"He's that bad?"

"He's filth." Dumarest poured himself a gla.s.s of water. "Order some food. You brought what I asked?"

"Yes. Why do you want it, Earl?"

"Later. First let us eat."

She ordered wisely, dishes high in protein and low in bulk, foods giving high energy and among the most expensive the place offered. Dumarest refused the offer of wine and finished the meal with fruit.

"Emecheta is sc.u.m," he said as they sat over coffee. "But you weren't robbed when you gained his name. The dealer you mentioned, Pude Ahdram?"

"Yes. I could have told you that, Earl, but I-"

"Couldn't trust me and didn't want me cutting in." He was brusque with his interruption. "But let's waste no more time. He deals with anyone who has items of value and does a brisk trade with those from the field. Contraband and anything which shows a profit or so Emecheta claimed. He could be lying but I don't think so. We can use him."

"How?" She blinked as he told her. "Give him my music cube and jewelry? Earl, are you serious?"

"I'll tell him I've stolen them. He'll take them to Ahdram for sale. If what he told me is true, the dealer will buy if the price is right. Then you go into his shop, quest around, ask for something unusual and keep looking until he produces the cube.

Then create a fuss, tell him the cube is yours, that it was stolenwith other things, talk about summoning the authorities. There's no law in the Maze but there's plenty at the field and elsewhere in town. He'll want to avoid an investigation."

"And I press him," she said slowly. "And keep on pressing until he tells me what I want to know. The name and whereabouts of the artist Earl-"

"Do you know a better way?"

"No," she admitted. "But I'm not sure if I can handle it. I'm not strong enough. I lack aggression. How can I, a woman, force information from a man like that?"

"You're an actress."

"No, Earl, a dancer."

"And when dancing you acted a part, right?" He lifted her hand and flexed her fingers. "And never think of yourself as weak. I've seen you, remember? Felt your strength."

Muscles like coiled springs beneath the silken olive of her skin; tissue teamed and developed to meet the needs of a demanding art. The strength which had gripped him as the lissome thighs had closed, joining the restraint of her arms, her hands. A strength born of physical pa.s.sion but anger could provide as good a stimulus and determination even a greater.

"We must try," he said gently. "You must try."

"And if I fail? You will help me, Earl?"

To join in the argument, to make himself conspicuous and to advertise his presence to those who watched the field and its environs. A stupidity he intended to avoid.

"If you fail well try something else," he promised. "Just do your best and if he doesn't play along summon the authorities and accuse him of receiving stolen goods. You can prove ownership?""Yes. The cube holds a thousand recordings many of which I can name in sequence. And I insured the jewelry on arrival."

"Good. Then there should be no trouble." Dumarest glanced through the windows; already it was close to noon. "We'd best hurry."

"I'll go to the shop," she decided. "Linger as if I'm a tourist killing time. When Emecheta enters I'll follow him."

Remembering she added, "How will I know him? We've never met."

"Squat, hairy, repulsive." Dumarest finished his coffee. "You'll know him by his smell if nothing else, but enter before he does if you can. Ahdram will be unwilling to leave you alone for long and so will be quick to settle the deal. And it might help if you primed him."

"With talk of a music cube? Leave it to me, Earl." Then, antic.i.p.ating his doubt she added, smiling, "I'm a dealer, too, remember. You can't trade in items of value without learning the art of misdirection. Where shall I meet you?"

"Here." He rose to his feet. "Give me an hour to meet Emecheta and pa.s.s on the goods."

"You'll be close?"

"Yes," he promised. "I'll be close."

Close enough to see the squat man waddle to the shop of Pude Ahdram eager to make an easy profit and already, no doubt, figuring out ways to cheat his mysterious partner, dose enough to have seen the woman enter shortly before, to have seen her casual approach and to have admired her skill at appearing other than what she was. Close enough to have spotted the men who stood and watched and moved only to take up fresh positions so as to watch again.

Watch and move in when their quarry had been spotted and Dumarest had no doubt as to who that was.He turned, glancing into windows, hesitating, moving on with a calculated speed. A man who was not in a hurry, who watched no particular point, who was just an aimless traveler killing time.

Yet, always, he watched the shop.

Sardia was taking her time. Twice he caught glimpses of her through the barred windows, talking, gesticulating, presenting a show of enthusiasm over some trifle, shaking her head over another. A skilled pract.i.tioner of a difficult art, that of deluding another that what was wanted was of no interest and of little worth.

A dancer turned dealer-where had she learned to lie so well?

There was time to think about it as there was time to think of other things. Of the men in scarlet who even now were predicting just where and when he would be, what he would do, what path he would take. Plotting his course with growing accuracy as his movements left traces which could be garnered and included into the common whole. Cybers who, given the data, could pinpoint his presence at a particular place at a particular time.

Unless he could defeat them as he had so often before.

Unless the luck which had saved him should suddenly run out.

But luck, as he never ceased to remember, came in two kinds-the bad and the good.

And now it seemed time for the bad.

It was on Sardia's face as, finally, she stepped from the shop, hands empty of her possessions. Dumarest moved quickly to remain out of sight, following her as she headed toward the rendezvous, catching her up when he was certain she had not been followed.

"Earl!" She looked up as he caught her arm. "I thought we were to meet in the restaurant."

"I changed my mind." A cab halted at his signal. "We'll go to Dekart Heights."It was a place of scented shrubs and flowering trees, of emerald sward dotted with the fallen stars of golden blooms. A lake stretched beyond a park set with miniature pavilions graced with fretted pennants and hung with chiming bells. A place for lovers wishing to be alone. For conspirators afraid of being overheard.

"Earl!" she said as he guided her to a seat. "Oh, Earl!"

"You failed-it is written on your face."

"No, that is, I-" She calmed beneath the touch of his hand.

"Luck, my darling, a coincidence, but they happen and when they do so many problems can be solved."

And so many created, but he didn't mention that.

"What happened?"

He listened as she told him, the chime of bells a delicate accompaniment to her voice. She had entered the shop as planned and, as expected, Ahdram had remembered her from her previous visit. But the man had not been alone. Another was with him with paintings for sale.

"I recognized them, Earl. The technique is unmistakable. The work of the artist I need to find."

Need? A subconscious betrayal which Dumarest noted.

"So everything was simple. You asked the man who the artist was and where to find him."

"No. As I told you things aren't done that way in the field of art. Even to admit to an interest is to arouse suspicion that the work is of higher value than previously thought."

"So?"

"I kept to our original plan. It worked up to a point but I had to wait until the stranger had left Ahdram and me alone. His greed made him show me the cube and I accused him of theft.He was distraught and offered rest.i.tution and recompense-the cunning b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

Dumarest said dryly, "He found out what you wanted and offered to help-and demanded a price for his aid."

"You know?"

"I guessed. Dealers are much the same and Ahdram had to be shrewd in order to survive." An expert in a field in which she was an amateur. "The cube?"

"And the jewelry." A bracelet of ornate workmanship set with brilliant gems. "He demanded them both in return for information and I had no choice but to agree." Her hands clenched, the knuckles taut beneath the skin, the nails making small crescents in the flesh of her palms. "The swine!"

"He cheated you? He lied?"

"No," she said bitterly. "He didn't lie. The paintings were genuine and he told me how he got them. But he was playing with me-they don't come from Juba at all!"

Chapter Four.

From outside the pavilion in which they sat, rising above the susurration of tinkling bells, came the sound of childish laughter and a woman's voice calling a warning. A small boy, chasing a brilliantly colored ball, had edged too close to the rim of the lake.

His mother, a smoothly rounded woman with crested hair and tapering legs which flashed through the slitted skirt, ran after him, lifted him and carried him, gurgling, to safety.

Dumarest watched them, then looked at the man who sauntered close behind. Not the father or he would have run toward the child. Not even a friend who would have been concerned. And even a stranger would have made some move to avert a possible disaster-unless that stranger had other things on his mind.

"Earl?""Sardia was engrossed with her own problems. "What are we going to do?"

Dumarest remembered their agreement; the partnership she had proposed.

"The stranger," he said. "The one who sold the paintings. A s.p.a.cer doing a little private trading?"

"A captain," she corrected. "One plying the Rift. He'd gone into a back room and Ahdram called him out to meet me. I think it amused him to introduce us." She added bitterly, "Captain Lon Tuvey chose to be difficult."

"He wouldn't tell you from where he got the paintings?"

Dumarest restrained his impatience, the woman would tell it in her own way. "Is that it?"

"Oh, he told me," she admitted. "But it doesn't help. The paintings come from a world in the Rift but he wouldn't tell me the name of the artist. Instead he offered to take me to him and introduce me-for a price." She saw his expression, the shift of his eyes. "No, Earl, not that. He made a point of making it clear he had no use for my body. We wants money. A lot of it."

"For an introduction?"

"That and pa.s.sage, Earl. A high pa.s.sage to a world called Ath."

Ath?

Arth?

Earth?

It was incredible, such a coincidence was against all probability, but names could change when affected by time and distance. A shortening, a blurring, a growing carelessness in speech and writing-and one could become the other.

Ath! It was possible, and he couldn't forget the painted moon."Earth?" Sardia was staring at him, her eyes widely luminous in the shadowed gloom of the pavilion. "Earl, is something wrong?"

"No." He drew a deep breath. "Are you certain as to the name?"

He saw her nod and fought the sudden blaze of hope within him. Earth, he was certain, could not lie in the Rift. It had to be in a place where stars were few and scattered thin across the sky.

The Rift was a swarm of suns burning within a cleft formed by some cosmic disturbance in a cloud of interstellar dust. And yet that very dust would have thinned the stars and created the illusion of remoteness.

Could Ath be the planet for which he had searched for so long?

Could it be Earth?

"Earl!" Sardia was impatient. "We have to decide what to do.

We must ride with Tuvey. Even though we know the name of the world we still have to be introduced to the artist so it won't help us to take another ship. And if Tuvey is willing to sell the information to me then he'd sell it to another. He knows the information is valuable now. He could hawk it around-anyone who knows good art will spot the value of those paintings at once and spare no cost to find who produced them."

"He could have lied."

"Yes," she admitted. "But unless we go with him we'll never know. And those paintings he had were genuine. It's a chance we daren't miss. We've got to find the money and arrange the pa.s.sage. And we have to do it soon. He leaves tomorrow at sunset."

Dumarest glanced at the sky, already the sun was well past the zenith and lowering toward the horizon. Little more than a day to raise how much?

He frowned as she told him. "So much?""He's charging high, Earl, but what can we do about it? And we'll need money to arrange a return pa.s.sage as well as to pay the artist. You have money?"

"A little. And you?"

"My clothes, an open return pa.s.sage booked to Tonge on the Cheedha Line. I could cancel it and get a refund."

"No." To do that would be to attract possible attention, a fact from which a.s.sociations could be drawn- never did Dumarest underestimate the power of the Cyclan. "Anything else? You surely didn't give me all of your jewelry? And cash? If you find the artist on Juba you must be able to pay."

"With credit arranged through a commercial house," she explained. "Earl, I'm doing this on my own and I've gone into debt already. Either I find the artist and get his works or I go broke. On Tonge that is serious."

As it was on most commercial worlds with debtors placed under restraint, their labor sold under contract and harsh penalties extracted for non-cooperation. On other worlds, more rigorous, there were no debtors. A man paid for what he got when he got it and if he couldn't pay, then he went without.

"Earl!" She touched his hand and now her voice held pleading.