A ritual and Dumarest repeated it.

"You are wise." Chenault lowered his hands. "If we are to learn then we must learn to read what the ancients have left us. One race, leaving Earth and becoming the multitude of diverse types we now have. In time they will conjoin to become one again. This, I think, is clear. What is not is what they left behind. A planet devastated, destroyed, deserted-yet you are the living evidence that some remained. How did they survive? How far have they shifted from the original norm? What have they become?"

Dumarest said, bitterly, "Savages."

"You are sure? Remember, you can only speak from your own experience."

"That and others. I was a boy when I left Earth. Stowing away on a ship and deserving to be evicted into space. The captain was kind, he spared me. He also kept a journal." Dumarest reached into a pocket and produced a folded sheet of paper. "Shakira had a sensitive, Melome, who had the ability to throw a person mentally backward through time. She managed to get me back in the ship, in the captain's cabin, looking at his open book. I read what he had written. This is it."

Chenault took the paper, opened it, read aloud, " 'The cargo we loaded on Ascanio was spoiled and had to be unloaded at a total loss. A bad trip with no prospect of improvement so I took a chance and risked a journey to the proscribed planet. A waste of time-the place is a nightmare. God help the poor devils who lived here. Those remaining are degenerate scum little more than savage animals. Found a stowaway after we'd left, a boy who looks human. He claims to be twelve but looks younger and could be dangerous. Decided to take a chance and kept him but if he shows any sign of trouble I'll have to-' " Chenault looked at Dumarest. "It ends there."

"I know."

"Were you the boy he mentions?"

"Yes."

"Dangerous," murmured Chenault. "He was right in that but he should have added lucky as well. Not many stowaways are treated so gently. But this is no proof the planet he landed on was Earth."

"I am the proof of that." Dumarest looked at his clenched hand, lifting it to slam hard on the table. "Damn it, man! I know where I was born!"

Silence followed the fading drum-echo of the beaten table, broken by a soft click and, turning, Dumarest saw Baglioni standing before an open panel, one hand buried in a pocket.

"It's all right," said Chenault. "It's quite all right." He smiled at Dumarest as the midget retreated behind the closed door. "I appreciate your impatience, Earl, but we must be objective. The evidence, alone, does not support your contention. Yet, obviously, you must have left the planet of your birth. A ship must have carried you. As you rode with it you must remember its name." He paused, waiting. "Do you?"

"It had more than one name," said Dumarest. A fact he hadn't understood at the time. "When I joined the ship it was the Cucoco."

"And the captain?"

"Petrovna. Zuba Petrovna."

"You see, we make progress." Chenault gestured to the wine. "Help yourself and relax. A tense mind and body do nothing to help solve any problem. One we can now look at from another angle. During your search you must have found clues. They are?"

The spectrum of the sun which was Earth's primary; the Fraunhofer Lines forming a unique and identifiable pattern. The circle of the constellations forming designs when seen from Earth. A moon resembling a pocked skull when seen in the full. A direction. A region in which the planet must be; one toward the edge of the spiral arm where stars were few and the nights lacking the splendor of Lychen.

Items over which Chenault mused as if he were a jeweler studying gems.

"The spectrum will tell us where we are when we find it but to isolate one from so many stars is a formidable task. One you have tried, perhaps?"

"Yes," said Dumarest. "The cost was prohibitive."

"Understandable and the effort would be wasted if the computer consulted lacked the essential data. As it is missing from the almanacs such a probability is high. The constellations?" A shrug dismissed their immediate value. "Like the spectrum they will only tell us where we are when we get there. The direction; the seventh decant, well, that covers a vast area. As does the bleak night-time sky. The moon is of little more help as many worlds have oddly fashioned satellites. You have more, perhaps?"

"Names," said Dumarest. "Sirius 8.7. Procyon 11.4. Altair 16.5. Epsilon Indi 11.3. Alpha Centauri 4.3." He added, "The numbers are the distances of the stars from Earth's sun."

"Signposts in the sky." Chenault nodded as he considered them. "Valuable data, Earl. A relationship could be established and the central point found. A simple matter of mathematical determination. Surely you must have checked the data?"

Dumarest said, bleakly, "I tried. The stars are not listed."

"Or their names have been changed. Even so, the correlation remains. The seventh decant, you say?" Again Chenault brooded over the data, leaning back in his chair, his eyes like glass as they gleamed with reflected light. "One other thing; the ship on which you left Earth."

"The Cucoco?"

"It must have had more than a name. What were its markings?"

A device totally unfamiliar and now almost forgotten. One Dumarest drew with frowning slowness on the paper Chenault pushed toward him.

"This? Are you sure?" Chenault looked up from the paper, rising as Dumarest nodded. "Let me see, now." He moved to a shelf, took down a heavy volume bound in cracked and moldering leather, riffled through the pages to stand, finger on an item. He said, "The clue, Earl. You've given me the final clue. I know where Earth is to be found."

* * *

It was something he had dreamed of a thousand times; the occasion when, in answer to his question, he would receive not blank stares or mocking laughter but the affirmative which would signal the end of his quest. The person who knew where his home was to be found. Now, incredibly, he had found him.

Yet he had to be sure. "You mean that?"

"Yes, Earl. I mean it."

Dumarest said, slowly, "I want the truth, Chenault. No guesses, wild assumptions or vague promises. If you know the coordinates set them down on that paper and I'll be in your debt. But if you're toying with me-" He broke off, looking at his hands resting on the table, the fists they made, the knuckles white beneath the skin. "I'm in no mood for games. Not now or ever on that subject. If you don't mean what you say admit it now."

"Or you will kill me?" Chenault read the answer in the face turned toward him, the hard stare of the eyes. "A fair warning, Earl, but unnecessary. I know where Earth is to be found."

"The coordinates-"

"Have yet to be determined." Chenault lifted a hand to still any protest. "It is merely a matter of time. The puzzle is now complete. I promise you I know the answer. I swear it."

His voice carried the truth and Dumarest relaxed. Wine gushed from the decanter as he tipped it over a glass, the ruby fluid like water in his mouth, warming as he refilled the glass, both drinks joining in his stomach to wash away the residue of tension. A time of celebration, the drinks a libation to ancient gods who, at last, had been kind.

"You gave me the final clue." Chenault resumed his chair, the heavy volume to one side on the polished board. "The device was the sigil of the House of Macheng. They operated in the seventh decant, running a fleet of small trading vessels. The Cucoco must have been one of them." Pausing, one hand touching the book, he said with an abrupt change of subject, "Did Shakira ever tell you what his specialty was?"

"He had the ability to recognize talent when he saw it. Even when it had still to be developed."

"And mine is the ability to solve puzzles." Chenault stroked the book with a gesture like a caress. "Anagrams, acrostics, crosswords, riddles- all, to me, are difficulties which do not exist. Elaborate incantations containing hidden meanings, jumbled formulae, the mazes in which men try to hide true meaning all yield to my skill. Can you wonder why I turned to harder problems? Using my skill to unravel the truth hidden in legends? Most are just fanciful stories dreamed up by desperate people to provide a modicum of comfort in harsh and bitter times. The promise of pleasure to come in some distant time. Tales taken and embroidered with added glitter to become worlds of vast and incredible riches. Many such worlds are basically the same-Bonanza, Jackpot, Lucky Strike- all sharing the same promise of vast fortunes. Others offer different rewards; ease, health, youth, tranquility but, again, too many bear the same similarities. Eden, Avalon, Elysium, Heaven, Paradise-you understand the point I am making?"