefully marked with an abstract symbol.

Armand had known what they represented-Dumarest did not.

He took the first and rifled the sheets, recognizing computer read-outs based on logic-illogical forms of reference. Typed notes showed that various legends had been tested for message, simplicity and repetitive factors. Whoever had done the valuation had been thorough; children's bedtime stories had been included. The conclusions were what he'd expected; a legend could be a message from one generation to posterity in which case it needed to be short, simple and repetitive. Groundwork covered and cleared in a scientific manner and leading to what?

Another file listed stories of a fabulous nature but dealing with beasts and societies and not worlds. Another dealt with the apparent paradox of many diverse types existing simultaneously on a single planet, the chances of spontaneous development and the potential stress factors involved when opposed and diverse cultures met in a limited environment. The conclusion was that there would be inevitable warfare.

A study of the effects of an alteration in solar emission on an inhabitated world.

A valuation of the amount of shipping which would be needed to evacuate the peoples of a planet with a population twice that normally to be found on an industrial world.

An assessment of the probable effects of induced aversion hysteria as applied to an entire section of the human race.

Nowhere could he find mention of Earth.

"My lord?" The girl who answered his pressure on the button had a round face now marked by recent tears. Grief for her dead mistress echoed in the wide band of black worn on her left bicep. A custom Dumarest had seen before.

He said, "Did Armand have any other files? A special book or something like it?"

"I don't know, my lord."

"Who would?"

"Perhaps the new master, my lord. Do you want to see him?"

He arrived thirty minutes later, again touching his throat at the sight of Dumarest, a reactive gesture he probably wasn't aware he made.

"You've been promoted," said Dumarest. "Allow me to congratulate you."

"Someone had to run the place." Dino Sayer shrugged, unimpressed by his new position. "Trouble?"

"I can't find what I'm looking for." Dumarest gestured at the files, the assembled records. "There must be another way. Do you remember Rudi Boulaye? He visited here about ten years ago." Dumarest continued at the other's nod. "Did he stay long."

"Not as I remember."

"How long?" Dumarest pursed his lips at the answer, the time had been less than he'd estimated, but it proved what he suspected. "He didn't see Charisse, right? Then who took care of him?"

"Octen. He's dead now."

"He had access to Armand's files?"

"Yes." Sayer frowned, thinking. "Now I come to think of it he had a lot of stuff in his room. Books, recordings, things like that. Files too, I think. One for sure which Armand used to keep by him and which Octen must have borrowed and forgotten to return."

"Where is it now?"

"Probably burned with the rest of his stuff." Sayer locked at the hand Dumarest had closed around his arm, the savage set of his mouth. "Something wrong?"

"The file. Can you make sure it's gone? It was the personal property of Armand and so could have been saved. The file, man. The file!"

The one Boulaye must have seen. The one Octen had neglected to replace in the cabinet. Papers which could hold the answer now perhaps lying moldering in some forgotten corner.

Alone in a small room Dumarest paced the floor forcing himself to be calm. Sayer had promised to do his best but time was running out. Soon it would be sunset and Linda Ynya would have left along with her ship and the passage she had offered and which he had to take. To delay was to risk being made the prisoner of the Cyclan. If that happened there would be no escape now Charisse was dead.

"Here!" Sayer was back, a folder held in his hand. "This could be it. I had to search the stores and was lucky to find it." As Dumarest snatched it his tone softened a little. "I guess it's important to you, eh?"

"Yes."

"Maybe I was too harsh blaming you for what you did." Again the hand lifted to the small cut on the puckered skin of his neck. "But when you've just saved a man's life and he threatens to cut your throat-well, that isn't an easy thing to forget."

Dumarest said, "Just give it time. Now if you'll let me read this?"

The papers were closely covered with neat script; headings, paragraphs, summations, conclusions. Too much to read and too much to scan. Too much even to have copied in the time available. Already the sun was close to the horizon and, from the field, came the echo of a warning siren. But, somewhere in the folder, must be the answer Boulaye had found.

The whereabouts of Earth.

The coordinates he had risked his life to find.

From the riffled pages a dead man whispered via the printed word; Armand forwarding a message, the fruit he had found, the secret-"… so in conclusion it appears obvious that the supposedly mythical world known as Earth was far from that and, in fact, could still exist. According to the story told by the Erce sect on Newdon, Earth is to be found in a region where stars are few and in a position from which certain patterns identified by names such as Leo, Libra and Cancer are to be found. There are twelve such patterns which must be arrangements of stars, or constellations, as seen from the planet."

A thing Dumarest had already learned. Impatiently he flipped the pages.

"… which leads us to the inevitable conclusion that Earth, or Terra as it is sometimes called, must lie within the region bounded by the patch of dust lying to the galactic north of Silus, the energy pool known as Morgan's Sink to the galactic west of Crom, and the Hygenium Vortex. These areas give the parameters as specified by the Erce sect and while the names may have become distorted by the passage of time the coordinates have not. They are alien to our present system but that is to be expected if, at one time, Earth's primary was considered to be the navigational center of the galaxy. The revised and adjusted coordinates which now give the exact position of Earth are…" The rest of the page was missing.

"Earl?" Sayer backed from Dumarest's expression. "God, man, what's wrong? You look like murder."

He felt it-but Boulaye was long dead. Boulaye who had ripped the page across and had taken the relevant portion to make certain that no one else would learn the secret.

Dumarest wished him screaming in hell!