"You were clever," said Dumarest. "How did you know where I would be?"

"The clues were obvious. The stolen clothing, rubbish, perhaps, but good enough to disguise your own garments. The rain helped and you probably waited in the market until dark. Then where could you hide without question? The prediction that you would choose Lowtown was high. You would be on the field, close to vessels, and you would have money for passage should the opportunity present itself."

He knew everything. To walk into Lowtown had been simple, who would think a man would voluntarily want to stay in such a stinking hell? Men were counted out but rarely counted in. To join a party in the gloom, to merge into the shadows, to wait.

"How did you know where to look for me? Only the woman knew I was at the old man's."

And she would have told the cyber when he asked, of course, and his absence when her home was searched would have confirmed the prediction as to where he would be found. It was impossible to blame her; on Harald a good situation was something to be valued. The rest was elementary, the captain of the Sleethan, warned, would have sent word.

"I must admit that I was puzzled by the ease of your capture," said Broge. "I was given to understand that you had remarkable powers of eluding authority. It seems incredible that you remained at large for so long."

"Luck," said Dumarest. "I had a lot of luck."

Which had turned bad on Harald. An hour, maybe, would have done it. A day, certainly. If he could have gained a passage before the cyber had been informed-but no ships had been at the field and, once in Lowtown, he could only wait.

Even then, if Erylin had been honest-but to ask that of his kind was to ask too much. The captain, bribed, would not have hesitated.

Dumarest said, "Listen, you don't need me. I'm willing to cooperate with you. I'll tell you the secret you're looking for and, in return, you let me go. Just give me my boots."

"You have the secret hidden in your boots?"

"I-never mind that. You must know why the Cyclan want me. Well, you can take them what they want. I'll write it down if-" Dumarest jerked at his manacled wrists. "What's the matter with you? Are all you people thieves?"

"You are the thief. You stole the secret from the Cyclan. We only want to recover what is rightfully ours."

An error, the secret had been stolen by Brasque and passed by him to Kalin who, in turn, had given it to Dumarest. A correction he didn't make as, again, he tugged at his wrists. An act, there could be no escape from the clamping metal, but a man who would waste effort on a useless pursuit would merit the scorn of the cyber and a man held in scorn is generally underestimated.

A knock and, at the cyber's invitation, the door opened and Chagney stood just within the cabin. He looked blankly at Dumarest and swayed a little, lifting a hand to support himself, the fingers thin, the knuckles swollen against the jamb.

"The captain wants to know the new destination. You said-"

"You are bound at present for Zakym?"

"Yes. It's on the edge of the Rift. We've a cargo and can pick up stuff for delivery to Koyan."

"Alter course for Jalong. Full recompense will be made on arrival together with the promised bonus." Then, as the navigator made no attempt to shift his position, the cyber added, "Well?"

"Jalong. You sure?"

"Yes."

"It's beyond the Rift. You know that?"

"I know it." Broge looked steadily at the navigator. "Are you ill?"

"He's drunk," said Dumarest. "He couldn't plot an unfamiliar course to save his life. Anyway, we'll never reach Jalong in this wreck. The generators are shot to hell, can't you hear them? Try it and we'll all end up as dust in the Rift."

"The probability of that is six point seven per cent," said Broge evenly. "Low as you will admit. Once on Jalong you will be transhipped to a vessel which will take you to your final destination."

Final in more ways than one. Dumarest leaned back against the bulkhead as Broge rose and led Chagney back to the control room. Alone his face lost its vacuous expression as he anticipated the future. It didn't take a cyber's skill to predict just what would happen. First he'd be held in a security impossible to achieve on the Sleethan. There would be guards and drugs and preliminary interrogations. Later would come electronic probes to quest his brain, pain to stimulate his memory, tests to determine the truth, more to eliminate the possibility of error. Then, finally, when no longer human, he would be disposed of as unwanted rubbish.

It would be done without hate and without mercy. The events of the past would have no meaning for those who would have him in their charge. The Cyclan wasted no time on recriminations or revenge. He would be nothing more to them than a receptacle holding the one thing they had determined to regain.

The correct sequence of the fifteen biological molecular units forming the affinity twin.

An artificial symbiote developed by the Cyclan in a secret laboratory and stolen from them by the dedicated genius of one man. Brasque was long dead now as was Kalin and he had destroyed the data before taking the secret or had left false information behind. The details didn't matter, the fact that the affinity twin still existed did.

Injected into the bloodstream it nestled at the base of the cortex and became intermeshed with the entire sensory and nervous systems. The brain hosting the submissive half of the organism would become a literal extension of the dominant part. Each move, all sensation, all mobility would be instantaneously transmitted. In effect it gave the host containing the dominant half a new body.

It offered a bribe impossible to resist.

An old man could become young again, enjoying to the full the senses of a virile, healthy body. A harridan could see her beauty reflected in the eyes of her admirers. The hopelessly crippled and hideously diseased would be cured, their minds released from the rotting prison of their flesh.

It would give the Cyclan the complete and utter domination of the galaxy.

The mind and intelligence of a cyber would reside in every ruler and person of influence and power. They would become marionettes moving to the dictates of their masters. Slaves such as had never been seen before, mere extensions of those who wore the scarlet robe.

They would rediscover the secret in time, but the possible combinations of the fifteen units ran into the millions and, even if it were possible to test one combination every second, to check them all would take more than four thousand years.

Dumarest could cut that time down to a matter of days.

The reason they hunted him from world to world. Had hunted him. Luck alone had saved him until now. Luck and his own shrewdness, his instinctive awareness of danger. An awareness which had been blunted in his consuming desire to discover the coordinates of Earth.

Again he tested the manacles around his wrists. They were locked tight but there was a little slack in the connecting chain, enough to allow of a little free movement. He slid his hands far to one side, gripped his belt and tugged. It moved a little, jammed, moved again as, sweating, he jiggled the strap. The buckle slid through a loop, struck again, yielded only when his arms were burning with strain.

He froze as a gust of air touched his face. He saw nothing and the door had not apparently opened or closed, but the impact of the minor breeze was real. A moment and the door opened and Chagney entered the cabin. He stood, swaying, his eyes glazed, his breath a noisome foulness.

"No good." He muttered. "No good."

"What's wrong? The cyber?"

"The red swine. Said I didn't know my trade. I'd plotted the course and he found an error. So what's in a small error? We can correct as we go, can't we?"