A time long before he’d been born but his own childhood had taught him how it must have been. To huddle in deep caverns, to eat what could be eaten no matter in what shape or flavour it came. To die young, to breed fast, to survive no matter what the cost. To live but to be changed by the mutated symbiote which gave as it took.
The homochon elements which had become the heritage of the children of Earth.
Which were now a part of his brain.
Shandaha said, “You trouble me, Earl. I would never have taken you for one who dwelt in fantasy yet what else can you call the things you seem to believe are the truth. Mutated brains. Symbiotes nestling in the cortex. The Cyclan owning and ruling this planet. Proscribing it. Why should they do that?”
“To prevent contamination.” Dumarest was blunt. “To keep their herds free of disease. The reason why you slaughtered those with me. The people of Earth are unique in their heritage. The Cyclan cannot risk losing it.”
“But you are losing me.” Shandaha reached again for the flagon, this time pouring with a steady hand. “Come, now, let us not be enemies. Drink to understanding and prosperity. All things can be settled.”
“With honesty, yes.” Dumarest lifted his goblet and said, over its rim, “How did you know Earth was proscribed?”
“Did I? You must have mentioned it.”
“Not to you.”
“To Nada, then. That must be it!” Shandaha drank and waited until Dumarest had followed suit, then said, “When you were together in close embrace and you were telling her of your travels. Worlds you have seen, planets you have touched on. A life of adventure. A wealth of experience. Hers has been much different.”
“I suppose it has.”
“You could make it otherwise, Earl. She loves you and would willingly remain at your side. All I ask in return is a little cooperation.”
“And if I don’t give it?”
“I will kill you. You will leave me no choice.”
The man was not bluffing. Dumarest knew it as he knew the wine was red, as he knew how it would be done. Lasers were focused on his chair. At a word of command, even a directed thought, they would send searing beams into his flesh. His legs would be burned from his body, the heat cauterising the wounds and preventing the loss of blood. He would be alive but crippled, unable to stand, unable to walk, to escape the clutches of the Cyclan.
“I mean it, Earl.”
“I know you do. But your masters will not be gentle with you if I should die.”
“I have no masters! I am the Lord of my domain!”
“Yes,” said Dumarest. “Of course you are.”
A man living a fantasy born of isolation and frustrated ambition, of limited power and small achievement. One driven by the desire for fame, respect, acknowledgment of his capabilities. A dangerous adversary walking on a razor’s edge.
“I recognise your power, my Lord,” he said, taking care to be diplomatic. “Your shrewdness also. Few men would have recognised the magnitude of the opportunity sheer chance threw in your direction. A wrecked vessel,” he explained. “An order for you to close in, to watch and wait, then to take action. But you learned a little more. The fact that the probability existed that I had been on the vessel and could have survived. That I was of immense importance to the Cyclan. That I held the secret of the affinity twin.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.” Dumarest apparently relaxed, letting his muscles loosen, the tension-lines in his face smooth. “It is an artificial symbiote which was constructed for a specific task. A biomolecular entity which comes in two parts. One determines the dominant, the other the submissive. Inject the first into your body and the other into your chosen host and you will become that host. You will live within his head, see through his eyes, hear through his ears. All his senses will be yours. His youth, his appearance, his strength. His body will be your body for as long as he lives.”
“The secret?”
“The twin is constructed of fifteen units which have to be assembled in the correct sequence. The secret stolen from the Cyclan is the order of the sequence. The possible combinations are immense. The time needed to construct and test each affinity twin is a matter of centuries. But of course,” he added. “It could be discovered at the very next attempt.”
“I see.” Shandaha leaned back in his chair. “In which case you would lose your value. There would be no reason to keep you alive.”
“That is correct.”
“Then why should I?”
“Because, my Lord, to kill me would be throwing away the possibility of ruling the galaxy.”
Dumarest let the statement hang as he leaned forward, his right hand falling to rest on his knee, fingers close to the knife in his boot. A movement shielded by the table.
“Why else do you imagine the Cyclan value it so highly? The Cyber Prime must be old and growing frail. Soon they will take him, remove his brain from his skull and immerse it in nutrient fluids in a sealed box. The homochon elements will enable him to communicate. Become a unit in Central Control as all cybers do. But how much better would it be for them to be given new, young, active bodies? How much better would it be for you? Potential immortality, my Lord. Immortality!”
The lure impossible to resist. Dumarest eased himself on the chair as Shandaha lost himself in contemplation of it. To rule! To order! To be obeyed! To be a virtual God, feared and revered! Worshipped on every inhabited world!
A moment in which he was vulnerable.
Dumarest rose, hand lifting with the knife from his boot, throwing himself clear of the chair, the area around it. Too late Shandaha recognised the danger, saw the glint of the blade, rose, hands lifting as it buried itself in the flesh.
Fell, dying as the lasers cut loose.
Dumarest rolled, feeling heat on his thigh where one of the beams had seared the plastic of his clothing to reveal the protective mesh. His only injury, luck had been with him and he rose to his feet as Chagal called from outside the chamber.
“Earl! What’s happening?”
He came stumbling into the compartment, almost falling over the dead man, grabbing at the table to regain his balance. It was half destroyed; the chair on which Dumarest had sat a total ruin. The lasers were dead now, their work done, but more than the chair had been destroyed.
The compartment was just that, a box of metal and smooth alloys, of sombre colours and Spartan furnishings. The fabrics and cushions and luxurious items had vanished. As had the other spacious chambers, the wending passages, the glint of transparent windows. The entire habitation had disappeared to be replaced by the functional compactness of a large raft. One with a canopy, small living quarters, a shower and engine room.
“How? How did this happen?” Chagal was bewildered. “I was asleep,” he said. “Dreaming. Delise was with me — or so I thought. But I was alone when I woke and everything had changed.” He looked at the dead man. “Is that Shandaha?”
The man had changed. The skin was still dark, but the pigment was swirled to give a peculiar, almost clownish appearance, one bolstered by the irregular contours of his face. The ornate clothing had gone, instead he wore a plain robe of grey and there was no ornamentation. No rings, crowns or gleaming touches.
Dumarest walked to the body, stooped and retrieved his knife. The blade was stained with blood and he wiped it clean before slipping it back into its sheath. The dead man stared with sightless eyes.
“He was a minion of the Cyclan,” he explained. “Sent to perform a simple task, but he was ambitious and saw his opportunity and tried to better himself. His motive was greed. His means were more than clever. He was a freak, a mutated genius, an illusionist of the highest order. Everything was a projection of his mind. He had delusions of grandeur, which is why he projected himself as he did. As his supposed habitation was so luxurious. None of it was real.”
“None of it? Delise?”
“She and Nada-both projections of his mind. Succubi to entertain us and divert any suspicions we might have
