He said mildly, "It's time we had a talk."
"At the point of a knife?"
"Anyway you want-as long as you tell me the truth." The blade shifted, catching the light, reflecting it, forming transient glitters. "We'll start with Caval. Why did you ride with the casket?"
"I told you."
"Tell me again." Dumarest listened, waiting until Kusche had finished. "You're lying. I want the truth."
"You've had it." Kusche dabbed at his face, at his neck, looking at the sweat now mixed with the blood. "I just thought we could make a deal."
"You're an entrepreneur," said Dumarest. "Not a gambler. You look for the chance to make an easy profit. The opportunity others may have missed or the opportunity you can make. Nothing wrong in that unless you come up against someone with strong objections to be used. I'm that kind of person." The knife dipped, light gleaming on curved edges and point. "Who contacted you on Caval and told you to watch me?"
"No one. I swear it!"
"And later?" Dumarest's voice hardened. "The truth, you fool!"
"Earl-"
"You were contacted and offered a commission, which you accepted. Ride with the casket-and what?"
"Nothing." Kusche lifted a defensive hand as he saw Dumarest's expression. "For God's sake, it's the truth! I was just to ride with you."
"As you are? What about your baggage?"
"I had a valise and a kitbag. I lost them both." Kusche scowled. "There were some good things in that baggage: deeds to productive mines on nearby worlds, some samples, the formula of a new fuel. And I had a dozen good carvings, each worth a month's high living in the right market."
"And your pay?" Dumarest saw the flicker of the other's eyes. "Give it to me."
"Hell, man, it's all I've got!"
"You've a choice," said Dumarest. "I'm not playing games. You hand it over or I'll cut it from your finger." He held out his left hand as Kusche pulled free the ring with the heavy stone. "That's better. Now let's take a look inside."
Rising, he went into the bathroom, set the ring on the tiles and smashed the pommel of his knife against the stone. It yielded at the second blow and from the crystalline shards he picked out a thread of wire-mesh, some nodules almost too small to see and a pile of paper-thin wafers of metal a fraction of an inch across.
"The bastard!" Kusche stared from over Dumarest's shoulder. "He told me it was real. A genuine stone."
"Who?"
"Brice Quimper. He's an agent on Caval. Works for the Vosburgh Consortium." Kusche stared at the broken mechanism. "What was it?"
"A locator." Dumarest threw the scraps into the drain. "I guessed you must have had one and searched the room. When I couldn't find it I knew you had to be carrying it."
"Why?" Kusche answered his own question. "No baggage. But why?"
"Someone wanted to know just where you were at all times."
"Quimper?" Kusche frowned, then shook his head. If he was playing a part he was doing it well. "No-what reason could he have? I'm not important to him. I'm not important to anyone so-" He broke off, looking at Dumarest. "Not me, Earl-you! They wanted me to ride with you so as to know where you could be found."
"They?"
"Whoever it was used Quimper. What interest could he have in you? There has to be someone else. I suspected it when I saw the activity of the guards." Kusche frowned again. "Used," he said bitterly. "The bastards used me. Took my gear and damned near cost me my life." He rubbed at his throat. "If it hadn't been for your fast talk we could both be dead by now."
Which meant that someone had made a mistake and the Cyclan did not make mistakes. What then? Dumarest walked back into the other room, frowning, reviewing each moment since his waking. The casket-had a cyber predicted he was inside or had it been a lucky guess? The latter, he decided; for some reason no cyber had been present on Caval during his stay. If one had he would have been taken. Instead their agent had used his initiative and taken an inexpensive precaution. Kusche had just been a convenient tool-or was that just what he wished to appear?
Dumarest watched as the man crossed to the table and poured himself wine. The hand holding the decanter seemed steady enough now that there was no ring to betray small quivers, but the wine gurgled in an uneven stream.
"Earl?" Kusche shrugged as Dumarest shook his head. "Just as you want." He drank and lowered the goblet to take a deep breath. Naked aside from shorts, he had a smooth plumpness which matched his face but, Dumarest knew, most of the bulk was muscle.
He said, "How did you get knocked out?"
"On the way here? With gas, I think. Yes, it must have been gas." Kusche swallowed more wine. "One second I was in my bunk and the next I was here with Volodya standing over me." He added shrewdly, "Someone didn't want me around."
Or had wanted him to stay with the casket. The Huag-Chi-Twacowa? It was possible; they would not want to run foul of the Cyclan, and by gassing and transshipping Kusche they would have protected their employers and so served both masters. Had the Cyclan known of the transshipment? Did Kusche know he was not on a world?
He gulped when Dumarest told him and poured himself more wine. An act to gain time in which to compose himself or to arrange his thoughts.
"You're hotter than I guessed, Earl. I figured you for someone of value and hoped to make a deal but I never guessed at anything like this. Can you imagine what it takes to manipulate the Huag-Chi-Tsacowa? To fix it with them that I should be sent with the casket?" He looked at his bare finger. "Now we know why it had to be that way. Just who the hell is after you?"
"The Cyclan."
"What?"
"The Cyclan," repeated Dumarest and added, "Don't you want to know why?"
A temptation and he watched as Kusche tried to fight it. Knowledge was always an advantage; sometimes it could mean power and often meant wealth. At times, also, it could invite destruction.
"I've a secret," said Dumarest. "One stolen from the Cyclan. They want it back. They want it so badly they will give a fortune to the man who will deliver me unharmed into their hands. They will spend anything to make sure I'm captured. Do you understand?"
Kusche swallowed, his eyes wary. "Why tell me all this?"
"You wanted to be my friend. My partner." Dumarest crossed to the table and cleared it, then, with a finger dipped in wine, marked fifteen of the deck of cards with as many different symbols. Laying them out he said, "Look at them. Remember them. They read from left to right and you start at the top. Look at them!"
Kusche looked at his face, at the hand, which had dipped to touch the hilt of the knife, and reluctantly obeyed.
"Each symbol represents a biological molecular unit," said Dumarest. "The secret lies in the sequence of their arrangement. Now you know it. Now you are as important to the Cyclan as I am."
"No! How can I remember this?"
"Just keep looking."
At the cards, the symbols he had drawn on them, the components of the affinity twin. The discovery the Cyclan hunted him to regain, for with it they would have the means to dominate the galaxy. But Kusche did not share the secret; the cards he studied had been laid out at random. The symbols they carried were known to the Cyclan but the all-important sequence remained with Dumarest alone.
Something Kusche couldn't know. As he turned, his face beaded with sweat, Dumarest said, "Now we're really partners, Nubar. If I'm caught and handed over to the Cyclan I'll give them just five words. I'll say, 'Nubar Kusche knows the secret.' Can you guess what will happen then?"
He would be hunted in turn, taken, put to the question. He had seen the symbols and could never honestly deny it, and the Cyclan would ruin his body and brain to learn the order in which they had been displayed. And, even if they had gained the secret, still he would be destroyed.