gardens and runs for livestock surrounding them. Teth-

 

ered yorbs regarded her incuriously as she sped past, feet

 

splashing in puddles left by the overnight rain which the

 

sky threatened to let flood down again at any moment.

 

In the fifth house from the left was her home; she

 

slammed back the crude wooden gate in the fence en-

 

closing its garden, and ran indoors.

 

Hakim's elder sister, Yana, was bending over the bed

 

on which lay the wheezing form of apparently an old

 

woman. In truth, Soraya's mother was no more than

 

thirty-seven, but in this harsh environment age descend-

 

ed with the swiftness of tropical night.

 

And yet it was not mere ageendurable, because vis-

 

ited on everyonewhich afflicted her. It was something

 

random, and more deadly. There was a name for it; the

 

quakes. But simply to have a name was no help. What

 

was needed was a cure.

 

Sick with despair, Soraya glanced at Yana. "Has she

 

been like this long?"

 

"I found her on the floor by the hearth," the other girl

 

answered in low tones. "See, her dress is scorchedit was

 

lucky I chanced to look in, or she might have been

 

burned to death."

 

Soraya shuddered. "When? Just now?"

 

"So long ago as it took Hakim to reach you." Yana

 

shrugged. "I sent him at once."

 

Soraya clutched her mother's hand, feeling the uncon-

 

trollable trembling that racked her weak body, and

 

railed mentally against the capriciousness of fate.

 

"Shall I go for Marouz?" Yana suggested.

 

"Thank you, but Firdausi was with me at the water-

 

works, and he has gone already. Not that he'll be any

 

help," Soraya added bitterly.

 

"You shouldn't talk so. He's the wisest man among us

 

as well as the oldest!" Yana sounded horrified.

 

"What use is wisdom without practical applications?

 

He can tell us to be duriful children and loving parents,

 

and we do our bestand my mother who is the kindest

 

of women has the quakes." Soraya put up her hand to

 

wipe away a tear.

 

"Sssh! He's coming now," Yana murmured, and

 

turned to bow as Marouz dipped his white-bearded head

 

under the low lintel.

 

"Honour and profit upon this house," the mage said in

 

a single rapid burst, and limped to a chair which Yana

 

brought up beside the bed. "Hmmm! Has your mother

 

drunk unboiled water, Soraya?"

 

"You think I would let her?" Soraya jumped to her

 

feet, appalled. "I, who work where I do? What do you

 

take me for?"

 

"Soraya, that's unwise," Firdausi said softly; he had

 

come in just behind Marouz, holding Baby Hakim's

 

chubby hand.

 

"I don't care!" Tears were gathering in Soraya's eyes

 

also now. "I don't care! My mother lies sick to death,

 

and all he can think of is that she might have drunk un-

 

boiled water! What has water to do with it, anyway?

 

My father tended the waterworks before me, and he'd

 

never have let her do such a thing, and I wouldn'tand

 

still she has the quakes! What can water possibly have to

 

do with it?"

 

Marouz's face went hard as stone. "We are taught by

 

the wisdom of the ancients" he began.

 

"And a fat lot of good it does us!" Soraya blazed. But

 

on the last word she collapsed to her knees before him,

 

her shoulders heaving in helpless sobs.

 

"There, there," Marouz said, giving her an awkward

 

pat on top of the head. "These things are sent to try us,

 

daughter. We do what we can, but we are still far from

 

understanding all life's mysteries. When you grow as old

 

as Iwhich may you do!you'll have learned patience

 

with the inescapable."

 

"I'm sorry," Soraya choked out. "But I love my

 

mother, and she's done so much for me . . . Is there no

 

help you can give?"

 

"Spiritual comfort I would offer, but I know your

 

mother as a fine, noble-hearted woman in small need of

 

my advice." Marouz waggled his flowing beard regret-

 

fully. "The only counsel I can give is to you. And yon

 

know what that is, for I've suggested it before."

 

"I've urged it on her also," Firdausi put in. "And she

 

won't listen."

 

"Take my mother away from her own home, and send

 

her who knows where?" Soraya exclaimed. "It seems to

 

me soso heartless!"

 

"Now, now, my daughter," Marouz soothed. "We all

 

hate necessity, but that's no use. The Receivers of the

 

Sick are good men, full of ancient wisdom and kindly in-

 

tentions. Is it not better to see your mother in safe keep-

 

ing than lying here quivering her life away on this

 

narrow hard bed?"

 

There was silence after that blunt question, until at last

 

Marouz stirred. "Well, I can do no more than I've

 

done," he said, and reached for Yana's arm to get to his

 

feet. "Make your mind up quickly, Soraya the Re-

 

ceivers are coming to this area in a few days' time, I

 

hear, and they won't be back for months, at least."

 

He hobbled out, and automatically they threw good

 

wishes after him in the form traditional for very old per-

 

sons"May good health attend you to your grave."

 

Firdausi caught Yana's eye and she took the hint.

 

Crossing the dirt floor to retrieve her young brother, she

 

said in a strained voice, "Well, I have things to see to

 

next door. I guess you'd like to be alone, anyway."

 

The moment she was out of sight, Firdausi put his arm

 

around Soraya. "Dearest, why do you torture yourself

 

and your motherthis way?"

 

She shook off his grip and took the chair Marouz had

 

vacated, to sit gazing down at her mother, fingers driv-

 

ing their nails deep into her palms as though to share her

 

mother's suffering by self-inflicted pain.

 

"Shall I sell her like a yorb?" she snapped. "You know

 

as I do that but for the payment we'd never have let a

 

single person go from this town to the Receivers! It may

 

be well enough for towns where they don't teach love

 

for one's parents, but it disgusts me."

 

"Can you do more for her than the Receivers?"

 

Firdausi countered.

 

"What do they do?" Soraya demanded. "No one will

 

tell me that! What becomes of those committed to their

 

mercies?"

 

"You should ask Marouz."

 

"I did, the first rime he made this suggestion. And he

 

could only say that he didn't doubt'didn't doubt'!that

 

their fate was better than we ignorant folk could offer."

 

"Wouldn't almost anything be better than this?"

 

Firdausi argued. "Lying helpless among others equally

 

helpless?"

 

He dropped to his knees, face pleading. "I admire you

 

for your wish to keep your mother with you, believe

 

me! But looking at her, knowing there's nothing we can

 

dohow can you condemn her to it any longer? Look,

 

why don't you ask her views when she's able to talk

 

again?"

 

Soraya's face was very pale as she murmured, "I did."

 

"What did she say?" Firdausi pressed.

 

"That the paymentif the Receivers accept her

 

would be dowry for me and I could marry you and in-

 

herit the house." She formed the words as though each

 

tasted bad in her mouth.

 

"But in that case!" Firdausi rocked back on his heels.

 

"If it's her own wish, what holds you back?"

 

"They might not accept her," Soraya whispered.

 

"They don't take everyone, do they?"

 

"But it's a chance, don't you see? What chance has she

 

here of any other fate but a lingering, unpleasant death?"

 

Soraya delayed her answer for long moments. Finally

 

she said, "Firdausi, all you care about is freeing me to

 

marry you. Suppose I say that ifif1 take my mother

 

to the Receivers, this does not mean I intend to marry

 

you."

 

It was Firdausi's turn to hesitate.

 

"I think," he said slowly, "that the way you're keeping

 

your mother here, suffering needlessly, is likely to make

 

me less eager to have you for my wife."

 

She flinched as though from a physical blow, and fresh

 

tears gathered in her eyes. Seeing his advantage, Firdausi

 

pressed it.

 

"There's something almost selfish about it. You've just

 

told me what her own desires are, yet you insist on go-

 

ing against them. If that's not pandering to your own

 

self-esteem, I don't know what is."

 

She bit down on her lower lip to stop it quivering, and

 

was only able to speak after a further pause. The words

 

came like leaden footfalls.

 

"Very well. Go to Marouz and find out when the Re-

 

ceivers are due, and where. And I'll try and borrow a

 

wagon and a yorb to take her."

 

Firdausi's jubilation showed in his face, although his

 

voice was sober enough as he said, "I do really think it's

 

the wisest course."

 

He turned and went out.

 

So I'll do it, Soraya thought bitterly. But I won't

 

marry you or anyone eke in this horrible town. If they

 

take her, I'll burn the house and we the pay to go some-

 

where I can hide from my shame.

 

Abruptly she turned to the water-bucket and began to

 

rinse her hands, over and over, as though to remove

 

some clinging invisible foulness.

 

vn

 

 

Maddalena and Langenschmidt ate their evening meal

 

together in the main base restaurant. Under the influence

 

of the nearest approach to civilised luxury she had en-

 

joyed for many yearsthe Corps base where she had

 

been most recently was as spartan as any of the other

 

outlying stations Maddalena's mood of exhaustion and

 

apathy faded. The music, food and wine made her ex-

 

pand like a flower to the sun, so that even before she

 

took the course of cosmetic treatment she was due for

 

traces of the impetuous girl Langenschmidt had formerly

 

known began to peek through.

 

Unfortunately, it was his turn to become distracted

 

and stare for long silent periods into nowhere. It was

 

some while before Maddalena noticed the factshe had

 

been gossiping about her experiences on ZRP Thirteen

 

and when she did, she spoke teasingly to him.

 

"Why, Gus! Is this any way to treat a guest? I

 

thought you'd spent your time here learning all the cor-

 

rect social behaviour!"

 

"Hm?" He snapped back to the present with a start.

 

"Oh, I'm sorry. There's something bothering me, and I

 

think I just figured out what it has to be. Please excuse

 

me for a few minutes. I have to check on it."

 

Maddalena stared at him. Suddenly she leaned forward

 

and put her hand on his. "I'm sorry, Gus. I didn't intend

 

to act this way on seeing you for the first time in so

 

many years. You do have problems to handle, and I

 

shouldn't be disregarding them the way I have been."

 

"No, this is nothing directly to do with you. At least I

 

don't believe it is. Will you excuse me?"

 

"Is it something I'm not allowed to know about, or

 

may I come with you?"

 

"Sure, come if yon like. I'm not going far. To a com-

 

municator first, then to the hospital if my suspicions

 

prove correct."

 

"Something about this man Justin Kolb?"

 

"Very much so."

 

She pushed back her chair and rose.

 

The network of communicator links knitted the base

 

together as intimately as the nerves in a living body, so

 

that none of the key personnel need ever be oat of reach

 

in the rare event of an emergency. Here, Maddalena

 

thought as she studied Langenschmidt's strong profile

 

against the wall of the restaurant communicator booth,

 

emergencies would be even less common than on most

 

Corps bases. He must make a first-class commandant:;

 

thorough, patient, farsighted.

 

But he had been a first-class Patrol Major, too, and

 

would have been equally efficient as an on-planet agent

 

like herselfhad stood in as one during the Carrig crisis,

 

and proved that.

 

She sighed imperceptibly, envying his adaptability and

 

dedication. By comparison she felt herself pliable, weak

 

and self-centred.

 

The signal indicating access to the base computer

 

memory shone out of the screen in the booththe Corps

 

was the only regular user of vision circuits on Cyclops

 

apart from the government.

 

"Justin Kolb, Cyclopean," Langenschmidt said briskly.

 

"Circumstances attending his retirement from the Cy-

 

clops space service, please."

 

The last word tickled Maddalena's fancy. Imagine say-

 

ing "please" to a machine! But after a second it didn't

 

seem fannyonly characteristic of the man who uttered

 

it.

 

"Select auditory or visual presentation," the machine

 

requested, and he selected sound, thinking it was more

 

convenient for Maddalena, - yho had to peer into the

 

booth from outside.

 

The machine spoke dates key-ed to an unfamiliar calen-

 

dar, and continued. "Kolb, Jusrin. Asteroid mining engi-

 

neer, spaceman. Second in command of local system

 

mine-ship Sigma. Awarded Medal of Cyclops for hero-

 

ism following accidental destruction of Sigma with loss

 

of captain and fifteen crew. Sustained space-gangrene of

 

right leg to mid-thigh, resulting in permanent retirement

 

from space service. More?"

 

The gently questioning tone of the last word was a

 

marvel of sophisticated engineering, if you thought

 

about it, Maddalena informed herself absently. What was

 

Gus driving at?

 

"Who was responsible for regenerating his leg?" Lan-

 

genschmidt demanded.

 

"No information specific to this question," the

 

machine answered.

 

"Damn. Uhwhat doctor was in charge of his case

 

and supervised his eventual recovery?"

 

"Dr Aleazar Rimerley," the machine said.

 

"Thought it might have been," Langenschmidt mut-

 

tered, and made as though to turn away. He hesitated,

 

and at length voiced another question.

 

"What facilities exist on Cyclops for the major regen-

 

eration of human limbs?"

 

"The hospital at the Corps Galactica base is fully

 

equipped for limb-regeneration."

 

"Are there no other facilities for the )ob here?"

 

"No information," the machine said after a pause.

 

"Ve-ery interesting," Langenschmidt said, and shut the

 

communicator off. "Come on!" he added to Maddalena.

 

"We're going down to the hospital. Are you with me so

 

far?"

 

"His right legboth times, including today?"

 

"You're not stupid, are you?" Langenschmidt said af-

 

fectionately, and put his arm through hers to lead her

 

away.

 

"I think you're glad to see me in spite of what I said

 

earlier," she murmured when they had gone a short dis-

 

tance.

 

"Hm? Oh, of course I am!"

 

"You have learned the socially correct things here!"

 

she snapped, and withdrew her arm.

 

He seemed still to be puzzling over that crack when

 

they reached the hospital and were shown into the

 

presence of a tall, brown-bearded man in self-sterilising

 

whites, passing time with a chess problem.

 

"This isDr Anstey Nole, our senior medical officer,"

 

Langenschmidt told Maddalena in passing. "Doc! It's

 

about this Justin Kolb. How is he?"

 

"As well as you'd expect, seeing he's lost half his right

 

calf and the foot, endured a medisuit tourniquet for long

 

enough to starve the tissues of blood, and been

 

frightened nearly out of his wits by that wolfshark. Not

 

to mention almost being blown to pieces when this

 

fisher-lad let go his rockets."

 

"What? I saw one of the rockets go up myself

 

seemed to work perfectly." Langenschmidt biinked.

 

"Oh, not the one he used to call for help. Didn't they

 

tell you how he dealt with the wolfshark? Set up two of

 

these damned great fireworks on the foredeck of his

 

trawler and let them go pointblank. Tore the wolfshark

 

to ribbons, I gather. Quite a bright kid, I can tell you.

 

He's in here too, being treated for malnutrition, incipient

 

lupus and minor burns sustained when he let the rockets

 

go. Lost half his hair."

 

"Lupus? " Maddalena put in inquiringly.

 

"Strictly that's incorrect, I grant you, but it's the term

 

we apply. A skin disease common among the fisher-

 

folkthey get it from overexposure to sunlight and the

 

irritants secreted by oilfish scales. Life on a backward

 

world like this is a pretty unpleasant business sometimes.

 

Sorry to have brought the subject up." Nole looked

 

uncomfortable.

 

"You don't have to tell me," Maddalena snapped. "I

 

just completed a twenty-year tour on a ZRP."

 

Nole looked still more uncomfortable and changed the

 

subject hastily.

 

"Alatter of fact, as soon as he recovers I mean to send

 

this kid to see you, commandant. His name's Bracy

 

Dyge, by the way. Says he wants to be considered for

 

Corps membership. I laughed at him at first, frankly.

 

Then I thought it over, and finally decided: hell, he has

 

initiative, anyway!"

 

"Every waterfront on the planet is swarming with kids

 

who think they want to join the Corps," Langenschmidt

 

said cynically. "I'm surprised at you, doc. It's the pay

 

they're after."

 

"He doesn't know about the pay,'* the doctor said.

 

"At least, I don't think he can."

 

"What? Of course he must! Everybody"

 

Nole interrupted firmly. "No, all the time we were

 

talking it was never mentioned. He just wants to be able

 

to support his familyparents are both deadsome better

 

way than by chasing oilfish. His fish-finder has been out

 

of order, and . . . I asked for it to be seen to in our

 

workshops, by the way. Hope you've no objection. It

 

seemed liketheleastwe "

 

"Hell, I didn't come down here to talk about thisthis

 

Bracy Dyge!" exclaimed Langenschmidt. "I came to talk

 

about Kolb. In particular, about Kolb's leg."

 

Nole shrugged. "I've told you all I can, I guess."

 

"Wrong. You haven't started. You didn't even men-

 

tion that he'd lost it before."

 

It was Nole's turn to be astonished, "Nobody told me

 

so! Are you sure about that? Why, it looked like a

 

natural legwhat was left of itwhen I examined him

 

earlier."

 

"You wouldn't expect it to look like a false one, would

 

you? Does the name of Dr Aleazar Rimerley mean any-

 

thing to you?"

 

"No, I don't believe so. A local sawbones, perhaps?"

 

"You could call him that. The most successful doctor

 

on Cyclopshas been retamed by Quist at least once.

 

Would he be able to regenerate Kolb's leg?"

 

Nole pursed his lips and looked dubious. "Just pos-

 

sibly. Regeneration of a legahyes, with half a mega-

 

brain computer capacity you could do a fair job from

 

the knee down. It is conceivable, but I didn't realise Cy-

 

clops could afford medical computers on this scale."

 

"This wasn't for a knee-down job. This was from

 

mid-thigh."

 

"Then I don't believe it," Nole said. "You'd need a

 

full megabrain, and at that the job might not come off."

 

He gave Maddalena an apologetic glance, as though fear-

 

ing this was distasteful to her. "It's the joint, you seees-

 

pecially the synovial membranes. Very tricky to

 

programme well."

 

"What are you standing there for?" Langenschmidt

 

inquired sweetly. "Has, or has not, Justin Kolb two func-

 

tioning knees?"

 

Nole made a wordless noise and spun on his heel.

 

Maddalena sat down on the corner of the table where

 

Nole had set out his chessboard, and stared at Langen-

 

schmidt.

 

"I don't quite see the significance of this," she ven-

 

tured. "There are places where regeneration is available,

 

and if this man Kolb is the uh accepted lover of Alura

 

Quist, could she not have pulled strings to have him

 

treated on some more advanced planet?"

 

"If she had done so, the memory bank would have

 

mentioned it." Langenschmidt began to pace the room.

 

"I didn't. It gave me an unequivocal answer when I

 

asked who was responsible for Kolb's eventual recov-

 

cry it named a Cyclopean doctor, who's probably very

 

good in his limited sphere, but simply hasn't got access

 

to the medical computer capacity needed for regener-

 

ation."

 

Maddalena paled. "But what alternative treatment

 

could he have offered? Kolb did regain his leg, didn't

 

he? Nole might have overlooked the fact that the limb

 

wasn't an original, but he couldn't have overlooked a

 

prosthetic!"

 

"Exactly," Langenschmidt muttered, and fell silent.

 

They waited, neither saying anything, for twenty

 

minutes before Nole returned, his face pale above his full

 

brown beard.

 

"I don't know what put you onto this, commandant,"

 

he began, "and equally I don't know how I came to

 

miss"

 

"Save the apologies. What have you found now yon

 

have looked?"

 

"His right leg isn't his own. It's not regenerated is

 

what I meanregeneration counts as own-tissue sub-

 

stance." Nole combed his beard with agitated fingers.

 

"That leaves one possibility. It's a graft. An exception-

 

ally good one, what's moreit must have been selected

 

most carefully to make a pair with the left leg. Well, of

 

course, the moment I discovered this I took a cell-sample

 

and processed it for genetic structure, and I've come up

 

with the most alarming result."

 

Langenschmidt's face was quite calm, as though he had

 

already worked out what revelation Nole had brought

 

them. He said merely, "Go on."

 

"Well, it's hard to be absolutely certain, but I'd say on

 

the basis of what I've just seen that the leg's not merely

 

not his ownit's also not Cyclopean in origin. At any

 

rate, the particular gene-structure of the cells I processed

 

has never been recorded on Cyclops."

 

"Can you tell me where it is from?" Langenschmidt

 

snapped.

 

"I've set the computers to search, but there may not

 

be a definite reading." Nole combed his beard again.

 

"Commandant, this is the most extraordinary thing I ever

 

heard of!"

 

vm

 

 

The screen of the subspace communicator lit. The

 

venture was a profitable one; the partners in it had be-

 

come able to allow themselves such refinements as inter-

 

stellar vision circuits. It showed a man with a face as

 

cruelly beaked as a Jackson's buzzard, clad in the decent

 

black robe of a Receiver of the Sick, with the hood

 

thrown back on his shoulders. His hair was greying but

 

still luxuriant, and his face was lined more by reflected

 

concentration than by the passage of time.

 

This was Lors Heirndall, on whom Rimerley was to-

 

tally dependent.

 

"What is it?" he grunted, eyes scanning the image of

 

the doctor confronting him. Vaguely in the background

 

could be seen the interior of his headquarters, with a

 

rack of robes hanging like dead bats on the wall, a video-

 

graph playing over a recording of some music-drama or

 

other.

 

If he can't read the crisis straight off my face, Rimer-

 

ley thought, / must be over the worst of the shock.

 

Indeed, he felt considerably better than he had done

 

when he finished speaking to Quist. As well as taking an-

 

other stiff drink, he had given himself a shot of mixed

 

tranquillisers and mind-keeners, a blend which he usually

 

only relied on when making the preparations for a major

 

operation. But this affair, of course, might turn out to be

 

a major operation in its own way...

 

"Two things," he said crisply. "Sorry to disturb you,

 

by the way, but you'll see the urgency when I tell you

 

the background. Did I interrupt anything?"

 

"No, it's early morning here, half an hour past dawn.

 

We weren't ready to move off yet." Heirndall was

 

doubtless impatient, but his tone was superficially affable.

 

"Where are you at present?"

 

"Working south from Idiot's Head towards Encamp-

 

ment Hills. Am I to take it you have a special order for

 

us?"

 

Rimerley nodded. "A double. First off, how would

 

you like to do a favour for Justin Kolb?"

 

"Another?" Heirndall said acidly. "The bastard has

 

had too many breaks in life already. True, but for his in-

 

competence I wouldn't be where I am nowbut I've

 

settled that score, and I'd rather not know. Cosmos, he

 

wasn't even a moderately capable spacemanjust a

 

hothead with a specious brand of charmand they made

 

him a hero. Or rather, Quist did." He scowled. "Okay.

 

What sort of a favour?"

 

Rimerley had to wipe away a trace of itching sweat.

 

"Hot herefull summer," he muttered in explanation to

 

Heirndall. "Well, as a matter of fact he's lost his leg

 

again. To a wolfshark 'this time. The same leg."

 

"And Quist no doubt wants her tame monkey cured,"

 

Heirndall agreed briskly. "Also we must fill the order

 

quickly to keep her sweet against the day when she be-

 

comes our biggest client. We have the specifications on

 

record, so it should be fairly easy. Yes?"

 

"Not altogether," Rimerley muttered. "I mean, that

 

part of it is. But what's resulted from his encounter with

 

the wolfshark isn't so cheerful. He was rescued by some

 

ignorant fisherman and taken to the Corps Galacdca hos-

 

pitalit was the nearest point from which help could get

 

to him, I suppose."

 

Heirndall's face darkened like the sky before a thun-

 

derstorm. "In that case, we're leaving here at once! I

 

want to be on some good and distant planet before the

 

pan boils over, with a change of name and a change of

 

identitraces!"

 

"Wait!" Rimerley instructed in a soothing tone. "All

 

is not lost, you know. I told Quist to get her boyfriend

 

out of there tomorrow morning at the latest, and bring

 

him to me. There's an excellent chance they won't be in-

 

terested enough in Cyclopean scandal to know Kolb's

 

historythere's little contact between the Corps and the

 

Cyclopeans, as you're well aware."

 

"Any atall is too much for me," Heirndall scowled.

 

"How about the genetic pattern of the graft, though?"

 

"Why should it occur to them to check it?" Rimerley

 

countered. "If they don't know Kolb's story, they'll as-

 

sume it's his original legthe mafch was eye-perfect,

 

remember. Didn't I give you hell finding the exact

 

match, and reject who knows how many faulty samples

 

first?"

 

Heirndall nodded, but looked worried even so. Rimer-

 

ley plunged on.

 

"Even if they do know his story, they'll most likely

 

take it for a regenerated limb. After all, if he's Quist's

 

lover, who would be more likely to afford the journey

 

offworld to somewhere he could find that standard of

 

medical computation? The only thing which would

 

make them stumble on the unmatched genetic pattern

 

would be if they attempted a fresh regeneration them-

 

selves, and cross-checked to the left leg."

 

"Might they not do that?" Heirndall suggested. "It's

 

an open secret that Quist has no love for them, and

 

would discontinue their lease on the island they use if

 

she could. It might occur to them to fix up Kolb to

 

sweeten her a little. A sort of bribe."

 

"If that were their intention," Rimerley said with ex-

 

aggerated confidence, "she wouldn't have offered, of her

 

own accord, to have him brought here tomorrow morn-

 

ing, would she? She'd never have bothered to get in

 

touch with me at all, in fact."

 

"No, I guess that figures," conceded Heirndall.

 

"And besides," Rimerley pursued, leaning closer to the

 

screen, "we are the ones who are going to offer Quist a

 

bribe. A bribe she couldn't possibly refuse, even if the

 

price were something very helpful to us, likelet's say

 

ordering the Corps to abandon their base on Cyclops

 

with immediate effect. That should give them enough to

 

occupy their minds without worrying about Jusrin

 

Kolb's leg!"

 

A spark gleamed in Heirndall's eyes. He said, "If yon

 

can pull a trick like that to divert the storm, you're clev-

 

erer than I thought you were. How will you organise

 

it?"

 

"Like this," Rimerley said, and began to explain.

 

The banquet had passed tolerably swiftly, but the

 

speeches afterwards were dragging on to all eternity.

 

Alura Quist had given up listening to the actual words

 

a quarter-hour earlier, and was lost in a maze of private

 

contemplation.

 

Every now and again her eyes strayed to the seat on

 

her left, occupied by the senior representative of the par-

 

ticipants from Earth, which should have been Jusrin's

 

tonight.

 

/ feel horribly old, she told herself. And if anyone

 

cares to peer closely enough at me, more than likely I

 

look old. And when I die, what will stand to my

 

memory other than a weatherworn gravestone and some

 

dates in my career which no one off Cyclops will learn

 

in school?

 

Even the long-schemed-for plan to overset the Corps's

 

prized principle of non-interference with ZRP's was sour

 

to the taste now, as she contemplated the old man at her

 

right: Omar Haust, from ZRP One, honoured by being

 

seated next to her because he was the only person present

 

whose ancestors had had to endure the mud-grubbing

 

existence of a refugee planet.

 

And he was disgracing himself.

 

He had drunk too much, to start with. At the com-

 

mencement of the evening he had looked ascetic, almost

 

saintly, with his fierce white moustache fringing his up-

 

per lip, his halo-like white hair circling his shiny bald

 

pate. But he had continued to drink heavily; for the later

 

courses, he had insisted on waving aside cutlery and

 

eating with his fingers, as a sort of gesture of solidarity

 

with those on the ZRP's who were denied any other im-

 

plements. Twice his hand, made greasy with the food, let

 

fall full goblets of liquor that splashed all over his seat-

 

neighbour-including Quist, whose prized Earth-made

 

gown was spattered with dark stains. And for the past

 

several minutes, during the speech by the senior Earth

 

delegate, he had been muttering insulting remarks in his

 

own mother-tongue, a divergent offshoot of the common

 

Galactic language which was still sufficiently close for

 

Quist to have flinched at what she half-understood.

 

Since letting herself drift off into her private worries,

 

however, she had paid no more attention.

 

Suddenly she was snatched out of a mingled kaleido-

 

scope of self-pity and optimism, in which Justin Kolb

 

figured very frequently, to realise that the old man's pa-

 

tience was at an end. He was on his feet, hammering

 

with the base of his goblet on the table, and every blow

 

splashed fresh gouts of liquor far and wide. The delegate

 

delivering the current speech broke off in horror as

 

Haust bellowed in his thick accent.

 

"It makes me sick! It makes me want to vomit! Here's

 

all this fine talk about our poor miserable brothers and

 

sisters out on the refugee planets, which we're for-

 

bidden to liberate and bring back to the fold of civilisa-

 

tionand who's spewing out these platitudes? Hm?

 

Who's mouthing these pious nothings about what we

 

ought to do?"

 

Aghast, the assembled company of notables looked

 

elsewhere for some less embarrassing spectacle than the

 

aged drunkard, slobbering down his chin.

 

"I'll tell you!" he roared. "A gang of dirty lying hypo-

 

crites! That's what you all are! Look at you!" He

 

hurled his goblet in the general direction of the speaker

 

from Earth, a mild-mannered woman of ninety or a

 

hundred with a distinguished political record on her

 

home world; fortunately the missile sailed wide of her.

 

"Look at you!" Haust repeated. "With the rolls of

 

Earthside fat wobbling around your middle! And all the

 

rest of you, the same. As for you"

 

He rounded on Quist, who shrank back in her chair.

 

Alarmed attendants moved close, uncertain whether to

 

try and restrain Haust or wait till he actually struck

 

their mistress. She was frozen and could offer them no

 

clue for guidance.

 

"You're as bad as the rest!" the old man raved. "Who

 

keeps the ZRP's in subjusubju'arion? The Corps stink-

 

ing Galacrica, that's who, and their whining lackeys in

 

the Patrol! And who leases a base right here on Cy-

 

closhShyclopsright on this filthy world whatever its

 

name is!to the triply damned Corps? Why, you do!

 

Aargh! Give me some more drink to wash away the

 

taste of you!"

 

H snatched at the nearest goblet, which happened to

 

be Quist's own, and as he made to raise it to his lips lost

 

his precarious grip on stability and went crashing to the

 

floor.

 

"I am sure," said the next speaker, "we ought to learn

 

a lesson from what too many of us took simply as a dis-

 

gusting exhibition." He was a lean man from the twin

 

worlds of Alpha and Beta Lobulae, which having been

 

blessed with few internal troubles had much surplus en-

 

ergy for meddling in those of other systems. "It should

 

have reminded us all that we are not dealing with ab-

 

stracts, but with human beings, with a capacity to suffer,

 

and suffer more greatly than we fortunate children of

 

happier worlds can know. Indeed, it comes as no great

 

surprise to me to realise that Omar Haust feels himself

 

unnecessarily mocked by the presence of the Corps

 

Galacrica base on this planetwhose hospitality and

 

whose government's sympathy with our aims I do not

 

question, but whose action in this respect perhaps casts

 

doubt in the minds of waverers about our ultimate deter-

 

mination."

 

That, Quist realised with a sinking heart, called for a

 

reply. And it would be useless to state the truththat but

 

for the income the leasing of that island to the Corps

 

brought to Cyclops, the delegates would not be here; the

 

revenue tipped the balance between Cyclops affording

 

and not affording an interstellar fleet, small though it had

 

to be.

 

She rose and looked around. She could use the opening

 

of her original speech, she decided, and began on it. The

 

compositor had worked well, and it soon had the dele-

 

gates listening in calm self-approval, bar the man from

 

Lobulae.

 

To him, finally, she said with an air of desperation, "It

 

must of course be recalled that in the days when the

 

agreement between my our government and the Corps

 

was reached, the first of the ZRP's had not yet been

 

chanced upon. Far be it from me to decry the useful

 

work the Corps has done, in its capacity as the interstel-

 

lar counterpart to a police force. It seems only to be in

 

the area of framing policy that they have exceeded their

 

intended brief."

 

Nods to that.

 

"However, we are grateful for the suggestion. I'll have

 

the proposal investigated, and if on balance it does ap-

 

pear th;kt such an action would be an effective lever in

 

securing our aims against the opposition of the Corps, I

 

will make a formal statement to that effect."

 

Appla?ase. She sat down, wishing with all her heart

 

that justin were here to shower his praise on her, forced

 

though she knew it to be.

 

Heaven help Cyclops if I have to act on that vaporous

 

promise, she thought grimly, and turned to smile at those

 

delegates who were complimenting her on what she had

 

said*

 

Nole had gone off again, still in a state of agitation, to

 

see whether there was a print-out from the computer

 

which he had set to tracking the gene-type of the tissue

 

in Kolb's leg-graft.

 

It was very quiet in the office where Maddalena and

 

Langenschmidt waited for news. The hospital hummed

 

with the same soft efficient noise as an advanced auto-

 

matic factory; since its business was the repair and main-

 

tenance of what were after all the highly complex

 

mechanisms of human flesh, that wasn't surprising. Dimly

 

from beyond the walls noise of other repair work reached

 

them: clashing as hull-plates were fitted to ships under-

 

going overhaul, the subdy disturbing moan of drive units

 

on test.

 

Maddalena had been staring at tonight's half moon-

 

small, and reduced in size still further by its distance

 

from Cyclopsfor some minutes before she spoke again.

 

"There are an awful lot of things I can't get clear

 

about the situation here, Gus. Maybe you'd better edu-

 

cate me."

 

"Hm?" Langenschmidt jerked his head. "Oh! Oh yes.

 

I'm sorryI'm still working on the false assumption that

 

you were briefed before you were sent to Cyclops. Since

 

you weren't, presumably you know practically nothing

 

about it. After all, it's never been a world to hit the

 

galactic headlines."

 

"The last rime I paid it any attention was twenty years

 

back. There must have been many changes since then."

 

"Yes and no." Langenschmidt had been perching on

 

the end of the room's single large table; now he grew

 

uncomfortable and moved to a contoured chair, drop-

 

ping his body into it absently and letting it slump.

 

"Thethe mood of Cyclops, the planetaiy average of

 

human attitudes, so to speak, is constant over a long

 

period, as it is anywhere. What was the word I beard

 

you apply?"

 

"Predatory?"

 

"Exactly. Ummmm . . . Where the hell ought I to

 

start?" Langenschmidt rubbed his face tiredly. "Clear

 

back at the beginning, I guess. It must start with the fact

 

that it's an unsupendsed foundation."

 

Maddalena started. "Is is now? That accounts for a

 

great deal, I imagine."

 

"I'm sure it does. Of the two hundred and sixty civil-

 

ised worlds, over two hundred followed the standard of-

 

ficial patternexploration, selected colonisation under the

 

direction of a polymath trained intensively for the de-

 

velopment of one and only one particular planet, and

 

eventually opening to immigration. Cyclops is among the

 

anomalous fifty-odd. It's a second-stage offshoot from

 

Dagon. Ring any bells?"

 

"Of course it does." Maddalena hesitated, then gave a

 

little nervous laugh. "Dear Gus! How little you've

 

changed! You still have exactly the same lecturing man-

 

ner as you did when you first briefed me on ZRP Four-

 

teentouchy, expecting this conceited Earthgirl to have

 

ignorance of unplumbable depth."

 

"I'm sorry." Langenschmidt gave a crooked smile. "So

 

we take the rest as read. They made one of their rare

 

mistakes on Dagon, and picked for its polymath a man

 

who couldn't stand the strain. He clashed with one of his

 

continental managers, who finally couldn't endure it any

 

more and decided he could do better by himself on some

 

other planet. He, and about four thousand followers, left

 

Dagon and set out towell, to homestead Cyclops, I

 

guess.

 

"It was as tough in the early days as it must have been

 

on ZRP One, or some other comparatively hospitable

 

ZRP. Naturally, since he'd attracted his followers on the

 

basis of liberty- from the authoritarian whims of a bad

 

polymath, the original leader insisted on at least the

 

structure of a representative government, and that's sur-

 

vived, but only as a formality to the degree required to

 

qualify Cyclops as a member of galactic civilisation.

 

Their laws follow the Unified Galactic Code, too. In

 

theory.

 

"In fact, starting off with so great a handicap, they let

 

all this remain a formality and proceeded to develop a

 

hand-to-mouth pattern they've never escaped from. It's

 

one of the few civilised planets where ruthlessness brings

 

power. Quist, who has been the de facto head of govern-

 

ment for a long time now, has no better qualifications

 

for the )ob than sheer love of authority. She enjoys giv-

 

ing orders and having them obeyed that significant one

 

per cent more than anyone else.

 

"If you want handy comparisonswell, they have to

 

be pre-Galactic. First century atomic era. Earthside areas

 

like Spain, some countries of Latin America, and some of

 

South Asia. Where you had an economy too impover-

 

ished to support the governmental structure of a finan-

 

cially efficient administration, but a sort of crust of great

 

wealth overlying it. Half the population are at the pov-

 

erty line, a third are illiterate, a quarter are diseasedbut

 

perhaps one in twenty have achieved some kind of per-

 

sonal success by pure doggedness."

 

"I didn't realise you knew Earthside history as well as

 

that," Maddalena said after a moment's silence.

 

"I don't, really, I just needed some guide to Cyclops

 

when they posted me here, and these are the examples

 

our social psychologists dredged up for me."

 

"What does support the Cyclopean economy? And

 

wliat's the total population now?"

 

"Efficient census-taking is one of the expensive luxuries

 

they don't enjoy, but our best estimates are around seven

 

to eight hundred million. Mark you, life expectancy is

 

low; one child in eight dies in its first year. As to the

 

economy: it's self-sapporring in respect of food and

 

housingthe climate in the equatorial belt is an ad-

 

vantage there, with very mild rainy seasons and no real

 

wintersand several other basics like textiles . . . It's a

 

safe Class A planet, or the original settlers would never

 

have survived.

 

"About the only exports are fish-oil, which serves as a

 

source of proteins for farther synthesis and ultimate use

 

as a diet-supplement on some nearby vitamin-poor worlds,

 

and raw materials from the asteroid belt. There are some

 

lumps of ore pure enough to be worth shipping long dis-

 

tances. But the margin is slender, and two invisible ex-

 

ports make the crucial difference between getting by and

 

relapsing to starvation.

 

"One of them is a small tramp space-fleet, consisting of

 

a hundred-odd interstellar vessels. And the other isall

 

this." Langenschmidt gestured to embrace their surround-

 

ings. "Cyclops is conveniently sited with respect to the

 

forward bases in this sector, and we've rented this island

 

since shortly after the Corps was constituted.

 

"Trapped in their economic snare, the Cyclopeans

 

don't like having us beret Isn't it a truly ancient platitude

 

that the poor don't like the police? But here we are, and

 

they can't afford to be rid of us."

 

The office communicator sounded, and Nole's voice,

 

nervous, addressed them. "Commandant, can you come

 

down to the computing room? I'm getting results I can't

 

make sense of, and I think you'll want to see them."

 

"Coming!" Langenschmidt said briskly, and rose.

 

Very cautiously, Bracy Dyge swung his legs over the

 

side of the bed. It was further to the floor than he had

 

expected. Anyway, this hardly fitted his concept of a

 

bedit was an elaborate therapeutic installation with a

 

disturbing aura of near-sentience about it, and he would

 

much rather have been on the pile of inflated fish-skins

 

which he was used to at home, three inches from the

 

ground.

 

He had been instructed to lie here and sleep, but he'd

 

been unable to. After ashort lifetime on the edge of

 

starvation, the nutrient and restorative shots he had been

 

given had acted like a violent stimulantsomething the

 

doctors should have made allowances for, but hadn't,

 

being used to scaling their treatment to the healthier and

 

better-fed patients they- normally had.

 

He felt, in short, fighting fit. The burns he had suf-

 

fered when he let off his signal rockets against the wolf-

 

shark had been dressed with something to relieve the

 

pain, and although he had lost half his braided hair and

 

several square inches of skin, the injured area was cool

 

and perfectly comfortable. Nothing distracted him from

 

what was uppermost in his mindto wit, the fact that he

 

had been brought to half-legendary Corps Island, from

 

which the local inhabitants were strictly excluded.

 

Tomorrow he would have to ask to be sent awayhe

 

owed it to his family to get back to sea and try and

 

complete his unfinished business. He had ventured to tell

 

the doctor of his dream-ambitionbeing allowed to join

 

the Corpsbut something in the answering laugh had

 

convinced him it was a ridiculous proposal. They had

 

promised to mend his fish-finder, and he would have to

 

be content with that as his reward for rescuing the wolf-

 

shark-hunter.

 

If only it had been one of the men from the Corps

 

base . . .! But it was useless to wish that the past were

 

different.

 

Maybe he could beg replacements for his torn solar

 

sails, too. Even so, tomorrow he would have to leave

 

and lying wakeful without using this opportunity to see

 

how the Corps lived was more than he could endure.

 

He stole to the door and fumbled with the latch. It

 

proved to be simple in operation, and after pressure .on a

 

raised patch in its centre the panel slid back into the

 

wall, revealing an empty corridor beyond.

 

After cautious listening for footsteps or hushing

 

wheels such as he had heard earlier, when he was being

 

brought in, he darted down the passage and around the

 

first corner.

 

Here the nature of his surroundings changed com-

 

pletely. Instead of barely delineated doors, there were

 

large oblong windows, and not giving on to the outside,

 

either, like any windows he had seen before. They re-

 

vealed the interior of the adjacent rooms.

 

He crept to the first one and peered through. All he

 

could see was a tangle of equipment like the interior of

 

his fish-finder, but much more complicated. He tried to

 

discern its function, and failed; then it moved of its own

 

accord, some shining arm making a connection, and

 

alarmed at this he moved on.

 

Here what he found was far more interesting. There

 

was a naked woman.

 

She was tall, and very beautiful even though her skin

 

was darker than Bracy's owna sign, according to his

 

standards, that she was of his own low class, too poor to

 

sit in the shade when the sun was hot. She lay supine on

 

a padded trolley, eyes closed. Around her, the whole

 

room was filled with mechanisms that moved slowly,

 

slowly, on incomprehensible tasks.

 

His eyes traced the curves of her shapely body: left

 

arm here, folded over her breast, right armwhere?

 

With sudden shock he realised that her right arm was

 

in the maw of one of the machines, which was moving

 

up it in precisely the same way as a suckermouth lam-

 

prey engulfed its unfortunate prey.

 

Like all poverty-line children on Cyclops, he had been

 

threatened with the vengeance of the Corps when he

 

misbehaved as a youngster. To see what he mistook for

 

some terrible torture unnerved him, and he uttered a cry

 

nf terror.

 

"What was that?" a voice said, distant but distinct, and

 

he realised abruptly that had he not been so fascinated

 

by what he had discovered he would have heard foot-

 

steps approaching. Gasping, he spun, and caught sight of

 

a man and a woman at the intersection of corridors be-

 

hind him.

 

"Who in the-?" the man said. "Hey, you!''

 

Bracy took to his heels, fleeing randomly down the

 

blank-walled passages. Behind him came the fearful pur-

 

suers, shouting, until the superior speed which terror lent

 

enabled him to outstrip them, and he came to a dark tun-

 

nel-like tube down which he dived, thinking to find

 

sanctuary.

 

"That must be the fisherboy who rescued Kolb," Lan-

 

genschmidt told Maddalena. "No one else with hair like

 

that would be in the hospital. And where the hell he's

 

managed to disappear to, I don't know. But one thing's

 

surehe was heading for master operations control, and

 

we've got to winkle him out before he breaks something.

 

See a communicator anywhere? Whatever Nole has

 

found it will just have to wait."

 

Overnight rain had made the track into a muddy

 

swamp. The patient, immensely strong yorb floundered

 

many times, its broad pads sliding on the greasy ground

 

as it strove to drag the laden cart past a particularly

 

treacherous patch. On each occasion, however, Firdausi

 

got down without complaint to break branches from the

 

surrounding undergrowth and spread them in front of

 

the wheels.

 

The reins limp and slippery in her hands, Soraya

 

found herself stirred to dim gratitude for the boy's

 

silence. Almost, she was minded to go back on her deci-

 

sion that if the Receivers of the Sick accepted her

 

mother she would leave home forever. Perhaps Firdausi

 

did indeed have her best interests at heart. . .

 

The old woman lay uncomplaining on the heap of soft

 

skins with which they had padded the crude wooden

 

cart. Occasionally her hands twitched in her sleep. It was

 

better that she should sleep, Soraya thought. Even

 

though she had had a long lucid period since her near-fa-

 

tal attack of the quakes, the disease had weakened her

 

dreadfully; she could hardly walk more than a dozen

 

steps without a fit of fainting, and her skin was shrunken

 

over her wasted flesh.

 

She had said she was pleased at Soraya's decision to try

 

and get her taken by the Receivers, declaring she had

 

been a useless burden for far too long. But was that a ra-

 

tional opinion, or the apathetic consequence of the debil-

 

itating sickness? After so many bouts of it, anyone might

 

wish to get things over and done with.

 

"Not far now," Firdausi whispered. "One more hill,

 

and we shall be on a good dry road for the rest of the

 

trip."

 

She gave a nod, but in reality scarcely heard what he

 

had said.

 

The sky was grey above; the trees around, draped

 

with their curious hair-like foliage, were grey-green and

 

still dripping from the last downpour before dawn. It

 

was a setting which exactly matched her depressed

 

mood.

 

Suppose they don't take her after all? Suppose they

 

say Fve delayed too longthat if Fd brought her to

 

them a month sooner, they could have helped her, but

 

now it's useless? I shall never forgive myself. Never!

 

The yorb drew the cart over the crest of the last hill

 

before their destination, and as Firdausi had promised

 

they found themselves on a good hard road, well beaten

 

down and with a top dressing of compacted gravel.

 

Ahead, the town loomed, much larger than the village

 

where she had spent her life: there must be almost a

 

thousand houses, she told herself.

 

It was hard to credit the stories of the ancients that

 

men had once been numbered in millions, and dwelt

 

among the shining stars. . .

 

A little distance further on, they encountered a farm

 

labourer backing a balky yorb into the shafts of a cart

 

piled high with edible roots, and he greeted them civilly.

 

When they explained the purpose of their errand, he

 

pointed towards the town.

 

"The Receivers aren't yet here, but they're expected

 

hourly, I believe. Good health attends my family, luck-

 

ily, so I made no special inquiry this time. Go to the

 

market squareyou'll find others gathered who are af-

 

flicted as you are."

 

"Many thanks," Firdausi said, and urged their yorb

 

onward.

 

Lors Heirndall's lip curled with utter contempt as the

 

first sign reached him that they were nearing the goal;

 

the smell.

 

The stupidity of these people! The dirt, the disease,

 

the lack of hygiene! How could they be regarded as hu-

 

man at all when they lived like wild beasts? If this were

 

truly man's "natural state", from which only a slow

 

process of technical evolution had lifted him towards the

 

clean bright cities of galactic civilisation, it was a won-

 

der any progress was ever achieved.

 

They seemed to lack all rational system, operating by

 

a bunch of crude uncomprehended near-superstitions:

 

boiling their drinking-water, for examplefrom here, it

 

was possible to see the plume of steam ascending over

 

the local waterworks. That was presumably a diktat im-

 

posed by one of the original refugees who had kept his

 

head in the aftermath of disaster, and would have made

 

sense in the context of a proper sanitary code. As it

 

stood, it was a pointless ritual negated by the lack of de-

 

cent drainage.

 

Still, some of the accidents of cultural evolution had

 

turned out to be advantageous: the institution of the Re-

 

ceivers of the Sick, for instance. That must have begun

 

as a form of quarantine and isolation for sufferers from

 

diseases which the rudimentary facilities of the refugees

 

could not cope with; it woTild have been hoped that

 

some at least of the patients might recover naturally, but

 

as a precaution they were removed from their own com-

 

munities to special locations.

 

The system had fallen almost completely into disuse,

 

because the staff of these quarantine areas were them-

 

selves successively wiped out by infections caught from

 

those they were trying to help. But reviving it had pro-

 

vided Heirndall and his men with an excellent cover for

 

their work.

 

And if it ever came to light what had been done here,

 

there was little chance of swift retribution. Most civilised

 

planets recognised the right of euthanasia for the incura-

 

biy sick, and provided the debate about non-interference,

 

yes or no, could be kept on the boil the Corps would

 

never dare execute summary punishment.

 

He found these reflections comforting to some

 

degreeand he needed comfort. For all his mask of dedi-

 

cated ruthlessness, Heirndall was capable of anxiety, and

 

what Rimerley had told him had been alarming, to say

 

the least.

 

It was to be hoped that his ingenious trick to provide

 

the Corps with another major headache and distract their

 

interest would work.

 

His train of attendantsriding yorbs, as he was: no

 

other transportation was known here apart from rough

 

cartsfollowed him down the hill road towards the

 

town. Behind came the wagon, covered with an opaque

 

cloth screen on wooden poles, in which were the well-

 

guarded secrets of their job. A party of local notables

 

waited to greet them at the town's edge, and after a

 

suitably grave exchange of good wishes they all

 

proceeded together to the market square.

 

We shall have to do some more propaganda here,

 

Heirndall advised himself as he scanned the horrible col-

 

lection of palsied and maimed and sickly candidates for

 

the good offices of the Receivers. We must get it through

 

their heads that an aged crone, or an ill-nourished infant,

 

is beyond hope--rwhat we can "offer to help" is typically

 

a healthy but injured late adolescent.

 

Suddenly, as he was about to turn away, he saw the

 

girl sitting with her boy-friend on the last-arrived cart at

 

the side of the square. His heart gave an uncharacteristic

 

leap. To a first glance, it appeared that what he had been

 

asked by Rimerley to locate had turned up without his

 

even looking. Of course, it would require closer exam-

 

ination to make sure, but the chance was so good he

 

found himself grinning in a fashion quite unsuited to his

 

pose in this society.

 

Nervously, Soraya waited as the Receivers made their

 

rounds of the sick. Firdauri wanted to hold her hand

 

while they watched, but she could not bear anyone's

 

touch except her mother's. The old woman was awake

 

and kept trying to lift her head, but failed.

 

At last the Receivers came to their cart, and after ac-

 

knowledging good wishes peered down solemnly at the

 

wasted body on the heap of skins.

 

"Your mother?" the leader of the Receivers inquired

 

of them.

 

"Mine," Soraya said. "Uhthis young man is a friend

 

who came with us."

 

"I see." The Receiver nodded. He had a face of such

 

sternnessnose cruelly beaked, mouth thin and

 

straightthat Soraya found it hard to recall what Mar-

 

ouz had told her: that these were good men, full of an-

 

cient wisdom and kind intentions.

 

"Come with me, please," he said abruptly, and ges-

 

tured Soraya to descend from the cart. Shivering a little,

 

she complied, and was astonished when the Receiver set

 

off at a brisk pace towards his own wagon.

 

Following, she tried to point out that it was her

 

mother and not herself who had come to seek help. The

 

man ignored her protestations, saying nothing until they

 

came to the wagon. Then he made her get up on it,

 

holding back the cloth screens to let her through.

 

Beyond, in a tiny enclosure, there was a table with

 

many strange things on it: little glass tubes, white tiles

 

marked in squares on some of which were smears of

 

blood, dishes and jars containing coloured liquids. There

 

were also two chairs, one this side, one that side of the

 

table.

 

A man in Receiver robes with his hood thrown back

 

appeared from between the hangings that concealed the

 

rear part of the wagon. He instructed her to sit down,

 

taking from a pad on the table a sharp needle which

 

he Jabbed without warning into the ball of her thumb.

 

She gave a litde cry, and the Receiver who had escort-

 

ed her uttered a few words of mechanical reassurance.

 

There followed a sort of ritual whose meaning she did

 

not understand. The blood from the needle-prick was

 

taken in a glass tube and smeared on the white tiles; then

 

some more was dropped into a )ar of coloured liquid;

 

then more still, which had to be squeezed out, was taken

 

out of sight into the back of the wagon. Incomprehensi-

 

ble sounds followedhumming like insects', a gentle clat-

 

tering, muttered comments in near-whispers.

 

The man with his hood thrown back returned and

 

gave a nod to the other man waiting at Soraya's side. He

 

had brought with him another needle, which he drove

 

into the fleshy part of her forearmonce more without

 

warning her.

 

Eyes pleading, Soraya mutely sought an explanation

 

for all this.

 

"There is nothing we can do for your mother," said

 

the man who had brought her. "We have said often and

 

often that the aged are beyond our help. Sickness must

 

mostly be overcome by the sufferer; we can best help

 

those who have youth and strength on their side."

 

Soraya's ears were full of the rushing of blood.

 

"However, by the same token, that makes you very

 

lucky," the Receiver said.

 

"What?" Though the beginnings of tears she gazed

 

Tip.

 

"You are young enough to be helped, and it is still

 

early in the course of"

 

"What?" She leapt to her feet. "I'm not sick! 1-1-"

 

The rushing in her ears gave way to ringing; the cloth

 

walls, the tall black-garbed Receivers, everything seemed

 

to swirl around like water in a stirred pot.

 

She collapsed.

 

With great apprehension Firdausi saw the Receiver

 

returning alone from their wagon. He glanced at So-

 

ray-a's mother and saw she had drifted back into coma.

 

But where was Soraya?

 

"I have good and bad news for you, young man," the

 

Receiver said, coming close.

 

"Idon't understand!" Firdausi stammered.

 

"Your girl-friend has come to us in good time, and we

 

will accept her."

 

"But!" His mind froze; his eyes sought a key- to this

 

mystery on the Receiver's face.

 

"I presume you will be entitled to accept the payment

 

we customarily make?" the black-robed man encour-

 

aged, and lifted into sight a heavy jingling bag which

 

could only contain the crude soft metal which served as

 

currency here.

 

Greed fought with amazement in Firdausi's baffled

 

brain. That bag looked heavythe size of a rich girl's

 

dowry. Nonetheless, he choked out, "But her mother?"

 

"She is old, and past our help."

 

There was a moment of silence. Then he said with a

 

surge of determination, "But Soraya is fit and well!"

 

"You think so? Then come with me!"

 

Dumb, he complied, and trailed the Receiver across

 

the square to the space before the covered wagon.

 

There, his astonished eyes met the spectacle of Soraya,

 

being carried down the steps to be laid on a pallet on the

 

ground. There was absolutely no mistaking the tremors

 

that racked her slender young body.

 

The quakes. The dread killer was afflicting her as it

 

had done her mother.

 

"In our care, there is hope for her," the Receiver was

 

saying. "If you are fond of her, you'll raise no objec-

 

tion."

 

Firdausi wasn't listening. He barely felt the tug on his

 

hand as the string of the metal-heavy bag was looped

 

around his nerveless fingers.

 

Nonetheless, since it was the only consolation he was

 

likely to be offered, he finally clutched it to him.

 

XI

 

 

AJarm lights were already flashing and bells sounding

 

discreet but insistent warnings everywhere in the hospi-

 

tal when Nole came running full pelt to join Langen-

 

schmidt and Maddalena outside the entry to master

 

operations control.

 

"I've alerted as many of the staff as I can reach," he

 

panted. "Not many, of coarsewe don't maintain a night

 

schedule normally. And this isn't the kind of emergency

 

we have drills prepared for. What exactly happened?"

 

Langenschmidt explained how they came to spot

 

Bracy on their way to )oin him in the computing office.

 

Nole gave a comprehending nod.

 

"He must have been looking in at one of the regener-

 

ation roomsprobably the end one. There's a woman in

 

there who lost her right hand in an accident at the main

 

repair dock last week. What this fisherboy was doing

 

out of his own room, thoughthat's what I can't under-

 

stand. He seemed very tired and perfectly co-operative

 

when I checked him earlier."

 

"I'll make a guess," Maddalena said sourly. "He didn't

 

want to miss his one and only chance of seeing over the

 

premises."

 

"That doesn't matter," Langenschmidt cut in. "The

 

fact is he's gone down that tunnel there, and it's taking

 

him where he can cause one hell of a mess if he's not

 

stopped quickly."

 

"Where does it lead?" Maddalena demanded.

 

"I told you, didn't I? The hospital's power-plant is

 

down there, all its automatic service controls, all its sup-

 

plies of things like activated water, oxygen, life-sustain-

 

ing nutrient flows, artificial tissue-synthesisthe whole

 

lot."

 

"Why in the galaxy, then, do you just leave the tunnel

 

open like that?" Maddalena exclaimed, astonished.

 

"Anyone likely to come this way in the normal course

 

of events is a Corpsman, and too sensible to pry into

 

dark corners," Langenschmidt grunted. "I'm going to

 

have your hide, Noleyou realise that, don't you.? Leav-

 

ing the kid in an unlocked room! "

 

"Yes, but" Nole recognised the futility of making

 

excuses, and turned away.

 

Men and women were joining them now from every

 

direction, one or two in the same self-sterilising whites as

 

Nole, the majority in casual clothing, having been routed

 

out of their quarters or called back from recreation.

 

Langenschmidt briefed them crisply on the situation.

 

Dismayed, they exchanged glances.

 

"Is there any risk of him doing deliberate damage?"

 

one of the earliest arrivals inquired.

 

"No, but he's probably in panic. He ran as soon as he

 

saw us. Any suggestions?"

 

For a moment there was silence. Then an elderly

 

woman who had apparently left the solar therapy room

 

to come here, for she wore only a muslin thigh-length

 

shift, spoke up.

 

"Not more than two people to go after him, wearing

 

respirators, and carrying cylinders of some anaesthetic

 

would be easier than trying to reason with him."

 

"Great," Langenschmidt said. "Let's"

 

"Just a moment," Nole put in. "How about the radia-

 

tion?"

 

"What?" Langenschmidt biinked. "We're on fusion,

 

aren't we? What radiation?"

 

"I have a couple of cases at the moment in need of iso-

 

tope treatment. I'm processing iodine-131 and potas-

 

sium-40. I'm not saying he will, but he might go too

 

close to the bombardment source."

 

"Marvellous," Langenschmidt said bitterly. "So we

 

don't just go after him looking like monsterswe go

 

looking like mechanical men, in armoured suits. Well, if

 

it's got to be done, it's got to be done. Volunteers?"

 

"I'll go," Nole muttered. "My fault."

 

Bracy Dyge was hardly thinking at all now. The ef-

 

fect of irrational terror had been multiplied a score of

 

times in his mind by the combined impact of the drugs

 

he had been given and the violent expenditure of energy

 

while he was fleeing from unnamable horrors. To find

 

himself among machineryseemingly without end, floor

 

to ceilingwhich at any moment might devour him as

 

the naked woman behind the window had appeared to

 

be being consumed, was more than the fragile web of his

 

self-control could stand. He was moaning and panting as

 

he stumbled around the banked machines seeking a place

 

of safety.

 

When he first came down here, it had been dark, but

 

some distant switch had been turned and now the whole

 

huge room glowed with sourceless light. Was there no

 

shadowy corner for him to skulk in?

 

Movements at the corner of vision terrified him; lamps

 

signalling on instrument panels made him jump. Even the

 

high-ozone smell, indicative of the immense power slum-

 

bering within the apparatus, was fearful to him who had

 

never before been so near a fusion plant.

 

Gasping for breath, he halted on a gleaming panel set

 

into the floor, which was warm to his bare feet, and

 

heard a noise behind him. Jerking his head around, he

 

saw two white, bulky forms like distorted human beings

 

approaching noiselessly, carrying what his fright-warped

 

eyes interpreted as guns. He screamed wordlessly and

 

ran forward again, randomly, to begin a deadly game of

 

cat-and-mouse all over the big hall.

 

It was not long before his remnants of cunning discov-

 

ered that there was one place where his pursuers were

 

reluctant to go; twice, he saw them sidle away from a

 

large black machine the body of which was a metal tube

 

as long as his ann, with thick power cables snaldng away

 

from it across the floor. Why they avoided it, he

 

conidn't guess, but as soon as he found a means of doing

 

so, he dived for this tabooed zone.

 

Bat those attending him had not bothered to remove

 

the chrome ear-ring he wore, once they were satisfied it

 

was adequately sterile. As soon as he came in range of

 

the eddy-currents surrounding the machinery, the metal

 

heated up. It was as well Cyclops was not so totally

 

backward as still to use metal tooth-fillings, for the effect