"Bastard!" Kusche had forgotten the laser in his anger. "You dirty bastard!"
Again his knee stabbed upward, this time missing completely. Dumarest turned, caught Kusche by the arm, slammed his stiffened palm against the bicep and heard the dull thud as the laser hit the floor. Releasing the arm, he jammed his palm up beneath the other man's chin, felt the jar and shock of a returned blow, and weaved to avoid another.
As the fist passed above his shoulder Dumarest moved in, smashed aside the defense and sank his fingers into Kusche's throat. For a moment they strained face to face, Kusche stiffening his neck and tensing the muscles as his hands rose to tear free the clamping fingers, Dumarest searching for the carotids so as to apply the pressure which would render the other man unconscious.
"No!" Kusche's eyes matched the plea of his voice. "Earl-no!"
He stiffened, then suddenly went limp, his glazed eyes rolling up, mouth curved in the empty grin which was the rictus of death. From his side rose a thread of smoke accompanied by the stench of burned tissue. Dumarest released him and, as he fell, turned to face the door at the end of the chamber and the woman standing before it.
"Well, Earl," said Carina Davaranch, "it seems we meet again."
Chapter Fourteen
She was as he remembered with the neat helmet of golden hair set close to the rounded skull, the thick brows framing the eyes of vivid blue. A woman who could have been a man with the strong bones of her face, the firm line of her jaw. Her face was now marred by a purple bruise which blotched a cheek and temple.
"Stand away from that filth." The laser in her hand jerked to emphasize the command, fired as he obeyed. Beside the body of Kusche the weapon he had used flared to molten ruin.
"Yours?"
"I had two." She reached for a chair and sat down, her face ghastly beneath the bruise. "The fool never thought of that. He struck me down and found what he wanted and hurried to do what he thought had to be done. I heard him but it took time to recover. Are you hurt?"
"No." Dumarest stepped toward her. "But you are. Let me get you something for that bruise."
"It can wait." The laser in her hand moved only a fraction but it was enough. "Please don't make me use this, Earl. I won't kill you but I'll ruin your knees and elbows if I have to. Believe me, I can do it."
"And after?"
"There are two acolytes waiting outside to carry you to the ship."
Dumarest said nothing, looking at the woman, studying what he saw. She had changed in a way so subtle that he hardly noticed it, then, as he looked, little things became clear. The clothing helped; she wore masculine-type pants and boots with a tunic fastened in the same manner as his robe. The face, too, had changed, losing some of its feminine softness, so that ever more than before she resembled a delicately fashioned boy.
"Men," she said. "The ship holds only men."
"So?"
"It's catching." She closed her eyes for a moment then opened them with a start as if she had expected him to have moved. She relaxed a little when she found he hadn't. "You don't understand, do you? No more than you understand what it is to be born a woman in a male-oriented society. For the boys everything. For the girls nothing. They are just the bearers of new life, breeders to replenish the race, drudges, chattels, beasts to be used! My father was a fool and a vicious one at that. The least he could have done for me was to see I was born a male. For that alone I hated him."
"And killed him?"
"No, that pleasure was denied me. Do I shock you?"
Dumarest shook his head and reached for the other chair and sat with the table between them.
"Keep your hands in full view, Earl. Just in case." Her tone and laser made her meaning clear. "As I said, my father was a fool. He failed to realize that intelligence is always accompanied by imagination and there is more than one path to any objective."
"The Cyclan?"
"You guessed." Her shrug did no more than stir her shoulders. "A matter of injections and glandular adjustment together with selective manipulation of certain tissues. They made me androgynous. In time I will become a true hermaphrodite. The best of both worlds," she added bitterly. "While belonging to none."
A victim of another's ambition, now changed, warped, twisted. But the fault had always been present: the curse which made it impossible for her ever to know true happiness or contentment. How soon had she known? When had she first tried to run and hide herself among the stars? After the fertility rite beneath a scarlet moon?
A guess but a good one and Dumarest watched as, again, her eyes closed to snap open with the same start. A creature in fear, two tense and too much on edge to be trusted. A false move and she would fire blasts which would leave him a cripple. Yet to leave it too long would be to leave it too late.
"The plan," he said. "Yours?"
"A simple problem-how to find a needle in a haystack. One which moves in a random pattern. That's what the Zaragoza Cluster is, Earl. A haystack, and you were the needle. So I provided the magnet."
"Caval?"
"Yes. A thousand paintings were produced and spread among a hundred worlds to be hung in agents' offices near fields where they would be seen. I went to planets where the probability of your being present was highest. Shard was the third and I was lucky. The boy was set as bait and his companions should have taken you. They failed but it didn't matter-we had made contact. Even when you killed Ca Lee it didn't matter-the painting remained as bait. The only problem was that you moved too fast. That and the accidental burn-damage of a generator which made Cyber Lim arrive on Caval after you had gone."
"With Kusche in attendance."
"A precaution, and the fool was too greedy to recognize his potential danger. Too stupid to spot the flaw in his story which made you suspicious. The Cyclan contacted the Huag-Chi-Tsacowa and made sure he was included in the transfer. By the time you discovered the detector it was too late-we had located Zabul."
And now Kusche was dead. Dumarest looked at him where he lay, mouth open as if smiling at some secret jest, eyes blank, a pool of blood now providing a scarlet mirror at his side.
"I tried, Earl," said Carina as if in justification. "I begged you to stay at the Hurich Complex so as to give Lim time to arrive. I wanted you to stay with me in town, but then you said you were leaving and, well, there was nothing else to do." She frowned as if puzzled. "Who would have guessed you would have had such luck?"
The chance of seeing a reflection in the mirror of a window. Of dodging the searching guards. Of picking the one warehouse to hide in which held the casket for shipping. Of the Huag-Chi-Tsacowa insisting on delivering it And the greatest luck of all-to have found the Terridae.
She almost seemed to be reading his thoughts. "Luck, Earl, but for you it's over. From now on it's my turn. The treatment finished and I'll be what I want. No more veering from one polarity to another. The way of the universe," she added. "Of scum like Kusche. Your loss my gain-well, that's the way it goes."
He noticed the gesture of her hand toward her bruised face and guessed at her pain. Kusche had not been gentle and the bone could have been fractured: small cracks in temple and cheek.
He said, "Remember back on Shard when you dressed my scalp? Let me return the favor. At least let me get you something to ease the pain."
"Shard," she said. "For a moment there I was happy. Maybe had I met a man like you earlier I could have accepted being a woman." Her tone took on a new bitterness. "Too late, Earl. The story of my life. Everything's always come too damned late." Her voice rose as someone tapped on the door through which Dumarest had entered. "What is it?"