An unexpected question which caused her to frown. Then, face clearing, she smiled. "Of course, the warp; you don't know where you are. I haven't the coordinates, but Camollard is close to the Elmirha Dust. You can see it from the southern hemisphere."
A half million light years from Tynar-the warp had thrown them far.
"Are there ships?"
"Not many, and those that call land at Breen. It's a small place on the equator. There's a mine working a seam of thorenite, but mostly they hunt. Furs and the fruit of doltchel. A small plant growing in sheltered nooks. It's a narcotic."
A bleak world with but a single town, a single space field. Such worlds were common.
She said, "You aren't drinking, Earl. Have I offended you?"
Caution she decided, as he shook his head. Such a man would always be cautious. Careful of each step he took until he was sure of where he was going, and then nothing would stop him. A man who had come in answer to her prayer. A strong man, hard, ruthless; she could tell it by the set of his mouth, the line of his jaw. Her eyes dropped to the knife in his boot. A knife was nothing, a strip of edged and pointed steel; substitutes could be made from a broken bottle, a host of items-by itself a blade was harmless, certainly against the Monitors which was possibly why Camolsaer had allowed it. Allowed it-unaware that it wasn't the knife which was dangerous, but the man.
Her man, she had known it from the first. One way or another, he would be hers.
He said, "How do you get from here to Breen?"
"You don't."
"Can't?"
"Both. There is no contact with any other city. No ships, no flyers, nothing. Instone is isolated; a vague rumor which no one will ever take the trouble to investigate. Even if you could climb the wall, there would still be the Krim to contend with. Savage animals who roam the ice."
"We saw them-they were men."
"Or things which looked like men," she corrected. "When they get too close, Camolsaer sends the Monitors out against them. If you tried to escape it would send them against you."
"Escape?"
"Escape, Earl. Haven't you grasped it yet? This isn't just a city, it's a jail. A prison in which we're all under sentence of death. And you, Earl; you'll be one of the first to go!"
Chapter Ten
The work was a mindless routine, taking packets from a machine to where others would feed them into different machines. Made work, unessential, something to occupy the time of humans while machines ran the city. Machines and Camolsaer, who controlled them.
At the bell Dumarest returned to his room, changed, and continued his inspection of the city. It had lasted more than a week; a close scrutiny of every available chamber and compartment, each corridor and passage on the entire complex.
If Instone was a prison, he was determined to find a way out. And it was a prison; in that the woman, though hysterical, had been right. Without roads, contact with other places, a means to cross the ice, it could be nothing else.
"Earl!" A man called to him as he entered the gymnasium. "Care to wrestle?"
"Later perhaps."
"I was telling Sagen about that throw you showed me." The man was insistent. "He's willing to bet a turn of duty that you couldn't best him within five minutes."
A bet he would surely lose. The men were soft, untoughened by hard labor, afraid to hurt or to receive pain. Dumarest stripped off his tunic and moved to the center of the area. Sagen, grimly determined, took up his stance.
A bad position, the hands too widely separated, the feet too close. A feint and he would be off-balance, an easy prey, the bout over within seconds. But Dumarest had no intention of winning. It was time he made a friend, and this was a good opportunity.
He moved in, carelessly, open to be seized. Sagen took the proffered opportunity, hands gripping, closing; body turning as he attempted the throw. Dumarest resisted, converted the direction of applied force to his own advantage, attacked in turn. Sagen staggered, barely recovered and moved cautiously, eyes reflecting the knowledge of his near-defeat. He came in again, and this time Dumarest did not resist.
The man who had called to him grunted his annoyance as Dumarest's shoulders hit the floor.
"You win, Sagen. Earl wasn't as good as I thought."
A conviction the instructor didn't share. Later, over a cup of tisane, he said, "You let me win, Earl. Why?"
"You're the instructor. You have to be the best."
"I'm not and you know it." Sagen frowned into his cup. "You could take my place at any time. Camolsaer would approve it."
"Perhaps." Dumarest wasn't so sure. "You're doing a good job, Sagen. I wouldn't have the patience. There's something you can tell me, though. I've been taking a look around the city. What lies below the lower region?"
"The power plant, waste converters and artesian wells." Sagen didn't hesitate over the answer. "There are shafts delving into the crust to heat and thaw the permafrost."
"Anyone working down there?"
"Only machines. Machines and the Monitors, of course."
"And Camolsaer?"
"Yes, I guess so."
"Guess?"
"I'm not certain. No one ever goes into the lower regions. I suppose, after conversion, you'd get a chance; but not before."
Conversion, the word used instead of death, but conversion into what? Eloise would tell him, but Dumarest knew better than to take what she said at face value.
He said, "Tell me about Camolsaer."
"Camolsaer?" Sagen seemed baffled. "It-well-it runs the city."
"I know that; but the name, where did that come from?"
"A contraction. Computer Analogue Maintenance Of Life Support And Environmental Resources." Something Eloise hadn't known; Arbush too indifferent to discover. "It controls things. It feeds us, clothes us, keeps us warm. It-it's Camolsaer."
God spelled with a different name, at least as far as the inhabitants of Instone were concerned. A mysterious, invisible, unknown entity which had governed their lives from the moment of birth. And before. Only with the permission of Camolsaer could children be bred-the special diet devoid of sterility drugs obtained.
A lifetime of conditioning, in which absolute reliance was placed on the voice coming from the terminals. Absolute dependency achieved by fact and custom.
Finishing his tisane Sagen said, "You're new here, Earl, and I guess it's natural for you to be curious; but anything you want to know can be learned from Camolsaer. Just ask at one of the terminals. There's plenty of them around."
"Thank you," said Dumarest. "I will."
"I'll be getting back to the gymnasium." Sagen rose to his feet. "It's always pretty busy at a time like this. Young bucks wanting to learn tricks and build up some muscle. Whenever a Knelling's due it's the same. Don't forget, now; just ask what you want to know. You can even get a prediction on-" He broke off, looking at Dumarest's expression. "Something wrong?"
"No. Did you say you can get a prediction?"
"That's right." The instructor lifted a careless hand. "See you around."
Alone, Dumarest sat and sipped slowly at his tisane. Any man or machine in possession of all the facts could make a simple prediction; but the word had unpleasant associations. Predictions were the area in which cybers excelled. Was Instone an extension of the Cyclan? An experiment started and later abandoned?
A girl, young, laughing, walked past him on her way to a terminal, there to ask a question about the whereabouts of her lover. Dumarest ignored her as he ignored the others in the chamber, the brightly dressed men and women, some of whom looked at him with interest. To them he was a novelty, something strange, intriguing.