A door opened nearby and a girl looked out along the pavement under the flowering trees. Dalroi caught his breath and pressed into a shadow, but as she turned, the lamp-light glowed on her face and tresses and the name burst involuntarily from his lips.

"Berina!" The irony of the situation made his mouth go dry."Ivan!" She gave a gasp of surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for the reason why Failway wanted you in particular."

"Is it you they're after?"

"n.o.body else," said Dalroi.

She looked wildly up and down the street. n.o.body was in sight. "Quickly, in here."

He hesitated and then followed her through the door into an atmosphere rich with warmth and fragrant with incense. The dwelling was decorated with oriental luxury, overwhelming with its charm and grace.

Magnificent drapes, and screens of the finest hand-worked tracery contrasted brilliantly with couches and redwood furniture of such delicacy that it seemed the lightest usage would make them fly asunder. Here was a cool symphony of seductiveness, refined, poised, exquisitely timeless and unreal.

"b.i.t.c.h!" said Dalroi, looking round. "I loved you with a different kind of love than you dispense here."

She looked at him with a certain puzzled wonderment. "I hadn't thought you'd remember me long."

"Does the moon forget the sun?"

"That's rather a wonderful thing to say. Is it possible that you loved that much?"

Dalroi scowled. "Love is a catalyst. The finest things and the worst a man discovers are already within him. Loving you was an indispensable h.e.l.l. Such an experience is a window to a new world. Even afterward the sense of longing continues to corrode the soul."

"My G.o.d!" said Berina. "I never even guessed you had a soul."

"How could you, not having one of your own. That kind of pain has no physical a.n.a.logue. Nothing is ever quite the same again."

"Stay with me."

"No," said Dalroi. "That's a mistake I've made before. It cost me a great deal to learn to live with myself again. I'd sooner face what lies out there."

She looked up, her mouth pouting with rare amus.e.m.e.nt. "I can make you stay if I wish."

"Not any more," said Dalroi. "Once I'd have fallen at your feet and wept at the opportunity. Now I can resist even the temptation - so much can a man lose of himself."

"Poor Ivan! Do I detect another pallid romance? What's her name? Has she the charms of a sweet seductress? Is she skilled in the finer arts of love?"

"You don't understand."

"Can she play your emotions like a harp, as I can; or give you the taste of rare sensations such as you never knew existed?"

"You don't understand!" Dalroi's anger flared. "My present mistress is a far more constant courtesan. Her name is Vengeance: vengeance against Failway, against the pressure, the bribery and the blackmail; vengeance against the rot that has got everything, against the system that took you from me.""Stay with me," she said. "Don't you hear the whistles? The Security men are coming. They're combing the streets."

"I'll take my chances. I'm getting out."

"You don't have to. They won't search here. I can see that they leave this house alone."

"What kind of promise is that?" asked Dalroi. "Those men out there are killers and they're out for blood - my blood."

"I have influence ... "

"I'll bet you have. The influence of the cheese in the mousetrap. The oldest bait in the world."

She struggled to her feet in fury. "You never change, do you? No time is inappropriate for the vicious gibe or the stab to the heart."

"You've played me false before, remember? What makes you think I'd trust you now?"

She thrust herself between him and the door. "Don't be a fool!"

"Get out of my way!" said Dalroi.

"No, you must not go out there now." She threw her arms about his neck and kissed him.

There was a sudden crash as the door burst open, kicked violently from outside.

"An intriguing situation," said Peter Madden, entering, gun in hand. "I rather thought I'd find you here."

SEVENTEEN.

"My G.o.d!" said Peter Madden. "You've a great deal to answer for. If killing you wasn't a matter of prime urgency I'd take you to the Security wing and extract that much vengeance from your body before you died."

Dalroi looked at the radiation pistol and at Madden's tunic streaked with charcoal and still acrid from the lingering smoke of the ruined cepi field.

"Looking down the wrong end of your gun is becoming a habit," he said. "It's a vice I can afford to do without."

"The cure is permanent and guaranteed," said Madden. "I shall shoot you if you dare to move an inch.

Even if I didn't kill you you'd not be much use without a chest. You're a danger to yourself and to everyone else. I can't take changes." His finger tightened on the trigger.

The explosion of a slug pistol shattered the silence. Madden stared at his hand in disbelief and agony, and the radiation pistol clattered to the floor. Berina kept him covered with her still-smoking gun.

"Thanks!" said Dalroi. "He was just mad enough to try it"

Madden's eyes were full of cold shock. "That was very foolish, Berina. If I had killed him I might have overlooked the fact that you sought to harbour him. Even yet I might give you a second chance."

"Since when did you ever give anyone any sort of chance?" asked Berina quietly. "Live or die, your whole d.a.m.n organisation is starting to collapse. I, for one, intend to help it on its way.""You're a little premature," said Madden. "I'll surely break you for this. You know how well I can do that."

"Yes." She spat vehemently in his face. "I've seen what you've done to the others. Do you think that ent.i.tles you to anything but hate?"

"The biter bit," said Dalroi pleasantly. "But now we're due for a short session of questions and answers."

"Don't waste your breath," said Madden. "The squad will be here looking for me in a moment. Under no circ.u.mstances can you be permitted to escape."

"Nevertheless," Dalroi picked up the radiation pistol and adjusted it to low intensity meaningly, "I think we'll try. I don't need to tell you what this weapon can do to the eyeb.a.l.l.s, so I advise you not to become tongue-tied. There's something I'd rather like to know: exactly what's the urgency to see me dead?"

Madden glanced down at the cepi-ash streaks on his tunic. "Consedo, Failway goods-yard, and now this - and you still need to ask? You're a h.e.l.l of a fellow, Dalroi! When you're around I don't sleep so well at nights."

"The feeling is mutual," said Dalroi, "but you've dodged the question. You had me measured for a coffin long before Consedo. From the first moment we met you've had it in for me. Who gave you the instructions to kill me, Madden?"

"The dislike was purely personal. I took exception to your face."

"No," said Dalroi, raising the pistol. "There's more to the story than that. Securing my death was your prime objective. I want to know on whose decision and why the urgency?"

His finger moved imperceptibly but sufficient. Madden clapped his hands over his eyes in sudden anguish.

"Take a tip," said Dalroi. "Never defy a man who has nothing to lose. He tends to forget the niceties of something called fair-play."

"It isn't that easy," said Madden. "Even if I wanted to I couldn't talk. There's a psychosomatic trigger planted in my brain which prevents me from answering most of the things you want to know, no matter what pressures you use. You can't get information from a corpse."

Dalroi shrugged. "I'm not particular which way you die. Tell me about Gormalu. I already know he isn't human."

Madden crossed and uncrossed his fingers with agitation. "I don't think you are either, Dalroi. Not quite.

But you're dangerous, Dalroi, far more dangerous than you know yourself. You're a danger to all of us.

Gormalu knew that and wanted you killed quietly if possible. In his own twisted way he was quite a humanitarian. You see, somebody wants you dead and a lot of people are liable to get hurt by the very act of your execution. You have no idea how desperately they want you dead. Why the h.e.l.l don't you die reasonably?"

"Because I choose not to," said Dalroi. "I don't scare easily, either. Not any more. I'll see you both and Gormalu to h.e.l.l, and it won't be in easy stages."

"I doubt if that's true, but if it was only us you had to contend with you'd stand about one per cent chance of living through the next twenty-four hours. As it stands you've more trouble coming to you than you could dream of in a lifetime's nightmares. I don't give you one chance of survival in infinity raised to the infinite power. There's no hope for you, but if humanity means anything you'll try and arrange to receiveyour execution somewhere pretty lonely."

"Keep talking," said Dalroi. "Who's behind all this?"

Madden pressed his knuckles to his eyes. "If I even tried to tell you, my heart would freeze."

"Let it," said Dalroi. His trigger finger tightened again.

"Dalroi, for pity's sake!"

"Failway killed all the pity that was ever in me."

Madden's eyes were filled with misery and fear. His words stumbled awkwardly as he strove to pick his meanings without stumbling over the mental trigger which would freeze his heart.

"Failway level ... is a spot of three-dimensional reality inserted into a pattern of stabilised chaos ... with an electronic rope ladder which lets you in and out. No mind can grasp the universes beyond ... but things live out there in the multiple darknesses ... things which are beyond our knowing."

"Is it things who so much want me dead?"

Madden opened his mouth to speak, but his eyes dilated with sudden horror. He fought back a choking sob and clutched at his chest. Breath rasped in a dry throat and he tottered and slumped to the ground.

Then for a second he rallied and his hand sought Dalroi's.

"Dalroi, you've got to stop them! For Humanity's sake! Stop them!"

"Where?" said Dalroi. "How?"

"Go to Failway Six. Careful. They're waiting for you there. That's the only way to get at them. You can do it ... "

The last sentence choked away into a half sob. Dalroi knelt and examined the prostrate form.

"Is he dead?" asked Berina.

Dalroi laid his head on Madden's chest and listened to the heart. "Almost. Whoever laid that mental block forgot to take into account the effect of years of addiction to cepi. He might even live if he isn't moved."

Berina held out the slug pistol, but Dalroi thrust it aside.

"No. If he lives he's earned it. Toward the end he was genuinely on our side. He sacrificed his life to give me that last answer. Now I have to move fast. If this situation is one half as bad as I'm thinking, there's going to be such h.e.l.l let loose as would make Madden's police state look like a benevolent inst.i.tution."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to keep an appointment - on Failway Six."

"Are you crazy?" Berina stared at him aghast. "You can't go into Failway Six! Don't you see, that's what they've been waiting for. Madden said so himself. That's where they want you to go."

"I don't much care," said Dalroi. "I've lost all capacity for that kind of thinking. Either they'll get me or I'll get them. It's a question that has to be resolved.""But why do they want to kill you, in particular?"

Dalroi felt his head. Deep inside he felt the throbbing rhythm - not heartbeat, but something vastly more powerful - quieter now, but the same pulse that flared sometimes to activity and drove him crazily to achieve things which were far beyond his sanest comprehension.

"I don't know," said Dalroi. "There's something living inside of me, something bigger than all h.e.l.l and twice as ugly. But it's something which belongs. I think it's that they're afraid of, so afraid they're prepared to lose all Failway and d.a.m.n several million souls to see it destroyed. Don't you see, they know what it is, but I don't. I have to go into Failway Six in order to find myself."

"It's your funeral!"

"You know," said Dalroi, "even that phrase has lost its sting. Is there a way I can get into Failway Six without going back to the terminus?"

"There's a service shuttle connection direct, but it's not designed for the living."

"Where can I find it?"

"I don't advise you to."

"Why not?"

"We call it the graveyard service. If anyone dies in Failway the bodies are consigned to Failway Six via the graveyard service. Don't ask me why the h.e.l.l. I a.s.sume they've a crematorium down there. Do you want to start out looking for yourself by travelling in a coffin?"

"I don't have much choice," said Dalroi. "How can I get aboard without attracting attention?"

Berina shrugged. "If that's what you want I can arrange it"

"For heaven's sake do that," Dalroi said. "I should hate whatever's coming to happen here. Too many people around. If they're waiting for me on Failway Six then I'd better not keep them waiting. I only hope they've chosen to do battle in a place where they can do the maximum amount of damage to the minimum of people."