"Hold steady now," said the doctor. "Just a final check. Look to the right… to the left… up… down… fine! Here!"
From a side table he lifted a container and removed the lid. Taking it Dumarest sipped and recognized the basic food of all spacemen; a compound thick with protein, sickly with glucose, tart with citrus and laced with vitamins. In space a cup was food enough for a day.
"Thanks." He handed back the empty container. "My clothes?"
"In that cabinet."
"My knife?"
"There too." The doctor looked appraisingly at the naked torso, the thin cicatrices of old wounds. "Just remember what I said and take things easy for a while." He took a card from his pocket, made check marks, signed and passed it over. "Take this to the desk in reception before you leave. They'll check you out. Don't forget to do it-the guards can be touchy."
"And the cost?"
The doctor shrugged, "I wouldn't know about that. The desk handles all matters of finance."
Reception lay at the end of a passage and contained a desk backed by enigmatic panels touched and graced with multi-hued points of light. A computer terminal, Dumarest guessed, one showing the occupancy of the hospital at all times together with full financial details. His eyes studied the place as he walked slowly toward the counter, the women in attendance. Reception was smaller than he'd expected, a few benches, some tables, a vending machine selling drinks and snacks. Doors bearing various numbers lined the walls and one, wider, the exit, was flanked by a pair of watchful guards. More, he was sure, would be stationed at the far end of the exit-passage, but it was worth a try.
"Your pass?" A guard extended a hand as Dumarest approached the door. He looked at the card the doctor had checked and signed. "This isn't a pass. Report to the desk and get proper clearance."
He watched as Dumarest obeyed, one hand resting on his belt close to a holstered weapon, his eyes suspicious. If the hard-faced woman who took the card had noticed the incident she made no comment. Feeding the card into a slot she busied herself with a keyboard, tore a slip from the printout, attached it to a file and placed it before Dumarest.
"Sign on the bottom line, please." She watched as he scrawled his name. "Thank you. Here is your pass."
"Is that all?" He took the yellow slip. He had expected a bill and a large one. "How about the cost?"
"Payment has been taken care of, sir."
"By whom?"
"I am not at liberty to say." She added, blandly, "A friend is waiting for you in the outer hall."
It was larger than reception, lined with benches, each seat occupied with someone needing medical aid; a woman with a seared cheek, a man nursing a broken hand, a child with a face blotched with ugly sores. To one side sat a line of beggars, one with the gray of brain showing through plastic covering the hole in his skull. He held a chipped bowl in trembling, palsied hands. The label around his neck read; OF YOUR PITY HELP THIS MAN. The bowl was empty.
"Earl!" Kemmer stood beside the outer door, smiling, lifting a hand as he called. As Dumarest joined him he said, "It's good to see you. How do you feel?"
"Fine."
"Hungry? There's a place close to here which sells a decent stew. Cheap too as prices go. No?"
"No."
Food could wait. Dumarest led the way outside. The passage was wide, arched, the floor littered with benches; free seating accommodation provided by the hospital. Between them stood coin-operated diagnostic machines together with others selling a variety of drugs. Most were busy. Finding an empty bench Dumarest sat and, as the trader plumped down beside him, said, "What happened?"
Kemmer was direct. "You'd won the crowd, Earl. When you went down they yelled for your life. You'd been in for almost ten minutes and had put up a good show. They didn't want to see you killed-not when you couldn't put up a fight."
So he had been carried from the arena. "Did you pay for my treatment?"
"How could I?" Kemmer spread his hands. "You'd gone down, Earl. You'd lost." He added, bleakly, "We all lost. The money Carl got from Matpius, that we won betting, that we already had. All of it." He fell silent, brooding over the loss then said, "Didn't they tell you inside?"
"No." A problem but one which could wait. "Where's Carl?" He frowned at the answer. "In jail? Why?"
"It was when you went down," explained Kemmer. "The crowd was for you but the sannak wanted your blood. Carl jumped into the arena. He had a laser and used it. A disguised weapon-you know what mercenaries are. They feel naked without a gun. It stung the beast and sent it back to its den. Carl wasn't able to escape. The guards grabbed him and charged him with possessing an unregistered weapon within the city limits. They fined him a thousand kren."
The value Matpius had placed on a human life. Dumarest narrowed his eyes, thinking, seeing in imagination the old man jumping, staggering a little as he landed, rising to face the sannak with the laser his only defense. A small weapon it would have to be. Powerful enough to kill a man at close range but it could have done little more than singe the creature's scales.
He said, "We must get him released. Have you money?"
"A few coins. Enough for a meal or two but nothing more." He met Dumarest's eyes. If lying, he was convincing but, if lying, he would later be dead. A fact he recognized as he said again, urgently, "Earl, I swear it! I wouldn't hold out on you!"
Dumarest said, "Let's find out about Carl."
He was in a jail housed down a gloomy passage the walls polished and smoothed by the impact of countless bodies. Inside a desk faced a semi-circle of cells, each with a door pierced by a small grill, each with a number. Faces appeared at some of the grills as their footsteps echoed in the cavernous area. The smell was that of prisons everywhere; a combination of urine, excreta, sweat, stale air and disinfectant.
"Santis?" The officer in charge ran his finger down a list, "Number eighteen. You come to pay his fine?"
"Not yet," said Dumarest. "What's the position?"
"Strangers?" The officer had the cold, searching eyes of a serpent. For a long moment he remained silent then, curtly, "He's got five days to raise the money. After that he starts collecting interest on his fine and cost of keep. His debt can also be sold to the highest bidder at open auction. To get free he has to clear it together with any accumulated interest. Compound, naturally."
"How much?" said Kemmer.
"Ten percent."
"A year?"
"A month. The standard rate." The officer pressed a button and, as the guard he had summoned came from the shadows, said, "This officer will show you out."
"Just a minute," said Dumarest. "What about his gun?"
"Confiscated."
Outside Kemmer drew in his breath and shook his head. "That about does it. I'd forgotten about the gun but it's not going to do him any good. Still, it was worth the try. Now what?"
Dumarest said, "We find Marta Caine."
She sat at a table following the dance of a small, white ball. One which skittered around the edge of a spinning wheel as her mind calculated the odds, the chance of its coming to rest on the red or black or the blank on which none were paid. Working the system which had first promised so much and which now was letting her down. And yet, with it, Corcyra had always won.
Against the squared baize she could see his face, one eyebrow lifted, the mouth quirked as if in secret jest. The face she had so often looked at as he lay beside her in the warm, soft bed, all passion spent, relaxed, finding time for the words he loved, the spells he wove with his endless tales. The secret he had imparted to her; he one which he swore enabled him to gamble and always win.