Dumarest said, quietly, "You're wrong, Charl. The engineer complained of that very thing when I saw him last. He also said he felt sick. I told him to lie down and try and get some sleep. If we find blotches on him-"

They were scattered over his shoulders and upper torso, flecks like blackheads which would grow into ebon flowers rimmed with scarlet.

"Help me!" His hands lifted, groping. "My eyes! I can't see! Help me!"

Charl straightened from his examination and shook his head, baffled.

"The eyes don't seem to be affected, but without instruments I can't be sure. And even then my experience is too limited to arrive at a conclusion. A part of incipient hallucination, perhaps? A psychosomatic syndrome?"

"How so?"

"See no evil therefore it doesn't exist. See no illness and it cannot threaten. An escape from unpleasant reality. Was he afraid?"

Dumarest nodded, looking about the cabin, seeing the garish pictures pasted to the bulkheads. Colorful depictions of longed-for pleasures, exaggerated interwindings of shapely limbs, scenes of a vague, dream-like unreality. Visible proof that the engineer had not only imagination but an earthy mind. An imagination which had now turned against him, magnifying his pain.

As the man groaned Dumarest felt a sudden chill, the touch of something against which he had no conscious defense. An enemy which naked steel could neither cow nor defeat. A thing as intangible as a thought, as destructive as a fanatic's ambition.

"I burn!" The engineer writhed in a paroxysm of agony, twisting on the bunk, rearing, his back bent like a bow, hands clenched until the nails dug into his palms. "The pain! Dear God, the pain!"

"Another variable, Earl." Charl shook his head in baffled irritation. "His sensory apparatus appears to have been affected. Usually in men of his type the pain level is inordinately high but now it seems to have been lowered to an incredible extent."

"Could the virus be generating some form of nerve-poison?"

"How can I tell? It's possible in which case it would account for the sudden onset of pain. There hasn't been time for extensive tissue-damage. But if that is the case then why weren't the others affected in the same way?"

"Maybe they were," said Dumarest. "Harmond was drugged until he died, remember?"

"And the handler could be suffering as much in his delirium as the engineer in his physical anguish." Charl nodded, his eyes thoughtful. "In each case it is obvious that the sensory apparatus has been affected by the virus and it could be mere chance which dictates the course the disease will take. If others are affected they could either go insane or-" He winced as the engineer screamed again, a hoarse, rasping, animal-like sound. "Earl!"

The screaming died as Dumarest fired drugs into the tormented body. He checked the load of the hypogun as the engineer sank into merciful oblivion. It had taken a heavy dose-too heavy if it was to be maintained. The supply of drugs was limited and the more he took the less there would be for others.

If others came to need it? If they did and none was available?

Dumarest looked at his hands thinking of Dephine.

Chapter Seven

The lamps flashed, the port cycled, Allia Mertrony went to meet her God. A small, aged, withered woman who had spent the last few days of her life bringing ease to others. Standing before the port, Dumarest hoped she would find what she had sought. Hoped even more that never again would he have to void the shell of a human being into space.

That never again would he have to watch a woman die.

The lights were too bright, hurting his eyes and misting his vision so that in dancing haloes he saw again the thin, shrunken features, the ugly blotches, the eyes, the final radiant smile. Her faith had been strong and she had died happy. Now she would drift for eternity or be drawn by gravitational attraction into a sun and disintegrate in a final puff of glory. A minute flame which would, perhaps, warm some future flower, grace some unknown sky.

Fanciful imagery which had no place in a ship which had become a living tomb.

Tiredly Dumarest walked from the port and through the vessel, a journey he had made too often now. Harmond had been the first, then the engineer closely followed by the handler, then the old woman. He frowned, trying to remember how many were left. Four? Five? Five-but for how long?

He stumbled and saved himself from falling by catching at the bulkhead, breathing deeply for a moment before straightening and continuing the journey. Fatigue robbed his limbs of strength and caused his joints to ache. Too many days without sleep, too many screams to be quelled with the diminishing store of drugs. Charl Tao had helped but now he lay supine on his bunk, glazed eyes staring at the ceiling of his cabin, drugged with his own compounds, ebon flowers blooming on his face and chest and hands.

Haw Mayna was insane.

He sat cross-legged on the deck of the salon, a lamp burning before him, a sliver of steel in his hand. A thin-bladed knife which he heated to redness in the flame and then held firm against the blotches which marked his naked body. Each touch accompanied by the smoke and stench of burning meat.

The shriek of agony which, in his madness, had become the scream of his defiance.

"Earl!" Dephine stood beside the door, turning as Dumarest entered the compartment. "He's crazy. Raving mad. Do something."

"What?"

"Knock him out. Drug him. Anything."

"He's a man," said Dumarest. "And he knows what he's doing."

"Burning himself?"

"Ridding himself of corruption." Dumarest watched as the tip of the knife grew red, smoke rising from the burned tissue adhering to the steel. "Who knows, it may work. Nothing else seems to."

Mayna's scream drowned her answer.

"Leave him."

"How can we, Earl? He should be restrained. Who can tell what he might do?"

Dumarest stared at the woman, recognizing her real concern. The navigator, in delirium, could run wild, loosing his distorted fancies on the delicate construction of the vessel, destroying the sensors, the delicate guidance mechanisms on which they all depended. Which, if ruined, would leave them all to drift endlessly in a metal coffin.

"He has to be restrained, Earl. If you haven't the drugs then take care of him in some other way. Kill him if you have to, but make sure he remains quiet."

"Kill him?"

"Why not?"

"Are you forgetting he's a sick man?"

"No, Earl, I'm not forgetting." Her teeth gleamed white beneath her upraised lip. "And I'm not forgetting a man on Hoghan. Your comrade-but you didn't hesitate then so why hesitate now?"

"And if you were like him?" Dumarest met her eyes. "If you were sick and ill and needing help would you want me to be your executioner?"

"If there were no other way, Earl-yes." She frowned as Mayna screamed again. "At least lock him in so he can do no harm."

Dumarest stooped as he closed the panel, lowering his head; raising it as the momentary nausea passed. He saw the look of concern on Dephine's face and wiped the sweat from his eyes.

"Earl?"

"I'll be all right." And then, as she made to touch him, "Don't do that!"

"Why not? What the hell difference does it make now? You're sick, Earl. You look all in. At least come and rest for a while."

"Later. Go and see how Charl is getting on. I've work to do."

"Earl?"

"Do it!" he snapped. "Just do it!"

He stood watching as she moved away, trying not to yield to the sudden weakness which assailed him, the pain which clawed at every muscle.

* * * * *

The control room was locked. Dumarest pounded at the door, kicked it, then slipping the knife from his belt rammed the sharp steel between the edge and the jamb, levering until the latch snapped and the panel swung open.