Vessels touched now with masking whiteness, rearing like the towers of fantasy, some blotched with light from open ports, others dark, a few with men busy at their bases. Other figures, apparent loungers, but who would stand around in such weather and what was there to see?

Dumarest studied the ships. The nearest was locked and dark, that beyond had an open port with a couple of men inside, the one after had men busy loading bales from a snow-covered pile-work which meant the vessel was in a hurry to leave. Beyond it was a ship with an open port, the next had gaping hatches, the one after was dark.

To gain passage on any would take time but details could be settled once he was aboard. The one loading-an extra man among the rest could easily be missed. The one with two men? Added numbers could increase the chance of argument. One with an empty port could be the best choice-if he were given a choice at all.

Dumarest tensed as the whistle shrilled from behind. It sounded close, riding high against the wind. Gusts suddenly combined to create a brief resumption of the storm, sending clouds of snow over the field in a blinding swirl of whiteness-hiding the ships, the men, the figure of Dumarest as he raced from his position toward the field, the vessels he had noted.

Luck didn't last. Even as he reached them the wind died, distant shouts sounding thin, others, closer, loud with menace. A figure loomed before him, a hand lifted the club it held swinging toward his head. Dumarest dodged to one side, struck at the arm and felt bone snap beneath the edge of his stiffened palm. The man cried out and fell back to be replaced by others; shapes which became blurred with snow, seeming to vanish, to multiply, to be all around.

Dumarest spun, striking out, feeling the jar of flesh against his hands, the shock as something smashed against his temple. A club fell as he drove his fist into an open cowl, feeling the yield of cartilage, the warmth of blood from the pulped nose.

"Earl! This way, Earl!"

The voice rose above the wind, guiding him toward a blob of light, an open hatch, the figure standing limned in the glow.

"Hurry, Earl! Hurry!"

He felt a hand on his arm and tore free to race forward and dive head-first through the opening. He heard the port slam shut as he rolled on the deck, the rasp of locking bars as he rose to stare at the woman before him.

Charisse Chetame said, "It seems, Earl, that once again you owe me your life."

Chapter Seven

The sting was minor, a pain which came and vanished in a moment to be followed by a soothing coolness. Reaching up, Dumarest touched his left temple, finding a smoothness covering the area, the torn skin and bruised flesh left by the impact of the club.

"You are fortunate," said Charisse. "A little harder and it would have broken bone. Lower it could have torn out an eye. More to the left and there could have been shock to the interventricular foramen and the temporal lobe."

Dumarest said, "You know your medicine."

"Of course." She moved about the salon as a girl came to clear away the equipment-the same girl Dumarest had seen before or one just like her. As she left Charisse said, "Ascelius-it has a reputation among students for hard teaching, but they don't know what that could really be. At three I slept with a hypnotute which poured data into my brain. At seven I knew every bone in the human frame, every major organ, the disposition of arteries and veins and nerves. And that was only the beginning. After that came the study of cellular structure, tissue classification, glandular excretions-the whole spectrum of living matter."

"Your father?"

"A hard teacher who had no time for anything less than the best." She moved to a table, a shelf, back to the chair at his side. The curve of her thighs tautened the fabric of her gown. At her throat gems winked in flashing scintillations. "And you, Earl? Did you find what you wanted on Ascelius?"

"No. How did you come to be there?"

"Business. A matter of delivering some cultures to the medical institutes." She dismissed further discussion of the matter with a gesture of her hand. "It was the most amazing luck that I should have seen you and recognized you through the snow. What had you done to antagonize those men? Had they been hired by some jealous husband? A thwarted lover or a rejected woman seeking revenge? And why didn't you use your knife?"

He said, "They have a system-trial by lie detector. Intent is all important."

"Of course. Had you drawn your knife and used it and killed you would have been guilty of murder. The intent to kill would have been inherent when you drew the blade. Not consciously, perhaps, but it would have been present and the machines would have revealed it. But why not just wound?" She answered her own question. "A matter of reflexes. Against an opponent the need to survive becomes paramount. Against a crowd that need would trigger the automatic basic levels of reactive response so you would fight at maximum efficiency. A dead opponent is a safe one-wounded he still presents a threat. Well, you are safe from them now."

For he was far from Ascelius and deep in space, wrapped in the cocoon of the Erhaft field and bound for Kuldip. Soon they would utilize the magic of quicktime, the drug slowing the metabolism and turning hours into minutes, weeks into days. A convenience to lessen the tedium of the journey.

He said, "I must pay for my passage."

"Naturally, but later, Earl. Later. For now let us talk. Did you learn nothing on Ascelius? Nothing to help your search?"

Had he told her?

"Legends," she said. "When I was healing you that first time on Podesta you spoke of them. Of your home world and how you had left it. Of how you were trying to find it again. Delirium I thought at first but it made sense of a kind. Yet how can a world be lost? Are you certain you haven't confused the name?"

"There are no listed coordinates," he said. "So no one knows how to reach it. And, no, I haven't confused the name."

"It happens," she said. "My father was interested in old things and he made an attempt once to plot the altering pronunciations of ancient words. Words like 'mother,' for example, and 'father.' They tend to move forward in the mouth. From the back of the throat toward the lips. See?" She pursed her own. "From guttural to sibilant-kiss me, Earl!"

It was as he remembered and yet oddly different. The fire was absent, the thrust of triggered desire, and he wondered at her reason for the caress. A proprietary gesture? A curiosity as to his own reaction?

"Just to remind you that we aren't exactly strangers." Her eyes held his own as she resumed her seat. "Now, to get on with what we were talking about. Take a word and move it forward in the mouth. It grows distorted, changes, becomes easier to pronounce if altered a little. The misplacement of a vowel or the alteration of emphasis on a consonant makes all the difference. In a few years the word becomes unrecognizable. Take Eden, for instance."

"Eden?"

"Another legend," she said, ignoring his interest. "A world, perhaps, like your Earth, but I doubt if it's as real. My father thought-you've heard of it?"

"Vaguely."

"A paradise, Earl. Odd how all these mythical worlds are claimed to be that. Legend has it that Mankind started in Eden. That it was owned by some kind of goddess and that she lost her temper and threw everyone out when they offended her. If anything at all the story has to be allegorical but that isn't the point I'm trying to make. My father thought that Eden had to have been 'Garden.' You see? A simple change and an ordinary word becomes something novel."

He said, "Was your father really interested in old legends?"

"Yes, really. There are old books at home, records and such. He used to value them and spend hours studying them. You can examine them if you like."