"Earth?"
"I don't know," she admitted. "It could be if such a planet exists but I simply don't know."
Dumarest hid his disappointment. "Thank you, my lady. There were no old charts or navigational tables?"
"None." Her voice softened as she read his eyes. "I'm sorry I haven't been of much help, but it's the best I can do."
He sat thinking. She had been of little help but the journey had not been wholly wasted. The stars would provide the answer, the constellations he had seen as a boy. Hypnosis would bring them to the surface and stellar charts would provide verification. He could hire the use of a planetarium and a computer together with the services of a skilled astronomer. It would only be a matter of time.
And he was positive that Earth must be very close. Certainly in this sector of the galaxy-so much, at least, he had learned.
She caught his arm as he rose to go.
"A moment, you can't leave like this. I must make you some more tisane, a special blend with a unique flavor which I am sure you will enjoy. And you must tell me about Loame. Grower Lemain, how is he?"
"Well, my lady."
"And his son?"
He answered as she made the drink, wondering at her sudden interest, discovering the reason as he sipped the beverage and realized too late that it was drugged.
* * *
A man stood outside the apartment, stocky, in civilian clothes but with the unmistakable stance of the military. He doubled as Dumarest hit him in the stomach, falling, retching, slumping unconscious as he hit him again. As he raced toward the elevators Dumarest tore open the envelope the chemist had given him, spilling the tablets into his hand, thrusting them into his mouth, swallowing the dry fragments. They were a stimulant and might combat the sedative the woman had put in the tisane.
One of the cages was rising. He pressed the button of the other which was descending from two floors above. It arrived and he jumped inside, slamming the doors and hitting the first floor button. A woman, over-dressed and no longer young, glared at him from where she stood at the back of the elevator.
"What are you doing, young man? I wanted the tenth floor."
The beauty shop, the restaurant, the dressmakers, perhaps. It didn't matter. She would have to wait.
"Did you hear me?" Her voice was sharp, acrimonious. "Who are you? A resident? I shall complain to the manager!"
He ignored her, watching the floors as they rose past. The man outside the apartment had been waiting and there would be others below. The drug? Elaine had wanted to render him harmless, but why? To capture him obviously, but he couldn't guess at her motives. To her he was a stranger and she had had no reason to suspect him. And how had she summoned the man in the passage? She had made no call while he was in the apartment.
The elevator halted and he left the cage. A door gave on to a flight of stairs but he passed them, they were wide and carpeted and would be watched. Somewhere there had to be another flight, service stairs for the use of maintenance workers and cleaners. A place like this would want to keep such people out of sight of the residents.
He staggered a little, fighting a sudden nausea, a beelike buzzing in his ears. Sweat dewed his face and body as his metabolism struggled against the diverse effects of the drugs. He reached a corner and ducked around it as someone called out from behind. A door yielded and he stared into a closet filled with cleaning material. Another held a row of meters. The third opened on a flight of narrow stairs.
He ran down them, almost falling, knuckles white as he gripped the rail. He passed the ground floor and descended lower guessing that there had to be an exit from the basement. A door at the foot of the stairs opened into a large area filled with machine sounds, the soft whir of ventilating fans, a quiet hiss of steam from a leaking valve, the regular pound of a pumping mechanism. A man gaped at him, cringing as Dumarest caught his arm.
"The way out. Where is it?"
"Uh?" The man didn't seem to understand.
"The exit, damn you!" Dumarest dug his fingers deeper into the moist flesh. "The way out!"
He followed the pointing arm, running past a humming generator, the pits of elevator shafts, a bank of glowing instruments. He had descended too far. A short flight of stairs took him to a higher level, a maze of pipes and conduits and twisting passages. He fell and rose, shaking his head to clear the dimming mist from his eyes. From ahead came a blur of voices and a busy clatter.
It came from a wide area filled with benches, ovens and cooking smells. The main kitchen supplying the restaurant and individual rooms. A man cutting meat stared at him, blood on his soiled apron, a shining knife in his hand. From one side a voice called an urgent command.
"Hold that man! Hold him!"
The butcher grinned and came forward, the light shining from the blade gripped in his big fist. He was a burly man with muscles toughened by years of hefting carcasses.
"Just stay where you are," he said. "Move and I'll split you open."
Dumarest ran forward. As the blade lifted he kicked, his foot smashing against the man's kneecap, his raised right arm blocking the downward swing of the knife. As the man staggered he struck again, the edge of his left hand slamming against the side of the thick neck. A row of garbage cans stood to one side and he headed toward them, thrusting through the swing doors beyond, feeling cold air blowing from a ramp leading upward.
Five seconds later he had reached the street.
He fell again, slipping on frozen slush, rolling at the feet of startled pedestrians. A man caught his arm, helped him to rise, stared his concern.
"You all right, mister?"
"Yes."
"You sure?" The man was anxious. "You look bad to me. Are you ill?"
A cab pulled up across the road, a young woman alighting, her face white against the dark fur of her robe. Dumarest pulled free his arm and ran toward it His head swam and the pound of his heart was a hammer beating at his chest. Darkness edged his vision and confused his sense of judgment.
He heard someone cry out, saw a looming shape rushing toward him, tried to spring clear and felt his foot slip on a patch of snow.
The shock of the impact was swallowed in darkness.
Chapter Eight
ALL CHANNELS were alike; organic chemistry, quantum mechanics, binomial theory, applied physics, atomic engineering, astronomy, algebra, basic mathematics, each a nonstop stream of educational matter force-fed into every home. Irritably Mada switched off the television. Had it always been like that, she wondered, and remembered that it had. The scientific approach. If a thing had no educational value then it went into the discard. Dancing was for the study of controlled movement and for physical development. Singing for the exercise of the vocal chords and the illustration of varying harmonics. Stories were lectures, painting an exercise in manual control, verse a mathematical problem.
But why should it bother her now?
Restlessly she wandered about her chamber, touching various items, her hands lingering on soft fabrics and supple leathers. Tactile pleasure, for so long unappreciated and now holding a special charm. How much had they all missed in the past? Was intellectual attainment really the sum total of existence? It wasn't she knew, remembering the lovers on the train, her own past affairs, but there had to be more than bodily satisfaction.
A mistake, she thought, sitting and leaning back in the chair. One built into the system at the very beginning of the colonization. The apparently bright but secretly tarnished concept that education would solve all ills. But it didn't work like that. A man gained degrees or he went to the bottom of the heap. Yet the levels were relative and the end product inevitably one of growing dissatisfaction. A laborer had been taught to recognize the menial nature of his work. A man with a valued degree could be qualified only to clean out sewers.