There was no need of any warning. Ziantha
realized she had in truth condemned herself to captivity in the
villa while that vast underground of spies Yasa maintained went
into action. The girl had expected Ogan to show more interest,
though, both in her sudden development of psychokinetic powers and
in the artifact. She had anticipated, with dread, hours of lab
testing. And, when no such summons came, she was first relieved,
then a little piqued at being so ignored. Did the parapsychologist
think the artifact would continue to be so “charged”
that it would defy his powers of research? Or was he only preparing
stiffer tests?
Whatever the cause of her semi-imprisonment, Ziantha became more
and more uneasy as the hours, and then the days, wore on. There
were amusement and information tapes in plenty to draw upon, and
the tri-dee casts from Tikil on her screen if she cared to tune
them in. But all the various things with which she had filled
waiting hours before no longer had the power to hold her
attention.
After she made two tangles in the belt she was knotting by a
process Yasa’s Salarika maid had taught her, and found that
she could not concentrate on a tape of Forerunner
“history” she had in the reader, she gave up on the
morning of the third day. Sitting in the deep window-sill lounge,
she looked out into the garden, which was a type of jungle,
carefully maintained in that state to ensure Yasa’s
privacy.
Forerunners—there were many different kinds,
civilizations, species— Not even the Zacathans—those
reptilian-evolved, very long-lived Hist-techneers and
archaeologists of the galaxy—had ever been able to chart them
all. Her own species was late come to the stars, springing from a
small system on the very edge of this galaxy, that which contained
the fabled Terra of Sol. Waves of emigration and settlement had
gone forth from that planet—some fleeing wars at home, some
questing for adventure and new beginnings. They had found new
worlds—some of them—and in turn those worlds altered,
changed the settlers through generations. New suns, different trace
elements in soil, air, food, had brought about mutations. There was
still a legendary Terran “norm,” but she had yet to
meet a single person who directly matched it. There were
“giants” compared to the given height, as well as
“dwarfs.” Skin color, hair hue or lack of hair, number
of digits, ability or limitation of sight, hearing, the rest of the
senses, all these characteristics existed in a vast number of
gradations and differences. To realize that, one need only visit
the Dipple, where the sweepings of the civilizations of half a
hundred planets had been dropped, or walk the streets of Tikil with
an intent of measuring those differences.
And if the Terrans had been so modified and altered by their
spread to the stars, then those earlier races they called the
Forerunners must have suffered in their time the same changes. But
they had left behind them enigmatic traces of their passing. When
that passing had resulted from titanic conflicts, one found
“burned-off” worlds reduced to such cinders as to
remain horror monuments to deadly fury. However, there were other
planets where wondering men found ruins, tombs, even installations
which could still work after what, a million years of planet
time?
Each find usually added a new question, did not answer many. For
those who studied the discoveries could not string together a
quarter of such remains into a pattern they could recognize as
belonging to any one civilization or people. Here and there a
legend collected by the patient netting of the Zacathans from star
to star gave a name—of a race? A ruler? Often they were not
even sure. And so, for example, the pillar city on Archon IV and
two ports on Mochican and Wotan were tentatively linked as
“Zaati” because of some similar carvings.
The hopes were always for the discovery of some storehouse of
knowledge, of tapes, or of records that could enlighten a little.
Two years ago there had come the discovery of a world which was a
single huge city, the apex of one of the civilizations of
star-traveling races. That was being explored now.
Ziantha brushed her hand across her forehead. She had always
been interested in Forerunners. But now— She glanced over her
shoulder to that box on the table. When Yasa had left the artifact
in her keeping she had emptied her lockbox and had bundled the
lump, still wrapped in the scarf she had put about it, into the box
and had not looked at it since. But neither had she been able to
put it out of mind.
A ring with a strange and deadly gemstone had been the key to
the city-world. The story of that quest had been told and retold on
tri-dee casts a thousand times. What had she found? Another
key—to open what door and where?
Korwar had its own ancient mystery—Ruhkarv. That was a
maze of underground ways built by a people, or entities, totally
alien. It was a wicked trap, so the Rangers of the Wild had
force-walled it against penetration. No one knew who had dug the
ways of Ruhkarv, whether it was to be named “city” or
“hive,” or whether it was a fort, an indwelling, or a
way-station for alien off-worlders.
Slowly Ziantha arose, moving against her will, compelled by the
force that the artifact could exert. She shrank from what the box
held, yet she picked it up and brought it back into the shaft of
strong sunlight which beat through the window, as if something in
that natural light could disarm what she held, render it her
captive rather than allow her to remain in its thrall.
Drawing out the wrapped lump, she set it in the sun, plucked at
the folds of scarf covering it until they fell away. It was dull,
ugly; it could have been the result of a child’s attempt at
modeling the clay gouged from some riverbank. There was certainly
nothing about it that hinted at any higher star-reaching, far
ranging civilization—very primitive.
Greatly daring, Ziantha put forth a hand, touched. But this time
there was no answering flare of energy. Ogan’s theory that
the act of apporting might have charged it—was she now
proving the truth of that? The girl began to run her finger back
and forth, with more confidence, across the upper portion, where
there should have been a head.
Though the lump seemed rough to the eye, to the touch it was
smooth. And she picked up only a faint flicker of
something—
Suddenly Ziantha caught it up between her palms, pressed thumbs
on the top, four fingers underneath, and gave a quick twist of the
right wrist, wrenching at the lump. She did not know why, only this
she must do.
The deceptively rough-looking shell moved at her action. Half of
it turned away from her. It did not crumble but parted evenly in
two as if it were a box.
Within was a nest of silver, glittering thread coiled about and
about, plainly designed to protect an inner core. Ziantha set the
half of the artifact which held this on the window sill. She was
cautious enough not to touch the thread with her bare fingers.
Instead she brought from the table a long-hafted spoon she had used
to stir a glass of fal-berry juice.
Reversing this, she began to probe the puff of thread warily,
pushing in until she cleared a peephole. The sun reached beyond the
brilliant sparks awakened from the spun filaments and touched what
she had uncovered, bringing a wink of blue-green.
An oval stone lay there—a gem she was sure, though she did
not recognize it by color alone. It was about half the length of
her thumb and cut smoothly cabochon, not faceted. She turned her
head quickly, pushing the covering back over it, knowing in that
instant it had almost entranced her.
Crystallomancy was one of the oldest ways of inducing
clairvoyance. Focusing on a globe wrought of some clear stone or
gem brought the sensitive to the point where the power was
released. Ogan was right about such objects. When in long use they
built up psychic energy within them. This was what she had—a
gazing crystal which had been used for a long time to release
talent.
As swiftly as she could Ziantha set the two halves of the lump
together, closed it with a counter twist. She studied its surface.
There was no sign of that seam, not the slightest indication it
could be opened. With a sigh of relief she rewrapped it and stowed
it in the box. Only when that was locked away did she relax.
If she had taken it, used it as it was meant to be used, what
would she have seen? The death and dark that it had broadcast
through its outer protection? She had no intention of trying to
find out, nor did she intend to let Ogan or Yasa know of this
second discovery. That they would set her to using the stone she
did not doubt. And she dared not.
She had time to school herself a mind-protection, though she
doubted whether she would be able to hold that if Ogan suspected.
However, it seemed that events beyond the villa were in her favor.
For before midmorning she was summoned to Yasa’s chamber,
passing through the cloud of perfumed vapor to find the Salarika
veep with a man she knew to be one of the traveling coordinators of
the Guild.
He scrutinized Ziantha coldly, as if she were not a person but a
tool—or weapon—and he were judging her effectiveness.
In Yasa, Ziantha detected no sign of unease, though the upper
grades of the Guild were perilous to those who aspired to gain
them. Advancement went largely by assassination. An
“erase” could be ordered for any veep who was either
considered “unsafe,” or who stood in the path of some
ambitious underling.
When a check was run by one of the coordinators, there was
always a question of trouble. But if Yasa had any reservations
concerning this visit, no human would be able to read that from
her, any more than a detect could ensnare her thoughts when she
wished to retire behind her own alien “cover.” Now she
watched Ziantha with a lazy, unblinking stare, but on her knee sat
Harath, his eyes closed as if he were asleep. Ziantha, seeing him,
was instantly warned. She had been long enough in this household to
mark any deviation from the routine as a battle signal and to take
up her part of the defense.
Yasa was not as easy as she seemed, or Harath would not
be playing the pet role. He had been ordered to pick up any leakage
from the visitor’s mind-lock. Which meant that Yasa would
give no information to this coordinator, and Ziantha must be very
careful what she herself said. Since the artifact was the main
concern at present, that, above all, must be secret.
She had only a moment or two to grasp this, to prepare a
defense, when Yasa waved a hand in her direction.
“This is the sensitive who gathered the tape readings,
Mackry. You asked to see her; she is here.”
He was a large man, once well-muscled and imposing-looking, now
a little jowly, a little too paunchy. The spacer’s uniform he
wore, with a captain’s wings, fit a little too tight. Either
it had not been tailored for him, or he had put it aside for some
time and now found it irksome. On his chin was a small beard,
smoothed and stiffened to curl out in an imperious point. But the
rest of his face was smooth, dark red in color; his head was shaved
bare and then overlaid with a filigree of silver in swirls, as one
might wear a very tight cap.
His eyes were deeply sunken, or perhaps it was the puffiness of
his cheeks which made them appear so, and his brows had been
treated to stand out in points to match his beard. Those eyes, for
all their retreat behind flesh and hair, were very hard and bright,
reminding Ziantha unwillingly of the glitter of that thread which
nested the seeing gem, a memory she hastily buried.
He grunted, perhaps an acknowledgment to Yasa’s half
introduction. Then he launched into a sharp questioning of Ziantha
concerning her visit to Jucundus’s apartment, though he, of
course, did not inquire what had been on the tapes, since Ogan had
erased that. He took her step by step through the whole foray from
the moment the palm lock on the door had yielded, to the end of her
journey on her return to the villa. Having Yasa’s unspoken
warning, the girl omitted all reference to the artifact and the
subsequent apporting of it.
When she had finished, and there had not been the slightest
change in Yasa’s expression to signal either that she was
correctly following subtle directions, or making perhaps a totally
irredeemable mistake, Mackry grunted again. Yasa uncurled from her
usual lounging position.
“You see. Ogan checked with every scanner. It is exactly
as we reported, gentle homo. There was no possible hint of
detection.”
“So it would seem. But the city is hot, blazing hot, I
tell you! In some way that heat is tied to Jucundus. But that
has-been has not made a single move to suggest that he knows his
microrecords were scanned. They have a sensitive out, sniffing
hard. You have kept this one”—again he regarded
Ziantha, to her rising irritation, with a look that relegated her
to the status of tool—“under wraps?”
“You can ask.” Yasa yawned daintily. “She is
here, and has been here. Our detection devices have not traced any
mind-scan as a probe. With Ogan’s lab here do you think such
would go undetected?”
“Ogan!” He made that name into a snort, as if he
classed the parapsychologist with Ziantha. “Well, you cannot
keep her here—not now. So far our plans concerning Jucundus
are going well; we want no interference. Get her off-world at
once!”
Yasa yawned again. “It is near time for my leave. And I
have an excellent excuse to go and visit the Romstk trading post.
She shall go with my household.”
“Agreed. You shall be told when to return.” With no
further word he stalked from the room, his rudeness deliberate,
Ziantha knew. Her guess was confirmed when she looked at Yasa.
The feline contoured face of the Salarika was expressionless as
far as the human eye could tell, except that the alien’s lips
were drawn very tight against her teeth, showing the sharp white
points of what in her ancestors had been tearing, death-dealing
fangs.
“Mackry,” Yasa observed in a thoughtful tone, her
voice almost as emotionless as she could make her features,
“takes his missions with a seriousness that suggests he sees
before him a flight of stairs climbing to heights. Oftentimes when
one’s attention is fixed too far ahead and at the wrong
angle, one can trip over a crevice before one’s very feet.
But in so much does he serve our purpose—we needed a reason
to take off from Korwar without question from those using
Mackry—though he does not reckon the truth that he is my
servant here, rather than master.”
“You have learned something?” Ziantha asked.
Yasa purred. “Naturally, cubling. When Yasa tells eyes to
see, ears to listen, noses to sniff, they obey. We know the general
direction from which came Jucundus’s toy. Now we go in search
of those who make it their mission in life to learn what is unknown
or long forgotten. We go to Waystar.”
Waystar! Ziantha had heard of it all her short life. It was
considered a legend by most of the star rovers, but it existed, as
all the Guild knew well, though perhaps only a handful of a handful
among them even guessed in what part of the galaxy it was located.
It served the Guild in some respects, but it was not a possession
of the veeps of the underworld as were some other secret bases.
Long before the Guild came into power, before the first of the
Terrans felt their way along unmapped stellar roads, Waystar had
been. It was a port of outlaws, a rendezvous for space pirates when
piracy existed. Now it was a meeting place for Jacks, those outlaws
who raided sparsely settled planets and installations, and for the
Guildmen, who bought the loot from such raids, or hired Jacks at
times to carry out some ship plan of their own.
According to the stories, it had once been a space station
located in a system now so old its planets were cinders in orbit
around an almost dead red dwarf sun. If it were as old as the
worlds it companied, or even as old as the life that had once ruled
them, it was beyond any reckoning of age by those who now used it.
It had, however, in recorded time, such a dark history as to
overshadow all speculation. Going to Waystar was like saying one
planned to venture into the bowels of Ruhkarv, with perhaps as good
a reason to expect the worst thereafter.
“This Mackry—if we go to Waystar—”
Ziantha ventured. Though the Guild did not rule there, their
influence would weigh deeply enough so Yasa might be found to be
playing traitor. What would happen then? When a veep fell, his or
her personal following were also swept away, unless they were
extraordinarily fortunate or had secret ties with the one or ones
who brought about that downfall.
Yasa smoothed Harath’s downy head, uttered a sound
amazingly like the snapping of the creature’s beak.
“Mackry is one who runs hither and thither with messages,
is that not so, my soft one?” she asked Harath aloud.
His mind-send was clear. “He tries to find something with
which he can cause trouble for you. So far his search has brought
nothing. He believes his detect shields him.” There was such
a strong note of scorn in that beaming that Ziantha was startled
into a question of her own.
“It does not?”
Harath turned his head to look directly at her. Though that
seemed an impossible angle for flesh and bone to endure, he held
so, his huge eyes unblinking. “Harath can read.” Again
he beak-clicked scornfully.
Ziantha had not realized that the alien could penetrate the
mind-seals worn as a matter of course by Guild men. She was so
inured to the marvels of their techs that she accepted as a fact
that such a shield could not be pierced by normal means. But then,
of course, Harath was not “normal” by her
species’ standards at all.
Then Yasa did have a guard when Harath was with her. Doubtless
he could have relayed to the Salarika every thought passing through
Mackry’s mind. Or Ziantha’s mind—! The stone! No,
do not think of that! The trouble was when there was something not
to be brought to the readable fore of one’s mind, that is the
very thought which haunted one. Something
else—Waystar—think of Waystar—
Again the Salarika purred. “Harath reads well.”
There was warm approval not comment. “And there are those at
Waystar before whom, for all his ambition, Mackry would dwindle
until he was smaller than our Harath is in body, as he is already
smaller in talent and courage.”
“One has to reach Waystar to evoke the backing of
such,” Ziantha found the courage to point out.
“One need not put obvious truths into words, cubling.
However we have not been idle. Plans were made before Mackry
arrived to provide us with cover. But this will not be a luxurious
voyage. We must travel in voyage-sleep and a sealed
cabin.”
Ziantha wished she dared refuse, though there could not ever be
a chance for her to set her will against that of the Salarika.
Voyage-sleep and a sealed cabin was primitive travel indeed in
these days, generations after the first ships traveled with their
crews and passengers in frozen sleep, not knowing if they would
ever awaken again. She thought now that perhaps it was not the
ruggedness of the accommodations which might force this now ancient
process on them, but perhaps the secrecy of Yasa’s plan.
But she was not given much time to worry about possibilities,
because by dusk one of Yasa’s private flitters had brought
them to the airport where they were escorted on board an inner
world liner. Only they did not remain there. For they had no more
than stepped within the cabin assigned to them before Yasa whipped
two hooded cloaks from her top luggage case. So with distort outer
garments they made a circuitous way along empty corridors to a
lower hatch and, covered by the dusk and the distorts, swung down
to ground level again on a luggage lift.
In spite of her cloak, Ziantha felt vulnerable as she scurried
after Yasa across the edge of the landing field and into the
shadows. Thus they came to that end of the port where few passenger
ships ever sat down, which was reserved for Free Traders and lesser
transports. Yasa, without hesitation, seeming to know very well
what she sought, caught at Ziantha’s hand and urged her to a
faster pace to reach the space-scoured side of a transport on which
the name and emblem was so badly worn that in this limited light
the girl could make out neither symbol.
The landing ramp was out, but there was no crewman on guard at
either end. Again Yasa did not hesitate, but, drawing the girl with
her, hurried up into the ship. They met no one. It might have been
totally deserted; Ziantha decided there must have been orders given
that they not be observed entering.
Yasa climbed three levels, bringing them not far above the cargo
holds. Here was an open door which they entered, Yasa closing it
quickly behind them.
“Pleasant voyaging, gentle fems.” Ogan leaned
against the wall. He looked oddly out of place in a drab uniform of
a workman, as he stood guard over two long, narrow chests. Ziantha
could not subdue the shiver which ran through her as she threw off
the cloak and looked at those, knowing well what ordeal lay before
her now. In spite of all that man had learned to make space flight
safe, there were always failures, and she had never been off-world
that she could remember. Though, of course, like all those in the
Dipple, she had originally come to Korwar from some war-swept
planet.
“It has gone well so far.” Yasa folded their cloaks
small, made pillows of them she stowed in the boxes.
“Ziantha, you have the artifact—give it
here.”
Because she had no reason to defy that, the girl handed over the
container for the lump, which she had held tightly to her during
their flight across the port. Yasa stood for a moment with it in
her hands. If she had intended to open it, to assure herself their
prize was within, she did not do so. Instead she set it with extra
care beside one of those cloak-pillows.
Ogan smiled. “How perceptive of you, Lady. Naturally if
there is any relation between voyage-sleep and trance it should
help. Now, Ziantha, in with you, and if our small mystery can
answer any questions while you sleep, you can report it
later.”
Ziantha shrank back against the bulkhead. To sleep with that
promise of dark and death so close? She could not! Ogan did not
know what he suggested. But he probably did, and did not care. Her
talent was of value to the Guild, yes, but she was certain that
this was not a Guild operation—that Yasa and Ogan were
planning a foray of their own. And in such she would only be useful
if she could produce results. She had stepped completely out of any
safety she might have known, and there was no turning back, no way
to run.
“Come, come!” Ogan put out his hand. “Let us
have no child’s nonsense. You have been hypnoed
before—it is nothing. And think what a tale you may have to
tell us later!”
In those close quarters she could not even dodge. He caught her
wrists in a grip which brought a gasp from her, pulled her arm out
and pressed the injector to her flesh below the elbow. Still
holding her, he pulled her to the box. She climbed in numbly, lay
down with her head pillowed on the folded cloak. The sides and
bottom were well padded, could even be called comfortable, if one
did not know the future. Beside her head was the box; she would not
allow her eyes to stray in that direction.
“Good. Now you see it is all very simple, not at all
painful or frightening. Look here, Ziantha—just as you have
done before—before—before—” He repeated the
word over and over in a dull even-toned voice as she stared,
because she had to, at a swinging disk in his fingers. She had no
will left, no defense—
“Before—” The word was gone; she slept.
There was no need of any warning. Ziantha
realized she had in truth condemned herself to captivity in the
villa while that vast underground of spies Yasa maintained went
into action. The girl had expected Ogan to show more interest,
though, both in her sudden development of psychokinetic powers and
in the artifact. She had anticipated, with dread, hours of lab
testing. And, when no such summons came, she was first relieved,
then a little piqued at being so ignored. Did the parapsychologist
think the artifact would continue to be so “charged”
that it would defy his powers of research? Or was he only preparing
stiffer tests?
Whatever the cause of her semi-imprisonment, Ziantha became more
and more uneasy as the hours, and then the days, wore on. There
were amusement and information tapes in plenty to draw upon, and
the tri-dee casts from Tikil on her screen if she cared to tune
them in. But all the various things with which she had filled
waiting hours before no longer had the power to hold her
attention.
After she made two tangles in the belt she was knotting by a
process Yasa’s Salarika maid had taught her, and found that
she could not concentrate on a tape of Forerunner
“history” she had in the reader, she gave up on the
morning of the third day. Sitting in the deep window-sill lounge,
she looked out into the garden, which was a type of jungle,
carefully maintained in that state to ensure Yasa’s
privacy.
Forerunners—there were many different kinds,
civilizations, species— Not even the Zacathans—those
reptilian-evolved, very long-lived Hist-techneers and
archaeologists of the galaxy—had ever been able to chart them
all. Her own species was late come to the stars, springing from a
small system on the very edge of this galaxy, that which contained
the fabled Terra of Sol. Waves of emigration and settlement had
gone forth from that planet—some fleeing wars at home, some
questing for adventure and new beginnings. They had found new
worlds—some of them—and in turn those worlds altered,
changed the settlers through generations. New suns, different trace
elements in soil, air, food, had brought about mutations. There was
still a legendary Terran “norm,” but she had yet to
meet a single person who directly matched it. There were
“giants” compared to the given height, as well as
“dwarfs.” Skin color, hair hue or lack of hair, number
of digits, ability or limitation of sight, hearing, the rest of the
senses, all these characteristics existed in a vast number of
gradations and differences. To realize that, one need only visit
the Dipple, where the sweepings of the civilizations of half a
hundred planets had been dropped, or walk the streets of Tikil with
an intent of measuring those differences.
And if the Terrans had been so modified and altered by their
spread to the stars, then those earlier races they called the
Forerunners must have suffered in their time the same changes. But
they had left behind them enigmatic traces of their passing. When
that passing had resulted from titanic conflicts, one found
“burned-off” worlds reduced to such cinders as to
remain horror monuments to deadly fury. However, there were other
planets where wondering men found ruins, tombs, even installations
which could still work after what, a million years of planet
time?
Each find usually added a new question, did not answer many. For
those who studied the discoveries could not string together a
quarter of such remains into a pattern they could recognize as
belonging to any one civilization or people. Here and there a
legend collected by the patient netting of the Zacathans from star
to star gave a name—of a race? A ruler? Often they were not
even sure. And so, for example, the pillar city on Archon IV and
two ports on Mochican and Wotan were tentatively linked as
“Zaati” because of some similar carvings.
The hopes were always for the discovery of some storehouse of
knowledge, of tapes, or of records that could enlighten a little.
Two years ago there had come the discovery of a world which was a
single huge city, the apex of one of the civilizations of
star-traveling races. That was being explored now.
Ziantha brushed her hand across her forehead. She had always
been interested in Forerunners. But now— She glanced over her
shoulder to that box on the table. When Yasa had left the artifact
in her keeping she had emptied her lockbox and had bundled the
lump, still wrapped in the scarf she had put about it, into the box
and had not looked at it since. But neither had she been able to
put it out of mind.
A ring with a strange and deadly gemstone had been the key to
the city-world. The story of that quest had been told and retold on
tri-dee casts a thousand times. What had she found? Another
key—to open what door and where?
Korwar had its own ancient mystery—Ruhkarv. That was a
maze of underground ways built by a people, or entities, totally
alien. It was a wicked trap, so the Rangers of the Wild had
force-walled it against penetration. No one knew who had dug the
ways of Ruhkarv, whether it was to be named “city” or
“hive,” or whether it was a fort, an indwelling, or a
way-station for alien off-worlders.
Slowly Ziantha arose, moving against her will, compelled by the
force that the artifact could exert. She shrank from what the box
held, yet she picked it up and brought it back into the shaft of
strong sunlight which beat through the window, as if something in
that natural light could disarm what she held, render it her
captive rather than allow her to remain in its thrall.
Drawing out the wrapped lump, she set it in the sun, plucked at
the folds of scarf covering it until they fell away. It was dull,
ugly; it could have been the result of a child’s attempt at
modeling the clay gouged from some riverbank. There was certainly
nothing about it that hinted at any higher star-reaching, far
ranging civilization—very primitive.
Greatly daring, Ziantha put forth a hand, touched. But this time
there was no answering flare of energy. Ogan’s theory that
the act of apporting might have charged it—was she now
proving the truth of that? The girl began to run her finger back
and forth, with more confidence, across the upper portion, where
there should have been a head.
Though the lump seemed rough to the eye, to the touch it was
smooth. And she picked up only a faint flicker of
something—
Suddenly Ziantha caught it up between her palms, pressed thumbs
on the top, four fingers underneath, and gave a quick twist of the
right wrist, wrenching at the lump. She did not know why, only this
she must do.
The deceptively rough-looking shell moved at her action. Half of
it turned away from her. It did not crumble but parted evenly in
two as if it were a box.
Within was a nest of silver, glittering thread coiled about and
about, plainly designed to protect an inner core. Ziantha set the
half of the artifact which held this on the window sill. She was
cautious enough not to touch the thread with her bare fingers.
Instead she brought from the table a long-hafted spoon she had used
to stir a glass of fal-berry juice.
Reversing this, she began to probe the puff of thread warily,
pushing in until she cleared a peephole. The sun reached beyond the
brilliant sparks awakened from the spun filaments and touched what
she had uncovered, bringing a wink of blue-green.
An oval stone lay there—a gem she was sure, though she did
not recognize it by color alone. It was about half the length of
her thumb and cut smoothly cabochon, not faceted. She turned her
head quickly, pushing the covering back over it, knowing in that
instant it had almost entranced her.
Crystallomancy was one of the oldest ways of inducing
clairvoyance. Focusing on a globe wrought of some clear stone or
gem brought the sensitive to the point where the power was
released. Ogan was right about such objects. When in long use they
built up psychic energy within them. This was what she had—a
gazing crystal which had been used for a long time to release
talent.
As swiftly as she could Ziantha set the two halves of the lump
together, closed it with a counter twist. She studied its surface.
There was no sign of that seam, not the slightest indication it
could be opened. With a sigh of relief she rewrapped it and stowed
it in the box. Only when that was locked away did she relax.
If she had taken it, used it as it was meant to be used, what
would she have seen? The death and dark that it had broadcast
through its outer protection? She had no intention of trying to
find out, nor did she intend to let Ogan or Yasa know of this
second discovery. That they would set her to using the stone she
did not doubt. And she dared not.
She had time to school herself a mind-protection, though she
doubted whether she would be able to hold that if Ogan suspected.
However, it seemed that events beyond the villa were in her favor.
For before midmorning she was summoned to Yasa’s chamber,
passing through the cloud of perfumed vapor to find the Salarika
veep with a man she knew to be one of the traveling coordinators of
the Guild.
He scrutinized Ziantha coldly, as if she were not a person but a
tool—or weapon—and he were judging her effectiveness.
In Yasa, Ziantha detected no sign of unease, though the upper
grades of the Guild were perilous to those who aspired to gain
them. Advancement went largely by assassination. An
“erase” could be ordered for any veep who was either
considered “unsafe,” or who stood in the path of some
ambitious underling.
When a check was run by one of the coordinators, there was
always a question of trouble. But if Yasa had any reservations
concerning this visit, no human would be able to read that from
her, any more than a detect could ensnare her thoughts when she
wished to retire behind her own alien “cover.” Now she
watched Ziantha with a lazy, unblinking stare, but on her knee sat
Harath, his eyes closed as if he were asleep. Ziantha, seeing him,
was instantly warned. She had been long enough in this household to
mark any deviation from the routine as a battle signal and to take
up her part of the defense.
Yasa was not as easy as she seemed, or Harath would not
be playing the pet role. He had been ordered to pick up any leakage
from the visitor’s mind-lock. Which meant that Yasa would
give no information to this coordinator, and Ziantha must be very
careful what she herself said. Since the artifact was the main
concern at present, that, above all, must be secret.
She had only a moment or two to grasp this, to prepare a
defense, when Yasa waved a hand in her direction.
“This is the sensitive who gathered the tape readings,
Mackry. You asked to see her; she is here.”
He was a large man, once well-muscled and imposing-looking, now
a little jowly, a little too paunchy. The spacer’s uniform he
wore, with a captain’s wings, fit a little too tight. Either
it had not been tailored for him, or he had put it aside for some
time and now found it irksome. On his chin was a small beard,
smoothed and stiffened to curl out in an imperious point. But the
rest of his face was smooth, dark red in color; his head was shaved
bare and then overlaid with a filigree of silver in swirls, as one
might wear a very tight cap.
His eyes were deeply sunken, or perhaps it was the puffiness of
his cheeks which made them appear so, and his brows had been
treated to stand out in points to match his beard. Those eyes, for
all their retreat behind flesh and hair, were very hard and bright,
reminding Ziantha unwillingly of the glitter of that thread which
nested the seeing gem, a memory she hastily buried.
He grunted, perhaps an acknowledgment to Yasa’s half
introduction. Then he launched into a sharp questioning of Ziantha
concerning her visit to Jucundus’s apartment, though he, of
course, did not inquire what had been on the tapes, since Ogan had
erased that. He took her step by step through the whole foray from
the moment the palm lock on the door had yielded, to the end of her
journey on her return to the villa. Having Yasa’s unspoken
warning, the girl omitted all reference to the artifact and the
subsequent apporting of it.
When she had finished, and there had not been the slightest
change in Yasa’s expression to signal either that she was
correctly following subtle directions, or making perhaps a totally
irredeemable mistake, Mackry grunted again. Yasa uncurled from her
usual lounging position.
“You see. Ogan checked with every scanner. It is exactly
as we reported, gentle homo. There was no possible hint of
detection.”
“So it would seem. But the city is hot, blazing hot, I
tell you! In some way that heat is tied to Jucundus. But that
has-been has not made a single move to suggest that he knows his
microrecords were scanned. They have a sensitive out, sniffing
hard. You have kept this one”—again he regarded
Ziantha, to her rising irritation, with a look that relegated her
to the status of tool—“under wraps?”
“You can ask.” Yasa yawned daintily. “She is
here, and has been here. Our detection devices have not traced any
mind-scan as a probe. With Ogan’s lab here do you think such
would go undetected?”
“Ogan!” He made that name into a snort, as if he
classed the parapsychologist with Ziantha. “Well, you cannot
keep her here—not now. So far our plans concerning Jucundus
are going well; we want no interference. Get her off-world at
once!”
Yasa yawned again. “It is near time for my leave. And I
have an excellent excuse to go and visit the Romstk trading post.
She shall go with my household.”
“Agreed. You shall be told when to return.” With no
further word he stalked from the room, his rudeness deliberate,
Ziantha knew. Her guess was confirmed when she looked at Yasa.
The feline contoured face of the Salarika was expressionless as
far as the human eye could tell, except that the alien’s lips
were drawn very tight against her teeth, showing the sharp white
points of what in her ancestors had been tearing, death-dealing
fangs.
“Mackry,” Yasa observed in a thoughtful tone, her
voice almost as emotionless as she could make her features,
“takes his missions with a seriousness that suggests he sees
before him a flight of stairs climbing to heights. Oftentimes when
one’s attention is fixed too far ahead and at the wrong
angle, one can trip over a crevice before one’s very feet.
But in so much does he serve our purpose—we needed a reason
to take off from Korwar without question from those using
Mackry—though he does not reckon the truth that he is my
servant here, rather than master.”
“You have learned something?” Ziantha asked.
Yasa purred. “Naturally, cubling. When Yasa tells eyes to
see, ears to listen, noses to sniff, they obey. We know the general
direction from which came Jucundus’s toy. Now we go in search
of those who make it their mission in life to learn what is unknown
or long forgotten. We go to Waystar.”
Waystar! Ziantha had heard of it all her short life. It was
considered a legend by most of the star rovers, but it existed, as
all the Guild knew well, though perhaps only a handful of a handful
among them even guessed in what part of the galaxy it was located.
It served the Guild in some respects, but it was not a possession
of the veeps of the underworld as were some other secret bases.
Long before the Guild came into power, before the first of the
Terrans felt their way along unmapped stellar roads, Waystar had
been. It was a port of outlaws, a rendezvous for space pirates when
piracy existed. Now it was a meeting place for Jacks, those outlaws
who raided sparsely settled planets and installations, and for the
Guildmen, who bought the loot from such raids, or hired Jacks at
times to carry out some ship plan of their own.
According to the stories, it had once been a space station
located in a system now so old its planets were cinders in orbit
around an almost dead red dwarf sun. If it were as old as the
worlds it companied, or even as old as the life that had once ruled
them, it was beyond any reckoning of age by those who now used it.
It had, however, in recorded time, such a dark history as to
overshadow all speculation. Going to Waystar was like saying one
planned to venture into the bowels of Ruhkarv, with perhaps as good
a reason to expect the worst thereafter.
“This Mackry—if we go to Waystar—”
Ziantha ventured. Though the Guild did not rule there, their
influence would weigh deeply enough so Yasa might be found to be
playing traitor. What would happen then? When a veep fell, his or
her personal following were also swept away, unless they were
extraordinarily fortunate or had secret ties with the one or ones
who brought about that downfall.
Yasa smoothed Harath’s downy head, uttered a sound
amazingly like the snapping of the creature’s beak.
“Mackry is one who runs hither and thither with messages,
is that not so, my soft one?” she asked Harath aloud.
His mind-send was clear. “He tries to find something with
which he can cause trouble for you. So far his search has brought
nothing. He believes his detect shields him.” There was such
a strong note of scorn in that beaming that Ziantha was startled
into a question of her own.
“It does not?”
Harath turned his head to look directly at her. Though that
seemed an impossible angle for flesh and bone to endure, he held
so, his huge eyes unblinking. “Harath can read.” Again
he beak-clicked scornfully.
Ziantha had not realized that the alien could penetrate the
mind-seals worn as a matter of course by Guild men. She was so
inured to the marvels of their techs that she accepted as a fact
that such a shield could not be pierced by normal means. But then,
of course, Harath was not “normal” by her
species’ standards at all.
Then Yasa did have a guard when Harath was with her. Doubtless
he could have relayed to the Salarika every thought passing through
Mackry’s mind. Or Ziantha’s mind—! The stone! No,
do not think of that! The trouble was when there was something not
to be brought to the readable fore of one’s mind, that is the
very thought which haunted one. Something
else—Waystar—think of Waystar—
Again the Salarika purred. “Harath reads well.”
There was warm approval not comment. “And there are those at
Waystar before whom, for all his ambition, Mackry would dwindle
until he was smaller than our Harath is in body, as he is already
smaller in talent and courage.”
“One has to reach Waystar to evoke the backing of
such,” Ziantha found the courage to point out.
“One need not put obvious truths into words, cubling.
However we have not been idle. Plans were made before Mackry
arrived to provide us with cover. But this will not be a luxurious
voyage. We must travel in voyage-sleep and a sealed
cabin.”
Ziantha wished she dared refuse, though there could not ever be
a chance for her to set her will against that of the Salarika.
Voyage-sleep and a sealed cabin was primitive travel indeed in
these days, generations after the first ships traveled with their
crews and passengers in frozen sleep, not knowing if they would
ever awaken again. She thought now that perhaps it was not the
ruggedness of the accommodations which might force this now ancient
process on them, but perhaps the secrecy of Yasa’s plan.
But she was not given much time to worry about possibilities,
because by dusk one of Yasa’s private flitters had brought
them to the airport where they were escorted on board an inner
world liner. Only they did not remain there. For they had no more
than stepped within the cabin assigned to them before Yasa whipped
two hooded cloaks from her top luggage case. So with distort outer
garments they made a circuitous way along empty corridors to a
lower hatch and, covered by the dusk and the distorts, swung down
to ground level again on a luggage lift.
In spite of her cloak, Ziantha felt vulnerable as she scurried
after Yasa across the edge of the landing field and into the
shadows. Thus they came to that end of the port where few passenger
ships ever sat down, which was reserved for Free Traders and lesser
transports. Yasa, without hesitation, seeming to know very well
what she sought, caught at Ziantha’s hand and urged her to a
faster pace to reach the space-scoured side of a transport on which
the name and emblem was so badly worn that in this limited light
the girl could make out neither symbol.
The landing ramp was out, but there was no crewman on guard at
either end. Again Yasa did not hesitate, but, drawing the girl with
her, hurried up into the ship. They met no one. It might have been
totally deserted; Ziantha decided there must have been orders given
that they not be observed entering.
Yasa climbed three levels, bringing them not far above the cargo
holds. Here was an open door which they entered, Yasa closing it
quickly behind them.
“Pleasant voyaging, gentle fems.” Ogan leaned
against the wall. He looked oddly out of place in a drab uniform of
a workman, as he stood guard over two long, narrow chests. Ziantha
could not subdue the shiver which ran through her as she threw off
the cloak and looked at those, knowing well what ordeal lay before
her now. In spite of all that man had learned to make space flight
safe, there were always failures, and she had never been off-world
that she could remember. Though, of course, like all those in the
Dipple, she had originally come to Korwar from some war-swept
planet.
“It has gone well so far.” Yasa folded their cloaks
small, made pillows of them she stowed in the boxes.
“Ziantha, you have the artifact—give it
here.”
Because she had no reason to defy that, the girl handed over the
container for the lump, which she had held tightly to her during
their flight across the port. Yasa stood for a moment with it in
her hands. If she had intended to open it, to assure herself their
prize was within, she did not do so. Instead she set it with extra
care beside one of those cloak-pillows.
Ogan smiled. “How perceptive of you, Lady. Naturally if
there is any relation between voyage-sleep and trance it should
help. Now, Ziantha, in with you, and if our small mystery can
answer any questions while you sleep, you can report it
later.”
Ziantha shrank back against the bulkhead. To sleep with that
promise of dark and death so close? She could not! Ogan did not
know what he suggested. But he probably did, and did not care. Her
talent was of value to the Guild, yes, but she was certain that
this was not a Guild operation—that Yasa and Ogan were
planning a foray of their own. And in such she would only be useful
if she could produce results. She had stepped completely out of any
safety she might have known, and there was no turning back, no way
to run.
“Come, come!” Ogan put out his hand. “Let us
have no child’s nonsense. You have been hypnoed
before—it is nothing. And think what a tale you may have to
tell us later!”
In those close quarters she could not even dodge. He caught her
wrists in a grip which brought a gasp from her, pulled her arm out
and pressed the injector to her flesh below the elbow. Still
holding her, he pulled her to the box. She climbed in numbly, lay
down with her head pillowed on the folded cloak. The sides and
bottom were well padded, could even be called comfortable, if one
did not know the future. Beside her head was the box; she would not
allow her eyes to stray in that direction.
“Good. Now you see it is all very simple, not at all
painful or frightening. Look here, Ziantha—just as you have
done before—before—before—” He repeated the
word over and over in a dull even-toned voice as she stared,
because she had to, at a swinging disk in his fingers. She had no
will left, no defense—
“Before—” The word was gone; she slept.