"And childhood dies-as all things must die." She shivered as if with cold and drank some wine. "Why does it have to be like that?"
"Perhaps because we are in hell," said Dumarest. "What better name to give a universe in which everything lives by devouring everything else? Death is the way of life. Only the strong can hope to survive."
"For what? To die?" She sipped again at the wine, feeling suddenly depressed, overwhelmed by the futility of existence. The book moved in her hand and she opened it at random, studying a page with simulated interest. Light, slanting at an angle, enhanced faded script. " 'Earth,' " she said. " 'Up to Heaven's'-something-'door. You gaze'-" Irritably she shook her head. "I can't make it out."
"Try!" Dumarest controlled his impatience. "Please try," he said more gently. "Do what you can."
The wine quivered in the glass he held, small vibrations of nerve and muscle amplified to register in dancing patterns of light. He set it down as the woman frowned at the book.
"It's a poem of some kind. A quatrain, I think. That's a stanza of four lines. You know about poetry?"
"What does it say?"
"The first line is illegible but it must end in a word to rhyme with the last word in the second. My guess is that it goes one-two-four. The third line-"
"What does it say!"
"Give me a minute." She dabbed a scrap of fabric in the wine, wet the page, held it up so as to let the light shine through it. "That's better. Listen." Her voice deepened a little. " 'But if in vain down on the stubborn floor. Of Earth and up to Heaven's unopening door. You gaze today while you are you-how then. Tomorrow when you shall be no more.' No, wait!" She lifted a hand as she corrected herself. That last line reads, "Tomorrow when you shall be you no more."
"Is that all?"
"Yes." She sensed his disappointment. "It would look better set out in lines. It's probably something the owner of the book copied from somewhere. Earth," she mused. "Earth."
He waited for her to say more; to tell him Earth was just a legendary world along with Bonanza and Jackpot, Lucky Strike and El Dorado and Eden and a dozen others. Planets waiting to be found and holding unimaginable treasure. Myths which held a bright but empty allure.
Instead she said, wistfully, "Earth-it has a nice sound. Is there really such a world?"
"Yes." He added, bluntly, "I was born on it. I left it when I was young."
He had been little more than a child, stowing away on a ship, being found, the captain merciful; allowing him to work instead of evicting him as was his right. Together they had delved deeper and deeper into the galaxy when, the captain dead, he had been left to fend for himself on strange worlds beneath alien suns. Regions where the very name of his home world had become a legend, the coordinates nowhere to be found.
"You're lost," said Karlene, understanding. "You want to go home. That is why the book is so important to you. You think it might hold the answer you want."
"The coordinates. Yes."
"Did you really come from Earth?" She leaned toward him, her eyes searching his face. "Would you swear to it? Really swear to it?" As he nodded she added, "This is serious, Earl. It could mean your life."
"I've no need to lie." He caught her wrist, his fingers hard on the pallid flesh. "What do you know?"
"Tomorrow," she said. "I'll tell you tomorrow- after we've deciphered the book."
* * *
Cyber Clarge heard the blast of the sirens and lifted his head from the papers he was studying. A curfew? No, it was barely noon and, on Erkalt, sirens did not warn of impending night. A storm? A probability of high order but he was safe within the hotel. A fire, perhaps? Some other catastrophe?
His acolyte brought the answer.
"Master." He bowed as he entered the room. "A matter of local interest. The winds are rising and will establish a pattern yielding unusual phenomena. The sirens are to herald the entertainment."
The window was large, set high in the building, giving a good view of the city and the area beyond. To the south smoke seemed to be rising from the ground, writhing, twisting as it was caught by the winds which buffeted each other and created churning vortexes. Trapped in the blast the snow soared high in a shimmering panorama which filled the air with a dancing chiaroscuro.
Most found it beautiful. Clarge did not.
Against the window he resembled a flame; the scarlet of his robe warm against the snow outside, the great seal of the Cyclan gleaming on his breast. He was tall, thin, his body a functional machine devoid of fat and excess tissue. His face, framed by the thrown-back cowl, held the lineaments of a skull. One in which his eyes burned with a chilling determination.
A man devoid of artistic appreciation; looking at the external spectacle he could see only the waste of natural resources. The winds which blustered so fiercely should be tamed, their energy directed toward the generation of power with which to transform Erkalt into a useful world.
"Master. The information you requested is on the desk."
"Hagen?"
"Has been notified of your wish to see him."
And would report at the earliest opportunity if he was wise. The reputation of the Cyclan was such as to gain them respectful obedience; if he hoped to survive in business or expand his field of operations the entrepreneur would know he had to cooperate to the full. In the meantime other details could be attended to.
A gesture and Clarge was alone, the acolyte, bowing, leaving the room. One unnecessarily ornate with its ornaments and decorations, rugs and soft furnishings, but Clarge would not order their removal. Efficiency was not a matter of trivia but of the skillful application of resources.
Turning from the window the cyber returned to his desk. The papers he had been studying were laid out in neat array, those the acolyte had brought set in a pile to one side. Reports, data, schedules, statements-details of the past all set in concrete form. Studying them had given the cyber one of the only two feelings he could experience; not the glow of mental achievement but the cortical bitterness of failure.
The bait had been set, the trap sprung-yet again Dumarest had escaped.
How?
The details were in the reports but they begged the question. Luck, obviously, and luck of a peculiar kind. The combination of fortuitous circumstances which resulted in a favorable conclusion- a paraphysical talent which had saved Dumarest on too many occasions. Small things: the breaking of equipment, an illness, a sudden whim on the part of someone totally unconnected with the original scheme. Details which, apparently unaccountably, defeated the main purpose.
This time it had been jealousy.
An emotion Clarge would never experience as he would never know the impact of love or hate, fear or anger. Harsh training and an operation on the thalamus had robbed him of the capacity of emotion, turning him into a robot of flesh and blood, dedicated to the pursuit of logic and reason.
The plan should have worked. Instead it had failed.
The woman, Claire Hashein, selected because of her previous association with Dumarest. The man, Carl Indart, a trained hunter who had to do little but take and hold Dumarest should the need arise. A simple task; legs burned with a laser would have prevented movement. Drugs could have robbed Dumarest of consciousness. Guile could have distracted him until the ship bearing help could have arrived. His ship, his help, the cold decision made by a servant of the Cyclan.
Now he had nothing to report but failure.
Clarge moved a paper, studied another, eyes scanning, brain absorbing the information it contained, assessing it, combining it with other facts, earlier data. Details on which he could base an extrapolation of probable events. The talent of a cyber; the ability to predict the outcome of any situation once in possession of the facts.
"Master?" The acolyte's face showed on the screen of the intercom. "The man Hagen has reported."