World of Promise

Chapter Nine

The contest was to be at noon, held in an open space before one of the barrack-like buildings. An area of some hundred yards square, ringed by a high hedge of close-set thorns, their spines masked with a profusion of small, purple blooms.

"An exercise yard," explained Dino Sayer. "We use it to allow specimens to demonstrate their mobility."

Their agility, grace, aptitudes and, now, the ability to kill. Dumarest looked at the building, the door set in the side facing him, closed now, but soon to open. The roof was a hundred feet above the ground, the wall sheer, the expanse unbroken aside from the door. At points along the edge he saw rounded blobs which could have been the heads of watching men.

"I don't like this," said the old man. "Testing a new product is one thing, but we usually set them against other beasts or those of their own kind. This is nothing but murder."

"You think it will win?"

The man's silence was answer enough. Dumarest looked again at the building, the hedge, the ground on which he stood. Lush grass cropped short made a mantle over soft loam. The sun, at zenith, stared like a bloodshot eye from the sky.

"How long must we wait?" Enrice Heva was impatient. "Why the delay?"

"Does it matter?" Linda Ynya snapped her irritation. She looked worn, haggard, her face raddled beneath the paint. Like the others she stood in a gallery which ran along one side of the square; a raised platform set beyond the hedge and shielded by a canopy. She added, "Don't worry, Enrice, you'll have your fun. Earl can't escape."

That conviction was shared by them all. Astin turned as Charisse joined her guests. She wore a gown of glinting ruby; metal threads catching and reflecting the sunlight so that she stood as if wreathed in flame.

Looking at her, Ienda Chao said, "Earl is still dressed and armed. Surely he should be naked if the contest is to be fair?"

"An animal has its hide," said Linda quickly. "Its pelt and claws and fangs."

"Natural attributes." Vayne pointed out. "Ienda has a point. Even if he retains his clothing he should yield the knife."

"Let him keep it," said Krantz. "If the creature is truly superior what difference will it make?"

That comment ended the discussion. At Charisse's command Sayer moved toward the building, the door it contained, turning once to look at Dumarest then striding ahead, a man not liking what he did but one who would do it just the same. Krantz and Linda had been better allies though their motives could be less than altruistic. But why had Charisse allowed him to keep the knife? Of them all she knew how well he could use it.

Did she want her creation to win?

A thought considered and dismissed as Dumarest again searched the area. The hedge was thick, growing low, the spaces at the base few and too small to allow of passage. A barrier a dozen feet high, the spines a host of knives to rip and tear at flesh which came too close. The platform itself was beyond reach-the only obvious route to freedom lay through the door.

The panel opened as he watched to reveal a shadowed darkness in which something moved. A shape loped forward to stand in the crimson light of the sun.

"God!" said someone from the platform. "Dear, God!"

A woman's voice, but Dumarest couldn't tell which. There was no time to look, no time for anything but to study the creature before him. The creation from the laboratories which Charisse had claimed to be a superior man.

She had lied-he looked at a woman.

Like himself she was dressed in neutral gray, fabric which covered her body but there was no mistaking the thrust of breasts, the swell of hips and thighs. A body designed for breeding, for the first necessity of any superior life form was the ability to reproduce. The frame was massive and he guessed genetic science had developed hollow bones for greater muscle anchorage without added weight. The skin was a deep brown, the eyes widely spaced and deep-set beneath thrusting brows. The forehead was high, curved, surmounted by a mane of ebon hair. The mouth showed the white gleam of pointed incisors-feline teeth which could stab and rip like knives. The hands were large, the fingers equipped with retractable claws.

A blend of woman and cat, she stood eight feet tall, loping toward him intent on his death.

Dumarest turned and ran, turning again to duck beneath a reaching hand, to be sent sprawling as a foot hammered at his side. A blow which numbed, then repeated to rip sod from the ground and send it flying high and far to one side. Speed which would have killed had it been backed with experience. Which would kill if he allowed it time.

Again he ran, seeing the wall of the building rise before him, the closed door. Behind its grill he saw eyes, the glint of metal, saw too the shadow darkening the steel. A warning he obeyed just in time, throwing himself to one side as the woman slammed into the panel, wood shredding beneath the rake of her nails.

The impetuous anger of youth and she had to be young. Something patterned in the laboratory and forced to speeded maturity with the aid of slowtime. Fed with artificial concentrates, exercised by machines, the body developed at the expense of the mind. An idiot, unable as yet to talk, to think, to understand. A reactive construct which had been programmed to destroy.

Against it his knife was useless.

She was too fast, too well-protected. Even if he blinded an eye it would do nothing to slow her. Unlike the mannek she had been designed for efficiency and not for display. The pain level must be high, nerves and tendons duplicated, survival responses built into the very fabric of her being. The common attributes of any female were in her developed to the ultimate.

Yet there had to be weaknesses.

He dodged again, staying beyond reach of the clawed hands, moving with trained response while his mind assessed the situation. He could cut and slash and wound but each of her hands held five knives against his one. She was as fast as he was. Taller than he. Stronger. His only advantage lay in his experience-the cunning developed over the years. And she was a woman and a child.

He ran, stooping as he ran, to straighten with the weight of his knife in his hand. Nine inches of honed and tempered steel blazed like a crimson icicle as he lifted the polished blade to catch and reflect the sunlight. A flashing glitter vanished to reappear to vanish again as he maneuvered the weapon. Darting rays caught the woman across the eyes, making her blink, making her lift shielding hands, causing her to halt, to back a little from the unknown and therefore potentially dangerous brightness.

But the childish mind was entranced even as the mature body reacted to programmed caution.

Dumarest edged to one side, boots soundless on the sward, knife lifted, reflected brightness aimed at the face, the eyes. He backed and she followed, one hand reaching for the knife. He backed even more then stepped quickly around her so that her back was toward the hedge opposite to that holding the platform.

"Here!" he said. "Catch!" Crimson gleamed as he threw the knife. It rose high, spinning, a glittering wheel which spun up and toward the hedge. A thing of magic which she followed with her eyes, hands lifting to snatch it from the air, falling short as it soared above the thorns. She turned to face it, stepping forward-and Dumarest moved.

He ran forward, leaping high, one boot landing on the swollen curve of her buttocks, using it as a foothold to leap again, jumping high as he used the broad shoulders as a platform. The leap carried him after the knife, the hedge passing beneath him, thorns rasping at his clothing as he fell, hands clamped protectively over his eyes.

He landed on soft dirt, legs folding to cushion the shock, hands falling as his eyes searched for the knife. It rested a dozen feet away, half sunken in the loam, and he snatched it up, running as he heard shouts from behind, Charisse's sharp order.

"Stop him! Use the stunner!"

Another voice, thin with distance. "My lady-it doesn't work!"

An unsuspected bonus-the thing planted in his temple had been more than a vehicle for the drugs which had dulled his mind.

"Try again!" she ordered and then, as Dumarest continued to run, "Stop, Earl-or I'll loose the dogs!"

He heard the snuffle and tensed, lying in the gloom of the hut, concentrating on simple orders. Outside the teleths moved in an apparently random pattern, blocking the door, crossing the paths, ruining what scent he may have left with their own, pungent odors. A score of them milling to halt and watch with their large, staring eyes. The snuffling faded and in the shadows Dumarest relaxed.

He was hot, his body sticky with perspiration beneath his clothing, the garments themselves ripped and scratched by thorns and hooked leaves, spines and barbed protrusions. His hands were webs of scratches, his hair matted, his boots slimed. For an eternity, it seemed, he had run and dodged and wended his way through an elaborate maze. Hiding from the rafts and men sent to search for him, the dogs, the loping felines many of which he had left in puddles of blood and fur. A path which had led him to the village of the teleths was the only safety he could hope to find.

Through the low arch of the door he could see a small patch of darkening sky. Already it blazed with a scatter of stars heralding the night as the last rays of crimson bid farewell to the day. Soon it would be dark and the grounds filled with the dogs newly commanded to kill. Before then he must be on his way.

Cautiously he moved to the opening and saw the assembled shapes outside. There were too many to be normal and he concentrated on watching as small groups moved away to wander aimlessly about the paths, the sown plots of ground. A normal scene for any who might be watching and, later, unless bathed in the glow of a searchlight, he might pass as one of the teleths. Their radiated body heat, at least, would mask his own as their scent baffled the dogs.

The stars shone brighter then dulled as a scud of cloud came to blur their images, clouds which thickened to shed a drizzling rain. It drummed on his head as Dumarest left the shelter, washed the blood from his scratches, the dirt from flesh and clothing. The downpour sent the teleths into shelter from which he drove them with savage, mental commands. Humped, miserable, they shuffled with himself among them toward the house.

It was farther than he remembered, the space between interspersed with compounds, stockades, feeding plots, pools. Areas were divided by spined barriers, some set with gates, others with elaborate stiles. The obstructions broke the shielding knot of teleths and sent them wandering in individual confusion. This was a gain rather than a loss and one achieved without his direction.

From somewhere he heard the belling of a hound.

It came again, closer, a deep-toned baying from the west. Another dog or the first signaling its new position to the leader of the pack? One who could have found a teleth and was marking the position. The creatures wouldn't be harmed-only he stood in danger.

A pool glinted before him and Dumarest plunged into it, risking what it might contain in an attempt to negate his scent. The far bank held a matted moss which moved as he gripped it, tendrils rising from the seemingly harmless vegetation to wind around his arms, his legs, his throat. Strands which tightened and pulled him back into the water. Ropes of living tissue studded with mouths seeking his blood.

He felt the stink and tore free an arm to rip the tendrils from his throat. Others replaced them and he felt the blood drum in his ears as they closed in a strangling noose. He strained, reaching for his knife, lifting it from his boot to send the edge against the living ropes. A slash and they had parted, ends falling as he pulled them from his neck. Pearls of blood showed dark in the growing starlight as the rain clouds thinned as they drifted to the south. More cuts and he was free, stepping over the matted fronds to firm ground.

He paused as again he heard the belling of a hound. A hedge stood before him, a barrier set with a flight of wooden steps leading to a small platform, more steps the other side. As he watched he heard the rasp of claws, saw the stairs quiver as something mounted the far side. He ran forward, crouching against the base of the hedge as a dog jumped down and loped toward the pool.

It was one of the pack he had seen and, at close quarters, was even more forbidding than when seen from the safety of a raft. It halted, sniffing, nose rising as it looked around. Before it, close to the matted growth at the edge of the pool, slashed tendrils twitched like blind and severed worms. This was sure evidence of recent intrusion and Dumarest knew the dog had recognized it as such. As the head lifted to bay a signal to the pack he lunged forward, the knife extended in his hand.

As the beast turned, the knife plunged deep into the corded throat.

A calculated stab which cut the main arteries and sent blood to drown the bay, the warning barks. The wound would kill, had killed, but even though as good as dead the beast retained energy, the ingrained compulsion to kill. It snarled, teeth gleaming white, reddening as blood sprayed from its muzzle. A fountain preceded the final attack, the dog's jaws opening, closing on Dumarest's lifted forearm, clamping on the sleeve, the mesh it contained, the flesh and bone within.

Trapped by the grip, Dumarest fell back beneath the dying weight, lay still as he heard a man calling from the platform.

"Chando? Where are you, boy?" He held a flashlight and shone its beam over the area. It settled on the dog, the man beneath. "God! Hold, boy! Hold!"

Dumarest tensed as boots rattled down the stairs. His left forearm was still clamped between the jaws now locked in death, his right hand holding the knife pressed between the beast and his stomach. If the man had seen the blood he must imagine it came from the victim and not the dog. As he came closer Dumarest groaned.

"Chando!" The voice held the snap of command. "Up, boy! Up!"

"He's got me," said Dumarest weakly. "Help me. Help."

"Just stay where you are, mister." The man's voice held the confidence of one backed by an army. "A word from me and Chando will rip out your throat. Now, boy, that's enough. Up, I tell you. Up!"

Dumarest heaved, the dog moving a little, a semblance of life in the shadows, the drifting glare of the flashlight; a moment of confusion in which he managed to free his knife, to ease his legs. The movement of his trapped arm made it seem as if the dog were lifting its head.

"That's better!" The man echoed his satisfaction at the apparent obedience. "You-" He broke off as he saw the throat, the stained teeth. In the beam of the flashlight the dog's eyes were dull and lifeless gems. "Dead," he said blankly. "Dead-but how?"

"Help me." Dumarest moaned as if in pain. The animal's blood masked his face, gave him the appearance of injury, of a throat torn by fangs. "Please, help me."

"Like hell," snapped the guard. "You bastard! You killed Chando."

The man loved his charges and was eager for revenge. Dumarest reared as he snatched at the whistle hanging from his neck, knowing that one blast would bring the pack racing to bring him down. As it rose to the lips he lifted his hand, the knife a blur as it left his fingers, the pommel making a dull, wooden sound as it slammed against the guard's temple. As he slumped Dumarest tore his arm free of the clamping jaws and ran to recover the weapon. He froze as a voice came from lower down the hedge. "Levie? Is that you?"

Another guard patrolled the area, his voice casual above the rasp of booted feet on the graveled path. Dumarest found the flashlight and killed the beam. From where he lay sprawled on the ground its owner made small, burbling noises which died as he was turned over on his side.

"Levie?" The footsteps halted on the far side of the hedge. "Is that you in there?"

Silence would answer his question but could arouse suspicion. Dumarest coughed, made grunting noises, stamped heavily on the stairs and turned on the flashlight as he reached the platform. In its light a small, round-faced man peered upward, lifting a shielding hand as the beam focused on his eyes.

"Be careful with that thing," he snapped. "You want to blind me?" His voice rose as the dim shape behind the light came closer. "Levie! What the hell-"

He sagged as stiffened fingers thrust like blunted spears into the major nerves of his throat, a blow which stunned but did not kill. Before he reached the ground Dumarest was running toward the house which lifted its bizarre silhouette against the sky.

Linda Ynya was bored. The party had turned sour and despite the money she had won at cards, she felt irritable and, somehow, cheated. It was Charisse's fault, of course; she had refused to make the matter clear, leaving them to argue. Had Dumarest won or had he lost? He hadn't killed the creature but neither had he been killed. Did his escape prove he was the more superior or not? A point which Astin even now was trying to determine.

"Dumarest defeated the objective of the creature which was to kill him," he insisted. "So the thing failed to do what it intended."

"Which means nothing." Vayne slopped wine into a glass, sipped, made a grimace as if he found it sour. "Or are you saying cowardice is a mark of valor?"

"Cowardice has nothing to do with it." Krantz was impatient. "The man fought and escaped with his life. More than that; he was uninjured and so able to fight again. The point you all overlook is that he used his brains. If we accept intelligence as being superior to ignorance then the decision is plain. Dumarest won."

This was what Charisse wanted them to accept so she could take their money and give nothing in return. Was Krantz in her pay? Had she promised him some advantage for having helped Dumarest? It had been his suggestion that the knife should be permitted-but she had argued against stripping him and she had received nothing. A question of fairness, she thought, or had it been more than that? A disinclination to see him made a helpless victim or her own feelings reflected in her defense. To be naked was to be helpless in more ways than one.

"My dear?" Enrice Heva was at her side. "It seems we bore you. Some wine?"

She shook her head.

"Another diversion, perhaps?" His leer left no doubt as to his meaning. "If you are agreeable I would be happy to cooperate."

"You've had my answer to that," she snapped. "I don't want to repeat it. If you are so hungry for a bedmate try Cleo. Or Glenda-I understand she has a taste for perversion. You should amuse her." She smiled with undiluted malice. "Or disappoint her-even she needs a man."

"Bitch!"

"Yes?" She met his eyes. "And?"

He backed away, scowling, knowing better than to insult her further. A coward-would he have dared to face one of Charisse's creatures? Would she? An empty question, she knew the answer too well, but Dumarest had and she wondered why. A matter of a debt, she'd gathered, that and a promise given. How gratifying it must be to have power over such a man.

A servant offered wine and she waved it aside leaning back in her chair to study the others. Ienda Chao and Lunerarch were absent and it took no genius to know where they were and what they were doing. Glenda would probably sleep with Corm or, this time, it could be Astin. Cleo-what the hell did it matter who slept with whom?

"A draw," said Krantz. "The result can only be a draw. They met, neither was hurt, the contest was ended."

"That proves the lack of superiority of Charisse's creation." Enrice, smarting at her rejection, found refuge in taking a stand in the argument. "So the man won."

"Which means you are happy to see Charisse collect." Vayne took another sip of wine. "I don't feel so generous."

"You think she will agree to supply copies as promised?"

"No, which is why we had better all agree with Krantz. If the result is a draw then no one has to lose." Vayne looked at Linda as she rose. "Leaving us so soon?"

"I'm tired. I'm going to bed."

"Alone?"

She heard their laughter as she climbed the stairs.

Her room was set high in the building, a large chamber softly decorated, fitted with all a person could need. The bed was wide and soft and covered with a fabric of rich material adorned with arabesques of gold set against a field of black. A servant had placed a decanter of wine beside it together with a pair of glasses, a subtle comment by her hostess which she chose to ignore. Charisse could be generous but always with reason, and her order, this time, had been large. A score of mutated cattle together with two breeding pairs of dogs, some birds genetically engineered to consume a particular species of troublesome insect and the eggs of serpents able to live on dust, sun and apparently little else.

Now, work done, she could afford to relax and estimate her profit.

She could think, too, of the spectacle she had seen.

Krantz had been wrong-if there had been a winner it had to be Dumarest but she would go along with his decision for the sake of peace. In any case she had no use for a copy of the monster no matter what the cost and, she remembered, Charisse had left it deliberately vague. But of one thing she had no doubt; if Dumarest could be persuaded to fight in an arena he would make a fortune.

She poured wine and stood sipping wondering why she had left the others so early. Tiredness had been an excuse induced by boredom but there had to be more than that. An impatience to leave, perhaps; the Chetame Laboratory held little inducement to linger once business had been done.

A touch of chill caused her to shiver and she turned, staring at the window, frowning when she saw it open. The fault of some careless servant who would have paid for it had she been back home. While the days on Kuldip were warm, the nights were cold, the more so after the early rain. And the wind, blowing toward her room, brought added discomfort.

Setting down the glass, she moved toward the open pane, reaching forward to catch the edge of the outward-swung window, pausing to stare outside. The cloud had thickened and the rain had returned driving toward her in vagrant showers driven by equally vagrant winds. A bad night to be in the open, a worse one when hunted, and she shivered at the distant baying of a hound. God help Dumarest if the animals should catch him.

God help Charisse if they did not.

She touched the glazed panel and pulled it toward her then froze as she saw the broken spot at the edge near the catch, the glass shattered to form an opening ringed with jagged shards-evidence she recognized immediately for what it had to be.

Somehow, incredibly, Dumarest had managed to elude the guards, to climb the wall and to break a hole in the window to gain entry into her room. She had returned too soon for him to have closed it and drawn the curtains. She wondered what he would have done had she screamed. She had no doubt of what would have happened had she been Charisse.