three fingers and an opposed thumb. Their feet matched their hands. All appeared neuter.
'Sexual development has been arrested at the prepuberty stage,' said the old man. 'Physically they are large, undeveloped children, but can be adapted for breeding if the necessity should arise. At the moment we are checking out a new gene pattern aimed at achieving a rudimentary telepathic ability. Now watch. I'm going to have them split into two groups, one will pick up debris from the paths, the other from the grass.'
He fell silent and, as far as Dumarest could see, made no signals of any kind. The group moved into two units each doing as he'd predicted.
'Telepathy,' said Sayer. 'I'm thinking the commands at them and they are responding. We've adapted them from a form of life found in the forests of Chalachia and once we get a few problems sorted out there's a market waiting for all we can produce. Servants,' he explained. 'Soft, gentle, cheap-they can live on a bowl of mush a day. Life span about a dozen years from gaining optimum physical development. Easily trained and directed-just think at them and they obey.'
'Why not just teach them to talk?'
'Impossible-they lack any trace of a speech center in the cortex. In their natural state they are just animals; arboreal types living on fruit and bark and nuts. The telepathic ability is a gene addition which gives them about the only real value they have.' Sayer stared at those working and, as one, they ceased their labors and returned to the shadow of the trees. 'About the last thing Armand instigated.'
Dumarest said. 'I thought he was strictly utilitarian in his developments.'
'He was but this resulted from an idea he had about the Original Man.' The guide smiled at Dumarest's expression. 'No, I'm not joking. Armand grew interested in old legends and myths and came up with the notion that, at one time, there would have had to have been a prototype for Mankind. He figured that we had degenerated from the prime stock and that certain organs such as the vermiform appendix, the pineal gland and the dead areas of the brain must once have had a useful function. If that was the case then we must have lost certain abilities and he wanted to restore them. Telepathy was something he thought could have been a lost attribute.'
'So he tried to incorporate it into monkeys?'
'He just wanted to see if it could be done. Once the gene had been isolated and stabilized he would have incorporated it into his master chromosome map.' Sayer shrugged. 'Well, he died before he'd barely started. A pity-he'd deserved the relaxation of a hobby. I guess he just left it too late.' He looked at the sky, the sullen ball of the lowering sun. 'Like we're doing. We'd best get moving if I'm to get you back to the house before dark.'
Chapter Eight
It was a place of peaked roofs set with spires around which twisted serpents carved from emerald stone. Decoration repeated in the gargoyles which guarded the corners, the felines set between soaring pillars, the array of birds which perched in frozen immobility on the walls. A motif reflected in the interior with vaulted chambers and echoing galleries, wide stairways and floors graced with elaborate mosiacs.
In his room Dumarest stared through a narrow, pointed window at the last glare of the dying sun, seeing the scud of low cloud burning crimson, the ground itself bearing the stain of spilled and drying blood. From somewhere came a distant howling and he remembered the dogs, the warning he had been given. It had been a warning, of that he had no doubt, one clumsily delivered but unmistakable all the same. To leave the house and to wander unescorted through the grounds meant death.
This was an odd way to treat a guest but everything had been odd since he had joined the ship on Ascelius. The turgid nature of his thoughts, the journey which had seemed too short even allowing for the convenience of quicktime. And after the landing when he had been given into the charge of Dino Sayer and taken on a tour of the establishment which had lasted until now. A means of keeping him from the house? Of keeping him under guard?
'My lord?' The girl was the one he had seen before or her twin. 'Your bath is ready, my lord.'
'Thank you.' He spoke without turning.
'Do you wish my assistance?'
'No.' He turned, his smile softening the refusal. 'But I thank you for the offer. Were you on Podesta?' He saw the frown, the sudden bewilderment in the wide, vacuous eyes. 'Never mind.'
The bath matched his room, the tub made from a solid block of marble, smoothed and contoured to cradle the back and thighs. Water fumed from twin faucets adding to that drawn by the girl, perfume rising to thicken the air with pungent smells. From the molding running below the high groined roof carved beasts watched as he pulled the plug, flushed out the water and what it contained, refilled the tub with steaming, uncontaminated liquid. Immersed he relaxed.
Had the girl been the same?
Had the perfume been other than what it seemed?
Had he been kept from the house to avoid seeing who else enjoyed the hospitality of Charisse Chetame?
The questions increased the burden of the rest and he mulled them over in his mind as the hot water eased his body and tensions. It was good just to lie and relax. Good to refrain from worry, to drift, to dream, to let events take their course.
Why had the journey seemed so short?
Dumarest rolled and felt the water rise over him as he engulfed his head to hold it below the surface as a fire grew in his lungs. This grew into an overriding need for air to burst as water showered and he rose, gasping, chest heaving, steam rising from his body as he stepped from the tub to stand before a mirror. Vapor misted it and he cleared it with the edge of his palm.
Intently he examined his temple.
The wound had healed, the transparent covering replaced by a smooth expanse of skin marred only by an ebon fleck. A point of blackness he had seen before, but then it had rested close to the edge of damaged tissue. Tissue which had healed too fast. A clock which proved the journey had taken longer than it had seemed.
Drugs?
They would account for it; inducing long periods of sleep which he would imagine to be times of normal rest. But he had eaten little and that only the usual basic drawn from a communal spigot. Charisse had remained absent after their first meeting when she had dressed his wound. Water, like food, had come from a communal faucet. The air had been shared. What else remained?
Lifting his hands, he touched the point of darkness on his temple and felt something hard. Setting the nails of his thumbs to either side of the mote, he pressed as he squeezed them together. A touch of pain then the ebon fleck lifted to be caught on a thumbnail and carried to the level of his eyes. A small cylinder of something hard and gritty which had rested in his flesh like a splinter of wood.
He dropped it into the bowl and flushed it with a stream of water. The pressure of his nails had left small, angry indents to either side of a spot of crimson. More water washed away the blood and he massaged the flesh to remove the indents. Some redness remained as did the tiny wound and he stooped to search the side of the bath where it joined with the floor finding, as he'd expected, traces of dirt. A touch and the wound was sealed with dirt, fresh blackness simulating the implant. As he turned from the mirror he heard the scuff of sandals from the room outside and cried out as he hit the side of the tub with the heel of his hand.
'My lord?' The girl came running, eyes searching the bathroom. 'Are you hurt?'
'No.'
'I heard-'
'I slipped.' Dumarest lifted the hand he'd held to his temple. 'Banged my head a little. It's nothing serious.'
She examined him, 'Just a little red, my lord. You were fortunate. Should I summon medical aid? Bring you astringents and ice? Cosmetics?'
Dumarest shook his head, wondering why the girl seemed incapable of making individual assessments. A woman would have demanded cosmetics, a man also if he belonged to a culture in which he would normally use them, but surely she must have noticed he wore no paint or powder?
'Are you sure, my lord?' She was eager to please.
'I'm sure.' Dumarest added casually, 'Are there many guests in the house?'
