"I'd thought of it."

"A man needs money in the Web. It may help if I bought your ring. A thousand as offered."

Dumarest shook his head.

"Of course," mused Yalung, "if it has an interesting history I could offer more. The value of such things is enhanced by an attendant story. If you would care to tell me of its origins, how you obtained it, details like that I could, per shy;haps, offer fifteen hundred."

"The ring is not for sale," said Dumarest shortly. "Again I give you my thanks for your attentions."

Yalung bowed. "Perhaps you will accommodate me in a hand of cards?"

"Later," said Dumarest, and left the salon.

Outside, in the passage, he hesitated, then made his way towards Nimino's cabin. The navigator smiled as he entered.

"Earl, my friend, you are fit and well. Truly my appeals have been answered. Laugh if you wish but the beliefs of millions cannot be ignored. I have burned sweet scents to Shume, the goddess of healing, on your behalf and she has answered my pleas."

"This?" Dumarest glanced to where a metal bowl held a smoldering substance and painted symbols lay in careful ar shy;rangement around a globe of crystal in which drifted colored motes.

Nimino shook his head, abruptly solemn. "No, my friend, this is not for you. For many hours now I have been trou shy;bled by a sense of impending doom. It is as if, somewhere, a storm was pending but I do not know where or when it will break. I am disturbed and ill at ease. You sense noth shy;ing?"

"No," said Dumarest.

"Nor Lallia?"

"She is asleep."

"Then I am alone." Nimino shivered, a sudden convulsion of his nerves. "I hope it is nothing, but once, when I felt like this, a city was lost in an unexpected eruption. The Kharma Ball warned that I should leave."

Dumarest knelt and looked at the crystal ball, his hands resting on the floor to either side. The colored motes were, he guessed, fragments of organic life drifting in a supporting medium. Their purpose he couldn't imagine but he assumed they would be affected by vibration or sonic impulses.

Vibration?

He tensed, concentrating on the tips of his fingers. Rising he placed them against the metal bulkhead. The faint quiver of the Erhaft field was easily felt.

"Nimino," he said quietly. "Check the field." He waited until the navigator had placed his slender fingers on the metal and then said, "Can you feel it?"

"Yes, Earl." Nimino's eyes grew wide, pools of glistening brilliance in the darkness of his face. "So this is what I sensed!"

The quivering pulse of the heart of the ship. The tiny vibration which was the only discernible sign of its correct working.

A vibration which was not as it should be.

Dumarest heard Lin's voice as they ran towards the engine room.

"Claude! I tell you the dials are showing red! You've got to do something!"

"Shut your mouth!" The engineer's voice was a raging bellow. "Are you trying to tell me my job? You, a snotty-nosed lad still wet behind the ears?"

"But, Claude!" The steward was desperate. "The manual says that when the panel looks like that the generators are getting out of phase. For God's sake, put down that bottle and do something. Do you want to wreck the ship?"

Dumarest heard a shout, the crash of something shatter shy;ing, the fall of something heavy. Claude glared from behind his console as he and the navigator burst into the room.

"Get out!" he said. "The pair of you. I don't want anyone in my engine room."

Quietly Nimino said, "Earl, he's drunk. Look at his eyes."

Claude was more than drunk. The devil inside had broken loose in a gust of savage violence. Dumarest looked at the limp body lying on the floor. Lin lay in a puddle of liquid, the smashed remnants of a bottle lying beside his head. A trickle of blood ran from beneath his hair. It ceased as he watched. The steward would never now realize his ambition. He would never join the big ships and see the worlds out shy;side the Web. His friend, his father-surrogate, had seen to that.

Dumarest took three steps towards where the engineer stood by his console.

"You killed him," he said coldly. "You killed the boy."

"Stay away from me!" Metal shone as Claude lifted his hand. A wrench was gripped in the big fingers. "Come any closer and I'll crack your skull."

"Like you did to Lin?" Dumarest stooped, anger a cold fire in his brain, his fingers reaching for the knife in his boot.

Nimino caught his arm. "No, Earl. He's our engineer. We need him."

"We don't need him," said Dumarest. "He's a drunken, useless fool. He must have seen that the generators were getting out of phase but couldn't do anything about it. So he started to drink in order to forget. He kept on drinking. Now he's crazy."

"You-"

The wrench swept up and forward, light glinting on the spinning metal as it left the big hand, the heavy thing aimed directly at Dumarest's head. He ducked, straightening as the engineer sprang towards him, tasting blood as a big fist slammed into his mouth. The blow rocked him backwards and, before he could recover, Claude had gripped him by the throat.

"Crazy, am I? A drunken, stupid fool. Well, handler, this is where it ends. I'm going to kill you."

His hands tightened, constricting clamps of flesh and bone. Above the twin ridges of his arms Dumarest could see his face, the broad, mottled surface contorted with insane rage. That rage gave the engineer immense strength. He picked up Dumarest and slammed him back against the edge of the console, the metal rim digging cruelly into his spine, sending waves of agony from the barely healed wounds.

"Claude!" Nimino sprang forward, tugging at the engi shy;neer's arms. "Don't! Let him go, he-"

A vicious jerk of an elbow sent the navigator staggering to one side. Dumarest lifted both his hands and thrust them between the rigid forearms. He pressed, forcing his own arms between those of the engineer, thumbs reaching for the eyes. Claude snarled and jerked back his head.

Dumarest snatched back his hands and lifted them to the fingers clamped around his throat. He couldn't breathe and lacked strength, but his brain worked with icy calm. Trapped as he was against the edge of the console he could neither reach his knife or use his feet or knees. Maniacal rage had turned the engineer's arms into rods of steel and it was impossible to reach his eyes. But he could reach the fingers.

He gripped each of the smallest and pulled. It was like pulling at a steel restraint. Darkness began to edge his vision and a raw agony grew within his lungs. He pulled again, ignoring the pain of his back and sides as the new scar tissue yielded beneath the strain. The little fingers lifted and he wrapped his hands around them jerking with the last of his strength.

Bone snapped. Claude cried out, an animal sound of hurt and pain, snatching free his hands and stepping backwards. Nimino rose like a shadow behind him, the wrench a flashing arc in his hand. The sound of its impact was that of a squash shy;ing melon.

"Earl, are you all right?"

Dumarest nodded, massaging his throat. Another ten sec shy;onds and he would have used feet and hands to smash down the engineer but Nimino hadn't given him the time. Now he stood, looking at the wrench, the slumped figure lying in a pool of blood.

"He's dead," he said dully. "I killed him. Earl, I killed him!"

"He was insane. You had no choice."

"There is always a choice." The wrench fell from the navigator's hand. "I have taken a life," he said. "That means I have to return to the beginning and commence again the long and painful climb towards the Ultimate. It would have been better for me had I allowed you to use your knife."