High or low? What are my chances?'
'I will do my best.'
As he would butcher Dumarest cell by cell to get what he wanted. As he would tear and rend his brain with electronic probes, to leave him a thing of blind and mewling horror devoid of any claim to humanity. Garbage to be seared to ash, to be flushed away and forgotten once he had yielded what he knew.
Dumarest lowered his face to conceal his eyes, the raw hate he knew they must contain. The Cyclan had cost him too much. Turning him into a hunted creature forced to run, to hide, to forgo happiness. To see those he loved destroyed before his eyes. He had no cause to love the scarlet robe.
Yet the cyber was his only chance of life.
'The secret.' Dumarest looked at his hands. 'I'll give it to you-but you must promise you'll do your best to save me. You must swear to that.'
'You have my word.'
One he would keep; the Cyclan did not deal in lies. Clarge would speak to the High Priest but what the outcome would be was immaterial. Once he had the secret Dumarest would cease to be of value. The cyber looked at him where he sat, a man tense, afraid, advertising his fear. One willing to do anything in order to stay alive.
An impression Dumarest did his best to maintain. The cyber didn't know him; recognizing him from a remembered description, accepting his own admission of identity. Those who could have warned him were dead, victims of their own false assessment. Logic could, at times, turn into a two-edged weapon.
Dumarest said, 'A secret's no good to a dead man. You can have it. Give me paper and a stylo and I'll write it down.'
He flexed his fingers and rubbed his hands together. It was inevitable they should have been freed-a man cannot write with his hands lashed fast.
'Here.' He flipped the paper across the table with the tip of the stylo. 'This is what you want.'
Fifteen symbols scrawled in the order of correct assembly. Clarge studied them then looked at Dumarest.
'Write them again.'
The second set matched the first and was just as worthless; a random pattern Dumarest had long since committed to memory. A possibility the cyber couldn't fail to consider. Had Dumarest, desperate to survive, set down the truth? Or was he being stubbornly uncooperative for the sake of some emotional whim?
'You don't trust me,' said Dumarest. He was deceptively casual. 'But I'll give you more. Help me and I'll give you all you could hope for. I'll give you the affinity twin!'
* * *
It rested in the hollow of the cyber's hand; two small ampoules each tipped with a hollow needle, one the color of a ruby, the other that of an emerald. Twin jewels but far more precious than any to be found in the entire universe. The secret for which the Cyclan had searched for so long.
The knife in which they had been housed lay to one side on the table, the pommel unscrewed and resting beside the blade, the hollow hilt now filled with nothing but shadows. A neat hiding place; the pommel had been held by an unbroken weld and Clarge had bruised his hands in the effort needed to break it. Now both knife and bruises were ignored as he looked at what lay in his palm.
The artificial symbiote which was the affinity twin.
Injected into the bloodstream it nestled at the base of the cortex and became intermeshed with the entire sensory and nervous system. The brain hosting the submissive half would become an extension of the dominant partner. Each move, all sensation, all tactile impressions and muscular determination would be instantly transmitted. The effect was to give the host containing the dominant half a new body. A bribe impossible to resist.
An old man could become young again, enjoying the senses of a virile healthy body. An aged crone could see her new beauty reflected in her mirror and in the eyes of her admirers. The hopelessly crippled and hideously diseased would be freed of the torment of their bodies, their minds given the freedom of uncontaminated flesh.
It would give the Cyclan the domination of the galaxy.
The mind and intelligence of a cyber would reside in the body of every ruler and person of power and influence. Those dominated would become marionettes moving to the dictates of their masters. Slaves such as had never before been known, acceptable fagades for those who wore the scarlet robe.
'That's it,' said Dumarest. 'Now it's yours. I guess it will win you a rich reward.'
The highest. Clarge would be elevated to stand among those close to the Cyber Prime himself. To direct and plan and manipulate the destiny of worlds. To set his mark on the organization to which he had dedicated his life and then, when his body grew too old to function with optimum efficiency, to have his living brain set among those forming the heart of the Cyclan. To gain near immortality.
And now he had regained the secret of the affinity twin to spend the endless years in body after body.
If he had regained it.
Clarge looked up from what he held in his hand, seeing Dumarest seated before him, the casual attitude he wore, the hint of a smile curving his lips. A man who had given in too quickly, demanding nothing more than a bare promise to help save his life. Odd conduct from someone who had run so far, hidden so well, fought so stubbornly to retain what he had now so willingly given.
Was he so fearful of death? If so why hadn't he demanded stronger guarantees? Why had he so meekly surrendered?
'Your prize,' said Dumarest as again the cyber looked at what he held in his hand. 'I wish you joy of it.'
A jibe? Had there been mockery in his tone? Those poisoned by emotional aberrations took a distorted pleasure from illogical behavior. Was Dumarest enjoying an anticipated revenge?
Clarge moved his eyes from the ampoules to the papers, the symbols they bore. It was as easy to write falsehood as truth-the information so freely given could be worthless. The vials could contain nothing more than colored water. Was he the victim of a preconceived plan? Would Dumarest, even while dying, gloat over his victory?
'I say I wish you joy of it.' Dumarest leaned back in his chair, now openly smiling. 'I'm not being generous, cyber but, as I said, what good is a secret to a dead man? You don't really believe they will ever let you leave the Temple, do you?'
'They have no reason to prevent me.'
'Since when has superstition had anything to do with reason? You know too much. You know where the Temple is and you have been within it. You know what lies inside. You have details of the treasury-they think I will have told you. Now, cyber, be logical-why should they let you stay alive?'
Logic and the acid test of reason. Clarge remembered the High Priest, the fanaticism dwelling in his eyes. A man, by his standards, hopelessly insane. One dedicated to the Temple and what it stood for. He had been adamant as to Dumarest's release, blind and deaf to the fortune offered for his unharmed body. Dumarest was to die as the others were to die and, in the end, Varne had lost his patience.
'You may talk to the man but that is all. You will be attended. The interview will be short. Do not ask again for his release. To do so would be to spit in the face of the Mother.'
Would such a man fear the might of the Cyclan?
Clarge knew the answer-Varne wouldn't recognize any power but his own. Already he could be regretting having yielded to those who had arranged the interview. Torn with religious unease at the thought of having committed sacrilege.
Dumarest said, guessing his thoughts, 'You'll be eliminated. Wiped out before you leave the Temple. You'll never even reach your raft. You have a raft?'
'I came in one. It was to have waited. The men escorting me are servants of the Temple.'
'So you're alone. An easy victim. Who will miss you? Who can help?' Dumarest added, dryly, 'You have the facts, cyber. Now extrapolate the probability of your leaving here alive.'
Too low an order for comfort. Clarge looked at the papers, the ampoules in his hand. Dumarest's revenge: to give him what he could never use.
