"No." Reiza dug her fingers into Dumarest's arm as she whispered the denial. "She's wrong, Earl. She has to be."

He rested his hand on hers, giving her the comfort of his touch as the old woman droned on. Looking at the cards she touched, the Wheel, the Ship, the Pylon. Reiza drew in her breath as the gnarled finger came to rest on the Skull.

"Deceit," said Krystyna. "Poison of the mind and even of the body. Threats of a secret nature. Associated with knowledge." Her finger tapped the Book, moved to a card meshed with a web and an eight-legged creature. "The Spider. Already you are deep in the snare of its spinning and the danger of the skull warns of its intention. But the Book?"

She fell silent, brooding over the cards, checking their association. Reiza was too impatient to wait.

"Tell us," she blurted. "Krystyna-what do you see?"

"Death." The old woman leaned back, her eyes winking points of brilliance in the guttering light as she looked at Dumarest. "You are enmeshed in danger and deception which can have only one end. How it will come and from what source has yet to be revealed." Her hand reached for the face-down card which represented Dumarest then, abruptly, she drew it back. "No. You do it. A man should find his own destiny."

Dumarest reached out, took the card, turned it. In the dim lighting the figure it depicted seemed made of blood. Tall, thin, the scarlet robe it wore emblazoned with the Cyclan Seal.

"Logic." Krystyna added, "The fifteenth card. Fifteen-the number of your fate."

CHAPTER SEVEN

Master Marie, Cyber Prime, woke to stare into darkness broken only by a single point of light which relieved the Stygian gloom of the chamber. A matter of efficiency; total darkness would prove hampering in case of emergency; time wasted as eyes grew accustomed to the light, movement disorganized. Now he lay supine as his body geared itself to a higher degree of function. Minutes which grew longer as the years progressed for no matter how efficient the basic mechanism the aging process took its toll.

"Master." The voice followed a bell. "Time to wake, Master."

A summons repeated, dying as his finger touched a control. Another and the light strengthened to reveal the bleak outlines of the room. One devoid of all but functional units, lacking decoration, cell-like in its Spartan simplicity.

Marie rose, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, sitting and waiting as his body accepted the higher demand. The clock showed it to be night on the surface but here, in the caverns sunken deep, the divisions of light and darkness held no meaning. Time was governed by the segments of hours. He had slept four of them, waking minutes before the alarm. Once, not long ago now, he would have woken seconds before the bell.

A thought he took with him as he showered, feeling no pleasure from the lash of water against his flesh. To bathe was a matter of hygiene, a necessity as were other functional demands. As was the food he ate when, cleansed and dressed, he sat to a frugal meal.

Prolo bowed as he entered his office. "Master, I have placed-"

"A moment." The aide was new, replacing Wyeth who had gone to his reward. A good man and a dedicated servant of the Cyclan, but as yet a little unaccustomed to his new position. "Any news from the laboratories?"

"As regards the affinity twin? None, Master, all negative as before."

"Matters of prime importance should always be given precedence," said Marie. "And to repeat the obvious is to be inefficient. Any news of Avro?"

"None." The rebuke had stung even though deserved yet the aide's face remained passive. "His condition is as before."

A statement of the obvious and another demonstration of inefficiency-if there was no news the condition could not have changed and so to have mentioned it was a waste of both words and time. Prolo would learn, and soon, or the aide would be replaced. And, if he was, an investigation would be held to discover why a man so flawed had been allowed to rise so high.

Marie glanced at his desk where reports rested in a neat pile. Prolo had stacked them and if his judgment was at fault it was the last mistake he would make.

Alone Marie studied them. The first required his immediate decision and he gave it into a recorder.

"Report XDB 13572. Prince Tyner must be deposed. Arrange his death before the Omphale Festival. Throw blame on the Kaspar faction. Cease all imports of penka from Nemcova."

A classic situation; Prince Tyner, young, idealistic, wanted to free his people from their dependence on expensive imports. Dead, his friends accused, trade threatened by the lack of penka, confusion would be accelerated by the festival. From the chaos an older ruler would rise to seize power. One aided and advised by the Cyclan.

The next report was of lesser urgency and Marie gave thought to the most efficient way of resolving the problem. A matter of trade dependency which could yield to the impetus of a new discovery.

The number then, "Instruct the resident cyber on Chroneld to release the formulae for the synthesization of ondret to the Smyslov Laboratories."

Within two years the farms of Chroneld would be ruined as the artificial product rendered their crops superfluous. Desperation would induce civil war and to retain their power the rulers would need help. The Cyclan would give it-at a price. And one more world would fall to the domination of logic and reason.

Quickly Marie ran through the rest of the reports. Prolo had done his job and earned a remand. His previous errors could have been the result of too great a desire to appear efficient, but with time he would learn. Learn and take his place at the side of the most powerful man the galaxy had ever known.

Marie recognized the error and corrected it. Not the man but the organization which he served. The Cyclan which dominated a host of planets, working always from positions behind established authority. Ruling cadres and princes who, desperate to maintain their hold, had turned to the Cyclan for advice.

The service had been given for a fee, but the initial payment was merely the beginning. Once the client had tasted the power at their disposal they wanted more, more. For a cyber, any cyber, could take a handful of facts and from them extrapolate the most probable sequence of events. Not true prophecy but calculated assessment of available data and a prediction of what most likely would happen. Predictions so accurate that they seemed like actual announcements of what was to come. With such information a ruler could maintain his power, a trader grow rich, a mercenary always win or, if not win, never lose.

Then, once their need was recognized and relied on, the Cyclan moved to formulate its own purpose.

Marie rose and touched a control, the chamber darkening as, within it, a simulacrum of the galaxy flared to life. A host of minute points, blurs, streamers of luminous gas. At such a small scale details were lost; individual planets, rogue moons, wandering asteroids. But the stars remained and a wide scatter of them were marked in red.

The scarlet of the Cyclan-the color marking their conquests.

Soon the scarlet would have spread to engulf entire areas of space. Eventually it would dominate all and then there would be an end of waste, of futile effort, of wasted resources. Logic and reason would replace the idiocy of emotional response. The old, sick, crippled and nonproductive would be eliminated. The inefficient. The maladjusted. The human race would become a smoothly functioning machine, each ability and mind directed to the solving of all the problems of the universe.

And he, now, was at the head of the Cyclan.

Power such as no one had ever hoped to attain before. At his decision men died, worlds were ravaged, others urged into the fruitfulness which was their potential. But all flecked with the scarlet touch, even though unknowingly, obeyed, without question, himself as their ruler.