by E. C. Tubb
As it fell Dumarest shouted, "Hart! Away, man! Away!"
‹›Run and leave the field to those who had claimed it first. The dictate of caution-a claw could rip out an eye, a beak tear open a throat and nothing could be gained to balance the risk. Vardoon snarled as he beat at a winged shape, hands clamping, twisting, breaking the neck before using the jerking body as a club to beat at others. A man touched with berserker fury, blood masking his face, eyes burning, clothing stained and smoking with freshly spilled blood.
"Hart!"
Dumarest looked up as the man lowered his arm, the dead bird trailing from his hand. Above, a silent shape dropped from the skies, a bird plummeting, claws extended, curved to strike, and would hit unless Vardoon moved but, lost in his rage, he would recognize the danger too late. Dumarest drew back his arm, threw it forward, the knife a blur as it left his fingers, to hit and drive deep into the body of the predator. Blood jetted as the creature spun, its raucous cry rising harsh and strident in a grating squawk which snapped Vardoon fully aware.
"Earl! What-"
"Move!" Dumarest ran forward, snatched up the dead bird, tugged free his knife. "Away, man! Hurry!"
Snow lifted in little cakes from beneath his boots as he led the way from the area. Behind them the birds wheeled, circling the wreck, sounding their triumph as they settled to feed on the dead. Vardoon glanced back at them, touched his face, scowled at the blood dappling his fingers.
"Damned vermin! They nearly got my eyes. That last one would have blinded me for sure if it hadn't been for you."
"I was lucky."
"You were fast," corrected Vardoon. "I've never seen anyone move as fast. Skilled, too. If you hadn't hit I'd-" He shook his head, unwilling to voice what could have happened. Ripped, blinded, at the mercy of the elements and his sole companion. Something which hadn't happened and so could now be forgotten. Looking at the dead bird Dumarest carried, he said, "For us?"
"Yes."
"Smart thinking. I should have held onto the one I had but when that thing almost got me I lost my appetite. Well, Earl, when do we eat?"
They were safely away from the other birds and to wait longer would be to lose the body heat their prey contained.
Dumarest set down the bird, sliced it open, cleaned and skinned it, divided the carcass into two equal portions. Chewing the raw, tough flesh they moved on. That night they saw the trail of a ship rising from the field. By dawn they had reached the town.
Chapter Three
It lay in the cup of hills; a jumble of blank-walled houses roofed with truncated pyramids, the roofs adorned with windmills which flashed and glittered as they spun as if they were decorations on a festive tree. A place of narrow, winding streets designed as a protection against the knife-edged winds of winter, just as the steep roofs guarded against too great a weight of snow, the blank walls the savage impact of driven hail.
A city now closed tight against the hostile elements with movement confined to underground passages. A refuge containing warmth, food, the luxury of baths.
"If you will turn now?"
The girl was young, nubile, detailed to attend him after the session in steam and heat. Near-scalding vapor which had driven out the misery of cold, as earlier food had banished hunger. Obediently Dumarest turned to lie supine on the couch. Above, the ceiling was adorned with stripes and swirls of color each swath set with minute flecks of glistening material.
"Does this please you?" Her hands were flowers laced with steel, the oil scented with musk, her skill obvious as she probed at muscle and sinew. "A little harder? Tell me if I cause pain."
Framed against the decorated ceiling, her face was round, pert, wreathed in a helmet of russet hair cut so as to form upcurved points on either cheek. Her lips were full, smiling. She wore a short garment of diaphanous material arranged so as to leave one shoulder bare, belted to display the swell of hips and buttocks. As she worked her breasts moved in unfettered abandon.
"You've been hurt in the past." Her fingers traced the pattern of cicatrices on his torso, thin lines of scar tissue which were the fruit of edged and pointed steel. The price he had paid to learn a savage trade. "A fighter?"
"No."
"But no stranger to the arena." She was wise beyond her years. "From the workings? If so you may find it hard to get along. If you're interested I know someone who could arrange a bout."
"I'm not."
"A pity. If you're as good as you look you could clean up during the winter."
Or die if luck was against him. Be maimed, crippled, slashed and left with severed tendons, blinded, ruined. He inhaled, filling his lungs with the scent of perfume and oil, adding the remembered smells of sweat and blood, the stink of fear. Seeing the glare of lights, the ring of avid faces, the feral eyes of those who had paid to watch. Vultures screaming for action. Men and women eager to taste vicarious pain, to enjoy vicarious wounds. Beasts yammering for the spectacle of death.
"Relax," said the girl. "You're getting tense." Her hands moved to knead his thighs. "You staying the winter?"
"Probably."
"You could do worse. Things quiet down after a while. Ships don't call during the bad season and there's not much doing until the spring. That's why a good fighter can make decent money. Anything which entertains is popular and a clever man could really enjoy himself. In fact I guarantee it." Her tone left no doubt as to her meaning. "I hope you stay."
"Why?"
"That's a stupid question." She lifted her hands from his body. "That's all for now. If you want to sleep go ahead. If you want anything else just press the button."
The bell which commanded a variety of joys-at a price.
Alone, Dumarest looked at the decorated ceiling and the images it contained. Figures born from the glint of light in color, the shape, the twists which caught the eyes and lulled with hypnotic associations. A dead man with a twisted leg, the gaping beak of a dying bird, a figure stained in blood, which took on the shape of a cowled man with a bleak, skull-like face. A smear of scarlet which spread as he watched to fill his vision.
As the Cyclan spread to engulf worlds.
The Cyclan which hunted him and would always hunt him as long as he held the secret they were determined to possess. The sequence of units which formed the affinity twin and which would give them complete domination of the galaxy.
As yet he was safe, there were no cybers on Polis; the planet was too insignificant. A commercial undertaking with a scatter of minor industries and scant farming. A place to be avoided by any traveler, for to be stranded was to starve. Yet word could have been sent and agents could be watching. The Cyclan knew he was in the area and would comb each world in turn to find him. Only by wildly random moves could he hope to elude them and, if what the girl said was true, he must leave soon or be trapped.
Dumarest turned, restless, conscious of a fatigue deeper than one born of muscular exertion. A single enemy could be faced and beaten then to be forgotten, but how to defeat an organization which owned worlds and spun a web as far as men had reached? Each journey he took could be the one leading to destruction. Each man he met, each woman, could be an agent, a creature hungry for reward.
Vardoon?
The possibility existed but was remote. The man was almost what he seemed-almost because no man ever wholly dropped his fagade. Someone with a past, someone who had been hurt in that past, someone who was doing his best to get along. But why had he come to Polis? Why work as a scudger at the mine?
Poor work with poor pay and yet the man had eaten well and his clothing, though worn, had been good. A man with some reserve of money then, who hadn't been dependent on the job. A man biding his time? One set to watch?
Dumarest didn't think so. The odds were against it; the man had been at the workings long before he'd landed and an agent would have stayed in town so as to check the landings. Vardoon was just a man who'd chosen badly and made the best of a bad world. Working, conserving his money- he'd done the same himself.
Relaxing, Dumarest looked again at the ceiling feeling calmer than before. The field had been deserted when they'd arrived but ships were due; the Chendis in three days' time, the Sabia and Nordanus shortly after. He would leave on one of them-which, he had yet to decide, but all offered escape. Until then he could do nothing but wait.
The underground streets followed the pattern of those above, the only addition being a wide, straight passage leading past the warehouse area to the field. A passage sealed now with heavy doors, as were the other exits from the town. Dumarest checked it as he did the rest of the meandering maze; the twelve-foot-high roof studded with globes which shone with a variety of hues. A small and limited world which offered the usual entertainments; a theater, taverns, places which sold chemical analogues so the bored could experience the sensations of beasts, others which offered sensory tapes which gave one the illusion of being burned, drowned, flogged, loved-mental titivation which held its own insidious peril. Restaurants, music halls, casinos.
The Joy Palace was the best and Dumarest entered it, a watchful guard relaxing as he bought chips and paid his entrance fee. Inside, the roof swept high in a series of domed tiers all brilliant with a wash of shifting color. Artificial greenery softened the polished surface of stone and screened discreet couches. As he passed one, a woman sitting on the cushions lifted a hand.
"A moment, handsome. Like to play a game with me? A spin decides the outcome. You win and I entertain you for an hour. You lose and you pay the cost for two? Agreed?"
She shrugged as he moved on with a shake of the head. A philosopher, she would wait for another less cautious or more optimistic. Yet she felt a vague regret that Dumarest had shown so little interest.
Inside the gambling area he paused to look around.
The place was warm, scented with gusts of vagrant air rich with perfume, the floor firm yet soft beneath his feet. Bubbles drifted overhead, each shimmering with rainbows as if made of oil. Diversions to amuse, some emitting a thin, high keening, others a low, throaty laughter. The floor held tables for dice, cards, spinning wheels. The games were as familiar as the rest; spectrum, poker, starburn, brenzo, high-low-man-in-between. A transparent globe held a dust of variegated color which cleared by suction as Dumarest watched. The voice of the operator was a mechanical drone.
"Bet on the survival attribute of your choice. Pick your hue and watch as it struggles to eliminate competition. The photometer will tell which color is ascendant at the expiration of sixty seconds. Place your bets now. The combat begins."
Blue had won the last bout and the betting was heavy on red and green. Dumarest placed chips on the blue, waited as the globe filled with a swirling mass of spores, picked up his winnings as a lamp flashed to signal his success.
Luck, but favoring the house and he moved on to stand at a dice game, to pass on to a wheel of fortune, to spend an hour at the poker table, which he left richer than he had started. Only then did he see Vardoon.
The man stood at the far side of a roulette wheel placed beneath a circling cluster of shimmering bubbles which weaved in apparent random in their imprisoning magnetic field. He was sweating, pearls of moisture thick on forehead and cheeks, lying in beads on the ridges of scar tissue. His hands were clenched, knuckles whitening as the croupier called the winner.
"Twelve. Red."
A simple game with simple rules. A wheel marked in thirty-six divisions, one white, the others divided between red and black. Even money on the colors, thirty-five times the stake on a winning number. If the ball settled in the white slot the house took it all.
"Place your bets." The croupier's voice held the familiar, emotionless drone. "Place your bets." A pause then, as the wheel spun. "No more bets."
Vardoon lost.
And again.
And again.
Dumarest studied him from the far side of the table, noting the betraying quiver of his hands, the tension of the muscles around the eyes and mouth. The lips were clamped with pressure, the eyes glazed with concentration. Once, when a girl bumped into him, he snarled with barely controlled rage. Sweat ran unnoticed from his chin.
These danger signs others had recognized and they moved deftly into position. Neatly dressed men with bland faces and eyes of chipped and unfeeling glass. Servants of the casino who had seen others break when their luck had run too bad for too long; women who had gone into screaming hysteria, men who had run wild in a berserker frenzy. From their interest alone it was obvious Vardoon was near the edge.
"Thirty-one," droned the croupier. "Black."
Vardoon had backed thirty. He looked at the pile of chips before him, hesitated for a moment, then with an abrupt gesture thrust them all on the black.
Dumarest loaded chips on the red.
He said, "Tell me, Hart, how many survived the crash we were in? Nine? Ten?"
"What?" Vardoon looked at him, blinking. "Earl?"
Dumarest was patient. "The crash, Hart. How many survived?"
"At first? I don't know. Eight, maybe? Nine? Call it eleven."
"Eleven it is." Dumarest backed the number with a low denomination chip. "Good to see you again, Hart. Have a drink after this spin?" Words to allay the fears of those standing by to act in case of need. Two drinks, maybe. "Well, there she goes!"
The wheel spun, the ball bouncing, coming to a final rest. Twenty-eight and red.
Picking up his winnings, Dumarest said, "Let's go get that drink."
Vardoon needed it. He slumped in a chair as Dumarest ordered, the waitress returning with tall glasses filled with ice and flame. Half vanished at a single gulp and Vardoon scowled as he looked at the remainder.
"Luck," he said. "I guess I used all mine up in one go out there in the snow. I was crazy to think it would last." He emptied the glass, watched as Dumarest ordered more. "Well, at least you made out all right."
"Thanks to you."
"What?"
"You forgot the first rule of gambling," said Dumarest. "When you're desperate to win you never do. So I backed against you. The only real danger was losing to the house but, even then, the odds were in my favor." He added quietly, "How much, Hart?"
"Did I lose? Too much." The man reached for his second drink, swallowed, set it down a third empty. "My own fault but two days in this place was getting me down. And, at first, I won. A real lucky streak which turned sour but how was I to know that it would turn bad on me? So I changed games and won then started losing and, well, I guess you know how it is. Not that it matters, I can stand it."
Dumarest said, "You're lying."
"Now wait a minute, Earl!"
"You're broke," said Dumarest. "You didn't have much to start with and you tried to build your stake. Why else would you try to rob a dead man who you knew had nothing."
"Wiess?" Vardoon reached for his glass. "You don't miss much, do you? All right, that was a mistake, but most men hold a little something back. Cash for emergencies, a trinket, something. But you're wrong, Earl. I've money-enough for a Low passage. I hung onto that."
That, at least, demonstrated a degree of sense. Dumarest sipped at his own drink. Vardoon was an interlude, they had parted on reaching the town and would part after the drink and what the man chose to do was his own business.
He said, "Earl, I've been thinking. That world you mentioned, Terrel?"
"Terren."
"That's the one. Is it far?" He added hastily, "What I mean is it takes money to travel. You know?"
"I know."
"That's why I went to the tables." Vardoon pursed his lips as if about to spit. "Crazy, but I'd had enough. Win or bust and what the hell-we only live once. But before I go I'd like to make my pile. And that's crazy too, in a way. Am I talking sense?"
Dumarest shook his head.
"You think it's the drink?" Vardoon looked at his glass, again empty. "Back there, at the table, you saved me, right? Those goons would have jumped me if you hadn't stepped in. I saw them. I was gone but I saw them and I was about
ready to blow." He looked at his hands, at the fists they made, and deliberately straightened his fingers. "I get that way at times," he said. "I just seem to go crazy-like out there on the snow when those damned birds attacked us. You saved me then, too, Earl. Not many would have done that. Not then and not at the table just now." He hesitated as he had at the table and then, as before, seemed to reach a sudden decision. "Listen, Earl, I'll give it to you straight. I've enough for a Low passage but that isn't enough for what I want. Stake me and I'll show you how to make a fortune. The biggest fortune you've ever dreamed of. Throw in with me and you'll be rich."
A bubble drifted, came within reach, lifted as Dumarest blew against it. A shimmering thing of swirling color, the sound it made was one of derisive laughter.
Vardoon heard it, guessed what Dumarest must be thinking, spoke with a desperate calmness as if aware he would be given no second chance.
"You've heard it all before, right? In a hundred taverns where men come up with secret coordinates of worlds loaded with easy pickings. Bonanza, Jackpot, Eldorado, Earth, Avalon-all mythical planets but always you'll find someone who knows just how to get there. Someone who'll give you the location-if the price is right. And you think this is the same. Babble from a man who acted the fool and lost his stake at the table. One who is stranded, maybe, desperate to find the cost of a passage. Well, Earl, I'm desperate but not because of that. Desperate to find those who'll help me get hold of what's waiting. Desperate enough to try it alone if there's no other way. But before I can do that I've got to get there and travel costs money I haven't got."
Dumarest said, "You mentioned Earth-do you know where it is to be found?"
"What?" Vardoon frowned, impatient. "No, nor Jackpot or any of the others. But look around and you'll find someone to tell you. All you need is money."
It wasn't that simple. Vardoon was right in most of what he'd said, but not even the most desperate beggar would claim to know the whereabouts of Earth. Even to hint at such knowledge would be to betray his falsity. Not even the most credulous would believe him.