"And if I had a child?"
"In that case, there would be no argument. The child would inherit and you would be regent."
She nodded, almost satisfied, but there was one other matter. "If I should be pregnant?"
"Again, an inquiry to determine the ancestry of the child. Tests would be made. It would be far better for the present ruler to recognize his heir. No inquiry, then, would be made." He anticipated her next question. "In the case of you having a proven heir and your husband dying, you would become regent. If you should marry again your new husband would become your consort with no actual power other than a seat on the Council."
She inhaled, expanding her chest. "So I am stuck with the fool until he fathers a child. Is that what you are saying?"
"I am advising you, my lady. I can do no more."
"A pity." But she had her answer. First the child and then, with my position secure, a man to keep me company, a real man. Dumarest? She smiled. Anything was possible. "Very well," she said to the cyber. "That will be all."
Quietly he left the room. His own cabin was on an upper level, a small cubicle containing little more than a cot. Carefully he locked the door and touched the wide bracelet about his left wrist. The device ensured that he would remain safe from spying eyes; no electronic scanner could focus on his vicinity. It was an added precaution, nothing more.
Lying supine, he relaxed, closing his eyes and concentrating on the Samatchazi formulae. Gradually he lost the senses of taste, touch, smell and hearing. Had he opened his eyes he would have been blind. Locked in the prison of his skull, his brain ceased to be irritated by external stimuli; it became a thing of pure intellect, its knowledge of self its only thread of individual life. Only then did the grafted Homochon elements become active. Full rapport followed.
Yeon expanded with added dimensions.
Each cyber had a different experience. For him it was as if he were a crystal multiplying in geometric progression, doubling himself with every flicker of time, the countless facets opening paths in darkness so as to let in the shining light of truth. He was a living part of an organism which stretched across space in innumerable facets each glowing with intelligence. Crystals connected one to the other in an incredibly complex mesh of lines and planes stretching to infinity. He was a part of it and all of it at the same time, the lesser merging with the greater to form a tremendous gestalt of minds.
At the heart of the multiple crystal was the headquarters of the Cyclan. Buried beneath miles of rock, deep in the heart of a lonely planet, the central intelligence absorbed his knowledge as a sponge sucks up water. There was nothing as slow as verbal communication, just a mental communion in the form of words: quick, almost instantaneous, organic transmission against which even the multiple-light speed of supra-radio was the merest crawl.
"Verification of anticipated movement of quarry received. Obtain ring and destroy Dumarest."
There was nothing else aside from sheer, mental intoxication.
There was always a period after rapport during which the Homochon elements sank back into quiescence and the machinery of the body began to realign itself with mental control. Yeon floated in a dark nothingness while he sensed strange memories and associations, unlived situations and exotic scenes, the scraps of overflow from other intelligences, the waste of other minds. They were of the central intelligence of the tremendous cybernetic complex which was the heart of the Cyclan.
One day he too would be a part of that gigantic intelligence. His body would be discarded and his mind incorporated with others, similarly rid of hampering flesh, hooked in series, immersed in nutrient fluids and fed by ceaseless mechanisms.
There were more than a million of them, brains without number, freed intelligences, potentially immortal, working in harmony to solve all the problems of the universe. The reward for which every cyber longed was the time when he could take his place in the gestalt of minds to which there could be no imaginable resistance or end.
Chapter Seven
Dumarest looked at the instrument strapped to his left wrist, studying the needles beneath the plastic cover. One held steady on the magnetic pulse transmitted from the station, the other swung a little as it pointed to the right. He said, "To the right eight degrees. Got it?"
Clemdish bent over a map as he squatted on the ground. "That will be number four," he said, his voice muffled a little as it came through the diaphragm of his suit. "The next will be on the left and then two more to the right." He rose, folding the map and slipping it into a pocket. "We're on course, Earl, and making good time."
"So far," said Dumarest. "Let's hope we can keep it up." He lifted his shoulders, easing the weight of the pack on his back, and checked the rest of his gear with automatic concern. "All right," he said. "Let's get moving."
There was an eeriness about Scar in late summer, a stillness, as if nature were preparing for something spectacular, gathering its energies before erupting into violence. The air was oppressive with heat and tension; there was no sound other than that they made as they walked through the weird forest of monstrous fungi.
It was, thought Dumarest, something like walking under water. The suits were envelopes designed to shield the wearer from harmful spores; they were sealed and fed by air forced through filters, trapping body heat until they drenched the wearer in perspiration. Absorbent packs soaked up the excess moisture, but nothing could be done about the heat.
The terrain added to the illusion. The ground was hard, uneven and crowded with delicate growths as though with coral. The towering plants cut off the light from the sun, allowing only a crimson twilight to reach their swollen boles. Fronds of red and black, yellow and puce, deathly white and sapphire blue hung from gigantic mushrooms; there were also buff extensions like the spread ribs of a ladies' fan and warted lumps looking like naked brains. Growth lived on growth and others were deep in the soil.
Through this colorful fantasy they walked, miniature men crawling among nightmare shapes.
"It's hot!" Clemdish halted, face red and streaming behind the transparency of his suit. "Earl, can't we take a break?"
Dumarest maintained his pace. "Later."
They passed their markers on the left and right, Dumarest checking their position as the detector picked up the signal from their slender rods. Once something exploded high above, an overripe cap releasing its spores and sending them in a dust-fine cloud to settle through the heavy air. Finally, when Clemdish was stumbling, his mouth wide as he gasped for air, Dumarest called a halt.
"We'll rest for a while," he said. "Find us something to eat, while I set up the tent."
Safe within the transparent sack Clemdish tore off his helmet and scratched vigorously at his scalp. "I've been wanting to do that for miles," he said gratefully. "I don't know what it is, Earl, but every time I get suited up I want to scratch. I've bathed, used skin deadeners, the lot, but I still want to scratch. Psychological?"
"Probably." Dumarest picked up a piece of the food Clemdish had gathered! He ate, chewing thoughtfully and examining the green-striped fungi. "Candystalk," he said. "Too ripe for good eating. It must be later than we thought."
Clemdish shook his head. "I don't think so. There was some deadman that was really immature." He picked up a fragment of brown and black. "Try this brownibell, it's real good."
It was good to the taste but low in protein and almost devoid of vitamins. The fungi had bulk and flavor but little else. It could be collected and dried for food and fuel, but those who ate nothing else quickly showed signs of degeneration. Those who deliberately selected the caps containing hallucinogens died even sooner, from starvation, parasitical spores, even simple drowning during the winter rains.