"You displayed wisdom. You knew that I would not have hesitated to fire."
Dumarest said, dryly, "And broken your command not to risk my life?"
"I have skill in medical matters. The stumps would have been seared by the beam and blood-loss avoided. There would have been relatively little shock. Tourniquets could have been applied and other precautions taken. You would have been in no danger of losing your life."
"And yet you couldn't be certain of that?"
"Nothing can be absolutely guaranteed," admitted the cyber. "Always there is the possibility of the unknown affecting any prediction. Yet, had you left me no choice, I would have taken the risk."
A fact Dumarest had known. He could have hurled the knife and, perhaps, taken the man's life, but he would have fallen beneath the beam and, falling, died.
Also, somewhere, the man's acolyte would have been on watch.
Was still on watch.
Dumarest had seen him after he had dropped the knife and obeyed the cyber's orders. Deft hands had removed his boots, his tunic, leaving him dressed only in his pants. His hands had been cuffed behind him and, once on the cot, his ankles had been manacled to the structure of the bed. He could sit upright, turn from side to side, could even throw himself awkwardly to the floor. But it was impossible to leave the bunk.
A prisoner, he could only wait.
Wait and watch and plan. To be ready at all times to take advantage of any opportunity which might come. To mask the alertness by a seeming, numb acceptance of his fate. To use a man's weakness against himself.
Broge was young, inexperienced, sent to Harald because it was a world of relative unimportance and would serve to train him in the extension of his instilled attributes. A man who, while not capable of true emotion, could enjoy the pleasure of mental achievement. And he had succeeded in gaining the one man the Cyclan wanted most of all.
"You were clever," said Dumarest. "How did you know where I would be?"
"The clues were obvious. The stolen clothing, rubbish, perhaps, but good enough to disguise your own garments. The rain helped and you probably waited in the market until dark. Then where could you hide without question? The prediction that you would choose Lowtown was high. You would be on the field, close to vessels, and you would have money for passage should the opportunity present itself."
He knew everything. To walk into Lowtown had been simple, who would think a man would voluntarily want to stay in such a stinking hell? Men were counted out but rarely counted in. To join a party in the gloom, to merge into the shadows, to wait.
"How did you know where to look for me? Only the woman knew I was at the old man's."
And she would have told the cyber when he asked, of course, and his absence when her home was searched would have confirmed the prediction as to where he would be found. It was impossible to blame her; on Harald a good situation was something to be valued. The rest was elementary, the captain of the Sleethan, warned, would have sent word.
"I must admit that I was puzzled by the ease of your capture," said Broge. "I was given to understand that you had remarkable powers of eluding authority. It seems incredible that you remained at large for so long."
"Luck," said Dumarest. "I had a lot of luck."
Which had turned bad on Harald. An hour, maybe, would have done it. A day, certainly. If he could have gained a passage before the cyber had been informed-but no ships had been at the field and, once in Lowtown, he could only wait.
Even then, if Erylin had been honest-but to ask that of his kind was to ask too much. The captain, bribed, would not have hesitated.
Dumarest said, "Listen, you don't need me. I'm willing to cooperate with you. I'll tell you the secret you're looking for and, in return, you let me go. Just give me my boots."
"You have the secret hidden in your boots?"
"I-never mind that. You must know why the Cyclan want me. Well, you can take them what they want. I'll write it down if-" Dumarest jerked at his manacled wrists. "What's the matter with you? Are all you people thieves?"
"You are the thief. You stole the secret from the Cyclan. We only want to recover what is rightfully ours."
An error, the secret had been stolen by Brasque and passed by him to Kalin who, in turn, had given it to Dumarest. A correction he didn't make as, again, he tugged at his wrists. An act, there could be no escape from the clamping metal, but a man who would waste effort on a useless pursuit would merit the scorn of the cyber and a man held in scorn is generally underestimated.
A knock and, at the cyber's invitation, the door opened and Chagney stood just within the cabin. He looked blankly at Dumarest and swayed a little, lifting a hand to support himself, the fingers thin, the knuckles swollen against the jamb.
"The captain wants to know the new destination. You said-"
"You are bound at present for Zakym?"
"Yes. It's on the edge of the Rift. We've a cargo and can pick up stuff for delivery to Koyan."
"Alter course for Jalong. Full recompense will be made on arrival together with the promised bonus." Then, as the navigator made no attempt to shift his position, the cyber added, "Well?"
"Jalong. You sure?"
"Yes."
"It's beyond the Rift. You know that?"
"I know it." Broge looked steadily at the navigator. "Are you ill?"
"He's drunk," said Dumarest. "He couldn't plot an unfamiliar course to save his life. Anyway, we'll never reach Jalong in this wreck. The generators are shot to hell, can't you hear them? Try it and we'll all end up as dust in the Rift."
"The probability of that is six point seven per cent," said Broge evenly. "Low as you will admit. Once on Jalong you will be transhipped to a vessel which will take you to your final destination."
Final in more ways than one. Dumarest leaned back against the bulkhead as Broge rose and led Chagney back to the control room. Alone his face lost its vacuous expression as he anticipated the future. It didn't take a cyber's skill to predict just what would happen. First he'd be held in a security impossible to achieve on the Sleethan. There would be guards and drugs and preliminary interrogations. Later would come electronic probes to quest his brain, pain to stimulate his memory, tests to determine the truth, more to eliminate the possibility of error. Then, finally, when no longer human, he would be disposed of as unwanted rubbish.
It would be done without hate and without mercy. The events of the past would have no meaning for those who would have him in their charge. The Cyclan wasted no time on recriminations or revenge. He would be nothing more to them than a receptacle holding the one thing they had determined to regain.
The correct sequence of the fifteen biological molecular units forming the affinity twin.
An artificial symbiote developed by the Cyclan in a secret laboratory and stolen from them by the dedicated genius of one man. Brasque was long dead now as was Kalin and he had destroyed the data before taking the secret or had left false information behind. The details didn't matter, the fact that the affinity twin still existed did.
Injected into the bloodstream it nestled at the base of the cortex and became intermeshed with the entire sensory and nervous systems. The brain hosting the submissive half of the organism would become a literal extension of the dominant part. Each move, all sensation, all mobility would be instantaneously transmitted. In effect it gave the host containing the dominant half a new body.