Avro picked up a fragment of clothing, gray plastic covering a hidden metal mesh-protection favored by travelers and known to be worn by Dumarest. But such clothing was common, especially among those visiting hostile worlds. Dumarest could already have replaced it if he was alive.
Avro was convinced he was.
His luck would have seen to that. The peculiar ability Dumarest seemed to possess which yielded favorable circumstances when they were most needed. A survival trait Avro had recognized and which must govern his every step in the pursuit of the quarry.
But, if Dumarest was alive, where was he to be found?
The answer lay in the mass of data resting on the desk; the ship movements, cargo manifests, destinations, reports culled from a thousand sources. Most was unrelated trivia but from the rest Avro had selected items which could form a pattern. One which would carry the image of truth.
Baatz was a busy world with traders and merchants coming from all parts to buy and sell in the market. But such could be eliminated; creatures of habit, they were known, their movements predictable. Others posed harder problems, gamblers, harlots, pimps, entrepreneurs together with free-traders and other vessels following no regular routes. Yet the apparent randomness took on a different aspect when the whole was considered. Transient though the population of Baatz might be, yet it followed certain laws similar to those dictating the migrations of birds and wild animals. The need of being at the feeding ground at the right time, the combination of holiday and carnival and the flux of tourists.
Few, like Dumarest, were unattached wanderers drifting from world to world without apparent reason. And those working on the field had grown to recognize the regular visitors.
Avro studied a thin sheaf of reports. A man resembling Dumarest had taken passage on the Sinden a day after Tron had landed. Too soon-eliminate him. Another had left on the Harrif a day after the cyber had died. A gambler known to the field agent and expected back soon. Two men who had looked furtive, one who had hidden his face, another traveling with a giggling harlot, a somber individual who wore gray along with the mask of a clown.
A possibility Avro considered then discarded; even if Dumarest had chosen to hide behind conspicuousness the ship had been bound for Zshen. A long flight. Too long for a man needing to lose himself.
And there were other factors to be taken into account. Central Intelligence absorbed an astronomical amount of information from a host of cybers. Data of no obvious value but all taken and sifted through the organic computer to be correlated, aligned, evaluated and all possible connections checked and determined.
Information passed to Avro at his request.
He stared at the papers before him, remembering, wondering why, the last time he had established rapport, it had been as normal. There had been no bizarre landscape, no figure to greet him and exchange words as if face to face. No enclosed universe in which he had been thrust as if by a whim. Would it ever happen again?
He set aside that question as he returned to his task. With a handful of facts he could predict the logical outcome of any event. Training and talent which could not only show where Dumarest had been but predict where he would be and when.
On Nyne a warehouse had been damaged. Broken out of by someone locked within. An item of local news coupled with that of a broken crate. And crates of just that size had been shipped from Baatz after Tron had died. Dumarest could have traveled in one. And after?
The Burdinnion was close and a good place for a man to hide. Easy traveling, with journeys too short to do other than ride Middle. Natural time spent in a variety of ways all designed to eliminate boredom-and Dumarest had skill as a gambler.
Which ship and where headed?
Three had left Nyne at the relevant time. One, a private charter, could be eliminated; such craft didn't cater to the casual trade. Another, heading toward Baatz, the same. The third, the Solinoy, had been bound for Tysa.
Tysa?
It held nothing but a farming complex fueling a stringent economy based on the export of medicinal drugs. A small, harsh, bleak world lashed by radiation and populated mostly by contract workers who had no choice but to stay where fate had dumped them. The last place a man would hide.
And yet?
Avro checked the data; the mechanism of his mind evaluated probabilities. Then he judged time and distance. A button sank beneath a finger as he reached a decision.
"Master!" Tupou answered the command. "Your orders?"
"Go to the field. Have my ship readied for immediate flight. I shall require full velocity. Have Byrne clear the suite."
"Yes, Master. The destination?"
"Anfisa."
It had to be Anfisa. The Thorn had left soon after the Solinoy had landed and the ship was bound for that world.
Avro intended to meet it.
* * *
Angado Nossak sucked at a bone and said, "Earl, I've never felt better in my life."
He looked it. The lumpy protrusions had gone as had a slight plumpness at the waist and jowls. The skin and eyes were clear. Sitting cross-legged before the fire he was the picture of health.
Dumarest said, "You were lucky."
"Sure I was lucky-I had you to look after me." Nossak sobered as he reached for another meaty bone from the heap stacked before the fire. "Though I had a bad dream, once. A nightmare, I guess. I seemed to hear you saying you were going to desert me."
"It was no dream!"
"It had to be!"
"Is that what you always say when you bump up against something you don't like?" Dumarest lowered the tunic he was working on with plastic and a hot iron; the knife included in the supplies which he'd heated in the fire. "Pretend it doesn't exist? Call it a dream? Keep that up and you won't have to worry about growing old."
"I almost didn't." Nossak looked at his arms and frowned. "You gave me slow time, right?"
"That and other things."
"Drugs, sure, but what about the rest? I'm in too good a shape to have starved for over a month. We've no equipment or supplies for intravenous feeding so how did you manage?"
With blood mixed with water and fed into his stomach through a pipe made from the intestines of the predator. Fluids followed by raw, pulped liver and other soft meats.
Nossak gulped as he listened.
"Maybe I shouldn't have asked."
"Squeamish?"
"Let's just say I was never used to things like that."
"What were you used to?" Dumarest thrust the knife back into the fire. Stripped to shorts his body showed a pattern of bruises, marks left by the blow and rake of claws, the snap of teeth. Only the metal protection of his clothing had saved him from fatal lacerations. Now, slowly, he was doing his best to refurbish the garments. "Servants? Money? Adulation?"
"Let's forget it."
"No." Dumarest's tone brooked no argument. "I want to know. Someone tried to kill you and I got mixed up in it. They could try again. It would help to know why."
"Kill me? But I was sick, ill-"
"Poisoned." Smoke rose as Dumarest applied the hot metal, forcing molten plastic into the rents left by claws. "Nothing crude and it couldn't be detected but it exploded allergic reactions once triggered. Anything could have done it, the cards, the basic, the woman's perfume. What do you know about Cranmer?"
"Nothing. Why?"