by E. C. Tubb
He felt the floor sink a trifle, saw a panel gape and something lash through the air. Behind him came a vicious crack. A whip perhaps? It was possible but he wasted no time on speculation. The sharpness of the curve and the speed of his progress threw him against the right hand wall. It sprouted tendrils, thick strands covered with a gooey slime, catching and hampering his body. He twisted, not touching the snares, moving so as to throw one against the other, creating a tangle from which he jerked free as the wall approached.
It reached the place, moved on, the tendrils sheared from the side of the passage falling to mound in a ball at the foot of the wall. Dumarest ran on.
The curve had grown sharper and he guessed that he was in a spiral, running through a passage curved in on itself. A section of the floor dropped ahead, moving to one side and revealing the gleam of serrated metal teeth far below. From the roof fell a rope. He jumped, caught it, swung himself back and forth over the pit, let go when he had gained momentum enough to reach the far side. The rope fell into the opening, the floor returned, the wall moved relentlessly on.
Dumarest raced ahead of it, gaining time, his brain working with lightning thought. As yet the traps had been simple tests of intelligence, dangerous to a dull intellect but basically easy to avoid. There would have to be others of a different nature. From around the curve came a clang of metal and a deep-throated snarl.
Bars had dropped across the passage. Before them paced a slavering beast. Doglike but with the fangs of a wolf, it glared at Dumarest with savage eyes. Drugged, probably, its natural ferocity enhanced by chemical stimulants, starved and desperate. It crouched, tail lashing, preparing itself to spring. Dumarest was on it before it could leave the ground, his left hand catching the loose skin beneath the snarling jaws, the stiffened blade of his right smashing down through fur, skin, fat and the vertebrae beneath.
Releasing the dead animal, he sprang to the bars blocking the passage. They were an inch thick, close-set and apparently immobile. Turning, he studied the approach of the spiked wall. It seemed to be traveling faster. Swarming up the bars he tested the roof and found it solid. To either side the walls were the same. Dropping he sent his hands over the floor and found a thin crack running to either side. As the spikes of the wall neared his chest the crack widened, the floor swinging down and sending him plummeting into shadows.
He fell ten feet and rose at once, eyes strained against the dimness. He stood in a tiny compartment from which ran two passages. As in the curved one above, they were lit by a dim glow from the roof. He chose the right, running down it until halted by a blank wall. Returning he headed down the other, pausing as it branched, head tilted to catch the slightest sound. From the left came the soft tinkle of water, from the right the gusting sigh of wind. Without hesitation he chose the right-hand passage, running down it past branching openings, turning right again as he reached a junction.
He was in a maze, he realized, a compact labyrinth of blocked passages and blind turns, probably adjustable by remote control and the entire system filled with various dangers.
A labyrinth he had to penetrate in order to save his life.
Chapter Thirteen
VARGAS SAID, "He's following the air currents. See how he wets his finger in order to determine the direction of flow?" He stooped over the screen, his hooked nose and lined features giving him the appearance of an aging bird of prey.
"He's clever," admitted Yendhal. His fingers caressed the controls governing the programming of the labyrinth. "I should like to test him yet further. If we blocked the east passages and released the krell it would drive him into the barbed mesh. To escape he would have to plunge into the water containing the gleese. He is bleeding and they would be attracted by the scent. Unless he manages to either kill them all or to escape in time they will tear him to pieces."
"No."
"But, sire, we could rescue him in time. He need not die. I feel that it is important we test him to the utmost. His survival factor is incredible and much could be learned."
"No," said Vargas again. He glowered as the physician reluctantly lowered his hand from the controls. Already the programming had been altered twice, each time increasing the hazards, the move justified by Yendhal's insistence.
But the limit had been reached. Further dangers would prove nothing other than that Dumarest was a man with all a man's frailty. Flesh and bone could not withstand the metal and plastic, the protoplasmic brain and electronic engineering which had gone into the manufacture of the krell. The gleese, too; what man could withstand the concentrated attack of a score of the voracious flesh-eaters?
Was Yendhal trying to rob him of his prize?
Vargas turned as the door sighed open, face mottling with anger even as his heart pounded with a sudden fear. The fear subsided a little as he recognized the tall figure in the scarlet robe, but the anger remained.
"What are you doing here, cyber? How dare you come uninvited into my presence?"
Ruen crossed the room and looked at the screen.
"My lord, this man must be released from your labyrinth. Immediately."
"You forget yourself, cyber. The Technarch does not take orders!"
"Even so, my lord, he must be released."
"By my order, not yours!" Vargas was adamant. "I rule here, cyber, not you. The man is mine to do with as I please. If it is my whim I shall test him to destruction." He raised his voice and shouted. "Guards! To me! At once!"
"They will not respond, my lord," said Ruen evenly. "There is trouble in the palace and they have been relieved of their duties in order to withstand it."
"Trouble?"
"Yes, my lord."
An insurrection? Vargas felt the tightening of his stomach as he considered the possibility. It was remote. With Brekla taking care of things any opposition would be short-lived. Ruen must be playing on his fears, using his knowledge to gain his own ends. And yet, where were the guards?
"You!" Vargas glared at the cyber. "You have done this. You have worked against me from the beginning. There was no trouble until you came with your lying advice and subtle ways. You and your damned Cyclan! Well, we shall see who is the master of Technos. Yendhal! Test Dumarest to destruction. Release the krell. Now!"
"Hold!" Ruen did not raise his voice and it remained an even monotone devoid of emotion but now it held on iron note of command. "Release him."
The physician hesitated, the point of his tongue wetting his lower lip as he stared from the cyber to the Technarch. Against Vargas the figure in scarlet looked the epitome of calm, his shaven head hooded by his cowl, his eyes direct in the shadowed sockets of his skull. His controlled determination was heightened by his immobility, the hands which he had thrust into the wide sleeves of his robe.
"I advise you to think before you answer, my lord," said Ruen before Vargas could reply. "The man Dumarest means nothing to you, but the aid of the Cyclan does. Deny one and you will lose the other. How long do you think you will continue to rule without a cyber to guide you?"
More threats? Vargas felt suffocated with the accumulating pile of enemies. Did Ruen want Dumarest to act the assassin as that bitch Mada Grist had done? Was that why he wanted him freed? And if he yielded how, where would it end?
"You heard my orders," he snapped at Yendhal. "Obey!"
Ruen took a hand from the sleeve of his robe. From it something spat, singing, the high-pitched whine deepening a little as it struck against the side of Vargas's throat. A quivering mote rested in the center of a spreading circle of disintegration, cell and tissue yielding beneath the sonic destruction.
As the Technarch fell, already dead, Ruen lifted his hand toward the physician.
"The man Dumarest," he said evenly. "Release him."
Yendhal hastened to obey.
* * *
The arrows had come from nowhere, running before him, below lifted partitions and pointing the way at junctions. Dumarest followed them, loping past areas acrid with insect smells, black pits in w
hich things stirred, the surge of turgid waters. He was covered with sweat and blood, staggering a little from numbing fatigue. A spined patch of growth had torn at his bare flesh with vicious thorns.
The arrow halted at a door. He opened it and found himself in a familiar chamber. A small room flanked by many doors, one of which led to the passage he had followed into the labyrinth. Somehow he had made a complete circle and returned to the point from which he had started. Lips thinned with anger, he padded from one door to another, baring his teeth as a panel opened to reveal a chamber bright with gleaming instruments.
Framed in the opening Yendhal stared at him, eyes wide in the sudden pallor of his face.
"No!" he said as Dumarest moved forward, hands lifted, face a relentless mask. "Please, no!"
"I survived," said Dumarest. "I won your filthy game. I want what was promised, a pardon, money, passage away from this world. I'll get it or I'll tear out your throat."
"I can't! I-"
"Where is Vargas?" Dumarest followed the direction of the physician's gaze, saw the slumped body, the warm flame of a cyber's robe. "Dead?"
"Ruen killed him." Yendhal clutched at Dumarest's arm. Once he had seemed to be a fussy schoolmaster; now he was a terrified schoolboy. "Master him and I'll give you anything you want. Kill him! Quickly! Before he kills us all!"
Dumarest shook off the restraining hand.
"Why?" he said to Ruen. "A cyber doesn't kill his employer without good reason. Did he die so that he could be replaced by another more amenable to the designs of your clan?"
Ruen said evenly, "I killed him in order to save your life."
Dumarest looked at his hands, at the ring glowing like freshly spilled blood on his finger. "I suppose I should thank you but I've the feeling that such thanks would be premature. What possible interest could you have in me?"
"Personally, none. But you are of value to the Cyclan. My orders are specific. You are to be safeguarded and sent to a world I prefer not to name. There you will be questioned. Not by means of the childish devices used on this backward planet but with all the skills developed over centuries of research. In a secret laboratory of the Cyclan you will divulge all you know."
"About this?" Dumarest held up his hand, catching the light on the red stone of his ring. "Do you know why I am so important to your people?"
"You possess a secret of tremendous importance. One stolen from the Cyclan by a man named Brasque." Ruen made a slight gesture, dismissing the man as unimportant. "He is dead, but before he died he incorporated the stolen secret in a ring which he gave to his wife. That ring she gave to you."
"And you have been after it ever since," said Dumarest bleakly, remembering. "Your predictions told you that it was the only place it could be. But now you cannot be certain that it is still there. I could have changed the stone or altered the sequence. You must keep me alive in order to discover the truth."
"That is so."
Dumarest laughed without humor. "Odd that I should be indebted to those whom I have such reason to hate. But the secret is valuable to you, isn't it, cyber? To you and to your clan."
Ruen made no comment.
"The composition of the affinity-twin," continued Dumarest. He was talking in order to gain time, to restore the strength of his body. "Fifteen molecular units which create a living symbiote with the power to unite host to subject in almost total empathy. The host becomes the subject. He is the subject. He-or she."
A mane of lustrous red hair, eyes like sparkling emeralds, skin as soft and as white as translucent snow. How could he ever forget Kalin?
"Fifteen units," Dumarest repeated. "You must know how long it would take to test them all. If you could try one combination each second it would take more than four thousand years. Can the Cyclan afford to wait that long?"
"No," said Ruen.
And took his hand from the sleeve of his robe.
Dumarest moved, dropping, lunging forward, rising to grip the thin wrist before the cyber could aim his weapon. A thing to stun and paralyze, to render him helpless, packaged meat prepared for transport. He felt the thin wrist beneath his fingers, the sudden explosion of strength as Ruen fought back. He was deceptively strong but hampered by his very nature. He fought with a coldly calculating logic, using fingers and elbows, feet and knees, moving in a scientific dance which would have sent any normal man writhing helplessly to the floor.
Dumarest wasn't normal. His reflexes gave him an advantage, but his hatred was his prime weapon. He snarled with anger, not feeling the crippling blows, his fury lifting him above pain. He struck with the blade of his hand and felt ribs yield. He struck again at the base of the neck, a third time, then stepped back as Ruen slumped to the floor to lie in a pool of scarlet fabric.
Yendhal stared at him, then at Dumarest. "He's dead?"
"Yes."
"I'm glad." The physician stooped, examining the body. "He was dangerous. A man like that has too much power and I am sure that he tried to set Vargas against me." He straightened and looked at Dumarest, "You won't regret this."
"I know that." Dumarest reached out and caught Yendhal by the shoulder, his fingers digging hard against sensitive nerves. "And now for you."
"What do you intend?" The physician squirmed as Dumarest dragged him from the room into the external chamber. His struggles increased as he recognized where he was, the door to which he was being dragged. "No! For God's sake! I'll give you anything you want. Anything!"
"You'll give me satisfaction." Dumarest stared at the terrified man. "You remember the questioning? The things you said? You designed this toy and who knows how many poor devils you've sent to be tormented in it? Well, now it's your turn."
He kicked open the door and threw Yendhal inside, slamming shut the panel and leaning on it, listening, hearing the soft hum of hidden machinery as the spiked wall stirred into life.
* * *
It was snowing again, the landing field a swirl of dancing flakes which caught the lights and shimmered with transient beauty before settling to mound the area with fluffy whiteness. Elaine shivered. "It's getting cold. It will be freezing before midnight."
"The ship will be gone long before then." At her side, bulky in his uniform weatherproof. Major Keron moved a little, boots stamping the snow. "You've picked a good time to leave, Earl. Technos can be hell in winter."
"I can imagine." Dumarest turned to where the ship reared high against the snow, its peak capped like a distant mountain. He wanted to get inside where it would be warm, to find his cabin and settle down on the bunk, to sleep a little and wash the taste of this world from his memory. He looked at the woman. "Before I forget-my thanks for saving my life."
"And our thanks for having saved our world." Her eyes were direct as they met his own. "We owe you a lot, Earl. All of us. You showed me things I didn't want to see. It's strange how a world can grow rotten and no one really suspects what is happening. We trusted the council too much. We trusted in the authority vested in the Technarch. Well, we won't make the same mistake again."
"We can't afford to." Keron was brusque. "Vargas dead, Brekla, the cyber and Yendhal. A dozen officials and close to three hundred men. It was nasty while it lasted."
"It was cheap," said Dumarest. "A little blood and you've won a world. Now you have to hang on to it. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." He looked again at the waiting vessel. "What are you going to do about Loame?"
"Kill the thorge," said Elaine quickly. "Educate and then return the tributaries. Within five years everything will be back as it was."
"No," said Dumarest. "Not that. Clear the land and build factories. Find and operate mines. Use the educated labor to man industries. Make Loame a free world. If you maintain the authority of the growers you'll be begging for trouble." He moved, impatient at his own lecturing. "But you know all this. You know that you have to end the war and the rest of it. I don't have to tell you what needs to be done."
"You did once," she reminded and paused,
musing. "We were like a supersaturated solution, poised and inert. Then you came, a seed crystal, and immediately the pattern was broken. There should be more men like you, Earl. More travelers with fresh ideas."
"Open your landing fields and there will be."
"They'll be open." Keron snapped his fingers. "A moment. I've forgotten something." He turned, moved to where a car stood waiting, returned with a package, "This was found in Ruen's apartments. I think it must belong to you."
Dumarest opened it, fingered the gray plastic material with the protective mesh buried deep. So Cleon was dead, caught by the Cyclan, interrogated, disposed of and his borrowed clothing sent to Ruen as evidence that the man they wanted had to be on Technos.
"There's one other thing," said Elaine quietly. "Someone wants to see you before you leave." She stood in the snow, a vague blur in the shadows, her furs piled high against her cheeks. From reasons of vanity or shyness she had retained her mask. Dumarest was glad of it.
"My lady."
"You call me that, even though you know that I am not what I seem?"
"I remember that you saved my life," said Dumarest. "That you gave me something-" He broke off, knowing better than to arouse painful memories. Mada Grist had acted as she did because of the promptings of her young and virile body. The desire of her flesh overriding the wisdom of her mind.
"Earl," she said. "Earl!" Her hand rose as if to touch his cheek. "Keron found me while I was trying to book passage. He arrested me then released me when the girl persuaded him to act. I was instrumental in proving that you had not lied."
"And now?"
"I will work," she said. "What else? But- you know, Earl. Perhaps you can understand. Do you forgive me?"
"Yes, my lady."
"And shall I ever see you again?"
It was kinder not to lie. "No, my lady. Never again."
He turned and headed to where the ship was waiting. It would carry him to Jalanth where there would be other ships heading for other worlds.