"All right," he said heavily. "For you."

  And felt the wonderful softness of her lips pressed against his own.

  * * *

  The monk stood beside the door leading into the main entertainment center on Chron. Pete's Bar was enjoying the reaction of men who have watched pain and suffering, agony and death, and were celebrating the fact that they were still alive, still able to enjoy themselves.

  "Alms, brother."

  Dumarest halted, the girl at his side. He peered into the cowl which shadowed Brother Vesta's thin features. Light from the buildings opposite lit the hollow cheeks, the gentle eyes. From Pete's came a burst of song, the rattle of glasses and the stamping of many feet. A woman laughed, high, shrill. A second joined her, a third.

  "Be charitable, brother," said the monk quietly. "Tonight there are those who will die unless they are given warmth and food."

  "I know," said Dumarest. "I could be one of them."

  "You jest, brother?" The monk looked at the pair. "You both seem to lack nothing."

  "Appearances are deceptive, Brother," said Dumarest dryly. "We have clothes but nothing else." He looked past the monks toward the building. "I need a stake," he said. "Money with which to make a wager. Will you trust me, Brother?"

  "We promise to repay," said Kalin. She was warm beneath her cloak, her helmet. Impatiently she removed it and let the chill night wind blow through the flaming mane of her hair. Reflections made green shimmering pools of her eyes, the light glowed from her translucent skin. "You can keep my helmet if you like," she suggested. "My cloak. I don't need them."

  "You will," said the monk quietly. "On Chron the nights grow bitter as winter nears."

  "And in the winter?"

  "Without such protection you could easily freeze." His eyes burned from the shadow of his cowl. "Your companion could explain more easily than I."

  "Stranded travelers have little fat," said Dumarest evenly. "Traveling Low keeps them thin. Without body-fat to act as insulation the cold bites deep. But we are lucky. We have both been traveling High." He looked at the monk. "I was not jesting when I asked for a stake," he said quietly. "I will return it ten times over. A good investment, Brother."

  The monk hesitated, his eyes on the girl's hair. The wind pressed the cowl tight against his cheek as he turned to look at Dumarest. "Your name, brother?"

  Dumarest told him. The girl added. "And I am Kalin of Solis. Will you keep my helmet and cloak?"

  "No," said the monk. His hand slipped within his sleeve, returned bearing coins. "Here, brother." He handed them to Dumarest. "Good fortune."

  A man checked them as they entered the warmth of the bar, eyes hard as he looked for signs of poverty or desperation. They displayed neither. Retaining her outer garments so as to hide the rough tunic beneath, Kalin followed Dumarest to the gaming tables where men clustered around a wheel and dancing ball. The minimum stake was too large for their resources.

  "Drinks, sir and madam?" A waiter sidled to stand before them. Dumarest shook his head.

  "Not yet. I am looking for a game I find amusing. Highest, lowest, man-in-between. Always before drinking, I consult the Goddess of Luck."

  The waiter understood; gamblers were superstitious. "Over to the left, sir. In the far corner." He followed them with his eyes, wondering why the woman should wear cloak and helmet in the warmth of the bar. He shrugged. Women, who could predict them? But, even so, it was odd.

  "The waiter is suspicious," said Dumarest as they crossed the floor. "He is watching us. We must act quickly." He reached the table and stood looking at the cards. The dealer shuffled, cut, stacked and cut the deck into three.

  Kalin touched her forehead as if easing an irritation.

  "Center stack," said Dumarest. He put down all his money. "Match or set stake?"

  "I'll match it," said a man. He set money on the left-hand stack. Another took the right. Dumarest won.

  Again the dealer shuffled and cut. Employed by the house, he took little interest in the game which was run mostly as a sop to those with little money and limited imagination. Kalin touched the helmet above her left ear.

  Dumarest backed the winning deck.

  And again.

  The fourth time he picked up his winnings he shook his head. "This isn't going to last," he said. "I've got a feeling."

  Kalin yawned, moved casually away, stared at a pair of bouncing dice.

  Dumarest lost. And won. Then lost again.

  He left the table, looked for the waiter and found him staring with interest at the girl. Ordering drinks, Dumarest joined her where she watched a man trying to match a previous throw.

  "Give me some money, darling," she said. "All of it that he makes his point the hard way," she said. The dice rolled, settled, showed a pair of threes.

  "The lady wins!" The stickman checked her bet and pushed over coins.

  Dumarest shook his head as she gave it to him. "You keep it. You seem lucky tonight."

  He followed her to the spinning wheel. A rainbow splotched a numbered cloth and colored balls spun in eye-twitching confusion. A bell chimed.

  "Bets!" called the spinner.

  Coins thudded to the table.

  "Red, green, blue, four, six, nine," panted a man. He was the kind of gambler the bar loved, backing an impossible combination in the hope of winning astronomical odds.

  Kalin shook her head. "No," she decided. "I can't make up my mind fast enough. I guess I don't know the combinations as well as I should." They moved on to another wheel, a ball, nine compartments. "This is better."

  The odds were lower but the chances of winning greater, and accumulating at five to one she quickly hit the limit. Hit, stayed for a few spins, then deliberately lost a time or two.

  Dumarest ordered more drinks.

  "The lady seems lucky tonight, sir," said the waiter. "I have been watching. Good fortune attends her."

  "And myself." Dumarest turned to look at where a touch of red glowed above a cloak striped in green and yellow. As he watched she impatiently removed the helmet.

  The waiter made a sound of appreciation. "Such hair!"

  "As soft as silk to the touch," said Dumarest. His voice held a leer. "A strange prize to find on such a world. That is why I claim myself fortunate."

  He moved away and watched as Kalin won more money. Casually he turned, eyes moving over the rim of his glass as he sipped his drink. Lowering it, his elbow collided with the girl, the contents of the glass dashing over his clothes.

  "Out," he said as she stooped to help him wipe away the sticky fluid. "Lose a couple of times, try another table and lose again. Small amounts but steady. Win once and then quit."

  "But, Earl we can't go wrong!"

  "You've attracted attention. The housemen are watching. Get out before they guess you are a sensitive."

  Outside with a wind blowing cold down the street she said, "We could have won a lot more, Earl."

  "You're greedy," he said. "We did well. Be satisfied that they assumed you had a lucky streak. If nothing else, we've retained the opportunity to try again." Halting before the impassive figure of the monk, Dumarest poured coins into the bowl he carried for the collection of alms. It was a score the amount that he had borrowed. "My thanks to you, Brother. We were fortunate."

  Brother Vesta looked at the money, at the man and at the girl. "You are generous, brother. Many will have reason to be thankful."

  His eyes were brooding as he stared after the couple as they walked down the street.

  Chapter Nine

  BERTRAM ARSINI, the mad artist from Xoltan, had built the statue and, finding it unsatisfactory, had put out his eyes and ears so that he might no longer be tormented by the sight and sound of unattainable beauty. The High Monk of the time had not been so critical. He had ordered the statue to be placed in an appropriate setting and now, a millennium later, the work had yet to be equaled. Brother Jerome paused, looking up at the magnificent representative of the human spirit. A woman, the external mother, stood on a ball of writhing flame. Her face was upraised, her hands lifted, her body a composite of the ten most beautiful women of the artist's era. She was youth and beauty and mature understanding. The girl with whom to play at love, the mother to whom to turn, the goddess to worship.

  A thousand shades of pigment stained the crystal of the hundred-foot construction. Ten thousand components filled the solid-state interior. Radiation powered the electronic devices which kept the surface clean, bright and shining. At night it glowed with a warm, inner light. At certain periods the crystalline fabrication distorted, producing pizeo-electric signals causing the entire fabrication to vibrate in abstract, entrancing melody of pure tonal sequences.

  A time-bell chimed from over the gardens and the High Monk continued on his way. Past ponds filled with luminescent fish, flowers of a dozen planets, bushes bearing succulent fruits. The gardens of Hope were as famous as the statue.

  Brother Fran met him as he made his way toward the building. The secretary fell into step beside his superior, hands clasped within the wide sleeves of his robe, head bent as he apparently studied the intricate mosaics of the path.

  Jerome sighed. Brother Fran had a way of communicating without words. "You have something to tell me," he said. "What is it?"

  "I do not wish to interrupt your meditation, Brother."

  "I wasn't meditating," said Jerome. "I was simply walking and dreaming of the past and of things to come. That statue, for example. Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps it holds a deeper significance than we realize? The woman could be representing not the eternal mother but the human race itself. The human race bursting free from the planet of its origin to reach out and touch the stars. To touch them and settle on them and to spread and grow."

  "An old legend," said Brother Fran quietly. "In Arsini's time it was, perhaps, a little stronger than it is now. But I do not think that he intended any such thing. He was an artist but he was also a mathematician and a man of logic. I find it hard to believe that he could have ever taken such a legend seriously."

  "Because of logic?"

  "Yes. After all, how could it ever have been possible for all the members of the human race ever to have originated on one small world? They breed, true, but the diversity of types, the skin-coloring and racial characteristics—" He shook his head. "If the legend is true, it must have been a very strange world, Brother."

  "Perhaps." Jerome didn't care to press the point. "My hour of relaxation over," he reminded. "What do you wish to tell me?"

  "We have news of the girl."

  "The one Centon Frenchi claims is his daughter?"

  "That is the one. She is on Chron."

  Jerome frowned, looking at the mosaics but not seeing them, his mind busy with speculation.

  "There can be no doubt as to the identification," continued the secretary. "She gave her name as Kalin of Solis. I checked her physical characteristics with the biometer and her coloring substantiates her claim. Only on Solis do they have such a peculiar shade of hair. They breed for it. It is unique to the planet."

  "You go too fast, Brother," said Jerome mildly. "A girl who apparently originated on Solis is on Chron. She, also apparently, matched the identification given us by Centon Frenchi of Sard. There appears to be an inconsistency. If she was born on Solis how can she be the girl Frenchi is seeking?"

  "Her maternal grandmother came from Solis," said Fran evenly. "We have already discussed the possibility of her being an atavist. As for the rest, her name and planet, she could easily have lied."

  Jerome frowned. He must be getting old to overlook the obvious, but there were so many details, so many things to bear in mind, so many decisions to make.

  "I have prepared a message for Centon Frenchi," said the secretary. "Informing him of what we have discovered. With your permission I shall send it."

  "Not yet." The High Monk looked up at the sky, at the statue, as a ripple of music sighed in crystalline perfection. "There seems to be no need for undue haste. Is the girl alone?"

  "There is a man with her. Earl Dumarest. Our information on him is favorable, though he does not belong to the Church. He appears to have reason to hate the Cyclan."

  "The Cyclan," murmured Jerome. "I wonder if—?"

  Brother Fran was impatient. "You still do not trust Centon Frenchi, Brother? I fail to see your reason."

  "Perhaps I have none," admitted the High Monk. "I could even be mistaken—what human is infallible? But there is no need for haste. And I think," he added, "that we should know a little more than we do."

  "About the girl?"

  "No, Brother," said Jerome quietly. "About Solis."

  * * *

  Kramm slammed his hand down on the table with force enough to make the goblets jump from the boards. "How long?" he demanded. "How long must we wait before the cyber tells us just what to do in order to reverse the downward swing of our fortunes?"

  Komis poured a little wine, sipped, stared thoughtfully into the glass. His brother was impatient, but not wholly without cause. Mede seemed to be working on some devious plan of his own. He had taken long journeys up and down the coast, visiting other farms and establishments, sectioning the area and gathering an apparently unrelated mass of data. Yet who could tell how the cyber went about his work?

  Beer gurgled as Kramm manipulated the jug. Only he and the Master of Klieg remained at the table; the others had long since gone to their rooms. Outside a wind gusted from the sea, cold, a harbinger of coming winter. Within the great hall a fire leaped from an open grate. Kramm's goblet made a rapping noise as he set it on the polished wood.

  "He was right about one thing," he said gloomily. "The thren are getting out of hand. Fifteen mares within a week. I've had the men clear the more distant pastures and concentrate the herd. I thought we should double the beak bounty," he added. "It might make the men a little more eager to make a kill."

  "I agree—but only if they are willing to pay for their cartridges," said Komis. "The fire rate per kill is already too high. Double the bounty and it will get higher." He smiled a little. "Not everyone is as good a shot as you, my brother."

  "And they will take wild chances," admitted Kramm. "Fill the air with lead and hope a thren runs into a bullet." His hands tightened into fists. "What we need is a flier loaded with dust. The cyber was right in that if in nothing else."

  "A cyber is never wrong." Komis rose, walked down the hall to stand before the dancing colors of the fire. Kramm joined him, thicker-set, younger, a pea from a similar pod. Their faces glowed with colored shadows. "Tomorrow I want to ride out and select the best of our beasts. Reduce down to one third of our present holding. Save the breeding stock, naturally, but the rest must go for sale."

  The inhalation of Kramm's breath merged with the hiss of unburned gases from a crack in one of the logs. "Are you serious?"

  "I am."

  "Is this the cyber's plan?" Kramm turned from the fire, eyes greenly surveying the empty hall. "Where is he anyway? Back or off on one of his journeys?"

  "In his room or somewhere about the house." Komis fell into step with his brother as Kramm paced the length of the hall. "The plan is my own. If we cannot contain the depredations of the thren, and the cyber says we cannot, then there is little point in working to provide food for the birds. Winter is approaching. That means we must supply shelter and fodder for the beasts. The thren will increase their attacks."

  "Destroy them," said Kramm bitterly. "Quickly, before they destroy us."

  "How? With radioactives?" Komis shook his head. "There could be a better way. Professor Helman at the university is working on a bacteriophage which could provide the answer. A selective strain of mutated disease which will safely destroy the thren and no other kind of life. I have promised him the use of a dozen horses for developing his serums."

  "And the cyber?"

  Komis looked at his brother. "I do not understand."

  "Will he be willing to let you make your own plans, go your own way?"

  "Cyber Mede is a guest," said the Master of Klieg. "I shall be grateful for any help he is pleased to offer, any suggestions he may care to make. But there is only one master of this place and it is not the cyber."

  Kramm blew out his cheeks. "I wanted to hear you say that. But the sale. Is it wise? Prices now are not at their best."

  "A living animal will fetch more than a dead one," said Komis evenly. "And we need the money. We need all the money we can get."

  "For Keelan?"

  "Who else?"

  Komis turned from his brother and left the hall. A passage led to his study, the book-lined room where he conducted the affairs of the estate. Here were the records and rolls, the genealogical charts, the breeding details traversing past generations of both animals and men. A radio vision communicator stood against a wall, incongruous against the rough stone, the woven drapes, but normal enough on this world where everything which could be made by hand was so constructed. Economy dictated the houses, the furnishings, the very clothing the people wore; necessity the radiovision communicator, the electric lighting, the availability of a flier.

  Files lay open on the desk, their neat figures telling a too familiar story. And yet how could they economize? How?

  Retrenchment wasn't enough, Komis knew. Economies would only stave off the inevitable. Making the resources of a week last ten days would not solve the problem. They needed to earn more, not make do with less.

  But, again, how?

  Surely the cyber would know.

  * * *

  Komis found him in the place with the open side, the patio with pillars facing onto the sea, the open area filled with the hum and drone of the wind, the scent and sound of the ocean as it tore at the rocks below.

  Lights shone from the rooms behind, the one where the attendant sat, the one from which Komis emerged. He stood, looking at the night, then saw a shifting gleam of scarlet, the glitter of the Cyclan seal emblazoned on the cyber's robe. Mede's cowl shadowed his face so that only the scarlet was visible, a red shadow against the dark of the sky. Then he moved and the light turned him into a living flame.