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."
"You should. The feel of it does something to a man. Cold, razor-sharp steel, catching and reflecting the light, speaking with its edge, its point, words of threat and pain. Watch a man with a knife and see how he moves. A good fighter becomes an appendage of his weapon. A man with a gun gives less cause for concern. Why? Can you tell me why?"
"A gun is dispassionate. Everyone knows what a knife can do."
"Cut and slash and maim and cripple. True, but a gun can do that and more. But still the psychological factor remains." Then in the same tone of voice he added, "Is that why Dumarest carries a knife?"
"You have read the reports."
"Words on paper-what do they tell me about the man? I need to know how he looks, how he walks, the manner in which he snuffs the air. You think I joke? Smell is as important to a man as to a beast, even though he may not be aware of it. And a man hunted and knowing it seems to develop his faculties. So what is Dumarest really like?"
"I have never seen him."
"He wears gray, he carries a knife, he travels. High when he can afford it low when he cannot. Space is full of such wanderers. What makes him so special?" It was a question to which he expected no answer, and gained none. Either Caradoc didn't know or had no intention of telling, but it was early yet and, later-who could tell? Gesturing to his bunk, he said, "Sit and join me in some wine."
"No," said Caradoc.
"No to the wine, to the offer of rest, or both?"
"I need neither."
A thing Bochner had known but had deliberately ignored, Caradoc was a cyber and the nearest thing to a living machine possible to achieve. To him, food was mere fuel to power the body. He was a stranger to emotion and unable to feel it by virtue of the operation performed on his cortex shortly after reaching puberty. A creature selected and trained by the Cyclan, converted into an organic computer, a metabolic robot who could only know the pleasure of mental achievement.
Sitting, Bochner stared at him, wondering what it would be like to have been like him, to have worn the scarlet robe, to have relinquished all the things which most men held dear. Caradoc would never know the thrill of sitting in a hide waiting for the quarry to appear, to aim, to select the target, to fire, to know the heady exultation of one who has dispensed death. The sheer ecstasy of pitting mind against mind in the hunt for one of his own kind-the most exciting and dangerous quarry of all. To kill and to escape, which often was harder than the kill itself. To outguess and outmaneuver. To anticipate and to watch the stunned sickness in a quarry's eyes. To hear the babble for mercy, see the futile twitches as the demoralized creature tried to escape, to plan even while it begged to die, finally, when the hunter had become bored.
No, Caradoc would never know what it was to be bored and for that alone, Bochner could envy him.
The wine was in a bottle of crusted glass, the crystal flecked with inner motes of shimmering gold, the liquid itself a pale amber, holding the tart freshness of a crisp, new day. Bochner poured and lifted the cap which served as a cup.
"To your health, my friend." He drank and refilled the small container. "You object?"
"I wonder."
"Why I drink?"
"Why any man of intelligence should choose to put poison into his body."
"A good point," mused Bochner. "Why do we do it? To find escape, perhaps to discover a world of dreams. Some cannot do without the anodyne of alcohol, but I am not one of them. Listen, my scarlet accomplice, and try to comprehend. The quarry I hunt lurks in unsuspected quarters and must be sought in regions you may not understand. At times, I must sit for long hours in taverns and what should I drink then? No, I drink as a part of my camouflage and must maintain my tolerance for alcohol. As a runner must practice to keep up his acquired ability. A swimmer, his mastery over water." Again he emptied the cup and again refilled it. "Test me now and you would find me as sober as yourself. Give me a mark and a gun and I will hit it as many times as you choose to name. In any case, it helps to pass the time."