knew he was going to die and warned me to be careful. He thought I was to be the next victim. He suggested that you could be an ally.'
He said, 'Do they know I'm here?'
'No. Not unless Avro's told them and I can't think he did. He was in a coma and will be in a cryogenic sac by now. Vaclav destroyed the evidence. They don't know you're here, Earl.' Pausing, she added, 'Not yet.'
Two words which told him the situation and he looked at her, seeing the hard face, the eyes to match, the rigid line of chin and jaw. A woman almost twice his age and one determined to survive. 'Betraying me to the Cyclan won't help you,' he said. 'You'd still follow the others and for the same reason. As a precaution against your talking to others about something you may have learned about the Cyclan.'
'But there's nothing! I swear it!' She fought to remain calm. 'But I can never prove that and they'll never take my word. Earl! What can I do?'
'Run.'
'What?'
'Leave Lychen. Travel to other worlds and keep moving. Get lost if you can. Trust no one and say nothing. Make no commitments, no friends, have no ambitions. Learn to be always alone.' His voice was bitter from personal experience. 'In time they might accept the fact that you know nothing and call off the chase. If you stay here you're dead. Tomorrow, next week, the month after-the Cyclan never gives up.'
'But if you were with me? Guarding me?' She saw his expression and shook her head as she recognized the impossibility of gaining total protection. 'No. It wouldn't work. You're right, Earl, I'll have to run-but you come with me.'
'I can't.'
'I don't want to betray you but-'
'I can't,' he said again. 'I'm going with Chenault. An expedition. There's no point in arguing. I'm going.'
'I'll come with you.' She had spoken on impulse but it made sense. 'Where's Chenault?'
He sat alone in a room bright with flowers, papers scattered on the table before him, a pile of books to one side. Old books which filled the air with the scent of dust and dulled the sweetness of the blooms.
He frowned as he heard Mirza's demand.
'No.'
'Why not? I can help. How did you intend to travel?'
'I've a ship.'
'Where? What? Your own working as a trader or one you intend to charter? Whatever it is I've a better one waiting on the field at this moment. The Kasse. I can have it ready to leave by midnight.'
'I won't be ready by then.'
'Get ready. What do you need? Supplies? Goods? Weapons? Give me a list and I'll have them loaded from the Karroum warehouse. Damn it, man, why do you hesitate? I've the ship, the supplies, the crew-'
'No crew,' said Chenault. 'I'll use my own.'
'Why? Who do you have?' She glanced at Dumarest then back at Chenault. 'What's the mystery?'
Dumarest waited then, as the silence lengthened, he said, 'Tell her.'
'No. She-no!'
'We're hunting a legend,' said Dumarest. 'Chasing a ghost. One we may never find but the search itself will be rewarding enough.' He saw by her expression she had grasped his meaning. 'And the sooner we go the better. Time is against us. It could be fatal to wait too long.' Another message but this time with meaning to Chenault also. 'I think it would be stupid not to take advantage of what has been offered. Others may think so too. If they do the search is over before it begins.'
Mirza said, 'And you, Earl?'
'If you go then I go with you.' One way to escape the trap Lychen had become and, while they were together, he was safe from her betrayal. 'Tomorrow, you said?'
'No!' Chenault slammed his fist on the table. 'You can't! We have an agreement!'
'One based on mutual help. The two sides of a coin, remember? I help you and you help me-but what help are you stuck in a chair? How long am I supposed to wait?'
'If you leave me you'll lose-'
'Nothing.' Dumarest was harsh. 'I lose nothing -you can't lose what you've never had. It's your decision, Chenault. Make up your mind.'
He leaned forward across the table with a face the other remembered. One he had seen before when steel had flashed at his torso to cut the artificial flesh of his arm. The face of a killer attacking a machine but one just as willing to attack the man behind it. One too dangerous to be frustrated for long.
'All right.' Chenault voiced his surrender. 'She can come with us.'
'Good. I'll order the Kasse to be readied for flight.' Mirza glanced at Dumarest. 'Give me a list of what we'll need. And we'll use my crew-I don't trust amateurs in the Burdinnion. Where are we heading?'
'Ryzam. It's a place on a world somewhere. Chenault knows where it is.'
'So do I. It's Skedaka on the far edge of the Burdinnion.' She looked from one to the other. 'Are you serious? Is that the ghost you're hunting? The legend of Ryzam?'
Dumarest said, bitterly, 'The place of eternal youth. Of endless health and vitality and all the rest of it. Now you say it's a matter of common knowledge.'
'Not common, but it's known. By spacers and traders and those who live on Skedaka. A lot of people have tried to find it.' She paused, looking at them both. 'A lot of people,' she repeated. 'But none who reached it has ever returned.'
Chapter Eleven
Captain Lauter was a broad, thick-set man, old, experienced, loyal to the Karroum, more than loyal to Mirza Annette. From the depths of his big pilot's chair he lifted a hand to point at the screen before him.
'There,' he said. 'Skedaka.'
A world which was a child of death; seared, torn, gouged, warped by the tremendous cataclysm which had created the Burdinnion. Standing beside the chair Dumarest studied the image set against the background of stars. One which seemed disfigured, diseased, blotched and mottled with drab colors.
'Where's the Ryzam?'
'There.' Again Lauter pointed. 'That patch to the north.'
The image swelled as he increased the magnification, growing to almost fill the screen, the patch looking like a crusted scab on leprous flesh. One composed of soaring spires, jagged, edged with sawlike serrations as if rock had been rendered molten then flung upwards to solidify in flight to form a pattern resembling the gigantic bristles of a monstrous brush.
'You can't land on it,' said Lauter. 'No clear space for one thing and the forces which stream from it for another. Get to within a certain height and the generators fail. Some ships tried it. None came back.'
'None?'
Lauter said, dryly, 'It happens about five miles up. When the ships hit the ground-' He clapped his hands together, the sound sharp in the control room. 'We'll have to find a spot well clear of the area.'
A good spot and a safe one; Lauter had a high regard for his vessel. Dumarest watched as the image shifted, shrank to normal size, looking forlorn and alone in the bright immensity of the cosmos.
'You've been here before, Captain?'
'Yes.'
'Then you've heard of the legend. Do you believe in it?'
'No.'
'Why not?'
'Because I'm not a fool.' Lauter was blunt. 'Ryzam is unusual, that I'll admit, but so are a thousand other places on as many worlds. Most of them have legends, tales, stories invented in taverns and spread by the credulous. Usually it's because the natives want to encourage tourists and the money they bring. Expeditions, even. Skedaka is no different. People live there, poor devils trying to scratch a living from dirt that's mostly ash. Sometimes they find gems and rare metals and there's a kind of herb which grows wild. Maybe the legend grew
