E. Tubb - The Quillian Sector

"Yes."

"From home?" She repeated the question wanting, womanlike, to know of his early days. "Did you run away from home in order to seek adventure?"

"To avoid starvation," he said bluntly. "I was little more than a boy and I stowed away on a ship. I was more than lucky-the captain could have evicted me. Instead, he allowed me to earn my passage. A long time ago, now. A long time."

Long enough to have moved deeper into the galaxy where suns glowed hot and close, and shipping was plentiful. Into a region where even the very name of Earth had become the subject of humor. A planet forgotten, but one which he had to find. Would find.

"Home," she said gently. "Earth is your home and you want to return. But why, Earl? If there was nothing for you there when you left, what can be waiting for you now?"

"Nothing."

"But-"

"You said it, Dilys. Home. A man can have only one."

A place to call his own. A world on which to settle and on which to make his mark. To build a house and raise a family, to find happiness and contentment. A dream, one born during the long, lonely journeys between the stars. An ideal nurtured to give a meaning to life, a reason for existing. A determination which drove him to find his world or die trying.

A waste! God, such a waste!

She felt his warmth close beside her, the comfort he gave, the sense of security she enjoyed when she was with him. A man of whom any woman could be proud. As she was proud when watching him at work in the salon, gambling with calm efficiency, apparently unaware of the stares thrown at him by women, the calculating appraisal of their eyes.

Could they sense the loneliness she had recognized? The bleak isolation in which he lived, the cold emptiness of life spent journeying from world to world, the frustration of an endless, hopeless search? And always a stranger among strangers, any liaison only temporary, any love doomed to wither, to fade, to die.

"Earl," she whispered, "don't you ever get tired? Don't you ever want to stop and settle down and live as most men do?" A question she waited in vain for him to answer. "I've some property on Swenna. It isn't much, a farm and enough ground to keep a dozen alive, but there is a river and the mountains are close and, at night during summer, the air is so sweet with perfume it can make you drunk. If you ever get tired, Earl, if you ever want a place to stay and rest and maybe relax awhile, it's yours. I'd be there, if you wanted me. And you wouldn't regret it, I swear to that." Her hand reached out to touch him, to glide in a possessive caress over his shoulder, his arm. "Think about it, darling. At least think about it."

In the shadows, something moved, a click and a portion of the chamber bloomed with variegated lights, the hologram seeming to hang suspended in the air, to have brought a literal section of space itself into the confined boundaries of the room.

"The Rift," said the technician, "As you ordered, my lord."

Caradoc said, "You are mistaken. I asked for a detailed display of the Quillian Sector."

"I-my apologies. A mistake. It will be corrected immediately."

And would never be repeated. A word, and the technician would be demoted, branded as an indifferent worker, denied access to the sophisticated equipment housed in the building of the Hafal-Glych-a slur on his reputation which he would never live down. And the word would be given. Cyber Caradoc had no time for carelessness and no patience where inefficiency was concerned. Now, as the display changed, he nodded and gestured dismissal. Only when alone did he step toward the shimmering profusion of multicolored lights and smoky blotches of roiling ebon which constituted the Quillian Sector.

A region of space overcrowded with suns, over-profuse with worlds, hyperactive with electronic forces. Energies which nullified the normal use of radio-even the high-beam transmitters operating at maximum power and negating the limitations of light were, at the best, erratic. An irritation and a danger, but steps had been taken and all was proceeding according to plan.

Soon, now, the man would be taken.

Soon, now, the long chase would be over and Dumarest would be held by the Cyclan to yield the secret he possessed and which they rightfully owned.

A step, and lights reflected their images on the taut features and the scarlet robe, little dots of blue and green, yellow and amber, violet and ruby-the latter lost against the fabric but showing like sores against the skin of Caradoc's face. A good analogy; the ruby points were planets on which humanoid life was impossible; worlds of reeking vapors, tormented volcanoes, boiling, acid seas, poisonous atmospheres.

The dots of other colors showed worlds and suns in various stages of development and activity.

The ebon blotches were the dust clouds which held the Quillian Sector as though in the palm of a close-cupped hand.

"Master." An acolyte had entered the room on silent feet. "A message from Edhal. The Belzdek reports negative."

So the woman had lied. Caradoc was not surprised; he had expected nothing less. Bochner could have been mistaken, or could have lied in turn for some devious reason of his own. A matter of small probability, but even though small, it existed and had to be taken into account. As all things had to be taken into account, each given a measure of relative importance and relevance, each set against all other available facts in order to arrive at an extrapolated prediction.

An exercise of a mind chosen and trained by the Cyclan, which judged intellectual ability to be prized above all else.

Again, Caradoc studied the glimmering display, mind active as he assessed various probabilities, traced various paths between the stars. Only when he had exhausted all applicable combinations did he step back and head toward the door leading to the small private room placed at his disposal by those who ran the Hafal-Glych for the combine's true owners.

"Total seal," said Caradoc. "I am not to be disturbed for any reason."

"Master." The acolyte bowed and moved to take up his position outside the door. His life would be spent in guarding it, should the need arise.

Within the room, Caradoc touched the wide bracelet banding his left wrist. Invisible energy streamed from it, creating a zone of force through which no electronic eye or ear could operate. An added precaution to ensure his absolute privacy, as was the curtained window and the locked and guarded door.

Taking his place on a narrow cot, Caradoc closed his eyes and concentrated on the Samatchazi formulae. Gradually, his senses blurred and lost their function. Had he opened his eyes he would have been blind. Isolated in the prison of his skull, his mind ceased to be irritated by external stimuli and by means of the self-induced sensory deprivation, became a thing of pure intellect; its reasoning awareness the only conscious link with life. Only then did the engrafted Homochon elements become roused from quiescence. Rapport was soon established.

Caradoc took on a new dimension of life.

It was as if his mind had expanded to become a shimmering bubble which drifted among a host of other bubbles, all resplendent in variegated colors. A universe filled with glowing beauty which merged and wended one against the other to swirl and adopt new and ever-changing patterns of mathematical symmetry. Light which burned away the darkness of ignorance. Colors which expanded the visual spectrum. Form which held content. Content which held truth. Truth fashioned in a web which spanned the universe of which he was a living, active part. A part even as, at the same time, he was the whole. A bubble among other bubbles which were one bubble reflected to infinity.

At the heart of the shimmering beauty, at the very epicenter of the shifting patterns, rested the headquarters of the Cyclan. Buried far beneath the surface of a remote world, the central intelligence absorbed his knowledge as a desert absorbs water. A mental communication of almost instantaneous transference against which mechanical means of supralight contact were the merest crawl.