Melome

'That is not what I see, my lady.'

'You mock me?' For a moment tension stiffened the air and Dumarest heard Shakira's sharp inhalation, the touch of something like a feather against the naked surface of his mind. And then, as if he had been tested and had passed the test, the tension vanished. 'No,' she whispered. 'You do not mock. Yet I do not need your pity.'

'Something else, then?' A question to which she gave no answer and Dumarest continued, 'We are what we are, my lady, and have no hand in our making. Therefore we should not be blamed for what we cannot help. Nor derided. Nor abused. But to deny pity is to reject what is good in a person. And there are those who, if they were you, would beg for more than pity.'

'A quick and merciful end-you offer me that?'

'If I did, would you accept it?'

'No.' The denial was sharp. 'I live and while I live I serve. I can help those who have been kind.' A sleeve lifted to reveal a knotted appendage which touched Shakira's hand. 'Save your pity for those who need it. I do not.'

Dumarest bowed, lowering his eyes.

'Yet you have been kind and merciful in your fashion. Tayu!' He lowered the cloth to hide the ravaged features, the fabric softening the harsh timbre of the whispering voice. 'Therefore, from me to you, something to remember.'

The touch came again, a feather on the mind followed by a wave of pleasure so intense as to send his mind spinning in a vortex of indescribable ecstasy. One which blinded him to the journey back and left him shaken and gasping in Shakira's office.

'Her talent, Earl.' The owner offered him a glass of wine. 'The reverse of the coin she can spin at will. Pleasure and pain. Reward and punishment. Ironic, isn't it, that such power should be housed in such a frame.'

The price paid by most sensitives for their talent; physical weakness and deformity, but Elagonya had paid higher than most. How many others like her did Shakira keep in his private quarters? And how to break the hold she had over him?

Dumarest said, 'In order to function she needs a focal point.'

'That is so.' Shakira lifted his own glass of wine. 'You had no choice but others are more cautious. Also her ability is limited.' He sipped and swallowed and, looking at his glass, added, 'I wanted you to realize how helpless you are, Earl. Run and pain will torment you. Attempt violence against me and you will be rendered helpless. Elagonya's talent has fabricated an affinity between you. In a sense you are an extension of her body.'

'And?'

'That makes you mine, Earl. A part of the circus of Chen Wei.'

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In a gallery a man was protesting, his voice high, edged with anger, 'You cheated me! Sold me rubbish! That's bad enough but you took me for a fool. No one does that and gets away with it!'

'Easy, mister.' The grafter, small, wizened, spread his hands in an age-old gesture. 'There's no need for temper. You got what you paid for, right?'

'Wrong! A liquid which turns metal into gold-the damned stuff wears off after a day!'

And he had spent more than its cost in coming back to complain. An awkward one. A noise. He turned as Dumarest touched his arm.

'I'm an assistant market-inspector attached to the circus from the main office, sir.' A lie the man was willing to accept especially when Dumarest continued, 'As I see it you have a good case. You can prosecute or come to some settlement. Naturally we'd prefer you to prosecute; thieves like this mustn't be allowed to rob honest people. Are you willing to place charges?'

'Well-'

'Of course if you prosecute you'll have to attend court and pay certain charges which you can later claim against the defendant should the verdict go against him. And it will take some of your time. The preliminary hearing, the depositions, witnesses and their statements-naturally you have proof of purchase?'

'No.' The man scowled. 'Look, must I go through all that? It's time and expense I may never recover.'

'You'd rather settle without formality?' Dumarest registered his disapproval. 'Well, it is your right, of course, but hardly fair to others. But if that's the way you want it go ahead.'

'A creep.' The grafter scowled as the man, his purchase price refunded, moved away. 'What the hell did he expect for a lousy kobold? Thanks for taking care of it, Earl.'

'Forget it. How's trade?'

'Bad and getting worse. Why doesn't Shakira up stakes and move?'

'Ask Zucco-he's the one dragging his feet.'

A suggestion he'd sown and which would spread like wildfire and if it created discord between the owner and the ringmaster Dumarest would be satisfied.

The gallery ended and he entered another familiar in its scenes of torture and pain. A woman stood before a tableau dimmed with shadows which shrouded the depicted figures in brooding menace. Tall, robed figures in scarlet watching the victim as he strained against his bonds. One lying supine on a bench, face contorted, bulging eyes fastened on the razor-edge of the curved blade swinging above him. A pendulum which lowered by degrees until it would slice through skin and fat and flesh and inner organs.

'Horrible!' She shuddered as Dumarest halted beside her. 'The things people imagine! Could a thing like that really have happened?'

Too often and in too many places and he said so, not softening his words.

'But those men. They're cybers. The Cyclan doesn't operate like that.'

'Those aren't cybers.'

'No?' She turned to face him and Dumarest saw the glint of amusement in her eyes, the quirk of lips artificially enhanced. A matron on the prowl knowing the erotic stimulus of depicted agony and willing to respond to any advance he might choose to make. 'They look like them.'

'What do you know of the Cyclan?'

'Me? Not much but I've a cousin who tried to join them. That was on Pikodov-my home world. Then I married and we settled here. A mistake, I was widowed within five years.'

'And Juan?'

'He was really involved. That's how I know what they look like. Cybers, I mean. One used to come to the house to give initial instruction or make tests or something. Odd me seeing these.' She gestured at the tableau. 'I saw one only this morning in town.'

'A cyber?'

'That's right. At the Dubedat Hotel. I'm staying there.' Her voice was suggestive. 'A big room and I'm all alone and I hate not having company.'

'If I'm free we'll have dinner tonight,' said Dumarest. 'Had the cyber just arrived?'

'No. Someone told me he'd booked in a day or so ago.'

When he'd run with Melome from the circus. When Zucco and Valaban had been sent after him. Coincidence- or design?

A question Dumarest pondered as he moved on to the shadowed area beneath the stands. It was between performances, the ring holding the dilapidated, slightly tatty air such places always did when the lights dimmed and the stands were empty. Some men raked the sand, smoothing and cleaning the surface while others worked in the tiers. Routine tasks which would soon be completed.

Citizens of a world of which Shakira had made him a part.

A close, snug, normally safe world but a prison to a man used to the spaces between the stars. Dumarest moved on, conscious of the partitions which reared too close, of passageways too narrow and ceilings too low. They lifted as he moved deeper beneath the stands but still the sense of confinement remained. That and the warning prickle of danger which he had learned never to ignore.

'Hi!' Valaban lifted a hand in salute as Dumarest came toward the cage in which he stood. 'Be with you in a second, Earl.'