"I'm sorry, Lavinia, but I had no choice. You must understand that."

She had been cynical.

"No choice, Khaya? Again?"

"My worms! They threaten my worms-how can you understand?"

A weakness which made him vulnerable. As her love for Dumarest made her vulnerable. As his love for her- but no, he was a different breed. He wouldn't come running to her even if still alive.

The doubt annoyed her. He lived! He had to live! To believe him dead was to help him into his grave.

And he had to be alive else she would have seen him in delusia. Nothing would have kept him away.

Stirring in her chair, dazed by the drugs she had been given, barely awake she murmured, "Earl, my darling. Earl, come to me, my love. Come to me."

And he would, Ardoch was as certain of it as he could be about anything.

Standing tall in his scarlet robe he looked at the woman, wondering at the madness of emotion, the insanity which defied all logic and flew in the face of all reason. A word and she had come running to fall into his hands. A prize which would gain another, more valuable, yet still reacting with the blindness of glandular impetuosity.

It was only a matter of time and he could wait. As the woman, recovering from the sedative, waited, saying nothing, listening to the drip of water, the rustle of things crawling on leaves. The cellar was chill and dank, a fit place to end the war she thought had been finished. Here would be fought the final battle. The hue of the cyber's robe was symbolic of blood.

Then she heard it, the slam of the door, a man's voice raised in alarm, the pad of booted foot. Quietly Ardoch moved close to her, his hand lifting to rest against her throat.

"Earl!" She cried out as he entered the chamber, "Earl!"

He saw her, turning, his hand dropping to the knife in his boot, freezing as he spotted the cyber, the position of his hand.

"Kars! Roland! Do nothing!"

Tension filled the room, giving birth to little sparkles which danced in the air, tiny motes of transient brilliance which glinted in a pattern of elaborate complexity. Flickers in the eyes registering the shift of electrons in the brain, the random motion of ions in the atmosphere. A hypersensitivity he had known before.

The Sungari? Here?

Dumarest looked at the walls, noting the cracks and fissures they held, each of which could contain alien eyes and ears. The chamber was below the surface and so within their domain. Did every room hold their spies?

Things which could adopt many forms.

Worms, for example-or men.

"Drop your weapons," said Ardoch. "Dumarest, you will permit yourself to be bound. Refuse and the woman will die."

Dumarest said, coldly, "What has that to do with me?"

"Earl!" Roland lunged forward to be caught and held by the mercenary. "Are you mad? Do as he says or Lavinia will die!"

"Then let her die." Dumarest didn't look at the struggling man. "I didn't come here to save her. She means nothing to me."

"Earl! For God's sake! She carries your child!"

"Keep him quiet, Kars." As the mercenary clamped his hand over Roland's mouth Dumarest said to Ardoch, "Is Louchon waiting at Eibrens Rise with men and gas to stun all who arrive? Did you think me fool enough to swallow such a story?"

"The prediction was high in order of probability. But if you are not interested in the woman why are you here?"

"For you," said Dumarest. "For money. Chart Embris will pay a high reward to the man who delivers to him the murderer of his son."

A bluff? Ardoch stood, assessing the situation. How could he have been so greatly at fault? Every factor had been calculated and an extrapolation drawn from viable premises. Yet, as he had so often reminded his clients, always there was the unknown. And had he been so much in error? Dumarest had come as predicted-only the motivations driving him seemed to be at variance. Greed instead of love. But had the act been witnessed or was it nothing but a wild guess?

Dumarest, watching, saw the almost imperceptible movement of the hand resting against Lavinia's throat.

Dryly he said, "I trust you remembered to reload the needle buried beneath the nail."

Proof if any was needed. Weight to add to the logic of Dumarest's actions, his apparent unconcern for the woman. Why should any man sacrifice himself for another? Why should any rational being be so insane?

And why did the room keep flickering?

Ardoch blinked, aware of a peculiar tension in the base of his skull, a stirring as if the grafted Homochon elements were rising from quiescence. Colors glowed with a new brightness, hues merging, shifting, altering the tone of skin and hair, touching the chamber with alien configurations.

But he was unprepared… the Samatchazi formulae… the relaxation… the defenses against invasion…

His mind expanded, bursting with an overwhelming flood of sharpened impressions, opening like a flower to the rays of alien suns.

Burning… burning… dying in a flash of unbearable revelation… a sac overfilled… the filament of an overloaded bulb… searing… torn with mental corrosion…

Ardoch reared, rising to stand on the tips of his toes, head thrown back, mouth open, arms extended, the sinews of his neck standing like ropes against the skin. His eyes were glazed, blind, and the pupils uprolled so that only the glisten of white showed between the lashes. From his open mouth came an animal-like panting. A mewing. A wordless, mindless drone.

And, standing, he burned.

Smoke rose from the skull-like head, streamed in oily tendrils from the sleeves of the scarlet robe; hung in a noxious cloud so that his figure became blurred and sagged as if made of wax, flesh falling from bone, the bone charring, turning black, becoming ash.

Falling.

Falling to lie in a small heap on the moldering floor.

To rest in a silence broken only by Lavinia's hysterical screams.

Three ships waited on the field and Dumarest had already made his choice; a compact vessel which would take him beyond the Rift and on to Izhma. A world where he would find computers and a society free of traditions, a planet on which the dead stayed that way and delusia was unknown.

Gartok said, "Well, Earl, I guess this is goodbye. But who knows? Someday we may meet again."

"When you get tired of the fleshpots, Kars?"

"Things are easy here," admitted the mercenary. "And a strong man can make his way if he is willing to abide by the rules. But, one day, it'll get that I want to see the stars. That'll be the time for me to leave."

As it was time for Dumarest to leave but he had more reason than a need to see the stars. A cyber had died and the Cyclan would know it. As they must know he was on Zakym. Others would be sent to find the trail and, again, the dogs would be on the chase.

"They'll learn nothing from me," said Gartok, quietly. "Nor from anyone else on this world. How many really knew you? How can they tell more than is already known?"

And how much did he know?

Dumarest looked at the man, seeing the scarred face, the flat, impassive features, but seeing more than lay on the surface. Like Zakym the man held an inner life; one that was shrewd and more complex than the one he displayed. An arrangement with the Church, he had said. Monks did not advocate violence and abhorred killing but justice was dear to them. Even poetic justice.

"The Sungari," said Gartok, abruptly, as if wanting to end the scrutiny. "They took care of the cyber, yes?"

Driving him insane with the stimulation of his brain, showing him vistas beyond imagining, using him, probing, discovering. Investigating the unusual specimen.

Testing him to destruction.

"Burning him." Gartok shook his head. "I'll never forget that. Turning a living man into ash while we watched. Maybe he deserved it, but, God, what an end! But why, Earl? Why?"