"A toy, Earl, let me show it to you."

"Thank you, Charisse, but I haven't the time. I've things to do, a passage to arrange, you understand."

"Of course." She disarmed him with her agreement. "But there are no ships just yet. In a few days the Ophir is due and the Kevore shortly afterward. They come to pick up any remaining students. You could book passage on either."

"And you?"

"I'm waiting to transship the mannek. After that I return to the laboratories on Kuldip." She lifted a hand toward the crystal. "Now let me show you my toy."

It came alive beneath her hand, light winking, fading to flare again in a kaleidoscope of shifting points, burning, transient brilliance, accompanied by a musical chiming, a brittle tintinnabulation which filled the chamber and echoed to ring again in new and more complex patterns. Light and sound. Brilliance and tinklings. Form and movement and a vague disquiet.

The unease was quashed as Charisse came to him to throw back her head and smile into his eyes with her hair alive with scintillations.

Dumarest smelled her perfume. Felt the blood pound in his veins. Felt the age-old urge dictated by nature-the force designed to perpetuate the species. Tasted blood as his teeth dug into the soft inner flesh of his cheek.

"Here, Earl." Her voice was soft as she handed him more wine. Bubbles rose in glowing emerald to burst, to be renewed, to die in eye-catching sparkles. "Drink it, my darling. It will do you good. Give you strength and help you to relax." Then, as he hesitated, "You almost died, Earl. You would have died had it not been for me. Trust me, my darling. Drink the wine. Drink."

Drink and add to the drugs already circulating in his system. The compounds which could have been added to the nutrients fed into his veins. Yet to be cautious now was to be wary too late. If this were a trap he was snared. If it were to be sprung he had no escape. Her guards, while unseen, would be close.