trained to adopt. And yet, Irae caught the irony beneath the apparently flat statement.
'You repeat the obvious, Cyber Yoka. I am fully aware of the problem but we can eliminate a large area of low-order probabilities. We have information as to where Dumarest was last located, together with the names and routes of the vessels which left at the critical time.'
'Data?' Yoka stood, immobile, as he listened to the stream of facts and figures, his mind assimilating, correlating, selecting and discarding various possibilities until he reached a decision. 'You are correct. The probability that Dumarest will be discovered within the Rift is as you say. The Quillian Sector. He could be there now, but to locate him will not be easy.'
'For a cyber?'
'For anyone but an expert hunter of men.' Yoka added, 'I have one at hand.'
Leo Bochner didn't look the part. While tall, he appeared slim, almost womanish, his face unlined, his hands smooth, as was his voice as he announced himself. He stood waiting with an easy grace. Instinctively, he selected the one in authority, turning a little to face Irae, recognizing that while younger than Yoka, he held the command. A point Irae noted as he did the clothing; good, yet not obtrusive; fine woven cloth cut to emphasize good taste and not vulgar ostentation. Clothing which somehow added to the effeminate impression he had gamed and which lessened the threat of the man.
A mistake?
A less experienced man could have thought so and wondered at Yoka's judgement, but Irae had long since learned to look beneath the surface of apparent truth. Now, looking, he noted the smooth pad of muscle beneath the skin of face, throat and wrists. The iron beneath the smooth set of lips and jaw. The carriage. The ingrained confidence in words and manner. The eyes.
The eyes which, even as he watched, changed to give the lie to the polished dress and manner; turning into those of a beast, a wolf, a tiger, a hunter of prey.
Then, in a moment, they were again a part of the disguise, calm, bland, faintly mocking.
Irae said, 'Tell me something of yourself.'
'I have, shall we say, a certain skill.' Bochner's voice carried no pride, it was merely a vehicle used to convey a fact. 'I realized I had it when very young and took steps to cultivate and perfect. I have an affinity with wild things. I sense their habits and, knowing them, can anticipate what they will do.' He added with the same easy tone, 'I am probably the finest hunter ever to be born on Pontia, and on that world you hunt or you starve.'
'Animals.' Irae watched the eyes as he spoke. 'Beasts operating on instinctive patterns of behavior.'
He had looked for anger. None came, nor did the eyes change as they had before. That, he knew, had been a demonstration, a dropping of the veil to show a little of the real nature of the man.
Bochner said, 'Beast or man, my lord, they are the same.'
'A man can think.'
'And for that attribute, has lost others. But we talk to little purpose. My record is known to you.'
A good one or he would not now be standing before them. A noted hunter, a skilled assassin, but this time such skills would be unwanted.
Bochner shrugged as Irae made that clear. 'I understand. I find Dumarest and hold him with the least amount of force necessary until he can be handed over to your agents. Of course, it may be that I shall have to cripple him to ruin his mobility. Break his legs, for example, and even his arms. But his life will not be in danger. That is acceptable?'
'We want the man unharmed and in full possession of his mental faculties.'
'You want the man in any way he can be delivered,' said Bochner flatly. 'As long as he is alive on delivery. If that isn't the case, why send for me?' His eyes moved from one to the other of the scarlet figures. 'I shall not let you down, my lords. My reputation was not gained by bungling my commissions. And, speaking of commissions my fee-'
'Will be paid,' said Yoka. 'The Cyclan does not break its word.'
A bow was Bochner's answer, but Irae added more; it was well that the man should remember the power of the Cyclan, and that it could take as well as give.
'You will be rewarded,' he said, 'with wealth and property should you succeed. With something less pleasant should you fail.'
'I shall not fail.'
'How can you be sure? How can you even know you will find him?'
'When you cannot?' Bochner was shrewd. 'Or when you do, you always seem to arrive too late? The answer is basically simple; you hunt a man but I hunt a beast. You operate on the basis of pure logic, but a man is not a logical creature and does not follow a nice, neat, predictable path. Not a man with sense. Not one who knows he is being hunted. Not one who is afraid. Such things confuse the normal pattern. Watch such a man as I have and you will see his instincts guide his decisions. A ship arrives-shall he take it or wait for the next? The same with a raft, a cab, a caravan. The same with a hotel, a meal, a drink in a tavern. The shape of a door can send quarry scuttling into hiding. The whisper of a woman who, by chance, speaks his name. The look of an official which, misunderstood, can lead to flight. How can you predict exactly where he will go when he doesn't even know himself? What he will do, when what he is permitted to do depends on chance?'
He was over-simplifying and was wrong in his assessment of the ability of the Cyclan, but Irae did not correct him. Neither he, nor any cyber, wished to advertise their abilities to those who had not hired their services. And the 'chance' to which Bochner referred was not a matter of infinite variables, as he seemed to think, but a limited set of paths determined by prevailing factors. A man stranded on an island could only escape by sea or by air. Without the means to fly, he was limited to the sea. Without the means to construct or obtain a boat, he could only swim. If unable to swim, he would be forced to wade the shallows. Knowing the man, the circumstances, there was nothing hard in predicting what he would do and where he would go.
Irae said, 'Do you know the Quillian Sector?'
'As much as any man can know it.'
'Which is to say?'
'Parts well, other parts not so well, a little not at all. But then,' Bochner added, 'no one knows them-the worlds hidden in the dust and those caught in the mesh of destructive forces. There are rumors, but that is all.'
'Expeditions sent and lost,' said Yoka. 'Companies formed and dissolved, as the investigations they made turned to nothing. We are not interested in such planets. We are only interested in your quarry.'
'Dumarest.'
'Yes, Dumarest You are confident you can track him down?'
'Guide me to a world and if he is on it, I will find him. More, give me a cluster of worlds and I will show you which he will make for. You think I boast?' Bochner shook his head. 'I speak from knowledge. From conviction. From experience.'
'A claim others have made. Now, they are dead.'
'Killed by Dumarest?' Bochner looked at his hands. 'I can take care of myself.'
A conviction shared by others before they had died, but Irae didn't mention that. Instead, he said, 'Tell me one thing, Bochner. Aside from the reward, why do you want to hunt Dumarest?'
'Why?' Bochner inhaled, his breath a sibilant hiss over his teeth. 'Because if half of what you've told me is true, then he is the most wily, the most dangerous and the most interesting quarry I could ever hope to find.'
The ship was small, unmarked; The crew, taciturn servants of the Cyclan. Alone in his cabin, Bochner went through his routine exercises, movements designed to keep his muscles in trim and his reflexes at their peak. When Caradoc opened the door he was standing, dressed only in pants, shoes and blouse, a knife balanced on its point on the back of his right hand, which was held level at waist height. As the young cyber watched, he dropped the hand and, as the knife dropped towards his foot snatched at it with his left hand, catching the hilt and tossing it upwards to circle once before catching it in his right.
'A game,' he explained. 'One played often on Vrage. There we stood naked and held our hands at knee height. Miss and you speared a foot. There was a more sophisticated version played for higher stakes in which, if you were slow, you usually died.' Idly, he spun the knife. 'You have used a blade?'
'No.'
