It was a nightmare was a nightmare, the bio-computer said.

He pushed up, felt the water mattress give considerably and attempt to suck him back down, crabbed to the edge of the bed and got quickly to his feet, though once standing he was not certain he could remain that way for long. His legs felt weak, as if he had been running for a long, long time without rest, and his head ached from the top of his forehead backwards and down the length of his neck, as if his skull might be loose. For a moment he had an absurd vision: his head falling off his shoulders, bouncing twice on the thick carpet, rolling over and over until it came to rest against the rectangular window, staring out at the dawn that already filtered under the balcony roof.

The dawn. Suddenly it seemed to him that all of his problems were somehow tied to the rising of the sun, and that if he could force Nature to move backwards into darkness, everything would once more be all right. He stumbled to the floor-to-ceiling window, slapped the palm switch next to the panes, and watched them go abruptly opaque, then change in color until they looked as black as onyx and did not permit pa.s.sage to a single thread of sunlight.

But that was not enough. He still felt weak, terribly weak, and-frightened.

It was only a nightmare was only a nightmare.

Shut up.

He went into the bathroom and, without turning on any lights, found the cold water faucet, filled the sink, bent and splashed his face until he was s.h.i.+vering all over. He dried his face. He felt no better.

Standing before the mirror in the dark, he tried to see his face and could not, was glad that he could not.

Your dream contained a number of familiar symbols, including the broken road, which is, to you, THE PAST.

I don't want my dreams a.n.a.lyzed, St. Cyr told it.

The buildings equal old memories.

Stop it, d.a.m.n you!

He went into the bedroom again, realized that he could not lie down and sleep, strode into the sitting room, where the patio doors let a wash of warm light into the room. He palmed the switch there and was rewarded with more darkness. After that, he stood in the center of the room, naked but for the sh.e.l.l clamped to his chest, wondering what he should do next.

Do you know whose footsteps you were hearing in the dream?

I don't want to hear about the f.u.c.king dream!

You are not well.

The old stand-by rejoinder: go to h.e.l.l.

You actually should not be a practicing cyberdetective until you have had thorough psychological counseling. You have been hiding too many things from yourself, and you are no longer able to hold them all in. Thus the dream and the stalker in the dream. You have forgotten whom the stalker represents, who that was in real life, or have pretended to forget. I feel strongly that...

The bio-computer sensed the attack even as it began, and it did not complete the admonition.

St. Cyr screamed, though his throat was so constricted that no voice could come out, only a thin hiss like a prophesying snake.

He felt as if he had been invaded, violated.

There was something inside of him, something crawling so deep inside of him that if he did not cast it out immediately, it would draw even deeper and become inaccessible.

You are suffering from a form of paranoia common to all cyberdetectives...

He took a step.

He could feel the creature stirring within him.

He was certain it was creeping inexorably along his spine, anxious for a permanent seat in the center of his brain.

... who occasionally feel that the symbiote is not a symbiote at all, but that you are harboring a parasite who occasionally feel that the symbiote is not a symbiote at all, but that you are harboring a parasite.

The only thing he wanted was to cut it out of him, dig down into himself, find this creature and cast it away. He did not think he could manage this with a knife alone, but he decided that was his only hope.

Remove the sh.e.l.l. Rest. Relax. Remove the sh.e.l.l.

He had his fingers around the sh.e.l.l and was prying at it.

I am no parasite. Be calm. I only use the personal, first person p.r.o.nouns because my thought pulses are transformed into words in your own brain, and you are the one who chooses the first person.

His whole chest ached.

He saw light behind his eyes, growing.

Be calm. I am not even a personality, only a source of data, a system of correlation, a machine for making linkages. Remove the sh.e.l.l. Throw the switch, remove the sh.e.l.l, rest.

While the light grew behind his eyes, he found the switch, turned it off.

He pulled the sh.e.l.l away from his chest.

He ripped loose the two male plugs.

Behind his eyes the light burst white, yellowed, turned orange, then settled into dark browns, in which he slept like a caterpillar nestled in a coc.o.o.n.

The sleep was fitful, but at least he did not dream. And though the paranoid siege had drained him, it had also served to make him forget all about the nightmare, the broken road, and the stalker...

He woke at eleven, took a long bath, dried himself, decided against breakfast, drank a gla.s.s of Scotch on an empty stomach. The liquor hit hard, but warmed him. At noon, he realized he could no longer postpone the inevitable, and he hooked up to the bio-computer once again.

It had nothing to say.

At the telephone, he found the number for the nearest Worldwide Communications office and sent off a light-telegram to his contact on Ionus, an industrial detective named Talmud. That done, he placed his second call to the Climicon data banks. When the taped voice requested his purpose, he spoke slowly and clearly, to properly key the machines: "Data requested. Why did Climicon issue directives for the extinction of the wolf once native to the Kline Range? Why did it not require the extinction of the wild boar native to the same region? Answer as one question."

Thirty seconds later, the Climicon computer said, "Heavy data. May we stat it, or do you require a vocalized report?"

"Stat it."

Another thirty seconds pa.s.sed before the long yellow sheets of paper chattered out of the slot in the base of the telephone stand. There were six of them.

"Terminated."

"Thank you." He hung up.

He carried the papers to the easy chair by the opaqued patio doors, palmed the gla.s.s panels into transparency again, and sat down to read. The first sheet dealt with the wild boar: Climicon's study of its ferocity and the determination, after exhaustive research, that the species should be maintained, though in smaller herds than was natural for them. The boar, it turned out, was a coward as well, toothed and clawed to little purpose when it came to a confrontation with anything much larger than itself; it preferred to run away from men rather than fight them. The wolf, however, was something else altogether, a real gladiator. It not only seemed fanatically compelled to attack creatures larger than itself, men included, but it also transmitted a deadly bacterial infection. The Climicon report was either purposefully vague on this point or was based on insufficient evidence. It did little more than list the symptoms and the mortality rate among the victims of the disease. Symptoms: loss of weight; high fever; destruction of red blood cells by some unknown agent and a corresponding need for iron; an aversion to sunlight that, in the beginning, is neurotic but which soon becomes physical, as the victim is nearly totally blinded in all but the most dimly lighted rooms. Patients suffered extremely intense nightmares, too, the report said. And periods of insanity when they growled and groveled on the floor like animals, exhibiting an unnatural strength when provoked. One in three died during the second week of illness; two in three survived, after prolonged hospitalization, without injury. The last known case of the sickness had been reported eleven years ago. The report also listed a large number of laboratory studies of the disease, naming doctors and lab a.s.sistants. St. Cyr found nothing interesting in this and put the papers down.

Considering the symptoms of the disease-especially the aversion to light, the growling and groveling, the unnatural strength, the nightmares-it is easy to see how the legend of the du-aga-klava, du-aga-klava, wolf-in-man's-skin, was born wolf-in-man's-skin, was born.

Unless it's more than a simple disease.

Illogical.

St. Cyr picked the sheets up and read through them again. He could not find any mention of a cure for the disease or even whether the bacteria had been isolated and identified. He rather thought Climicon had not had any luck. If they had, the data would be there.

Many diseases are still incurable. The lack of this data does not have any bearing on the case at hand.

Perhaps not. Not unless there is more to Dane Alderban's notion than would at first seem likely.

Illogical.

St. Cyr sat in the chair by the door, in the gentle morning light, thinking about the report from Climicon, the murder of Betty Alderban, his conversation with Tina, Hirschel's resemblance to a wolf (Immaterial) (Immaterial)-not thinking about the nightmare or the paranoid seizure of the night before. Soon it was time to join Dane in the garage for the trip into the mountains where they were to see Norya, the gypsy woman. thinking about the nightmare or the paranoid seizure of the night before. Soon it was time to join Dane in the garage for the trip into the mountains where they were to see Norya, the gypsy woman.

Unnecessary diversion.

He got up and went downstairs anyway.

SEVEN: The Gypsy Camp

The vehicle that Dane chose for the ride to the gypsy camp looked formidable enough to last through any natural catastrophe and still manage to forge ahead: a heavy-duty Rover with triple-axle, six-wheel drive; double-thick body sheeting; running boards; a reinforced roof; heavy, tempered plexigla.s.s windscreen in two liquid-separated layers; an auxiliary fuel cell; and a spare, s.h.i.+elded pair of headlights. The family rarely used the car, Dane explained, except when one of them wanted to go into the mountains where the roads were in a particularly primitive condition. Now and again, Tina drove into the mountains to paint a landscape; Dane drove up the slopes to meet his Darmanian friends; and Hirschel, when he visited during the cooler months, liked to ride up to the ice plateaus, where he played little games of chance with snow-hidden creva.s.ses.

At first, the trail was pleasant enough, a narrow gravel track that led into the foothills behind the mansion. Here the pines were scarce, but slowly thickened as they gained alt.i.tude, and came to stand near the roadway as if they were waiting for the Rover to pa.s.s. When the way angled to the left or right, and they momentarily paralleled the valley instead of climbing out of it, St. Cyr turned and enjoyed the panoramic view, saw sections of the Alderban house gleaming like milky jewels in the lush green land.

He grew uneasy, however, as they rose into the last foothills and then onto the broken slopes of the mountains themselves. Here the pines were replaced by the odd gray-leafed trees that spread concealing branches over the road and brought a false dusk.

When St. Cyr asked what the trees were called, Dane said, "These are Dead Men."

"Because of their color?"

"Partly that." He hunched against the wheel and took his eyes from the road long enough to look at the low-hanging branches. "There's a native legend that says the souls of the dead pa.s.s from their graves into the roots of these trees, are drawn up the tree and sprout as leaves on the branches. When a leaf falls, it is indication that a dead man has been released from-well, purgatory."

"Quite fanciful."

"Anyway, since the natives call the trees Dead Men, we colonists have done the same. Somehow, even without the legend, it seems to fit them."

St. Cyr leaned back and stared at the road, trying to forget the trees. "Anyway, I wish it were autumn. I could do without this sort of foliage."

"They're never without leaves-except for two weeks in early spring and two more in late autumn. They grow two complete sets of cover in each calendar year."

"No rest for Dead Men."

"That's it."

The trees closed in as if in response, blocked the sun as the road grew worse. The graveled path had abruptly given way to a muddy dirt track full of ruts, potholes and sucking pits of black muck. The Rover plowed forward through it all, whined as it s.h.i.+fted its own gears, roared farther up into the mountains, where it was always early evening.

Two hours later, Dane said, "Not much farther now."

They had traveled slightly more than forty miles on a hideously inadequate switchback road that always appeared to be crumbling dangerously on the outer edge whenever it was flanked by a precipice of any depth. Now, far up the mountain but beginning to descend into a hidden pocket in its interior, they left the valley and the last vestiges of daylight far behind. A roof lay over them, a great arch of gray leaves interlaced like handwoven thatch. Now and again a hole opened in that canopy, never larger than a yard square and generally much smaller than that. Where there was a break in the cover, the sunlight came down like liquid, cutting straight through the unrelieved darkness and illuminating only the spot on which it splashed.

Dane had long ago turned on the headlights. The road had gotten progressively worse until it occasionally dropped a foot or more without warning. They ran into cross-ruts that jolted them like railroad ties, or like regular waves smas.h.i.+ng beneath a s.h.i.+p.

"If you've got to have werewolves," St. Cyr said, "this is the best place for them."

Dane glanced at him, perplexed at his tone, decided not to answer.

"Doesn't the family have a helicopter-with all else it has?"

"Yes," Dane said.

"Why not come up here in that?"

"We couldn't put down anywhere nearer the village than an hour's walk; the trees are everywhere in these alt.i.tudes."

St. Cyr closed his eyes and imagined that he was somewhere else, anywhere else.

Shortly, Dane said, "Here we are."

St. Cyr opened his eyes and saw a tiny round valley, the brink of which they had just pa.s.sed. Dozens of neat campfires filled it, threw flickering shadows on colorfully painted trucks, trailers and tents. Now and then, as fuel was added to a fire and the flames leapt higher, a tongue of yellow light licked the low, gray roof of vegetation, ruining the illusion of a vast hall with a ceiling several miles overhead.

"I'll bet Norya's expecting us," Dane said.

St. Cyr had not seen him this enthusiastic before, grinning, his eyes bright.

"You sent word that we'd be coming?" St. Cyr asked.

"No. But Norya will know about us. She has certain powers..."

The intelligent species native to Darma was not, in appearance at least, greatly different from mankind. They were of the same approximate height as a man, and of similar weights. They walked on two legs, one knee joint per limb, and they had two arms and two hands for the manipulation of tools. Each hand had six fingers, though this deviation from the expected was so inconspicuous as to hardly cause comment. They were dark-skinned, but so were a number of races of mankind. All of them that St. Cyr encountered were dark-haired, though they may have harbored a few blonds among them. Their eyes seemed either to be gray, the same shade as the leaves on the Dead Men, or a startling amber that caught the firelight like cat's eyes. Their ears lay flat against the skull and contained very little cartilage. Their noses were short, flattened, the nostrils somewhat ragged. Their mouths were not rimmed with lips but were sudden, dark gashes in the lower third of their faces, placed somewhat closer to the chin than in a human face. When they spoke Empire English, as St, Cyr and Dane did, their words were m.u.f.fled, drawn thin and flat by the lack of lips to help shape the vowels. Their own language was one of consonants, clicks, and whistles that sounded to St. Cyr even more complex than formal Mandarin Chinese.

As the cyberdetective and the Alderban boy pa.s.sed between the gaudy tents and trucks, walking briskly toward the silver trailer in which Norya lived, the Darmanians smiled and nodded, spoke an occasional greeting-but were, on the whole, watchful.

St. Cyr saw now that they had larger eyes than men, with enormous, pebbly lids.

They moved with feline grace as they pa.s.sed the men, and often they seemed to go out of their way to avoid encountering the humans.

As they reached the silver trailer, the door opened. A stocky man, clearly of Earth-normal human blood, came down three metal steps and brushed by them without a word. He wore a full beard, odd in this day of electrolytic beard removal at p.u.b.erty, and that bush of facial hair made his scowl seem twice as fierce as it was.