by E. C. Tubb
"No?" She turned to face him, her eyes pools of secret amusement. "I think that you do, Earl, Kalin was very close to you, wasn't she? A woman who loved you so much that she-well, does it matter now? But I know about her, Earl. I know!"
The nightmare in the Vorden when he had lain sick. The delirium. Dumarest remembered that mind-aching time, the face he had seen haloed with light, red hair which had woken a fragment of the past.
She had probed as he had guessed, driven by nothing more perhaps than a woman's curiosity, but from his answers she had learned.
How much?
"You are a man with a past, Earl," she continued smoothly. "Kan Lofoten hinted as much when I asked him how he could trust you. He mentioned information he held about a certain organization who would pay highly to get you into their hands. Very highly, Earl."
"And you are greedy, Dephine. Well, what animal is not?"
He saw the look in her eyes, the recoil as if he had slapped her in the face.
"You're a clever actress," he said, bitterly, "but you followed a trade which taught you how to manipulate men. All the protestations of love, the passion, the promises, the bribes. Even to the extent of hinting that you carry my child in your womb. All for what, Dephine? To make sure that I would remain in one place? That I would be available when the Cyclan came to collect me?"
"You knew! You bastard, you knew!"
"No." He looked at a face which had grown ugly. "I only suspected. Your concern and sudden need of me. To be your champion, you said, but why come to Emijar at all? You hate the place and were far from popular when you left. So why risk your prize? Why else but to make sure I would be at a predetermined place?"
From behind the house Navalok called, his voice high, his words indistinguishable.
"A clever plan, Dephine. You learned of my value to the Cyclan when I was ill. Did you contact them while I was under treatment on Shallah? Did they tell you exactly what to do or did you promise they would find me in your keeping here on Emijar? The latter, I think. You would want to retain control. A mistake. I thank you for it."
"You-"
"I saw your face when the Captain told us of the damaged vessel," said Dumarest. "The one which had to put in for repair. It would have been here yesterday aside from that. Does it carry a cyber? More than one? Your reward? How much did they promise you, Dephine? No matter how much it wasn't enough."
He saw the flicker of her eyes, the change of expression which told him all he needed to know. Even in delirium he had retained the secret of the affinity twin. She didn't know the arrangement of the sequence chain-if she had he would have been left with no choice.
Rising he shouted to the boy. "Navalok-take me back to town."
Dephine said only one word. "Lekhard!"
* * * * *
He came from the interior of the house, smiling, a gun leveled in his hand. A man who glowed with the desire to kill, to wipe out imagined insults in a bath of blood.
He said, tautly, "You took my gun away from me once- now try to do it again."
"Lekhard! No! He must be kept alive!" Dephine rose to approach the man, to stand beside him, one hand caressing his arm. "He means a fortune to us, darling. And nothing you could do to him would be worse than what is waiting. If he tries to move shoot at his legs. Smash his knees and leave him to scream his throat raw with pain, but don't kill him."
"I want to kill him. He has touched you. Looked at you as if you were his own."
"I suffered it for your sake, my dearest. So that we could both be rich. If you can imagine how I felt after such filth had touched me you would wonder how I could do such a thing. And when he spoke of marriage! I, a daughter of the Keturah, married to a thing like that! Later, my dear, we shall laugh about it."
Dumarest didn't look at the woman and paid no attention to what she was saying. All his concentration was on the man. Lekhard was like a bomb balanced on a razor-edge-a word, a look, and he would explode in a burst of insane destruction. Even to warn the woman about his state was to invite a burst of missiles. Bullets which, at this range and with his experience, could not miss.
And then Navalok, answering his summons, came running from the back of the house.
The woman saw him, the man, both turning as he skidded to a halt. A fraction of time in which their attention was taken from Dumarest. A split second in which he acted.
His knee rose to meet the questing hand, the knife lifting as his foot fell, the hand lifting to swing forward with the full power of arm, back and shoulder. A move which Lekhard spotted from the corner of his eye. One which spun him back to face Dumarest his hand lifting, the finger tightening on the trigger. To fall back as the knife slammed into his throat to send blood gushing from his mouth in a crimson stream.
Dying he fired.
The blade had severed his larynx, thrust into the neck to reach the spine, to kill as surely as a bullet in the brain. But his finger had been closing, the muscles tense, the death-convulsion enough to complete the action. The gun roared, flame stabbing from the muzzle, the bullet riding a blast of expanding gases to catch Dephine in the chest to bury itself in her lungs, the heavy ball creating havoc among the delicate tissues.
"Earl!"
Dumarest caught her as she fell, blood running from her mouth, one hand clawing at her waist to fall empty from her holster.
"Earl, I-" She coughed and sprayed his face with blood. "You win, you bastard," she whispered. "You win. You lucky-"
Luck which had ruined the generator of the Cyclan vessel and delayed it long enough for him to escape. Which had led him to say just enough while in delirium for the woman to have seared her flesh in a desperate effort to save his life. Which had caused Navalok to create the distraction which had given him the opportunity to kill.
Now he watched, wide-eyed, as Dumarest gently laid the dead woman on the ground.
"She was beautiful," he said softly. "And she loved you."
Dumarest closed the staring, now empty green eyes.
"Earl?"
"Take me to town, boy. Just take me to town."
To the ship which was waiting. To the suns and stars of the galaxy. To the worlds which teemed in the empty spaces, where it was possible to forget.
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