"What?" Dumarest looked blank. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Fifteen units," mused the cyber. "Millions of possible combinations and it will take millennia to make and test them all. But you have the secret and you will give it to me."
"You?"
"The Cyclan. It belongs to us. It was stolen from us. Now write. Waste no more time."
Dumarest coughed a spatter of blood over the paper. "You're mad," he said. "Mad!"
"Let us end this farce." Lim's voice did not change its even modulation but the freshly washed face tautened a little, became more like a skull. "When she left for Zabul Carina Davaranch carried no drugs. Obviously she must have obtained them after landing. But from where? And why should she anticipate the need? My instructions were firm and covered all eventualities. By my orders Dumarest had been stripped and wore nothing but a thin robe. Aside from physical violence the woman had nothing to fear and she was armed against that." The laser lifted in his hand. "She could have crippled the man, seared his eyes, done anything as long as she did not hurt his brain or endanger his life. And the forces of Zabul were with her. They had no reason to risk the safety of their world for a stranger."
"So?"
"An ampule. A red ampule. Cattaneo saw it in your hand when he entered the room. You claimed to have used it on Dumarest. A possibility but there is another explanation." Pausing, Lim added, "How did you get that puncture mark in your neck?"
"An attack. I was struck."
"On the face but not on the throat. There is no sign of bruising."
"You condemn me for that?"
"That and other things. The way you walk, for example; it is not easy to emulate a foreign stride. The way you attacked-no woman would use her fists in such a way. Your term of address-Carina Davaranch had more respect."
"I am she."
"Then tell me the number of your cabin."
A guess, he could only make a guess, but it was one he had to make. "Eleven."
"Eight. You see how you betray yourself?" The laser steadied to aim at Dumarest's right elbow. "You are not Carina Davaranch. There is only one other person you could be. Now, Earl Dumarest, write down the sequence of the affinity twin."
Dumarest said, "You're crazy. If I was the man you say, what the hell am I doing on the Saitol?"
The sac rested where it had been placed in the hold of the vessel, the figure beneath the transparent membrane lying as though dead. A strong, well-made body, the pale amber robe doing little to mask the contours of bone and muscle. The man for whom the Cyclan had hunted so long-or was it?
If Dumarest was in the woman's body then what was his own doing on the ship?
Lim turned, thoughtful, his face a mask as he assessed the probabilities. Dumarest was far from being stupid but this smacked of idiocy. Why use the affinity twin at all if he intended to board the Saito?
The answer could lie in his blindly instinctive attack which had so pathetically failed. To kill Lim and then to destroy the vessel and all within it. The same destruction freeing his intelligence from the host-body and allowing him to wake in his own. But, in that case, why bring his own body on the vessel? If he intended to destroy the ship how could he hope to avoid total erasure along with it?
"Master." Cattaneo bowed as he approached. "Is the sac to be opened and the man placed in the prepared cabin?"
The woman had been against it and her objections had made sense. But the woman was only a shell for the intelligence within, and Dumarest must have had his own reasons for not wanting the sac to be opened. Did it contain his body at all?
Logic dictated it did not. To have used the affinity twin to take over the woman's body and so gain access to the vessel made sense if his objective had been to destroy it. To transport his own body with him-no, there were too many objections against it. The figure within the sac had to be a dummy. But how had the exchange been accomplished?
To Cattaneo Lim said, "After you had placed Dumarest in the sac and sealed it what happened?"
"Nothing, master. We carried it from the room to the loading port." He added more details as Lim waited. "We walked ahead of the woman. I think she paused a moment to speak to someone, another woman, I think."
"Be certain." The man would never become a cyber. He entertained too many doubts.
"A woman," Cattaneo said after a moment's hesitation. "The burden was heavy," he explained. "And there were calls and abuse from some who were watching. Young people who were kept in line by guards."
"And?"
"That is all, master."
"You kept in personal physical contact with the sac at all times?"
"Yes. At least, almost."
"Explain." Lim condemned the man as he listened. To have neglected such an item in his initial report was beyond forgiveness. "An emergency during which you were blinded by dust, knocked into and separated from the sac-and you failed to mention it?"
"Master, it was a matter of seconds."
Long enough for an exchange to have been made and Lim was convinced that is what had happened. Dumarest here in the body of Carina Davaranch while his own rested safe in Zabul. To kill and destroy, then to return to the safety he had arranged.
A neat plan and one he could appreciate, pitiful as it was in its limitations. But how had Dumarest, locked in the physically weak body of a woman, hoped to destroy the ship and crew?
Hurt, unarmed, hampered by a foreign musculature-the failure of his attack proved how unfit he was. How then? How?
Lim looked at the sac, the figure it contained. A dummy, he was certain, but what else?
To Cattaneo he said, "Prepare for space. I want that sac to be removed to a point on the far side of Zabul and placed in a synchronic orbit. Use all the help you need but exercise the greatest care."
A bomb, Lim thought. It had to be a bomb. Explosives shaped and fashioned into the likeness of a man. Set with detonators and capable of blowing the Saito to dust. Already he could have left it too late.
The period of tension eased as the minutes passed and the sac was removed from the hold and the vicinity of the ship. Only when it was well clear did he return to the cabin where Dumarest was held.
It was a place of torment in which agony was king.
Dumarest looked at his hands, seared, crushed, broken, the fingers robbed for all time of their delicate skills. The wrists showed puckered wounds and both elbows ached from repeated blows. Acts performed with scientific detachment by a man with the smooth, uncaring face of an angel.
"Master." He turned as Lim entered the cabin, not bowing, but appearing to cringe. "As yet no success."
"Leave us." As the door closed behind him Lim said, "I would prefer to dispense with this barbarism but if necessary it can continue."
"Until I die?"
"Is that your objective?"
"Pain," said Dumarest. "Apply enough of it and you can make a saint plead to become a sinner. You are hardly subtle, cyber."
"And you are being willfully stupid. What can continued refusal gain? You are here, alive, and will continue to be kept that way. In pain and torment, but alive. Where is your body?"
Dumarest shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You insist on continuing the pretense but it is a waste of time. I know you used the affinity twin to take over the body of the woman. I know your body is somewhere in Zabul." Lim saw the sudden tension of the broken hands. "The dummy you brought here is now far distant in space. A bomb, of course. One which would be detonated when you stopped relaying a biological signal. Did you swallow a capsule to monitor the beating of your heart?" Again he saw the betraying movement of the hands. "You have been clever in a primitive fashion but now you see that cleverness was not enough. You are here. Your body is in Zabul. I shall demand it be handed over and will destroy the entire installation if it is not. Piece by piece, naturally, with due warning given as to which part is next. How many warnings will I have to give? How much destruction will they accept?"