LALLIA
#6 in the Dumarest series
E.C. Tubb



Copyright ©, 1971, by E. C. Tubb
All Rights Reserved.



Scanned by BW-SciFi
Proofed by books4all
converted to html and additional proofing for errors by someone else




Cover and interior art by George Barr.




To Stewart Sidney Elcomb




Chapter One



On aarn a man was murdered and Dumarest watched him die.
It was a thing quickly done in a place close to the landing field: a bright 
tavern of gleaming comfort just beyond the main gate of the high perimeter 
fence, a cultured place of softness and gentle lighting snugly set on a cultured 
world. The raw violence was all the more unexpected because of that.
Dumarest saw it all as he stood with his back to a living mural in which naked 
women swam in an emerald sea and sported with slimed beasts of obscene 
proportions. Before him, scattered over soft carpets, the customers of the 
tavern lounged in chairs or stood at the long bar of luminescent wood. An 
assorted crowd of crewmen and officers, field personnel, traders, and 
transients. Bright among them was the gaudy finery of pleasure girls, flaunting 
their charms. Soft music saturated from the carved ceiling and perfumed smoke 
stained the air.
Against the softness and luxury the killer looked like a skull at a feast: tall, 
horribly emaciated, eyes smoldering in the blotched skin of his face. He was a 
mutant with mottled hair and hands grotesquely large, a sport from some frontier 
world. He crossed to the long bar, snatched up a bottle of heavy glass and, 
without hesitation, smashed it on the back of his unsuspecting victim's head. 
Half-stunned, dazed, the man turned—and received the splintered shards in face 
and throat.
"Damn you!" The mutant dropped the stained weapon as he spat at the dying man. 
"Remember me? I swore I'd get you and I have. It's taken years but I did it. You 
hear me? I did it! I got you, you stinking bastard! Now roast in hell!"
A woman screamed and men came from the shadows to grasp the killer. Dumarest 
took two long strides towards the door then paused, thinking. The tavern was 
close to the field, police could not be far away and it was possible that he had 
already been noticed. To leave now would be to invite suspicion with the 
resultant interrogation and interminable delay. He regained his position before 
the mural as officers poured into the tavern. On Aarn the police were highly 
efficient, and they moved quickly about the tavern as they quested for 
witnesses. Not surprisingly they discovered them hard to find.
"You there!" The officer was middle-aged, his face hard beneath the rim of his 
helmet. His uniform was impeccable and the leather of his boots, belt, and laser 
holster shone with a mirror-finish. "Did you see what happened?"
"Sorry, no," said Dumarest.
"You too?" The officer echoed his disgust. "Over fifty people in the place and 
no one saw what happened." He glanced over his shoulder towards the scene of the 
crime. "If you were standing here how could you avoid not seeing? You've a 
perfect view."
"I wasn't looking that way," explained Dumarest. "I was studying this." He 
pointed at the mural. "All I heard was some shouting. When I turned the sport 
was standing over something on the floor. What happened? Did he hurt someone?"
"You could say that," said the officer dryly. "He killed a man with a bottle." 
He stared curiously at Dumarest, eyes narrowing as he took in the gray plastic 
finish of pants, knee-boots, and tunic. The tunic was long-sleeved, falling to 
mid-thigh and fastened high and snug around the throat. It was unusual wear for 
a city dweller of Aarn. "Are you a resident?"
"No, a traveler. I came here to arrange an outward passage."
"Why not go to the field office?" The officer didn't wait for an answer. "Never 
mind. I suppose a tavern is the best place to do business if you can afford it. 
Your papers?"
Dumarest handed over the identification slip given to him when he had landed. 
The officer checked the photographic likeness and physical details incorporated 
in the plastic. He softened a little as he saw the credit rating.
"Earl Dumarest," he mused. "Planet of origin: Earth." He raised his eyebrows. 
"An odd name for a world. I don't think I've ever heard it before. Is it far?"
"A long way from here," said Dumarest flatly.
"It must be. Why did you come to Aarn?"
"To work. To look around." Dumarest smiled. "But mainly to visit your museum. It 
is something rather exceptional."
He had struck the right note by his appeal to planetary pride. The officer 
relaxed as he handed back the identification.
"We're rather proud of it," he admitted and then added, casually, "my son has a 
position there. In the ancient artifact division, with special reference to 
Aarn's early history. Did you know that once the planet held an intelligent race 
of sea creatures? They must have been amphibious and there is evidence they used 
fire and tools of stone."
"I didn't," said Dumarest. "Not before I visited your museum, that is. Tell me, 
is your son a tall, well-built youngster with thick curly hair? About 
twenty-five, with vivid blue eyes?" The officer had blue eyes and the hair on 
the backs of his hands was thick and curled. "If so I may have met him. A person 
like that was most helpful to me in my investigations."
"I doubt if that was Hercho," said the officer quickly. "He works in the 
laboratories. Reconstruction and radioactive dating."
"Specialized work," said Dumarest. "It's a pretty important position for a young 
man to hold. You must be very proud of him."
"He's done well enough for himself." The officer glanced to where two men 
carried a stretcher towards the dead man. "May I ask what your own particular 
subject of interest at the museum might be?"
"Navigational charts and tables," said Dumarest easily. "Really old ones. The 
type which were in use before the Center-oriented charts we have now. I didn't 
find any."
"I'm not surprised. We have data from over a hundred thousand habitable worlds 
and ten times that many items on display, but there has to be a limit. And 
perhaps you were looking for something which doesn't exist. Are you sure there 
are such tables?"
"I think so," said Dumarest. "I hope so."
"Well," said the officer politely, "there's no harm in hoping." He turned to 
move away then halted as Dumarest touched his arm. "What is it?"
"A matter of curiosity," said Dumarest. He nodded to where the attendants 
carried a sheeted figure towards the door of the tavern. "That man. Who was he?"
"The victim?" The officer shrugged. "No one special. Just a handler from one of 
the ships."
"The Starbinder?"
"The Moray. Captain Sheyan's vessel. His name was Elgart. Did you know him?"
"No. I was simply curious."
Dumarest turned to stare at the mural as the dead man was carried away.
The Moray was a small ship, battered, old, standing to one side of the busy 
field as if ashamed of associating with her sister vessels. Her captain matched 
his command. Bernard Sheyan was small. A ruff of white hair showed beneath his 
uniform cap. His face, beneath the visor, was seamed and scored with vicissitude 
and time. He leaned back in his chair and stared up at Dumarest over the wide 
expanse of his desk.
"You wanted to see me," he snapped curtly. For such a small man his voice was 
startlingly deep. "Why?"
"I want a job."
"Forget it. I've a full complement."
"No," said Dumarest flatly. "You haven't. You're short a handler. A bit of 
Elgart's past caught up with him and he's dead."
Sheyan narrowed his eyes. "This past you're talking about," he said softly. 
"You?"
"No. I just saw it happen. My guess is that Elgart was rotten. That he got his 
lacks from letting those riding Low wake without the benefit of drugs. One of 
them finally caught up with him." Dumarest's eyes were bleak. "If I'm right, he 
asked for all he got. The only thing is that he got it too easily. A man like 
that should be given a double dose of his own medicine."
To wake, rising through layers of ebon chill to light and the stimulating warmth 
of the eddy currents… the screaming agony of returning circulation without the 
aid of drugs to numb the pain so that throat and lungs grew raw with the 
violence of shrieking torment.
Sheyan said quietly, "You've traveled Low?"
"Yes."
"Often?"
Dumarest nodded, thinking of a skein of barely remembered journeys when he'd 
traveled doped and frozen and 90 percent dead. Riding in the bleak cold section 
in caskets meant for the transport of livestock, risking the 15 percent death 
rate for the sake of cheap travel. Risking, too, the possibility of a sadistic 
handler who reveled in the sight and sound of anguish.
"So Elgart's dead," mused Sheyan. "You could be right in what you assume, but he 
didn't play his tricks with me. Even so, he came from one of the big ships and a 
man doesn't do that without reason. You want his job?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I want to leave Aarn," said Dumarest. "Working a passage is better than 
traveling Low."
Anything, thought Sheyan, was better than traveling Low; but Aarn was a busy 
world and a hard worker would have little trouble in gaining the cost of a High 
passage.
He leaned further back in his chair, shrewd eyes studying the figure standing 
before him. The man was honest, that he liked, and he was an opportunist—few 
would have acted so quickly to fill a dead man's shoes. He looked at the 
clothing, at the spot above the right boot where the plastic caught the light 
with an extra gleam. The hilt of a blade would have caused such a burnishing and 
it was almost certain that the knife was now tucked safely out of sight beneath 
the tunic.
His eyes lifted higher, lingering on the hard planes and hollows of the face, 
the tight, almost cruel set of the mouth. It was the face of a man who had early 
learned to live without the protection of house, guild, or combine. The face of 
a loner, of a man, perhaps, who had good reason for wanting a quick passage away 
from the planet. But that was not his concern.
"You have had experience?"
"Yes," said Dumarest. "I've worked on ships before."
Sheyan smiled. "That is probably a lie," he said mildly. "Those who ride Middle 
rarely do anything else. But could you perform a handler's duties?"
"It was no lie," said Dumarest. "And the answer is yes."
Abruptly Sheyan made his decision. "This is a rough ship. A small ship. 
Snatching the trade others manage without. Short journeys, mostly, planet 
hopping with freight and such, heavy loads and hard work. You'll be paid like 
the rest of us, with a share of the profit. Sometimes we make a pile, but mostly 
we break even. At times we carry passengers who like to gamble. If you 
accommodate them I get a half of the profit."
"And if I lose?"
"If you can't win then don't play." Sheyan leaned forward and rested his arms on 
his desk. "Work hard, be willing, and cause no trouble. That way we'll get 
along. Questions?"
"When do we leave?"
"Soon. You'll find a uniform in Elgart's cabin." The captain looked curiously at 
his new handler. "Aren't you interested as to where we are bound?"
"I'll find out," said Dumarest, "when we get there."
The steward guided him to the cabin. He was young, recent to space with a voice 
which had barely broken, but already his eyes held a flowering hardness.
"Elgart was a pig," he said as he led the way from the captain's office. "Mean 
and close and hard to get along with. I'm glad he's dead."
Dumarest made no comment. Instead he looked at the walls and ceiling of the 
passage down which they passed. The plastic carried a thin patina of grime and 
was marked with a mesh of scratches. The floor was heavily scuffed, uneven in 
places, and showing signs of wear and neglect.
"My name is Linardo del Froshure del Brachontari del Hershray Klarge," said the 
steward as they reached the cabin door. "But everyone calls me Lin. Will it be 
all right for me to call you Earl?"
"I've no objection." Dumarest pushed open the door of the cabin and passed 
inside. It was as he'd expected: a bare room fitted with a bunk, a chair, a 
small table. Cabinets filled one wall; the others bore lurid photographs of 
naked women. A scrap of carpet, frayed, covered the floor, and a player stood on 
the table. He switched it on and the thin, piping strains of cazendal music 
filled the air.
"Elgart was a funny one," commented Lin. "That music and this other stuff." His 
eyes moved to the photographs. "A real weird."
Dumarest switched off the player. "How many in the crew?"
"Five. You've met the captain. Nimino's the navigator and Claude's the engineer. 
Both are out on business, but you'll meet them later. Nimino's another weird and 
Claude likes the bottle." The steward's eyes dropped to Dumarest's left hand, to 
the ring on his third finger. "Say, that's quite a thing you've got there."
"The ring?" Dumarest glanced at it, the flat, red stone set in the heavy band. 
"It was a gift from a friend."
"Some friend!" Lin was envious. "I wish I had friends like that. You're wearing 
the cost of a double High passage at least." He leaned forward so as to study 
the ring more closely. "My uncle's a lapidary," he explained. "He taught me 
something about gems. That was before my old man got himself killed and I had to 
earn a living. I think he wanted me to join him in the business, but what the 
hell! Who wants to spend their lives stuck in a shop? My chance came and I 
grabbed it while it was going. Another few years and I'll become an officer. 
Then for the big ships and the wide-open life."
"Is that what you want?"
"Sure. What could be better?"
It was the defiance of youth, but Dumarest knew what the youngster didn't. The 
wide-open life he dreamed of was nothing but an endless journeying between the 
stars, constantly bounded by the monotony of imprisoning walls. The years 
slipping past broken only by planetfalls and brief dissipation. Those who rode 
Middle lived lives of incredible restriction despite the journeys they made. Too 
often they found refuge in strange diversions and perverted pleasures.
"So you haven't been very long on the Moray?"
"No," Lin admitted. "But it's the best kind of life a man could have. Moving, 
traveling, seeing new things all the time. Always gambling that the cargo you're 
carrying will be the one to hit the jackpot. At least," he amended, "it is in 
the Web."
"Is that where you're from?"
"Sure. Laconis. You've heard of it?"
"No," said Dumarest. He looked thoughtfully at the steward. The boy was eager to 
enhance his stature by imparting information. It would do no harm to encourage 
him and perhaps do some good. "Tell me about it."
Lin shrugged. "There isn't much to tell. It's just a place. Some agriculture, a 
little industry, some trading. Mostly we mine the ridges for rare metals and 
gems, but that's for prospectors, mostly. The yield is too low for a big 
operation. There's some fishing, but nothing special. It's just a place like 
most of the Web worlds. You'll see."
Dumarest frowned. "Is that where we're bound? The Web?"
"Didn't you know?"
"It's a long way from here. What's the Moray doing on Aarn if it's a Web 
trader?"
"The engines went on the blink." Lin was casual. "The old man managed to get a 
cargo and decided to have a refit. The stuff barely paid for the energy to haul 
it, but at least we got here for free. And you don't get Erhaft generators as 
cheap as you can get them on Aarn."
"New generators?"
"Hell, no!" Lin was disgusted. "We could have got those in the Web. 
Reconditioned—but they'll do the job. Claude checked them out and he's 
satisfied. After all, it's his neck too."
"Yes," said Dumarest dryly. "Let's hope that he remembered that."
"Meaning?"
The boy was star-struck, despite his superficial hardness. His head was filled 
with dreams and he was unable to recognize unpalatable truths. He would learn 
fast—if he did not die before the opportunity to learn presented itself. 
Dumarest was harsh as he looked at the steward.
"Meaning that he may not intend to rejoin the ship. That he could have been 
drunk at a critical time or, if not drunk, had his mind on a bottle instead of 
the job at hand. Damn it, boy, grow up! The universe isn't a place of heroes! 
Men are what they are and no one is perfect."
"Claude wouldn't do a thing like that." Lin's eyes betrayed his uncertainty. "He 
likes to drink, sure, but where's the harm in that? And he teaches me things. 
Anyway," he added triumphantly, "the old man wouldn't stick his neck out like 
that. There's nothing wrong with those generators. There can't be."
"Then where's the engineer?"
"I told you. He's out looking for business with Nimino."
"That's right," agreed Dumarest. "A weird out with a drunk. A happy combination. 
This trip should show us a lot of profit." He stressed the plural so as to let 
the boy know that he considered himself a part of the crew and, as such, had a 
right to be critical. "Do you think they'll find any?"
"I don't know," admitted the steward. "I doubt if Nimino will bother much. He's 
probably spending his time at some revival or other. He's religious," he 
explained. "I don't mean that he's a member of the Universal Church. He's that 
and a lot more. He dabbles in every cult going. Transmigration, Reincarnation, 
Starcom, Extravitalis, Satanism, Planarism, Amorphism—you name it and he's 
interested. His cabin's full of charms and fetishes, idols and symbols, 
sympathetic relationship mandalas and inspired pictographs. When I said he was a 
weird that's what I meant."
"And Claude?"
"If there's a load to be found in a tavern then he'll find it," said the 
steward. "He got us a few crates of machine patterns—you'll have to check the 
temperature of those— strain-impressed molecular structure designs in a 
protoplasmic gel. And he managed to pick up some new sonic drill recordings."
"Speculative buying," said Dumarest. "Just the sort of thing a drunk would find 
himself landed with. Anything concrete in the nature of paying freight?"
"Not as yet," said Lin reluctantly. "But don't get the wrong impression about 
Claude. He may appear to buy wild, but the things he gets have value in the Web. 
Ships aren't frequent out there, don't forget, and we call at a lot of minor 
worlds. I've known us to make a 1,000 percent profit on stuff you wouldn't look 
at twice on a planet like Aarn."
"All right," said Dumarest. "I'll take your word for it."
"They're good," insisted the boy. "Odd, maybe, but good. You just don't know."
Dumarest smiled. "I'm a little edgy and maybe too critical. You know them better 
than I do. How long before we leave?"
The steward glanced at his wrist. "A couple of hours. Nimino will be back a good 
hour before then. Like to make a little bet?"
"Such as?"
"Even money that Claude doesn't come back empty-handed. Five stergols. Is it a 
bet?"
"It's a bet." Dumarest looked around the cabin. "Now, maybe, you'd better leave 
me to check my gear."
Alone, he tore the photographs from the walls, frowning at the lighter patches 
they left behind. A cabinet held a uniform and a suit of rough, protective 
clothing such as was worn by field loaders. Both were in stretch material, 
neither were as clean as they could have been. The uniform cap was battered, the 
visor cracked, and the sweatband stained and thick with grease. The late handler 
had not been a finicky man.
Other cabinets showed a pile of books in plain covers.
Dumarest flipped one open and listened to the soft obscenities whispering from 
the illustrated pages. Both voice and moving illustrations died as he closed the 
book and reached for another. They were all of the same type. A stack of 
recordings held cazenda music. A three-dimensional jigsaw lay in scattered 
pieces beside a chessboard and men. The pieces were of lambent crystal, 
intricately carved and of obvious worth. The board was an electronic instrument 
for the replaying of recorded games. A box held a few items of personal 
significance: a ring, a locket containing a curl of hair, a certificate issued 
by the medical council of Octarge, a pair of dice fashioned from animal bone, 
scraps and fragments of a man's entire life.
Dumarest looked further. A small compartment held a hypogun—the butt worn and 
the instrument almost certainly poorly calibrated. Boxes held ampules of drugs 
which could be blasted by air pressure through clothing, skin, and fat directly 
into the bloodstream; quicktime, slowtime, antibiotics, compounds for the relief 
of pain, the bringing of sleep, and the ease of tension. A shabby case held 
gleaming surgical instruments, and a thick book was an illustrated medical 
manual. Obviously, on this vessel, the handler was expected to double as 
physician.
Taking a handful of disposable tissues, Dumarest soaked them with sterilizing 
solution and swabbed the neck, wrists, and crotch of the uniform and protective 
clothing. Taking fresh tissues he wiped the sweatband of the uniform cap until 
it was free of dirt and grease.
Satisfied, he stripped off his tunic. The light from the overhead glowtube shone 
on the hard whiteness of his skin, throwing thin lines of scar tissue into 
prominence over chest and arms. The hilt of a knife showed above the waistband 
of his pants, the nine-inch blade gleaming as he threw it beside the tunic on 
the bed. The pants followed, and he stood naked aside from snug shorts.
Dressed in the uniform, he took up his own things, folded them, and stuffed them 
into a cabinet. Carefully he adjusted the uniform cap until the cracked visor 
shielded his eyes and then, after a final inspection, left the cabin and made 
for the section of the ship which was his responsibility.
Like the cabin, it was as he'd expected. The banks of sterilizing ultraviolet 
lamps showed dark patches where units needed replacing. The caskets in which 
livestock were transported showed obvious signs of lengthy disuse, and several 
of the cargo restraints were inoperative. He paused beside the crates of machine 
patterns, checking the temperature against the thermostat setting. There was a 
three-degree difference on the wrong side and he changed the setting hoping that 
the cargo had not suffered damage.
Thoughtfully he made his way to the salon. Here the passengers, if any, would 
spend their recreational time— which meant all of it on short journeys—drawing 
their ration of basic from a spigot on the wall. That, at least, was functioning 
as it should and he drew a cup of the thick mixture, sipping the warm compound 
of glucose, protein, and vitamins as he studied the furnishings.
"Pretty rough, aren't they?" Dumarest turned and looked at the man who had 
silently entered the salon. He was middle-aged, his face thin beneath his 
uniform cap, his eyes startlingly direct. The insignia on collar and breast was 
that of a navigator. "My name's Nimino." He held out his hand. "You're Earl 
Dumarest. The captain told me we had a new handler. Welcome aboard."
His handclasp was firm, the skin dry and febrile. "Well, what do you think of 
the Moray?"
She was a bad ship in bad condition. Five men were too few to crew such a 
vessel, small though she was. Maintenance suffered and the outward dirt was a 
sure sign of inner neglect. Dumarest took another sip of basic and said, "I've 
seen ships in worse condition."
"In a scrapyard," agreed Nimino. "So have I. But as operating vessels in space?" 
He shrugged. "There could be worse tucked away in some forgotten corner of the 
galaxy, but I doubt it. Certainly there are none in the Web. Each time we 
commence a journey we take a gamble with death and our profit, if any, is earned 
with tears of blood."
"Then why stay with her?"
"Why not? If death is waiting to claim a man—what difference where he may be? 
And then again, my friend, perhaps, like you, I have little choice." The 
navigator glanced at the cup in Dumarest's hand. "Hungry so soon?"
"No."
"The habit of a traveler then," said Nimino, smiling. "Eat while there is food 
available for you never can be certain as to when you may have the opportunity 
to eat again. If nothing else, Earl, it tells me what you are."
Dumarest finished the contents of the cup and dropped it into the receptacle 
provided. "And you?"
"I am a weird, didn't Lin tell you that? I believe that there is more to the 
scheme of things than a man can perceive with his limited senses. 
Electro-magnetic radiation for example. Can a man see infrared or ultraviolet? 
Tell the presence of radio waves, of magnetism, of the ebb and flow of the 
energies of space without mechanical aid? Of course not. And yet still men deny 
that there could be higher realms of existence than those we know. You are 
interested in such things?"
"No."
"Then you also think that I am a weird?"
"I don't give a damn what you are," said Dumarest bluntly. "Just as long as 
you're a good navigator."
Nimino laughed. "At least you are honest, my friend. Have no fear, I know my 
trade. And I know the Web, which is a thing few men can say without boasting. As 
long as the generators do not fail, I can take the Moray where we want her to 
go. Unless fate decides otherwise," he added. "Against fate what chance has 
limited man?"
"In my experience those who talk of fate usually do so to provide themselves an 
excuse for failure," said Dumarest. The banality of the conversation was 
beginning to annoy him. The navigator's place was on the bridge, for until he 
gave the word the ship could not leave. "And it is wrong to rely on superior 
powers. Even if they existed, it would be wrong. Wrong and foolish. I do not 
think you are a foolish man."
"And I do not think you are wholly what you seem." Nimino smiled again, his 
teeth flashing in the cavern of his mouth, startlingly white against the rich 
darkness of his skin. "Certainly you are not a common traveler, and few handlers 
trouble themselves with philosophical concepts. But enough of this wrangling. We 
are shipmates for good or ill and we both have our duties. Until later, my 
friend. I anticipate many pleasant hours."
Fifty-seven minutes later they left Aarn, rising on the magic of the Erhaft 
field from the ground, through the atmosphere, and up into space where their 
sensors quested for target stars.
Twenty-six minutes after that, Dumarest paid five stergols to the steward.
Lin had won his bet. Claude had found them a passenger.




Two



He was a round, sleek, yellow-skinned man of indeterminate age, who smiled often 
and spoke at length. Gems glittered on his pudged hands and soft fabric of price 
clothed his rotund body. His hair was a cropped stubble on the ball of his skull 
and his eyes, slanted like almonds, were as watchful as a cat's. His name was 
Yalung and he claimed to be a dealer in precious stones.
Dumarest thought about him as he worked on the caskets. Carefully he checked 
each connection and tested each seal, measuring the degree of chill established 
by the refrigeration, counting the seconds as the eddy currents warmed the 
interior of the coffin-like boxes. Several times he made adjustments, knowing 
that a human life could depend on his skill. Animals had a wider tolerance than 
men, but animals did not always fill the caskets.
Claude entered the region as Dumarest straightened from the last of the caskets.
"All finished?"
"Yes." Dumarest handed the engineer the meters he had borrowed. "I'll check the 
rest of the equipment later. Can you make some more restraints for the cargo?"
"Why bother? We don't carry much and what we do won't come to any hurt."
"Can you make them?"
"Later." The engineer leaned against the curved metal of the wall and blinked 
his bloodshot eyes. He had been drinking and his broad, mottled face was heavy 
with the red mesh of burst capillaries. "You worry too much, Earl. Elgart never 
used to worry like you do."
"Maybe that's why he's dead," said Dumarest dryly.
"He died because he was a perverted swine," said Claude dispassionately. "I've 
no objection to a man being a lecher, but he was worse than that. Once when we 
carried some animals he—well, never mind. He's dead and good riddance. Like a 
drink?"
It was wine: thin, sharp with too much acid, the flavor indistinguishable. 
Dumarest sipped and watched as the engineer gulped. Behind him, squatting on 
thick bed-plates, the generators emitted a quivering ultrasonic song of power, 
the inaudible sound transmuted by the metal of the hull into a barely noticed 
vibration.
"Swill," said Claude as he lowered his empty glass. "Some cheap muck I bought on 
Aarn. They don't know how to make wine. Now on Vine they make a wine which would 
wake the dead. Thick and rich and with the color of blood. A man could live on 
the wine of Vine. Live and die on it and never regret wasted opportunities."
Dumarest said softly, "As you do?"
"I was there once," said the engineer as if he had not heard the interjection. 
"At harvest time. The girls carried in the grapes and trod them beneath their 
bare feet. The juice stained their legs and thighs, red on white and olive, 
thick juice on soft and tender flesh. As the day grew warmer they threw off all 
their clothes and rolled naked among the fruit. It was a time of love and 
passion, kissing and copulating in great vats of succulent grapes, the juice 
spurting and staining everyone so that all looked like creatures of nature."
Dumarest took a little more wine, waiting for the engineer to extinguish his 
dream.
"There was a girl," whispered Claude. "Soft and young and as white as the snows 
found on the hills of Candaris. We trod the grapes together and joined bodies as 
we mated in the juice. For a week we loved beneath the sun and the stars with 
wine flowing like water and others all around laughing and singing and laving 
their bodies with the juice. The harvest on the following season must have been 
exceptional if what they believed was true."
"Fertility rites," said Dumarest. "I understand."
"You understand." The engineer poured himself more of the thin wine. "I did not. 
I thought she loved me for myself alone, not because she thought that a stranger 
would bring fresh seed to the mating, new energy to the fields. For a week she 
was mine and then it was over." He gulped the wine and stared broodingly into 
the glass. "Often I wonder if my grandsons tread the grapes as I did, if my 
granddaughters yield themselves as did she."
"You could find out," suggested Dumarest. "You could go back."
"No. That is a thing no man should ever do. The past is dead, forget it, let us 
instead drink to the future."
"To the future," said Dumarest, and sipped a little more wine. "Tell me about 
our passenger."
"Yalung?" Claude blinked as he strove to focus his attention. "He is just a 
man."
"How did you meet?"
"In a tavern. I was looking for business and he approached me. He had money and 
wanted a High passage to the Web."
"It's just as well he didn't want to travel Low," said Dumarest. "He would never 
have made it."
"The caskets?" Claude shrugged. "We rarely use them; the journey between planets 
is too short. Even on the longer trips Sheyan usually adjusts the price and lets 
any passengers ride under quicktime. The Web is compact," he explained. "Stars 
are relatively close. Anyway, we don't often carry passengers."
"Let's talk about the one we have now."
"What is there to talk about? He wanted a passage and could pay for it. He 
approached me. What else is there to know?"
"He approached you." Dumarest was thoughtful. "Didn't you think it strange? A 
man with money for a High passage wanting to travel on a ship like this?"
Claude frowned, thinking. "No," he said after a while. "It isn't strange. Not 
many ships head for the Web and those that do only go to established planets, 
the big worlds with money, trade, and commerce. From there shuttle vessels take 
freight and passengers to the other planets. Yalung wants to roam the Web and 
this is the best way for him to do it."
"So he intends to stay with us?"
"That's what he said." Claude chuckled as he looked at Dumarest. "He hasn't 
really any choice. I told you that ships are few in the Web. You could be 
stranded on a planet for months waiting for a vessel, and then you'd have to go 
where it took you. That's where we come in. Charter, special freight, 
speculative trading, things like that. We could maybe touch a score of worlds 
before landing at one of the big termini." His smile grew wider as he saw the 
other's expression. "Didn't Sheyan tell you?"
"The details? No."
"He wouldn't. He needed a handler more than he needed to teach the innocent. But 
it isn't so bad. We'll get along and could even have a little fun. You'll get 
used to it, Earl. You might even get to like the life."
"Like you?"
Claude lost his smile as he groped for the bottle. "No, Earl, not like me. But 
then you don't have to be like me. No one does."
No one, thought Dumarest as he left the engineer to his anodyne. Not Nimino who 
found his refuge in religion, or Sheyan who had his command if nothing else. Not 
Lin who carried a headful of stars and who looked on danger as a spice to living 
instead of the constant threat to existence it really was. No one needed to hit 
the bottle—but sometimes it could help.
Dumarest washed and changed from the protective clothing he had worn while 
working on the caskets, changing into his uniform and the cap with the cracked 
visor. His soft shoes were soundless on the worn flooring as he made his way 
towards the bridge. At the salon he halted and looked inside. Yalung, the sole 
occupant, sat before a table on which were spread a handful of variously colored 
crystals. He held a pair of tweezers in one pudgy hand and his eyes were 
narrowed as if to increase his vision.
He didn't move. Not even when Dumarest entered the compartment and stood at his 
side. Still he sat like a man of stone, not even his eyelids flickering, 
unconscious of the man at his side. He looked dead but he was far from that. He 
was living at a reduced tempo, the magic of quicktime slowing his metabolism and 
time-awareness to a fraction of normal. They had left Aarn two days ago, but to 
the passenger it was less than an hour.
Gently Dumarest reached out and touched the pudgy hand, gently, for the relative 
speed of his hand could deal a savage blow. The skin was firm, more youthful 
than it seemed, the small indent vanishing as soon as he removed the pressure.
Stooping he examined the scattered gems, noting the trapped fire smoldering 
within their crystalline depths, the perfection of facets and polish. They, at 
least, were genuine —as was probably everything else about the passenger. Yalung 
could be exactly what he claimed and his presence on the ship due to nothing 
more than sheer coincidence.
Dumarest straightened and left the salon, making his way to the bridge. He 
knocked and entered when Sheyan growled a summons. The captain was alone, 
sitting in the big control chair, surrounded by instruments which did what no 
ordinary man could ever do. He looked very small in the confines of the chair, 
the box on his lap somehow seeming to accentuate his diminution. It was of 
metal, strongly chased and fitted with a combination lock. It could, probably, 
be smashed open but never rifled without leaving trace. He clung to it as if 
finding warmth and comfort from the decorated metal.
"You want something?"
"The caskets are now fully operational," said Dumarest. "Some minor work remains 
to be done on the cargo restraints, but that is all. Aside from a complete 
cleaning," he added. "I can't say anything about the rest of the ship."
"That's right." Sheyan twisted his head so as to stare at his handler. "Your job 
is to look after the cargo, not to tell me what needs to be done. And a little 
grime never killed anyone yet."
"That depends," said Dumarest, "on just where the grime is. I wouldn't care for 
it in an open wound, for example."
"The Moray is not an open wound."
"It isn't a very efficient ship either," said Dumarest bluntly. He looked about 
the control room. "Shouldn't the navigator be on duty?"
Sheyan reared up in his chair. "I decide who shall be on duty!" he snapped. "I 
am the captain. If you choose to forget it just remember what will happen if I 
decide you are insubordinate." He sank down again, his anger dissolving as 
rapidly as it had come. "You don't understand," he said. "You're thinking of the 
big ships with their big crews and the spit and polish they use to run them. The 
Moray isn't like that. A little dirt doesn't matter as long as the generators 
aren't affected. More crew means smaller shares and they are small enough as it 
is. Just ride along with us as we are and you'll be all right. Try fighting and 
it will get you nowhere."
Dumarest frowned, thinking of the man he had first met in the captain's office, 
comparing him with the man who now sat in the control chair. Physically they 
were the same, but somehow there was a difference. He had deliberately tried to 
ignite anger and had received, instead, a near apology. It was as if Sheyan had 
been cowed by something, his spirit crushed so that he wanted nothing more than 
to be left alone. Looking at the vision screens Dumarest could guess what it 
was.
Space was immense—the distances between the stars impossible to conceive by a 
human brain. The figures could be learned but they meant nothing; they were so 
vast as to be totally outside the limits of human comprehension. Light took 
years to travel between the stars; ships could do it faster but the distances 
remained the same. If anything could reduce a man's arrogance it was the cold 
indifference of the galaxy, the knowledge that in the universe he was less than 
a minute bacteria crawling on the face of creation.
Quietly he said, "Permission to use quicktime, captain?"
"What?" Sheyan jerked, his hands convulsive as they gripped the box. "Quicktime? 
Yes. Yes, by all means."
"A general issue?"
"Nimino has his own. I trust him to use it with discretion. You may give it to 
the rest."
"As you order, captain," said Dumarest. "And yourself?"
"No. I don't need it. That is, I don't want it." Again Sheyan's hands closed on 
the edges of his box. "That will be all, handler."
Alone, the captain relaxed in his chair, trying not to grip the box, to think of 
what it contained. Dumarest had annoyed him, upset him rather, but how could the 
man even begin to guess? Like the rest he was closed in by walls of metal, 
protected, shielded from what lay without. Only Nimino could really begin to 
understand because, like himself, the navigator stared with electronic eyes at 
the naked menace of the stars.
And they were menacing. They waited, confident in the knowledge that they must 
win, that they were greater than man and anything he could do. Let his ships 
probe among them, land on their worlds, diminish space by the magic of the 
Erhaft field, they would still conquer. They would always conquer because men 
were mortal and they were not. They could afford to wait and watch and, perhaps, 
glow a little brighter whenever a ship died.
As the Moray would die—and he with it.
He closed his eyes, trying to find in darkness the courage he seemed to lose 
each time they left a world. It was the inaction which caused it, he told 
himself. The necessity to do nothing but sit and wait for the one day that must 
surely come. A minor flaw in one of the instruments. A break in a component. A 
trifling error which would be magnified with distance until it became 
overwhelming. A little thing, any little thing, and he would be totally erased, 
killed, wiped out—his personal universe destroyed.
Extinction.
He gasped, shuddering, jerking open his eyes to look again at the shimmering 
splendor of the stars which hung in scattered profusion. Shining points, sheets, 
curtains and haloes of magnificent luminescence dulled, directly ahead, by the 
somber black cloud which held the Web. He stared at it, hating the darkness, 
knowing it to be a waiting trap for the unwary. Perhaps this time?
"No!" Sheyan reared up in his chair, sweat beading his face as he fought his own 
imagination. "No!"
The sound of his own voice was a comfort and he looked around, forcing himself 
to check the silent machines which filled the control room, the computers and 
sensors, the mechanical pilots with their programmed navigational tapes, the 
telltales which gave him information about the ship itself.
Tiny lights winked back at him, red and green, blue and yellow, dull orange and 
flaring white. A ripple of color and movement as vectors were checked, slight 
adjustments made, the currents of space ridden as a ship would ride a turbulent 
sea. And space was a sea, a three-dimensional ocean of electronic wind and 
magnetic storm, the dead residue of solar flares and vanished novae sweeping 
endlessly through the gulf like wreckage and flotsam, antimatter and vicious 
gusts of killing radiation.
All met and neutralized by the silent efficiency of the machines among which he 
sat.
Ships don't need captains, he thought. Navigators, perhaps, and even 
engineers—but not captains. What could I do if something went wrong? What could 
anyone do? But ships were not always in space and someone had to be in command, 
to make the decisions and to give the orders and see they were carried out. A 
ship was more than just a hull and engines and a mass of complex equipment. A 
ship was all that and more. Men still had to serve and a man still had to be in 
charge.
But men were weak. Sometimes too weak and then, when alone, they began to break. 
Slowly, at first, but always in one direction. And once they cracked, they could 
never be repaired.
Sheyan straightened, grabbing the box as it threatened to fall from his lap, 
snatching a handkerchief from his pocket and wiping the sweat from his face. Two 
days, he thought. Only two days and already you're going under. Make it three at 
least, four even, five if you can. Use quicktime like the others do and shorten 
the journey to a fraction of its real time. No man should be expected to stare 
needlessly at the stars.
Not unless he had aid.
His fingers trembled as he turned the dial of the combination. It was a simple 
setting, three numbers only, and within seconds the lid rose with a soft click. 
Inside the box something moved, sluggishly, then quickened to pulsing life as it 
felt the warmth of his hand.
The box, empty, fell to one side as Sheyan relaxed, breathing easily, lost in a 
cloud of euphoric dreams.
* * *
"The Web," said Yalung, smiling. "A fascinating place. You must know it well."
"No," said Dumarest. "I have never been there."
"Then you are new on this ship?"
"Yes." Dumarest was telling the man nothing he probably didn't already know or 
could easily find out. And he would find out. Yalung was a curious man. "Have 
you?"
"Once, many years ago; but it was a brief visit only and there was much that I 
did not see."
"In the Web," said Nimino, "there is much that no man has seen. Not even those 
who have lived their lives on one of its worlds. Am I not right, Lin?"
The steward nodded, pleased at having been brought into the conversation. The 
four were seated at the table in the salon, keeping the trader company as was 
the custom when passengers were few. All held cups of basic and a deck of cards 
lay between them. Idly, Dumarest stirred them with the tip of a finger.
"Tell me about it," he said. "There seems to be much that I should know."
"About the Web?" Lin shrugged, acting older than his years. "It's just a place 
like any other. Stars and planets and people who live on them. It seemed normal 
enough to me."
"You come from Laconis, which is near the edge," said Nimino. "And you joined us 
on our way out. Wait until we get deep into the system before you talk about it 
being normal. The Web is a cloud of primeval dust," he explained to Dumarest. 
"Within it, the stars are very close and each star has many worlds. For trading 
it is ideal for the journeys are short and the needs of the people great. At 
least it would be ideal if conditions were as they are in normal space. But the 
area within the cloud is not normal. The stars are too close. There are vicious 
gravitational crosscurrents, magnetic storms of incredible violence, ionic 
displays, and other unpleasant phenomena. You have dealt with our caskets and 
you know what eddy currents can do. Imagine them on an interstellar scale. 
Imagine also, the sleeting radiation, the very warping of space which occurs in 
areas close to double stars and you will have some idea as to conditions facing 
ships which probe too deeply into the Web."
"They are bad," said Yalung softly. "Very bad. On my last trip I heard news of 
two vessels which had failed to complete their journeys. One, it was said, fell 
into a star. The other had been found, a mass of twisted wreckage, the fabric 
having been apparently turned inside out. No one chose to guess what had really 
happened."
"And yet you return," said Dumarest quietly. "Why do that if the area is so 
dangerous?"
"For the same reason this ship returns." Yalung's smile was bland. "For profit. 
I am a dealer in precious stones and my trade is not without competition. In the 
Web are many worlds and on them could be gems of price. With conditions being 
what they are, it should be simple for a man to buy low and later sell high."
"There are gems on Laconis," said Lin quickly. "I could introduce you to my 
uncle. He would give you a fair bargain."
Again Yalung gave his bland smile. "I shall remember your offer if ever we land 
on the planet," he said. "But, meaning no disrespect, your knowledge of gems can 
hardly be large."
"It's larger than you think. Earl, show him your ring." Lin frowned as Dumarest 
made no move to obey. "Please, Earl. Show him your ring."
Slowly Dumarest lifted his left hand and rested it on the pack of cards. The 
overhead light caught the stone and turned it into the likeness of an oval of 
freshly spilled blood. His eyes were watchful as the boy touched the ring, 
fastened on the trader's face, alert to catch the slightest change of 
expression. Lin's foolish boasting might have an unexpected bonus.
"A fine stone," said Yalung casually. "Fine but hardly rare. Together with the 
mount it would be worth, perhaps, the cost of a short High passage."
"Think again," said Lin. "I know stones. This is worth double what you say."
"Perhaps." Yellow silk moved as the trader lifted his shoulders, the black 
glyphs with which it was decorated moving like slumbering serpents. "But you 
forget, my young friend, I am a trader and never enhance the price."
"But I am right?"
"You are right. The ring is worth what you say, and I must congratulate you on 
your knowledge. And now, perhaps, someone would care to indulge my pleasure in a 
game of cards?" Yalung looked from one to the other. "No? You are tired, 
perhaps? I hardly think that the crew of a ship like this would have moral 
objections to gambling."
"No," said Lin quickly. "I—"
"Will go to bed." Dumarest was curt in his interruption. "Take a cup of basic to 
the engineer, another to the captain, and then retire."
"But, Earl—"
"Do as I say." Dumarest watched as the boy drew a single cup of liquid from the 
spigot. "What about the captain?"
"He doesn't need any. Am I right, Nimino?"
"That is correct." The navigator looked at Dumarest. "Sheyan takes care of 
himself during a flight and brooks no interruption. Take the cup to the 
engineer, Lin, and then retire." He watched as the steward left the salon. "You 
were hard on the boy," he said quietly. "He is young."
Dumarest agreed. "Too young to ape the man and far too young to gamble with 
those who would take all he owns."
"And too young, perhaps, to call attention to a ring?" Yalung's voice was a 
purr. "It was bad manners, I grant, and bad manners must be punished. But to 
shame the lad? It would not have hurt him to play a little. The stakes need not 
have been high."
"If the stakes are low then it is not a gamble," said Nimino. "A man cannot lose 
what he doesn't care to keep. And you are mistaken as to Earl's motives. Why 
should he object to Lin showing you his ring?"
"Did I give that impression?" Yalung spread his hands, his smile deprecating. 
"My apologies if I did; it was unconscious, I assure you. But on Aarn there was 
talk about a man wearing a ring and another man found dead in a closet in his 
room. The dead man was a known thief and the assumption is that he died in 
pursuit of his trade. It is a rumor, you understand, a whisper in the taverns. 
You may have heard it?"
"No," said Dumarest tightly. "I did not."
"Then again I am mistaken. I thought that you were a little tender on the 
subject—no man likes to be associated with murder. But, of course, the 
association can be nothing but coincidence. Many men wear rings."
"I wear one myself," said Nimino thrusting forward his hand. The light shone 
from a golden snake coiled around his finger. "Would you care to value it, 
trader?"
"In terms of its true worth or its sentimental attachment?"
"Neither. In terms of its protective power." The navigator smiled as he lowered 
his hand. "You hesitate. Well, that is to be expected from one who deals in 
money, what could you know of the value of spiritual things? Yet you haven't the 
price of this ring should you want to buy it from me. It was given me by the 
Decal Ghengian himself and all he touched was holy."
Yalung's eyes held a gleam of amusement as he glanced at Dumarest. "Then the 
ring must be very valuable," he said gently. "For the Decal Ghengian will touch 
things no more."
"He has found the Way?" Nimino was excited. "He has found the realm beyond?"
"As well as any man can find it. He is dead. Killed by a fall from the roof of 
his hotel in Nagash on Jacellon. Some say that he was drunk and attempted to 
fly. Others that he was summoned. A few whisper that he was assassinated, but 
that is rumor and rumor always lies."
"Dead." Nimino looked down at his ring and touched it with loving fingers. "Had 
he lived what might not that man have accomplished. He could even have found the 
holy world from which all men originated."
"Now that, at least, you cannot believe," said Yalung. "It is the stuff of 
legend and as frail as gossamer. Forgive me if I lose patience but I have heard 
such legends too often to be tolerant. The mystery planets found and lost again: 
Jackpot, Bonanza, El Dorado, a dozen others. Worlds of dreams and imagination 
born of longing and dying hope. I have traveled the galaxy and have never heard 
more than a rumor of any of them."
Dumarest looked down at his hands, then at those of the trader. Quietly he said, 
"Have you ever heard of Earth?"
"Earth?" Yalung's hands remained immobile. His eyes were enigmatic as Dumarest 
raised his head to stare into the yellow face. "A strange name for a world. I 
know of Sand, an odd place of almost total desert. A species of insect lives 
beneath the surface and constructs balls of natural secretions which have a 
slight value when ground and polished. But Earth? No."
"And you, Nimino?"
The navigator hesitated. "There are so many worlds— how can one man know them 
all? The name is strange to me, Earl, yet I cannot say there is no such place."
"How about Terra? Is that name familiar?" Dumarest shrugged as both men shook 
their heads. "Well, never mind. It isn't important."
Not if a life had no value and years of searching were of no account. Not if 
home meant nothing to a man or a quest had no substance. The questions had been 
automatic, born of the hope that someone, somewhere, would be able to give a 
positive answer. It was a slim chance, but one which had to be tried. Their 
response was another disappointment to add to the rest.
Dumarest picked up the deck of cards. "Well, gentlemen," he said. "Shall we 
play?"




Chapter Three



Dumarest stood at the head of the loading ramp and looked over the landing field 
at Hendris. It was small and, aside from the Moray, deserted. An acre of gritty 
soil lacking the usual perimeter fence, the surface scarred and blotched with 
weed. To one side a huddle of shacks stood in the shadow of a gaunt warehouse, 
flimsy structures advertising their poverty. More substantial buildings rested 
further back in the town, a listless flag signaling the whereabouts of a tavern. 
Edging the field a squat tower held the administration offices, the flat roof 
surmounted by the elaborate antennae of a supra-radio.
A flash of yellow moved from the building: Yalung, probably on his way to search 
for precious gems. Thoughtfully Dumarest looked at the sky. It was dark, almost 
indigo, the ball of the sun halfway towards the horizon. It was a dull, angry 
red, the wide corona lined with sooty markings, the surface writhing as it fed 
on the dust. From a few parsecs it would be invisible, all radiation absorbed by 
the cloud before it could escape from the Web.
"Hey there!"
Dumarest looked down. A field loader had come from behind the vessel riding an 
antigrav raft loaded high with crates. He stared upwards, squinting.
"You the handler?"
"That's right."
"What happened to Elgart? I thought he was Sheyan's man."
"He was."
"Like that, eh?" The field loader shrugged. "Well, it's none of my business. You 
ready to take delivery?"
"Just a minute." Dumarest walked down the ramp until he stood level with the 
man. "When did the last ship leave here?"
"Three days ago. Heading Inside."
"And before that?"
"Maybe two weeks. Heading Inside." The man grinned. "I know what you're after, a 
ship out. Well, mister, you're not the only one. Sam Glegan at the hotel is 
getting fat on traders waiting to be carried out of the Web. It's been two 
months since the last ship headed that way and it could be as long again until 
the next."
Dumarest frowned. "Where's the next terminal?"
"Thermyle? That's in the next system. You could pick up a ship bound for there 
in maybe a month or so. Maybe less. They don't run much to schedule. Why the 
interest? You thinking of quitting the Moray?"
"Forget it." Dumarest looked at the crates. "Are they for us?"
"That's right. And there's three times as much waiting to be hauled. Where do 
you want it?"
"In the hold."
"Open up the hull and I'll oblige," said the field loader. "Failing that I can't 
do more than dump it. My job is to deliver it to the ship. How you get it inside 
is your problem." He guided the raft to the foot of the ramp and released the 
grapnels. Bobbing, the vehicle rose, an open frame behind the driver's seat. 
"Right," he said. "It's all yours."
The crates contained agricultural implements: hoes, ax heads, saw blades, 
scythes, plowshares, and rakes, together with rods and ingots of native iron. 
Each crate was heavier than the weight of a man. Dumarest lifted one and let it 
fall with a crash on the foot of the ramp. On normal vessels the loading ramp 
would have been powered, hooks and rollers carrying the cargo up to the hold 
where it could be stacked. On the Moray the power attachment refused to work.
The field loader delivered the second heap of crates as Dumarest walked from the 
vessel. He paused at the edge of the field looking to either side. Usually there 
would have been men looking for either work or passage but Hendris was a casual 
world and to wait for a ship was to starve. The edge of the field was deserted 
and Dumarest walked on to where the drooping flag hung over the tavern.
"Earl!" Claude shouted an invitation as he entered the long, bleak room. "Come 
and join me!"
The engineer sat slumped at one end of the bar, his broad, mottled face 
streaming with perspiration. One big hand was clamped around a tankard of fused 
sand. At his side Lin hovered, an attendant shadow. A straggle of men filled the 
rest of the place, most of them standing close to where Claude was sitting.
"Earl!" he shouted again. "Come and join me and my friends." His free hand 
thudded on the bar. "A drink for the handler!"
Dumarest ignored the foaming tankard the bartender slapped down before him. He 
said, "Claude, I want you back at the ship. The loading ramp isn't working."
"Why tell me?" The engineer emptied his tankard and reached for the one served 
to Dumarest. "The cargo's your job."
"And the ramp is yours. I'm not going to sweat because a fat, drunken slob is 
too lazy to do his work. Now get on your feet and get to it!"
Claude slowly rose from his stool, one big hand clenching the tankard. Thickly 
he said, "What did you call me?"
"A fat, drunken slob," said Lin. "I heard him."
"You stay out of this!" Dumarest didn't look at the steward. Around him he heard 
the scuff of boots as men retreated.
"A fat, drunken slob," said Claude softly. "A fat—"
His bulk belied his speed. He turned, his arm a blur as he smashed the edge of 
the tankard down on the counter, rising with a circle of jagged shards, 
thrusting them viciously at Dumarest's face. Dumarest lifted his left hand, his 
palm smacking against the wrist, gripping, holding it firm— the broken tankard 
inches from his eyes. He could see the savage points, the little flecks of 
brightness in the fused sand, and thought of what the improvised weapon could 
do, what one similar to it had done on Aarn.
He twisted and, as the shattered tankard dropped to the floor, balled his right 
fist and struck at Claude's jaw.
"All right," he said to Lin as the engineer fell. "When he wakes up get him back 
to the ship." To the others standing around he said, "You've helped him to drink 
his pay, now you can help him to do his work. I want six men to load the Moray. 
You six. Let's get on with it."
Nimino entered the hold as Dumarest was securing the last of the cargo. He stood 
by the open port, his slim figure silhouetted against the angry ball of the sun, 
the darkness of his skin merging with the darkness of shadow. Teeth and eyes 
caught reflected light and made touches of transient brilliance, fading gleams 
accentuated by the movements of his hand, the polish of his nails.
"I hear that you've been having a little trouble, Earl."
Dumarest lifted a crate and swung it into position. "Nothing that I would call 
trouble."
"No? Lin tells it differently. He is entranced by the manner in which you 
co-opted labor to move the cargo. And he is bemused by the speed of your 
movements. The way in which you caught Claude's wrist. To hear him relate the 
story is to believe that you moved far more quickly than is considered 
possible."
"Lin is young," said Dumarest.
"And the young tend to exaggerate." Nimino moved a little, resting his shoulder 
on the edge of the open port. "True, but the facts remain. Have you ever 
undergone specialized training? I ask because the school of Jengha Dal teaches a 
system by which the reflexes can be accelerated. Do you know of it?"
"No."
"Perhaps your formative years were spent on a world of excessive gravity," mused 
the navigator. "But no, your physical development contradicts that supposition. 
As your strength contradicts the assumption that you are a common traveler who 
chooses to work a passage from fear of riding Low."
Dumarest stacked the final crate and turned to look at the navigator. "Did I say 
that?"
"Sheyan assumed it; but, of course, he was wrong. Those who travel Low have 
little body fat and less strength. The caskets enfeeble them. You are far from 
feeble."
"And you are too curious," said Dumarest flatly.
"Perhaps, my friend, but it is said that the path to knowledge lies through the 
asking of many questions. For example, I ask myself why a man such as you should 
have been in such a hurry to leave Aarn. For fear of a man? A woman? I think not 
and yet you chose to leave on a ship like this. Perhaps Fate was pressing at 
your heels, in which case a man has no choice. But, again, why on a ship like 
this? Your experience must have told you what the Moray is. A scavenger sweeping 
between close-set stars. Lin joined us, true, but he knew no better. Claude had 
no choice and Sheyan is snared in an economic trap."
"And you?"
Nimino shrugged. "An astrologer predicted that I should find great knowledge in 
a cloud of dust. The Web is such a cloud."
"And the knowledge?"
"Is still to come."
Some knowledge, perhaps, but the navigator would be learned in the ways of 
trading. And perhaps more. He could easily be a sensitive, a clairvoyant able to 
peer into the future, or a telepath with the skill of reading minds; or perhaps 
he could sense impending danger as an animal would sense the approach of a 
hunter. Or he could simply be highly curious and inordinately suspicious.
"It will come," said Dumarest. "When the time is ripe. Until then it could be a 
good idea to concentrate on your books."
"You dislike my curiosity?"
"I dislike anything which seems to have no purpose," said Dumarest. "And I 
cannot understand why you should be interested in me."
"In the Web a man needs to know with whom he travels," said Nimino quietly. "A 
little you have shown of yourself. Not much, but a little. For example I now 
know that you are not easily cowed. That you are accustomed to violence. That 
your reflexes are amazingly fast and that you are looking for something. A 
planet named Earth. Well, wherever it is you will not find it in the Web. I 
would venture to guess that, by mischance or the workings of fate, you have 
found yourself in a blind alley. The Moray is not an easy ship to leave."
Not easy but neither was it hard; Dumarest could walk off now, but what then? 
Weeks and perhaps months of waiting stuck on this barely colonized world, 
exposed to anyone who wanted to find him, vulnerable if they should. He 
shrugged, trying to throw off the feeling which had followed him from world to 
world and was with him still. The sense that someone was at his back, watching, 
waiting to pounce. And it was not wholly a thing of imagination.
The dead man Yalung had spoken about. He had been a thief and Dumarest had 
stunned and tied him fast. Later he had found him dead and had gone immediately 
to the field. Luck had seemed to favor him when the handler had been murdered in 
the tavern but now he wasn't so sure.
Luck—or design?
And, if the latter, why?
"You are thinking, Earl," said Nimino breaking the silence. "What about? The 
cargo?"
Dumarest was willing to change the subject. "It's heavy."
"And valuable, despite what you are probably thinking. We traded the machine 
patterns for it and the buyer must have been satisfied to have delivered the 
goods so promptly." The navigator stepped deeper into the hold and kicked one of 
the crates. "Iron," he said. "Many of the inner worlds lack heavy metals and 
some of them need the oxide in order to provide trace-elements in the soil. We 
shall turn this load with profit. They are poor worlds, Earl. Starvation planets 
for the most part, colonized by mischance rather than intent. Surely you have 
come across such worlds before?"
Backward planets at the end of the line. Dead worlds without industry or work 
for transients, making it impossible for them to gather the cost of a Low 
passage.
"I've seen a few," said Dumarest. "They are bad places for a traveler to find."
"No world is a good one on which to be stranded," agreed Nimino. "You must tell 
me about them some day. In return I will tell you of Clothon, of Landkis and 
Brame. Sacred places all. Planets which have known the tread of those closer to 
the Ultimate than we. Holy places."
"Each world is a holy place," said Dumarest quietly. "To those who believe it 
so."
"And Earth? Is that mysterious world such a place?"
"Perhaps." Dumarest looked past the navigator to where two figures approached 
the ship from across the field. "The captain and our passenger. When do we 
leave?"
"Before sunset."
"To where?"
Nimino's laugh was mocking. "Does it matter, my friend? To us, all worlds are 
much the same: places to reach and leave with the minimum of delay. But, if you 
are interested, we head for Argonilla."
They were five hours on their way when the engineer sent for Dumarest. He looked 
up from where he sat at his console, the winking lights of monitoring 
instruments throwing patches of transient color across his mottled face. On one 
side of his jaw a purple bruise spread high up his cheek.
"I'm sorry, Earl," he said. "I was drunk and didn't know what I was doing. 
You've got to believe that."
"All right," said Dumarest. "You were drunk. I believe you. Is that what you 
want?"
"I want you to understand. I felt sick when Lin told me what I'd tried to do. I 
mean that, Earl."
"Sure you do—until the next time." Dumarest stared down at the engineer, 
remembering the shattered tumbler, the stabbing points. "But if it happens again 
I'll kill you."
"You mean it," said Claude. "And I don't blame you. But it was the drink, not 
me." He blinked at the winking lights, touches of gaudy brightness illuminating 
his eyes. "It gets into me sometimes. The drink, I mean. It turns sour and then 
it's a sort of devil that's got to break loose. Anything can do it. One minute 
I'll be laughing and then, just like that, I'll be in a killing rage. That's why 
I'm not on the big ships," he confessed. "I was drinking on duty, the chief 
bawled me out and I smashed him up with a wrench. I didn't kill him but he was 
pretty bad. They gave me fifty lashes and threw me out. They marked my papers, 
too, and you can't get a berth on a decent vessel without them. Not on any ship 
as an engineer. Sheyan didn't seem to mind—with the little I get from my share 
he had no choice." He stood up from the console and held out his hand. "Can we 
forget it, Earl?"
The Moray was too small a vessel to harbor bad feelings.
Slowly Dumarest took the proffered hand. "All right," he said. "But remember 
what I told you."
"I'll remember." Claude winced as he touched his cheek. "I've got reason not to 
forget. You damn near broke my jaw."
"It hurts?"
"Like hell. Can you give me anything for it?"
"Sure," said Dumarest. "Can you come to my cabin?"
Claude glanced at his instruments. "Not just yet. Give it to Lin to bring down. 
I want him to see the board when we reach supra-speed. The more experience he 
gets the better."
Dumarest found the steward in his cabin reading a worn copy of an engine manual 
and handed him the hypogun.
"This is for Claude," he said. "Take it down to him right away and give him one 
shot just over the bruise. Aim the nozzle within three inches and pull the 
trigger. Make certain you don't hit the eyes. Understand?"
Lin nodded, dropping the book as he rose. He stooped, picked it up, and 
carefully placed it on his bunk. "You and Claude all right now, Earl?"
"Yes."
"I'm glad. He's a good man, stupid when he hits the bottle but nice in a lot of 
other ways. Did I tell you he was teaching me how to be an engineer?"
"You did—and you'd better get that dope to him fast. We're close to supra-speed. 
Bring the hypogun back to me afterwards."
Dumarest was in his cabin when the steward returned. He sat on the edge of his 
bunk, a deck of cards in his hands, the cards intermeshing with a dry rustle as 
he manipulated the pack. Lin watched with interest; then, as he replaced the 
hypogun in its cabinet, said, "Why won't you let me join the game, Earl?"
"I told you: you'd lose."
The youngster was argumentative. "How can you be sure of that? Yalung said that 
the stakes needn't be high and he keeps asking me to join in. It wouldn't hurt 
to let me play, sometimes."
"You've got other things to do," said Dumarest. "Studying, for one. You won't 
become an officer if you waste your time and money."
"Please, Earl!"
Dumarest looked up and saw the young face, the eyes now drained of their 
superficial hardness and filled with the aching desire to know, to learn, to 
gain precious knowledge. To become adult in the shortest possible time. Once he 
had felt exactly the same: impatient with the slow passage of the years and 
eager to gain experience so as to catch up. He had gained it, learning the hard 
way, surviving his mistakes and paying for his failures.
But how to pass on the accumulated knowledge of years?
Dumarest looked at the cards. It was a normal deck with ace, lord, lady, jester, 
and ten to the deuce four times repeated in differentiating colors. Abruptly he 
riffled the deck and slammed the cards on the table supporting the player.
"You want to gamble," he said. "We'll do just that. Make a bet and cut—highest 
wins."
"That's a kid's game." Lin was disgusted. "A matter of luck."
"You think so?" Dumarest picked up the deck and separated three cards. "How 
about this, then? Find the jester." He held two cards in his right hand, one in 
his left. The jester was the lowest of the cards of his right. "See it?"
Lin nodded.
"Now bet." Dumarest moved his hands, the cards falling on the top of the player. 
"Which is the jester?"
"This one." Lin reached out to turn it over and winced as Dumarest caught his 
wrist. "Earl! What the hell!"
"This isn't a game," said Dumarest flatly. "Where's your money?"
Lin found coins and dropped them on the selected card.
Dumarest turned it over. "You lose. Try again."
Lin lost a second time, a third. At the eighth failure he glared at Dumarest. 
"You're cheating!"
"No, how can I do that? The cards are all in front of you." Dumarest picked them 
up and showed their faces to the steward. "I'm outguessing you, that's all. You 
lack the experience to know what I'm doing. And you lack the experience to 
gamble with Yalung. He'll take you for all you've got."
Lin was stubborn. "The luck could come my way."
"Luck has nothing to do with it," said Dumarest impatiently. "Not when you're 
playing with a professional gambler. And there's something else." He scooped up 
the money Lin had lost and heaped it to one side. From the deck of cards he 
dealt two, one to either side of the coins. "We're playing for the middle," he 
explained. "And I'm betting one thousand that my card is higher than yours."
"A thousand!" Lin looked defeated. "I can't see you. I haven't that much money."
"So you lose." Dumarest picked up the coins. "You can't win against someone who 
can beat every bet you make. Understand?"
He didn't, of course, and he wouldn't grasp the point of the demonstration until 
he'd learned it the hard way. But Dumarest had done his part. Dropping the coins 
into Lin's hand he said to the relieved steward, "Stick to your books. Watch the 
play if you like, but remember—don't gamble out of your class."
Words, he thought as he followed Lin from the cabin, and ones which made good 
sense. But since when have the young ever listened to good advice? He would play 
and he would lose, and maybe he would learn after he had paid the price. But he 
wouldn't play on this ship and certainly not with Yalung.
Dumarest thought about the passenger as he made his way along the passage 
towards the control room. The yellow-faced man remained an enigma; the secret 
parts of his mind were bounded with layers of protection. Of only one thing was 
Dumarest certain: the man was addicted to gambling; he would play long past the 
time when other men would have become satiated. And he played shrewdly and well.
* * *
The door to the control room was unlocked. Dumarest pressed it open and stepped 
into a cool dimness where machines held a life of their own and instruments 
shone in soft reflections. To one side Nimino straightened from where he had 
stooped over a panel and raised a hand in warning.
"No noise," he said. "No sudden movement, Earl. It would be most unwise."
Dumarest followed the direction of his eyes. Slumped in the shielding confines 
of the big control chair, Sheyan's head was invisible beneath a mass of pulsing 
gray. It fitted like a cap, leaving only the mouth and nostrils clear.
"A symbiote from Elgart," explained the navigator quietly. "In return for a 
little blood it provides tranquilizing dreams. I remove it long before we are 
due to land."
"How long?"
"An hour. Sometimes more. What does it matter?"
A captain who was blind and deaf to any impending danger. It mattered!
"He cannot stand the sight of the stars," said Nimino, guessing Dumarest's 
thoughts. "And he cannot leave the ship. He travels with fear as his constant 
companion. Call him a coward if you wish, but the fact remains."
"There are cures," said Dumarest. "Psychological manipulations."
"Perhaps, but not for Sheyan. His trouble cannot be cured, only accepted. For he 
is terrified of death and extinction. He will not accept the truths men have 
discovered: that one does not lead to the other. And without that conviction he 
is lost. The symbiote enables him to forget what he dare not face."
"He is mad," said Dumarest. "Insane."
"Can we really blame him? His life has been spent in the Web. How long can any 
man tread the edge of danger and remain wholly sane?" Nimino lifted his arm and 
pointed towards the screens. "Look at it, Earl. Try to imagine what you cannot 
see. The forces which are in continual imbalance as the stars fight for 
supremacy. That is why it is called the Web. Channels of relative safety run 
between the gravitational wells of stars and planets, slender lines like the 
filaments of a mass of gossamer. We have to follow them, threading our way with 
the aid of electronic sensors, balancing our speed and energy against external 
forces. And always, at any time, that delicate balance can be upset. 
Contraterrene matter exploding in a sun, a meshing of electromagnetic fields, 
solar flares and even the juxtaposition of worlds. And also there is the dust. 
Earl, no man who has not traversed the Web can appreciate its dangers."




Chapter Four



Argonilla was a cold, bleak, inhospitable world with snow thick on the landing 
field and sleet carried on the wind. Yalung took one look outside and retired to 
his cabin.
"There will be no stones of value here," he said positively. "And little of 
anything else."
Claude verified his prophecy. He came into the hold, blowing, his big frame 
muffled in shapeless garments. "They had a ship three days ago," he said 
disgustedly. "A trader bound for Thermyle. It took every decent pelt in the 
place."
Dumarest turned from where he tested the cargo restraints. "Do many ships call 
here bound for the terminal?"
"Hell, no. It was a wanderer dropping in on speculation to pick up anything that 
was going. The first ship to call in months and they beat us by three days. We 
would have done well."
"Trading iron for furs?"
"You're learning, Earl. This planet is short of heavy metal and we could have 
done a nice trade. Not now, though; there's no point in giving the stuff away. 
Sheyan's trying to get us something worth carrying." Claude shrugged. "I doubt 
if he'll find it."
The captain contracted for a load of hides to be brought to the ship and paid 
for when stowed. He left before half had arrived in order to avoid a coming 
storm. From Argonilla they went to Feen where they sold the hides and sonic 
recordings for cash, bought a quantity of crystallized extract of glandular 
secretions culled from a local life form, and gained a passenger.
Brother Angus of the Church of Universal Brotherhood was a small, elderly man 
with a wizened face and balding skull. He stood blinking in the bright light of 
the salon, diminutive in his robe of homespun, sandals on his bare feet, and the 
traditional begging bowl of chipped plastic in his hand.
Yalung, from where he sat at the table, said, "Greetings, brother. You seek 
charity?"
"To give is to acquire virtue," said the monk in a musical voice. He looked at 
the captain. "I understand that you are bound for Phane, brother. Is this so?"
"And if it is?"
"I beg your charity, brother, to give me a passage. I am willing to travel Low."
Sheyan frowned. In normal space monks were many, but hardly seen in the Web. The 
power of the Church in the small conglomeration of stars was negligible and it 
was safe to refuse. He tried to soften the blow.
"Phane is a hard world, brother, with little charity. I do not think you would 
be welcome."
"I do not ask for welcome, brother. Merely a place on which to set a church and 
to ease the hearts of men. The church," the monk added quickly, "is very small. 
A benediction light, some plastic sheeting and collapsible supports. I can carry 
the whole thing on my back."
Sheyan's frown deepened. "I would not care to take the risk, brother. You talk 
of going to an inhospitable world."
Quietly the monk said, "Are there poor on Phane, brother?"
"There are poor everywhere," snapped the captain. "I am poor. Too poor to waste 
energy carrying unprofitable mass. I am sorry but I must refuse. The handler 
will guide you from the ship."
"Take him," said Dumarest.
"Will you pay his cost of a High passage?" Sheyan glared his anger. "From your 
share, perhaps? The profits we're making wouldn't even pay for his food."
"You're being foolish," insisted Dumarest. "The good will of the monks is worth 
having. It would be a wise investment to carry him to Phane. And we could use 
the luck he might bring us," he added. "The Moray can use all the luck it can 
get. Am I right, Nimino?"
"A holy man is worth more than a cargo of rotting hides," said the navigator. 
"Hides on which we would have made a profit had they been left behind. Earl is 
right, captain. It would be wisdom for you to gain virtue at this time."
Sheyan brooded then accepted defeat. "All right, have it your way. But I warn 
you, the cost of his passage will be deducted from our profits before I make the 
share."
Dumarest settled the monk in a cabin, carrying the collapsed bulk of the 
portable church from outside. Setting it down he looked at Brother Angus, who 
had sat on the bunk.
"You have been long in the Web, brother?"
"Many years. It is a hard place with hard men but I hope to have brought a 
little comfort into their bleak lives." The monk stretched, enjoying the warmth 
and relative comfort of the cabin. "You were kind to persuade your captain to 
give me passage. He seems to be an aggressive man."
"He is old and worried and afraid," said Dumarest, and added, casually, "In your 
travels, Brother, have you seen many cybers?"
Imperceptibly the monk stiffened. Between the Church and the Cyclan no love was 
lost, each regarding the other as would cat and dog. In the wizened face his 
eyes were shrewd as he answered the question.
"An odd thing to ask, brother, but the answer is no. There is little in the Web 
to attract those who wear the scarlet robe. No great houses or industrial 
combines. No ruling lords, managers, dictators, and chairmen. Most worlds have 
only one settlement and to sway their destiny would not be easy. And few could 
afford to purchase the service of the Cyclan. The advice of a cyber does not 
come cheap. You are new to the Web, brother?"
"Yes," said Dumarest.
"You have chosen a hard life with much danger and small reward."
Dumarest smiled. Few lives could be as hard and as unrewarding than that chosen 
by the monk. Living in poverty, surrounded by it, alleviating it as best they 
could, the servants of the Universal Church were to be found wherever men 
suffered most. In their portable churches they offered solace to tormented 
minds; the suppliants confessing their sins beneath the hypnotic glow of the 
benediction light, to be relieved of guilt and to suffer subjective penance 
before being given the bread of forgiveness.
And if most suppliants knelt as a prelude to obtaining the wafer of concentrate 
the monks did not mind. They considered it a fair exchange for the hypnotic 
conditioning they installed together with the penance. The command not to 
kill—the reason why Dumarest had never knelt before the glowing kaleidoscope of 
the benediction light.
* * *
At Phane they loaded synthetic fiber for Igar. From Igar to Landkis, to Oll, to 
Krieg: a scatter of insignificant worlds close to suns which burned like red hot 
embers in the dust. The Moray questing and probing as it rode from world to 
world, earning hardly enough to pay for the energy it used.
Claude brooded about it as he sat with the others, his nerves twitching with the 
need of alcohol. His supplies were exhausted; Krieg had been a temperate world 
without taverns. "We're going to end up owing money," he said. "A minus profit. 
A hell of a way for any trader to operate."
"The luck will change," said Lin. The steward had brought cups of basic from the 
salon. "You'll see. Nimino's working on it right now."
"Burning incense and mumbling incantations," said Claude.
"Praying to his gods and trying to bribe them to throw us a good cargo." He 
gulped half his meal and sat, scowling into the cup. A thread of vapor rose from 
it, the contents warmed by a heating element in the base. "How can a man with 
his brains be so stupid as to believe in such rubbish? And you're as bad," he 
added, glaring at Dumarest. "We should never have carried that monk. We were 
begging for trouble. The first rule of a trader is never to carry anything 
without profit. It's bad luck to break it."
"Now who's superstitious?" Dumarest sipped at his own cup. It contained enough 
energy to nourish a spaceman for a day and it was all they had been eating since 
entering the Web. "Luck has nothing to do with it. Sheyan moves on too fast. He 
should wait until the news of the Moray's arrival has had time to spread. My 
guess is that we are missing cargoes because we're gone before they can be 
delivered."
"No," said Claude. "It doesn't work like that. On other worlds, perhaps, but not 
in the Web. Cargoes are assembled and waiting for the first ship to arrive. 
We've been unlucky. On Argonilla and Landkis we arrived just too late. Oll had 
been stripped a week before we got there." He drank again, frowning. "Let's hope 
we have better luck on Candara."
Candara was an ancient world, great seas lapping a solitary land mass composed 
of low hills, boulders, leached and inferior soil. Straggling vines, olives, and 
other cultivated crops surrounded the settlement with beasts grazing beyond on 
rough foliage. The foothills were crusted with trees, shining a dull brown in 
the light of a somber sun.
"Candara," said Nimino as he stood beside Dumarest in the open port. "Sheol 
would have been a better name. Look at it, Earl. Who do you think would ever 
choose to settle here?"
Dumarest could guess. The followers of a minor sect turning their backs on 
civilized comfort for the sake of imagined spiritual reward. Masochists who took 
a delight in physical hardship. Unfortunates who had had no choice. The 
dispossessed glad of any world to call their own.
"You were right the first time," said Nimino. "They are a hard people following 
a hard path towards the Ultimate. They may be right, but I would not like to 
emulate them." He lifted an arm, pointing. "You see that building? The one with 
the tower and walls of massive stone? That is their temple. I have seen the 
inside, a gloomy place devoid of color, the very air depresses with thoughts of 
the tomb."
"Do they have wine?" Dumarest was thinking of the engineer.
"Ceremonial vintage only. Twice a year they release their emotions in a great 
feast. They have the best food available and wallow in wine. There is singing 
and dancing and marriages take place. Fighting, too, as old scores are paid. For 
three days they enjoy civilized dissipation and then, ashamed, they spend the 
next six months in hard work and repentance." Nimino shook his head. "An odd way 
to live and yet they must find it to their liking. Never yet have we had anyone 
asking for passage."
"Perhaps they can't afford it."
"Or perhaps they are afraid to step outside their own narrow world," said the 
navigator shrewdly. "There is a comfort in recognized boundaries." He turned as 
Lin called from beyond the hold. "Sheyan is waiting for me to accompany him to 
the chief elder. Why don't you join us?"
"And Claude?"
"He remains behind. The last time we were here he drank too deeply of the 
guest-offering. Need I say more?"
Two men waited with the captain. They were stern, middle-aged, dressed in plain 
garments of undyed wool; their hair long and held by a fillet of hammered steel. 
Each carried a staff as tall as himself and as thick as three fingers. Their 
faces were deeply scored and devoid of humor. The honor guard, thought Dumarest, 
or the escort to restrict the contaminating influence of the visitors. He fell 
into step behind the captain as they led the way towards a squat building built 
of stone and roofed with shells.
Inside was a long table, benches, and a rack to hold clothing. All were roughly 
made of wood; the marks of the tools clearly visible. The floor was of tamped 
dirt polished until it shone like lambent glass. As they entered, the chief 
elder rose from the head of the table. He could have been the father of the 
guards.
"I am Herkam, the chief elder," he intoned. "I bid you welcome."
"I am Sheyan, captain of the Moray. These men are of my crew." Sheyan gestured, 
naming them. "I thank you for your welcome. Your hospitality will not be 
abused."
It was a ritual and belonged to the setting. An event to break the monotony and 
to add to the prestige of the chief elder. Dumarest sat when bidden and shared 
in the guest-offering of cakes and wine. The cakes were small, made of 
rough-ground flour with a nutty consistency and surprisingly sweet. The wine was 
better than he had anticipated.
"The law of hospitality," whispered Nimino at his side. "Now we cannot be 
injured or detained."
The formalities dispensed with, the business then commenced. Prepared skins of 
giant fish, soft and with a scaled gleam, ornaments of carven bone, unusual 
shells, giant crystals which sang when struck, and vials of oil which formed the 
base of costly perfume began to pile on the table. They were samples from the 
stocks held in the warehouse. Sheyan's hands quivered a little as he inspected 
them.
"The goods are of fine quality," he admitted. "I have seen better, but these are 
good. Yet, as good as they are, the market for such things is small. Have you 
nothing else?"
Necklets of amber, pieces of stone striated with luminous color, fronds of dried 
weed which gave off aromatic perfumes when burned joined the other goods on the 
table.
Dumarest watched as the captain examined them. Already he knew what really 
interested the man, the vials of costly oil, his other actions were to cover his 
real object which was to obtain the oils at the lowest possible price. But he 
was too transparent. Either the run of bad luck had affected his nerves or his 
eagerness had numbed his caution.
"You have seen what we have to offer," said the chief elder. Sunken in the seams 
of his harsh face his eyes never left the captain's. "What have you to offer in 
exchange?"
"Iron," said Sheyan. "Implements to work the soil."
"Our religion forbids us to use the things of the Evil One," said Herkam 
sternly. "We have tools of wood and shell and stone. Nature's free gifts to us, 
her children. These things we can make at any time."
Dumarest said, "And fishhooks?"
The shrewd eyes flickered as Herkam looked down the table. "You have such 
things?"
"Of many sizes," said Dumarest, ignoring the captain's glare. "Together with 
fine chains and gaffs of steel."
"We may see them?"
"Tomorrow." Dumarest didn't look at the captain. "Now, if we have your leave to 
depart, we will begin unstacking our cargo."
Sheyan remained silent while within earshot of the guards, but once back in the 
privacy of the Moray, he exploded.
"What the hell do you think you're doing? I gave you leave to come and watch—not 
to take over. You've ruined a good trade. A ship could land at any time and 
snatch it from under our noses."
"A ship carrying fishhooks?"
"What's that got to do with it?"
"Everything." Dumarest was curt. "I suggest that you use your mouth less and 
your eyes more. This is a world almost wholly composed of ocean. You saw those 
skins and sea products. How do you think they catch such big fish?"
"With nets," said Nimino. "And spears. I've seen them."
"Nets that are easy to break and hard to mend. With spears made of wood and 
stone and shell. You heard the chief elder. How strong do you think a spear like 
that is against what must live in the ocean?" Dumarest looked from one to the 
other. "You don't know," he said. "You've never had to fish for your food. I 
have and, believe me, there's nothing quite so hard to make as a strong fishhook 
if you can't use metal. Chains, too, in order to prevent the catch from biting 
through the line. And gaffs so that you can hook it aboard. Supply what I 
promised and you'll have no trouble getting your oil."
Sheyan bridled. "How did you know that was what I wanted?"
"I knew," said Dumarest. "And Herkam knew also. If you take my advice you'll ask 
for everything else but the oil. Set the price of the hooks ridiculously high in 
terms of skins and amber, weed and crystals; a thousand times its own weight. 
The chains and gaffs a little less, they can do without those if they have to. 
But they can't do without the hooks."
"He makes sense, captain," said Nimino. "Don't forget, Earl is a gambler, he 
knows how to bluff."
"How to lie, you mean," snapped Sheyan. "How can we trade what we haven't got?"
"We'll get it," said Dumarest. "We'll make it. There are tools in the engine 
room and laser torches to cut and fuse and use as a forge. And we have rods of 
iron as well as the rest of the stuff. With five of us working full time we'll 
be able to make what we need."
"By tomorrow?" Regretfully Nimino shook his head. "It's a good plan, Earl, but 
we can't do it in the time. We haven't the experience and we'll be slow. We 
simply haven't the time to both learn and manufacture."
"Yes we have," said Dumarest. "We'll use slowtime."
* * *
Herkam slowly lifted the length of chain and let it fall, link by link, to the 
surface of the table. It was well-made: half-inch circles linked and welded 
tight. The gaffs were rougher, adapted from hoes cut and shaped and sharpened 
into curved tines. The hooks were cruder still, the unpolished metal showing 
signs of tools and tempering, but they were viciously barbed with an eye for the 
leader and filed to a needle point.
"These items are of worth," said the chief elder slowly. "Our young men die too 
often while fishing the waters, falling prey to the beasts that live in the 
ocean; yet our land is poor and we need the meat of the sea. Even so I cannot 
take them. All night I have wrestled in prayer, seeking guidance from the All 
Powerful, and counsel from the vaults of the dead; they remained silent yet I 
know what must be done. We cannot use the fabrications of the Evil One."
"The iron used was that received from the skies," said Sheyan quickly. Primed by 
Dumarest he was ready to bluff, by Nimino ready to lie and to turn the religion 
of the elder to his own ends. "As such surely it is a natural thing? As natural 
as stone and wood and shell. Meteors, by their nature, cannot be from the domain 
of the Evil One."
Herkam nodded, willing to be convinced, and Dumarest gained the impression that 
he had raised the objection merely in order to lower the price.
"You make a point, captain. One which has to be gravely considered. Let us do so 
over a glass of wine."
Was the old man delaying, perhaps hoping for the arrival of another trader? 
Dumarest doubted it. The last time the Moray had called it had carried 
biological fertilizers, wool, strains of mutated yeast, seeds and artifacts of 
iron-hard wood. All natural things according to the dogma of the Candarians. 
Sheyan had never guessed that his load of iron might prove worthless.
Dumarest swallowed his wine, feeling the rich liquid ease some of the fatigue 
which ached his bones. He looked at his hands, bruised and discolored with 
pressure and strain. Slowtime was a dangerous drug to use on a wakeful man. It 
accelerated the metabolism and slowed normal time to a fortieth of its normal 
passing. A man so drugged would move forty times as fast, do forty times as 
much. But care had to be taken. Flesh and bone could not stand the shattering 
impact of a normal blow. The touch had to be gentle, the movements under 
constant control. He had the knack and so did Nimino. They had used the drug 
while the others did the rough work. Moving, gulping down pints of basic to 
replenish lost energy, sleeping to wake and eat and work and eat again.
Always eating to ward off starvation, getting hurt and bruised, doing the labor 
of forty times their number.
Dumarest blinked and drank a little more wine. Later he would sleep and restore 
the strength he had expended. Now he wanted to follow the progress of the 
trading.
It was going well. Sheyan, recovered from his initial over-eagerness, confident 
that he now had what the chief elder wanted, was pressing a hard bargain.
"The weed is bulky," he said. "My hold would barely take the worth of a dozen 
hooks. The skins are better and the crystals even more so, yet still they have 
bulk and my hold is small."
"And the oil?" Herkam pushed forward a container. It was of baked clay sealed 
with wax. "This would take but little room."
"True." Deliberately Sheyan broke the seal and poured some of the contents into 
the hollow of his palm. He rubbed his hands, smelled, frowned, smelled again. 
"An extract from a fish?"
"From the giant clams which live deep in the water. They have a gland which can 
be milked. From the oil can be made a costly perfume."
Nimino smiled and whispered, "Do you think Sheyan is overacting, Earl? Maybe 
you'd better end the bargain before he talks us all out of a profit."
"He's doing well." Dumarest reached out and helped himself to more wine. The 
container was a gourd bright with inset shells and had probably taken some woman 
a year to make. "This is no time to interfere."
Sheyan slammed his hand hard on the table. "Done! The oil, the crystals, some 
amber and skins in the ratio agreed on. In return we give the hooks chains and 
gaffs. Can we load immediately?"
"First we must drink to seal the bargain." The haggling done the chief elder 
could afford to relax a little. "You find our wine palatable?"
"It is a rare vintage." Sheyan, too, had relaxed. He had driven a hard bargain 
and had cause to be satisfied. "A veritable gift of nature."
"And, as such, not to be swilled as the food of swine," said the chief elder 
sternly. "Mother Nature has given us the grape to be used for the comfort of 
guests and the libation of sacrifice." He sipped at his glass. "And now, 
captain, there is a service I must ask you to perform."
Sheyan narrowed his eyes. "And that is?"
"A matter of dissension which needs to be settled."
"A trial?"
"That and perhaps more. I beg your indulgence for this imposition on a guest, 
but the matter must be settled immediately. You will form a tribunal?"
"Of course." Sheyan gestured towards Dumarest and Nimino. "These two officers 
will accompany me. When will you need us?"
"Two hours after sunset, captain. I shall send men to escort you to the meeting 
house."
"So late?" The captain's voice echoed his displeasure. "I could be loaded and 
ready to leave in an hour. Time is money to a trader."
"Two hours after sunset," repeated the chief elder firmly. "It will be dark and 
the workers will be in from the fields and the sea. You may load, captain, 
everything but the oil. That we shall deliver to you after the trial."




Chapter Five



Night came with a thin wind gusting from the sea, a mist of cloud hiding the 
stars and intensifying the darkness. Men with torches came to escort the 
tribunal, their faces hard and solemn in the guttering light. Nimino's voice was 
low as he walked beside Dumarest, both men three paces behind the captain.
"We get this from time to time. As traders we're considered to be impartial and 
when a hard decision has to be made we are asked to give it. That way no one has 
any reason to hold a grudge. A lot of these worlds have a tribal culture or 
large families locked in a struggle for power. A vendetta would ruin them and 
most are too proud or too wary to submit to the judgment of other residents." 
Nimino stumbled as his foot caught an obstruction and he grabbed at Dumarest's 
arm to save himself from falling. "I just hope that we don't have to execute 
anyone."
The meeting house was a long, low-roofed structure built of logs caulked with 
clay, lit by flaring torches, and hung with a clutter of various trophies. 
Benches accommodated the audience, the sour reek of their bodies rising to blend 
with the resinous smell of the torches, the odor of damp soil.
Dumarest studied them as he took his seat on the raised platform occupying one 
end of the hall. They wore either rough jerkins and trousers made of treated 
fish skins or somber garments of wool. The fishers and farmers, he decided; but 
aside from their clothes they seemed all cast from the same mold. Like the 
elderly guards, their faces were set in fanatical lines as if to laugh was to 
commit a sin. Hair was long and held back with fillets of skin or leather; those 
of hammered steel being obviously a badge of authority. There were no young 
women present but a double row of matrons, shapeless in voluminous dresses, sat 
at the extreme rear.
Nimino leaned towards Dumarest and said quietly, "Look at their eyes, Earl. Have 
you ever seen such an expression before?"
It was the blood-lust glare inherent to mobs and to those anticipating blood and 
pain. He had seen it a hundred times in the eyes of watchers clustered around a 
ring where men fought with ten-inch blades. At his side Sheyan moved restlessly 
on the hard wooden chair.
"Why the delay?" he said to the chief elder. "We are assembled, where is the 
prisoner?"
There was a stir at the far end of the hall. A dozen men, guards, hard-faced and 
no longer young, marched forward with someone in their midst. They halted before 
the raised platform and stepped back, their staves swinging horizontal before 
them to form a barrier. Isolated in the clear space before the platform, a girl 
looked coolly at the tribunal.
"By God," she said. "Men. Real men at last!"
"Silence!" Herkam's voice was harsh with anger. "There will be no blasphemy. 
Guards! If the woman Lallia speaks so again you will strike her down!"
Nimino drew in his breath with an audible hiss. "By the sacred mantras of the 
Dedla Vhal," he said. "That is a woman!"
She was tall, with a mane of lustrous black hair which swept from a high 
forehead and rested on her left shoulder. Beneath a rough dress of undyed wool 
the curves of her body strained under the fabric. Her skin was white, arms and 
feet bare, the long column of her throat unadorned. The long-lashed eyes were 
bold, challenging, and the full lips held a wealth of sensuous passion.
Herkam looked at Sheyan, at the others of the tribunal.
"This is the one on whom you must pass judgment," he said. "She came to us 
several months ago from a ship which called here. We gave her the guest offering 
of food and wine and accepted the stranger within our gates. In return she has 
sowed dissension, turning brother against brother, mocking our sacred ways and 
filling the young men with thoughts of evil. We gave her work among the women 
and she dazzled their minds with tales of orgies, dancing, fine raiment, and 
decadent living. We put her to work alone and then had to set guards to keep the 
young men away from the enticement of her body."
"A moment." Sheyan lifted his hand. "What is the charge against her?"
"That of witchcraft! Of consorting with the Evil One!"
"The evidence?"
It was as Dumarest expected; a list of petty incidents inconsequential in 
themselves, but in this inbred, neurotic community, swollen to grotesque 
proportions. A woman had pricked her thumb while cleaning fish skins, the 
resultant infection was wholly due to the accused's evil eye. A young man had 
died while fishing—a spell must have been laid on his spear so that it broke at 
a critical time. Crops had withered after she had walked among them. A baby had 
sickened after she had spoken to it.
Dumarest looked at the chief elder during the interminable list of complaints 
and accusations. Herkam was no fool and must know the real value of what was 
being said. Lallia was guilty of arousing nothing more than jealously and 
resentment among the women, desire and frustration among the men. And yet, in 
such a community, such emotions were dangerous. He began to understand why the 
case had been given to outsiders to judge.
"This is a bad one, Earl." Nimino's voice was barely a whisper. "We're dealing 
with fanaticism and aberrated fears —an ugly combination."
It was more than that. Dumarest leaned back, watching the faces of the girl, the 
men and women seated on the benches. Herkam was playing a shrewd game of 
politics and playing it well. There would be factions for and against the girl. 
Young men of high family would be enamored of her beauty, each snarling like a 
dog over a favored bone, each determined that if he could not win the prize then 
it should fall to no other. The women would be banded in a common determination 
to bring her down. Herkam would be trying to both maintain the peace and his own 
authority.
And shortly would come the time of festival when the wine flowed and old scores 
were settled. A time of unleashed passion and explosive violence. In such an 
atmosphere the girl would be a match to tinder and, no matter what happened, the 
chief elder would be held to blame.
Dumarest leaned forward as the accusations ceased and said to Sheyan. "Let us 
hear from the girl herself."
"There's no need," the captain was sharp. "She'd deny everything, what else 
would you expect?"
"He's right, Earl." Nimino joined the low conversation. "We're not dealing with 
justice here. The girl is innocent, of course, but we daren't say so. They 
wouldn't accept it. They want her to be found guilty and destroyed. Herkam wants 
that, too, but he doesn't want her blood on his hands." The navigator frowned, 
thinking. "We could take her with us but I doubt if they would let her go. They 
have to be proved right and they want to see her suffer."
"We could execute her," said Sheyan. "At least that would be quick."
"No," said Dumarest.
"What else?" The captain's face was bunched, knotted with anger. "Do you want 
her to be burned? Or have you got some crazy idea of rescuing her? If you have 
forget it. We're three against an entire community and we wouldn't even get out 
of this hall. And we'd lose the oil," he added. "Unless we play this Herkam's 
way he won't release it."
"The oil," said Dumarest tightly. "Is that all you're thinking about?"
"I'm thinking of the ship, the crew, your share and mine. Do you think I intend 
to throw away the best trade I've ever made for the sake of some stupid slut? 
Look at her!" Sheyan gestured to where Lallia stood, waiting. "A cheap harlot 
who got herself dumped. Well, to hell with her! I'm no wet nurse to aid the 
fallen. She's got herself into a mess and she can't expect us to lose our profit 
to get her out. I say we return a verdict of guilty."
"No," said Dumarest again. "She's innocent and we all know it."
"What's that got to do with it?" Sheyan looked at his hands, they were 
trembling. "Don't push it, handler," he said harshly. "I don't like doing this 
but it has to be done. We won't get that oil unless we act smart—and I intend 
getting that oil. A majority vote will do it. Nimino?"
The navigator hesitated. "She is very beautiful. To destroy such beauty would be 
a crime."
"Are you turning soft on me?"
"No, captain, but there could be another way. Do you object to taking her with 
us?"
"As long as we get the oil—no."
"And you, Earl? Will you help?"
Dumarest was wary. "What have you got in mind?"
"A trick," said Nimino. "An appeal to their religious convictions. It is the 
only chance the woman has."
The hall fell silent as Nimino rose to his feet, soft whispers dying to be 
replaced by a straining expectancy. In the guttering torchlight eyes gleamed 
savage, feral: the eyes of animals rather than those of men. From where he stood 
to one side, the chief elder stepped towards the tribunal.
"Have you reached your verdict?"
"We have." The navigator's voice rolled with the power of an incantation. "It is 
the verdict of us all."
"And that is?"
Deliberately Nimino took his time before answering, letting the silence lengthen 
to obtain dramatic effect. He was a good actor, thought Dumarest, and was 
putting to use the things he had learned from attending numerous religious 
ceremonies. Casually he glanced at the woman. Lallia stood, tense, white teeth 
gnawing at her lower lip. Her eyes, no longer bold, held a shadow of worry. The 
tribunal had taken too long, there had been too much discussion, and she was 
cynical in her knowledge of the ways of men. Dumarest caught the slight tension 
of muscles beneath the fabric of her dress, the tensing of thighs and stomach, 
the unconscious reaction of a person who readied herself for struggle or flight.
But there was nowhere to run and she would not have to fight.
"Your verdict?" Herkam's nerve had snapped and he spoke to break the tension. 
"What is your decision?"
"That the woman face trial by combat!"
It was totally unexpected. The chief elder's face went blank as he tried to 
grasp the implications and Nimino spoke again, quickly, before he could protest.
"We have traveled many worlds and have seen the manifestations of the All 
Powerful in many guises. And, too, we have seen the malicious designs of the 
Evil One. Who can gauge the extent of his cunning? Who can deny that they are 
proof against his insidious evil? This woman has been accused of witchcraft and 
it may well be that she is guilty. If so then she must be put to death for it is 
an abomination that such as she be allowed to live. But if she has been wrongly 
accused, what then?"
"She is a witch!"
"Kill her!"
"Slay the thing of evil!"
The voices poured from where the double row of matrons sat at the rear of the 
hall. Others, less coherent, came from the assembled men. Several sprang to 
their feet, arms waving, feet stamping the dirt of the floor.
"Hold!" The chief elder signaled to the guards and heavy staves lifted and fell 
as they beat the young men back into their places. "There will be silence in 
this place. We deal with a human life and that is not a thing to be treated 
without due solemnity." He turned to where Nimino stood. "Explain."
"The charge of witchcraft is one easy to make and hard to refute," continued the 
navigator. "It could be that the All Powerful has reached forth to place the 
truth on the lips of those who accuse—or it could be that the Evil One seeks to 
rend the hearts of those same accusers by causing them to bear false witness. If 
that should be the case, and if the accused should die because of it, then woe 
to the people of Candara." His voice deepened, echoed with rolling thunder. 
"They shall die and perish to be blown away by the wind. Their crops shall fail 
and their cattle abort and the beasts of the sea shall withhold their meat. 
Demons shall come to torment the night with ceaseless dreams and all shall 
perish to become as dust in the wind. For the All Powerful will not extend the 
wing of protection to those who are seduced by the Evil One. There will be no 
peace, no comfort, brother shall turn against brother and man shall turn against 
wife. All, all will be totally lost and pass as if they had never been. This I 
prophesy!"
Herkam frowned; he had no liking for anyone but himself making such prophecies, 
especially not visiting traders. And things were not going as he had planned. He 
had expected a quick verdict of guilty in which case the woman could have been 
disposed of and the incident forgotten.
He said sharply, "We know full well the might of the All Powerful. What does 
your verdict imply?"
Nimino smiled, white teeth flashing in the torchlight. "The woman denies being a 
witch," he said. "We have decided that the matter be judged by a Higher Power. 
If her champion falls then she is proven guilty. If not, then she must be 
allowed to depart in peace."
The thing had its possibilities. The chief elder pondered them, conscious of the 
watchful eyes in the hall, the air of anticipation. A fight would provide the 
needed spectacle, the necessary blood and, in the remote event of the woman's 
champion winning, he would be able to castigate those who had made the 
accusations. In either case he would be rid of the troublemaker. But it would be 
best if the woman did not win.
He said, "Who is the woman's champion?"
Dumarest rose. "I am."
Herkam felt a glow of inner satisfaction. A trader. One who, by the nature of 
his employment, must of necessity lack the strength of a manual worker.
"I bow to your verdict," he said sonorously. And then, to the guards, said, 
"Find Gilliam and bring him here."
The man was an atavar, a monster, a mutated freak spawned from 
radiation-distorted genes. Seven feet tall, his shoulders and arms heavy with 
ridged and knotted muscle, his legs as thick and as strong as the boles of 
gnarled trees, he lumbered from the rear of the hall and stood blinking in the 
cleared space before the platform. Matted hair fell to just above his deep-set 
eyes. Bare feet, callused and scarred, toed the ground. His hands clenched as a 
voice rumbled from the depths of his chest.
"You want Gilliam, chief elder?"
"I want you to fight." Herkam pointed towards Dumarest. "This is the man."
"To kill?"
"To kill." Herkam gestured at the guards. "Take him and prepare him for battle."
"Earl, I'm sorry." Nimino sucked in his breath. "I didn't know. I thought they 
would use one of the guards. You're fast and could have taken any of them 
without trouble. Who would have guessed they had a monster like that?"
"Win or lose I want that oil." Sheyan's face was furrowed with worry. "If you 
fall, Dumarest, I'm sorry; but it will be just too bad. There's nothing we can 
do to help you. You go and the girl goes with you."
Dumarest looked to where she stood, the full lips bloodless now, her eyes like 
those of a trapped beast. The hands at her sides were clenched, the knuckles 
showing white beneath the skin. She turned and caught his eyes, her own 
following him as he stepped from the platform and moved towards her.
"Mister," she said flatly, "I thank you for what you're trying to do, but you 
haven't got a chance. That freak can't be stopped."
"You want me to pull out?"
"No." Her voice was resonant, musical beneath the harshness of strain. "This way 
I've got a slim chance," she admitted. "The other way I've got none at all. 
These crazy people want my blood and if you quit they'll get it." She shivered a 
little. "Look at them! Animals! And Gilliam's the worst. He's an idiot, solid 
bone and muscle with the intelligence of a five-year-old. They use him to haul 
up the boats and do all the heavy stuff. Sometimes he goes insane and then they 
have to catch him in nets and tie him down. As a reward they let him slaughter 
the cattle. He thinks it's fun."
Dumarest looked to where men clustered around the giant. They were stripping 
him, coating him with oil, fastening a loincloth of leather around his hips. 
Dwarfed by his stature the chief elder stood to one side, hands lifted, lips 
moving as he called a blessing down on the champion of the people.
Nimino came to stand beside the girl and Dumarest.
"You'd better get ready, Earl," he said, his voice reflecting his worry. "Is 
there anything I can do?"
"Fetch him a laser," said Lallia. "That or a score of men to help him out."
The navigator ignored the comment. "Well, Earl?"
"No." Dumarest flexed his toes in his shoes, his shoulders beneath the material 
of his uniform. The plastic was firm and would give some protection against the 
claws of his opponent. "Do we fight bare-handed?"
A guard came forward and handed him a stave. It was a plain length of wood, six 
feet long and two inches thick; both ends were bound with leather. Nimino 
stepped back, pulling the girl with him as Gilliam moved to the center of the 
open space.
"I kill," he said. And rushed forward.
Dumarest ducked and felt the wind brush his hair, the drone of the staff's 
passing sounding like a deep-toned bee. Immediately he sprang aside as Gilliam, 
turning with amazing speed, again lashed out with the staff. He held it in one 
great hand, wielding it as a boy would a stick, lashing with the full power of 
his arms and shoulders at the darting figure in the cleared space.
"Good luck, Earl!" called Nimino.
"Kill him, Earl!" said the girl.
Dumarest ignored the encouragement as he warily darted from the attacks of his 
opponent. He held his own staff horizontal before him, each hand a third of the 
way from either end, ready to parry or strike as the opportunity presented 
itself. The weapon was clumsy, awkward to handle, needing much practice before a 
man could become proficient in its use. Had Gilliam used it properly Dumarest 
knew that he would already be dead.
He ducked again, darted to one side, sprang back as a vicious downswing caused 
the air to strike his eyeballs. It was useless to attempt to tire his opponent, 
those great muscles would house inexhaustible energy and, too, they protected 
the bone beneath. Letting trained reflexes govern his evading movements Dumarest 
studied the weak points against which he must aim his attack: the groin, joints, 
eyes, and throat. The groin presented too small a target and was protected by 
the swell of thighs and the ridged muscle of the belly. A successful attack 
could win the contest but the chances were against it being successful. The 
deep-set eyes were set with ridges of overhanging bone; the spade of the chin 
lowered over the vulnerable throat. The elbows were awkward to get at.
Only one thing was really in his favor: the limited intelligence of the giant. 
Gilliam had been given a staff and told to kill his opponent. He tried to do it 
with the staff alone instead of adding the weapon to his natural armory. Also he 
was using it as a saber—and any man armed with a quarterstaff could beat a 
swordsman.
If he were skilled with its use.
If the swordsman had normal strength.
Again the giant swung his staff through the air. Dumarest ducked, straightened, 
and saw the length of wood sweeping in a backhand slash towards his skull. 
Desperately he threw up his own staff, the wood meeting with a vicious crack, 
the force of the interrupted blow knocking his own weapon hard against the side 
of his head. Dazed, Dumarest fell to the ground, rolling frantically as the 
staff whined down towards him, the end gouging deep as he sprang to his feet.
"Kill!" gloated the giant. "I kill!"
Dumarest tensed as the giant reared back, the staff lifted high. His hands 
shifted as he altered his grip on his own weapon. Should Gilliam sweep his staff 
downwards in a cutting blow then he must spring to one side and slam the end of 
his own pole directly into one of the eyes. If he should try a sidewise swing 
then he must duck and strike before the giant could recover his balance.
Air droned as the staff swept towards him.
Dumarest crouched, straightened, and struck at the side of the giant's face, the 
end of his staff smashing against the prominent ridge of bone protecting the 
eye. Immediately Gilliam turned, staff whining in a backhand blow. Dumarest 
sprang from it, throwing himself behind the giant's back, poising himself with 
the staff held by the end in both hands, the tip well beyond his shoulder. As 
the giant, baffled, turned again to find his elusive opponent, Dumarest sprang 
forward, the staff a blur as he sent the length of wood hard against the exposed 
kneecap. There was a dull crack of yielding bone and Gilliam staggered, his face 
distorting in pain.
"Hurt," he mumbled. "Hurt!"
Dumarest struck again, viciously, using the full strength of back and shoulders. 
Again the staff cracked against the broken kneecap. As it did he threw himself 
backward in a complete somersault, landing just beyond the reach of the giant's 
staff.
Gilliam sprang after him. Sprang and fell as his shattered knee refused to carry 
his enormous weight. As he crashed to the ground Dumarest leaped forward, staff 
lifted high above his head, smashing it down at the base of the muscular neck. 
Twice he struck. At the third blow the staff cracked and fell apart. Chest 
heaving, the broken end of the staff held sword-fashion in his right hand, 
Dumarest stepped towards the fallen giant.
Nimino caught his arm as he went to stab the splintered end into the corded 
throat.
"That's enough, Earl! Earl, damn you, that's enough! You've won!"
Dumarest drew air deep into his lungs and looked at the shattered staff in his 
hand. "He's dead?"
"Stone cold. You snapped his neck."
"Good." Dumarest lifted a hand and touched a wetness on his head. One of the 
giant's wild blows must have torn his scalp. He looked at the blood on his hand. 
How close had death been then? Quietly he said, "So I've won. Now get us out of 
here. All of us. The girl as well."
"And the oil," said Sheyan as he joined the group. "Don't forget the oil."




Chapter Six



"Pearls," said yalung. He tilted his cupped hand, the salon light filling his 
palm with nacreous beauty. "They are fine but…" Regretfully he shook his head. 
"On every world there are seas and in every sea there are bivalves. They are 
very pretty, my dear, but I'm afraid of very little value."
"These are special," said Lallia. "And you know it."
She sat on the edge of the table, long bare legs swinging beneath the hem of an 
iridescent dress made of finely tanned fish skin. Three hours from Candara, 
bathed, her lustrous black hair piled in thick coils above her head, she had 
doubled her beauty.
And her boldness, thought Dumarest. He sat beside her, facing the dealer in 
precious stones, feeling the ache of fatigue gnaw at his bones. The fight had 
drained the last of his strength.
"They are special," admitted Yalung after a moment. "To you, no doubt, they are 
very special. To others, my dear, they are merely pearls. How did you get them 
from their owners?"
Lallia smiled. "I own them. They were given to me by love-sick fools. I hid them 
in a place only my lover shall find." Her hand reached out, the slim fingers 
running through Dumarest's hair.
"And the dress?" Yalung was curious.
"I wore it beneath that stinking woolen thing they made me put on. The men 
weren't allowed to touch me and the old biddies were satisfied as long as I 
didn't dazzle their men. Men!" She snorted her contempt. "Blind fools who lived 
in terror of imagined perils to come. The old ones were the worst, coming to me 
with the excuse they wanted to save me from eternal damnation. When that didn't 
work they tried to buy what they wanted. I took what they gave and laughed in 
their faces. The fools!"
"You were the fool," said Dumarest flatly. "Didn't you even think of the dangers 
you ran?"
"I thought a ship would come," she admitted. "I hoped every day that a trader 
would call. When it did I didn't even see it. They had me locked away in the 
dark. God, you'll never know how relieved I was to see some real men again!"
Again she reached out to caress Dumarest's hair.
"Real men," she murmured. "And one of them a very real man indeed. Tell me, 
lover, am I to your liking?"
"He fought for you," said Yalung. "He could have died for you. Would a man do 
that for someone he cared nothing about?"
"I want him to say it," she said and then, as Dumarest remained silent, "well, 
perhaps later. What will you give for the pearls, dealer? And don't think I'm 
some ignorant fool who doesn't know their real worth."
"I will give you the cost of a High passage," said Yalung. "More I cannot give."
"Then forget it." Reaching out she took the pearls from the yellow palm. "The 
captain will give me more than that. More than you think, perhaps." She smiled 
at Dumarest, her face radiant. "Can you guess, lover, at what I mean?"
Again Dumarest remained silent. Yalung said, "Tell me, girl, how did you come to 
be on Candara?"
"I wanted to travel the Web so I entered into a ship-marriage with an engineer. 
I didn't know that he rode a commune ship and he didn't tell me until we were 
well on our way. They share everything they own and I refused to be shared. So, 
when we hit Candara, they kicked me out." She laughed, remembering. "They didn't 
do any trade, though. I told the chief man that they practiced abominable rites 
and he believed me. So they went off empty-handed."
Dumarest looked at the long length of her naked thigh. "And before that?"
"You're interested, lover?" Her teeth were white against the red of her mouth. 
"Before that I worked in a carnival. Reading palms, that sort of thing. And 
before that I—"
"You read palms?" Yalung interrupted, his smile bland. "Surely not."
"I don't lie, dealer. Give me your paw and I'll tell you things." She reached 
out for the yellow hand as Yalung snatched it away. "No? Scared, maybe?"
"Cautious," he said, smiling. "Why don't you read the hand of our friend here?"
"Why not?" Lallia again ran her fingers through Dumarest's hair. They were 
gentle, caressing. "Give me your hand, Earl." She studied it, brooding, the tips 
of her slender fingers tracing lines, hesitating from time to time, the touch as 
gentle as the impact of butterflies. "A strange hand," she murmured. "One not 
easy to read. There is a sense of power and a mystery hard to unravel. You have 
lived close to violence for a long time now, lover. You have traveled far and 
will travel further. You have loved and lost, and you will love again. And you 
have a great enemy." She sucked in her breath. "Earl! I see danger!"
"A carnival trick!" He jerked his hand away with sudden irritation. "Shall I 
read your palm?" He caught her hand and, without looking at the mesh of lines, 
said, "You have ambition. You have dreams and are never long content. You have 
known many men and many worlds and there are those who have reason to hate your 
name. You are greedy and selfish and will come to a bad end. Is that enough or 
do you want more?"
"You—"
He caught her wrist as she swung her hand at his cheek.
"Don't, you're hurting me!" Her eyes widened as she looked into his face. "Earl! 
Don't look at me like that! Don't make me feel so unclean!"
He dropped her hand, fighting his sudden, inexplicable anger. Who was he to 
judge? Like himself she was a traveler making out as best she could. And if she 
used her woman's wiles to get her way, was that any different to him using his 
natural speed and acquired skill? Was it worse to hurt a man's pride than to 
gash his body with blades?
"I'm sorry, Lallia," he said. "I'm tired and spoke without thinking. Please 
forget it."
"I'm sorry too, Earl. Sorry that we didn't meet years ago. Things could have 
been so different if we had." She dropped her right hand to his left, squeezed, 
her fingers tight against his ring. "Earl!"
"What is it?" He stared into her face. It was pale, beaded with perspiration, 
suddenly haggard with lines of strain. "Lallia!"
"Death," she muttered. "And pain. So much pain. And a hopeless longing. Oh, such 
a hopeless longing!"
And then, abruptly, she collapsed, falling to lie sprawled on the table, naked 
arms and legs white against the iridescence of her dress, the dingy plastic of 
the surface.
Nimino rubbed the side of his chin with one slender finger and looked 
thoughtfully down at the girl on the bunk. "A sensitive," he said wonderingly. 
"Who would have suspected it?"
"Are you sure?" Dumarest had carried the girl into his cabin and now stood 
beside the navigator.
"I'm sure. She has all the characteristic symptoms of one who has suffered a 
severe psychic shock. I have seen it many times before." Nimino leaned forward 
and lifted one eyelid exposing the white ball of the eye. "You see? And feel the 
skin, cold and clammy when it should be warm and dry. The pulse, too—there can 
be no mistake."
Dumarest stared curiously at the girl. She lay at full length, the mass of her 
hair, which had become unbound, a midnight halo around the paleness of her face. 
The long curves of arms and legs were filled with the clean lines of developed 
muscle covered with scanty fat. The breasts were full and proud, the stomach 
flat, the hips melting into rounded buttocks. A courtesan, he thought, the 
typical body of a woman of pleasure, all warmth and smoothness and femininity.
And yet—a sensitive?
He had met them before, the sports of mutated genes, the products of intense 
inbreeding. Always they had paid for their talent. Sometimes with physical 
weakness or irregular development of body or mind. But always they had paid. 
Lallia?
"You said that she claimed to be able to read palms," mused Nimino. "Not a 
clairvoyant then, not even a telepath as we understand the term, neither would 
have allowed themselves to fall into the position in which we found her. But she 
could have some barely suspected ability. Barely suspected by herself, I mean. 
How accurate was the reading?"
Dumarest looked up from the girl. "It was nothing," he said flatly. "A jumble of 
nonsense. I could do as well myself."
"Perhaps she was not really trying," said the navigator shrewdly. "She is a girl 
who has learned the value of caution. And she is beautiful," he added. "Not 
often have I seen a woman of such loveliness. You have won a remarkable prize, 
my friend."
"Won?"
"But, of course, Earl. To the victor the spoils. Both of you must surely be 
aware of that." Nimino smiled and then grew serious. "Tell me exactly what 
happened just before she collapsed."
"We were talking," said Dumarest. "She dropped her hand to mine and touched my 
ring. That's when it happened."
"Your ring?"
Dumarest lifted his left hand. "This."
"I see." Nimino brooded as he examined the stone. "I ask no questions, my 
friend, but I will venture a statement. This ring has high emotional 
significance. To you and perhaps to the one who owned it before. Am I correct?"
"Yes," said Dumarest shortly.
"Then I think I understand what could have happened to Lallia. She is a 
sensitive of undeveloped and probably unsuspected power. There is an ability 
possessed by some by which they are able to tell the past of any object they may 
touch. It is almost as if they had a vision in which time unrolls before their 
awareness. I put it crudely, but you understand what I mean. And if the object 
has a strong emotional charge then the vision can become overpowering. I suggest 
that is what happened in the salon. She was excited, emotionally sensitive, and 
she touched your ring. It was as if she had received a sudden electrical 
discharge through the brain."
"And now?"
"Nothing, my friend." Nimino gripped Dumarest's shoulder. "She will sleep a 
little and wake as good as before. Her talent is untrained and undemanding and, 
as I said, probably she is not even aware of it other than the ability to read 
palms and tell fortunes. For time runs in both directions and such a one could 
have a limited awareness of events to come. Events appertaining to the object 
held, I mean. She is not a clairvoyant—as we both have reason to know."
Nimino dropped his hand as he moved towards the door of the cabin. "Let her wake 
and find you here, Earl. And, if you are afraid of demons, I know seven 
effective rites of exorcism. But I think the one she would appreciate most can 
only be performed by you."
Alone, Dumarest sat beside the bunk and closed his eyes as weariness assailed 
both mind and body. Demons, he thought, remembering Nimino's offer and 
suggestion. An old word for old troubles. The demons of hopelessness and hunger, 
of hate and the lust for revenge. The demons of ambition and greed, envy and 
desire. And the worst demon of all, perhaps, the cold, aching void of 
loneliness. A demon which could only be exorcised by love.
"Earl."
He opened his eyes. Lallia was awake, lying with her eyes on his face, the long 
length of her body relaxed, a thick coil of hair shadowing one side of her face. 
Her arms lifted as he stooped over her, white restraints pulling him down, 
holding him against the yielding softness of her body while her lips, soft and 
avid, found his own.
"Earl, my darling!" she whispered. "Earl!"
He could do nothing but sink into a warm and comforting sea.
They slept and woke to drink cups of basic and slept again in the warm cocoon of 
the cabin, lulled by the soft vibration of the Erhaft field as it sent the Moray 
arrowing to a distant world. Dumarest moved uneasily in his sleep, haunting 
dreams bringing him a montage of faces and places, of violence and blood, of 
hope and and disappointment.
Finally he woke, refreshed, stretching his body and opening his eyes. Lallia 
stood at the side of the bunk, smiling, vapor rising from the cup in her hand.
"You're awake," she said. "Good. Now drink this."
It was basic but with an unusual flavor. He sipped appreciatively before 
emptying the container.
"I was a cook once," she said. "There's no need for basic to taste like wet mud. 
A few drops of flavoring can make all the difference."
He smiled. "And the flavor?"
"A few drops of the captain's precious oil. I raided the hold," she admitted. 
"That was after I'd fixed my passage with the navigator. He said that he could 
talk for the big boss. Can he?"
Dumarest nodded, Nimino handled details while the captain dreamed under the 
influence of his symbiote. "You didn't have to pay for passage," he commented. 
"That was a part of the deal."
"I know that, Earl." She sat beside him, serious, her eyes soft with emotion. 
"But that was only to the next planet of call. I want to stay with the ship, 
with you, so I arranged to ride all the way." She leaned towards him, the 
perfume of her body a clean scent of femininity. "We're married, Earl. A 
ship-marriage but married just the same." Her hand found his own, tightened. 
"You object?"
"No," said Dumarest. "I don't object."
"It will last as long as you stay on the Moray" she said. "As long as you want 
it to. A month, a year, ten years, a week, even; it doesn't matter. A marriage 
is good only as long as both partners want it to last. And I want it to last, 
Earl. I want it to last a long, long time."
She meant it, he decided, and found nothing objectionable about her or the idea. 
Lallia was all woman, a soft, yielding assembly of curves and tender flesh; but 
she was more than a sensuous animal designed to give pleasure. She was a 
creature who had learned to survive, a fit mate for a lonely traveler, a woman 
who could tend a wound and live on scraps as well as wear fine gowns and dine 
with nobility.
Someone, perhaps, with whom to make a home.
He looked at her, reluctant to give up his dream of finding Earth, yet knowing 
that reality was preferable to a romantic quest. And yet need the dream be 
wholly discarded? Two could search as easily as one and it would be good not to 
have to travel alone.
"Earth?" She pondered the question, white teeth biting at her lower lip. "No, 
Earl, I've never heard of it. A planet, you say?"
"An old world, the surface scarred and torn by ancient wars, yet the interior 
holds a strange life. I was born there. I'm trying to get back."
She frowned. "But if you left the place you must know where it is. How to get 
back. Surely you have the coordinates?"
"No, Lallia, I haven't."
"But—"
"I was very young when I left," he interrupted. "I stowed away on a ship, 
frightened and desperate and knowing no better. The captain was an old man and 
treated me better than I deserved. He could have evicted me into space; instead 
he allowed me to join his crew under an oath of secrecy. That was a long time 
ago now and he is safely dead. I moved on, always heading deeper into the 
galaxy, moving from world to world towards the Center. And Earth has become less 
than a legend. The charts do not show it. No one has ever heard of it. The very 
name has become meaningless."
"It must be a very long way away," she said quietly. "You must have traveled for 
a long time, Earl, my darling. So long that your home planet has become lost 
among the stars. And you want to find it again. But why? What is so special 
about the place you ran away from that you must find it again?"
Dumarest looked down at his hands and then back to meet the level gaze of the 
woman. "A man must have some reason for living," he said. "And Earth is my 
home."
"Home is where you make it, the place where you want to be." Her hand fell to 
his arm, pressed. "Mine is with you, Earl. It would be nice if you felt the same 
way about me."
He said, quietly, "Perhaps I do."
"Darling!"
He felt the soft touch of her hair as she pressed against him, the smooth 
roundness of her cheek, the warmth of her full, red lips. Her hand rose, 
caressing his hair, his face, running over his shoulder and down his left arm, 
the fingers pressing, moving on. He heard the sharp intake of her breath as she 
touched his ring.
"Lallia?"
"I'm all right, Earl." She kissed him again then moved away, eyes curious as she 
looked at the gem on his hand. "When I touched that ring I felt the strangest 
sensation. It was as if I heard someone crying, sobbing as if their heart would 
break. Where did you get it, Earl?"
"It was a gift."
"From a woman?"
He smiled at the sharpness of her voice. "It came from a woman," he admitted. 
"She is gone now."
"Dead?"
He nodded and she smiled, coming close to him again, a female animal purring her 
satisfaction.
"I'm glad she's dead, Earl. I don't want to share you with anyone. I think I'd 
kill any woman who tried to take you from me. I know I'd kill anyone who hurt 
you. I love you, my darling, always remember that."
Dumarest closed his arms around her as she again pressed close. She was a 
creature of emotion, as honest as her temperament allowed, with the fiercely 
possessive nature of a primitive. But was that so very bad? She would be true to 
him according to her fashion and who could do more than that? And she was his 
wife, married to him according to Web trader custom, jealous of her rights.
"Earl?" Lallia stirred within the circle of his arms.
"What is it?"
"Nimino said that we're calling at Tyrann next. Have you ever been there?"
"No."
"That's good." She purred, moving even closer, snuggling against him. "Neither 
have I. We can explore it together."
Tyrann was a world of wind and scouring dust, of heat and eroded soil, a dying 
planet exploited for rare metals by men who looked with envious eyes at the 
beauty of the girl. A merchant, bolder than the rest, offered to buy her for the 
price of five High passages, doubling the offer when Dumarest refused.
Lallia was thoughtful as he escorted her back to the Moray. "You should have 
sold me, Earl. I could have sneaked out later and left the fool with nothing."
"A man like that is no fool," said Dumarest curtly. "And I am not a seller of 
women."
For the rest of their stay he kept Lallia within the confines of the ship while 
Sheyan negotiated a load of freight and Claude, happy in a tavern, stocked up on 
supplies.
From Tyrann they went to Dreen, where they delivered their freight and sold the 
fish skins. From Dreen to Ophan, where they left the oil and singing crystals, 
buying manufactured electronic components, capsules of medicine, and gaining 
three passengers: dour, silent men who refused to gamble despite Lallia's 
blandishments.
The passengers and medicine were left behind on Frone as they plunged deeper 
into the Web. With them rode a dozen passengers bound for Joy.
* * *
"I will take," said Yalung slowly, "one card."
Dumarest dealt him the required card, relaxing a little as he threw in his own 
hand. The game was poker, the stakes running high, and they had been playing for 
twelve hours straight. He watched as Yalung bet, raised, was called, and raked 
in another pot. The dealer in precious stones had been a steady winner 
throughout the session.
One of the players rose, shaking his head.
"That's enough for me," he said. "Deal me out. I know when I'm outclassed."
Dumarest scooped up the cards and shuffled, his eyes searching the faces of 
those who remained at the table. A miner, an engineer, a raddled woman who 
smelled of acrid spice, a seller of chemical dreams, and Yalung, who sat to his 
right. In the light their faces were taut masks of inner concentration.
"The pot is ten," said Dumarest and, as chips were thrust forward, began to 
deal. "Openers are a pair of jesters or better."
The miner passed, the engineer also, the woman opened for ten. The seller of 
dreams stayed and Yalung raised the bet to twenty. Dumarest took a quick look at 
his cards. A lord, a lady, two eights and a three.
"Dealer stays."
The miner dropped out and the engineer stayed, which meant that he had either 
passed on an opening hand or hoped to improve. The woman stayed as did the 
seller of dreams.
"Discards."
Dumarest watched the players as he poised the deck, not their faces, they were 
schooled to display only desired emotion, but their hands which told more than 
their owners guessed. The engineer flipped his cards, moving one from one end of 
the fan to the others. Adding it to others of the same value? Arranging a 
sequence?
"I'll take three."
He held a pair then, probably of low value because he hadn't opened. Dumarest 
dealt and turned to the woman.
"Two," she said.
She had opened and must have at least a pair of jesters. A two-card draw meant 
that she might have three of a kind or was holding onto an odd card, hoping to 
make two pairs or more, or, more likely, in order to bluff. She hadn't raised 
Yalung's increase—unlikely if her hand had been strong.
Beside her sat the seller of dreams. Envir had a thin, intent face, which told 
nothing, and hands which told little more. He moved a pair of cards, hesitated, 
then threw out his discards.
"I'll take two," he said.
Like the woman he could have either a pair or three of a kind. He could also be 
hoping to complete a flush or a straight, in which case he was fighting high 
odds.
"One," said Yalung.
He had not fiddled with his cards, his hands, like his face, unrevealing. He 
could have four to a flush or a straight, two pairs, three of a kind and an odd 
card, or even four of a kind.
Dumarest threw out his own discards. "Dealer takes three."
He let them lie, watching the hands of the others, the tiny, betraying tensions 
of their knuckles as they saw what they had drawn.
"Twenty," said the woman. It was a safe, normal opening bet. Envir raised it.
"Make that fifty."
Yalung pushed chips into the pot. "I'll raise that fifty more."
Dumarest looked at his cards. He had drawn another eight and a pair of ladies. A 
full house.
"Dealer raises that by fifty."
The engineer hesitated, scowling, then threw in his hand. The woman stayed. 
Envir cleared his throat.
"Well, now, this promises to be fun. I'll just meet that last raise—and lift it 
another two hundred."
"That's two hundred and fifty to stay," mused Yalung. "I'll raise by another 
hundred."
Dumarest looked at the pot. It held over a thousand. If he raised it would give 
him a chance to raise again later— but both Envir and Yalung had seemed 
confident. The woman, he guessed, would drop out. Envir might stay, in which 
case the pot would go to the one with the best hand.
"Dealer stays," said Dumarest.
He thought he saw a shadow of disappointment cross Yalung's face, then turned 
his attention to the others. The woman, as he had guessed, threw in her cards, 
displaying the pair of jesters on which she had opened. Envir hesitated then 
made his decision.
"I'll raise a hundred."
"One hundred?" Yalung leaned forward, counting the chips in the pot. "There is 
just over seventeen hundred there," he mused. "According to the rules I am 
allowed to raise to the full extent of the pot. So I will do that. I meet your 
raise, my friend, and add another fifteen hundred." He smiled at Dumarest. "It 
will now cost the dealer sixteen hundred to stay. An interesting situation, is 
it not?"
"No," said Dumarest flatly. "I cannot stay. I haven't the money."
"But surely you have items of worth?" Yalung looked at Dumarest's hand. "That 
ring, for example. Shall we say a thousand?"
It was a tempting proposition. Envir had drawn two cards and could be pushing 
his luck with a straight or flush, both of which he could beat. Yalung could be 
bluffing, using his money to buy the pot, also maybe holding a flush or 
straight. But, against that, Dumarest could only gain to one for his money if 
Envir dropped out and, if he raised, he would be unable to stay.
"Dealer drops out," said Dumarest, and threw in his cards.
He heard the quick intake of breath from those who stood around the table, 
Lallia among the watchers, Lin at her side.
Envir sucked in his cheeks and slowly counted his chips. "Damn it," he said. 
"Damn all the luck. Well, to hell with it. I think you're bluffing." He pushed 
forward a pile of chips. "I'll see you!"
Yalung slowly put three tens on the table. "Is that enough?"
"Like hell it is!" The seller of dreams glowed his excitement. "I've got a 
flush. That means I win."
"Not quite." Yalung put down the rest of his cards. An ace and another ten. 
"Four tens. The pot is mine, I think?"
Envir cursed in his disappointment.




Chapter Seven



Joy was at carnival.
Streamers of colored smoke hung in the air, luminous in the dying light, and 
from all sides rose the sound of music and gaiety. Tents, booths, collapsible 
shops, the open rings of combat and the closed enclaves of sensory titivation, 
jugglers, tumblers, contortionists, men who promised eternal happiness, and 
harpies who roved, hard-eyed and falsely charming, offering pleasure to those 
who had come to join in the fun.
"We could do well here," said Lallia as she stood beside Dumarest at the head of 
the ramp. "When it gets really dark I could get to work. Drunken fools won't 
object to a woman's caress and they'll be too bemused to guard their pockets. 
With you to take care of any trouble we could clean up."
"No," said Dumarest.
"Why not?" Her tone was mocking. "Morals, lover?"
"Sense. The risk is too great for the reward."
"We need money," she insisted. "Your share is hardly enough to buy me some new 
clothes. Can you think of a better way to get it, Earl?"
He ignored the question, looking instead at the ships littering the field. 
Mostly they were old, battered, traders like the Moray, but a few were new and 
one was big. A vessel strange to the Web and one which could be heading Outside. 
The woman at his side he walked towards it, climbing the ramp to the open port. 
Shadows moved within the dim interior and a man, neat in his uniform, eyes and 
face hard, stepped before him.
"You want something?"
"A berth if it's going."
"You from the Moray?"
"Yes," said Dumarest.
"Then forget it," said the man. "There's no berth going especially to anyone 
from that hulk." He glanced at Lallia. "Your woman?"
"His wife," said Lallia. "What have you got against the Moray?"
"Personally, nothing," admitted the man. "But her reputation stinks. If you'll 
take my advice you'll forget to mention her. Say you're from the Argos or the 
Deltara—both of those left just before the carnival."
"I'll remember that," said Dumarest. "If you haven't got a berth then how about 
traveling Low?"
"That might be possible." The man hesitated. "Look, I can't give you a definite 
answer until the captain tells me what space we'll have available. You'd better 
come back later—we're not due out for a couple of days yet but as far as I know 
if you can pay you'll get passage. Fair enough?"
"Thanks," said Dumarest. "I'll be seeing you."
He was thoughtful as he walked towards the edge of the field. The other ships 
would be similar, with only a single man in charge or locked while their crews 
went about their business or pleasure. Lallia touched his arm.
"Did you mean that, Earl? About leaving, I mean?"
"Yes."
"And me?"
She was worried, he could tell it by the way she clung to his arm, the 
expression in her eyes. "You'll come with me," he promised. "The Web is no place 
for a woman to be stranded."
Her smile was his reward. "Thank you, lover. Now let's go and get ourselves some 
fun."
They passed from the field into a welter of noise, confusion, and frantic 
activity punctuated by shouts, shrieks, and bellowing laughter. A procession 
weaved down the street, monstrous heads bobbing in fabricated distortion, voices 
echoing from the diminutive bodies.
A troupe of zingart dancers spun and stamped, froth bubbling their lips, naked 
bodies scarred with symbolic designs. Their hair was fuzzed into gigantic balls, 
nose and ears pierced with skewers, bells around wrists, neck, and ankles. Two 
dwarfs scuttled beside them, collecting boxes rattling as they thrust them 
before the watchers.
The zingart dancers were followed by a dozen flagellants, chanting as they each 
lashed the other with spiked whips. The flagellants passed and a host of women 
rotated bellies and breasts as they clustered around a tall, bearded anchorite. 
After them came a cluster of masked and decorated figures, some with whips 
hanging from their wrists, others with tufts of spiked fur.
Something exploded high above and the darkening sky shone brilliant with a gush 
of luminous stars.
Dumarest followed Lallia as she pushed her way through the crowd. The lustrous 
mane of her hair reflected the colorful embers above, their dying light 
illuminating her long legs as they flashed beneath the hem of her iridescent 
dress. A masked reveler, one of a group of the local nobility, caught her arm as 
she passed.
"Come, my sweeting," he purred. "Such tender flesh should not pass uncaressed." 
He dropped both hands to her shoulders, forcing the material from her rounded 
breasts, his head dipping as he pressed his lips against her body.
Dumarest paused, watching, his muscles tense. Lallia did not seem to object to 
the rough treatment. She laughed and pressed herself closer to the gaudy finery 
the man wore. And then suddenly he cried out and thrust her away.
"Bitch! You she-devil! I'll teach you to hurt your betters!"
His hand bent, caught the whip dangling from his wrist, raised it high to slash 
across her face. He cried out again as Dumarest caught the raised hand, his 
fingers closing hard against yielding bone.
"You are excited, my lord," said Dumarest coldly. "I think it best that you take 
a little rest."
Abruptly he pushed, catching the man off-balance, thrusting him to sprawl in the 
road among the feet of dancing monstrosities. He rolled, trying to avoid the 
kicks of enlarged feet, soiling his finery with dirt and liquid filth.
Dumarest caught Lallia by the arm and urged her from the scene of the incident.
Laughing she held up a purse. "You see, lover, how easy it is? That fool was too 
intent on what he wanted to miss this. When I had it I hit him where it hurts. 
Shall we do it again?"
"No."
"But, lover, we need the stake. Why miss the chance?"
"He wasn't alone," said Dumarest. "And you are rather unmistakable. When he 
misses his money he will come looking and his friends with him. I don't think 
they will be very gentle if they find you."
Lallia shrugged. "So?"
"So we find you something else to wear." Dumarest looked at the purse in her 
hand. "And you can pay for it."
The merchant was an old man with a stoop so pronounced that it gave him the 
appearance of a tall, thin bird of prey; an impression heightened by his hooked 
nose and balding head. He fingered Lallia's dress and sucked in his cheeks. "It 
is good," he admitted. "Fine and unusual material, but the customers for such 
are few. I am far from the field and must depend on local trade. It could lie 
for months and then, perhaps, I would have to sell it at a fraction of its 
worth."
"That's all I'm asking," said Lallia. She had taken charge of the transaction as 
soon as she had entered the shop. "One of your gowns, a coat, some other things. 
You should make a fat profit."
"My dear, you are a shrewd woman but you know little of local conditions. At 
carnival everyone goes mad, but normally a woman would be stoned for wearing a 
thing like this. However…"
Dumarest turned away as the haggling progressed. Outside, in the narrow street 
beyond the shop, the throb and hum of carnival was very faint. The sky had 
darkened rapidly and a few stars shone in competition with the uprushing 
pyrotechnics. Two men wearing the unmistakable uniform of guards entered the 
street and loped past the shop. They seemed to be looking for someone and 
Dumarest could guess who it was.
"Hurry," he said turning to where the pair stood over a heap of clothing. "Take 
a gown, Lallia, something to cover your legs. And something else to cover your 
hair. Fancy dress will do."
The merchant looked up, his eyes shrewd. "And the dress she is wearing?"
"I'll continue to wear it," said Lallia firmly. She probed into the stolen purse 
for coins. "How much do I owe?"
"For the carnival costume, fifteen coryms." The man held out his hand as Lallia 
frowned at the coins. "Those seven-sided pieces are of five coryms each. Three 
will settle the bill." He nodded as she dropped the coins into his palm. "You 
may change at the rear, my dear. There will be no extra charge."
She returned wearing a long robe which touched the ground, sleeves falling past 
the tips of her fingers and a high headdress which completely covered her hair 
and gave an oval look to her face. The merchant handed her a mask.
"With this on your face, my dear, no one will recognize you."
"Should I worry if they do?" Lallia caught his hand and stared into the palm. "I 
read hands," she said quietly. "For five coryms I will read yours."
The merchant tugged at his hand. "Please, I have no time for such nonsense."
"Nonsense?" Lallia shook her head. "You be the judge. In your hand I see 
daughters of whom you are ashamed and sons who have caused you much grief, a 
third—" She frowned. "The third is the source of much heartbreak."
"Arnobalm," the merchant said quietly. "He has been ill since his youth. A virus 
disease for which there is no known cure. At least it is not known in the Web. 
Unless it is checked he will die within a season."
"But you have hope?" Lallia twisted the aged palm. "I read that you have much 
hope."
"It is all that is left. The expense is high but what is money when compared to 
life? And his faith is strong. Perhaps, on Shrine, he will be able to recover 
from the thing which saps at his life." The merchant pulled free his hand. "You 
have seen the ship, perhaps? With it rides the prayers and hopes of a hundred 
parents, a thousand relatives." He saw their expressions. "You do not know of 
Shrine?"
Dumarest shook his head.
"But you are of space, that I can tell by your uniform. Is it possible that the 
miracle planet is a stranger to you?"
"I come from Outside," said Dumarest. "The woman also. Traders."
"And traders are not interested in miracles, only in profits." The merchant 
sighed. "I understand. You are long on Joy?"
"A few hours."
"And you will leave with the carnival," said the merchant. "You space traders! 
Always on the move, never stopping, never putting down roots. But you have 
chosen a good time. There is much to see on Joy when the carnival is here. 
Exhibitions, a zoo, places of instruction." A shadow crossed his face. "And 
other things… but I will not spoil your pleasure." He bowed and ushered them 
towards the door.
Outside Lallia drew a deep breath. "He robbed us," she said. "You know that, I 
suppose. Why didn't you let me try to get some of it back?"
"By telling him lies?"
"What I read in his palm was true."
"And something he already knew." Dumarest took her arm. "Now empty that purse 
and get rid of it somewhere. And don't worry about the old man having robbed 
you. You bought more than a costume, you paid for his silence, he could have 
called the guards."
"And lost his profit." Lallia shrugged. "All right, Earl, you're the boss. Now 
for God's sake, let's get a drink."
They found a tavern, bright with tinsel, glowing with luminous paint and 
throbbing with interior noise and laughter. Claude came lurching through the 
door as they approached. The engineer's face was blotched, his eyes glazed, the 
front of his uniform stained with wine. He swayed and recovered his balance with 
a visible effort. Wine gurgled from the bottle he held in his hand, drenching 
his chin and adding to the wetness on his chest.
"Earl!" He gestured with the bottle. "My old friend! Have a drink."
Dumarest took the bottle and held it to his closed lips. "Thanks."
"And you?" The engineer almost fell again as he leaned to stare at Lallia. "Who 
are you?"
She raised her mask and reached for the bottle. "Who do you think, you drunken 
idiot? Do you imagine I'd let Earl loose with another woman?"
"Not you!" He roared with laughter as she drank and returned the bottle. Waving 
it he turned and yelled at the tavern. "Make way for the most beautiful woman in 
space! A real woman! And you know what? She belongs to the Moray!"
Lin came through the door as the engineer staggered away. The steward was 
anxious as he stared after his mentor.
"He's gone crazy, Earl. You'd think he hadn't touched a drink for years the way 
he's going on. What can I do?"
"Nothing," said Dumarest. "Forget him."
Lin was firm. "I can't do that, Earl. He's my friend."
"And a man should be loyal to his friends," agreed Dumarest. "But he should pick 
his friends. Claude's a drunk and there's nothing you can do about it. At any 
moment he could go kill-crazy and you could be on the receiving end. A man like 
that is dangerous. Why don't you forget him and enjoy yourself?"
"I couldn't," said the steward simply. "Not if I know he needs me. Tell me what 
to do, Earl?"
"Follow him. Pick him up if he falls down. Try to see that he doesn't get robbed 
and, when he passes out, get help to carry him back to the ship."
A friend, thought Dumarest as Lin moved away. Someone the engineer didn't 
deserve and didn't appreciate. And Claude? A father image to the boy, a 
surrogate parent who taught and held a tarnished glory. Only Lin wouldn't 
believe that it was tarnished. He would put his trust in his hero and maybe it 
would break his heart when realization finally came.
"A nice boy." Lallia's voice was low. "It would be wonderful to have a son like 
that, Earl."
"Yes," said Dumarest.
"Perhaps, one day, we shall." Her hand tightened on his arm. "When we settle 
down, Earl. When we find a place we can call home." Her grip tightened even 
more. "And soon, Earl. Soon."
Soon, before it was too late—if it was not too late already.
Inside the tavern was filled with men and laughing girls; the men, mostly 
spacers, somber in their uniforms against the carnival dress worn by residents 
and visitors. Girls swung between the crowded benches carrying great jugs of 
wine and beer, trays of cakes and pastries, fried meats wrapped in crisp batter, 
fish which had been gilded in gold and silver and glowing red. Dumarest bought a 
bottle of wine, a handful of cakes, and two of the fish, carrying them to a 
table surrounded by a medley of uniforms.
"Those you can keep," said Lallia, pushing aside the fish. "I've had enough 
seafood to last the rest of my life." She bit into one of the cakes as Dumarest 
poured the wine, swallowing as she picked up the glass. "Here's health!"
They drank. The wine was dark, full-bodied, easy to throat and stomach. Dumarest 
savored it as he picked up one of the fish. The flesh was white and delicately 
sweet. Around them talk hummed like a swarm of bees.
"—told him the load would go bad without… fifteen, I said, and not one less… the 
Giesha didn't show at rendezvous so we took… tried to sell us some stuff which 
any fool would have known… that drunken idiot from the Moray?"
Dumarest looked up as he sipped his wine, his attention caught by the name of 
the trader. A broad back was talking to a high forehead.
"I saw him," said the high forehead. "Rolling all over the place. No man can 
drink like that and remain sharp. He's only got to let the generators get point 
oh, oh five out of phase and you know what happens then."
"Curtains," said the broad back. "Disorientation and, in the Web, that's bad."
"That's final!" The high forehead was emphatic. "Say, did you hear about the 
Quand? I met a man on…"
Lallia smiled at Dumarest as he turned, lowering his glass. "We don't have to 
worry, Earl. We won't be on the Moray when Claude finally sends her to 
destruction."
"No," he said, thinking of Lin, the burning desire of the boy to learn, to 
emulate his friend. Suddenly the wine tasted sour. "Let's go and look at the 
town."
The main street led to an area thronged with sideshows. A man called as they 
passed. "This way, lord and lady, sense the thrills of the condemned. Full 
sensory tapes of those who have met death by burning, hanging, poisoning, and 
dismemberment. Not to be bettered in the entire Web!"
Another, "Two more wanted for the love-raffle! Come and share in erotic 
delights!"
Another, "Trained symbiotes from Phadar! Exotic thrills for an ounce of blood!"
A painted crone tittered as they passed her booth gaudy with mystic signs. "Read 
your future, dearie? Find out if the fine young man means what he says."
"He means it, mother," said Lallia hanging to Dumarest's arm. "I'll see to 
that."
A fire-eater blew long streamers of brilliance. A girl writhed to the monotonous 
pounding of a drum. A squat, amorphous creature snarled and rattled heavy 
chains. From before a billowing tent a woman called in a voice of trained 
allurement:
"You there, master! Care to fight for your lady? Ten-inch blades and first blood 
the winner. A prize for all contestants and, if you win, fifty coryms and the 
choice of five willing wantons."
Lallia was curt. "Go to hell, you painted bitch!"
The woman, a blonde, curvaceous of body, smiled with a lifting of her full, red 
lips. "What's the matter, honey? Can't stand the competition? Or are you afraid 
good-looking will get himself hurt?"
"Make it five hundred and he'll fight to the death!"
The woman blinked. "Say, do you mean that? If you do a match can be arranged. 
How about coming up here to discuss the deal?"
"Forget it," snapped Dumarest.
"Why, Earl?" Lallia looked up into his face as he pulled her away from the tent. 
"I've seen you fight, remember? The pugs they've got in there wouldn't stand a 
chance against your speed. And we could use five hundred coryms."
"I'll fight if I have to," he said curtly. "But I don't do it for fun. And it 
wouldn't be a fair combat. The opponent would be helped all along the line. 
Lights fixed to dazzle, attention-catchers, even a gimmicked blade. I've even 
known them to use a gas-spray to slow a man down."
"You've worked in the circuits," she said slowly. "You didn't tell me that, 
Earl."
"There's a lot I didn't tell you."
"But you could win," she insisted. "You know that."
He halted and looked into her eyes. "Listen, girl, there's no such thing as a 
certainty. Every time a man fights he gambles his life. So far I've won but that 
doesn't mean that I can't lose. It could be this time, in that tent, is that 
what you want?"
"You know it isn't, Earl."
"Then forget it." Gently he lifted his hands and dropped them on her shoulders, 
squeezing before turning away. "Let's look at the rest of the carnival."
A crowd thronged around a table on which a man manipulated cards. Dumarest won 
thirty coryms by finding the jester, spent half a corym on a mass of sticky 
sweetmeat for Lallia and paused before a booth. Young men were practicing their 
skill by throwing knives at a target. The leather-lunged operator saw the couple 
and called an invitation.
"A corym for six blades, my lord. A prize for getting them all in the center."
Dumarest paid his coin and hefted the knives. They were badly balanced, crudely 
fashioned, and showed marks of wear. But they had a point and that was enough. 
His arm rose, the hand moving forward, the knife a blur as it left his fingers. 
The thud as it hit the target was repeated five more times.
"You win, my lord!" The operator looked anxious. "A set of six entitles you to 
anything on display."
Lallia chose a doll, a pretty thing with long, silken hair and clothes of finely 
spun fabric.
"You wish to play again, my lord?" The operator smiled his relief as Dumarest 
shook his head. "It can be done," he bawled as the pair moved away. "You have 
seen it! Roll up and test your skill!"
"So you can throw knives, Earl," said Lallia as they walked past the glittering 
booths. "What else don't I know about you? Never mind," she said, not waiting 
for an answer. "I'll find out. I've a lifetime to do it in. Right, lover?"
He looked at her, tall, beautiful, the doll cradled in her arms, and felt a 
sudden wave of tenderness. It would be good to find somewhere to settle down, to 
build a home, and to find immortality in children. Good enough, perhaps, to 
eliminate his need to search for a forgotten world.
"Look!" Lallia pointed to where an arched opening stood before them. "Freaks and 
interstellar zoo," she read. "Can we go in, Earl?"
A man stepped forward as they passed into the area beyond the arch. He was old 
with a sunken face and eyes which held a burning intensity.
"My lord and lady," he said. "I beg of your charity. For the love of all you 
hold sacred help the pilgrims to Shrine."
Lallia looked around. "Pilgrims?"
"Those within, my lady." The man gestured towards the opening of a tent. "The 
animals are beyond, but the others need no cage."
"The freaks?" Lallia frowned. "I thought you said they were pilgrims."
"They are both, my lady. The journey is long and costly so they display their 
infirmities in order to raise funds. It is not a pleasant thing to do but what 
is pride against necessity?"
The interior of the tent was dim with a pale green lighting which threw no 
shadows and yet was gentle to the eyes. A score or more of figures sat or 
sprawled against the walls on heaped piles of rags. Many appeared to be asleep. 
All were grotesquely deformed.
"Medical science cannot aid them." The man had accompanied Lallia and Dumarest 
into the tent. "They are transplant immune, or they are so distorted that 
nothing can be done. There are others who suffer less visible infirmity, those 
with strange diseases and stranger internal growths, but these are not on 
display."
"And all are bound for Shrine?" asked Dumarest.
"That is so, my lord. There, if their faith is strong, they will be cured. The 
weak shall rise and walk, the crippled stand straight and tall, the deformed be 
relieved of their afflictions." He held out his collecting bowl. "Of your 
charity, my lord. I beg it in their name." He stared as Dumarest poured coins 
into the bowl. "My lord! Our thanks for your generosity. May good fortune attend 
you."
Outside Lallia said, "You're crazy, Earl. That or soft. Why did you give him so 
much?"
"You've been stranded," said Dumarest quietly. "You know what it's like. But you 
had your health and strength. Can you imagine what it must be like for those 
poor devils?"
"You're right, Earl, I'm sorry." She bit her lip and then, brightening, said, 
"Well, it's done and good luck to them. Let's go and look at the animals."
They were a poor collection, beasts from a dozen worlds, furred, clawed, tailed, 
and armored; most were offshoots of the animals men had taken with them, a few 
native to local planets. A scaled thing chittered and threshed its wings. A 
legged snake crawled, eyes like jewels, jaws agape to show a darting tongue. A 
thing of tendrils and wirelike hair swung in a tight ball from the top of its 
cage. The air was thick with a dozen odors.
A straggle of revelers hung around the cages, a small group standing before one 
containing a furred, manlike creature, laughing as they tormented it with their 
whips and the thrusts of long canes. Dumarest looked towards them, past them, 
narrowing his eyes as he caught a flash of yellow. Yalung? The figure was the 
same but he had only caught a glimpse—and yellow and black were common colors 
during a festival.
Lallia shrugged when he mentioned it. "The dealer? No, I didn't see him, but if 
he's here what of it? I guess he has to relax sometime, like the rest of us."
She wandered off, intent on the animals, leaving Dumarest behind. He stood, 
barely interested in the exhibition, waiting until the girl had slaked her 
curiosity. He watched as she moved towards the cage holding the tormented beast. 
A man laughed as she protested, and he deliberately thrust again with his cane. 
The beast stirred, smashing at the stick and tearing it from the man's grasp. 
Incensed he struck at it with his whip.
"Don't!" Lallia caught at his arm.
"Get away from me, you bitch!"
He pushed, sending the woman sprawling, lifting his whip to strike again. A tuft 
of fur and blood sprang from the point of impact. The beast roared and flung 
itself against the bars. Abruptly the entire front of the cage swung open with a 
grate of yielding metal.
"Lallia!" Dumarest was running as the animal sprang from the cage, one swipe of 
its paw sending its tormentor hurtling to one side with a crushed skull. 
"Lallia!"
She moved, crouching on the ground, eyes terrified as she looked at the beast 
advancing towards her. It was a mutated sport, five feet tall with the body of a 
gorilla and the fangs, teeth, and muzzle of a bear. As she rose it snarled and 
jumped towards her.
Dumarest met it in midair.
It was like hitting a wall, a compact mass of bone and sinew three times the 
weight of a man. He felt himself fall, the sour reek of the thing's breath harsh 
in his nostrils, and rolled desperately to avoid the raking claws. They rose 
together, the beast lightning fast, and Dumarest knew that to run would be 
suicide. He sprang forward before the creature could wholly regain its balance, 
ramming the top of his skull under the lower jaw, wedging his boots between the 
hind legs and locking his arms around the furred barrel of the chest.
He strained, muscles cracking as he tried to break the animal's spine. His body 
was an arched bow, head and feet pressing hard into throat and groin. The teeth 
couldn't hurt him, the claws on the hind legs couldn't reach him but he could do 
nothing about the vicious claws on the forepaws. He felt them rip at his 
shoulders and back, tearing the plastic of his uniform and ripping into the 
flesh beneath.
Again he heaved, the breath choking in his lungs, face turned to avoid the 
smothering mat of fur. It was as if he pulled against a mountain. He tensed, 
straightening so as to press the creature's head back so that it looked at the 
sky. It snarled and tore at his sides as he strained against the rigid back, 
knowing that his only chance was to break neck or spine.
He felt something yield and the beast whimpered, a small sound deep in its 
chest. Gritting his teeth, Dumarest summoned the last of his strength.
"Yalung!" He heard Lallia's shout above the roar of blood in his ears. "Good 
God's sake, hurry!"
The beast whimpered again, yielding even more and then, suddenly, convulsed with 
an explosion of energy which sent Dumarest staggering to one side, to fall and 
rise fighting for breath, shaking his head to clear the mist from his eyes.
He saw the animal lying dead, Yalung standing over it with a rod of iron in his 
hands, the end of the improvised spear thick with blood.
"Earl!" Lallia ran towards him, eyes enormous in the pallor of her face. "My 
God, Earl, your back!"
He straightened, feeling the burn of multiple lacerations, and looking down saw 
that his sides and legs were drenched with blood. More blood made a puddle on 
the ground. The claws of the beast had ripped wide and deep.
And, suddenly, there was pain.




Chapter Eight



Lallia said, "I'm sorry, Earl. I had no choice. There was nothing else to do but 
get you back to the Moray."
Dumarest looked at her from where he lay on the bunk. She was wearing the 
iridescent dress and the thick coils of her midnight hair hung loose about her 
shoulders. The light gleamed from the naked flesh of her arms, the long curves 
of her thighs.
"You had a choice," he said quietly. "You could have taken me to a local 
doctor."
"Yes," she admitted. "I could but I didn't think of it. You were in a hell of a 
mess, passing out with weakness and pain, and Yalung seemed to know just what to 
do. He washed you down and shot you full of dope and antibiotics. At first I 
thought of moving you before it was too late but Sheyan left early. The rest you 
know."
A time of pain interspersed with gulps of basic, the sting of antiseptics, the 
discomfort of changed dressings. Of drug-induced sleep and the sparing magic of 
slowtime. Dumarest sat upright and looked at his naked body, seeing the thin 
lines of scar tissue on his sides. There would be more on his back and 
shoulders: newly healed wounds which would eventually harden.
"A local doctor could have got me fit within two days," he said. "Using slowtime 
and intravenous feeding. But it would have cost money. Did you think of that?"
Lallia met his eyes. "At first, no, but I did later. All right, Earl, so I 
begrudged the cost. It would have taken all we had and I didn't fancy us being 
stranded on Joy. And what's the difference? So we didn't quit the Moray, but 
there will be another chance later."
Dumarest rose and looked down at the woman. He saw the pallor of fatigue, the 
lines of weariness marring her beauty. She could have left him. She could have 
let him die. Instead she had sat beside him in constant attendance.
"You're tired," he said. "Lie down and get some rest."
"I'm all right, Earl."
"Do it." He stooped and lifted her from the chair. "I don't want you losing your 
beauty."
"As long as you want me, Earl." She clung to him. "Any way you want," she 
whispered. "But just keep wanting."
He smiled and pressed her to the bunk. Turning he opened the lockers. His 
uniform had been ruined and he had the choice of wearing the protective clothing 
or those he had worn before joining the ship. He chose his own, slipping into 
the gray plastic, the material comforting in its protection. Had he worn it on 
Joy the claws of the beast would never have penetrated the wire mesh buried in 
the material. The knife fell as he adjusted the tunic and he thrust it into his 
boot.
"That's better." Lallia looked at him as he stood beside the bunk. "You never 
did look quite at home in that handler's uniform."
"Go to sleep," he said, closing the lockers. Turning off the light he stepped 
from the cabin.
Yalung looked up from the table as Dumarest entered the salon, watching as he 
drew a cup of basic, refilling it twice more before setting it down.
"You were hungry," said the dealer. "A healthy sign. You are fully recovered?"
"Yes." Dumarest looked at the yellow face, the enigmatic eyes. "I must thank you 
for coming to my aid with that spear. And again for looking after me."
"The woman did that." A scatter of gems lay on the surface of the table, tiny 
lights winking from their facets. "She tended you as if you were her child. My 
own part was small. If I could offer advice I would suggest that you conserve 
your strength. The wounds were stubborn to heal. The claws of the beast must 
have carried a mutated infection. Once I despaired for your life." His hand 
touched the gems. "I gathered from the woman that you intended to leave us at 
Joy."
"I'd thought of it."
"A man needs money in the Web. It may help if I bought your ring. A thousand as 
offered."
Dumarest shook his head.
"Of course," mused Yalung, "if it has an interesting history I could offer more. 
The value of such things is enhanced by an attendant story. If you would care to 
tell me of its origins, how you obtained it, details like that I could, perhaps, 
offer fifteen hundred."
"The ring is not for sale," said Dumarest shortly. "Again I give you my thanks 
for your attentions."
Yalung bowed. "Perhaps you will accommodate me in a hand of cards?"
"Later," said Dumarest, and left the salon.
Outside, in the passage, he hesitated, then made his way towards Nimino's cabin. 
The navigator smiled as he entered.
"Earl, my friend, you are fit and well. Truly my appeals have been answered. 
Laugh if you wish but the beliefs of millions cannot be ignored. I have burned 
sweet scents to Shume, the goddess of healing, on your behalf and she has 
answered my pleas."
"This?" Dumarest glanced to where a metal bowl held a smoldering substance and 
painted symbols lay in careful arrangement around a globe of crystal in which 
drifted colored motes.
Nimino shook his head, abruptly solemn. "No, my friend, this is not for you. For 
many hours now I have been troubled by a sense of impending doom. It is as if, 
somewhere, a storm was pending but I do not know where or when it will break. I 
am disturbed and ill at ease. You sense nothing?"
"No," said Dumarest.
"Nor Lallia?"
"She is asleep."
"Then I am alone." Nimino shivered, a sudden convulsion of his nerves. "I hope 
it is nothing, but once, when I felt like this, a city was lost in an unexpected 
eruption. The Kharma Ball warned that I should leave."
Dumarest knelt and looked at the crystal ball, his hands resting on the floor to 
either side. The colored motes were, he guessed, fragments of organic life 
drifting in a supporting medium. Their purpose he couldn't imagine but he 
assumed they would be affected by vibration or sonic impulses.
Vibration?
He tensed, concentrating on the tips of his fingers. Rising he placed them 
against the metal bulkhead. The faint quiver of the Erhaft field was easily 
felt.
"Nimino," he said quietly. "Check the field." He waited until the navigator had 
placed his slender fingers on the metal and then said, "Can you feel it?"
"Yes, Earl." Nimino's eyes grew wide, pools of glistening brilliance in the 
darkness of his face. "So this is what I sensed!"
The quivering pulse of the heart of the ship. The tiny vibration which was the 
only discernible sign of its correct working.
A vibration which was not as it should be.
Dumarest heard Lin's voice as they ran towards the engine room.
"Claude! I tell you the dials are showing red! You've got to do something!"
"Shut your mouth!" The engineer's voice was a raging bellow. "Are you trying to 
tell me my job? You, a snotty-nosed lad still wet behind the ears?"
"But, Claude!" The steward was desperate. "The manual says that when the panel 
looks like that the generators are getting out of phase. For God's sake, put 
down that bottle and do something. Do you want to wreck the ship?"
Dumarest heard a shout, the crash of something shattering, the fall of something 
heavy. Claude glared from behind his console as he and the navigator burst into 
the room.
"Get out!" he said. "The pair of you. I don't want anyone in my engine room."
Quietly Nimino said, "Earl, he's drunk. Look at his eyes."
Claude was more than drunk. The devil inside had broken loose in a gust of 
savage violence. Dumarest looked at the limp body lying on the floor. Lin lay in 
a puddle of liquid, the smashed remnants of a bottle lying beside his head. A 
trickle of blood ran from beneath his hair. It ceased as he watched. The steward 
would never now realize his ambition. He would never join the big ships and see 
the worlds outside the Web. His friend, his father-surrogate, had seen to that.
Dumarest took three steps towards where the engineer stood by his console.
"You killed him," he said coldly. "You killed the boy."
"Stay away from me!" Metal shone as Claude lifted his hand. A wrench was gripped 
in the big fingers. "Come any closer and I'll crack your skull."
"Like you did to Lin?" Dumarest stooped, anger a cold fire in his brain, his 
fingers reaching for the knife in his boot.
Nimino caught his arm. "No, Earl. He's our engineer. We need him."
"We don't need him," said Dumarest. "He's a drunken, useless fool. He must have 
seen that the generators were getting out of phase but couldn't do anything 
about it. So he started to drink in order to forget. He kept on drinking. Now 
he's crazy."
"You—"
The wrench swept up and forward, light glinting on the spinning metal as it left 
the big hand, the heavy thing aimed directly at Dumarest's head. He ducked, 
straightening as the engineer sprang towards him, tasting blood as a big fist 
slammed into his mouth. The blow rocked him backwards and, before he could 
recover, Claude had gripped him by the throat.
"Crazy, am I? A drunken, stupid fool. Well, handler, this is where it ends. I'm 
going to kill you."
His hands tightened, constricting clamps of flesh and bone. Above the twin 
ridges of his arms Dumarest could see his face, the broad, mottled surface 
contorted with insane rage. That rage gave the engineer immense strength. He 
picked up Dumarest and slammed him back against the edge of the console, the 
metal rim digging cruelly into his spine, sending waves of agony from the barely 
healed wounds.
"Claude!" Nimino sprang forward, tugging at the engineer's arms. "Don't! Let him 
go, he—"
A vicious jerk of an elbow sent the navigator staggering to one side. Dumarest 
lifted both his hands and thrust them between the rigid forearms. He pressed, 
forcing his own arms between those of the engineer, thumbs reaching for the 
eyes. Claude snarled and jerked back his head.
Dumarest snatched back his hands and lifted them to the fingers clamped around 
his throat. He couldn't breathe and lacked strength, but his brain worked with 
icy calm. Trapped as he was against the edge of the console he could neither 
reach his knife or use his feet or knees. Maniacal rage had turned the 
engineer's arms into rods of steel and it was impossible to reach his eyes. But 
he could reach the fingers.
He gripped each of the smallest and pulled. It was like pulling at a steel 
restraint. Darkness began to edge his vision and a raw agony grew within his 
lungs. He pulled again, ignoring the pain of his back and sides as the new scar 
tissue yielded beneath the strain. The little fingers lifted and he wrapped his 
hands around them jerking with the last of his strength.
Bone snapped. Claude cried out, an animal sound of hurt and pain, snatching free 
his hands and stepping backwards. Nimino rose like a shadow behind him, the 
wrench a flashing arc in his hand. The sound of its impact was that of a 
squashing melon.
"Earl, are you all right?"
Dumarest nodded, massaging his throat. Another ten seconds and he would have 
used feet and hands to smash down the engineer but Nimino hadn't given him the 
time. Now he stood, looking at the wrench, the slumped figure lying in a pool of 
blood.
"He's dead," he said dully. "I killed him. Earl, I killed him!"
"He was insane. You had no choice."
"There is always a choice." The wrench fell from the navigator's hand. "I have 
taken a life," he said. "That means I have to return to the beginning and 
commence again the long and painful climb towards the Ultimate. It would have 
been better for me had I allowed you to use your knife."
"He would still have been dead," said Dumarest. He was impatient with the 
navigator's brooding introspection, his concern with a problematical afterlife. 
"The only difference is that I would have intended to kill him. You did not. He 
must have had a thin skull."
"Fate," said Nimino thoughtfully. "Who can fight against it? It was my destiny 
to kill a man." He looked at the console, at the mass of signal lights brightly 
red. "As it is our destiny to die. Claude has, perhaps, cheated us. He had an 
easy ending."
Dumarest was curt. "Explain."
"The generators are out of phase, my friend. The error is increasing. When it 
reaches a certain point the forces we have utilized to move us at supralight 
speeds will tear us apart."
"Couldn't we land before that happens?" asked Dumarest. "Turn off the generators 
to conserve their effective life?"
"Can we fight against our destiny?"
"We can fight." Dumarest looked down at his hands, they were clenched, the 
knuckles showing white. "We have to fight. The alternative is to die." He looked 
at the navigator. "It's up to you," he said. "You and the captain. There's 
nothing I can do."
"You can pray," said Nimino softly. "You can always do that."
Lallia stirred as Dumarest entered the cabin, lifting her arms as he turned on 
the light. "Earl, my darling. How did you know I wanted you?"
He made no comment, standing watching her, cups of basic in his hands. Sleep had 
washed the lines of fatigue from her face, lessened the heavy pallor, so that 
lying in the aureole of her hair she looked very young and very helpless. He 
stooped and set down the cups, feeling her arms close around him, the warm scent 
of her breath against his cheek.
"Come to me, lover. Come to me now."
"You'd better drink this," he said. "I want you to swallow as much basic as you 
can hold."
"Aren't I fat enough for you, lover?" She lost her smile as she saw his face. 
"Earl! Something's wrong! What is it?"
"We're going to crash," he said flatly. "And I think it will be soon."
"Crash?"
"The generators are failing. Sheyan did all he could but it wasn't enough. Now 
he's trying to get us down all in one piece."
He looked at the woman and thought of the captain, of Sheyan's innate fear as he 
had been woken from the comfort of his symbiote, his steely acceptance of what 
had to be done. The generators had defeated him, now he was in the control room, 
slumped in his big chair, doing what the mechanisms around him could no longer 
do.
For they worked by rigid patterns governed by the steady progress of the ship. 
That progress was no longer steady, random forces increasing the velocity by 
multiplying factors, the gravity fields of close-set suns affecting the vessel 
in unexpected ways. Like a blind man threading a needle through a mass of 
electrified wire Sheyan was guiding the Moray through destructive energies. 
Their lives depended on his skill.
"I've spoken to Yalung," said Dumarest. "He knows what to do. Now I want you to 
do it. Eat as much as you can— food may be hard to find after we land. Wear as 
much as you can; the landing may be rough and we may have to leave the ship 
fast. Stay in this cabin and fasten the restraints. And pray," he added, 
remembering Nimino's advice. "For all we know it could help."
"Paraphysical forces working on an unaccepted plane of energy," she said evenly. 
"But, if we don't accept it, how can it affect us?"
"An apple may not accept the concept of gravity," he said. "But it falls just 
the same."
Lallia took a cup of basic, drank and looked thoughtfully into the empty 
container. "Prayer," she said. "I've done enough of it in the past. When I was a 
girl I prayed all the time for someone to take me away from the farm. Do you 
know what it's like working on a farm? We had no machines so I had to be up well 
before dawn and didn't get to bed until long after dark. The best I could hope 
for was for some man to marry me and take me back to his place and there work me 
to death. Well, that didn't happen. A young aristo saw me while out hunting and 
liked the way I was built. I played up to him and he enjoyed his new toy. By the 
time he had tired of me I was safe off the farm." She looked at Dumarest. "Safe 
but in trouble. Rochis isn't a gentle world and an unprotected woman is anyone's 
sport. Do I have to tell you what happened then?"
Dumarest took the empty cup from her hand. "You don't have to tell me anything. 
The past doesn't matter."
"No," she said, and drew a deep breath. "Let's just say that I've knocked 
around. Anyway, I moved on the first ship I could get. I guess I've been moving 
ever since. Moving and looking for a thing called happiness. It isn't easy to 
find."
Dumarest handed her another cup of basic. "Drink this."
"I'll drink it." Her eyes were bright as she searched his face. "Earl! Do you 
know what I'm trying to say?"
"Drink your basic."
"To hell with it!" She slammed the cup down and circled him with her arms. "I'm 
telling you that I love you. That I've never known what love was before. That I 
can die happy knowing that we are together."
Dumarest lifted his hand and stroked the rich mass of her hair. He knew what she 
wanted him to say. "I love you, Lallia."
"You mean that?" Her arms tightened, pressed him close. "You really mean it?"
"I mean it."
"Then I've found it," she said. "Happiness, I mean. Earl, you'll never regret 
it. I'll be all the woman you could ever want. I'll—" She broke off as the ship 
gave a sudden lurch. "Earl?"
"It's nothing," he said quickly. "Opposed energies, perhaps, or the touch of 
atmosphere. Hurry now, do as I told you."
He left the cabin as the ship jerked again, the fabric shrilling as if the Moray 
was in actual, physical pain.




Chapter Nine



They landed badly, hitting a range of low hills, bouncing over rock and scree, 
tearing a broad swathe through snow-laden trees before coming to a halt at the 
bottom of a shallow ravine. From the plateau beyond Nimino looked back at the 
column of smoke which marked the funeral pyre of the Moray.
"My books," he said. "My holy objects and sacred charms. Gone, all of them."
"They served their purpose," said Dumarest. "At least you are still alive." He 
glanced to where Yalung and the woman stood, shapeless in bundled garments, 
ankle-deep in azure snow. "We are alive," he corrected. "Your prayers and 
supplications must have been effective."
But not for the ship and not for its captain. Sheyan was dead, his blood and 
flesh mingled with the metal of the crushed vessel, charring now beneath the 
searing heat of released energies.
Yalung stirred, stamping his feet in the freezing snow. "Where are we?" he 
demanded. "What is the name of this world?"
"Shrine."
Dumarest looked at the navigator, remembering those he had seen at the carnival. 
"Then there is a settlement here. Ships and men to aid us."
Nimino shook his head. "No settlement, Earl. Shrine is a peculiar world. It is a 
place which is regarded by many as being holy. They come here hoping for a 
miracle to cure their deformities and many have their hopes realized. There is a 
sacred place protected by strange guardians. Ships call and leave but there is 
no town and no commerce."
Lallia said, "How do you know all this?"
"I was here once, many years ago, soon after I entered the Web. Often I 
suggested to Sheyan that he use the Moray as a pilgrim vessel but always he 
refused. The vessel was too small, the cost of conversion too high; a larger 
crew would have been needed together with medical personnel." Nimino looked to 
where the column of smoke climbed into the violet sky. "Well, he is here now and 
will stay here. The manipulations of fate often contain a strange irony."
"You helped him plot the course," said Dumarest. "What happened towards the end? 
Did he try to land near the settlement?"
"I told you, my friend, there is no settlement." The navigator beat his hands 
together, vapor pluming from his mouth. "And I left him long before we hit the 
atmosphere. But he would have tried to land us close to the field. He was a good 
captain," he added. "But for him we would still be in space, drifting wreckage 
or fused metal, we could even have fallen into a sun. He gave us life."
Dumarest looked at the sky, the surrounding terrain. The feeling of impotent 
helplessness of the past few hours was over now that he was back among familiar 
dangers. Cold and hunger and the peril of beasts. The need to survive and to 
escape from their present situation.
He glanced at the sky again. The sun was small, a ball of flaring orange rimmed 
with the inevitable corona, hanging low in a bowl of violet. The ground towards 
the hills was thick with snow, the soft carpeting broken by shrubs and mounded 
trees. Turning he looked towards the plateau. The snow continued, broken in the 
far distance by unfamiliar trees. They were tall and bulbous, set wide apart and 
each ringed with a circle of darkness. Beyond them the air held a peculiar 
shimmer.
Lallia shivered as a rising wind blew azure flecks into her face. "Earl, I'm 
cold."
Dumarest ignored the comment. To Nimino he said, "You were here before. What is 
the weather like? How low does the temperature fall?"
"I was at the sacred place," said the navigator. "Not out in the wilds. There 
the temperature is that of blood."
Warm air rising to meet upper layers of frigid cold would produce such a shimmer 
as lay beyond the trees. And Sheyan would have tried to put them down close. It 
was possible and yet, how in this wilderness could a place be so warm?
The wind strengthened a little, a flurry of snow streaming from the hills like 
azure smoke from a fire thick with ash.
"We had best find shelter," said Yalung. "The sun is setting and the cold will 
increase." He looked at the column of smoke, bent now, a ragged plume marring 
the sky. "The trees, perhaps?"
The shimmer lay beyond, it was the right direction.
"Yes," said Dumarest. "The trees."
They were further than he had guessed. In the clear air distance was hard to 
judge and it was growing dark by the time they reached the vicinity of the 
unfamiliar growths. He paused as they neared them, looking up at the soaring 
trees, alert for signs of aerial life. He saw nothing. Only the bulbous trunks 
spiked with a multitude of bristle-like protuberances. Leaves, he thought, or 
branches, or protective spines like those on a cactus. The dark rings beneath 
them were areas clear of snow, a thick, springy grass showing a dull brown in 
the fading light.
"Please, Earl." Lallia was shaking with the cold, the thick mane of her hair 
coated with azure flecks borne by the wind. "Can't we find somewhere to stay, 
build a fire, perhaps?"
"We could get behind a tree," suggested Yalung. The dealer's voice was even, he 
did not appear to feel the cold. "At least it would protect us from the wind."
Dumarest hesitated, caution prickling his nerves. There was a stillness about 
the forest he did not like. There should have been underbrush, birds, small 
animals, perhaps. There should have been the feel of life instead of the eerie 
stillness as if a giant animal were holding its breath and crouching ready to 
spring.
"A fire," said Nimino. He blew on his hands, his dark skin puckered with the 
cold. "Always man has found comfort in the leaping dance of a flame. I will 
gather wood while you select a place to rest." He was gone before Dumarest could 
object, his figure small against the bole of a soaring giant.
He jerked as something exploded.
It was a short, harsh sound like the vicious crack of a whip. Nimino stumbled 
and fell to roll on the dark mat of the grass. Dumarest caught Lallia as she 
went to run towards him.
"Wait!"
"But, Earl, he tripped and fell. He could be hurt."
"He didn't trip." Dumarest narrowed his eyes as he examined the tree. "If he did 
he will rise. Yalung, that explosion, did you hear it?"
"It sounded like the snapping of a branch," said the dealer slowly. "I think it 
came from the tree."
It came again as they watched, the hard, snapping sound accompanied by the flash 
of something dark which hit the ground close to where Nimino rolled in pain. 
Dumarest shouted towards the navigator.
"Don't move! Stay as you are!"
He ran forward as he shouted, head lowered, shoulders high. The cracking 
explosion came again as he reached the edge of the dark area and he sprang aside 
as a dozen shafts spined the place where he had been. More explosions echoed 
from the trees as he stopped, picked up the navigator and, cradling him in his 
arms, ran from the vicinity of the tree.
Something slammed into his back, his legs and arms, the impact accompanied by 
more vicious crackings. They ceased as he rejoined the others.
"The tree," said Yalung. "It fired spines at you. I saw the puffs against the 
bole."
"Earl!" said Lallia. "You were hit!"
Hit but not harmed, the spines had failed to penetrate the mesh buried within 
the plastic of his clothing. Nimino hadn't been as lucky. A half-dozen spines 
had hit his torso, finger-thick and covered with pointed scales. Dumarest 
touched one and felt the sting of poison. Even if they hadn't hit a vital part 
the navigator was as good as dead.
A defense mechanism, he thought. The trees protecting themselves or using the 
fired spines to bring down game so as to nourish their roots.
"Earl!" Nimino writhed in his agony, sweat beading his face. "Earl!"
"It's all right," said Dumarest. He lifted his right hand and rested the fingers 
on the navigator's throat. A pressure on the carotids and the man would pass 
quickly into unconsciousness and painless death.
"No!" Nimino twisted, one hand rising to knock away the fingers. "Not that, 
Earl. I want to see it coming. Meet it face to face."
He coughed and wiped his mouth, looking at the red bright against the darkness 
of his hand.
"It burns," he said. "God, how it burns!" His hand reached for Dumarest's, found 
it, tightened. "Earl, do you think I'll have to pay for Claude? Start again at 
the very beginning? It's such a long, hard climb, Earl. So long. Will I ever 
reach the Ultimate?"
"Yes," said Dumarest quietly. "You're going to it now. You won't have to pay for 
Claude. You killed him in order to save my life."
"Yes," said Nimino. He coughed again, blood staining his lips and chin. "Earl, I 
lied to you. About Earth. I said I didn't know anything about it. I lied."
"You know where it is?" Dumarest stooped close to the dying man, his eyes 
intent. "How I can find it?"
"Not where it is. But in the old books, the religious works, they talk of it." 
Nimino's voice faded, became a liquid gurgling. "In the beginning God created 
the heaven and the earth," he said. "The Earth, Earl! And there is more. In the 
Rhamda Veda it says: 'From terror did the people fly and they did scatter 
themselves in the heavens.' Terror, Earl, or Terra? I have thought much about it 
since you joined the Moray." He coughed again and his voice became clearer. 
"Find the Original People, Earl. They hold secret knowledge and legends born in 
ancient days. The Original People."
"A sect?" Dumarest gripped the hand within his own. "What are they, Nimino? A 
religious sect?"
"Yes, Earl. They will tell you of the Dog Star and the Plow, the magic signs of 
the zodiac. Where you can see them that is where you will find Earth. They—" The 
navigator broke off, his eyes widening as he stared past Dumarest. "You!" he 
gasped. "But how—"
Dumarest turned. Behind him was nothing but a mist of swirling snow, azure 
flecks caught and spun in the wind, ghostly against the darkening sky. He looked 
back. Nimino's eyes were still open, still holding an expression of incredulity, 
but the blood no longer seeped from his parted lips. As he watched a thin patina 
of azure snow began to cover the dead face.
Gently he closed the staring eyes.
"He's gone?" Lallia was a dim bulk at his side as he rose to his feet. "Earl, is 
he dead?"
"He was talking," said Yalung. "What did he say?"
"Nothing of importance," said Dumarest. "He was rambling."
"I thought he might have told us how to get through the trees." The dealer 
sounded irritable. "He was here once before."
"And saw nothing," reminded Dumarest. "And he could know nothing of the trees or 
he would not have run towards them." He looked at the sky, the shadowed glades. 
"We'll have to try and go around them. Perhaps there is a path."
For two days they walked beside the forest, slaking their thirst on snow and 
sleeping huddled together for warmth. At dawn on the third day Dumarest 
announced his decision.
"As far as I can tell these trees completely surround the place we have to 
reach. Therefore we have to go through them."
"And end like the navigator?" Yalung looked at the unbroken ranks of trees.
"There could be a way." Dumarest pointed. "See? The grass areas around the trees 
do not completely meet. I have been watching and all are the same. My guess is 
that the grass is a form of symbiote. The trees kill game and the grass devours 
it, in turn feeding the tree and at the same time acting as a sort of trigger 
mechanism for the spines." He picked up a small boulder. "Watch!"
Explosions cracked the air as the mass of stone fell among the grass of one of 
the areas. A dozen shafts splintered on the target.
"Now watch this." Again Dumarest threw a large stone, this time on the narrow 
strip of snow between two of the trees. Nothing happened.
"I see what you mean," said Lallia. "But suppose it gets dark before we pass 
through the forest?"
"We sleep and continue the next day."
"And if that isn't enough?"
"We have no choice," said Yalung before Dumarest could answer. "Here we shall 
freeze or starve. Already we are weakening." He turned his round, yellow face 
away from the wind. "If you lead I shall follow."
It was like treading an intricate maze. No path was straight and all followed 
circles so that to progress a mile they had to walk four. And, always, Dumarest 
was conscious of the danger of getting lost.
His guides were the sun and the strange shimmer in the air beyond the trees. The 
sun moved across the sky but the shimmer did not and, fortunately, the trees 
were wide-spaced enough to allow fairly good vision. Even so the going was hard. 
The eerie silence of the forest began to play on their nerves and moving shadows 
gave the impression of watchful menace.
The wind fell and the snow vanished. Night caught them and they took turns to 
sleep, one watching while the others sprawled in the narrow margin of safety. 
With the dawn came a raging thirst adding to the weakness caused by cold and 
lack of food. The cold could be combated by exertion, but the thirst could not. 
Twice Yalung called a sharp warning as Lallia staggered and almost left the 
path. The third time Dumarest halted and looked into the strained lines of her 
face.
"I'm sorry, Earl," she said. "I couldn't help it. It's got so that I seem to be 
walking in a dream." She looked around, shuddering. "It's so damn quiet. If only 
something would make a noise. And," she added with feeling, "if only there was 
something to drink."
"Stay here." Dumarest turned and walked on to the next area of grass. Dropping 
he reached out with his boot and scraped it towards him. As he tore at the grass 
explosions blasted the air and shafts rained towards him. His boots were strong 
and, like his pants, resisted penetration. Picking up the clump of grass he 
returned to the others. "Chew on this," he said. "It might help."
Dubiously Lallia took the tangled vegetation. It was a mass of thick, juicy 
strands, the ends seeping where it had broken away. Sight of the liquid inflamed 
her thirst and she thrust some of the grass into her mouth, chewing and 
swallowing, sap staining her lips as she helped herself to more.
"It's good," she said. "Have some."
Yalung said, quietly, "Thank you, no. I can continue for a while yet."
"Earl?"
"Later, maybe. Now stick to the path and don't start daydreaming."
They reached the edge of the forest as the sun kissed the horizon, long shadows 
streaming from the ranked trees and hiding the terrain so that they were clear 
long before they realized it. Now they walked on close-cropped grass dotted with 
low bushes, bearing flame-colored berries and thorned leaves. A tiny lake 
yielded water of crystal clarity, cold but more delicious than wine. Later 
Dumarest managed to kill a small animal, spearing it with his knife at thirty 
feet, cleaning the beast and jointing it, using the fur to wipe the blade.
Chewing on the raw gobbets of meat they walked on to where the shimmer hung 
against the blossoming stars.
They were few and Dumarest looked at them with a strange nostalgia. So had the 
stars looked from Earth when he had been very young. Not the shimmer and glare 
so common in and close to the Center, but a scatter of burning points separated 
by wide expanses of darkness. They had formed patterns, those stars, and the 
broad swath of the galactic lens had traced a shining path across the heavens. 
But they had been scattered by distance and not, as the stars in the Web, by the 
cloud of shielding dust.
"Look," said Yalung softly. "A ship."
It fell wreathed in the misty blue of its field, a tiny mote incredibly far, 
falling as a meteor to a point beyond the horizon. Landing at the sacred place 
which, so Nimino had said, was protected by strange guardians. The trees? 
Dumarest didn't think so. They were guardians of a kind but not the ones the 
navigator had meant.
He paused as a thin trilling stirred the air, the ghostly echoes of a crystal 
chime, sounding high and shrill and far away.
A sweet and soulful sound, unbearably poignant, arousing memories better left 
undisturbed.
"Earl!" Lallia came close to him and caught his arm. "Earl, what was that?"
It came again as she fell silent, thin, hurtfully pure. A third time and then 
the night settled into unbroken silence.
"A signal," said Yalung thoughtfully. "It must have sounded when the ship 
landed. A summons, perhaps?" He sucked in his breath with an audible hiss. 
"Look! The sky!"
Ahead, where the shimmer had disturbed the cold beauty of the stars, leaped a 
vibrant cone of coruscating brilliance. It lasted for perhaps half a minute and 
then, as abruptly as it had come, was gone.
The ship left at dawn. Lallia watched as it rose, tiny in the distance, the blue 
mist of its field almost lost against the brightening sky. Her face was haggard 
as she looked at Dumarest.
"Earl! We're too late! It's gone!"
"There will be others," he said. "Ships must come here all the time."
"They come," agreed Yalung. "But will they take any who ask for passage? Will 
they be allowed to? This is a strange world."
He halted, brooding as he studied the sky. They had been walking for hours, 
using the stars as a guide, avoiding the thorned bushes more by instinct than 
actual sight. They had found no more lakes and there had been no more game.
"How much further do you think we have to go?"
"A long way," said Dumarest. The ship had been small, their progress of the 
night had been negligible, the faint shimmer in the sky seemed no closer. "A 
week, perhaps, even longer, but we'll get there in the end."
"If we can stay alive that long." Fatigue had made the woman sharp. "There's 
something crazy about this place. We've been walking for miles and seem no 
closer now than we did at the start. Maybe we'll never get closer. We could be 
moving in a giant circle."
"No," said Dumarest. "Not that."
"Then why are we so far? We—" She broke off and then said, wonderingly. "Look, 
Earl. Birds."
"The first we have seen," said Yalung quietly. "But —are they birds?"
They came from the direction in which they were heading, winged motes against 
the sky, wheeling and circling before swooping down at the travelers. There was 
something odd about them. Dumarest watched as they came, eyes like jewels and 
feathers rustling like metal, wide wings throwing shadows on the ground. They 
were big, their wings extended fully twenty feet, their bodies as long as the 
height of a man. Their beaks were glinting spears and their clawed feet 
stretched as if to engulf barrels. From halfway down their bodies stretched 
limbs ending in long, prehensile finger-like claws. Three of them landed just 
ahead, the rest circling watchfully above.
The guardians?
Dumarest studied them as they stood, wings folded, apparently waiting. Mutated 
biological mechanisms, he thought, fed on a diet heavy in metallic oxides and 
silicon. That would account for the rasping of the feathers, the sparkling gleam 
of bone and scale. Multilimbed creatures produced in order to fly, to walk, to 
grip and tear. Or perhaps they were a natural sport of this peculiar world. It 
didn't matter. To resist them would be suicide.
"They are barring our path," said Yalung. "A warning?"
"We can't turn back!" Lallia's voice held near-hysteria. "Earl, we can't turn 
back!"
Dumarest looked at the other winged shapes circling overhead. Reenforcements, 
perhaps, if they should somehow manage to overcome the three ahead. With lasers 
they could have killed them all but they had no weapons aside from his knife. 
And, even if they could have destroyed the birds, would that end their danger?
Slowly he walked forward to stand before the three silent images. They were like 
statues of burnished metal and shining crystal, the idols of some ancient 
temple, utterly remote from human comprehension. The light of the rising sun 
shone redly from their eyes, beyond them the enigmatic shimmer quivered in the 
silent air.
Dumarest said, "We are survivors of a wrecked vessel. We wish to go to the 
field, there to obtain passage from this world."
A voice, cold, emotionless, echoed wordlessly in his mind, in the minds of them 
all.
"It is understood. Do not resist."
Wings lifted, flexed as they beat the air, the rustle of feathers a 
tintinnabulation. Lallia gasped as she was picked from the ground, hair flying 
as she turned in the grip of prehensile fingers. Yalung was next, his yellow 
face impassive as he was carried away. Dumarest followed, feeling the firm grip 
on his body, the sighing rush of air past his face. Around the three the other 
birds formed an escort as they first climbed then leveled in whispering flight.
Far below the ground swept past like an unrolling carpet.
The bushed plain, dotted with tiny lakes few and far between. A circle of 
spine-bearing trees, a swampy morass succulent with livid grasses steaming with 
oozing mud, a rearing mound of stone surrounding a mass of scree and then, 
finally, a thick growth of timber at the side of which rested the unmistakable 
expanse of a landing field.
It swelled as they plummeted towards it, the bare ground torn and scarred from 
the impact of tremendous energies, tiny figures working to level the surface. 
Dumarest looked at them as the ground hit his feet and the bird which had 
carried him winged away. They were simple creatures with wide jaws and spadelike 
forepaws, clawed feet and a flat tail. Where they passed freshly turned soil 
rested flat and smooth behind them.
He lifted his eyes. The perimeter fence was high and stronger than any he had 
previously seen. A mesh of thick bars fifty feet high, so close that it was 
almost a solid wall. A single gate broke it where it faced the expanse of timber 
beyond.
As Dumarest watched it opened and a figure passed through.
"God!" Lallia's voice was a whisper at his side. "Earl, what is it?"
"A guardian." Yalung had no doubt. "One of those the navigator mentioned. It can 
be nothing else."
From the tip of the cowl to the hem of the trailing robe the figure was twelve 
feet tall, incredibly broad, the figure bulking beneath the muffling robe of 
glinting metallic fiber. The face was shadow in which transient gleams of 
variegated color flashed and died in winking splendor. The hands, if the 
creature had hands, were hidden in wide sleeves. There were no signs of feet or 
locomotive appendages.
Dumarest had the impression that the thing was entirely unhuman. That the robe 
was worn for concealment and that the figure bulking beneath was completely 
alien.
Again the cold, emotionless voice echoed wordlessly in his mind.
"You have come to the Place. You are welcome"
"Thank you," said Dumarest quickly before the others could answer. "We had 
misfortune. Our vessel crashed on some hills far from here. It was kind of you 
to send your servants to give us aid."
The birds could be nothing else. They shared the alienness of the tall figure 
but they could not be the masters. Nothing could be the master of the enigmatic 
being which stood before them. It was wrapped in an aura of power almost as 
tangible as the metallic robe covering its body.
Yalung stirred and said, "We require little. Some food and water while we wait 
for the arrival of a ship to carry us from this world."
Lallia added, "And somewhere to bathe. Is that possible?"
Colored sparkles flashed and died in the shadow of the cowl.
"In the Place all things are possible. Ask and you shall be given."
The figure turned and glided towards the open gate, the mystery of the area 
beyond. Dumarest followed, the others just behind.
He stepped into a cathedral.




Chapter Ten



It was a place of mystery and awe-inspiring majesty, the still air hanging like 
incense, tiny motes of dust glinting in the shadowed sunlight like tiny candles 
set before incredible altars. Dumarest felt Yalung bump into him, heard Lallia's 
low voice at his side.
"Earl," she said. "It's beautiful!"
A wide avenue stretched before them, floored with soft, close-cropped grass and 
flanked by the slender boles of soaring trees. They reared like columns, a tuft 
of branches high overhead fanning to meet and form a natural arch through which 
streamed the ruby light of the sun. Ahead, shadowed in the distance, more 
columns sprang from the tended soil, circling a clearing about an 
indistinguishable structure, a boulder, perhaps, an outcrop of natural stone 
wreathed and hung with living garlands.
Down the avenue, diminished in the distance, the tall figure of the strange 
Guardian, seemed to flicker and then to abruptly vanish.
Slowly Dumarest walked down the avenue.
It was the pilgrim's way, he guessed, the path which those seeking the miracle 
of healing followed as they made their way to the holy place. There would be 
attendants to carry those unable to walk, others to help those who could barely 
stand, a motley thronging of deformity and pain each united by a common hope. 
But now there was nothing but the three of them, the quiet susurration of their 
footsteps on the springy grass, the sound of their breathing.
And it was warm, the temperature that of living blood.
"Earl." Lallia turned to him, her face beaded with perspiration. "I can't stand 
this heat. I've got to get rid of these clothes."
They stripped at one side of the avenue, shedding the extra, bulky garments they 
had worn on leaving the ship and then, the woman in her iridescent dress, Yalung 
in his yellow and black, Dumarest in his neutral gray, continued down the path 
between the trees.
How many had preceded them, thought Dumarest. How long had these trees grown, 
shaped by careful tending, planted and culled, bred and trained? How many ships 
had dropped from the skies with their loads of misery and hope? The place reeked 
of sanctity, of devotion and supplication. The trees had absorbed the emotions 
of the incalculable number of pilgrims who had visited Shrine and followed the 
guardian into the holy place. Holy because they had made it so? Or holy because 
here, in this spot, something beyond the physical experience of men had stopped 
and left its mark?
Faith, he thought. Here, surely, if a man had faith miracles could happen.
"Earl, look!"
Lallia's whisper was loud in the brooding stillness. She had advanced a little 
and now stood at the edge of the clearing in which stood the mysterious object. 
It was no clearer than it had been when seen from far down the avenue. The woman 
stood beside a heap of something beneath a wide awning of natural growth. A 
chapel made by leafy branches.
It was brimming with articles of price.
Fine fabric, precious metal, cunning fabrications of metal and wood and blazing 
ceramics. The glint of gems and gold and the crystal perfection of faceted 
glass. All intermingled with less rare objects, a cloak, a cane, a visored helm, 
the leather of belts and the scaled skins of serpents, sacks of spices and seed 
and pleasing aromatics. The roll of charts, maps, paintings of a hundred 
different schools.
"Votive offerings," said Yalung softly. "Things given in appreciation and 
gratitude. A fortune beyond the dreams of avarice on any of a million worlds."
And there were more. The chapels surrounded the clearing and all contained a 
heap of similar items. Lallia paused, looking at a scatter of ancient books.
She touched one and her face stiffened with psychic shock.
"Earl!" she whispered. "It's so old, old! There is hope and a terrible fear 
and—and—"
He caught her as she slumped, the book falling from her hand. It fell open and 
he had a glimpse of strange figures, of lines and tabulated numerations, of 
diagrams and vaguely familiar symbols.
Yalung picked it up, closed it, returned it to the heap. Quietly he said, "How 
is the girl?"
"I'm all right." Lallia straightened from Dumarest's arms and shook her head as 
if to clear it of mist. "It was just that —Earl, the book is so old!"
An ancient book. A stellar almanac, perhaps. A pre-Center-orientated 
navigational manual. In this place anything was possible.
He reached for it, arresting his hand as a familiar voice echoed in his mind.
"Come."
Dumarest looked up. The strange guardian stood to one side. Watching? It was 
hard to tell if the figure had a face or eyes at all but the enigmatic 
flickering in the shadow of the cowl gave the impression of senses more finely 
tuned than those owned by ordinary men.
"The Place awaits. Go to it. Place your hands on it. This is the rule."
"The guardian means that object in the middle of the clearing," said Yalung. He 
sounded dubious. "I am not sure that we should do as he directs."
"Have we any choice?" Lallia smiled. "And I want a bath. Remember what was 
promised? Ask and you will be given. Anyway, what have we to lose?"
Life, thought Dumarest. Sanity, our health, perhaps. Who can tell?
But he followed her across the clearing.
The mound was high, larger than he had at first supposed, a vine-draped mass 
protruding from the neatly kept grass. A special grass, he thought, to withstand 
the weight of the thousands who must come here. As the mound had to be something 
special also. A strangely-shaped fragment of stone, perhaps, a meteor even, a 
thing to which had become attached a tremendous superstition. Or did naked 
belief make its own holiness? Could faith convert inanimate matter into a 
healing being?
Nimino could have answered, but the navigator was dead. Coughing out his life in 
order to fulfill a prophecy that he would achieve great knowledge in a cloud of 
dust. The Web was such a cloud and what greater knowledge could come to a man 
than that of what happened after death?
Dumarest shook his head, annoyed at his own introspection, wondering what had 
sent his thoughts on such a path. The influence of the place, he thought. The 
mystery and enchantment of it. The brooding majesty and overwhelming sense of 
sanctity. There was magic in the air, perhaps the emanations of the trees, the 
invisible vapors released by the grass, subtle drugs to fog the senses and open 
wide the vistas of the mind. But that again was sheer speculation.
He concentrated on the mound.
There was an oddity about it as there had been about the birds, as there was 
about the guardian. A peculiar sense of alienness as if it did not belong to 
this world and never had. Dumarest narrowed his eyes, tilting his head so as to 
sharpen his vision, probing beneath the obvious to seek the underlying truth. It 
probably was simply a mound but there was an oddity here, a peculiar something 
there, a slight distortion just above the line of sight. And then, suddenly, as 
if he were looking at an optical illusion in which one image was hidden within 
another, details grew clear.
The mound was no heap of vine-covered stone.
It was the wreckage of a manufactured artifact.
He blinked but there was no mistake. Warped and crushed as it was, misshapen and 
unfamiliar, he could still make out the angles and curves of vanes, the ridges 
of corrugations, plates and sheets of metal all overlaid with grime and a patina 
of soil from which grew shielding vines.
Or were they, too, disguised? Cables, perhaps, flexible conduits, pipes which 
had burst like entrails from the body of the artifact?
Dumarest heard the sharp intake of Yalung's breath and wondered if the dealer in 
precious stones had also penetrated the illusion. And Lallia? He glanced at her, 
noting the smoothness of her face, the rapt expression in her eyes. She looked 
like a little girl as she stood before the mound, a child basking in the promise 
of comfort and warmth and security. She had once prayed, he remembered, and all 
who pray must have some belief in a higher power. Did she imagine that she stood 
before the abode of such a being?
"Lallia," he called softly. "Wait."
She halted and turned, smiling, the full richness of her lips red against the 
whiteness of her skin. "Why, Earl?"
"It would be wise to wait," said Yalung. "If the guardian will allow it." He 
glanced to where the tall figure stood at the edge of the clearing, as immobile 
as a statue. "The mound is not quite what it seems."
"Does it matter?" She shrugged, suddenly impatient. "What's the matter with you 
two? It's only a gesture. We aren't sick or ill and if they can come here and 
touch it without harm what have we to fear? Anyway I'm curious to see whether or 
not I get my bath."
She held out her hands, again smiling.
"Come on, Earl. Come on the pair of you. Let's touch it together."
For a moment Dumarest hesitated, then reached for her hand. After all, what 
could there be to fear?
Together the three of them rested their hands on the fabric of the Place.
Nothing, thought Dumarest. He felt the touch of harshness beneath his palms, saw 
the grain of dirt and soil before his eyes. A patina built over how long? 
Centuries, certainly, thousands of years, perhaps, wind-blown dust, rain, the 
slow, relentless attrition of the years. But why hadn't the metal beneath the 
dirt yielded to the impact of time?
And who had originally built it?
And why?
He heard the soft movement of Yalung's body as the man shifted his feet. Lallia 
was breathing quietly, hands and cheek pressed against the mound, eyes closed as 
if she were making a secret wish. Entering into the spirit of the thing, 
perhaps. Acting as if she were a genuine pilgrim seeking a miracle. And, if one 
came, just what would the effect be?
Dumarest thought he knew. Faith healing was nothing unusual. Many had the gift 
and could heal with a touch, it was merely another facet of the paraphysical 
sciences revealed in the talents of various sensitives. In effect they were 
simply catalysts directing the body to repair itself from the blueprint inherent 
in every molecule of D.N.A. If a machine could be developed to do the same thing 
then every city would have its Shrine. Its holy spot. Its Place.
He smiled and closed his eyes, willing to play the game to the full, trying to 
feel as a genuine pilgrim would feel. If he had been sick or crippled he would 
have concentrated on his infirmity.
Instead he could only think of Earth.
Earth, the planet which had become lost to him, the need to find which had 
become an aching obsession. Could a man be whole without a home? And could a man 
who was not whole be considered other than as a cripple? Deformities were not 
always of the flesh and bone. And what was loss but a deformity of the mind?
A moment of peculiar, subconscious strain and then abruptly, Dumarest saw a 
picture in his mind.
It was shining with bright splendor, a flattened disc with vaguely spiral arms, 
a pattern composed of a myriad of glowing points, hazes, somber patches of ebon 
and traces of luminous cloud. Instinctively he knew what it was. The galactic 
lens as seen from above and to one side.
In it one tiny fleck shone with blazing ruby fire.
It was well from the Center, lying in a distant arm of the spiral, a lonely 
place among few and scattered stars but he knew exactly what it was.
Home.
The planet for which he had been searching for too long. The world which had 
given him birth. Earth.
And he knew now almost exactly where to look for it.
Almost, for the galaxy was vast and the stars innumerable and no one brain can 
hold the complexity of an island universe. But the sector was there, the 
approximate position, the direction from the Center. It would be enough.
Dumarest jerked as the picture vanished, an eerie tension of his nerves, a 
something in his brain as if fingers of mist had drawn themselves across the 
naked cortex and with the touch had taken something of himself. Opening his eyes 
he stared at the material before him. It looked exactly the same, but as he 
watched he saw a fragile glow of light, a vague sparkle of quickly vanished 
luminescence.
To one side Yalung groaned, falling to sit upright blinking and shaking his 
head.
"Strange," he said thickly. "So strange. And I feel now no discomfort. My thirst 
has gone, my hunger. But how?"
Dumarest frowned, flexing his back and shoulders. The nagging discomfort of his 
barely healed wounds had totally vanished and he too felt neither hunger or 
thirst. Lallia?
She lay sprawled on the grass, hands touching the mound, her face a strained 
mask of torment. As Dumarest watched, it contorted and writhed, adopting a 
snarling mask of hideous aspect. Then it relaxed to reveal the familiar planes 
and contours.
"Lallia!" He knelt at her side, touching her skin, the pulse in her throat. Her 
muscles were like iron.
"No!" she screamed as he tried to pull her hands from the mound. "No!" and then, 
quieter, "Dear God, how long, how old!"
Yalung rose, a yellow shadow to kneel at her far side. "She is ill," he said. "A 
fit perhaps?"
It was no fit, not unless psychic shock could be called that. Too late Dumarest 
remembered her wild talent, the ability to remember the past of any object she 
touched. The ancient book should have warned him but he had been engrossed in 
the possibility that it could help in his search. He had not thought of the 
possibility that the mound could hold a similar danger. Not even when he had 
recognized it as an artifact.
And now it was too late for regret.
"Earl!" She writhed again, sensing an agonizing past, the dusty span of painful 
years. "Three suns," she whispered. "A fault in the engines. Suspended animation 
and millennia of travel. Such darkness and chill and then the dust and the 
wakening. Too late. The crash and the waiting, the endless waiting." She twisted 
and moaned, midnight hair wreathed on the grass. "It's alive, Earl. Still alive. 
Waiting and hoping. Such forlorn longing, Earl!"
She stiffened, and from the very pores of her skin seeped a lambent effulgence, 
a mist of luminescence which flowed down her arms to the material of the ancient 
wreck and, as it finally separated from her body, she sighed and totally 
relaxed.
"Is she dead?" Yalung's face was a yellow mask in the shadows.
Dumarest examined her body, heart pounding with the fear of what he might find. 
Relieved he sat back and looked at the other man.
"Not dead," he said. "Exhausted by tremendous psychic shock. You understand?"
"Yes," said Yalung. "I understand."
"All of it?" Dumarest glanced at the mound. "It is a wrecked spaceship. It came 
from God alone knows where, but I will guess that it was never made in our 
galaxy. And, somehow, something within it is still alive."
Crippled, perhaps, hurt, but still aware. For unguessed millennia it had lain 
within the vessel tended only by the repair mechanisms the ship had 
contained—and by the enigmatic guardians if there were more than one? It was 
possible, they could have bred the birds and the protoplasmic machines which 
tended the field and the Place itself. Or perhaps they were extensions of the 
entity within the ship, prosthetic devices governed by its intelligence. Who 
could begin to guess at the mental structure of an alien race?
And, by means of her talent, Lallia had contacted it. She had sent a part of her 
mentality back down through the ages, barely understanding, capable only of 
feeling the terrible shock and despair, the age-long time it had traversed the 
endless dark, the indescribable alienness of its emotions as it waited and 
waited for years without end.
For rescue, perhaps? For death? For someone to come who would know and 
understand?
Dumarest looked at the mound and then back at the girl. She was not dead and 
that was the important thing. She would lie in a coma for a while and then wake 
as she had back on the Moray, alive and sane and well. They would still have a 
future.
Stooping he lifted her in his arms.
"Where are you taking her?" Yalung glanced around the clearing then down the 
length of the avenue to the gate and high fence at the end. "Perhaps close to 
the landing field would be best. Anywhere away from this mound which seems to 
have distressed her."
Away from the ancient vessel, the enigmatic guardian who stood, still immobile, 
dancing flickers gleaming from the shadow of its cowl. Away from the brooding 
stillness of the Place, the psychic influences which seemed to pervade the very 
grass and trees.
Dumarest began to walk down the wide avenue.
He staggered and frowned. The girl was not that heavy and he felt strong enough. 
Strong but suddenly weary as if he had suffered some tremendous strain and 
fatigue was the natural aftermath. Yalung tripped and almost fell, shaking his 
head as he recovered his balance.
"I am fatigued," he said. "Filled with the desire to sleep. At the end of the 
avenue, perhaps? There is open space between the trees."
He led the way, falling to sprawl on the grass as Dumarest gently set down the 
body of the girl. For a long moment he stared at her, drinking in the smooth 
beauty of her face, the lustrous waterfall of her hair. She stirred a little 
sighing like a child in a pleasant dream, full lips parted to breathe his name.
"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, timeless oblivion.
When he woke Lallia was dead.




Chapter Eleven



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 received 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 guardians, 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 murdered 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 obvious?"
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 fingers 
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 assumed 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. Awkwardly 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 possibilities 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. 
Investigations 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 towards 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 watchful. 
"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. If 
it were possible to test one combination every second it would take over four 
thousand years to test them all. And there are reasons why the Cyclan cannot 
wait. Good reasons. But now they need wait no longer."
"The ring is just what it seems," said Dumarest. "It contains no secret."
"I think that you lie. Twice I offered to buy it from you and each time you 
refused to sell. The price was high for such a bauble and your refusal convinced 
me that you were aware of its true worth." Yalung glanced once behind him as if 
sensing the presence of some entity, but the avenue and the space between the 
trees was deserted. "I should have had you safe on Aarn. I killed the thief who 
tried to rob you in the hotel. Normally the police would have arrested you and 
the ring would have come into my possession while you would have been kept 
safely in prison. But you were too quick. I could do nothing but follow you into 
the Web. Once in, I had no choice but to continue as I had begun."
An accident, thought Dumarest. The unpredictable workings of destiny. A 
primitive sense of danger and the quick grasping of an opportunity. Who could 
have predicted that one man would kill another at that exact place and time? Or 
that he would have been given the dead man's job?
Quietly he said, "And now?"
"You are my patient. A poor fool touched in the brain who is not responsible for 
what he says and what he does. I shall take passage on the next ship for us both 
and you will be drugged and bound for the entire journey. I have the means to 
charter the vessel if that will be necessary." Yalung slapped his belt. "My 
pouch of precious stones. Genuine jewels of high value. Ten times their worth 
will be mine when I have delivered you to the Cyclan."
Dumarest lifted his left hand from his right arm and looked at the ring. The 
impacted nerves had recovered a little but the arm still felt numb, was still 
unreliable. He raised his right hand and began to fumble with the ring.
"You want this," he said. "You had better take it."
His fingers were too awkward. He lifted the ring and held it between his teeth, 
pulling until it slipped free. It fell and he scrabbled for it, easing himself 
back over the grass. Picking it up with his right hand he held it so that it 
caught the light.
"If this contains such a valuable secret then perhaps you are selling it too 
cheap?"
"The bargain is satisfactory."
"We could make much more than you hope to gain. I know what the affinity twin 
can do. Together we could dominate a dozen worlds."
"And live for how long?" Yalung gestured his contempt. "You underestimate the 
power of the Cyclan. Should I try to play them false my death would be certain."
"All men die," said Dumarest flatly. "And all women." He glanced once at the 
body of the girl. "But not often does a man get such an opportunity as now lies 
within your grasp. You want money and power? I give it to you."
He threw the ring.
It spun high in the air, glittering, a thick band of gold holding a flat, ruby 
like stone. Yalung snatched at it as he would a fly, missed, and automatically 
turned to follow its flight.
Dumarest flung himself at the knife.
It lay where it had fallen, where Yalung had casually tossed it, the spot to 
which Dumarest had rolled after the Kha'tung fighter had pushed him. He reached 
it, scooped it up, sprang to his feet as Yalung realized his error.
"You fool," he said, already on his feet. "Do you think to beat me with that 
toy?"
Toy or not, the knife was the only advantage Dumarest had. He held it in his 
left hand, not trusting his right, holding it ready to throw. Yalung sneered at 
his indecision.
"Throw it," he invited. "Or use it to stab at me as you did before. Hurry and 
let us dispense with this farce. You are defeated before you can begin."
He crouched, thick arms folded over the massive muscles of his chest and 
stomach, complete protection to vital organs against a thrown blade. His chin 
lowered to shield his throat and his slanted eyes were watchful.
Dumarest studied him, knowing that he had only the one chance and that he had to 
make it count. He raised his hand and swept it forward in quick pretense. Yalung 
skipped backwards, hands lifting to beat aside the thrown knife, grunting as he 
recognized the feint.
A second time he took the same evasive action. The third his backward skip 
carried him to where the dead girl lay on the grass. His foot hit the 
obstruction and he staggered, off-balance and exposing his throat.
The knife ripped into the flesh below his ear.
It was a shallow cut but it was enough. Blood fountained in a scarlet stream, 
raining on the yellow and black, the grass, the body of the dead girl. Yalung 
clapped his hand to the wound, the fingers immediately turning red, more red 
spurting from the severed artery. He stooped, snatched up the knife, and threw 
it all in one quick movement. The point slammed against Dumarest's chest, 
tearing through the plastic to be halted by the protective mesh beneath.
"Armored!" Yalung swayed, already weak from the loss of blood. "I should have 
aimed for the face." He slumped to his knees and fell sideways, but he was not 
yet dead.
Dumarest walked to where he lay. A gleam of gold gave the position of the ring. 
He picked it up and slipped it on his finger, watched all the time by the 
slanted almonds of Yalung's eyes.
"The ring," he said, and raised himself on one elbow. "The secret, what—" He 
broke off as a thin, shrilling note echoed over the trees, the entire region. It 
was sweet, high and painful in its keening poignancy. "Look!" Yalung reared 
upwards to rest on his heels. "The ring!"
On the flat surface of the stone shone fifteen points of brilliance.
"A sonic trigger," gasped the Kha'tung fighter. "The correct sequence of the 
affinity twin. And you didn't know. You didn't know!" He fell, lips twisted in 
an ironic smile. "All I had to do was to kill you and take the ring. I had a 
dozen opportunities but I used none of them. I even saved you from the beast on 
Joy. I thought you were valuable, that you would have known that—"
He died as a second chime rang through the air. The summons to the guardians 
which announced the coming of a vessel to the Place.
The handler was an old man with silvered hair and lines meshed thickly on his 
face. He stood at the foot of the ramp, his eyes misted with gentleness.
"This job doesn't pay much," he said. "But it has its compensations."
"The pilgrims?" Dumarest looked at the column filing down the avenue. Their 
progress was slow, those who could not walk being carried by those barely able 
to hobble. Leading them was the enigmatic figure of a guardian. Others stood 
between the sparing trees. Watching? Counting? It was impossible to know.
"I was one of them once," said the handler. "Twenty years ago. I had a 
malignancy of the blood impossible to cure. Shrine was my last hope." He 
breathed deeply, inflating his chest. "I was cured," he said quietly. "It seems 
to me that I owe something to all those seeking health."
"It's a nice thought," said Dumarest.
"You crashed, you say?"
"That's right."
"You were lucky," said the handler. "And did you—?"
"Yes," said Dumarest quickly. "I visited the Place. And," he added slowly. "I 
think I gained what I had been lacking."
Gained and lost, both within the span of hours. From where he stood Dumarest 
could see the spot where they had slept, where Lallia had been murdered and 
where Yalung had died. The bodies were gone, lifted away by the birds to be 
disposed of somewhere, perhaps fed to the spine-trees. As others would be 
disposed of, those who would die, as some must die, at the center of the 
clearing.
He looked again down the avenue. The dying sun threw a ruby light in the natural 
arch, a dim, mysterious, luminescence in which the slowly moving band of 
pilgrims appeared to be walking through water, marching into the gate of another 
world. A concentration of pain and suffering, of desperation and hopefulness. 
Did the entity within the wrecked vessel live on such Paraphysical emanations? 
Did it need the psychic energy of those who came to rest their hands on the 
mound? Giving, perhaps as a by-product, something in return?
"They go," mused the handler. "They crawl and skip and drag themselves down to 
the Place. And when they come back, those that do, they march like men. They 
fall into the ship and sleep solid for ten, twelve hours. Sometimes longer. And 
when they wake you can see paradise in their eyes."
"A good feeling," said Dumarest.
"The best." The handler sucked in his breath as a cone of coruscating brilliance 
leaped from the surrounding area. "It won't be long now."
His face was livid in the glow. Dumarest turned, looking at the radiance, 
wondering what it could be. The discharge of natural energies? A waste product 
of the alien entity? Or was it, perhaps, the visible by-product of a supralight 
message aimed at some distant galaxy?
"They'll be coming back soon," said the handler. "And we'll take them home."
"And me?" Dumarest looked at the man. "You can give me passage?"
"If you can pay."
"To outside the Web?"
"To Thermyle; you can get an outward-bound ship from there." The handler 
hesitated. "We won't be going direct and you know the system. But if you're 
short of money you can ride Low."
"I've got money," said Dumarest.
He had Yalung's pouch of precious gems and they would carry him to where he 
wanted to go. To a flaring red point on a pictured galaxy or as near as he could 
get to the sector in which it was held. It would be a long journey and there 
would be too much time to remember what might have been. Of a girl with lustrous 
black tresses, the pressure of her arms, the promise of her body, the future 
they would now never share.
"That's all right then," said the handler. "Just you?"
"Yes."
"Then you're alone?"
"Yes," said Dumarest bleakly. "I'm alone."