"Once more."

  This time it was easier. A moment of strain and then the water boiled with a great stream of released air. She drifted to the bottom as the two men swung wide the port. It moved easily; ancient science had known the use of noncorrosive alloys and inherent lubrication.

  "Earl!" Excitement made her voice shrill. "The inner port's intact. I could close the outer one and go inside. Think what this means, Earl! Everything inside is just as it was. Nothing could have been spoiled by the water. Earl!"

  Success was intoxicating. She dived towards the open port intent on getting the proof she needed, for which she had searched so long. Izane's voice was an irritating buzz.

  "Danger!" Two shapes approaching fast from the depths!" His voice rose a little. 'They are now very close!"

  "Watch it, Earl!" Shem crouched on the bottom, beams of light swinging from helmet and gun. He swore as a glistening shape lanced like a living jewel above and to one side, his darts vanishing harmlessly into the murk. "Damn it! We haven't a chance!"

  A second eel joined the first, attracted by the disturbance of the escaping air, cautious of the lights. There was no time to take up their previous positions. Veruchia was at the mouth of the port, almost inside the lock itself, and Dumarest flicked at the panel, closing it behind her. At least she would be safe beneath the protection of the thick metal.

  "Earl?"

  "Stay where you are." Dumarest threw himself towards Shem where he crouched on the bottom. Their only hope of survival was to work in harmony, each covering the other. "Watch my back," he snapped. "I'll do the same for you. Wait until they attack then fire. Don't waste darts on bad targets."

  "The woman?"

  "She's safe." Dumarest tensed as an eel lunged towards them. He raised his gun, finger on the trigger, forcing himself not to fire. The distance was too great and the chance of missing too high. As he watched the eel twisted away from his lights, the sheen of its body a ribbon of silver.

  Izane's voice echoed in his ear: "Another two shapes moving from the west. A third rising from the depths."

  "Earl!"

  "Quiet and concentrate!" There was no time for conversation, no concentration to spare. They had to sit and wait for the eels to attack, for the great heads to come directly towards them, jaws wide, eyes gleaming, then and only then to fire, sending the explosive darts down the gullet, through the roof of the mouth and into the brain.

  "To the left, Earl. The left!"

  Shem's left. Dumarest twisted to his right and saw the monster in his lights. A second shape came from one side in a concerted attack, both coming from towards the land.

  "Take the one to your left," snapped Dumarest. "And wait."

  Wait until they were too close to miss, until the heads grew huge in the cold beam of the lights and they could feel the pressure of the water sent ahead. Shem fired, his darts lancing high, lowering as he depressed the barrel of his gun. Dumarest followed, clamping his finger tight, seeing the darts hit the sloping upper jaw and vanish between the teeth. Blood, skin and shattered bone flowered in the lights and rushed towards them. The eels were dead but still had their original momentum, dying reflex adding to their speed.

  Dumarest felt the surge of water as they passed over him, the lash of the current as it threw him to one side. Shem cried out, incoherently, his lights pinwheeling in the darkness.

  Both bodies slammed against the vessel at the same time.

  "Earl! What has happened?"

  "Veruchia!" Dumarest turned so as to throw his lights on the vessel. "For God's sake, girl! Get out of there!"

  The ship was moving. The slamming impact of both dead eels had disturbed its balance, massed tons tipping the scale. As Dumarest watched it rolled a little and then, with deceptive slowness, began to slip over the edge.

  "Veruchia!"

  He dived towards it, feeling the encrustation beneath his fingers, pulling himself towards the port. Shem's voice screamed in his ears.

  "For God's sake, Earl, let's get out of here! More eels are coming!"

  Dumarest ignored the warning, kicking himself towards the port, fighting his own buoyancy as the ship gathered speed. It was a losing battle. He felt the scrap of metal as he caught the rim and then the ship had vanished, falling from beneath him as its inert mass carried it like a stone to the bottom far below.

  Chapter Seven

  It was early dawn, the canopy pearled with light, the bowl of the sky tufted with fleecy cloud. Dumarest lay watching them. He felt oddly detached as he had once felt in an arena when his foot had slipped and he had fallen waiting for death. That had been many years ago now, too many for him to remember the name of the world. A friend had saved him then as a friend had saved him now. He moved and felt the ache of his lungs, recognizing the taste of blood in his mouth.

  Selkas moved towards him as he sat upright. He looked older than Dumarest remembered, lines dragging from nose to mouth, shadows deepening his eyes. Even his voice had lost its undertone of cynical amusement.

  "How do you feel?"

  "Not good." Dumarest looked at his naked body. One leg was torn, the wound clear beneath a transparent coating. "When did you arrive?"

  "While you were below. I saw them pull you from the water."

  "And Shem?"

  "You were the only one."

  Dumarest had known it, memory was all too clear: the frantic need to escape and reach the safety of the rafts before the other predators should arrive, more drawn by the scent of blood. They hadn't made it. Shem had fired all his darts too soon. His screams had been mercifully brief.

  Another gamble, thought Dumarest bleakly. Life was full of them. Two men in the sea and one had to die. Even odds and again he had won. Shem had lost and Veruchia.

  "She should never have gone below," he said. "I should never have permitted it."

  "Could you have stopped her?"

  "Yes."

  "By force, you would have had to use that. Izane has told me of the need for haste. The shock he predicted came minutes after you surfaced. Nothing could have prevented the ship from falling over the edge."

  "She gambled for the ownership of a world," said Dumarest. "And she lost. A little time, she said, a hundred days and some money. She never thought to risk her life."

  "She isn't dead, Earl." Selkas looked like a ghost in the pearly light. "She radioed on the way down. She managed to open the inner port and the control room was intact. After all these years under the sea it was still watertight. They built well in the old days." His tone became bitter. "Perhaps too well. It would have been better, perhaps, for the plating to have collapsed beneath the pressure. It didn't. And now she's down there, locked in an ancient tomb. Waiting to die."

  Waiting? Dumarest frowned. Even if the air in the compartment had been breathable it couldn't have lasted long, not even with the air she had carried in the tanks. Already the carbon dioxide content must be at a level dangerously high. Then he remembered that the air would have lasted longer than he was calculating. She would be under normal pressure, not crushed beneath tons of water with the need to compensate.

  "No." Selkas had read his thoughts or followed the inevitable train of reasoning. "We can't save her. Izane?"

  "The ship is far too deep." Like Selkas the technician showed his fatigue. "There is a limit to what unprotected flesh can stand and the vessel is far beyond it. With appropriate armor a man might just stand a chance but he would be weighed down, helpless, and what could he do? Once the hull is opened the girl will be crushed to death. It might be possible to attach buoyancy devices to lift the vessel but, again, that would take many men and we have no armor or equipment. Getting them would take too much time; even in her present condition she would be dead long before we could begin."

  Dumarest looked at Selkas. "What does he mean?"

  "She has taken quick-time, Earl. She found some vials of drugs, old but she thought still fit for use. She knew the air could not last and she hoped—" He broke off, biting his lips. "There is no hope. She has merely delayed the inevitable and extended her agony."

  Extended it by a factor of forty-to-one. Even if the air would normally last only a few hours she had stretched it to more than a week. Yet still there wasn't enough time. It would take longer than that to construct armor, arrange for large surface vessels, find men and begin the salvage. And the predators lurking in the deeps would still make rescue impossible.

  But she was alive and waiting, hoping, perhaps, for a miracle. Dumarest looked at his hands, thinking of others skeined with black, of a face similarly marked, of the lovely lines of a body beautiful in its natural adornment —thinking too of the child within the woman. She had given him her trust and he had failed her. If he hadn't shut her in the airlock… if he had taken a little more care in killing the eels… if he had insisted that she stay on the surface…

  "Earl." Selkas gripped his arm. "Stop tormenting yourself, man. It wasn't your fault."

  Dumarest shrugged off the hand. "Get me the Ven brothers. Hurry!"

  "What—"

  "Get them!"

  He dressed and stood looking down at the assembled boats—the fast raft Selkas had ridden, the others loaded with equipment they could not use. The rising sun gilded them with touches of red and gold, the sea with green and amber. Against the water the sound of voices was thin and distant.

  To the hard-faced men who later boarded the raft he said, "I want you to catch a decapod for me. A big one. Can you do it?"

  One of the twins said, "Sure. But we'll need some equipment and it won't be cheap."

  "I want it alive. Stunned."

  "That won't be easy," said the other. "Those things are hard to handle."

  Dumarest was curt. "You've done it before. If you haven't, find those who have. Izane will help you to track one down and you can use our equipment. And you'll be well paid. I want one caught, stunned and waiting by the time I get back." To Selkas he said, "now take me to the city. Fast!"

  * * *

  The director of the Dradean biological laboratory said, "I understand from Selkas that you have a problem you wish to discuss. I trust that it is important; there are experiments which need my attention."

  He was old, like his desk, the chairs, the curtains at the window. The building itself showed signs of neglect and Dumarest could guess the rest: an institution lacking financial support; a home of science out of favor with those in power at present—or those who had been in power. The late Owner had left his mark. The equipment would be old, the personnel few, materials scarce. But it was all that was available.

  Dumarest said, "I need your help, director. You are the only man on Dradea who can give it to me. I understand that you are familiar with the life sciences and I want you to give me the use of your facilities, your training and your skill."

  Amplon frowned, uneasy at the unusual request. He had anticipated a demand for a subtle drug with which to capture the favor of a woman or something to give amorous strength to a male. Such requests were common, so low had the laboratory fallen.

  "You can help me? You do have the skill?"

  Amplon said, dryly, "As a young man I studied on Atin and later on Orge. I was the head of my class and was permitted to instigate my own projects. Yes, I think you can say that I have a little skill in my profession."

  "I was referring to the technicians available."

  "I have a very clever young man. In fact he is brilliant. If things were different he would now be a director of his own institution. However, that is beside the point. Just how can I help you?"

  Dumarest reached for paper and pencil and drew fifteen symbols in random order. "Are these familiar to you?"

  Amplon studied them. "They appertain to the life sciences?"

  "Yes."

  "Then they are the symbols for molecular units. I am familiar with the coding. The construction of such units is a normal part of any biological laboratory." He looked curiously at Dumarest. "How is it that you are conversant with the life sciences?"

  Dumarest ignored the question. "Are you equipped to manufacture these units?"

  "Yes, but—"

  "Then please do so and please do it as fast as you possibly can."

  "You didn't let me finish," said Amplon. His dignity was offended. "This isn't a shop or factory where you can demand instant service. The equipment necessary for the construction of these units is at present engaged on a series of experiments. It will require time to complete them and more time to do as you request." The director paused, then added, "That is, if I agree to cooperate at all. As yet you have given me no reason why I should."

  Time! Dumarest looked at the window, bright with sunlight. It had taken hours to get to the city from where the ship had fallen and it would take as long to get back. More time to construct the units and even more to assemble them. How to convince the director of the need for haste? The truth? He could have no love for the present situation and must know what to expect if Montarg should inherit. The truth, then, but not all of it.

  Amplon looked puzzled as Dumarest told him the facts.

  "But I can't see how these units could possibly help."

  "Isolated, no, but formed into a chain they might." Dumarest forestalled the obvious question. "I am not going to tell you how and I am not going to tell you the order in which they must be assembled. All I want you to do is to construct them. I shall assemble them myself."

  "You have the skill?"

  Dumarest remembered the long hours he had spent learning the necessary manual dexterity, the longer months spent at a handful of laboratories where the resident technicians had considered him a dabbling amateur.

  "Yes," he said. "I have the skill."

  "Redal will help you if you need assistance. He is the young man I spoke about. I shall put him in charge of the project."

  "And you will start at once? Selkas will meet all expense," urged Dumarest. "Perhaps that isn't important to you; if not, remember this. Once Montarg inherits, your skills will be devoted to the breeding of beasts for the arena. This building could become a training school for fighters. If you and your profession hope to survive on Dradea then you dare not waste a second."

  Once decided, Amplon was a man of action. "I shall commence at once. Give me twelve hours and—"

  "Twelve?"

  "It will take that to construct the units. They need time to grow and formulate their characteristics and they must be checked to determine whether or not they have developed undesirable traits." Amplon rose from behind his desk. "Even with speeded techniques it cannot possibly be done in less. Twelve hours."

  Dumarest glanced through the window at the sun. It was almost noon. Allowing time for the assembly and the return, it would be as late before he could be back where the ship rested on the bottom of the Elgish Sea. If the Ven brothers did their job it would leave less than a day before the hundred allowed by the Council had expired.

  Time enough if Veruchia remained alive. If she had found the proof she needed. If nothing went wrong.

  Selkas was waiting outside. He fell into step as Dumarest strode down the shabby corridor, the sunlight harsh on his face as they stepped outside. A bench stood beside a small pool in which floated waxen flowers. A fish leapt from the surface as they sat, golden, dripping rubies.

  "Earl?"

  "If Amplon isn't a liar and if he does as he promised, Veruchia can be saved."

  Selkas drew in his breath. He had followed Dumarest blindly, obeying his orders for want of a better course of action, but he could not understand what a biological laboratory had to do with salvaging a vessel lying on the bottom of an ocean.

  He watched as another fish sprang from the water, vanishing in a glittering spray of droplets.

  "Earl, I must know what you intend to do. I can't sit here, doing nothing, while Veruchia waits for death."

  "There is nothing you can do, Selkas."

  "Do you think I don't know that? For God's sake, Earl. If there is hope let me share it!"

  Dumarest sensed his pain. Quietly he said, "You love her?"

  "Not in the way you mean, but yes, I love her. To me she is the most important thing on this world. I would give all I possess to see her standing in the sun, alive and well, smiling calling me by name." Selkas fought to regain his composure, conscious that the mask, had slipped, the armor behind which he faced life, had slipped. "Please, Earl. If there is a chance let me know."

  Dumarest hesitated, weighing the need for secrecy against the other's need for reassurance. It would be too cruel to remain silent.

  "There is a chance," he said abruptly. "On a world remote from Dradea I came into possession of a special technique devised in a hidden laboratory. It is the construction of an artificial symbiote named an affinity-twin. It consists of fifteen molecular units and the reversal of one makes it either dominant or subjective. Injected into the bloodstream it nestles in the base of the cortex, meshing with the thalamus and taking control of the entire nervous and sensory systems. In other words the being with the dominant half of the affinity-twin takes over the body of the host which has the subjective half. Need I tell you what that means?"

  Complete domination; the intelligence of one man placed in the body of another—or the intelligence of a man being placed in the body of a beast. Selkas drew in his breath.

  "The decapod?"

  "Yes."

  "But will it work?"

  If it didn't Veruchia would die and Dumarest with her. He looked at his hands, the bare fingers of the left, thinking of the ring, the love-gift of Kalin. Kalin with the green eyes and flame-red hair. Brasque had given her the secret he had stolen from the Cyclan and died. She had given it to him and died—not the shell she had worn but the real woman whose personality had given it life. The ring had held the secret of the correct sequence in which the units should be assembled. The ring was gone now but the secret remained locked fast in his mind—

  —The secret the Cyclan would give worlds to possess because, with it, they would own the galaxy: their puppets in every position of power; the mind of a cyber in every ruler and person of influence. No wonder they hunted him with growing desperation.