"The sacs, my lady. Everything is now in readiness."
"Coming!" She looked at Dumarest. "Cattaneo," she explained. "One of Lim's acolytes. A robot like the rest of them. I told you it was catching."
"Does he have a friend?"
"I doubt it. But he does have a companion. A creature like himself. Earl! Your hand!"
He had lifted it casually toward his scalp, and he froze the motion, looking at her with a frown.
"My head itches. Mustn't I scratch it?" His tone sharpened with simulated anger. "To hell with this! If we're going, let's go!"
He rose without warning, catching the edge of the table on his knees, lifting it to jar against her hand which held the laser. A movement continued as the weapon swung upward, the weight of the furniture tipping to strike across her torso, to throw her backwards off her chair.
Dumarest followed the table, feeling the sear of the laser as its beam brushed his cheek. Then he was close, hand moving, the red ampule it held driving into the soft flesh of her throat.
And, suddenly, he changed.
"My lady!" The acolyte was no longer young, a man set in his ways, one who would never don the scarlet robe of a cyber but a dedicated servant nonetheless. He entered the room, attracted by the noise, to stand for a moment looking at the mess. Then he stooped, lifting Dumarest by the arms, setting him upright on his feet. "Are you hurt, my lady?"
The pain of the bruise on his cheek and temple, the ache of ribs-the impact of the table had not been gentle. And a sting in the throat from the ampule buried in the flesh. Dumarest lifted his hand to it, tore it free as he shook his head.
"No. I'll be all right." He looked at the man. Cattaneo? A high probability but it was best to avoid names. "Get a sac and prepare Dumarest for travel." He gestured at the body in the pale amber robe lying slumped on the floor.
"Is he-"
"No. He's unharmed but I had to drug him." Dumarest displayed the red ampule. "The other is dead but forget him. Those of Zabul can clear up the mess. Hurry, now, your master will be waiting!"
Dumarest sagged as the acolyte ran to do his bidding, fighting a sudden nausea born of the shock of transition. There had been no time to adjust, none to master the workings of the body which was now his host. Now he straightened, looking at his hands-the fine, delicately strong hands of an artist. The arms covered with the fabric of the tunic, the legs, the torso with its unaccustomed contours. Carina's body now a vehicle in which he rode by the magic of the affinity twin.
Used it and dominated it so that it had become his own. He saw through Carina's eyes, felt with her hands and nerves, walked on her legs and spoke with her voice. The affinity twin had given him total slave-control. With it in their possession the Cyclan would be able to control every person of power and privilege. Offer a bribe no dotard could reject, no crone refuse. To be young again! To own a fresh, virile body.
The secret Kusche hadn't known.
As the acolyte returned with a companion to lift the pale-robed body into a sac Dumarest drew a shuddering breath. His own body was quiescent, operating on its autonomic nervous system, waiting for his conscious ego to regain mastery.
But the link he had established could only be broken by death.
"I'm sorry," he said inwardly. "I had no other choice. You'd killed Kusche and left me no option."
Could she hear? Understand? Or had her own conscious awareness been totally swamped by the invading molecular unit and driven into some formless limbo? But, if not, was she now cringed in some dark corner of her mind wailing in endless terror?
"My lady." The first acolyte looked up from the sac. "We are ready."
"Then let's waste no more time. Go before me. Head directly toward the lock."
Walking ahead, they would notice nothing if he should stagger or act in any unusual way. Burdened with the weight of his body now sealed in the air-tight membrane, they would have little chance of spotting or questioning any activity around them.
In the corridor leading to the lock Dumarest paused to look at Volodya standing attended by a pair of guards. Althea, standing further down the passage, stared at Dumarest with hostile eyes.
"You've hurt him!"
"No. He's drugged, nothing more."
"Must you take him?"
"Surely he explained all that?" Dumarest kept his voice as level as his eyes. Althea seemed to have grown taller than he remembered; the illusion was because of his own new viewpoint. Carina's height was less than his own. He said, "You spoke together, I understand. A lover's parting? Never mind, my dear, there will be others ready to fill your arms."
"You bitch!"
"But a winning one. Dumarest is mine now. Think of what he told you-you'll have nothing else."
He moved on, following the acolytes as they passed into the large area of a loading port. Here an entire vessel could be sealed from the void but other, smaller locks gave passage to items of lesser bulk. Before one lay the crumpled envelopes of three sacs. Zabul technicians stood ready to operate the controls.
"My lady?" One of the acolytes looked at Dumarest. "Are you ready to be placed in a sac?"
"You go first." A mistake and Dumarest corrected it. "No. One of you, then myself, the last to see us passed through the lock then to follow."
A jumble of litter rested beside and around the area: bales, cartons, cases, a heap of what looked like rope but which was a mass of vine from the hydroponic gardens. Men heaved at it, some of them familiar to Dumarest. Close to the vine lay open containers of seed as fine as sand. As Dumarest walked toward the portal a man yelled a warning from somewhere behind.
"Alarm! A plate's cracked!"
The shout was drowned in the blare of a klaxon. As it fell silent a wind sprang to life to roar over the area, catching up assorted fragments and swirling them into a blizzard-like hail. The mass of vine heaved, fine seed pluming upward from the containers to grit eyes and fill nostrils with a stinging odor. For a moment all was wild confusion, then the wind died and the debris settled as the emergency systems came into operation.
"My lady?" The elder of the acolytes was anxious. "Into the sac, my lady. Hurry!"
They drifted from Zabul like elongated bubbles, the membranes puffed from internal air pressure, reflected starlight giving them the appearance of pearls. Those ahead shifted a little as Dumarest watched: small jets blasting vapor into the void and giving a measure of directional control. Would Carina have known how to operate a sac? Dumarest recalled how he had been sealed and evicted and decided that she had no need of instruction. It was safe to manipulate his own controls and draw closer to the others. One of the acolytes turned to face him and gestured ahead. A clear indication to move into the van. Dumarest obeyed, seeing the figures behind the protective transparency, the starlight giving them a peculiar, blurred quality as if seen through misted glass.
A suited figure caught the sac as Dumarest guided it into the open hold of the vessel. The acolyte set it firmly on the deck, then went to help the others. Within seconds after their arrival the ports closed and, as the taut membrane of his sac began to soften beneath external pressure, Dumarest tore at the fastenings. He climbed free before the acolytes, halting the suited figure as he stooped over the sac holding the figure in the amber robe.
"Leave him. Dumarest is safe enough as he is."
"My lady-"
"I am a doctor," snapped Dumarest. "The man had to be drugged. Moving him now will do no good and could lead to later complications. Where is your master?"
Locked in his cabin and in the final stages of rapport. He came to join Dumarest in the salon and stood for a moment looking at the table, the wine it held. A concession to the woman; no servant of the Cyclan had any use for intoxicants.