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A scream which continued, a rawness of the throat, an ache in the lungs. Light and flashing fire and, again, the halo of red hair limned against a blur of white. Delirium.

Dumarest sank like a stone into the escape of hallucinations, illusions; the over-strained fabric of his mind running from the intolerable prison of his flesh. Pain alone does not kill. He could not find the surcease of death. He could no longer bear the relentless agony.

Only madness was left.

Madness and memory.

He was in a place of shifting patterns of light with strange shapes moving in wild abandon, cones and spheres, polyhedrons and cubes, constructs of lace and squat forms which teased the eye with varying contours. A medley of jumbled impressions; sensory stimuli received and registered by a brain which had lost the ability to distinguish illusion from reality. Pictures drawn from the storehouse of memory and thrown against his consciousness as slides projected against a screen.

Death was there, waiting as it had waited all his life; closer now, more avid to clutch and claim him for its own. A black edging to the picture and one which dulled the bright colors of happy anticipation. An edging which turned scarlet, which congested into a profusion of lines, took on a hatedly familiar aspect.

Became the Seal of the Cyclan.

Faces wreathed in scarlet hoods, all alike in their skeletal aspect, skin taut over bone, heads shaven, eyes deep-set, mouths lipless; only the burning intelligence in the sockets of the skulls giving evidence of life and dedication. Cybers, men dedicated to the organization to which they belonged. Living robots of flesh and blood, incapable of feeling emotion, knowing only the mental pleasure of intellectual achievement.

Hunters!

And he was their quarry. Chased from world to world, always having to anticipate where they would be next, how they would strike. Not to kill-had that been their aim he would have long since been dead, but to take. To hold. To question. To wring from him the secret he carried. The gift of Kalin.

Kalin with the hair like flame!

"Earl! My hands! Let go!"

A well of darkness into which he sank, stars flashing, dying, replaced by others burning with transient glory, a scatter of gems lying on the black velvet of a cosmic jeweler. Stars which formed patterns each the symbol of a biological unit. Fifteen units which, correctly assembled, would form the affinity twin. The artificial biological construct which could be either dominant or submissive according to the reversal of one of the units forming the chain. Injected into the bloodstream the symbiote would nestle in the cortex and intermesh with the central nervous system. The ego of a host would be diminished, reduced to a sleeping node while that of the dominant partner would take its place. The effect was to provide a new body for the master-half of the twin. A surrogate which became an actual extension of the ego. By its use an old man could become young in an alternate body, an old woman regain her beauty. A bribe none could resist.

"Earl! Tell me about Kalin. Kalin, Earl, tell me about her."

A voice like the wind, formless, disembodied, a thing to be ignored in the pursuit of bitter memory and yet enough to guide the direction of thought.

Kalin who had succumbed to temptation. And who, in the end, had given him the formula stolen from a secret laboratory of the Cyclan.

A secret they had to regain.

A thing which would accelerate their domination of the galaxy, their aim and ambition. Once they had it every ruler and person of influence would become an extension of their organization, the mind of the cyber residing in a new body, moving it as a puppet, making it their own.

Incredible power, and the Cyclan would move worlds to regain what they had lost: the secret sequence of the units forming the chain.

"Earl?"

Dumarest moved, fretful, images dissolving and being replaced by new. A horde of men busy at work, an entire planet devoted to a single aim. Workers of the Cyclan busy trying to resolve the combination, but mathematics was against them. The total of all possible combinations of fifteen units was high. Even if they could make and test one every second it would take them four thousand years to cover them all.

"Earl! For God's sake answer me! Earl!"

The voice again, louder, demanding, imperious. A thunder in his ears. Dumarest forced open his eyes, they were matted with dried pus, the lids heavy, the light streaming through them a red-hot sword plunging into his brain.

"Wa-" He tried again, mouth and lips refusing to respond, his tongue a puffed and cracked mass of raw tissue. "Water… give me water."

It flooded over his lips and chin, made wetness on his naked chest. With the liquid gurgling came the voice, rising, breaking.

"Thank God, Earl! Oh, thank God! I was so afraid. Earl! Keep living, my darling. Keep living!"

"How… long…"

"Days. Days and days. Don't go away again. Stay with me, Earl. Don't get delirious again. Stay sane, damn you! I need you! Stay sane!"

A voice like a whip, the lash cutting through the fog, the terror he heard in it, the fear a stimulus to exert his strength. It was barely enough for him to keep his eyes open, to form words.

"Water. Give me more water."

A shadow and a seeming deluge which filled his mouth and pressed into his lungs. Coughing he expelled it, a spray which lifted like a fountain, glittering droplets falling like jewels. Dimly he was aware of his nudity, of the stickiness of his body, its heat and aching discomfort and, above all, the fatigue.

"Tired," he mumbled. "Tired."

"Earl! Stay alive, Earl! Live!"

He would try but it was hard to think and impossible to remain alert. His eyes closed and, in the darkness, Dumarest felt himself slipping back into the safe, warm haven he had constructed in his mind as a defense against pain. A warren into which he would mentally crawl to suffer the grinding ache of disorientation.

The last thing he consciously heard was the harsh sound of a woman's tears.

Chapter Eight

The room was a jewel carved from an emerald, the light soft through windows with tinted panes, the coloring of walls and floor matching that of the ceiling, the furnishings a variety of kindred shades. From the bed Dumarest looked at it, ran his hands over silken covers shimmering with the delicate hue of early petals. Green, a restful color, one designed to alleviate fear. He knew he must be in a hospital.

"Welcome to the living." A man stepped from behind the head of the bed where he had stood out of Dumarest's field of vision. He was slender, of medium height, his face smooth and his voice gentle. He wore a uniform of dull green adorned with silver patches on shoulders and cuffs. "A jest, but you must forgive me. Before you ask this world is Shallah and you are in the Hammanrad Institute. My name is Doctor Chi Moulmein. Yours?" He nodded as Dumarest gave it. "At least you have no doubt as to your identity. And you came from Hoghan, correct?"