And, at the heart of it, an incredible flower of brilliance among an incredible skein of luminescence, was the convoluted node which was the headquarters of the Cyclan. A fortress buried deep beneath miles of rock and containing the mass of interlocked brains which was the Central Intelligence. The heart of the Cyclan. The multiple brain to which he was drawn, his own intelligence touching it, being absorbed by it, his knowledge sucked into it as dew into arid ground.

Instantaneous organic transmission against which the speed of light was a veritable crawl.

"Dumarest alive! Explain in detail!" Ardoch felt the pulse, the urgency, the determination. "Are you certain?"

The engineer had not lied, of that he was convinced. And there was verification. Broge had found Dumarest, had taken him, was on his way to a rendevous in the Sleethan. He had communicated and was confident that nothing could go wrong. Too confident for that was the last communication received. Had he been alive he would have established rapport-as he hadn't, it was logical to assume he was dead.

"The engineer was genuine?"

Affirmative.

"And he stated the party had vanished?" A pause. "From the ship and Dumarest must have been the cause. Even if he had died his body would have been delivered. He destroyed the cyber and his acolyte, evicted them and after?"

A split second in which countless brains assessed all possibilities, discarded the impossible, isolated the most probable and produced the answers.

The affinity twin. The secret Dumarest held and for which the Cyclan searched. For which they would hunt him over a thousand worlds and through endless parsecs. Had hunted him and would hunt him still, using every resource to gain the correct sequence in which the fifteen molecular units had to be joined in order to form the artificial symbiote which would ensure the Cyclan the complete and utter domination of the galaxy.

Fifteen biological molecular units, the last reversed to form a subjective half. Injected into a host it settled in the cortex and meshed with the motor and nervous system transmitting all sensory data to the dominant portion. In effect the person carrying it became other than himself. He became the host, living in the body, looking through the eyes, feeling, tasting, sensing-enjoying all the attributes of a completely new body.

An old man could become young again in a firm, virile body, A crone could know the admiration of men and look into a mirror and see the stolen beauty which was hers. A cyber could take over a person of influence and work him as a puppeteer would a marionette. And what one cyber could do so could others. They would occupy every place of power and wealth, each throne, every command.

A secret thought lost when Brasque had stolen it. Thought lost again when every sign pointed to Dumarest having died together with Broge and his acolyte when the Sleethan had been lost. As it had been lost, wrecked in the Rift, only the wildest chance bringing it and its sole survivor to light.

"Verification?"

Surely a test, the Central Intelligence did not need the calculations of a lone cyber to check its findings but already it had taken the prediction from Ardoch's brain.

"Probability is in order of ninety-three percent that you are correct. Dumarest must have chosen a crew member to be the host which is the only logical step he could have taken in order to ensure his own survival and arrange for the disappearance. Which?"

A name.

"Correct. It had to be the navigator, Chagney. After the ship had deposited its cargo on Zakym the man had to die in order to release Dumarests intelligence. Therefore the excessive drinking. Therefore the apparent suicide."

A question.

"Yes. Dumarest must have landed on Zakym hidden in a box of cargo. The probability is that he is still on that world. There are unusual attributes to the planet which would have had a peculiar effect on him. Certainty is lacking but the prediction is eighty-two percent that he is, or was while on that world, not wholly sane."

A query.

"Correction. Sane is not wholly appropriate. He will be a little abnormal. You will proceed to Zakym with the utmost dispatch. Dumarest is not to be killed or his life or intelligence placed in danger. This is of utmost priority. Once found he is to be removed from the planet immediately. That is if he is on Zakym as the prediction implies. If not he must be followed."

Acknowledgment and, again, a question.

"No. Do not hold him and wait for contact by our agents. Zakym is approaching a critical state as regards the stability of the present culture. Information from Ilyard and other worlds shows the interest of mercenary bands. Find Dumarest and move him before he becomes embroiled in a war!"

The rest was sheer euphoria.

Always, after rapport had been broken, was a period when the Homochon elements sank back into quiescence and the mind began to realign itself with the machinery of the body. Ardoch hovered in a dark immensity, a naked intelligence untrammeled and unconfined by the limitations of the flesh, sensing strange memories and alien situations, knowing things he could have never learned, living lives which could never have been his. A flood of experience, the shards and overflow of other minds, the contact of other intelligences.

The radiated power of Central Intelligence which filled the universe with the emitted power of its massed minds.

One day he would become a living part of that tremendous complex. His body would age and reach the end of its useful life but his mind would remain as sharp and as active as ever. Then he would be taken, his brain removed from his skull, placed in a vat of nutrient fluids, connected to a life support apparatus and then, finally, connected to the others, his brain hooked into series with the rest.

He would become a part of Central Intelligence and, at the same time, the whole of it. His ego merging with, absorbed by, assimilating the rest in one total unification.

Converted into a section of an organic computer working continuously to solve each and every secret of the universe. To meld all the races of mankind into a unified whole. To make the Cyclan supreme throughout the galaxy. The aim and object of his being.

Chapter Seven

Mbom Chelhar lifted his goblet, studied the engraving, tapped his nail against the edge and, as the thin, clear note died into silence said, "Surely this is not of local manufacture?"

"An import." Lavinia filled the goblet with wine from the decanter she held. "This also. From Ieldhara."

"An interesting world." Chelhar sipped with the fastidiousness of a cat. "Mostly desert but there are fossil deposits to the north together with a high proportion of potash in beds to the south. A combination which lends itself to the production of glass. Have you been there, my lord?"

"Once." Roland selected a fruit and began to remove the peel with a silver knife. "I traveled a little when young and visited most of the Rift-worlds. Do you know it, Earl?"

"No."

"But you have traveled, surely? You have the look of a man who has seen many worlds." Chelhar leaned back in his chair, his eyes lifting to study the groined roof of the hall, the carvings gracing the stone of the walls. "Finally to find a haven, yes? I envy you. Few men have such good fortune."

He was too brash, too forceful and Dumarest wondered why. Lavinia had suggested inviting the man to dinner and he had made no objection; a meal was a good way to gauge the depths of a man when, lulled by food and wine, he felt safe to relax. Roland had joined them, now he rose, dropping the remains of his fruit on the table as he dipped his hands into a bowl of scented water.

"Lavinia, you must excuse me, there are matters demanding my attention. Earl? Chelhar? We shall meet again and soon, I trust."