"It exists," he said. "I know. I was born on it."

"On a planet where the streams run with wine and the trees bear fruits to satisfy every need?" She made no attempt to mask her contempt. "Where no one ever grows old and there is no pain or hurt or sorrow and where everything is eternally wonderful? You were born there-and you left?"

"Earth isn't like that, Dephine. It is old and scarred with ancient wars. And yes, I left." He told her how. Stowing away as a mere boy who had more luck than he deserved. A captain who, instead of evicting him, had allowed him to work his passage and had kept him with him until he died. When, alone, the boy had moved on, ship after ship, world after world, always deeper and deeper towards the heart of the galaxy. To regions where even the very name of Earth had become a legend.

"You mean it," she said. "You really believe that you come from Earth. But, Earl, if you did you must know how to get back if that's what you want. Is it?"

"Yes."

"Then all you have to do is to find a ship going that way. You-" She broke off seeing his expression. "No?"

"No."

"But why not? Surely-"

"No one knows the coordinates," he said. "No one I have ever met knows where Earth is to be found. It lies towards the edge of the galaxy, that I know, but exactly where is something else."

"The almanacs?"

"Don't list it," he said bitterly. "You called it a world of legend and. that's what most people think it is. The rest haven't even heard the name and smile when they do." He looked down at his hands, they were clenched, the knuckles white beneath the taut skin. "Smile or think they are being taken for fools."

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I didn't know. But what is so important about one planet? Space is full of worlds, why yearn for one?"

"I was born on it."

"And so, to you, it is home." She looked at him, her eyes gentle. "Home," she whispered. "Where else can anyone ever be happy? The fools who travel are only running from what they hope to find and, by the time they realize it, it is too late. I hope you find your world, Earl. Your world and your happiness and, perhaps, your woman. There is a woman?"

"No."

"Not one with red hair?" She touched her own. "You like this color, Earl?"

"Should I?"

"Mercenaries like the color of blood. But, I forget, you are a mercenary only by accident. Odd to think how chance has thrown us together. Chance or fate, Earl? Were we destined to meet before each of us even first saw the light of day? Some would have us think so. To them everything is foreordained and nothing we can do or attempt can alter our destiny one iota."

"A comforting philosophy," he said.

"Comforting?" She looked at him, frowning, then smiled. "Of course, to believe that is to absolve oneself from all blame. A failure cannot be blamed for his failure-it is his fate to be so. A cruel man or a weak one are not responsible for their actions. A wanton woman simply follows her destiny. A harlot obeys the dictates of something she cannot avoid. All of us are pawns moved on a cosmic board by some unknown player. You believe that?"

"No."

"Nor I. Life is a struggle and the rewards go to those with the strength to take them." She moved to where the decanter stood on a low table and poured wine into goblets. "Let us drink to that, Earl. Let us drink to success and to happiness."

He barely touched the glass to his lips, watching as she drank. Impatiently she set down her empty glass and stepped towards the window. A cool breeze blew through the opening, catching her hair and sending it to stream over her shoulders. Her profile, etched by the light, was finely chiseled as if carved from stone.

Dumarest studied it; a face which bore the marks of breeding as his own body bore the scars of a hard-learned profession. One now masked with cosmetics, the hair a flaunted challenge, the nails at variance with the hard, clean pattern of bone, the lithe shape of the body. A woman who for some reason had acted the harlot and could have played the part in full. A weakness or a deliberate intent?

She said, without turning, "Why do you look at me like that?"

"I was thinking. You spoke of rewards. Just how large will my share be?"

"You are getting your life-isn't that reward enough?"

"Is it?"

"No." She turned to face him, hands lifted as if in appeal or in the opening gesture of a caress. "No! Life alone is never enough. Always there is more, for unless there is, we are no better than beasts in a field. Our senses were given us to use; our ambitions to be fulfilled. How well you understand, Earl."

"My share?"

"You will have no cause to complain, that I promise." Then, as he made no comment, she added, "I am the Lady Dephine de Monterale Keturah. My family has a reputation. Never have we broken our given word. With us it is an article of faith. I-" She broke off and shrugged. "How can I convince you? If you knew of us, Earl, you would have no doubts. And, if you want proof, then it can be given." She stepped towards him, her hands lifting to fall to his shoulders, her body coming close to press against his own. "Proof that I care for you, Earl. That I would never let you down."

Dumarest said, "It's getting late, Dephine."

"So?"

"We have other things to do."

Chapter Three

Mist came with the dawn, a coiling, milk-white fog which blurred detail and muffled sound so that shouts turned into mumbles and shapes loomed to vanish almost at once. A state of affairs which would not last-the heat of the rising sun would quickly clear the air-but while it lasted the mist could be used.

"It's begun." Dephine glanced at a watch and slipped it into a pocket of the uniform she wore. One of black and maroon, the colors of Atlmar's Legion. Dumarest wore another. "Now remember, Earl, you do nothing unless there is need. If someone gets suspicious or acts out of line then you go in and take care of him." Her voice hardened a little. "I mean that. Don't be gentle. Kill rather than wound. There's too much at stake to be squeamish."

"And you?"

"I'll be at the ship. Luck!" Then she was gone and he was alone.

Quietly he walked along the side of the warehouse leading towards the field.

Now, for the first time, he had a chance to escape. He could hide himself deep in the city, make camp in the country, even wait until the military occupation was over. But Hoghan was a small world and in order to leave it he would have to return to the field. A convenience for anyone who could be waiting for him. A trap it was best to avoid.

He froze as a man coughed and boots crunched past in the mist. A patrolling guard or a field-worker heading for home. The noise faded and he resumed progress, one hand trailing against the wall as a guide.

The plan to rob Hoghan had been worked out by a military mind and had all the advantages of simplicity. A plan based on the fact that soldiers obeyed orders and did so without question. Instructions had been issued to load a selected cargo from a warehouse to a waiting vessel. The problem lay only in those engineering the theft being able to hide their complication-the reason for the woman, of course. She had been the 'front'.

The brain? Major Kan Lofoten. Perhaps working with someone equally ambitious. But Dumarest suspected the man to be working alone. He was too shrewd to take unnecessary chances and the plan, once decided on, would need little to put into operation.

Why include himself? As an insurance, the woman had said. A precaution. It was possible she believed that, but Dumarest wasn't so sure.

He paused as the wall fell away from beneath his fingers, turned to face right and moved a score of paces; halting as the bulk of a warehouse loomed up before him. One which should have been open by now with men busy moving crates and bales. Instead the doors remained sealed and Dumarest frowned. Something, apparently, had gone wrong.