She gloomed over them, a finger touching, passing on, her withered lips pursing, moving as if she mumbled esoteric incantations. Dumarest watched with inward amusement. Beside him Reiza was a coiled spring.
"Earl," she whispered. "I'm frightened. I shouldn't have brought you here. If the reading is bad-God! How can I bear to lose you?"
He said, "There's nothing to be afraid of. It's just a game."
"A game?" Krystyna lifted her head with a sudden motion and sat poised like a snake about to strike. "Aye," she said after a moment. "A game as all life is a game. One I can read-or would you prefer not to know the things which wait?"
"Let's go, Earl." Reiza tugged at his arm. "It was a mistake to come. Please, Earl."
"No." He freed his arm, his eyes holding those of the old woman. "When you're ready, Mother."
Again she brooded over the cards.
"First the beginning for the child is father to the man and as the twig is bent so the tree will grow." Her finger touched a card next to the significator. "The Egg, symbol of life and fertility but also of change for from the egg springs a different form. And this is touched by conflict, desolation, catastrophe." The finger moved from card to card, pausing at the depiction of a man dressed in tattered garments, smiling, a staff bearing a bundle resting on one shoulder. "The Rover. Restless, always moving, ever seeking the unknown beyond the horizon. A fool, some would say, leaving reality in pursuit of a dream. A man without faith and faith is not for him." The finger moved to the symbol of a priest, the card reversed. "The comfort of spiritual assurance is absent and he lacks the support of the church. But it does not work against him for it lies on the dexter side. A neutrality. This is not." The finger moved, came to rest. "The Cradle. Also reversed and therefore empty. There will be no fruitful issues or successful outcomes."
"No." Reiza dug her fingers into Dumarest's arm as she whispered the denial. "She's wrong, Earl. She has to be."
He rested his hand on hers, giving her the comfort of his touch as the old woman droned on. Looking at the cards she touched, the Wheel, the Ship, the Pylon. Reiza drew in her breath as the gnarled finger came to rest on the Skull.
"Deceit," said Krystyna. "Poison of the mind and even of the body. Threats of a secret nature. Associated with knowledge." Her finger tapped the Book, moved to a card meshed with a web and an eight-legged creature. "The Spider. Already you are deep in the snare of its spinning and the danger of the skull warns of its intention. But the Book?"
She fell silent, brooding over the cards, checking their association. Reiza was too impatient to wait.
"Tell us," she blurted. "Krystyna-what do you see?"
"Death." The old woman leaned back, her eyes winking points of brilliance in the guttering light as she looked at Dumarest. "You are enmeshed in danger and deception which can have only one end. How it will come and from what source has yet to be revealed." Her hand reached for the face-down card which represented Dumarest then, abruptly, she drew it back. "No. You do it. A man should find his own destiny."
Dumarest reached out, took the card, turned it. In the dim lighting the figure it depicted seemed made of blood. Tall, thin, the scarlet robe it wore emblazoned with the Cyclan Seal.
"Logic." Krystyna added, "The fifteenth card. Fifteen-the number of your fate."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Master Marie, Cyber Prime, woke to stare into darkness broken only by a single point of light which relieved the Stygian gloom of the chamber. A matter of efficiency; total darkness would prove hampering in case of emergency; time wasted as eyes grew accustomed to the light, movement disorganized. Now he lay supine as his body geared itself to a higher degree of function. Minutes which grew longer as the years progressed for no matter how efficient the basic mechanism the aging process took its toll.
"Master." The voice followed a bell. "Time to wake, Master."
A summons repeated, dying as his finger touched a control. Another and the light strengthened to reveal the bleak outlines of the room. One devoid of all but functional units, lacking decoration, cell-like in its Spartan simplicity.
Marie rose, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, sitting and waiting as his body accepted the higher demand. The clock showed it to be night on the surface but here, in the caverns sunken deep, the divisions of light and darkness held no meaning. Time was governed by the segments of hours. He had slept four of them, waking minutes before the alarm. Once, not long ago now, he would have woken seconds before the bell.
A thought he took with him as he showered, feeling no pleasure from the lash of water against his flesh. To bathe was a matter of hygiene, a necessity as were other functional demands. As was the food he ate when, cleansed and dressed, he sat to a frugal meal.
Prolo bowed as he entered his office. "Master, I have placed-"
"A moment." The aide was new, replacing Wyeth who had gone to his reward. A good man and a dedicated servant of the Cyclan, but as yet a little unaccustomed to his new position. "Any news from the laboratories?"
"As regards the affinity twin? None, Master, all negative as before."
"Matters of prime importance should always be given precedence," said Marie. "And to repeat the obvious is to be inefficient. Any news of Avro?"
"None." The rebuke had stung even though deserved yet the aide's face remained passive. "His condition is as before."
A statement of the obvious and another demonstration of inefficiency-if there was no news the condition could not have changed and so to have mentioned it was a waste of both words and time. Prolo would learn, and soon, or the aide would be replaced. And, if he was, an investigation would be held to discover why a man so flawed had been allowed to rise so high.
Marie glanced at his desk where reports rested in a neat pile. Prolo had stacked them and if his judgment was at fault it was the last mistake he would make.
Alone Marie studied them. The first required his immediate decision and he gave it into a recorder.
"Report XDB 13572. Prince Tyner must be deposed. Arrange his death before the Omphale Festival. Throw blame on the Kaspar faction. Cease all imports of penka from Nemcova."
A classic situation; Prince Tyner, young, idealistic, wanted to free his people from their dependence on expensive imports. Dead, his friends accused, trade threatened by the lack of penka, confusion would be accelerated by the festival. From the chaos an older ruler would rise to seize power. One aided and advised by the Cyclan.
The next report was of lesser urgency and Marie gave thought to the most efficient way of resolving the problem. A matter of trade dependency which could yield to the impetus of a new discovery.
The number then, "Instruct the resident cyber on Chroneld to release the formulae for the synthesization of ondret to the Smyslov Laboratories."
Within two years the farms of Chroneld would be ruined as the artificial product rendered their crops superfluous. Desperation would induce civil war and to retain their power the rulers would need help. The Cyclan would give it-at a price. And one more world would fall to the domination of logic and reason.
Quickly Marie ran through the rest of the reports. Prolo had done his job and earned a remand. His previous errors could have been the result of too great a desire to appear efficient, but with time he would learn. Learn and take his place at the side of the most powerful man the galaxy had ever known.
Marie recognized the error and corrected it. Not the man but the organization which he served. The Cyclan which dominated a host of planets, working always from positions behind established authority. Ruling cadres and princes who, desperate to maintain their hold, had turned to the Cyclan for advice.