Guerlan knew death was at his heels. He dodged the gasping arms and magnetic traps, straining his extra-sensory perception to its fullest power without slowing down the killing pace he maintained. Still he wondered how long he could last against the diabolical ingenuity of the Inner Circle. If he only had some human to go up against, with atomo-pistols, or the more devastating supernal fire of the electronic flash, forbidden to all but the Inner Circle Scientist—or even the primitive swords and rapiers used to hunt Irreconcilables in Neptune's vast forests. But machines! Soulless, cold plastic machines! His capable hands clenched and unclenched as he flung himself toward the ascending conveyor before him, his breath labored, his chest heaving.
"No, idiot ... not that one!" There was an intense urgency in the crystalline voice that speared into his consciousness. Even before he turned to locate the speaker, he recognized the voice. Twice before in a moment of crisis he'd heard it.
"You!" Guerlan breathed explosively. He tensed himself to leap upon the fragile figure at the least movement. But once more the preternaturally calm gaze from the violet eyes held him in thrall.
"That conveyor was purposely set in motion to trap you ... it leads to Psychiatry III where you would have been neutralized, Guerlan. Take the blue, lapiz-lazuli conveyor behind you to the right. Hurry! We've only seconds before the chamber is gassed!"
Suiting action to his words, the slender scientist dashed to the gleaming plastic conveyor that imitated in all its sapphirine perfection the blue glory of lapiz-lazuli. In an instant Guerlan was beside the scientist in a leap. He grasped the fragile shoulder with fingers that dug into rounded flesh.
"If this is a trap, you die with me," he said briefly.
"Your fingers," the scientist remarked impassively, "are like columbium steel. Suppose you await developments before indulging in atavistic impulses—besides, a real man offers no violence to a woman!"
"A woman ... you?" Guerlan's dazed expression was ludicrous. "I thought you were one of those repugnantly beautiful 'Intermediates' the Inner Circle uses for intricate mental synthesis."
"Am I repugnantly beautiful?" the scientist asked in cold detachment, luminous violet eyes gazing inscrutably into the reddening features of the young analyst.