“We can work to pay them.”
“It isn’t as simple as that” said the engineer. “We can’t afford to linger. As soon as Jesso has got us a cargo we’re off.”
“Without a captain?”
“Raistar can handle the ship. He can take care of the formalities. No one will know about the captain. Once in space we’ll do the best we can.”
A best that needn’t be good enough. None of the drugs they had carried had helped and Dumarest felt a chill of foreboding as he again bathed the burning flesh of the emaciated face. One he had come to know and like too well. A face of a man he had come to think of as a father, someone who had helped, who seemed to understand, to be concerned. One who was going to die.
“We all have to go, Earl.” The engineer, watching, had sensed his thoughts, guessed his emotions. His voice was unusually gentle. “Today, tomorrow, someday-it all has to end. Bazan has done more than most. Seen more than most. Now, maybe, it’s time for him to move on.”
“But there must be something we can do.”
“There is and we will. Dorph is arranging it.” Zander turned to lead the way from the control room, the big chair, the wasted figure it contained. “You’re to go with him to collect some medications. Hurry, Earl. He’s waiting for you outside.”
Figona was a harsh world, one of clouded sunlight, tainted air and winds carrying the acrid stench of chemicals. From where he stood at the head of the ramp Dumarest could see ugly glows on the horizon from the smelters turning ore into ingots. Wisps of vapor streamed over the field, catching at his lungs, stinging his eyes. The reason why the port had slammed close behind him. Such an atmosphere had no place within the vessel. Especially when the captain was lying ill and coughing blood.
“Coming?”
Dorph, at the foot of the ramp, was impatient.
Dumarest ignored him, years of association had lessened his importance. Now the steward was just another person in a tiny world. As the engineer was another, the handler a third. Both now busy on their own tasks.
“Earl! Damn it, boy, do you have to stand like some star-struck idiot? You’ve seen ships and landing fields before. They’re all the same. Let’s get on with it.”
Reluctantly he obeyed. It was true he had seen ships and fields before but, always, they held a special magic. The attraction of the unknown. The hint of exotic adventure and unexpected possibilities. The ships scattered around him had roamed the void and touched the planets of stars far distant.
The crews that manned them had trodden on worlds he had yet to see. Many of which he would never have the time to see.
Three years of travel had barely allowed him to touch the fringe of the universe.
“Hurry!” Dorph looked from side to side as Dumarest descended the ramp. A nervous gesture with no apparent cause.
“We haven’t much time,” he said as he led the way to the gate. “The captain needs a special drug. Only a few sell it. The man we need won’t entertain visitors after dark.”
Too many words and, like the furtive looks, foreign to his nature. Dorph never volunteered explanations. He liked to remain enigmatic and, in his mind, mysterious. Now he wore a peaked cap fitted with an eye-screen that masked his face. He had insisted that Dumarest wore one like it. An odd request but there was no point in arguing about it.
“Keep moving!” Dorph grunted as a guard blocked their passage. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Just take it easy.”
The guard was a big man, armed and irritable. “Just give it a minute. Someone special wants some room.”
Dumarest looked to where the guard was facing. The crowd of men was parting, yielding to clear a passage down which came a tall, thin figure. One seeming to glide over the tamped dirt, resplendent in a robe of vivid scarlet, the breast adorned with a gleaming sigil. Beneath the raised cowl he caught a glimpse of a taut, skull-like visage, the glow of sunken eyes.
“Who-”
“Quiet, boy!” snapped Dorph. “Don’t be curious!” The guard wasn’t so reticent.
“You’ve never seen one before?” His eyes roved over Dumarest. “Well, maybe not, you’re young and there aren’t many in this area. You’re looking at a cyber. An associate of the Cyclan. Closer to the Centre they can be found on every thriving world.” He spat on the dirt. “Scum, the lot of them! They should be burned!”
“Why?”
“Forget it, Earl!”
Like Dumarest the guard ignored the steward.
“You want to know why? I’ll tell you why. I was born on Helgar, a warm and easy world a long way from here. My family shared and farmed a valley for five generations. We all lived well. Then the new Magnate wanted to increase his revenue. He hired the Cyclan to advise him how best to do it. Their advice turned the valley into a reservoir. We lost our home, land, everything. For compensation we were given a tract of desert. My father cut his throat. My mother starved, my sisters and other brothers-” He broke off, quivering with rage. “All thanks to the Cyclan. Damn the red swine!”
Dumarest looked at the tall figure with fresh interest. He had passed deeper into the field but now it was obvious he was not alone. Two others accompanied him; acolytes wearing simple robes. The ship to which they headed stood in isolation at the far edge of the field.
“What are they doing here?”
“Who knows? Who cares?” As the guard lowered his arm Dorph headed towards the gate. “Hurry! Let’s get moving!”
Through the gate, past the guards, the cluster of loungers, the curious, the hopeful, the desperate.
“Mister!” One grabbed at the steward. “You from a ship? I need passage. I can work, do anything, I just have to get away.”
Dorph was curt. “Forget it.”
“I don’t want much. Just a passage.”
“You willing to ride Low?”
“Anything, mister. Anything!”
“Got cash?”
“Some. Look.”
“Not enough.” Dorph waved aside the handful of coins. “It’s no deal.”
“Mister! I’m begging you!”
As they left him behind Dumarest said, “Shouldn’t Jesso have made the decision?”
“Why waste his time? You know the rules-no cash no ride. Anyway, he would never have made it.”
“Jesso-”
“Damn it, Earl, forget Jesso. He would have done the same. Now let’s get on with what we came to do.”
The apothecary was housed in a building adorned with the depiction of great flasks of varied colors. Lamps hung between them, now lit against the growing darkness, casting swathes of cerise, orange, lavender, ruby, golden yellow, lambent emerald. The man himself was small with darting eyes in a creased and puckered face. Around him reared shelves bearing an assortment of containers. Dumarest stared with interest at glowing heaps of crystalline dusts, mounds of elaborately convoluted seeds, phials of enigmatic fluids, the mummified corpses of insects and fish, worms, things like spiders and tadpoles, others like the substance of nightmares.
“Ears,” said the apothecary. “Culled from those executed at dawn, steeped in bile and blood and dried in the heat of a noonday sun. And these-” his finger rapped against another container-“eyes. Plucked from the living sockets of those condemned to end their days in torment. Basted in the effluvium of seared and living fat, chilled, left to shrink in the glow of a gibbous moon. Are you interested, young sir? Have you a problem? Here, within these walls, all can be solved. A subtle poison. A strong aphrodisiac. A rival disposed of and a woman eager to fall into your arms. Could paradise offer more?”
“Forget it,” snapped Dorph. “He may be young but he isn’t stupid.”
“Young, yes, but the future comes closer with each second and each second we age. A year, two, who can tell?” The apothecary’s shrug was as old as time. “Yet, perhaps, the aphrodisiac will not be necessary. Many maidens would be eager to make a gift of their charms. But the poison is another matter. A defence carried against a time of need. A ring, hollowed, shedding a lethal drop into a goblet of wine, feeding the tip of a needle so that a touch would be sufficient. I can supply such a device capable of both means of execution.”