A labyrinth he had to penetrate in order to save his life.
Chapter Thirteen
VARGAS SAID, "He's following the air currents. See how he wets his finger in order to determine the direction of flow?" He stooped over the screen, his hooked nose and lined features giving him the appearance of an aging bird of prey.
"He's clever," admitted Yendhal. His fingers caressed the controls governing the programming of the labyrinth. "I should like to test him yet further. If we blocked the east passages and released the krell it would drive him into the barbed mesh. To escape he would have to plunge into the water containing the gleese. He is bleeding and they would be attracted by the scent. Unless he manages to either kill them all or to escape in time they will tear him to pieces."
"No."
"But, sire, we could rescue him in time. He need not die. I feel that it is important we test him to the utmost. His survival factor is incredible and much could be learned."
"No," said Vargas again. He glowered as the physician reluctantly lowered his hand from the controls. Already the programming had been altered twice, each time increasing the hazards, the move justified by Yendhal's insistence.
But the limit had been reached. Further dangers would prove nothing other than that Dumarest was a man with all a man's frailty. Flesh and bone could not withstand the metal and plastic, the protoplasmic brain and electronic engineering which had gone into the manufacture of the krell. The gleese, too; what man could withstand the concentrated attack of a score of the voracious flesh-eaters?
Was Yendhal trying to rob him of his prize?
Vargas turned as the door sighed open, face mottling with anger even as his heart pounded with a sudden fear. The fear subsided a little as he recognized the tall figure in the scarlet robe, but the anger remained.
"What are you doing here, cyber? How dare you come uninvited into my presence?"
Ruen crossed the room and looked at the screen.
"My lord, this man must be released from your labyrinth. Immediately."
"You forget yourself, cyber. The Technarch does not take orders!"
"Even so, my lord, he must be released."
"By my order, not yours!" Vargas was adamant. "I rule here, cyber, not you. The man is mine to do with as I please. If it is my whim I shall test him to destruction." He raised his voice and shouted. "Guards! To me! At once!"
"They will not respond, my lord," said Ruen evenly. "There is trouble in the palace and they have been relieved of their duties in order to withstand it."
"Trouble?"
"Yes, my lord."
An insurrection? Vargas felt the tightening of his stomach as he considered the possibility. It was remote. With Brekla taking care of things any opposition would be short-lived. Ruen must be playing on his fears, using his knowledge to gain his own ends. And yet, where were the guards?
"You!" Vargas glared at the cyber. "You have done this. You have worked against me from the beginning. There was no trouble until you came with your lying advice and subtle ways. You and your damned Cyclan! Well, we shall see who is the master of Technos. Yendhal! Test Dumarest to destruction. Release the krell. Now!"
"Hold!" Ruen did not raise his voice and it remained an even monotone devoid of emotion but now it held on iron note of command. "Release him."
The physician hesitated, the point of his tongue wetting his lower lip as he stared from the cyber to the Technarch. Against Vargas the figure in scarlet looked the epitome of calm, his shaven head hooded by his cowl, his eyes direct in the shadowed sockets of his skull. His controlled determination was heightened by his immobility, the hands which he had thrust into the wide sleeves of his robe.
"I advise you to think before you answer, my lord," said Ruen before Vargas could reply. "The man Dumarest means nothing to you, but the aid of the Cyclan does. Deny one and you will lose the other. How long do you think you will continue to rule without a cyber to guide you?"
More threats? Vargas felt suffocated with the accumulating pile of enemies. Did Ruen want Dumarest to act the assassin as that bitch Mada Grist had done? Was that why he wanted him freed? And if he yielded how, where would it end?
"You heard my orders," he snapped at Yendhal. "Obey!"
Ruen took a hand from the sleeve of his robe. From it something spat, singing, the high-pitched whine deepening a little as it struck against the side of Vargas's throat. A quivering mote rested in the center of a spreading circle of disintegration, cell and tissue yielding beneath the sonic destruction.
As the Technarch fell, already dead, Ruen lifted his hand toward the physician.
"The man Dumarest," he said evenly. "Release him."
Yendhal hastened to obey.
* * *
The arrows had come from nowhere, running before him, below lifted partitions and pointing the way at junctions. Dumarest followed them, loping past areas acrid with insect smells, black pits in which things stirred, the surge of turgid waters. He was covered with sweat and blood, staggering a little from numbing fatigue. A spined patch of growth had torn at his bare flesh with vicious thorns.
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."