The Dumarest eBook Collection

by E.C. Tubb

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Space Opera

Synopsis

This collection brings together the first six titles in E. C. Tubb's epic SF saga, Dumarest, containing: The Winds of Gath Derai Toyman Kalin The Jester at Scar Lallia

Release date: November 30, 2012

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 805

Sample

The Dumarest Saga:

1: The Winds of Gath (1967)

2: Derai (1968)


3: Toyman (1969)


4: Kalin (1969)


5: The Jester at Scar (1970)


6: Lallia (1971)


7: Technos (1972)


8: Veruchia (1973)


9: Mayenne (1973)


10: Jondelle (1973)


11: Zenya (1974)


12: Eloise (1975)


13: Eye of the Zodiac (1975)


14: Jack of Swords (1976)


15: Spectrum of a Forgotten Sun (1976)


16: Haven of Darkness (1977)


17: Prison of Night (1977)


18: Incident on Ath (1978)


19: The Quillian Sector (1978)


20: Web of Sand (1979)


21: Iduna’s Universe (1979)


22: The Terra Data (1980)


23: World of Promise (1980)


24: Nectar of Heaven (1981)


25: The Terridae (1981)


26: The Coming Event (1982)


27: Earth is Heaven (1982)


28: Melome (1983)


29: Angado (1984)


30: Symbol of Terra (1984)


31: The Temple of Truth (1985)


32: The Return (1997)


33: Child of Earth (2008)


The Cap Kennedy (F.A.T.E.) Series (E.C. Tubb writing as Gregory Kern)

1: Galaxy of the Lost (1973)


2: Slave Ship from Sergan (1973)


3: Monster of Metelaze (1973)


4: Enemy Within the Skull (1974)


5: Jewel of Jarhen (1974)


6: Seetee Alert! (1974)


7: The Gholan Gate (1974)


8: The Eater of Worlds (1974)


9: Earth Enslaved (1974)


10: Planet of Dread (1974)


11: Spawn of Laban (1974)


12: The Genetic Buccaneer (1974)


13: A World Aflame (1974)


14: The Ghosts of Epidoris (1975)


15: Mimics of Dephene (1975)


16: Beyond the Galactic Lens (1975)


17: The Galactiad (1983)


Alien Dust (1955)


Alien Impact (1952)


Journey Into Terror (originally published as Alien Life (1954, rev 1998))


Atom War on Mars (1952)


Fear of Strangers (first published as C.O.D. – Mars (1968))


Century of the Manikin (1972)


City of No Return (1954)

Death God’s Doom (1999)

Death is a Dream (1967)

Dead Weight (first published as Death Wears a White Face (1979))

Escape into Space (1969)

Footsteps of Angels (2004) (previously unpublished work written c.1988)

Hell Planet (1954)

Journey to Mars (1954)

Moon Base (1964)

Pandora’s Box (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)

Pawn of the Omphalos (1980)

S.T.A.R. Flight (1969)

Stardeath (1983)

Starslave (2010) (previously unpublished work written 1984)

Stellar Assignment (1979)

Temple of Death (1996) (previously unpublished work written 1954)

Fifty Days to Doom (first published as The Extra Man (1954))

The Life-Buyer (1965, 2008)

The Luck Machine (1980)

World in Torment (originally published as The Mutants Rebel (1953))

The Primitive (1977)

The Resurrected Man (1954)

The Sleeping City (1999)

The Space-Born (1956)

The Stellar Legion (1954)

To Dream Again (2011)

Venusian Adventure (1953)

Tide of Death (first published as World at Bay (1954))

E. C. Tubb (writing as Arthur MacLean)

The Possessed (revised version of Touch of Evil (1957))

E. C. Tubb (writing as Brian Shaw)

Argentis (1952)

E. C. Tubb (writing as Carl Maddox)

Menace from the Past (1954)

The Living World (1954)

E. C. Tubb (writing as Charles Grey)

Dynasty of Doom (1953)

The Extra Man (first published as Enterprise 2115 (1954) & then as The Mechanical Monarch (1958))

I Fight for Mars (1953)

Space Hunger (1953)

The Hand of Havoc (1954)

Secret of the Towers (originally published as The Tormented City (1953))

The Wall (1953)

E. C. Tubb (writing as Gill Hunt)

Planetfall (1951)

E. C. Tubb (writing as King Lang)

Saturn Patrol (1951)

E. C. Tubb (writing as Roy Sheldon)

The Metal Eater (1954)

E. C. Tubb (writing as Volsted Gridban)

The Green Helix (originally published as Alien Universe (1952))

Reverse Universe (1952)

Planetoid Disposals Ltd. (1953)

The Freedom Army (originally published as De Bracy’s Drug (1953))

Fugitive of Time (1953)

He woke counting seconds, rising through interminable strata of ebony chill to warmth, light and a growing awareness. At thirty-two
the eddy currents had warmed him back to normal. At fifty-eight his heart began beating under its own power. At seventy-three
the pulmotor ceased helping his lungs. At two hundred and fifteen the lid swung open with a pneumatic hiss.


He lay enjoying the euphoria of resurrection.

It was always the same, this feeling of well-being. Each time he woke there was the surge of gladness that once again he had
beaten the odds. His body tingled with life after the long sleep during which it had been given the opportunity to mend minor
ills. The waking drugs stimulated his imagination. It was pleasant to lie, eyes closed, lost in the pleasure of the moment.


‘You okay?’

The voice was sharp, anxious, breaking into his mood. Dumarest sighed and opened his eyes. The light was too bright. He lifted
a hand to shield his face, lowered it as something blocked the glare. Benson stood looking down at him from the foot of the
open box. He looked the same as Dumarest remembered, a small man with a puckered face, an elaborate fringe of beard and a
slick of black hair, but how much did a man have to age before it showed?


‘You made it,’ said the handler. He sounded pleased. ‘I didn’t expect trouble but for a minute back there you had me worried.’
He leaned forward, his head blocking more of the light. ‘You sure that you’re okay?’


Dumarest nodded, reluctantly recognising the need to move. Reaching out, he clamped his hands on the edges of the box and
slowly pulled himself upright. His body was as expected, nude, bleached white, the skin tight over prominent bone. Cautiously
he flexed his muscles, inflated the barrel of his chest. He had lost fat but little else. He was still numb for which he was
thankful.


‘I haven’t lost a one yet,’ boasted the handler. ‘That’s why you had me worried. I’ve got a clean score and I want it to stay
that way.’


It wouldn’t, of course. Benson was still fresh at the game. Give him time and he would become less conscientious, more time
and he would grow careless, finally he wouldn’t give a damn. That’s when some of his kind thought it cute to cut the dope
and watch some poor devil scream his lungs raw with the agony of restored circulation.


‘I’m forgetting,’ he said. He passed over a cup of brackish water. Dumarest drank it, handed back the cup.

‘Thanks.’ His voice was thin, a little rusty. He swallowed and tried again. This time he sounded more like his normal self. ‘How about some Basic?’


‘Coming right up.’

Dumarest sat hunched in the box as Benson crossed to the dispenser. He wrapped his arms about his chest, conscious of the
cold, the bleakness of the compartment. The place resembled a morgue. A chill, blue-lighted cavern, the air tainted with a
chemical smell. A low place, shapeless with jutting struts and curved beams, harsh with the unrelieved monotony of unpainted
metal.


There was no need for heat in this part of the ship and no intention of providing comfort. Just the bare metal, the ultraviolet
lamps washing the naked coffin-like boxes with their sterilising glow. Here was where the livestock rode, doped, frozen, ninety
per cent dead. Here was the steerage for travellers willing to gamble against the fifteen per cent mortality rate.


Such travel was cheap—its sole virtue.

But something was wrong.

Dumarest sensed it with the caution born of long years of experience. It wasn’t the waking. He had gained awareness long before
the end of the five-minute waking cycle. It wasn’t Benson. It was something else—something which should not be.


He found it after he had moistened the tips of his fingers and rested them lightly against the bare metal of the structure.
They tingled with the faint but unmistakable effect of the Erhaft field. The ship was still in space.


And travellers were never revived until after landing.

Benson returned with a pint of Basic. A thin vapour rose from the cup, scientifically designed to stimulate the appetite.
He smiled as he passed it over.


‘Here,’ he said. ‘Get this down while it’s still warm.’

The fluid was sickly with glucose, laced with vitamins, thick with protein. Dumarest swallowed it with caution, taking small
sips, careful of his stomach. He handed Benson the empty container and stepped from the box. A drawer beneath held his clothes
and personal effects. He dressed and checked his gear.


‘It’s all there,’ said Benson. His voice was hollow against the echoing metal. ‘Everything’s just as you left it.’

Dumarest tightened his belt and stamped his feet in their boots. They were good boots. A wise traveller looked after his feet.

‘I wouldn’t steal anything from you people.’ The handler was insistent on his honesty. ‘I don’t blame you for checking your
gear but I wouldn’t steal it.’


‘Not if you’ve got any sense,’ agreed Dumarest. He straightened, towering over the other man. ‘But it’s been tried.’

‘Maybe. But not by me.’

‘Not yet.’

‘Not ever. I’d never do a thing like that.’

Dumarest shrugged, knowing better, then looked at the other boxes. He crossed to them, checking their contents. Three young
bulls, two rams, a solid block of ice containing salmon, a dog, a plethora of cats—the general livestock cargo of any starship
travelling at random and trading in anything which would yield a profit. Animals but no people—despite all the empty boxes.
He looked at the handler.


‘There were other travellers wanting passage at your last port of call,’ he said evenly. ‘Why only me?’

‘You came early.’

‘So?’

‘We had a last-minute charter. The Matriarch of Kund and party. You were already in freeze or you’d have been dumped out with
the other passengers and freight.’ Benson crossed to the dispenser and refilled the empty cup. ‘They took the whole ship.’


‘Big money,’ said Dumarest. The only way to break the Captain’s Bond was to buy off anyone who could claim prior right. ‘Didn’t
she have a ship of her own?’


‘She did.’ Benson rejoined Dumarest. ‘I heard one of our engineers talking and he said that their drive was on the blink.
Anyway, the Old Man took the charter and we left right away.’


Dumarest nodded, taking his time over the second pint. A spaceman could live on four ounces of Basic a day and he was beginning
to feel bloated. Benson sat close, his eyes on the big man’s face. He seemed eager to talk, to break the silence normal to
his part of the ship. Dumarest humoured him.


‘A matriarch, eh? Plenty of women to liven things up.’

‘They’re travelling High,’ said Benson. ‘All but the guards, and they don’t want to play.’ He hunched even closer. ‘What’s
it like being a traveller? I mean, what do you get out of it?’


His eyes were curious and something else. Dumarest had seen it so often before, the look of the stay-put to the mover-on.
They all had it and the envy would grow. Then, as the prison of their ship began to close in, that envy would sour into hate.
That’s when a wise traveller waited for another ship.


‘It’s a way of life,’ said Dumarest. ‘Some like it, some don’t. I do.’

‘How do you go about it? What do you do between trips?’

‘Look around, get a job, build another stake for passage to somewhere else.’ Dumarest finished the Basic and set down the
empty cup. ‘Broome is a busy world. I won’t have too much trouble finding a ship heading for somewhere I haven’t yet seen.’
He caught the handler’s expression. ‘We’re going to Broome? The place you told me was the next port of call?’


‘No.’ Benson retreated a little. Dumarest caught his arm.

‘I booked for Broome,’ he said coldly. His hand tightened. The handler winced. ‘Did you lie?’

‘No!’ Benson had courage. ‘You booked the usual,’ he said. ‘A passage to the next port of call. I thought it was Broome. It
was Broome until we got that charter.’


‘And now?’

‘We’re three days’ flight from Gath.’

Close your eyes, hold your breath, concentrate. On Gath you can hear the music of the spheres!

So claimed the admen and they could have been telling the truth—Dumarest had never wanted to find out. Gath was for tourists
with a two-way ticket. It was an ‘attraction’ with no home industry, no stable society in which a traveller could work to
build the price of get-away fare. A dead, dumb, blind-alley of a world at the end of the line.


He stood at the edge of the field looking it over. He wasn’t alone. Down past the levelled area, crouched in the scoop of
a valley running down to the sea, squatted a huddle of ramshackle dwellings. They reflected the poverty which hung over them
like a miasma. They gave some shelter and a measure of privacy and that was all.


Further off and to one side, on some high ground well away from the danger of the field and the smell of the camp, sat a prim
collection of prefabricated huts and inflatable tents. There sat the money and the comfort money could provide—the tourists
who travelled High, doped with quick-time so that a day seemed an hour, a week a day.


Those in the camp had travelled like Dumarest—Low. Those who rode Middle stayed with the ships which were their home. They
would stay, so Benson had said, until after the storm. Then they would leave. Others would return for the next storm. On Gath
that was about four months. An age.


Dumarest walked from the field, thrusting his way past a handful of men who stared at the ships with hopeless eyes, feeling
his boots sink into the dirt as he left the hardened surface. It was hot, the air heavy, the humidity high. He opened his
collar as he entered the camp. A narrow lane wound between the dwellings, uneven and thick with dust. It would lead, he knew, to a central
area—common to all such encampments. He was looking for information. He found it sooner than he hoped.


A man sat before the open front of one of the dwellings. It had been clumsily built from scraps of discarded plastic sheeting
supported by branches, weighted with rocks. The man was bearded, dirty, his clothing a shapeless mess. He stooped over a boot
trying to mend a gaping rip in the side. He looked up as Dumarest approached.


‘Earl!’ The boot and scraps of twisted wire fell aside as he sprang to his feet. ‘Man, am I sorry to see you!’

‘Megan!’ Dumarest’s eyes probed the dirt, the beard, the shapeless clothing. ‘As bad as all that?’

‘Worse.’ Megan stooped, picked up his boot, swore as he thrust a finger through the hole. ‘Just arrived?’

‘Yes.’

‘How was the handler on your ship?’ Megan was too casual. ‘A decent type?’

‘Couldn’t be better. Why?’

‘Decent enough to trust a man?’

‘He isn’t a fool.’ Dumarest sat down before the hut. ‘You know the rules, Megan. No cash, no ride. How long have you been
stuck here?’


‘Over a year.’ Viciously he flung down the damaged boot. ‘Four times I’ve seen the ships come in and four times they’ve left
without me. If I don’t get away soon I won’t be able to get away at all. Even now I’d be taking more than a normal risk.’


He was optimistic. Beneath the dirt Megan was gaunt, his clothes hanging from a skeletal frame. For him to travel Low in his
condition was suicide. He looked enviously at Dumarest.


‘You’re looking fit,’ he said. ‘For a man who’s just landed.’

‘I had luck,’ said Dumarest, and smiled at the memory. ‘The handler stepped out of line and got himself disciplined. He woke
me three days early for the sake of company. He wanted someone to talk to, I let him talk.’


‘And got well fed for listening.’ Megan scowled. ‘I bet he wanted to know all about being a traveller.’

‘You know?’

‘It happens all the time. Damn yokels! They can’t understand that it takes guts to operate on your own. They get to hate us
for being what they can’t and they vent their spite any way they can. Damn them all to hell!’


He sat down, lacking the strength for sustained anger.

‘I got here by mistake,’ he said quietly. ‘A lying handler said the ship was bound for Largis. I didn’t know he’d lied until
I was outside the ship. At first I wasn’t too worried. I’d heard about Gath and was curious. I wanted—well, never mind that.
I even had a little money to tide me over before settling down to earn a stake. That’s when it hit me.’


‘No work,’ said Dumarest. ‘No loose money lying around. I know how it is.’

‘You were always smart,’ said Megan dully. ‘I remember you talking about it that time on Shick. The worlds a traveller had to stay away from if he didn’t want to get stranded.
Well, what good did it do you?’


‘None,’ said Dumarest flatly. He explained how he came to be on the planet. Megan nodded, moodily examining his boot.

‘I saw the party land. Big, well-armed, enough stuff to stock a store.’

‘They’ve got money,’ agreed Dumarest. ‘Maybe they came here to hunt.’

‘Then they’re wasting their time.’ Megan spat his disgust. ‘There’s no game on this planet—not here at least. And people don’t
visit Gath to hunt.’


‘Then the guns must be for something else.’ Dumarest was thoughtful. ‘A big party, you say?’

‘That’s right. They didn’t look like a bunch of tourists and didn’t act like ones. More like a military detachment than anything
else. Female guards everywhere, tough as nails and as ugly as sin. They’ve set up their tents in Hightown.’ Megan picked up
the scraps of wire and began to fumble with his boot. His hands were shaking. ‘I offered to carry some of their stuff. One
of them pushed me aside. That’s how I ripped my boot. I tripped and almost busted an ankle.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Nice people.’


‘I know the type.’ Dumarest reached out and took the boot and wire. ‘Here, let me do that.’

Megan didn’t object. He sat watching, trying to pluck up his courage. ‘Earl. I …’

‘Later,’ said Dumarest quickly. ‘After I’ve finished this you can show me where I can get us something to eat.’ He didn’t look at the other man, concentrating on the
repair. ‘Now let me see,’ he mused. ‘The problem is to lash it tight enough not to yield but leave it flexible enough to give.’

But that wasn’t the real problem.


There was no cycle of night and day on Gath. Always the swollen ball of the sun glowered over the horizon, tinting the leaden
sea the colour of blood. To the east there was darkness, cold, mysterious. Between light and dark ran a strip of bearable
temperature but only here, on this waterlogged world, did it touch both land and ocean. The accident of distribution had
helped to make the planet unique.


‘A dying world,’ said a voice. It was soft, carefully modulated. ‘Angered at the knowledge of its inevitable end. A little
jealous, a little pathetic, very much afraid and most certainly cruel.’


‘You are speaking of Gath?’ Seena Thoth, ward of the Matriarch of Kund, stayed looking through the window set into the wall
of the tent. There was no need for her to turn. She had recognised the voice. Synthosilk rustled as the tall figure of Cyber
Dyne stepped to her side.


‘What else. My Lady?’

‘I thought it possible you spoke in analogy.’ She turned and faced the cyber. He wore the scarlet robe of his class; beneath
its cowl his face was smooth, ageless, unmarked by emotion. ‘The Matriarch is also old, perhaps a little afraid, most certainly cruel—to those who oppose her will.’


‘To be a ruler is not an easy thing, My Lady.’

‘It can be worse to be a subject.’ She turned from the window, her face pale beneath the black mound of lacquered hair. ‘I
saw one before we left Kund, a man impaled on a cone of polished glass. They told me that his sensitivity to pain had been
heightened and that he would take a long time to die.’


‘He was a traitor, My Lady. The manner of his death was chosen so as to serve as an example to others who might be tempted
to rebel.’


‘By your advice?’ She tightened her lips at the inclination of his head. ‘So. You oppose rebellion?’

‘I do not oppose, I do not aid. I take no sides. I advise. I am of value only while I remain detached.’ He spoke his credo
in the same soft, even modulation he would use to announce the arrival of battle, murder, and sudden death.


She hid her repulsion as she heard it. It was instinctive, this dislike of hers for the cyber. As a woman she was proud of
her sex and the power it gave. She liked to read desire in the eyes of men but she had never read it in the eyes of Dyne.
She would never read it. No woman ever would.


At five he had been chosen. At fifteen, after a forced puberty, he had undergone an operation on the thalamus. He could feel
no joy, no hate, no desire, no pain. He was a coldly logical machine of flesh and blood, a detached, dispassionate human robot.
The only pleasure he could know was the mental satisfaction of correct deduction.


‘It seems to me,’ she said slowly, ‘that your logic is at fault. To make a martyr is a mistake. Martyrs make causes.’

‘Not unless there is a cause to make,’ he corrected. ‘The man was a paid assassin. He knew the risk he ran and accepted it.
The opposition on Kund, My Lady, is not of the masses. It is common knowledge that the rule of the Matriarch has been benevolent.’


‘That is true.’

‘It is also well known that she is no longer young and has still not named her successor.’

She nodded, impatient with him for labouring the obvious.

‘That is why the site of the execution was chosen so carefully,’ he murmured. ‘It was no accident that the man was impaled
before the residence of the Lady Moira.’


The suggestion was outrageous. Seena both knew and liked the woman. ‘You say that she would employ an assassin? Ridiculous!’

Dyne remained silent.

‘The Lady Moira is rich and powerful,’ she admitted. ‘But she is a woman of honour.’

‘Honour, My Lady, can mean many things to many people.’

‘But assassination …’

‘Is an accepted political instrument. It is feared that the Matriarch is no longer at her prime. There are those who are concerned
about the succession. That’, he added, ‘is why I chose the place of execution.’


‘I know,’ she said impatiently. ‘Before the residence of the Lady Moira.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Whose house is next to the Halatian Embassy!’


Dyne made no answer, his face bland, his eyes enigmatic, but Seena was no fool. She had lived too long in the hot-house atmosphere
of court intrigue not to be able to see the obvious. Kund was wealthy, Halat was not. Many thought that the Lady Moira had
a better claim to the throne than the Matriarch. Gloria was old.


But to assassinate her?

‘You misunderstand, My Lady,’ said Dyne in his soft modulation. ‘The assassination was not aimed at the Matriarch. It was
aimed at yourself.’


A bell chimed from an inner room of the complex of inflated plastic which was their temporary home. A curtain swept aside
and Gloria, the Matriarch of Kund, stood in the opening. She was very old but as a tree is old, grown tough with age and battle,
hard and determined and drawing strength from that determination. Two of her guards attended her, hard-faced, mannish women,
dedicated and fantastically loyal. She waved them aside as she moved towards a chair.


‘I can manage. I’m not so old that you have to carry me about!’

Her voice, she knew, was too thin, too querulous but it was something that couldn’t be helped. Not even the cosmosurgeons
could revitalise delicate tissues which had aged too much. But it was a fault which, normally, she managed to control.


‘All right.’ she snapped at the guards as she sat down. ‘Wait outside—out of earshot.’ She waited until the curtain had fallen behind them. They would not go far, perhaps not
far enough, but she could trust their discretion. She looked at Dyne. ‘Well, did you tell her?’


‘Yes, My Lady.’

‘And she was scared?’ She chuckled as the cyber made no answer. ‘She was scared. So was I the first time I realised that someone
wanted to kill me. That was a long time ago now. A long time ago.’ She was repeating herself, she realised, another attribute
of age. Irritation made her cough.


‘My Lady!’ Seena swept toward her, hovering at her side. ‘Can I get you something? A drink? Anything?’

‘Relax, girl, and don’t fuss.’ Gloria swallowed, easing her throat. ‘You can’t run away from unpleasant facts by forcing yourself
to be busy with trifles. It’s time you grew up and faced reality. Someone wanted you dead. Can you guess why?’


‘No, My Lady.’

‘You can’t even venture a guess?’

‘Not that, My Lady—I don’t believe that anyone would want to assassinate me at all.’

‘Then you’re a fool!’ Irritation made the old woman sharp. ‘Take my word for it that they did. Now can you guess as to why?’

‘Yes, My Lady.’ Her eyes were very direct. ‘To eliminate me from the possibility of succession.’

‘Good!’ Gloria smiled her pleasure. ‘You’re not as stupid as I hope some people think. Now you can get me the pomander.’

She sat back, relaxing in the chair as she sniffed the ball of golden filigree stuffed with exotic spices. She had always
loved the scent of spice but the pomander held more than that. Liberated by the warmth of her hand microscopic particles of
chemical magic rose from the ball to be absorbed by the mucous membranes of nose and mouth. Beneath their influence her body
grew fractionally young again. Later she would pay for the demands made on her metabolism. Now it was important that she should
not appear a senile old woman with a fogged and aimless mind.


‘Tell me,’ she said gently. ‘What made you think that you could be considered as my heiress?’

‘I don’t think it,’ said the girl. ‘You asked me to give you a reason why I should be killed. I gave you one—but I don’t believe
that I was the target of the assassin.’


‘You were,’ snapped the old woman. ‘Later you shall see the proof. Someone, somehow, guessed something they shouldn’t and
took steps to eliminate what they must have considered to be an obstruction. I would like to have those responsible in my
power.’ Her voice deepened, reflecting something of the cruelty of which she was capable. ‘Do you know why you are a possible
choice?’


Seena nodded, her face pale.

‘Do you know what it means to be chosen?’

‘Yes, My Lady, I do.’

‘I wonder.’ Gloria looked at her ward with probing eyes. She was a beautiful female animal. Perhaps too beautiful—but she
would not have had her otherwise. ‘Listen, girl,’ she snapped. ‘And understand. A Matriarch cannot be a slave to the emotional stress stemming
from her reproductive organs. There is a cure—but it means the end of natural succession. A Matriarch can never be a mother.
You see the problem?’


‘Yes, My Lady. Without a natural heir you have to choose your successor. In this you have advice.’ Seena gestured towards
Dyne. ‘It is a matter of selecting the one best to rule.’


How simple the girl made it seem! The scent from the spice filled the room as the old woman lifted the pomander to her nostrils.
This was no time for impatient anger.


‘Best—for whom? For the great houses that wait like hungry dogs ready to snap up a bone? For the masses who have nothing but
faith? For the cabals who seek power?’ She shook her head. ‘The one who takes my place must not be a tool of any such group.
She must be without affiliation and misplaced loyalty. Above all she must be strong enough to hold the throne.’


‘And,’ reminded Dyne softly, ‘she must be able to live long enough to collect it.’

‘Right!’ Gloria leaned forward in her chair, her eyes burning at her ward. ‘Ten times in the past seven years I have seemed
to favour a successor. Ten times an assassin has struck.’ Her lips writhed in sardonic amusement. ‘I found it a convenient
way of disposing of the over-ambitious.’ She read the girl’s expression. ‘You don’t li