Chapter One

With a jerk he was awake, sweating from dreams of blood and death and remembered pain. The walls of the cabin seemed to swirl in the faint glow of artificial dawn, then it was over and Dumarest sat on the edge.of his bunk, sucking air into his lungs, conscious of the sweat dewing face and naked torso. The product of nightmare born of fatigue induced by too many watches maintained too long.

And yet?

He leaned back to rest his shoulders against the bulkhead, aware of the metal, the bunk on which he sat, the ship in which they were contained. It enclosed him like a thing alive, the pulse of the engine transmitted by hull and stanchions emitting a whispering susurration which hung like a fading ghost echo in the air. Beneath his questing fingers he felt the reassuring tingle which told of the Erhaft field in being. The ship, wrapped in its cocoon, was still hurtling between the stars. It made a sealed world of warmth and security against the hostile environment of the void.

Yet something was wrong.

Dumarest sensed it as he looked around the cabin; the familiar tension which warned of impending danger. A prickling of the skin and an unease which he had learned never to ignore. He rose, reaching for his clothing, donning pants, boots and tunic to stand tall in neutral grey. From beneath his pillow he lifted his knife, steel flashing as he thrust the nine inches of curved and pointed steel into his right boot. Here, in his cabin on his own ship, he should be safe, but old habits died hard.

Ysanne reared upright as he opened her door, arms lifting, lips parted in a smile.

"Earl! How nice of you to come. How did you guess I'd been hoping you'd join me?" Her smiled changed into a frown as she saw his expression. "Trouble?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

"The field?" She touched the bulkhead, repeating his earlier test, registering her relief at what she found. "It's still active. We aren't drifting, thank God. So what's the matter?"

"I can't tell. It's just a feeling I have." Dumarest looked at the woman, at her hair, her face, the smooth contours of her body bared by the fallen cover. Looked and saw nothing but the specialist she was. "Join Andre and make a check. I'll be with Jed."

Craig didn't move as Dumarest entered the engine room. The engineer sat slumped before his console, a bottle standing to one side, a vial containing tablets close to his hand. A broad man, no longer young, rust-colored hair cropped to form a helmet over his skull. The scar tissue ruining his face gleamed with reflected light. "Jed?"

"I wasn't asleep!" Craig reared as Dumarest touched his shoulder. "I was just easing my head-the damn thing aches like fury."

Dumarest said nothing, noting the sweat dewing the man's face, the rapidity of his breathing. Lifting the bottle he tasted the contents, finding water sweetened and laced with citrus. The tablets were to ease pain.

He said, "I want a complete check of all installations. Start with the generator."

"It's sweet." Craig gestured at the panel. "See? Every light in the green. No variation to speak of. Which is just as it should be. It's a new unit, Earl. And I supervised the installation myself."

The truth and checks proved its efficiency. As they did the power supply, the monitors, the governors and relays, the servo-mechanisms.

Batrun called from the control room. "Ysanne told me of your fears, Earl. Have you found anything wrong?"

"Not as yet, Andre. You?"

"All is functioning as it should be. Maybe you had a nightmare. Ysanne-" Her voice took over from the captain's. "All clear as far as I can make out, Earl. But we're getting close to the Chandorah. We'll have to change course if we hope to avoid it." She added, musingly, "Maybe that's what your hunch is all about. The Chandorah's trouble enough for any ship. You knew it was close and it could have played on your mind."

Maybe, but Dumarest didn't think so. He said, "How's your head?"

"It feels heavy. Why?"

"Andre?"

"A slight ache. Pills will cure it."

The pills should have cured the engineer's, but even as Dumarest turned from the intercom he saw the man help himself to more. Headaches-his own temples had begun to throb, lassitude, excessive warmth-why had he been so blind?

"The air," he said. "Something's wrong with the air. Let's check the plant."

Access lay behind a panel lying in a compartment thick with crude adornment. Graffiti showed in a profusion of images, hieroglyphs, names. Scratches incised by a variety of hands; bored mercenaries, passengers, crewmen, poor wretches held captive before being sold into slavery. In its time the Erce had carried them all.

The panel itself was five feet high, three broad, edged with hexagonal bolts. On it some unknown artist had drawn a picture of grotesque obscenity. It blurred as Dumarest heaved on his wrench, sweat stinging his eyes, the picture taking on a new and different form. The writhing limbs became a surround for the central figure, the wantonly cruel face altering to adopt the stark outlines of a skull. An optical illusion reminding the viewer that things are not always what they seem.

Craig grunted as the panel swung open. "I'll make the check. There isn't room for two and I know what I'm doing." He fumbled at the edge of the opening and light flared to illuminate cleats and grills bearing small strands of colored material which fluttered in the wind created by the passage of air. "We've circulation at least. Give me time and I'll make a full report."

Dumarest said, "Just find out what's wrong."

He waited as the engineer delved into the plant, hearing scrapes and metallic sounds, a muffled cursing. When he returned he was blunt.

"It's dead, Earl. The fans are working but the exchangers are useless. We're down to negative efficiency. It's the catalysts," he explained. "You know how they work. Air is circulated through the exchangers and wastes are removed; dust, foul odors, all the rest of it. The catalysts take care of the oxygen content. Ours don't."

"Repairs?"

"Sure-as soon as I get replacements."

No solution in the present circumstances. Dumarest said, "Can't something be done with what we have? The units rebuilt or reconditioned?"

For answer Craig held out a thing of plastic and metal; it was shaped, fitted with vanes, set with holes, rimmed with frets now pitted and scarred. A catalyst unit now almost unrecognizable as such.

"The rest are about the same."

Useless even for scrap. "How long, Jed?"

"Can we last?" Craig frowned, thinking, one hand rising to touch the scar along his face. "Not long," he decided. "Call it a matter of days-a week at the most. That's using all resources. We'll have to land, Earl. And soon."

That decision was backed by Ysanne when she joined Dumarest in the salon with her charts and almanacs. "With only a week's air we've little choice. We can reach Aschem or Trube. Aschem is the closest. We can make it in good time."

He said, "If we hadn't discovered the breakdown for, say, a couple more days where would we have had to land?"

"Aschem." She didn't hesitate. "It's on our line of flight."

And, on Aschem, the Cyclan would be waiting.

Dumarest was certain of it. The stale air would have left them no choice as to destination and, but for his instinct, the breakdown wouldn't have been discovered. The headaches would have been put down to excessive fatigue; the lassitude the same; the sweating an added inconvenience. The build-up of carbon dioxide would have been an insidious poison dulling the very intelligence needed to discover it.