It was brandy and Dumarest tipped the bottle, taking far less than it seemed.
"So you're going to ride with us," said Chagney. "To Zakym. You know it?"
"No."
"A small world deep in the Rift. A crazy place or maybe it's the people who are crazy. We work the area; Zakym, Ieldhara, Frogan, Angku-small profits and plenty of risk. You've ridden traders before?"
"A time or two, yes."
"Then you know how it is." Chagney helped himself to more brandy. Lifting the cup, he said, "A toast, friend. To the afterlife!" His smile was bleak. "You don't think I should drink to the next world? Hell, why not? There's little enough in this one."
And for him less than most. The man was dying, his body ravaged by an internal parasite picked up on some distant world. Soon it would eat its way to his brain but, before that, if Erylin had any sense, the ship would have a new navigator.
"If we can find one." The engineer was a squat man with the body of a toad and a sponge-like face meshed with a tracery of broken veins. "Chagney knows his way around the Rift and we'll have a hard time replacing him. Who wants to work on a trader?"
Usually the ruined, the desperate, those with skills but with reputations long-vanished and with nowhere else to turn. Men willing to take risks with old equipment and worn engines. Scraping a living by sharing in the meager profits. Some, Dumarest had known, were well run and well maintained. The Sleethan wasn't one of them.
It was undercrewed; the engineer filling in as handler. There was no steward. The corridor showed signs of dirt and neglect. The decks were scuffed and the air held the sour taint of faulty-conditioners. The cabins matched the rest.
Dumarest closed the door, threw the simple catch and stripped off the rags and tatters which covered his own clothing. The bunk held a thin mattress, the cabinet was empty, the water from the faucet little more than a trickle into the bowl. He let it run as he stripped then washed himself down, using a sheet from the bunk as both sponge and towel. Dressed he opened the door and looked outside. The corridor was deserted. The cabins to either side were empty but in the one beyond the nearest to the salon he found some clothes hanging in the cabinet. A steward's uniform together with a medical kit containing some basic drugs and antibiotics. With it was a hypogun loaded with quick-time.
Laziness would account for the clothing; the steward, dead or deserted, had left traces which had yet to be disposed of. The kit was standard equipment as was the hypo-gun. Once on their journey it would be used, the drug injected with a blast of air to slow the metabolism; the chemical magic of quick-time slowing the metabolism so that a normal day would seem a matter of minutes only. A convenience to lessen the tedium of journeys.
Back in his cabin Dumarest settled down on the bunk to wait. He had done all he could. The false trail at the Ergun would provide a distraction if one was needed. He wouldn't be missed from the compound. Within an hour now, he would be away from Harald and safe into space.
He dozed a little, waking to the throb of the engines, the thin, high, wailing of the generator as it established the Erhaft field which would send them across the void at a multiple of the speed of light. The wail was ragged, too loud, the audible signal lasting too long before it lifted into the ultra-sonic to be heterodyned into harmlessness.
But the noise didn't matter. The ship was up and away and Dumarest felt himself relax. A moment only, then he tensed as someone knocked on the door.
"Who?"
"Fatshan." The engineer cleared his throat. "Open up, man, it's time for quick-time."
Dumarest frowned, reaching for his knife as, with his other hand, he released the catch. The panel flew open and the engineer cried out at the sight of naked steel.
"No! Don't! I couldn't help it! I-"
He broke off as a hand thrust him to one side. In the corridor now stood a tall figure wearing a hatefully familiar robe.
As Dumarest lifted the naked blade Cyber Broge said, "Drop it! Drop it or I fire!"
The laser in his hand was small, a sleeve-gun, but just as deadly as any other weapon at this range. It could sear and burn and slash like a red-hot blade. Dumarest knew that, if he moved, it would sever both his legs at the knees.
Chapter Seven
Khaya Taiyuah was a tall, lean man with a hooked nose and sunken eyes which, normally like turgid pools, now blazed with the urgency of his errand.
"Lavinia, we have no choice. Unless Gydapen is stopped he will ruin us all. The Pact must not be broken. If it is then what will become of life as we know it?" Somberly he answered his own question. "War, death, destruction, the ruin of Zakym. The work of our ancestors wasted because of the greed of one man."
He was, she thought, exaggerating, but knew better than to voice the accusation. Taiyuah, like most of his type, was subjected to sudden rages. An introvert, usually uninterested in anything which did not have a bearing on his devotion to breeding a new strain of silk worm, he took little notice of the conduct of others. Now something, a rumor perhaps, had sent him into a state bordering on panic.
Quietly she said, "Gydapen isn't insane, Khaya. He must know what he is doing. Are you sure you have all the facts?"
"A messenger from Fhard Erason gave them to me. I sent him on to Howich Suchong and came here as soon as I could. Lavinia, you have influence with the man. Stop him before it is too late."
She had, she thought, seen him perhaps a dozen times during the entire course of her life and most of those occasions had been accidental meetings in town when they had both gone to collect delivered consignments. Only twice had he been at a Council meeting. But he had attended the death-rites of her parents-she owed him for that.
"Lavinia-"
"We have time, Khaya. You need rest, food and some wine. A bath too, perhaps. It will relax you. Enjoy it while I arrange matters with Roland."
"You will hurry?"
"I'll waste no time," she promised. "Now do as I say, old friend. And trust me."
Roland was on the upper battlements, standing on the platform, binoculars to his eyes as he swept the distant hills. The magenta sun was high, the violet still barely risen, the air holding a welcome absence of tension. As always, he sensed her presence and, lowering the binoculars, turned, smiling.
"Lavinia!" He sobered as she told him of the visitor and his fears. "And he wants you to do something about it?"
"Yes. Should I?"
"If the Pact is threatened you have no choice. I assume an extraordinary meeting of the Council will be called? If Fhard Erason is sending out word then that will be inevitable. But why didn't he notify you directly?"
A point which hadn't escaped her attention. Slowly she said, "If Erason did send out word. Khaya is old and gets easily confused. Delusia was strong last evening."
"And Khaya keeps much to himself." Roland looked toward the hills, his brows creased with thought. "I'll contact Erason personally and circulate the others. It's possible that Khaya has misjudged the situation. He may not have been meant to contact you. After all, as far as most are concerned, you and Gydapen are close. His interests could be your own. In any case it could be feared that you might warn him or, at least, side with him. It would be a natural assumption."
"But wrong!"
His pleasure was manifest. "It pleases me to hear you say it, my lady."
"I might have to marry the man," she said, ignoring the comment. "But I don't have to like him and I will never side with him if he threatens the Pact." She glanced towards the hills. "What were you studying?"
"The herd we set to browse. Two stallions are vying for supremacy. Here." He handed her the glasses, "To the left of the forked peak and just above the patch of grasses. They could still be there."
They were and she watched, entranced by their sheer, animal perfection as, snorting, they faced each other, hooves pawing the stoney dirt. They would turn and move and weave perhaps for days as their biological needs grew and filled their universe. The urge to procreate would work its magic and each would fight to be the one to impregnate the mares. One would have to yield, running before suffering too serious injuries, forced to wait and build on what he had learned, to prove his mastery and so the right to implant his seed.
Once, perhaps, men had acted in a similar fashion, gathering females under their protection, filling them with new life, multiplying their strength and cunning, their courage and ability to survive. Then only the strong had won the right to continue their line-the weak had perished.
What had happened to ruin that elementary custom?
Where now were the men who, like those distant stallions, would fight to gain and hold what they desired?
"Lavinia?"
She lowered the binoculars, conscious that she had concentrated for too long, become too deeply engrossed with mental imageries and was, perhaps, even now betraying her own, deep-rooted desires. The son of her body would be a man, but where was the man to father him?