It was on his other hand, the one he had been lifting to his mouth when, by talk, he had hoped to engage his intended victim's attention. An assassin's trick. One which had failed.

Dumarest looked at the walls of the gully. For an active, agile man they presented no real obstacle but he was hurt and knew he could never climb them. The darts had done more than disrupt tissue; toxins had been formed which even now were poisoning his blood and affecting his senses. To shout would be to waste time as no one was within earshot. His mount could have been found but a search for its rider would take time.

He moved, stepping over the body, heading to one end of the gully where a wider patch of sky could be seen. The sides would be less steep there, the chances greater of finding an easy path. Then he halted, remembering, wondering why it had taken him so long to think of a better way.

To try to climb would be to accelerate the action of the toxins, to shout would be to waste strength, but a fire would send up smoke which would attract any searchers.

He lit one, striking sparks from the back of his knife with a stone, feeding them to fragments of frayed cloth from Chelhar's garments, adding more fuel, forming smoke with fabric dipped in blood. As the bottom of the gully there was no wind, the smoke rose high and straight, spreading only when it rose into the upper air. Even so stray wreaths of it flowered from the blaze and stung his eyes and caught at his lungs. Harsh, acrid fumes which held the stench of roasting tissue. Billows of smoke which veiled the area in a noxious haze.

In it something moved.

Delusia? The suns were too far apart for that. A predator? They were unknown in the Iron Mountains. The Sungari?

Dumarest reared up from where he leaned against the wall of the gully and reached for his knife. It was daylight, the Sungari had no right to appear, by doing so they broke the Pact. Then the creature moved again, a foal which whinnied and ran from the smells and sight of death, leaving Dumarest alone to sit and drift and fall deeper into the pit at the bottom of which death was waiting.

Chapter Eight

"You were lucky," said the physician, "But then, without luck, how long would a man like yourself continue to live?"

A question Dumarest didn't bother to answer. He stretched in the bed, feeling the tug of newly healed flesh on arm and stomach. His right hand, when he examined it, was clear of bruises. Aside from hunger and a consuming thirst he felt completely well. Slow-time, of course, the converse of the drug which made long journeys seem short. Beneath its influence his metabolism would have speeded so that he lived hours in a matter of minutes. Kept unconscious his body had healed while he slept.

"You've been under for a week subjective," said the doctor. "I used hormone salves and gave you a complete blood-wash to remove the toxins. Forced growth of injured tissue and, naturally, intravenous feeding. I've had you resting under micro-current induced sleep for a while-I'm not fond of jerking my patients awake directly from slow-time unless there's a good reason. You're hungry, of course."

"And thirsty. Some water?" Dumarest drank, greedily. "Thank you. What happened?"

"You were unconscious when found. I was summoned and fortunately was able to get there in time. I gave you emergency treatment, had you brought into town and here you are." The doctor frowned as Dumarest helped himself to more water. "Do you always have such a thirst?"

"Recently, yes."

"Strongly recurring? By that I mean you drink, wait, feel an intense thirst and then have to drink again. All in short intervals. Too short to be normal. Yes?" His frown deepened as Dumarest nodded. "Any vomiting, signs of nausea, double vision?"

"No. Why?"

"Persistent thirst is a symptom of brain damage. A symptom, mind, not conclusive evidence that such damage exists. Coupled with difficulty in moving and a general torpor it could signal a lesion in the base of the brain." His eyes narrowed at Dumarest's sudden tension. "Is anything wrong?"

"No. Can you test for such damage?"

"Of course. If you wish I'll make an appointment for you to come in later."

"Now." Dumarest threw his legs over the edge of the cot and sat upright. He wore only a thin hospital gown. Rising he felt a momentary nausea which was the natural result of a body which had rested too long and had been too quickly moved. "I want you to do it now."

As the doctor readied his instruments there was time for thought. The dominant half of the affinity twin which he had injected into himself had nestled at the base of the cortex. When Chagney had died it should have dissolved and been assimilated into his metabolism. But-if Chagney had not died?

The concept was ridiculous. He had forced the body to step into space. He had seen through the borrowed eyes the naked glory of the universe. Had felt them burst, the lungs expand, the tissue yield to the vacuum. All had died, brain, bone, body-all dehydrated in the emptiness of the void, drifting now and for always in the vast immensity of space.

Dead.

Totally erased.

Then why did he continue to hear the crying? The thin, pitiful wailing of a creature trapped and helpless and knowing he was to die?

"Are you all right?" The doctor was standing before him, leaning forward over the chair, his eyes anxious. "Here!" His hand lifted bearing a vial, pungent vapors rising from the container to sting eyes and nostrils. "Inhale deeply. Deeply."

Dumarest pushed it aside. "Doctor, how long can a brain live?"

"Without oxygen about three minutes. After that time degeneration of tissue begins to set in and any later recovery will be attended by loss of function."

"And if it could be preserved in some way? Frozen, for example?"

"As it is when you travel Low?" The doctor pursed his lips. "Theoretically, in such a case, life is indefinite. In actual practice the slow wastage of body tissue will result in final physical breakdown and resultant death. I believe, on Dzhya, they have criminals who have lain in the crytoriums for two centuries and who still register cerebral activity on a subconscious level. In theory, if a brain could be thrown into stasis, residual life would remain."

In a brain suddenly exposed to the vacuum of space? One dehydrated and frozen before any cellular disruption could have taken place?

Was the subjective half of the affinity twin still alive?

"You're sweating," said the doctor. "You don't have to be afraid."

Not of the machines and instruments ringing the chair but there was more. Was he still connected to Chagney? Would he continue to hear the man crying? Had he locked himself into a prison from which there could be no escape?

How to find a drifting body in the void? How to destroy it?

"Steady," said the doctor. "Just relax and close your eyes. I want to insert a probe and take some measurements. Just think of something pleasant."

A dead man drifting, ruptured eyes scars in the mask of his face, blood rimming his mouth with a long-dried crust, his heart a lump of tissue, stomach puffed, lungs a ruin- but his brain? His mind? The thing it contained?

"Easy," said the doctor. "Easy."

A probe silling into his mind. Dumarest could imagine it, the slender tool plunging deep, touching the artificial symbiote nestling at the base of the cortex, stimulating it, perhaps, building a strengthened bond with its other half.

Would his mind fly to that other body? Live again in dead and frozen tissue? Know nothing but the silent emptiness, the unfeeling void?

A chance, but a risk which had to be taken. He had to know.

"Steady!" The doctor drew in his breath. "There!" He let the moment hang as he checked the withdrawn probe and studied the findings. "Nothing. The scan shows no trace of a tumor and no excessive pressure. There is no scarring and no malformation. There is however a trace of an unusual compactness of tissue at the base of the cortex as if there was a slight concentration of molecular structure. Biologically it is nothing to worry about. It may barely, have given rise to your increased thirst but I tend to think the cause is more psychological than physical."