A civilian then, one cautiously feeling his way, content to pay for limited information.
One caught by the general directive which had been designed to do just that.
No, not caught, not yet. One isolated and centered in aroused interest. A target. Quarry to be hunted down.
"Master?" Mharle was waiting.
"Have men wait at the Cha'Nang Institute. Continuous surveillance. If anyone makes similar inquiries have them followed and, if they attempt to leave the city, apprehended. Use any force necessary but, under no circumstances is the life of the subject to be endangered. Set a similar watch at the field. Description as on directive ED 201. Orders as above. Apprehend but do not endanger. And, Mharle-do not fail."
Buis looked at his hand as it fell from the button of the communicator. It was thin, thickly veined, the skin mottled, the fingers claw-like with age. A long life and a busy one in which he had served the Cyclan with every cell of his being. And now, at the end-he watched as his hand closed as if gripping something of inestimable value.
Dumarest on Juba!
It had to be Dumarest. A man, making such an inquiry, taking such precautions-who else could it be?
One who had, somehow, slipped through the net set to catch him after his whereabouts had been determined on a distant world. The attempt made there to gain information as to the whereabouts of a certain star repeated here. The same interest in the spectrum of a forgotten sun. The man the Cyclan searched for. The man they needed to find.
The secret they had to regain.
Leaning back Buis closed his eyes, reliving the time when, in communication with Central Intelligence, all had been made clear to him. A discovery stolen from a secret laboratory of the Cyclan and passed on to Dumarest. The affinity twin which could give one mind the power to enter the body of a prepared host and dominate it. To become that actual person. To feel and see and walk and talk and live in a new body. A means to dominate the rich and powerful, to use them with cyber minds controlling their bodies, to extend the rule and power of the Cyclan to every inhabited star.
A universe held in a molecular chain of fifteen bio-chemical units, one of which, reversed, determined the subjective or dominant characteristics. The biochemical units were known. What the affinity twin could do had been demonstrated.
But the correct order in which the fifteen units had to be assembled was the secret Dumarest carried in his brain.
One which would be rediscovered given time-but the possible combinations ran into millions. If a chain could be formed and tested every second, still it would take millennia to test them all. Endless years which the capture of one man could save.
Dumarest!
Buis opened his eyes and looked at his hand now closed tighter than before. Dumarest was on Juba-he was certain of it. It was only a matter of time before he was found.
Chapter Three
She was soft and warm and moistly engulfing. A creature of passion and demanding heat with skin like silk and curves which united into a symphony of delight. Her odor was enticing; that of rain-drenched loam, of sun-kissed grain, of an opening bud, the scent rising from the milk-dappled lips of a child. And, even when sprawled in satiated abandon, she held a lithe and lovely grace.
A dancer and now a dealer she had told him-but what else?
Lifting himself on one elbow Dumarest looked down at the woman in the pale light of a breaking dawn. Asleep she was more beautiful than awake, small tensions eased, muscles relaxed, the hand of time lifted from brow and cheek and the corners of the eyes. The mane of her loosened hair lay like a serpent over the pillow, the naked roundness of a shoulder, the proud mound of a breast. In her throat, beneath the rich olive of her skin, a small pulse beat like a tiny drum. Below it lay the carotid artery-a pressure and she would fall from sleep into unconsciousness and if the pressure were maintained, into soft and easy death.
"Earl!" Turning she muttered his name, head moving to present her lips, her eyes, the lashes which lay like nighted moths on her cheeks. "Earl!"
A dream in which, perhaps, she was again lost in passionate abandon.
Gently he rose and moved into the kitchen, heating coffee and taking it into the living room where, again, he searched the furnishings with his eyes. The apartment was what she had claimed it to be, a place rented for a limited stay, the appointments a standard necessity. Only the music cube was hers. That and a delicate vase of striated crystal, a framed portrait of an elderly man-her father perhaps-a scrap of embroidered silk, her clothes, her cosmetics, the painting of a crying child.
The painting which depicted a moon bearing the semblance of a skull.
Again Dumarest studied it, holding it to the window, using a glass to magnify detail. Was it what he hoped or had memory played tricks? A combination of light and shadow, a silver hue, a desperate yearning-a combination loaded with potential danger. As was the woman herself.
Logic told him that she had to be what she claimed but the instinct which had saved him so often before refused to permit him to lower his guard. The attack could, despite his previous conviction, have been the prelude to a trap. One baited with warm and yielding flesh. With the painting of the child. A snare which could snap shut at any moment.
"Earl?" Sardia was awake, calling sleepily from the bed. "Earl, where are you?"
"Here."
"Why are you up?" Her voice grew sharper. "Is anything wrong?"
"No. I wanted some coffee. A moment and I'll bring you some."
"I felt you missing," she said, her voice regaining its first softness. "Even though asleep I sensed you had left me."
Like an animal sensing danger. As if he had woken during the night to lie listening to her movements as she searched his garments, saying nothing, doing nothing, acting the part of a man lost in dreams. Now he checked his clothes, finding all intact, his fingers lingering on the belt and the hilt of the knife.
"Earl?"
"Coming." He returned to the kitchen, poured coffee, entered the bedroom with steaming cups in his hands. Offering her one he looked down at the beauty revealed as she sat upright. "You slept well?"
"Like a child, Earl. Like a woman in love who lies with her lover. And you?"
"The same."
A lie to match her own and one given for the same reason perhaps. Only a fool would take a stranger on trust and in the sanity following the idiocy of passion native caution could have prevailed. An attribute he could respect.
"Earl?"
"It's time to get to work." He set down his cup and stepped into the shower, washing, drying himself, dressing as she finished the last of her coffee. "You're sure as to the address?"
"It was the one given me. You think it false?"
"It's there."
"But the man isn't." She set aside her cup with sudden irritation. "A day now and no progress. Earl, is there nothing I can do?"
"You sit here and you wait," he said flatly. "As you did yesterday. At times I may have to call you."
Again as he had done yesterday, finding her home each time, inventing some reason for the call. At least it pinned her down and, if she tried to call out, she would find the phone useless-a thing Dumarest had arranged.
Now she said, "Earl, how long?"
"Days perhaps. A month, even." He was deliberately pessimistic. "Does it matter?"
"It matters. I-" She broke off and shrugged. "Forget it. Just do your best but, please, Earl, waste no time. Others could be on the hunt and we may arrive late if at all. I'd hate to hear the artist has been spirited away or all his future work placed under contract." She slipped from the bed, a living statue of femininity darkly enticing against the snowy expanse of the sheets. "Good luck, darling." Her arms closed around his neck and pulled his lips to hers. "And don't keep me waiting too long."