E. Tubb - Child of Earth

The Cyclan controlled the compilation and distribution of the essential book which alone enabled ships to traverse the distances between the stars.

The Cyclan had eliminated all knowledge of Earth for a purpose and Dumarest was positive it was because they wanted to reserve the planet for their own use.

Which meant that anyone in the form of authority would be an important unit of the Cyclan.

Shandaha had to be a cyber.

One who had adopted a bizarre disguise.

No cyber would tolerate the clutter of gaudy furnishings, garish adornments, or wear such elaborate garments unless he had a need to do so. As the same need would have led him to use holograms, deceptions, all the magic of a skilled illusionist to expand the apparent dimensions of his habitation. To call on the arts of camouflage to create a host of optical illusions.

But why?

The chessboard and scattered pieces on the table provided a possible answer.

For the game.

Was Shandaha playing a game?

Dumarest doubted it. To play a game was to allow your opponent the chance to win and to a cyber the very concept of failure was anathema. As was humour. All he saw, smelt, heard, tasted or touched, had a common source and a shared purpose. All were to provide distractions and to mask the reality behind the pretence.

In order to survive he had to find a way of tearing aside the veils of illusion and gain the truth behind the facade.

Dumarest rose and stepped towards the second portal half expecting to find it locked, relieved when the panel swung wide. He looked at what he had seen before, stepped to the unbroken surface of the translucent wall and lifted his hand to touch the crystal. It tingled against his fingers and he turned, resting his back against it, sliding down to squat on the floor, the rear of his skull maintaining contact with the shimmering surface.

Along moment when the substance of his brain seemed to stir and gain an individual life. Fragments twitching, pulsing, swelling to subside in a random pattern.

Changing the world.

He was back in a familiar place, drifting as he had before, but now there was no pain, no fear, just a comforting freedom. Lights winked around him and voices whispered on the edge of clarity and he studied both, feeling he knew what they had to be and then, suddenly, knowing for certainty where he was and what was happening.

The lights were not stars nor electrical emissions from elaborate machines, but they were still signals of a potent force at work, one which could erase the distance between the stars and enable instant contact between minds. The power of thought.

The place into which he had fallen was a communication unit. The muted whispers the information being sent and received. The unit itself was a human brain. One housed in the skull of a cyber.

Shandaha-Dumarest was certain of it and with the realisation came a flood of information as if an encyclopaedia had opened and shed its assembled contents into his brain.

“Earl!” Chagal’s voice growing louder. Intruding. Demanding even as it transmitted its fear “Earl-” A break as the doctor saw him lying on the floor. “No! Please! Not again!” Then relief as Dumarest rose to his feet. “Hurry! Please! Shandaha wants to see you!”

Dumarest took his time, showering, drying himself, dressing with care. Ignoring Chagal’s appeals to hurry and those of Nada as she joined them both.

To Chagal he said, “Do you have that phial he sent to you?”

“The one Nada gave to me? I think so.” Chagal rummaged in his pocket. “Yes.”

“Give it to me.” Dumarest bounced it in his hand as the doctor obeyed. “Now I’ll return his gift. If it is what you say he claimed he’ll have need of it.”

The scene was becoming more than familiar, the round table, the flagons, goblets, trays of titbits. The colors and glints and the facing chairs. The trace of exotic perfumes drifting in the air and which prickled warning signs. Dumarest knew that to underestimate Shandaha would be the worst mistake he could make. A cyber was predictable as most men were, but those who normally wore the red robe offered far less opportunity for manipulation.

Dumarest had asked for the phial and boasted how it would be returned. Information one or both of the others could have repeated. Shandaha would be ready to face any threat. His face remained implacable as, obeying his gesture, Dumarest took his chair and sat.

He said, “You summoned me and here I am.”

“You took your time coming to me. Is this the way you think a guest should treat his host?”

“I meant no discourtesy,” Dumarest opened his hand and displayed the phial. “I was soiled and wished not to offend you. I also wanted, still want, to thank you for having sent this to me.”

“It helped?”

“The thought behind it did. I had no need to take the medicine.”

“So you return it. You could have thrown it away.”

“That I would never do. Such waste is inexcusable.”

“As is this waste of time. Earl, I want-”

“To help me as I am sure,” interrupted Dumarest. “As you made so clear when last we met and spoke of mazes and prisons and freedom as I am certain you remember.”

“I remember.”

“And will grant my request as I am sure.” Dumarest added. “The promise you made. The offer you repeated. The one in which you stated that I was not being held against my will. That I was free to leave any time I wished.”

“So?”

“So I wish to leave,” said Dumarest. “As soon as possible. Now would be a good time.”

He fell silent, waiting, sensing the familiar tension always to be found around a poker table where bluffs were common and the ability to recognise them all-important if a player hoped to win.

“For an intelligent man you are displaying a peculiar stupidity.” Shandaha reached for a flagon and poured them both a quantity of emerald wine. It swirled in glasses touched with the hue of the bark of bushes, the solemn colours to be found at the heart of a hedgerow. The tint of darkness, of mystery, of doom and destruction. The shade of death. “Or of life, Earl. It depends on your point of view.”

“You were reading my mind?”

“Not your mind,” said Shandaha. “Your face and body. Strange how the inevitable always yields sombre thoughts and dire feeling. Yet what do we see when holding this?” He lifted his glass and turned it within his palm. “A shade of green, the colour of vegetation, of cleanliness, comfort and peace. The shade of brown, the hue of soil, of tree trunks, of wispy twigs. All good things, fine symbols offering promise of a fine future…” Pausing he added, “If we have the wisdom to face it.”

“And the intelligence to drink it.”

“Together with the patience to bide our time. You can leave here now if you insist, Earl. I will not detain or prevent you. You will leave and you will die and another book will close and another story of a man’s tribulations and joys will be lost as if it had never existed. But that is life.” Raising his glass Shandaha added, “Let us drink to life!”

They drank and glass splintered as Shandaha smashed his empty container against the edge of the table. A ceremony which Dumarest had seen before from mercenaries toasting their dead companions in wakes which would be remembered. A gesture he would never have expected from a cyber.

Which was probably why the man had done it. But if so he was more wily than Dumarest had suspected.

“Be honest with me, Earl. Do you really want to leave here? To abandon Nada and Delise, me and mine. The pleasures you have tasted. The pleasure yet to come.”

“Pleasures? You can describe them?”

“I can do more than that. I can illustrate them. I can give them life. Make them real. Make them last. Think about it, Earl. Nada is beautiful, lovely, but she can be even better. Let me look into your mind to discover the seed core of your desires.”