"A little water." It was close at hand but to be served was an added pleasure.

She sipped, taking another pill, then looking up, met his eyes.

"Do you think I'm a fool?"

"No, my lady."

"Call me Usan, Earl, and be honest. Am I?"

"No. To hope is not to be foolish."

"Others would not agree with you. My cousin for one." Memory of him thinned her lips. "He can't wait for me to die so that he can inherit. Much good will it do him. My lands are mortgaged to the hilt, the beasts sold, the house needing repair. Everything I own has been turned into money and I've borrowed all I could. A last fling, Earl, and still you say I am not a fool?"

"Would it matter if I did?"

He was blunt and she liked that, liked too his air of assurance, his smooth competence. Raoul had once been like that, or so she had thought, but that had been long, long ago. He was dead now as were others she had once called friend or lover. And the thing which had struck her had driven still more away. None like to be associated with illness and her manner hadn't helped. Well, to hell with them; soon, with luck, she would have the last laugh.

"Sit beside me," she ordered. "Talk to me, Earl. You have nothing else to do."

"The area must be checked, my lady."

"Usan-we are friends are we not?"

"The area must still be checked."

"Why? Are you afraid Avorot will find us here? What if he does? I have a right to go camping and you are in my charge." Her voice, she knew, was becoming querulous. Deliberately she deepened it, made it harsh. "Do as I say, man. You have nothing to fear."

For a moment Dumarest stared at her, scenting the odor which was strong in the shelter, the scent of decaying tissue exuded through the skin. Internal organs rotting, afflicted with a disease local medicine could not cure. She was dying and knew it but struggled to the last. An attribute he could appreciate.

"Later, Usan. Later."

Sufan Noyoka had planned well. The ship he had summoned would call at the field, pick him up together with Pacula Harada, then light to land again in this spot he had chosen. The only way to avoid the search Avorot would be certain to make. Usan Labria had to stay with him; alone she would not have been allowed to embark.

A responsibility Dumarest could have done without. The delay had been too long. Suspicion must have been aroused, a search launched, and others would have spotted the raft in which they had traveled.

Leaving the shelter Dumarest climbed to the summit of a mound. All around stretched the broken terrain of the foothills, the loom of mountains rising like a wall to the north. An arid place, as bad as the wilderness which ran beyond the city to the south, dotted only with clumps of thorny scrub. A bleak area into which they had brought food and water and supplies-things which were getting low.

Narrowing his eyes, Dumarest searched the sky. It was clear, touched only with patches of fleecy cloud, long streamers showing the presence of a wind high in the stratosphere. Turning, he looked toward the camp. The shelter was made of fabric the color of the ground, invisible to a casual eye, but any searching raft could be equipped with infrared scanners which would signal their body heat.

"Earl!" He heard the woman cry out as he neared the shelter. "Earl!"

She was crouched on her cot, one hand fumbling at her sleeve, at the laser she carried there. Her eyes were wide as she stared at the thing a foot from the edge of her cot. A small, armored body, the chitin a glossy ocher, the legs thin and hooked, the mandibles wide. A creature three inches long, which lived beneath the sand, coming out only at night, attracted by the water she had spilled. A thing relatively harmless, inedible, but with a sting which could burn like acid.

It died as the thrown knife speared through the thorax, writhing, crushing as Dumarest slammed down the heel of his boot.

"Earl! I-"

"It's dead. Forget it."

"Yes." No child, a woman of experience, she felt a momentary shame at her panic. "It startled me. I was dozing and woke and saw it. Two years ago I would have ignored it. A year ago and I would have burned it." She looked at her hands and added bitterly, "Now even my fingers refuse to obey me. Age, Earl, the curse of us all. Couple it with disease and where is our dignity?"

He made no answer, kicking the crushed body of the insect from the shelter. As he wiped the knife she reached out and took it from his hand. It was heavy, the blade nine inches long, the edge sweeping to meet the reverse curve from the back, the point needle-sharp at the union. The hilt was worn, the guard scarred, the edge honed to a razor finish.

"And with this you killed a bull," she said. "And men too?"

"When necessary."

"Men who tried to kill you? Those who sought your life?"

He took the knife and slipped it into his boot, then stepped again to the open front of the shelter. The sky was still clear of any dangerous fleck-all that could be seen of a high-flying raft.

"Life," said the woman bleakly as he turned. "The most precious thing there is, because without it there is nothing. That is what Balhadorha means to me. With money enough to bribe them the surgeons of Pane will cure my ills. Given a fortune they could even be persuaded to transplant my brain into a new, young body. I have heard it is possible." She paused, waiting for his reassurance, then said sharply. "You think it possible?"

"Perhaps."

"And don't agree with it? The monks don't. I talked to Brother Vray and he was against it. He advised me to accept what had to come and pointed out that even if the surgeons could supply a new body, it would be at the expense of another's life. He told me to have faith. Faith!" Her voice was bitter. "What is faith to me? What matter if a thousand should die so that I might live? I-Earl!"

He supported her as she slumped, one arm around her shoulders, her head resting against his chest. Her skin was livid, the lips blue, the eyes stark with fear.

"Your pills," he snapped. "Which?"

"A blue," she panted. "And a white. Quickly!"

He thrust them between her lips and rubbed her throat to make her swallow. Relief came quickly, the flaccid skin showing a tinge of red, the eyes clearing from the haze of pain to become misted with chemically induced tranquility.

"Sleep," she whispered. "I must sleep. But don't leave me, Earl. You promise?"

"I promise."

She sighed like a child and settled against him, one hand rising, the thin fingers clutching at his own. Her voice was a susurration, thoughts vocalized without conscious thought.

"I don't want you ever to leave me, Earl. I want you to stay with me for always. When I get my new, young body I will show you the real meaning of love. You will be proud of me then. I will make you a king." Then, as the sky split with a crash of sound, she murmured, more loudly, "Thunder, Earl. It's thunder. We are going to have a storm."

She was wrong. The sound was that of a ship coming to land.

Standing before his desk Ibius Avorot listened to the even modulation of a voice asking questions and answered each with truth. More and he replied with lies. As the voice fell silent he said, "Well?"

"Your equipment seems to be in order."

"As I claimed."

Cyber Khai made no comment, none was needed. The Commissioner was intelligent enough to have made checks and the test had been only to prove his veracity. Standing behind the desk where he had seen the signals of the lie detector he made a warm splash of color in the cold bleakness of the room. Tall, dressed in a scarlet robe, the breast emblazoned with the Seal of the Cyclan, he seemed both more and less than human.

There was a coldness about the face, the cheeks sunken, the bone prominent, the skull shaved to accentuate the likeness to a skull. A face which betrayed no emotion, for the cyber could feel none. Taken when young, taught, trained, an operation performed on his brain, he was incapable of anger, fear, hate, greed-the gamut of human desires. The only pleasure he could know was that of mental achievement. His sole ambition was to serve the organization to which he belonged. The Cyclan which, one day, would dominate the entire galaxy.