Had Nequal died without cause?

  The answer was on record; the man had been doomed before making his offer and yet, even so, he had not totally failed. Again Elge felt the awe of being faced with a mental achievement of stunning magnitude. The doomed and dying mind exerting its full potential to make a final prediction and pass it on in a single word.

  Elysius.

  Not a world but a position in time and space. One reached by the process of logical deduction, extrapolation, the assessment of all relevant data and the sifting of all probabilities.

  To the recorder he said, "Confusion was created by the initial failure to recognize the true meaning of the communication received from Nequal. It was thought the word had been won from the catatonic mind and was a clue to the source of affliction. Now it is certain the word was originated in Nequal's intelligence and comprised the answer both to the affected unit and the threat facing Central Intelligence. The key lies in the secret of the affinity twin which was stolen from the Cyclan and passed to Dumarest. The probability of his having fired on Harge was so high as to preclude any further search for his whereabouts. This, we now know, was an error of gross magnitude. The cyber sent to Elysius has learned that Dumarest is still alive."

  As Nequal, deep in his subconscious, must have suspected—why else had his intelligence worried at the problem? Locked in his vat, detached from all physical distractions, he had determined the whereabouts of the one man who could give the Cyclan the domination of the universe.

  Elge rose, the depicted galaxy springing to glowing life, touches of color illuminating the planes and contours of his face. Each cyber could become a ruler. The massed brains themselves be given physical extensions so as to seal quickly the culmination of the Great Plan. And he would be the instrument of success. He would capture Dumarest.

  One man, moving from world to world as if he were a particle driven by unpredictable forces in a wildly random pattern, but Elge knew better. For each action there had to be a reason and such actions could be predetermined and manipulated once the basic data had been gathered. Dumarest had moved on from Elysius. Had the cyber arrived a week earlier Dumarest would have been taken but there was no point in regret. He was alive and had been found and that was enough.

  Elge looked down at his hand, seeing the clenched fist, the fingers curved as if grasping the quarry. Nequal had failed. He would not.

 

 

  E. C. Tubb, The Terra Data

 

 

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