A city now closed tight against the hostile elements with movement confined to underground passages. A refuge containing warmth, food, the luxury of baths.

"If you will turn now?"

The girl was young, nubile, detailed to attend him after the session in steam and heat. Near-scalding vapor which had driven out the misery of cold, as earlier food had banished hunger. Obediently Dumarest turned to lie supine on the couch. Above, the ceiling was adorned with stripes and swirls of color each swath set with minute flecks of glistening material.

"Does this please you?" Her hands were flowers laced with steel, the oil scented with musk, her skill obvious as she probed at muscle and sinew. "A little harder? Tell me if I cause pain."

Framed against the decorated ceiling, her face was round, pert, wreathed in a helmet of russet hair cut so as to form upcurved points on either cheek. Her lips were full, smiling. She wore a short garment of diaphanous material arranged so as to leave one shoulder bare, belted to display the swell of hips and buttocks. As she worked her breasts moved in unfettered abandon.

"You've been hurt in the past." Her fingers traced the pattern of cicatrices on his torso, thin lines of scar tissue which were the fruit of edged and pointed steel. The price he had paid to learn a savage trade. "A fighter?"

"No."

"But no stranger to the arena." She was wise beyond her years. "From the workings? If so you may find it hard to get along. If you're interested I know someone who could arrange a bout."

"I'm not."

"A pity. If you're as good as you look you could clean up during the winter."

Or die if luck was against him. Be maimed, crippled, slashed and left with severed tendons, blinded, ruined. He inhaled, filling his lungs with the scent of perfume and oil, adding the remembered smells of sweat and blood, the stink of fear. Seeing the glare of lights, the ring of avid faces, the feral eyes of those who had paid to watch. Vultures screaming for action. Men and women eager to taste vicarious pain, to enjoy vicarious wounds. Beasts yammering for the spectacle of death.

"Relax," said the girl. "You're getting tense." Her hands moved to knead his thighs. "You staying the winter?"

"Probably."

"You could do worse. Things quiet down after a while. Ships don't call during the bad season and there's not much doing until the spring. That's why a good fighter can make decent money. Anything which entertains is popular and a clever man could really enjoy himself. In fact I guarantee it." Her tone left no doubt as to her meaning. "I hope you stay."

"Why?"

"That's a stupid question." She lifted her hands from his body. "That's all for now. If you want to sleep go ahead. If you want anything else just press the button."

The bell which commanded a variety of joys-at a price.

Alone, Dumarest looked at the decorated ceiling and the images it contained. Figures born from the glint of light in color, the shape, the twists which caught the eyes and lulled with hypnotic associations. A dead man with a twisted leg, the gaping beak of a dying bird, a figure stained in blood, which took on the shape of a cowled man with a bleak, skull-like face. A smear of scarlet which spread as he watched to fill his vision.

As the Cyclan spread to engulf worlds.

The Cyclan which hunted him and would always hunt him as long as he held the secret they were determined to possess. The sequence of units which formed the affinity twin and which would give them complete domination of the galaxy.

As yet he was safe, there were no cybers on Polis; the planet was too insignificant. A commercial undertaking with a scatter of minor industries and scant farming. A place to be avoided by any traveler, for to be stranded was to starve. Yet word could have been sent and agents could be watching. The Cyclan knew he was in the area and would comb each world in turn to find him. Only by wildly random moves could he hope to elude them and, if what the girl said was true, he must leave soon or be trapped.

Dumarest turned, restless, conscious of a fatigue deeper than one born of muscular exertion. A single enemy could be faced and beaten then to be forgotten, but how to defeat an organization which owned worlds and spun a web as far as men had reached? Each journey he took could be the one leading to destruction. Each man he met, each woman, could be an agent, a creature hungry for reward.

Vardoon?

The possibility existed but was remote. The man was almost what he seemed-almost because no man ever wholly dropped his fagade. Someone with a past, someone who had been hurt in that past, someone who was doing his best to get along. But why had he come to Polis? Why work as a scudger at the mine?

Poor work with poor pay and yet the man had eaten well and his clothing, though worn, had been good. A man with some reserve of money then, who hadn't been dependent on the job. A man biding his time? One set to watch?

Dumarest didn't think so. The odds were against it; the man had been at the workings long before he'd landed and an agent would have stayed in town so as to check the landings. Vardoon was just a man who'd chosen badly and made the best of a bad world. Working, conserving his money- he'd done the same himself.

Relaxing, Dumarest looked again at the ceiling feeling calmer than before. The field had been deserted when they'd arrived but ships were due; the Chendis in three days' time, the Sabia and Nordanus shortly after. He would leave on one of them-which, he had yet to decide, but all offered escape. Until then he could do nothing but wait.

The underground streets followed the pattern of those above, the only addition being a wide, straight passage leading past the warehouse area to the field. A passage sealed now with heavy doors, as were the other exits from the town. Dumarest checked it as he did the rest of the meandering maze; the twelve-foot-high roof studded with globes which shone with a variety of hues. A small and limited world which offered the usual entertainments; a theater, taverns, places which sold chemical analogues so the bored could experience the sensations of beasts, others which offered sensory tapes which gave one the illusion of being burned, drowned, flogged, loved-mental titivation which held its own insidious peril. Restaurants, music halls, casinos.

The Joy Palace was the best and Dumarest entered it, a watchful guard relaxing as he bought chips and paid his entrance fee. Inside, the roof swept high in a series of domed tiers all brilliant with a wash of shifting color. Artificial greenery softened the polished surface of stone and screened discreet couches. As he passed one, a woman sitting on the cushions lifted a hand.

"A moment, handsome. Like to play a game with me? A spin decides the outcome. You win and I entertain you for an hour. You lose and you pay the cost for two? Agreed?"

She shrugged as he moved on with a shake of the head. A philosopher, she would wait for another less cautious or more optimistic. Yet she felt a vague regret that Dumarest had shown so little interest.

Inside the gambling area he paused to look around.

The place was warm, scented with gusts of vagrant air rich with perfume, the floor firm yet soft beneath his feet. Bubbles drifted overhead, each shimmering with rainbows as if made of oil. Diversions to amuse, some emitting a thin, high keening, others a low, throaty laughter. The floor held tables for dice, cards, spinning wheels. The games were as familiar as the rest; spectrum, poker, starburn, brenzo, high-low-man-in-between. A transparent globe held a dust of variegated color which cleared by suction as Dumarest watched. The voice of the operator was a mechanical drone.

"Bet on the survival attribute of your choice. Pick your hue and watch as it struggles to eliminate competition. The photometer will tell which color is ascendant at the expiration of sixty seconds. Place your bets now. The combat begins."