"You refuse?"
"To fight, yes."
"A pity. Must I remind you that you are in my debt?"
"For the cost of a passage. I admit it."
"For your life, Earl." She paused then repeated. "For your life. A debt now to be cleared. Fight my creature and, if you win, you owe me nothing."
And he would gain no more than he had. If he was forced to entertain then he would demand his fee. She frowned as he told her what it was.
"The library? You want access to the library?"
"To that and to Armand's personal files. The material he collected in his investigation into the old legends." As she nodded he said sharply, "You agree?"
"Of course."
He felt himself relax, tension leaving him as if it were water pouring from an open faucet. All that remained now was to fight, to win, to gain the secret he had come to find and to be on his way.
Chapter Nine
The contest was to be at noon, held in an open space before one of the barrack-like buildings. An area of some hundred yards square, ringed by a high hedge of close-set thorns, their spines masked with a profusion of small, purple blooms.
"An exercise yard," explained Dino Sayer. "We use it to allow specimens to demonstrate their mobility."
Their agility, grace, aptitudes and, now, the ability to kill. Dumarest looked at the building, the door set in the side facing him, closed now, but soon to open. The roof was a hundred feet above the ground, the wall sheer, the expanse unbroken aside from the door. At points along the edge he saw rounded blobs which could have been the heads of watching men.
"I don't like this," said the old man. "Testing a new product is one thing, but we usually set them against other beasts or those of their own kind. This is nothing but murder."
"You think it will win?"
The man's silence was answer enough. Dumarest looked again at the building, the hedge, the ground on which he stood. Lush grass cropped short made a mantle over soft loam. The sun, at zenith, stared like a bloodshot eye from the sky.
"How long must we wait?" Enrice Heva was impatient. "Why the delay?"
"Does it matter?" Linda Ynya snapped her irritation. She looked worn, haggard, her face raddled beneath the paint. Like the others she stood in a gallery which ran along one side of the square; a raised platform set beyond the hedge and shielded by a canopy. She added, "Don't worry, Enrice, you'll have your fun. Earl can't escape."
That conviction was shared by them all. Astin turned as Charisse joined her guests. She wore a gown of glinting ruby; metal threads catching and reflecting the sunlight so that she stood as if wreathed in flame.
Looking at her, Ienda Chao said, "Earl is still dressed and armed. Surely he should be naked if the contest is to be fair?"
"An animal has its hide," said Linda quickly. "Its pelt and claws and fangs."
"Natural attributes." Vayne pointed out. "Ienda has a point. Even if he retains his clothing he should yield the knife."
"Let him keep it," said Krantz. "If the creature is truly superior what difference will it make?"
That comment ended the discussion. At Charisse's command Sayer moved toward the building, the door it contained, turning once to look at Dumarest then striding ahead, a man not liking what he did but one who would do it just the same. Krantz and Linda had been better allies though their motives could be less than altruistic. But why had Charisse allowed him to keep the knife? Of them all she knew how well he could use it.
Did she want her creation to win?
A thought considered and dismissed as Dumarest again searched the area. The hedge was thick, growing low, the spaces at the base few and too small to allow of passage. A barrier a dozen feet high, the spines a host of knives to rip and tear at flesh which came too close. The platform itself was beyond reach-the only obvious route to freedom lay through the door.
The panel opened as he watched to reveal a shadowed darkness in which something moved. A shape loped forward to stand in the crimson light of the sun.
"God!" said someone from the platform. "Dear, God!"
A woman's voice, but Dumarest couldn't tell which. There was no time to look, no time for anything but to study the creature before him. The creation from the laboratories which Charisse had claimed to be a superior man.
She had lied-he looked at a woman.
Like himself she was dressed in neutral gray, fabric which covered her body but there was no mistaking the thrust of breasts, the swell of hips and thighs. A body designed for breeding, for the first necessity of any superior life form was the ability to reproduce. The frame was massive and he guessed genetic science had developed hollow bones for greater muscle anchorage without added weight. The skin was a deep brown, the eyes widely spaced and deep-set beneath thrusting brows. The forehead was high, curved, surmounted by a mane of ebon hair. The mouth showed the white gleam of pointed incisors-feline teeth which could stab and rip like knives. The hands were large, the fingers equipped with retractable claws.
A blend of woman and cat, she stood eight feet tall, loping toward him intent on his death.
Dumarest turned and ran, turning again to duck beneath a reaching hand, to be sent sprawling as a foot hammered at his side. A blow which numbed, then repeated to rip sod from the ground and send it flying high and far to one side. Speed which would have killed had it been backed with experience. Which would kill if he allowed it time.
Again he ran, seeing the wall of the building rise before him, the closed door. Behind its grill he saw eyes, the glint of metal, saw too the shadow darkening the steel. A warning he obeyed just in time, throwing himself to one side as the woman slammed into the panel, wood shredding beneath the rake of her nails.
The impetuous anger of youth and she had to be young. Something patterned in the laboratory and forced to speeded maturity with the aid of slowtime. Fed with artificial concentrates, exercised by machines, the body developed at the expense of the mind. An idiot, unable as yet to talk, to think, to understand. A reactive construct which had been programmed to destroy.
Against it his knife was useless.
She was too fast, too well-protected. Even if he blinded an eye it would do nothing to slow her. Unlike the mannek she had been designed for efficiency and not for display. The pain level must be high, nerves and tendons duplicated, survival responses built into the very fabric of her being. The common attributes of any female were in her developed to the ultimate.
Yet there had to be weaknesses.
He dodged again, staying beyond reach of the clawed hands, moving with trained response while his mind assessed the situation. He could cut and slash and wound but each of her hands held five knives against his one. She was as fast as he was. Taller than he. Stronger. His only advantage lay in his experience-the cunning developed over the years. And she was a woman and a child.
He ran, stooping as he ran, to straighten with the weight of his knife in his hand. Nine inches of honed and tempered steel blazed like a crimson icicle as he lifted the polished blade to catch and reflect the sunlight. A flashing glitter vanished to reappear to vanish again as he maneuvered the weapon. Darting rays caught the woman across the eyes, making her blink, making her lift shielding hands, causing her to halt, to back a little from the unknown and therefore potentially dangerous brightness.
But the childish mind was entranced even as the mature body reacted to programmed caution.
Dumarest edged to one side, boots soundless on the sward, knife lifted, reflected brightness aimed at the face, the eyes. He backed and she followed, one hand reaching for the knife. He backed even more then stepped quickly around her so that her back was toward the hedge opposite to that holding the platform.
"Here!" he said. "Catch!" Crimson gleamed as he threw the knife. It rose high, spinning, a glittering wheel which spun up and toward the hedge. A thing of magic which she followed with her eyes, hands lifting to snatch it from the air, falling short as it soared above the thorns. She turned to face it, stepping forward-and Dumarest moved.
He ran forward, leaping high, one boot landing on the swollen curve of her buttocks, using it as a foothold to leap again, jumping high as he used the broad shoulders as a platform. The leap carried him after the knife, the hedge passing beneath him, thorns rasping at his clothing as he fell, hands clamped protectively over his eyes.
He landed on soft dirt, legs folding to cushion the shock, hands falling as his eyes searched for the knife. It rested a dozen feet away, half sunken in the loam, and he snatched it up, running as he heard shouts from behind, Charisse's sharp order.
"Stop him! Use the stunner!"
Another voice, thin with distance. "My lady-it doesn't work!"
An unsuspected bonus-the thing planted in his temple had been more than a vehicle for the drugs which had dulled his mind.