Bochner looked at it. "Am I a nurse?"
"You're the fittest man here, aren't you? The best? You've wanted to prove it often enough, so prove it now. You can stay behind to look after the cyber. To take care of your friend."
"You're mad." Bochner took a step toward where Dumarest stood beside the raft. "Insane. What the hell do you mean-my friend? Do you think I'm working with Caradoc?"
"Are you?"
"No! And if you want to call me a liar, go ahead!" Bochner crouched, hands spread, an animal poised to spring. "Talk," he said. "It's just talk. You've no proof. I've been expecting something like this. An excuse for you to turn against me. To take the woman for yourself. If the raft hadn't come, you'd have tried to put your knife in my back. Now you want to dump me. Leave me on this peak. Well, I've a better idea. You stay while I take the raft. You act as a nurse to the cyber while-"
He moved even as he spoke, the words serving as a distraction, one which Dumarest had recognized. The hunter snarled, his hands slicing through empty air as Dumarest moved, anticipating the attack. Bochner turned, snatching at the knife he carried in his belt, grunting as Dumarest closed in, hand gripping his wrist, his own blade lifted to catch the sun.
For a long, dragging moment they stood, muscle set against muscle, bodies locked, poised in a composition which held the somber elements of death.
Too late, Bochner recognized the trap into which he had been lured. The weakness Dumarest had admitted, the fatigue, the earlier withdrawals from confrontation-all designed to deceive. Now he had met his match. Now he would die.
It waited in the glimmer of the blade, in the edge, the needle point in the cold stare of the eyes so close to his own. In the bleak ferocity of those eyes which he had never seen before. In the strength against which he was helpless. In the determination which closed the space between the threatening point and his throat.
Closed it until no gap remained.
Pressed until the prick of metal bit into his skin.
"Go ahead," Bochner whispered. "Do it! Do it!"
Death, the supreme hunter, the thing which stalked a man all his life and, no matter how he should turn or twist, hide or run, was always victorious in the end. And what matter when the end came? Now, or in a year, made no difference. A dozen years, even, a score. What was a lifetime against eternity?
"Now," he breathed again. "Now!"
Strike and have done. To the victor, the spoils. To the winner, the loot and the fame and the glory. To the loser, only the restfulness of oblivion.
"No!" Dilys ran forward to catch at Dumarest's arm. "No, Earl! No! He saved your life!"
Once certainly, perhaps even twice. Dumarest felt again the cold rasp of chiton against his cheek and remembered how Threnond had died. Bochner had saved him then-and Caradoc needed a nurse.
"You bastard!" The hunter cried out in his rage as Dumarest shoved him back off balance. Recovering, he touched his throat and looked at the blood on his hand. "You cowardly bastard! You lack the guts to kill me!"
"The Cyclan will do that if you let him die." Dumarest gestured towards Caradoc. "You wanted a challenge? You've got one."
"To keep him alive up here while you take the raft? And then what? To carry him on my back over a thousand miles of wilderness?"
"I'll send back help."
"Maybe." Bochner looked at his hands. They were trembling. To be mocked, and before a woman. To be fooled. To be made to feel stupid-Dumarest should have killed while he had the chance. "All right, Earl. This round goes to you. But I won't forget. Damn you, I won't forget!"
Hyrcanus was small, the town named after the planet, the only town the world contained. The field was a patch of dirt seared and torn and dotted with discarded rubbish. The fence was a ring of scrub delineating the area, but there were ships waiting to leave and cargo needing to be loaded. From the window of his room in the tavern, Dumarest could see it all.
As could Dilys, at his side.
"That's the Shalarius," she said, pointing. "It's bound for Mucianus. And that's the Zloth. It's bound for Egremond."
"And that?"
"A private charter I think. Sealed hull, no contact, handler like a zombie."
Caradoc's vessel, and Dumarest wondered how long it would wait before sending out a rescue party. Not too long, he guessed, and it would be well to be far away when the cyber was found.
The woman seemed to be following his thoughts. "Did you mean it, Earl? About sending back help?"
"Yes."
"But you didn't specify just when." She frowned, thinking, trying to fill out gaps. "Why did you save him?"
"Bochner?"
"No. The cyber. You could have killed him. Thrown him after the acolyte. Why didn't you, Earl? He was after you, wasn't he? Chasing you, as Bochner said. Why leave him alive?"
Dumarest said, dryly, "A thousand miles, Dilys. A long way over unknown ground, and we weren't fit to begin with. How long do you think it would have taken?"
"Too long, if we could have made it at all. But what's that lot to do with it?" She blinked, understanding. "The raft. Caradoc brought us the raft."
"Yes."
"And saved us from having to walk. Perhaps he even saved our lives. And you spared his because of that?"
Because of that, and because the man had been hurt, helpless and dying, perhaps already dead if Bochner had failed to administer aid, or the wound had proved beyond treatment.
"You're a strange man, Earl." Dilys reached out to touch his hair, her fingers traveling down over his cheek to linger on his lips. "So hard and strong, at times, and so gentle at others. I think I sensed it from the first. It was something I needed. Something I shall always need. Earl-must it end?"
She read the answer in his eyes.
"Yes, I suppose it must, something else I've known from the beginning. But it hurts. Poor Jumoke-how it hurts!"
But not for long, and not as badly as she chose to think, at the moment. A quick, clean cut, with a minimum of pain, leaving a wound which quickly healed. She would not be left alone.
Dumarest turned from the window as Egulus entered the room. "And luck?"
"Some." The captain sat down, lifted the bottle standing on the table and poured himself a glass of wine. Lifting it, he looked at the murky amber of the local produce and said,
"The Shalarius can give us all passage if we can pay. High only, no Low--the journey is too short for that. On Mucianus, I've word of a friend who has a ship undergoing repair. I think he could use an ex-captain."
"And an engineer?"
"I guess so." Egulus looked at the woman then at Dumarest. "But I thought-"
"I belong with you, Yarn. We share the same world." Her hand fell to his shoulder to squeeze with a warm intimacy which squared his shoulders and took years from his face. "We'll get along."
"Without money?"
"We have money." Dumarest reached into his pocket and spread the table with sparkling glitters. The stones he had taken from Threnond's belt which the man had used as a repository for his wealth. "These can be sold to gain enough for our passages."
"Ours?" Egulus looked the question. "Are you coming with us?"
Dumarest shook his head. "No. I'll make my own way."
"On the Zloth? It's heading back into the Rift."
Back into the region where suns were close and space was a maze of conflicting energies. Where a ship could hide and a man get lost. To where once again he could take up his search for Earth.
The End.