A mistake which he recognised as the boy caught the pistol. For him to own a gun was to be a man, but it had to come in a certain way, one hallowed by tradition.

"I can't take it, Earl. It isn't mine." Reluctantly he handed back the weapon. "But, Earl, the way you faced him! To best him with your bare hands."

A performance which had mainly been for the boy's benefit.

Dumarest said, curtly, "Let's get to the Shrine."

Chapter Twelve

A century earlier and there would have been armed men standing in honor, a guard carefully chosen and each man jealous of the privilege. A generation ago and older men would have tended the sacred place, sitting and dreaming of past glories, of the strength and vitality of their youth. Now there was only a crippled boy to tend the lights and to sweep the dust and venerate the past.

He said, "Earl, this is where the trophies are thrown when the hunters return after having made their kills."

Dumarest looked down at the floor, the place at which he pointed. It lay before the opening of the Shrine, the stone slightly concave with repeated washings. In imagination he tried to visualize the severed heads and the crowd who had watched the ancient heroes. Now there would be no crowd, only an official of some kind to record the achievement. Alorcene, perhaps, or an assistant. And even he would probably have to be summoned.

"Word is sent from the Watcher," explained Navalok when he mentioned it. "Always there are men stationed in the highest tower. They see the immediate surroundings and, of course, word would also be sent from the raft-enclosure."

"And?"

"Men will come to witness the trophy. The notation is made in the records and, later at dinner, the gun is given in ceremony."

A standard weapon each identical aside from personal adornment to the one he had taken from Lekhard. Dumarest examined it, a primitive thing with a revolving chamber holding five cartridges. The calibre was large, the charge, he guessed, small. The bullet would have high impact-shock but low penetration-to be expected in a weapon intended for use in a crowd.

"Earl, would-" Navalok broke off as Dumarest met his eyes.

"What?"

"Nothing." The boy gestured towards the opening. "You wanted to inspect the Shrine."

Not the Shrine but the items it held. Dumarest strode to the slab of polished stone and looked at them. Rubbish for the most part, bits and pieces, some seeming to belong to other, larger artifacts, all showing signs of the ravages of time. Of use and time, the leaves of the plastic file were scuffed a little as well as faded and the metal of the chronometer held a dull patina which covered a worn inscription.

Dumarest rubbed at it with his thumb and held it closer to the light. Narrowing his eyes he read…OTA.F TE..A. The few discernible letters were followed by a disc surrounded with tapering spines-the symbolic image of a sun.

Dumarest lowered the instrument. The words could spell out the name of the ship and place of origin, the symbol would be a general identification device such as even now was used on the multiple commercial space lines. The Songkia-Kwei used the symbol of an open flower-the lotus. The Aihun Line a twisted helix.

Something, a name of-where?

He examined the instrument again, tilting it so as to throw the letters into prominence.

TE. .A

TELLA-No, TERRA?

TERRA!

An alternative name for Earth.

Navalok had been watching. He said, anxiously, "Earl, is anything wrong?"

"No." Dumarest took a deep breath and set down the chronometer. He could be reading too much into too little. The almost obliterated words could have meant something entirely different and, even assuming the last would have been the planet of origin, it need not have been Terra. And yet the chance existed and could not be ignored. "Do you have any more items like these?"

"Not here, Earl. There are Shrines in other Houses as I told you, but they are much the same."

And impossible to visit or examine. Dumarest knew of the jealous pride each Family maintained, the almost fanatical isolation they kept from each other. With time and money, perhaps, it could be done, but he had neither. And it might not be necessary. He remembered the boy's previous hesitation, his obvious reluctance to reveal information. A secret he could be hiding and one Dumarest had to know.

"A pity," he said, casually. "I'm interested in old things. It would be nice to find more of them somewhere. Are you interested in the past?"

Navalok blinked at the suddenness of the question.

"I-yes, Earl. I am."

"The old days," mused Dumarest. "When men landed to settle new worlds. Think of the challenges they had to face. The dangers they had to overcome. Each item of their equipment is a thing of veneration. Every scrap could tell us something new. If you knew where there were more of these things you could become an authority, Navalok. Your fame would spread and learned men come to consult you on their problems."

The wrong approach, the boy was not interested in academic distinction. Dumarest recognised it and said, "The House would be proud of you and you would earn the respect of the entire Family. Women would beg you to father their sons as they did the heroes of old." A shrewd guess but, Dumarest felt, a right one. He ended with a shrug. "Well, it would be nice, but unless such things can be found it must remain only a dream."

To press more would be to press too much, to arouse an antagonism or to wither their new-found friendship. For too long the boy had been rejected, used with cynical contempt, ignored. He had built up a layer of defense and, to threaten it, would be to turn trust into suspicion.

And the information, if he had it, would be a closely held secret.

Dumarest strolled from the opening, his face bland, a man who had seen all there was to see of any interest. As if by accident the gun fell from his pocket to clatter on the floor. He picked it up, turning it, bouncing it on his palm, conscious of the boy watching, the hunger in his eyes.

As he put the weapon out of sight Navalok blurted, "Earl, there is such a place. I know where more of these things are to be found."

Dumarest was deliberately obtuse. "A museum?"

"No. It's in the hills. I found it one day when my father took me out in a raft. I think he was looking for game. We landed and later I went exploring on the slope. I found a cave. The light was bad but I saw things like those." He gestured towards the objects littering the polished slab of the Shrine.

"And?"

"My father said it was an important discovery. He was going to report it but on the way back something went wrong. The raft crashed and he was killed and I-" He looked at his twisted foot. "I didn't say anything."

A child, hurt, bewildered, keeping the discovery to himself for reasons he couldn't have consciously known.

And now?

"I'll guide you if you promise to help me, Earl," he said in a rush. "If you'll teach me how to kill an olcept. If you'll help me to gain my trophy."

* * * * *

Dephine said, her voice edged with anger, "Earl, you're mad! Insane! The thing is ridiculous!"

He said nothing, watching as she paced the room with long strides, her hair a tumbled mane, her skin glistening with a moist warmth. She had just bathed and, as she walked, each step revealed the long, flowing line of her thighs through the slits in her robe.

"You can't do it, Earl!" She halted before him and he could smell the perfume she wore, the slightly sweet odor of decaying blooms. "You can't!"

"Why not?"

"Because it's dangerous, you fool, that's why. Men get killed hunting an olcept, women too, my own sister-well, never mind. But I don't want you hurt or killed, Earl. You mean too much to me for that."