The disfigured and distorted and deranged. Those who drooled and lived in dreams and sloughed their skin as if they had been reptiles. Giants and midgets and women who had found another world within themselves. Artists and fighters and the woman he loved who was not what she seemed and could have no offspring.

Dumarest narrowed his eyes at the thought, wondering if Toyanna had deliberately planted it and why. Was Govinda a mutant who had progressed one step too far? Something which, despite her shape, could no longer be called human?

He said, "We've talked enough and I've waited too long. Wake Chenault and ask him what I want to know."

"He's worn out. The effort of your fight weakened him."

"A few words," said Dumarest. "A few numbers; the coordinates of Earth. Something he can give and lose nothing in the giving. He swore he could help me."

"He can."

"Then wake him." Dumarest stepped toward her as she made no move. "Do it!"

"And if I don't?" She added, quickly, "Don't answer that, I can guess. But why?"

"I warned him but he still tried to trick me."

"A fault, but-" She broke off, gesturing at the cabinet. "An old man, weak, dying, afraid, doing the best he could. Wanting to survive and knowing only one way to do it. Needing you as we all need you, Earl. Your speed, strength, courage, determination. Your luck." She met his eyes, his frown. "Yes, Earl, your luck. If we are to succeed we need all we can get."

"For what? Ryzam?" Dumarest thinned his lips with impatient anger. "You want me to join you chasing a fable, is that it? All right. I agree. Give me the coordinates of Earth and I'm with you all the way. That's what I told Chenault. The offer I made. He refused to accept it."

"He could have cheated you. Given you false data."

"He could have tried."

"But you would have made him verify the figures as far as possible. You wouldn't have trusted him. Yet you can't seem to understand why he couldn't trust you. You could have taken the figures and left."

Dumarest said, flatly, "I gave my word."

"One he should have taken, perhaps, but, in his place, would you?" She paused then said, before he could answer, "I promise you this; after we've been to Ryzam he will give you what you want to know. All you want will be yours."

Or Chenault would be dead and the knowledge he held lost with him. A gamble Dumarest was reluctant to take and yet there seemed to be no choice.

He said, bitterly, "The old and weak have a strength of their own. All right, tell Chenault he's won. I'll have to trust him-but if he cheats me not even Ryzam will save him."

* * *

On the side of the valley something flashed, died, flashed again. Gleams Dumarest noted, assessing time and direction before running toward the slope, bent low, blending into the vegetation his boots soundless on the loam. Halting to wait, to move again, to make a sudden dart and to lift Govinda high in his arms.

She squirmed, writhing, resisting his grip with spring-steel reaction, relaxing as she recognized him, slumping to lean against him, masking him with her hair, the mounds of her breasts warm against his cheeks.

"Darling!" She brushed back her hair as he set her down. "I didn't see you. What were you doing-spying on me?"

"I saw a flash and was curious."

"About this?" She lifted a pair of secateurs from the basket which had fallen to one side. Fronds covered the bottom. "I was collecting herbs. Hilary is going to make a potion for me. Something special. Once you taste it, my darling, you will never leave me."

"You don't need a potion for that."

"No?" Her eyes held his, bright yet vacant of humor, glinting with reflected light as they moved to search his face. "Do you mean that? Would you settle down here with me, grow old with me, spend the rest of your life in this one place so as to be at my side? Would you do that for me, Earl? Would you?"

Massak rescued him from the necessity of an answer. He called up, his voice flat, dampened by the contour of the terrain.

"Earl! Come down here. We need a referee."

He was stripped to the waist, his torso a mass of ugly scars, livid patches of paler hue which patterned his skin in abstract designs. Shior faced him, also naked to the waist, his hairless chest unmarked.

"A challenge," explained the mercenary. "I say Shior isn't fit yet and he claims he is. If he can beat me I'll agree. If he can't then he goes back to his bed."

Dumarest said, "Fit for what?"

"To live. To fight. To survive." Massak shrugged. "Does a man need an excuse for combat?"

"Not an excuse, a reason." Dumarest looked at the other man, smaller, slighter built, but equally as dangerous as the mercenary. One now completely healed. "Run to the end of the valley," he suggested. "The first to return will be the winner."

"Run?" Massak snorted his disgust. "What kind of combat is that? A warrior does not run."

"Sometimes it pays. Too often a stupidly brave man ends up a dead one."

"True." Shior nodded his agreement. "But some never learn. My thick-headed friend, for one. Even though his scars are a constant reminder. Fire," he explained. "Flame throwers on Appanowitz. I heard the warning and ran but he had to be stubborn. Gambled that he could cut them all down with a laser before they got him. Had there been one less he would have won the bet."

"As it was, Shior had to finish the job and, for me, the war was over." Massak scowled at the memory. "Fire," he muttered. "Those who use it should be roasted over a slow flame. Head-down over a camp fire as we did to the swine who tried to feed us poisoned wine. That was on Amara and it took him a long time to die."

"You fight old wars too often," said Shior. "Come, let's run. The exercise will do you good."

They vanished into the vegetation, Govinda watching them go, shaking her head as the rustling died.

"Men! Always they talk of death and battle and conflict. Why, when there are so many other things to talk about? Small, helpless, loving things to cherish and nurse and watch as they grow to full stature?" Without altering her tone she said, "Have you ever given a woman a child, Earl?"

Dumarest remembered what Toyanna had told him. "I can't give you what you want, Govinda. No man can."

"Is it so much to ask?" Her eyes, her face, mirrored her pain. "Why when I need it so much? Why must I be denied? Why? Why, Earl? Why?"

The question asked by all born to suffer. By all railing against their fate. Why? Why me? Why?

As always there was no comforting answer.

"You're wrong." She stepped back, shaking her head, chin lifted in sudden defiance. "There is a man who can give me what I need. Tama can. He promised. He swore that everything would be all right. Once we get to Ryzam-" As suddenly as it had come the brave defiance left her and she was weak again, sobbing, broken by the weight of too much yearning, too hopeless a dream. "Earl! Hold me! Tell me it will be all right!"

He obeyed, caressing her hair, holding her close as he murmured words of reassurance. Only when she had calmed did he rise, stooping to pick up her basket, the herbs it contained.

"We'll give them to Hilary," he said. "For that special potion."

"Do I need it?" Her eyes met his and she smiled at what she saw. "Never mind the herbs, Earl. Take me for a walk. To the edge of the valley."

Where the vegetation was thick and the ground soft and the air sweet with the scent of flowers. Where her hair spread in a scarlet mantle on the sward as she lay in the age-old attitude of demanding surrender. Where, afterwards, Dumarest turned to lie supine to stare at the burning vault of the sky through a screen of leaves. Seeing the sun and the tiny mote of the raft which hovered high above the valley like a watching bird of prey.