"Not so," corrected Jerome quickly. "She could be married with children of her own. The line will continue."

  "But not on Sard! Not on the world we have won with our blood and pain!" Centon straightened, controlled himself. "And she may not have children yet," he pointed out. "She may never have them. She may die or be killed or rendered sterile. I want to find her. I must find her," he insisted. "I will pay anything to the man who can tell me where she is. The man," he added slowly, "or the organization."

  Jerome was sharp. "Are you trying to hire the services of the Church?"

  "I am a rich man," said Centon obliquely. "But I come to you as a beggar. Help me, Brother. Ask your monks to look for my daughter. Please."

  The monks who were on every habitable world. Eyes and ears and sources of information. In the slums and the palaces of those who ruled, the homes of the wealthy and the streets of the poor. Everywhere the message of tolerance needed to be sown, which was everywhere in the galaxy.

  Thoughtfully the monk pursed his lips. "You have a likeness of the girl? Some means by which to identify her?"

  Centon plunged his hand into an inner pocket and laid a wafer of plastic on the desk. Brother Jerome looked at the flame red hair, the pale, translucent skin, the green eyes and generous mouth. A panel gave details as to height, weight, measurements, vocal and chemical idiosyncrasies.

  "Her name is Mallini, Brother. You will help me to find her?"

  "I promise nothing," said the High Monk. "But we shall do our best."

  Chapter Four

  ELMO RASCH CHECKED the time and spoke to the woman. "Now."

  She hesitated, trembling on the brink of irreversible action, then stiffened as she summoned her resolve. The reward was too great to be dismissed. Against renewed youth, death was a thing without terror. She rose and stepped toward the door of the cabin. Without glancing at the man she stepped outside into the passage. The steward sat in an open cubicle facing the lounge, a book open on his lap. It was of a type designed to educate and entertain those who were illiterate. The steward was not uneducated but, among spacemen, certain volumes held a special attraction. He looked up as Sara approached, and touched a corner of the page. The moving illustration of naked women faded, the whispering voice died. Casually he closed the book.

  "Could I help you, my lady?"

  "I feel ill," she said. "Sick. Have you something to reestablish my metabolism?"

  She watched the movement of his eyes as, unconsciously, he glanced to where he kept his hypogun. It would be a common model loaded with quick-time for the benefit of those traveling High but it would serve her purpose.

  "It would not be wise to travel Middle, my lady," protested the steward. "The journey is long and there will be complications."

  Too many complications. More food and not the easily prepared Basic. The need for entertainment, books, tapes, films perhaps. The need for constant attendance and she had the look of a real harridan. And, more important, the captain would be far from pleased. It was the steward's job to keep things simple. Complications would cost him an easy berth.

  "Look, my lady," he suggested. "Why don't you—"

  His voice died as her fingers closed around his throat in a grip learned from her third lover. Deliberately, she squeezed the carotids, cutting off the blood supply to the brain. A little would result in unconsciousness, too much in death. Unconscious men could wake, cause trouble. It was better to make certain he died.

  The hypogun in her hand, she looked back at her victim. He sat slumped in his chair. Time was precious but little things were important. She opened his book and rested it on his lap.

  Naked woman twined in sinuous embrace to the accompaniment of a whispering drone of carnal titivation.

  * * *

  Elmo looked at her face and nodded his satisfaction. "You did it. Good. You have the hypogun?"

  She lifted it, put it into his hand. He lifted his own and shot her in the throat.

  She felt nothing, not even the blast of air forcing the drug it carried into her bloodstream, but abruptly things changed. The lights dulled a little, small sounds became deeper pitched, surroundings took on a less rigid permanency. The latter was psychological.

  Elmo stood facing her, the hypogun in his hand, motionless.

  Motionless and utterly at her mercy.

  He had made a mistake in neutralizing the quick-time in her blood before speeding his own metabolism. She could kill him now. She could do anything she wanted. She could do—nothing.

  He had insisted that she kill the steward to prove herself, to blood her hands. He had treated her first in order to show his trust or to point out her weakness. To kill him was now to double her fault.

  Reaching out she took the hypogun from rigid fingers, maneuvering it with care to avoid broken bones and torn flesh. She aimed, triggered, watched as he jerked back to normal-time existence.

  "Tough," he said, and shook his head as if to clear his senses. "I don't—" He broke off and concentrated on what had to be done. He ejected a vial from, the steward's instrument and replaced it with one from his pocket. "Just to make sure." He handed Sara the hypogun. "Now get moving and inject everyone you meet with quick-time. As long as we stay normal we'll have the edge." He stood looking at her. "Well?"

  "We'll be apart," she said. "Out of touch. What if something goes wrong?"

  "Nothing can go wrong." He stole time to be patient despite the screaming need for haste. "We've been over this a dozen times. Now move!"

  He watched as she vanished from the cabin and down the passage toward the lower region of the ship. The scars writhed on his face as he watched her go. He who had once commanded the lives and destinies of a hundred thousand men to now be dependent on one old woman. And yet her desperation made her the equal of any. He could have done far worse.

  Turning, he ran from the cabin toward the upper regions of the ship where the officers guided the vessel through the tortuous rifts of space.

  * * *

  Dumarest opened his cabin door and looked at the girl standing outside. Her eyes were wide, anxious.

  "Earl, something is wrong."

  He stood back to let her enter. "Wrong with you? The ship?"

  "The ship, I think; it isn't very clear. I was lying down thinking of us. I was looking ahead, trying to—" She shook her head. "Never mind what I was looking for, but things were all hazy and dim almost as if there were no future at all. And that's ridiculous, isn't it, Earl? We're going to be together for always, aren't we?"

  "For a while at least," he said. "All the way to Solis if nothing else."

  "You promise that?" She gripped his hand and pressed, the knuckles gleaming white beneath the pearl of her skin. "You promise?"

  He was startled by her intensity. "Look ahead," he suggested gently. "You don't have to take my word for anything. You are able to see the future. Scan it and satisfy yourself."

  She swallowed, teeth hard against her lower lip. "Earl, I don't want to. Suppose I saw something bad. If I'm going to lose you I don't want to know about it. Not for certain. That way I'll always be able to hope. It isn't nice knowing just what is going to happen, Earl. That's why I'd rather not know."

  "But you looked," he pointed out. "You tried."

  "I know, but I couldn't help myself. I wanted to be sure but, at the same time, was frightened of knowing the worst. Does that make sense, Earl?"

  Too much sense, he thought bleakly. That was the price she had to pay for her talent. The fear it could bring. The temptation to use it, to be sure, against the temptation not to use, to retain hope. And how long could the desire simply to hope last against the desire to know for certain?

  "You said something about the ship," he said thoughtfully. "That you thought something might be wrong. Would be wrong," he corrected. "What did you see?"

  "Nothing too clear," she said. "Faint images, a lot of them, stars and—"

  "Stars? Are you sure?"

  "Yes, Earl, but we're in space and surely that's natural."

  Wrong, he thought bleakly. From a ship in space stars were the last thing anyone would expect to see. Not with the Erhaft field wrapping the cocoon of metal in its own private universe and allowing it to traverse the spaces between worlds at multi-light speeds. Stars could not be seen beyond that field. If she saw them it could only mean that, somehow, the field had collapsed. But when? When?

  "Look," he said, suddenly worried. "Look now. Concentrate. Tell me what you see an hour from now."

  "I can't, Earl. I told you. I don't know just how far I can visualize. Not with any degree of accuracy. A few seconds, even a few minutes, but after that I can't tell with any certainty. That's what frightened me. We aren't together and we should be. We should be!"

  "Steady!" He gripped her shoulders, holding her close, trying to dampen her incipient hysteria. "The images were faint, weren't they?" He waited for her nod. "That means they showed an alternate future of a low degree of probability. Now be calm. We'll try an experiment. Think of this cabin. Concentrate. What do you see?"

  She closed her eyes, frowned. "The cabin," she said. "Empty."

  "Clear?"

  "Yes, Earl."

  "Try again. Aim further. Still the cabin?"

  She nodded. "Still empty and very clear."

  He looked around, frowning. This wasn't getting them very far. If only there had been a calendar clock hanging on the bulkhead instead of a mirror it might have helped. The mirror?

  "Try again," he said. "Concentrate on the mirror. Can you see a reflection in it?"

  "No."

  "Not even the door? Is it open or closed?"

  "Open."

  So they had left the cabin and gone somewhere, leaving the door open. But when? She could be scanning a few minutes from now or even across the space of months to when the compartment waited for a new occupant.

  "Earl," said Kalin suddenly. "Something's happening. There's a light in the corridor outside."

  He turned, saw the closed door, realized that she was still looking ahead, telling of what was yet to come.

  "A light," she continued. "It's getting brighter and—" She screamed, horribly, mouth gaping so that he could see her tongue, the warm redness of her throat. Her hands lifted, clamped to her eyes. "Earl! Earl, I'm blind! Blind!"

  "No," he said. "You can't be."

  She moaned from behind the shield of her hands.

  "Kalin, look at me. Damn you, look at me!" Dumarest tore the hands from her face, stared into her eyes. "It hasn't happened yet," he said slowly, giving emphasis to each word. "Whatever it was is still to come. So it can't have affected your sight. You're not blind. Do you understand? You're not blind, Kalin. You can't be."

  "Earl!"

  "Look at me," he insisted. "What did you see? What happened. Tell, me. Damn you, girl, tell me!"

  His harshness was a slap across the face. She looked at him, wonderingly, then shuddered.

  "There was a burst of light," she said. "Hard, cold, greenish blue. It was terrible. It burned through my eyes and seared my brain. It wiped out the whole universe." She began to cry. "I mean that, Earl. It wiped out everything. Me, you, everything. There was nothing left after that. Nothing at all!"

  * * *

  A spark of fire, minute, almost imaginary against the dull metal of the lock and then slowly, almost imperceptibly, the panel began to slide open. Sara halted it with the pressure of a hand.

  Time, she thought. I must have time. Time to ease the pounding of her heart, to allow over-tensed nerves to relax—to allow the sick horror born when the lock had failed to immediately respond to the key to fade a little. She thinned her lips as she thought of the key. Elmo had provided it at the cost of a clerk for a year. If she had known nothing of electronics the door would have remained sealed. As it was the thing had barely worked after her third adjustment.

  Had Elmo intended for her to be caught at the door?

  Suspicion clawed at her mind. If the mercenary intended to sell her out, take a reward for warning the crew of intended piracy— She tasted the bile rising in her throat, the released adrenaline stimulating anger and fear. Then the philosophy of a lifetime worked its calm. If he had sold her out they would die together. And, with the decision, came logical thought.

  Elmo would not betray her. Like herself he had too much to lose. They must trust each other now or go down in ruin.

  She tensed, removed her hand, allowed the panel to slide open. Below lay the interior section of the vessel. The place where the cargo was stored, the rations—the cold region with its glaring ultraviolet tubes and barren sterility. Down here, also, were the power-stacks, the atomic generator and accumulators—the protected muscles of the ship.

  Protected, but not by men. There were telltales, warning devices, automatic governors, sensory scanning devices giving three-ply preventative coverage. There would also be an on-duty engineer, his assistant and the handler for those traveling Low. He came to the door, blinking, eyes widening as he saw the woman.

  "My lady!" He lifted a hand in protest as she stepped through the opening. "You cannot—"

  He froze as the spray hit his palm, dropping into quick-time, turning almost into legendary stone. Quickly Sara closed the panel behind her. It could not be locked but closed, it could delude; open, it could not. She walked through the cold place, not looking at the ranked caskets, the dim figures of their occupants beneath the frosted transparencies. A door led to a passage, a cubicle, a man asleep beneath a dream-helmet, smiling as he enjoyed vicarious pleasure provided by the taped analogue. She left him, still asleep, still smiling, but no longer able to enjoy a dream speeded beyond appreciation.

  She too was smiling as she went in search of the third man. It had been so easy. So very easy. Elmo had been proved correct right down the line. Spacemen were overconfident, too certain that no one would dare to take what they commanded, so sure that a few locked doors would keep their passengers safely confined.

  The doors were mainly psychological, she realized. A strong man, a strong woman could burst them down and gain the freedom of the vessel. The rest was simplicity itself to any accustomed to violence—if they knew what to do with their gain.

  A hand gripped her wrist. Fingers dug into the flesh at the back of her neck. A voice grated harshly in her ear.

  "That's just about far enough. Now drop the hypogun before I break your wrist."

  She gulped and opened her hand. The instrument made a soft thudding as it landed on the plastic coated floor. She rolled her eyes and caught a glimpse of a thin, intent face, a tattooed insignia. The engineer had been waiting to one side of an opening. Desperation dictated her reaction.

  "Let me go!" she croaked. "You're hurting me. If you don't let me go this instant I'll report you to the captain."

  Amazement slackened his grip on her neck.

  Sara turned to face him. "Are you the engineer? Do you realize that something is wrong? The door is open and a man is lying on the floor. There's blood all over him. I—" She swayed, a frail, painted old woman suddenly devoid of strength.

  Contemptuously he released her neck, stooped to pick up the dropped hypogun. One shot and the old bag would be in storage ready for the captain to decide her fate.

  He screamed as her elbow rammed into his kidney, a wash of pain filling his eyes with red hazes, his mouth with the taste of blood. He straightened as she kicked the hypogun out of his reach and screamed again as her thumb found his eye. Blinded, almost insane with pain and rage, he reached out, found her body, struck and felt bone snap beneath the edge of his palm. He struck again as her fingers closed on his carotids, again as oblivion rose about his reeling brain, a third time as it closed over his awareness.

  Coughing, spraying blood from punctured lungs, Sara staggered from the slumped body of the engineer and sank to her knees.

  Three, she thought. Three times the bastard hit me. Where did he learn to hit like that? I should have stayed away from him, let him roar, found the spray and let him have it. Instead I lost my head and closed in. Got within reach and let him smash my ribs, drive them into my lungs, a bunch of splintered knives to rip out my life.

  I was careless, she told herself. Stupidly overconfident. He must have been warned about the door opening. A register would have told him— those in the upper regions too—and all he did was to wait for me to walk into his trap.

  Elmo too? Had he also walked into a trap? Was he, like her, tasting his own blood, waiting for approaching death?

  They'll fix me up, she thought. They'll find me and freeze me and make me almost as good as new. And then, when I'm all healthy again, they'll hold ship's court and I'll be evicted with ten hours' air. A suit and enough dope to make every damn second a nightmare of agony. Me and Elmo. The both of us. What a hell of a way to end.

  But there was a better way. Cleaner. The power source was down here and she knew a little about electronics. Enough to do what had to be done. Enough to blow the guts out of the ship and find a clean ending.

  Painfully, coughing, leaving a trail of blood on the sterile floor, she crawled down toward the muscles of the ship.

  * * *

  "Now!" Dumarest pressed hard on the ampule, driving it against his skin, triggering the mechanism so that the drug it contained entered his blood. Beside him Kalin followed his example. She gasped as it took effect, her metabolism suddenly jerked into normal speed.

  "Earl!"

  "Are you all right?" He was anxious; the shock could sometimes prove fatal.

  "Yes."

  "Good. Now try again." He waited as she closed her eyes and tried to isolate a moment of future time. In his chair the steward looked at his whispering book with dead, unseeing eyes. Irritably Dumarest switched off the page. "Anything?"

  "No. Just the glare as before."

  "Any fainter images?"