Chapter One

AT NIGHT the streets of Clovis were twisting threads of shadowed mystery faced by high walls and shuttered windows, looping and curving as they followed the dictates of some ancient plan. The city itself was a place of brooding silence broken only by the sough of the wind from the plains beyond, the discordant chiming of prayer bells suspended from the peaked and gabled roofs. Pale lanterns hung like ghostly stars, their ineffectual light augmented by the haze from the landing field and the great floodlights of the workings to the north where men and machines tore into the planetary crust for the wealth buried deep; all was reflected from the lowering clouds in a dim and artificial moonlight.

Dumarest paused as he reached an intersection, eyes watchful as he studied the streets curving to either side. They appeared deserted but that meant little; men could be lurking in the black mouths of doorways, the shadowed alleys, ready to leap out and kill any who passed. He would not be the first to be found robbed and murdered in the light of the rising sun.

Cautiously, keeping to the middle of the road, he headed down one of the streets, his boots making soft padding noises as he trod the cobbled way. It was late; an entrepreneur had brought in a troupe of dancing girls, little things of graceful movement, doll-like in ornate costumes, their hands fluttering in symbolic gestures as they pirouetted to the beat of gong and drum, and entranced by their charming innocence he had lingered to see the final performance. Now he was beginning to regret his self-indulgence. Clovis was an old city steeped in ancient tradition, resentful of the new activity which threatened its brooding introspection.

And, in the winding maze of streets, it was all too easy to get lost.

Dumarest reached the end of the street, turned left and was twenty yards from the corner when he heard the pound of running feet coming from behind. Immediately he sprang to one side, turning, pressing his back against a wall, his right hand dipping to lift the nine-inch blade from where it nestled in his boot. A vagrant beam caught the polished steel, shining from the razor edge and the needle point, the betraying gleam vanishing as, recognizing the man who loped towards him, he sheathed the knife.