"Earl, my darling. I love you so very much."

He moved a coil of hair from her cheek and arranged her limbs so as to avoid later cramps then, barely able to keep open his eyes, lay down beside her on the soft and yielding turf.

He fell asleep immediately, falling into a dreamless, time shy;less oblivion.

When he woke Lallia was dead.

XI

she looked very small and helpless as she lay on the grass. She rested on her side, the long curves of her thighs white beneath the hem of her dress, the dark tresses of her hair covering cheek and throat. One arm was lifted, the palm close to her mouth, the other rested in her lap. She looked as if she would wake at a touch, a word, springing to her feet, red lips smiling, warm flesh pulsing with the desire of life, but he had tried both word and touch and she was dead. "She could not have survived the psychic shock she re shy;ceived at the mound," said Yalung quietly. He stood beside Dumarest looking down at the kneeling man, the dead body of the girl. "It is unfortunate but it would appear to be the case."

"No," said Dumarest. "It wasn't that."

"How can you be sure?"

"I'm sure."

She had spoken his name, rising up from the deathlike coma of shock to drift into normal sleep, yielding to the strange fatigue which had gripped them all. Dumarest looked at the grass, the trees, lifting his face to search the soaring arch high above, the fading light of the sun. If she had died because of subtle emanations then why not all? The guard shy;ians, perhaps? But then, again, why kill the girl and not those with her? And how had she died? He could see no mark or injury, no fleck of blood from a minute puncture which would have betrayed the injection of poison from sting or needle.

Reaching out he caught the rounded chin and turned the dead face towards the sky. He stooped, bending his face close to the skin, moving so as to see it against the light. Faint against the marbled whiteness he could see the smudge of bruises against nostrils and mouth.

Rising he looked at Yalung. "You," he said. "You mur shy;dered her."

"You wrong me." Yalung raised his hands in denial. His eyes were wary in the yellow mask of his face. "Why do you say that? You have no proof."

"She was smothered to death by a hand which closed her nostrils and covered her mouth." Dumarest fought to control his rising anger. "I did not do it. We are the only humans in the vicinity. You must have woken earlier than I did and you killed the woman. But why? What harm had she done you?"

"None," admitted Yalung. He moved a step nearer to Dumarest, yellow and black rippling as he moved his arms, extending the broad spades of his hands. "But alive she was an inconvenience."

"You admit it?"

"But, of course. What point is there in denying the ob shy;vious?"

Dumarest moved, stooping, his hand flashing to the hilt of the knife in his boot, lifting the pointed, razor-edged steel. Sunlight gleamed from the blade as he swept it back and then forward, the point aimed at the other man's stomach.

Yalung sprang forward and to one side, his left hand dropping to grasp the knife-wrist; twisting, his right hand jerking free the steel. As Dumarest struck at his throat he moved again, stepping to avoid the blow, the stiffened fin shy;gers of his left hand stabbing like blunted spears.

Dumarest staggered, fighting a red tide of agony, his right arm numbed and paralyzed.

"You are fast," said Yalung. "Very fast. But not fast enough to one who has trained on Kha." He looked at the knife and tossed it casually to one side. Dumarest watched its flight.

"You? A Kha'tung fighter?"

"You know of us?" Yalung's smile was a facial distortion without real meaning. "Can you imagine what it is like? For twenty years I trained on a high-gravity planet with pain as the constant reward for laggard reflexes. You should be proud that I was chosen. No lesser man would have been able to overcome you so easily."

He was confident but with justification. Fighting the pain of impacted nerves Dumarest studied the figure in yellow and black. The round plumpness wasn't the fat he had as shy;sumed but a thick layer of trained and hardened muscle. The broad hands, soft as they appeared, could smash timber and brick, stab deep into vital organs. A Kha'tung fighter was a deadly machine.

Dumarest said, "Why?"

"You are curious," said Yalung. "Well, we have time to spare until a ship arrives. He stepped close and stared into Dumarest's eyes. "Sit," he ordered, and pushed.

The blow was the thrust of an iron ram. Dumarest fell backwards, staggering, falling to roll on the soft grass. Awk shy;wardly he sat upright, his left hand massaging his right arm. A random shaft of light caught the gem on his finger and turned it into ruby flame.

"The past," said Yalung. "Let us throw our minds back into time." He sat crossed legged, facing Dumarest at a safe distance of a dozen feet, his back towards the dead body of the girl. "Let us talk of names. Of Solis, of Brasque, of Kalin. I am sure that you remember Kalin."

"I remember."

"An unusual woman," said Yalung. "Most unusual. But let us start with Brasque. You never met him because he died before you reached Solis, but before he died he gave his sister the gift of life. Real life in a warm and healthy body. That secret he stole from the laboratory of the Cyclan. It must be returned."

Dumarest sat, patiently waiting, his left hand continuing its massage.

"The secret was that of an artificial symbiote named an affinity twin. It consists of fifteen units and the reversal of one unit makes it either subjective or dominant. Injected into the bloodstream it nestles in the rear of the cortex, meshes with the thalamus and takes control of the central nervous system. I need hardly tell you what that means."

The intelligence of a crippled body given active life in a healthy host. The ability of one brain to completely dominate another. Dumarest had good reason to know what it meant.

"No," he said. "You don't have to tell me."

"The path Brasque took has been followed and all pos shy;sibilities of his passing the secret to others eliminated. The probability that he delivered the secret to his sister on Solis is one of the order of 99 percent-practical certainty. In shy;vestigations have proved that the secret is not on that planet so, logically, it must be elsewhere. Do you agree?"

"You talk like a cyber," said Dumarest. "A thing of flesh and blood, a machine, a creature devoid of the capability of emotion."

Yalung's eyes glittered in the round blandness of his face. "You think you insult me," he said. "Let me assure you that to be called a cyber is far from that. To belong to the Cyclan is not easy. To wear the scarlet robe is to be clad in honor."

Did the voice hold pride? Pride was an emotion and no cyber could feel anything other than pleasure in mental achievement. An operation on the sensory nerves leading to the brain removed all pain, hurt, anger, love, the pleasure to be found in food and wine, the caresses of women.

Dumarest eased himself a little, moving on the grass. "I follow your argument and admit your point."

"The rest is simple, a matter of extrapolating from known data. You were on Solis at the time. You were close to the sister of Brasque. You were given the gift of a ring. The probability of the ring holding the secret is in the order of 90 percent."

"And you killed Lallia for that?" Dumarest glanced to shy;wards the dead girl, then at the squatting figure before him. "I have the ring. Why not kill me and take it?"

"Because that would be illogical," said Yalung. "Too much time has passed. You could have learned the secret or have changed the ring. To kill you would have been to lose a source of information for all time." He paused, eyes watch shy;ful. "The secret is a matter of the correct sequence of the molecular units composing the chain. There are fifteen units. Their nature is known. All that remains is to discover the order in which they must be united. But the task is not easy.