The arrow halted at a door. He opened it and found himself in a familiar chamber. A small room flanked by many doors, one of which led to the passage he had followed into the labyrinth. Somehow he had made a complete circle and returned to the point from which he had started. Lips thinned with anger, he padded from one door to another, baring his teeth as a panel opened to reveal a chamber bright with gleaming instruments.
Framed in the opening Yendhal stared at him, eyes wide in the sudden pallor of his face.
"No!" he said as Dumarest moved forward, hands lifted, face a relentless mask. "Please, no!"
"I survived," said Dumarest. "I won your filthy game. I want what was promised, a pardon, money, passage away from this world. I'll get it or I'll tear out your throat."
"I can't! I-"
"Where is Vargas?" Dumarest followed the direction of the physician's gaze, saw the slumped body, the warm flame of a cyber's robe. "Dead?"
"Ruen killed him." Yendhal clutched at Dumarest's arm. Once he had seemed to be a fussy schoolmaster; now he was a terrified schoolboy. "Master him and I'll give you anything you want. Kill him! Quickly! Before he kills us all!"
Dumarest shook off the restraining hand.
"Why?" he said to Ruen. "A cyber doesn't kill his employer without good reason. Did he die so that he could be replaced by another more amenable to the designs of your clan?"
Ruen said evenly, "I killed him in order to save your life."
Dumarest looked at his hands, at the ring glowing like freshly spilled blood on his finger. "I suppose I should thank you but I've the feeling that such thanks would be premature. What possible interest could you have in me?"
"Personally, none. But you are of value to the Cyclan. My orders are specific. You are to be safeguarded and sent to a world I prefer not to name. There you will be questioned. Not by means of the childish devices used on this backward planet but with all the skills developed over centuries of research. In a secret laboratory of the Cyclan you will divulge all you know."
"About this?" Dumarest held up his hand, catching the light on the red stone of his ring. "Do you know why I am so important to your people?"
"You possess a secret of tremendous importance. One stolen from the Cyclan by a man named Brasque." Ruen made a slight gesture, dismissing the man as unimportant. "He is dead, but before he died he incorporated the stolen secret in a ring which he gave to his wife. That ring she gave to you."
"And you have been after it ever since," said Dumarest bleakly, remembering. "Your predictions told you that it was the only place it could be. But now you cannot be certain that it is still there. I could have changed the stone or altered the sequence. You must keep me alive in order to discover the truth."
"That is so."
Dumarest laughed without humor. "Odd that I should be indebted to those whom I have such reason to hate. But the secret is valuable to you, isn't it, cyber? To you and to your clan."
Ruen made no comment.
"The composition of the affinity-twin," continued Dumarest. He was talking in order to gain time, to restore the strength of his body. "Fifteen molecular units which create a living symbiote with the power to unite host to subject in almost total empathy. The host becomes the subject. He is the subject. He-or she."
A mane of lustrous red hair, eyes like sparkling emeralds, skin as soft and as white as translucent snow. How could he ever forget Kalin?
"Fifteen units," Dumarest repeated. "You must know how long it would take to test them all. If you could try one combination each second it would take more than four thousand years. Can the Cyclan afford to wait that long?"
"No," said Ruen.
And took his hand from the sleeve of his robe.
Dumarest moved, dropping, lunging forward, rising to grip the thin wrist before the cyber could aim his weapon. A thing to stun and paralyze, to render him helpless, packaged meat prepared for transport. He felt the thin wrist beneath his fingers, the sudden explosion of strength as Ruen fought back. He was deceptively strong but hampered by his very nature. He fought with a coldly calculating logic, using fingers and elbows, feet and knees, moving in a scientific dance which would have sent any normal man writhing helplessly to the floor.
Dumarest wasn't normal. His reflexes gave him an advantage, but his hatred was his prime weapon. He snarled with anger, not feeling the crippling blows, his fury lifting him above pain. He struck with the blade of his hand and felt ribs yield. He struck again at the base of the neck, a third time, then stepped back as Ruen slumped to the floor to lie in a pool of scarlet fabric.
Yendhal stared at him, then at Dumarest. "He's dead?"
"Yes."
"I'm glad." The physician stooped, examining the body. "He was dangerous. A man like that has too much power and I am sure that he tried to set Vargas against me." He straightened and looked at Dumarest, "You won't regret this."
"I know that." Dumarest reached out and caught Yendhal by the shoulder, his fingers digging hard against sensitive nerves. "And now for you."
"What do you intend?" The physician squirmed as Dumarest dragged him from the room into the external chamber. His struggles increased as he recognized where he was, the door to which he was being dragged. "No! For God's sake! I'll give you anything you want. Anything!"
"You'll give me satisfaction." Dumarest stared at the terrified man. "You remember the questioning? The things you said? You designed this toy and who knows how many poor devils you've sent to be tormented in it? Well, now it's your turn."
He kicked open the door and threw Yendhal inside, slamming shut the panel and leaning on it, listening, hearing the soft hum of hidden machinery as the spiked wall stirred into life.
* * *
It was snowing again, the landing field a swirl of dancing flakes which caught the lights and shimmered with transient beauty before settling to mound the area with fluffy whiteness. Elaine shivered. "It's getting cold. It will be freezing before midnight."
"The ship will be gone long before then." At her side, bulky in his uniform weatherproof. Major Keron moved a little, boots stamping the snow. "You've picked a good time to leave, Earl. Technos can be hell in winter."
"I can imagine." Dumarest turned to where the ship reared high against the snow, its peak capped like a distant mountain. He wanted to get inside where it would be warm, to find his cabin and settle down on the bunk, to sleep a little and wash the taste of this world from his memory. He looked at the woman. "Before I forget-my thanks for saving my life."
"And our thanks for having saved our world." Her eyes were direct as they met his own. "We owe you a lot, Earl. All of us. You showed me things I didn't want to see. It's strange how a world can grow rotten and no one really suspects what is happening. We trusted the council too much. We trusted in the authority vested in the Technarch. Well, we won't make the same mistake again."
"We can't afford to." Keron was brusque. "Vargas dead, Brekla, the cyber and Yendhal. A dozen officials and close to three hundred men. It was nasty while it lasted."
"It was cheap," said Dumarest. "A little blood and you've won a world. Now you have to hang on to it. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." He looked again at the waiting vessel. "What are you going to do about Loame?"
"Kill the thorge," said Elaine quickly. "Educate and then return the tributaries. Within five years everything will be back as it was."
"No," said Dumarest. "Not that. Clear the land and build factories. Find and operate mines. Use the educated labor to man industries. Make Loame a free world. If you maintain the authority of the growers you'll be begging for trouble." He moved, impatient at his own lecturing. "But you know all this. You know that you have to end the war and the rest of it. I don't have to tell you what needs to be done."