Ysanne was stubborn. "You don't understand, Earl. You don't want to understand. A survey could have checked the area and listed all local worlds. They need never have landed. Or a mining company could have found nothing in the way of valuable minerals. Or-"

"It was listed."

"By number, not by name."

"Which means it was discovered some time ago."

"Yes, but-"

"They could have found acid rains," he interrupted. "Lethal climatic changes. Destructive radiation from solar flares-a hundred things. And we are four people in a crippled ship. Assuming the others were willing, what could we do? Farm? Without machines, seed, local knowledge? Build? Hunt?"

"Live," she said. "Make this place our own. A world to pass on to our children."

Her yearning was born of longing and basic need but her early culture had blinded her to harsh reality. This world was no paradise with food growing on every tree and useful materials on every bush-free of disease and harmful life. To survive at all would take every scrap of effort they could muster and any children would need to become as savage as the environment if they hoped to exist. But it was a yearning he could understand.

"I'm sorry." Ysanne sensed his mood. "I'm being foolish, I guess, but, well, it seemed a good idea. It still seems one." She filled her lungs with the fragrant air. "It's crazy to live in a metal can when you could live in the open like this. To feel the sun and rain and touch of the wind. To be able to walk in a straight line until you can't take another step. To run and jump and go hunting for dinner." She shook her head, the thick braids framing her face making silken rustlings as they caressed the leather of her tunic. "I had it all once-why did I leave it?"

For excitement. For adventure and romance and curiosity. For change and novelty and, most of all, for escape. That was the reason most star-crazed youngsters headed into space, only to find there an environment more restrictive than any they had ever known.

To one side silvered fronds danced in sudden movement against the sky.

"Keep alert," said Dumarest. "I'm going to check the area."

"There's no need," she said quickly. "It was just the wind."

He ignored the comment as he ignored the sudden gust which stirred the flames and she watched as he picked up a rifle from where it had rested close to the fire. The action made small, metallic noises as he checked the action, the weapon itself seeming to become an extension of his body as he moved into the encircling darkness. To him suspicion had become a natural trait, a continual mistrust of things being wholly what they seemed.

A stranger, she thought, and felt a sudden chill. Still a stranger despite the hours they had spent in each other's arms, the passion they had shared. He would go his own way despite all logic and against all odds. Yet know that she could respect him the more because of it. Love him the deeper for his ruthless determination. Such a man would father strong children-when they found Earth she would make him her own.

Chapter Two

Nothing had changed. The office was as Elge had known it and before him Nequal and before him others who had become cyber primes to rule and then to yield their power when their time had come. As he would yield in turn--but never in the entire history of the Cyclan had a cyber rejected the possibility of attaining the highest office.

Marie pondered that fact as he inspected his new domain. He had seen it before but now there was a subtle difference which held its own relish. Now, in this place, he was the master. He would make the decisions and guide the progress of the master plan. World after world would fall beneath the domination of the Cyclan each to be melded into a common whole. Waste would be eliminated, the poverty which represented it, the suffering which was detrimental to maximum effort, the duplication born of competition. All that was nonproductive would be eliminated. Nothing would be initiated other than on the basis of optimum gain in reward for effort expended.

An ideal created in distant ages by those with vision and the dedication to devote their lives to its culmination. A universe governed by the dictates of efficiency, logic and reason-free of the hampering poison of emotional disorder.

A Utopia.

To achieve it, all means were justified.

"Master!" The aide answering the summons was new; Jarvet, old in years and service, had received his final reward. Even now his living brain was a part of the massed gestalt of central intelligence. Wyeth bowed his respect. "Your orders, master?"

"The reports needing final decision?"

"On your desk, master."

The inescapable routine of high office. Marie, seated, scanned the sheets with practiced efficiency, pausing at one before reaching out to touch the intercom.

"Master?"

"Check report HYT23457X. The stable product of Lemass."

A second, then, "Hargen, master."

"Make cross-check with Quelchan." Marie nodded at the answer. "The same. I see."

Someone would pay for that error-the association should have been noted. As it was, no harm had been done and Marie paused for a moment, assessing the best method of utilizing the information. Lemass was already beneath the influence of the Cyclan with its rulers helplessly dependent on the advice given by resident cybers. They were men and a world to be played as an instrument could be played to yield the maximum advantage to the master plan. Quelchan, close enough to be a commercial rival, was still stubbornly resisting the advantage to be gained by hiring the services of the Cyclan. If a calamity were to affect their stable crop the economic balance would shift to the advantage of Lemass. Desperate, they would seek help and yet…

To maintain the balance would not be in the best interest as far as the Cyclan was concerned. One or the other of the worlds must be brought to the brink of ruin in order that both be held fast in the net. The obvious plan was to move against Quelchan but their soil was more fertile, their production higher. If disease was introduced to destroy the hargen the probability was high that the world would be lost as a potential granary.

Marie reached for the recorder.

"Instruct our agents on Lemass to buy all the hargen Quelchan can supply. At the same time offer them, via intermediaries, cut-rate supplies of manufactured goods from Elmonte and Wale. The general plan is to make Quelchan dependent on off-world products."

Paid for with money received by the sale of their crops. Too late they would realize they had exchanged food for toys-expensive items needing maintenance and replacement. In order to retain their new standard of living they would be forced to seek the help of the Cyclan.

The rest of the reports were routine, items needing his final check before being put into operation. Small nudges which would, like the falling pebble triggering an avalanche, result in overwhelming change on the worlds concerned.

Marie sat back, vaguely dissatisfied. As yet he had done nothing he'd not done previously-only the import of his decisions had extended their scope and, as far as intellectual pleasure was concerned, the solving of a problem was sufficient to itself. To assess the data and extrapolate from it to form a prediction and then to see that prediction verified and so gain the satisfaction of mental achievement-the only pleasure a cyber could know.

Was that the reason for Avro's decision?

Marie rose, touching a switch, a blaze of luminescence springing to life before him. Suspended in the air and filling the office with glittering points of light, the electronic depiction of the galaxy was a miracle of technology. It condensed as he activated the control, suns flaring, worlds flickering, sheets and curtains of brilliance merging into somber clouds of interstellar dust.