"Well!" She backed as Dumarest lifted his hands toward her. "So impetuous! But, at least, you are on time."

He followed her into the room, annoyed at his own reaction. It had been a trick of the light, the color of the hair now cascading in a thick tress over one shoulder, the golden tunic which ended at mid-thigh to leave the long column of her legs in full view. A coincidence. The possibility of anything else was too remote. Yet even so he had to ask.

"Did you originate on Solis?"

"Solis?" Smiling, she shook her head. "No. Why do you ask?"

"You resemble someone I knew who lived there. The color of your hair is a planetary trait."

"You like it." Spinning she caused it to lift and spread. "I'm glad. But my world is Nyadoma. And yours?"

"Earth."

"Earth?" She added, surprised. "That's odd. I've a friend who mentioned it once."

Dumarest said, carefully, "This friend of yours-could I meet him?"

"Perhaps. Of course he could have been joking. It's an unusual name for a planet. Forget him now. Some wine?"

She poured without waiting for an answer, handing him a goblet half-filled with fluid the color of blood. Drinking she watched him, studying his face, his eyes, the set of his lips, the plane of his jaw. She hadn't been mistaken; the masked man in the booth was the same one who had faced the sannak.

She smiled when he admitted it. "I knew I was right. But what makes a fighter like you waste his skill in a cheap booth? Money? You get a share of the take?" Then as he nodded. "And the girl? Do you share her too?" She shrugged as he made no answer. "You could do better, Earl. Much better."

And perhaps she would help him. Her note had mentioned the possibility of financial gain; shrewd bait to attract a desperate man. And who else would expose himself to thrown knives?

She said, "You're trying to build a stake so as to back yourself again in the arena. The reason for the mask-you want to hide your skill. But it won't work. You are known now and no one in his right mind would be willing to face you. Certainly no one would bet against you. One of the penalties of a small world."

He said, dryly, "But not the worst."

"No." She drank, wishing he hadn't mentioned it, and yet it gave them a common bond. "Debt," she said. "On Harge the route to hell. And one so easy to take. I arrived with the conviction I would achieve fame and wealth. My singing would entrance all who heard it and they would laud me and my reputation would flower. A mistake-here there is no great auditorium and little surplus wealth for the majority to spend. An error compounded by another when I stayed instead of leaving when I had the chance. And I have always been a poor mathematician." Pausing she asked, bitterly, "Have you any idea of how quickly a debt can mount?"

"On Harge it will double in seven months and treble in a year."

"Unless the interest is paid. If not it will mount to ten times as much in two years. Ten times!" This time when she drank she emptied the goblet. "All I earn, everything I get, barely does more than pay the interest on what I owe. And until the debt is paid I can't leave. I'm not permitted to pass through the gate when a ship is on the field. I'm trapped! A prisoner chained for life!" Then, with a sudden change of tone she added, lightly, "Unless, of course, I can find someone to give me help. Someone like you."

"Give?"

"An unpopular word," she admitted. "But the help would be mutual."

He said nothing but looked around the apartment, at the soft furnishings and ornaments of price. She guessed he thought her a liar.

"This place isn't mine, Earl. It belongs to Yunus Ambalo and he is of the Cinque. They own Harge. Yunus thinks he owns me. I have an objection to being regarded as property."

"You could leave," said Dumarest. "You don't have to accept his charity."

The truth, but as unpalatable now as ever. Ellain thought of the alternatives and said, unsteadily, "It isn't as simple as you make it sound. Yunus owns my debt and can be vindictive. Until it's paid-" She broke off, shaking her head, reaching for the decanter. Light glowed from the ruby stream as she refilled her goblet. "I need help, Earl. Not a sermon."

"You think I can give it?"

"I'm sure of it." She came to join him, pushing him on a couch, sitting at his side, one long thigh pressed against his own. Her hair swirled a little as she turned to face him. The scent of her perfume was the cloying odor of lilies. "I watched you when you fought in the arena and even Yunus had to admit you were far above the average. You have speed, strength, can use your brains and watch for advantage."

"I lost."

"Because something happened. What? I remember that you turned and looked at me just before you went down. Was I the cause?" Her full lips parted in a sensuous smile. "Did I stun you with my beauty? Say I did, Earl. Even if it isn't true it would be nice to hear you say it."

A child begging for compliments but, no, she was far from being a child. Seated close as he was he could see now that any resemblance to Kalin was due to the hair, the soft focus of distance. This was a woman who had lived hard and long, one who needed artifice to maintain her youthful appearance. The bones were good, the carriage, but the skin and the tissue beneath betrayed the passage of time.

She said, frowning, "Earl, what are you looking at?"

"Your beauty, Ellain." It was politic to lie. "You are very beautiful."

She smiled and, suddenly, he was no longer a liar. Her beauty still remained, waiting to flower when she relaxed and ceased to act the part she had chosen to play. But even so something lingered. A shadow, the trace of some interior warping which colored her attitude to life and dominated her reaction to events. A thing he had seen before in the eyes of jaded women who had screamed lewd invitations when, victorious, he had walked from the arena.

"Earl, you are so much a man." Ellain rested her fingers on his hand, letting the tips caress his skin. "So wonderfully primeval. A human governed by an animal's simple creed. To eat in order to live. To kill in order to eat." Her voice thickened as she edged closer. "Have you killed often, my dear? Tell me how it feels to kill."

Talk and feed her imagination, stimulating it with thoughts of blood and pain, of combat and wounds and final victory. Triggering her sexual drives so as to render her a willing victim to an ancient domination.

He said, "Is that what you want me to do? To kill Yunus Ambalo."

"What?" The suggestion was sobering, frightening, but even so it held an attraction. Yunus lying on her floor, dead, ripped, bleeding-madness! "No! No, of course not!"

"A mistake. I apologize."

"You should. It was insane even to suggest it." More softly she added, "Would you kill him if I asked?"

"No." Dumarest was blunt. "I'm not that stupid. To kill one of the Cinque would be to invite an unpleasant end."

"One more horrible than you imagine. And it would do no good. His heirs would inherit my debt and I'd still not be free." Her fingers resumed their caress. "Why aren't you drinking? Isn't the wine to your liking?"

It was rich, holding tartness, a hint of an astringent pungency. He drank, holding the fluid in his mouth, tasting, wondering what she could have added to the original brew.

"You're suspicious," she said, watching him. "Earl, you're so suspicious. Have other women invited you to their homes? Tried to drug you? Used chemical artifice to pursuade you to their beds?" Her laughter held a genuine amusement. "Am I so old that I need take such measures? So ugly that I must delude a man into becoming a lover?" Rising she turned, arms uplifted, the thrust of her breasts prominent against the shimmering gold of her tunic. Her hips and thighs were a poem in seductive curves. "Shall I sing for you? Would you like me to sing?"