Four rooms made up a small but very
well-equipped medical unit for the base. The worst feature, as far
as Charis was concerned, was the single door to the outside, a door
by which a blaster-armed guard already sat. To be free one must
pass him.
Now the medic shepherded her on, his hand under her arm
half-steering, half-supporting her, and she made her survey of the
quarters in a series of seemingly aimless stares. They came into
the third room and that touch on her arm brought her to a halt. She
swayed, put out a hand against the wall to steady herself, hoping
that her start could be attributed to her dazed condition.
Lantee lay on his back on a narrow cot. His eyes were wide open,
but his face had that same blankness it had worn when she had found
him among the rocks. He had returned to the husk of a living being,
his true identity missing.
“Do you know this man?”
“Know this man?” Charis repeated. “Who is he?
Know him—why should I—” Her confusion was the
best act she could achieve. She knew the medic was studying her
closely.
“Come on.” He took her arm again, led her into the
next chamber. Two more cots. He pushed her down on the nearest
one.
“Stay here.”
He went out, sealing the door behind him. Charis ran her hands
through the wild tangle of her hair. They could be watching her
even now via some visa system, so take no chances. Anyway, she was
in the base, and so far their suspicions of her were only normal.
But just in case there was a spy system, she lay back on the cot
and closed her eyes.
Outwardly she was composed for slumber; inwardly her thoughts
were busy. Lantee—what had happened to Shann? The
first time he had been shocked into such a state by a blast of the
Wyvern Power. But that was not in effect here, and those few words
Charis had heard exchanged between the captain and the medic
suggested that their prisoner’s present withdrawal had not
come as a result of anything they had done. They were baffled by
it.
“Withdrawal” the medic had phrased it—a way of
escape. Charis almost sat up, startled by what she thought was the
answer. Lantee had chosen this as a way of escape! He had purposely
retreated thus before they could use a scanner or a truth drug,
fleeing back into the same blackness, really retreating into what
might prove death. And the motive for such a choice must have been
a very strong one.
The Power would not work inside this Alpha-rim, whatever
that was. Charis’s hand moved against her tunic,
feeling the slight bulk of the plasta-board which was her key to
the place where Lantee had fled, a key which she could not turn.
She had found Lantee, or rather the shell which had encased him.
She had yet to find the nullifier or work out a plan against it.
Her self-confidence was failing fast.
This was always the worst, this striving to cultivate patience
with every nerve in her hammering for action. She must first
establish her character as a bewildered fugitive. So she forced
herself to lie quietly although she longed to be across that small
room, trying the door to see if it was lock-sealed.
It had been early morning when she had come here; now the
invaders, both off-worlders and Wyvern males, would be astir. Not a
good time to go exploring. Exploring! Charis summoned
concentration, sent out a creeping thought—not backed by the
Power, but on her own—striving to reach Tsstu. If this avenue
of communication was also blocked by their Alpha-rim—
A mind touch lapped against her probe as delicately as if the
curl-cat was here in the room to give her a tongue-caress. Charis
knew a throb of excitement, that road was not closed! She had
contact, faulty and wavering as it was, with the animals outside
the base.
The Tsstu link was no longer a touch but a firm uniting, and
then came the feral urge she associated with Taggi—and
another! Lantee? No. This was not the passageway link, but a
heightening of the Taggi strain—his mate, the female
wolverine! A piece of luck Charis had not counted on.
Tsstu was trying to send a message, drawing upon the united
power of the wolverines to give it added impetus. A warning? No,
not quite that; rather a suggestion that any action be delayed.
Charis caught a very fuzzy picture of a Wyvern witch mixed in that.
The female Wyverns must be taking a hand as they had promised. Then
just as Charis tried to learn more, the curl-cat broke contact.
The girl began to think about Lantee. It had taken the Power to
reach him before—the Power plus her own will and that of the
two animals. But there in the copter she alone had found him, and
without consciously drawing on the Power. Now, if he remained too
long in that black world, would he ever come forth again? A small
fire could die to ashes, never to be rekindled.
Charis willed herself to think of a black which was the entire
absence of any light, the swallowing dark from which her species
had fled since first they had learned the secret of fire as a
weapon against that which prowled in the shadows. Cold crept up her
body, the dark gathered in—A spark far in the heart of that
dark . . .
A wrenching at her, dragging her back. Charis moaned at the pain
of that wrenching. She opened her eyes to look up into the slitted
ones set in a reptilian face where a cruel satisfaction
gleamed.
“Snake!” She screamed.
The Wyvern male grinned, obviously highly amused by her shock
and terror. He caught at her tunic, his claws in the fabric drawing
her to the edge of the cot. But as he raised a paw for another
grip, his scaled palm spread wide and then contracted quickly as if
it had touched fire. A thin cry had burst from the alien; he jumped
away from her.
“What’s going on here?” a human voice
demanded. Hands appeared on the Wyvern’s shoulder as a figure
loomed behind the native, dragging him back.
Charis watched the medic pull the Wyvern out of her room. Then
she stumbled after—to see the guard come into Lantee’s
room and aid the medic in forcing the struggling native on, the
warrior all the while uttering sharp, shrill cries. She paused at
the foot of Lantee’s cot as they disappeared toward the outer
door.
Shann! She did not cry that name aloud, and even as she made a
plea of it in her mind, she knew that there would be no answer. But
still she longed now for his support.
His eyes were wide open, but behind them was nothingness. She
did not have to touch his limp hand to know that it could not grip
hers.
The cries of the Wyvern did not grow fainter. Instead they were
augmented outside by a growing chorus. There must be more of the
natives gathering. Were the Company men in dispute with their
allies?
Charis hesitated. She longed to go to the outer door to see what
was going on, but that action would not fit her present role. She
should be cowering, frightened to death, in some corner. She
listened—the clamor was dying— Better get back to her
own room. She scuttled back.
“You—” Captain Lazgah stood in the doorway,
his shoulders blocking the medic, and the tone of his voice was a
warning.
Charis sat up on her cot, her hands were in her hair as if she
had been pulling at it. “The snake—” she took the
initiative swiftly “—the snake tried to get
me!”
“For good reason.” Lazgah’s quick stride
brought him to the cot side. His fingers were steel-tight and
punishing about her right wrist as he pulled her about to face him
squarely. “You’ve been using those hags’ tricks.
Snake—you’re a snake yourself! Those bulls out there
have good reason to hate such tricks—they’d like to get
their claws into you. Gathgar says you’ve been working with
the Power.”
“That’s impossible!” the medic cut in.
“You’ve had the complete reading from sensatator since
she’s been here. There’s no indication that anything
registered. Gathgar knows that she’s been with the females
and he built up all this on that fact alone.”
“What do we know about this Power anyway?” Lazgah
asked. “Sure, there’s only been negative register since
she’s been here. But she might have some way of blanketing
reception on that. A scanner could give us the truth.”
“You put a scanner on her now and you’ll get nothing
but a complete burn-out. She’ll be another like that fellow
in there. What good will that do?”
“Turn the bulls loose on her and we could learn
something.”
“What can you learn from the dead? They’re worked up
now to a killing rage. Don’t hurry and
maybe—”
“Don’t hurry!” The captain made a noise not
far removed from one of Taggi’s snarls. “We don’t
have much time left. This one knows where those hags have their
base. I say—get her under questioning and find that out. Then
we move and move fast. We have our orders to cut all corners on
this deal.”
“Destroy what you want and what good will it do? Sure, you
can probably blast your way in and burn out the opposition, but you
know what we’ve learned so far. The Power doesn’t work
unless you have had the training. It may not operate for males at
all. You have a woman here who’s already been sensitized to
it. Why not use her just as Jagan intended—to pick up the
information you need? You won’t get that by
force—either against her or maybe against the Wyvern
females.”
Lazgah relaxed his grip on Charis. But he still stood over the
girl, staring at her as if he could reach inside her skull by his
will and bring her under control.
“I don’t like it,” he stated, but he did not
protest further. “All right—but you keep an eye on
her.”
The captain tramped out. But the medic did not follow. It was
his turn to favor Charis with a measuring survey.
“I wish I knew whether you are playing a game,” he
said, surprising Charis with his frankness. “Those hags
can’t possibly control you past the Rim. But—” He
shook his head, more at his own thoughts than at her, and did not
finish his sentence. Going out abruptly, he closed the seal
again.
Charis continued to sit on the cot. The Wyvern male Gathgar had
accused her of working with the Power, but she had not. At least
not with the aid of the patterns, Wyvern-fashion. Could it be,
Charis’s hand went to the plasta-board under her tunic, that
she did not need such an aid anymore? Was what she had been doing
here—her contact with Tsstu, the reach for Lantee—an
easier method of using the same force?
But if that were true, there was a way of using the Power which
could not be affected by the nullifier. Charis blinked. That
surmise opened up a whole new field of speculations. She could
reach Tsstu, and Tsstu could link in turn with the wolverines.
Suppose that Tsstu, the wolverines, Charis and Lantee could form a
chain to break open the Alpha-rim of the enemy?
Lantee— Somehow her thoughts always returned to Lantee, as
if the pattern which was not a pattern needed the element for which
he stood—just like the time she could not remember the right
design until Tsstu supplied the indentations in her drawing. Charis
could not have explained why she was certain of this, but she
was.
She lay back on the cot and closed her eyes. Lantee must be
summoned out of hiding, be one with them again. Charis released a
questing thought, spun it out and away from her as a fisherman
might cast a line or as a com beam might search for another
installation to activate. A Wyvern witch working under the Power
would have been accurate in such a hunt. She herself, using the
pattern, could have centered on Tsstu and been reasonably certain
of a quick contact, but this blind seeking was a fumbling
process.
Touch! Charis tensed. Tsstu! Now she must hold that contact,
signal along it her need for energy reserves for the job to be
done. But Tsstu was unwilling. It was as if she was in
Charis’s hand and wriggling for her freedom. But Charis kept
the line taut, sent her determined demand along it.
There—Taggi came in. The girl braced herself against the
impact of the far more savage mind of the wolverine. Through to
Taggi went her call for strength and a mutual pointing of their
combined wills. Lantee—Charis made that call into
form—Lantee. Now a fourth will joined—Togi, the female
linked with her mate. The thrusting leap of that striking back to
Charis was like a blow.
The girl held that linkage intact for a long moment, as a
climber might examine knotted ropes to be sure of his support
before facing a dangerous mountainside. Now! The wills were a spear
which Charis not only aimed for the throwing but followed in
flight.
Into the black of the nothing-place, surely the strangest of
those Otherwheres into which the Power of the Wyverns led, she was
the point of a fiery arrow shooting on and on, seeking the spark of
light there. Now it was before her, very low, an ember close to
extinction. But the arrow which was Charis, Tsstu, Taggi, and Togi
struck into its heart.
Around them whirled a wild dance of figures. From all the
doorways they had come into the corridor to crowd about her. She
could not flee from them lest the lifeline break. This was worse
than the first time she had walked this forbidden way, for the
thoughts and memories of Shann Lantee now gathered more substance
in their shadows. Charis knew a terror which balanced her on the
thin edge of sanity.
However, the chain held true and pulled her back until she lay
again on the cot, aware of its support under her. The contacts
broke, the wolverines were gone; Tsstu, gone.
“I am here.”
Charis opened her eyes, but no one in a green-brown uniform
stood beside her. She turned her head to face the wall which was
still between them.
“I am—back.”
Again that assurance, clear-cut as audible words but, in her
mind, coming with the same ease as the Wyvern witches
communicated.
“Why—” Her lips shaped that soundlessly to
match the inquiry in her mind.
“It was that or face the scanner,” he answered
swiftly.
“And now?”
“Who knows? Did they take you too?”
“No.” Charis outlined what had happened.
“Thorvald here?” Lantee’s thoughts dropped
away and she did not try to follow deeper. Then he was back to
communication level. “The installation we’re after is
in the main dome. They have it guarded by Wyvern males who are
sensitive to any telepathic waves. And they will fight to the death
to keep it in action and themselves free.”
“Can we reach it?” Charis asked.
“Little chance. At least, I’ve seen none so
far,” was his disappointing answer.
“You mean it’s impossible for us to do
anything?” Charis protested.
“No, but we have to know more. They’ve stopped
trying to rouse me. Perhaps that will give me a chance to make some
move.”
“The Wyvern male told them I am using the Power. But I
haven’t tried it with the pattern and it didn’t
register on some machine of theirs, so they didn’t quite
believe him.”
“You did this—without a pattern?”
“With Tsstu and the wolverines, yes. Does it mean we
don’t really need a pattern? That the Wyverns don’t
need them? But why wouldn’t it show up on their
machine?”
“May hit another wavelength,” Lantee returned.
“But if the Wyvern males pick it up, they may be more
sensitive on other bands than their mistresses credit. I wonder if
they could have some Power of their own but don’t know how to
use it. If they picked you up before—”
“Then this last call for you—they
could—”
“Be really alerted now? Yes. Which shaves our time to act.
I don’t even know how many there are here at the
base.”
“The witches have promised their help.”
“How can they? Any sending of theirs will fail at the
Rim.”
“Shann, the Wyverns control their males with the Power.
And the male I saw here believes that I can use it here. Suppose we
all link again. Could we control them inside the
Rim?”
There was a moment of pause in the flow of thought and then he
answered.
“How do we know what will work and what won’t until
we put it to the test? But I want to be ready to get out of here on
my own two feet. And from here I can see a guard with a blaster at
the outer door. We might be able to link against the Wyvern males,
but I wouldn’t swear we could link to take out an off-worlder
who has never been sensitized to mental control.”
“What do we do?”
“Link with the others. See if you can reach Thorvald
so—” he ordered.
This time the first link was not Charis, but Lantee and his will
strengthened hers in her search for the curl-cat. Tsstu replied
with a kind of fretfulness, but she picked up the wolverines.
A line cast out, spinning . . . then the
catch of response.
“Wait!” That caution came back link by link.
“The witches are moving. Wait for their signal.” Break
off as the animals dropped contact.
“What can they do?” Charis demanded of Lantee.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” He was tense.
“The medic’s just come in.”
Silence. How well could he play his role, Charis
wondered a little fretfully. But if the medic had given up hope of
reviving the Survey man, he might not examine him too closely now.
She lay listening for any sound which might come through the
walls.
The door of her room opened and the medic came in with a tray on
which there was food, real food, not rations. He put it
down on a drop-table and turned around to look at her. Charis tried
to look like one awakening from a nap. The man’s expression
was set and the motion with which he indicated the food was
abrupt.
“You’d better eat. You’ll need it!”
She sat up, pushing back her hair, striving to present
bewilderment.
“If you’re smart,” he continued,
“you’ll tell the captain all about it now. He’s
an expert on grab raids. If you don’t know what that means,
you’ll soon discover the hard way.”
Charis was afraid to ask what this warning did mean. To cling to
her cloak of being a dazed fugitive was her only defense.
“You can’t hide it—not any longer. Not with a
complete burn-out of the sensatator this time.”
Charis tensed. The linkage—twice the linkage—had at
last registered on whatever safeguard the invaders had mounted.
“So you do understand that?” The medic nodded.
“I thought you would. Now, you had better talk and fast! The
captain might just turn you over to the bulls.”
“The snakes!” Charis found words at last. “You
mean give me to the snakes?” She did not have to counterfeit
her repulsion.
“That gets to you, does it? It should; they hate the
Power. And they’ll willingly destroy anyone who uses it if
they can. So—make your deal with the captain. He’s
willing to offer a good one.”
“Simkin!”
There was such urgency in that hail that the medic whirled to
the door. There was a growing murmur of sound—some of it
sharp, the rest shouting. The medic ran, leaving the door open.
Charis was up and into Lantee’s room instantly.
The hissing blatt-blatt of a blaster in action came now. And she
had heard that claking before when the birds had hunted her along
the Warlockian cliff.
Then, like a swifter beat of her heart, a pulse along all the
veins and arteries of her body—
“Now!”
The signal was not spoken but to it all of Charis responded. She
saw Lantee slide from the cot in one supple, coordinated
movement—as ready as she.
Four rooms made up a small but very
well-equipped medical unit for the base. The worst feature, as far
as Charis was concerned, was the single door to the outside, a door
by which a blaster-armed guard already sat. To be free one must
pass him.
Now the medic shepherded her on, his hand under her arm
half-steering, half-supporting her, and she made her survey of the
quarters in a series of seemingly aimless stares. They came into
the third room and that touch on her arm brought her to a halt. She
swayed, put out a hand against the wall to steady herself, hoping
that her start could be attributed to her dazed condition.
Lantee lay on his back on a narrow cot. His eyes were wide open,
but his face had that same blankness it had worn when she had found
him among the rocks. He had returned to the husk of a living being,
his true identity missing.
“Do you know this man?”
“Know this man?” Charis repeated. “Who is he?
Know him—why should I—” Her confusion was the
best act she could achieve. She knew the medic was studying her
closely.
“Come on.” He took her arm again, led her into the
next chamber. Two more cots. He pushed her down on the nearest
one.
“Stay here.”
He went out, sealing the door behind him. Charis ran her hands
through the wild tangle of her hair. They could be watching her
even now via some visa system, so take no chances. Anyway, she was
in the base, and so far their suspicions of her were only normal.
But just in case there was a spy system, she lay back on the cot
and closed her eyes.
Outwardly she was composed for slumber; inwardly her thoughts
were busy. Lantee—what had happened to Shann? The
first time he had been shocked into such a state by a blast of the
Wyvern Power. But that was not in effect here, and those few words
Charis had heard exchanged between the captain and the medic
suggested that their prisoner’s present withdrawal had not
come as a result of anything they had done. They were baffled by
it.
“Withdrawal” the medic had phrased it—a way of
escape. Charis almost sat up, startled by what she thought was the
answer. Lantee had chosen this as a way of escape! He had purposely
retreated thus before they could use a scanner or a truth drug,
fleeing back into the same blackness, really retreating into what
might prove death. And the motive for such a choice must have been
a very strong one.
The Power would not work inside this Alpha-rim, whatever
that was. Charis’s hand moved against her tunic,
feeling the slight bulk of the plasta-board which was her key to
the place where Lantee had fled, a key which she could not turn.
She had found Lantee, or rather the shell which had encased him.
She had yet to find the nullifier or work out a plan against it.
Her self-confidence was failing fast.
This was always the worst, this striving to cultivate patience
with every nerve in her hammering for action. She must first
establish her character as a bewildered fugitive. So she forced
herself to lie quietly although she longed to be across that small
room, trying the door to see if it was lock-sealed.
It had been early morning when she had come here; now the
invaders, both off-worlders and Wyvern males, would be astir. Not a
good time to go exploring. Exploring! Charis summoned
concentration, sent out a creeping thought—not backed by the
Power, but on her own—striving to reach Tsstu. If this avenue
of communication was also blocked by their Alpha-rim—
A mind touch lapped against her probe as delicately as if the
curl-cat was here in the room to give her a tongue-caress. Charis
knew a throb of excitement, that road was not closed! She had
contact, faulty and wavering as it was, with the animals outside
the base.
The Tsstu link was no longer a touch but a firm uniting, and
then came the feral urge she associated with Taggi—and
another! Lantee? No. This was not the passageway link, but a
heightening of the Taggi strain—his mate, the female
wolverine! A piece of luck Charis had not counted on.
Tsstu was trying to send a message, drawing upon the united
power of the wolverines to give it added impetus. A warning? No,
not quite that; rather a suggestion that any action be delayed.
Charis caught a very fuzzy picture of a Wyvern witch mixed in that.
The female Wyverns must be taking a hand as they had promised. Then
just as Charis tried to learn more, the curl-cat broke contact.
The girl began to think about Lantee. It had taken the Power to
reach him before—the Power plus her own will and that of the
two animals. But there in the copter she alone had found him, and
without consciously drawing on the Power. Now, if he remained too
long in that black world, would he ever come forth again? A small
fire could die to ashes, never to be rekindled.
Charis willed herself to think of a black which was the entire
absence of any light, the swallowing dark from which her species
had fled since first they had learned the secret of fire as a
weapon against that which prowled in the shadows. Cold crept up her
body, the dark gathered in—A spark far in the heart of that
dark . . .
A wrenching at her, dragging her back. Charis moaned at the pain
of that wrenching. She opened her eyes to look up into the slitted
ones set in a reptilian face where a cruel satisfaction
gleamed.
“Snake!” She screamed.
The Wyvern male grinned, obviously highly amused by her shock
and terror. He caught at her tunic, his claws in the fabric drawing
her to the edge of the cot. But as he raised a paw for another
grip, his scaled palm spread wide and then contracted quickly as if
it had touched fire. A thin cry had burst from the alien; he jumped
away from her.
“What’s going on here?” a human voice
demanded. Hands appeared on the Wyvern’s shoulder as a figure
loomed behind the native, dragging him back.
Charis watched the medic pull the Wyvern out of her room. Then
she stumbled after—to see the guard come into Lantee’s
room and aid the medic in forcing the struggling native on, the
warrior all the while uttering sharp, shrill cries. She paused at
the foot of Lantee’s cot as they disappeared toward the outer
door.
Shann! She did not cry that name aloud, and even as she made a
plea of it in her mind, she knew that there would be no answer. But
still she longed now for his support.
His eyes were wide open, but behind them was nothingness. She
did not have to touch his limp hand to know that it could not grip
hers.
The cries of the Wyvern did not grow fainter. Instead they were
augmented outside by a growing chorus. There must be more of the
natives gathering. Were the Company men in dispute with their
allies?
Charis hesitated. She longed to go to the outer door to see what
was going on, but that action would not fit her present role. She
should be cowering, frightened to death, in some corner. She
listened—the clamor was dying— Better get back to her
own room. She scuttled back.
“You—” Captain Lazgah stood in the doorway,
his shoulders blocking the medic, and the tone of his voice was a
warning.
Charis sat up on her cot, her hands were in her hair as if she
had been pulling at it. “The snake—” she took the
initiative swiftly “—the snake tried to get
me!”
“For good reason.” Lazgah’s quick stride
brought him to the cot side. His fingers were steel-tight and
punishing about her right wrist as he pulled her about to face him
squarely. “You’ve been using those hags’ tricks.
Snake—you’re a snake yourself! Those bulls out there
have good reason to hate such tricks—they’d like to get
their claws into you. Gathgar says you’ve been working with
the Power.”
“That’s impossible!” the medic cut in.
“You’ve had the complete reading from sensatator since
she’s been here. There’s no indication that anything
registered. Gathgar knows that she’s been with the females
and he built up all this on that fact alone.”
“What do we know about this Power anyway?” Lazgah
asked. “Sure, there’s only been negative register since
she’s been here. But she might have some way of blanketing
reception on that. A scanner could give us the truth.”
“You put a scanner on her now and you’ll get nothing
but a complete burn-out. She’ll be another like that fellow
in there. What good will that do?”
“Turn the bulls loose on her and we could learn
something.”
“What can you learn from the dead? They’re worked up
now to a killing rage. Don’t hurry and
maybe—”
“Don’t hurry!” The captain made a noise not
far removed from one of Taggi’s snarls. “We don’t
have much time left. This one knows where those hags have their
base. I say—get her under questioning and find that out. Then
we move and move fast. We have our orders to cut all corners on
this deal.”
“Destroy what you want and what good will it do? Sure, you
can probably blast your way in and burn out the opposition, but you
know what we’ve learned so far. The Power doesn’t work
unless you have had the training. It may not operate for males at
all. You have a woman here who’s already been sensitized to
it. Why not use her just as Jagan intended—to pick up the
information you need? You won’t get that by
force—either against her or maybe against the Wyvern
females.”
Lazgah relaxed his grip on Charis. But he still stood over the
girl, staring at her as if he could reach inside her skull by his
will and bring her under control.
“I don’t like it,” he stated, but he did not
protest further. “All right—but you keep an eye on
her.”
The captain tramped out. But the medic did not follow. It was
his turn to favor Charis with a measuring survey.
“I wish I knew whether you are playing a game,” he
said, surprising Charis with his frankness. “Those hags
can’t possibly control you past the Rim. But—” He
shook his head, more at his own thoughts than at her, and did not
finish his sentence. Going out abruptly, he closed the seal
again.
Charis continued to sit on the cot. The Wyvern male Gathgar had
accused her of working with the Power, but she had not. At least
not with the aid of the patterns, Wyvern-fashion. Could it be,
Charis’s hand went to the plasta-board under her tunic, that
she did not need such an aid anymore? Was what she had been doing
here—her contact with Tsstu, the reach for Lantee—an
easier method of using the same force?
But if that were true, there was a way of using the Power which
could not be affected by the nullifier. Charis blinked. That
surmise opened up a whole new field of speculations. She could
reach Tsstu, and Tsstu could link in turn with the wolverines.
Suppose that Tsstu, the wolverines, Charis and Lantee could form a
chain to break open the Alpha-rim of the enemy?
Lantee— Somehow her thoughts always returned to Lantee, as
if the pattern which was not a pattern needed the element for which
he stood—just like the time she could not remember the right
design until Tsstu supplied the indentations in her drawing. Charis
could not have explained why she was certain of this, but she
was.
She lay back on the cot and closed her eyes. Lantee must be
summoned out of hiding, be one with them again. Charis released a
questing thought, spun it out and away from her as a fisherman
might cast a line or as a com beam might search for another
installation to activate. A Wyvern witch working under the Power
would have been accurate in such a hunt. She herself, using the
pattern, could have centered on Tsstu and been reasonably certain
of a quick contact, but this blind seeking was a fumbling
process.
Touch! Charis tensed. Tsstu! Now she must hold that contact,
signal along it her need for energy reserves for the job to be
done. But Tsstu was unwilling. It was as if she was in
Charis’s hand and wriggling for her freedom. But Charis kept
the line taut, sent her determined demand along it.
There—Taggi came in. The girl braced herself against the
impact of the far more savage mind of the wolverine. Through to
Taggi went her call for strength and a mutual pointing of their
combined wills. Lantee—Charis made that call into
form—Lantee. Now a fourth will joined—Togi, the female
linked with her mate. The thrusting leap of that striking back to
Charis was like a blow.
The girl held that linkage intact for a long moment, as a
climber might examine knotted ropes to be sure of his support
before facing a dangerous mountainside. Now! The wills were a spear
which Charis not only aimed for the throwing but followed in
flight.
Into the black of the nothing-place, surely the strangest of
those Otherwheres into which the Power of the Wyverns led, she was
the point of a fiery arrow shooting on and on, seeking the spark of
light there. Now it was before her, very low, an ember close to
extinction. But the arrow which was Charis, Tsstu, Taggi, and Togi
struck into its heart.
Around them whirled a wild dance of figures. From all the
doorways they had come into the corridor to crowd about her. She
could not flee from them lest the lifeline break. This was worse
than the first time she had walked this forbidden way, for the
thoughts and memories of Shann Lantee now gathered more substance
in their shadows. Charis knew a terror which balanced her on the
thin edge of sanity.
However, the chain held true and pulled her back until she lay
again on the cot, aware of its support under her. The contacts
broke, the wolverines were gone; Tsstu, gone.
“I am here.”
Charis opened her eyes, but no one in a green-brown uniform
stood beside her. She turned her head to face the wall which was
still between them.
“I am—back.”
Again that assurance, clear-cut as audible words but, in her
mind, coming with the same ease as the Wyvern witches
communicated.
“Why—” Her lips shaped that soundlessly to
match the inquiry in her mind.
“It was that or face the scanner,” he answered
swiftly.
“And now?”
“Who knows? Did they take you too?”
“No.” Charis outlined what had happened.
“Thorvald here?” Lantee’s thoughts dropped
away and she did not try to follow deeper. Then he was back to
communication level. “The installation we’re after is
in the main dome. They have it guarded by Wyvern males who are
sensitive to any telepathic waves. And they will fight to the death
to keep it in action and themselves free.”
“Can we reach it?” Charis asked.
“Little chance. At least, I’ve seen none so
far,” was his disappointing answer.
“You mean it’s impossible for us to do
anything?” Charis protested.
“No, but we have to know more. They’ve stopped
trying to rouse me. Perhaps that will give me a chance to make some
move.”
“The Wyvern male told them I am using the Power. But I
haven’t tried it with the pattern and it didn’t
register on some machine of theirs, so they didn’t quite
believe him.”
“You did this—without a pattern?”
“With Tsstu and the wolverines, yes. Does it mean we
don’t really need a pattern? That the Wyverns don’t
need them? But why wouldn’t it show up on their
machine?”
“May hit another wavelength,” Lantee returned.
“But if the Wyvern males pick it up, they may be more
sensitive on other bands than their mistresses credit. I wonder if
they could have some Power of their own but don’t know how to
use it. If they picked you up before—”
“Then this last call for you—they
could—”
“Be really alerted now? Yes. Which shaves our time to act.
I don’t even know how many there are here at the
base.”
“The witches have promised their help.”
“How can they? Any sending of theirs will fail at the
Rim.”
“Shann, the Wyverns control their males with the Power.
And the male I saw here believes that I can use it here. Suppose we
all link again. Could we control them inside the
Rim?”
There was a moment of pause in the flow of thought and then he
answered.
“How do we know what will work and what won’t until
we put it to the test? But I want to be ready to get out of here on
my own two feet. And from here I can see a guard with a blaster at
the outer door. We might be able to link against the Wyvern males,
but I wouldn’t swear we could link to take out an off-worlder
who has never been sensitized to mental control.”
“What do we do?”
“Link with the others. See if you can reach Thorvald
so—” he ordered.
This time the first link was not Charis, but Lantee and his will
strengthened hers in her search for the curl-cat. Tsstu replied
with a kind of fretfulness, but she picked up the wolverines.
A line cast out, spinning . . . then the
catch of response.
“Wait!” That caution came back link by link.
“The witches are moving. Wait for their signal.” Break
off as the animals dropped contact.
“What can they do?” Charis demanded of Lantee.
“Your guess is as good as mine.” He was tense.
“The medic’s just come in.”
Silence. How well could he play his role, Charis
wondered a little fretfully. But if the medic had given up hope of
reviving the Survey man, he might not examine him too closely now.
She lay listening for any sound which might come through the
walls.
The door of her room opened and the medic came in with a tray on
which there was food, real food, not rations. He put it
down on a drop-table and turned around to look at her. Charis tried
to look like one awakening from a nap. The man’s expression
was set and the motion with which he indicated the food was
abrupt.
“You’d better eat. You’ll need it!”
She sat up, pushing back her hair, striving to present
bewilderment.
“If you’re smart,” he continued,
“you’ll tell the captain all about it now. He’s
an expert on grab raids. If you don’t know what that means,
you’ll soon discover the hard way.”
Charis was afraid to ask what this warning did mean. To cling to
her cloak of being a dazed fugitive was her only defense.
“You can’t hide it—not any longer. Not with a
complete burn-out of the sensatator this time.”
Charis tensed. The linkage—twice the linkage—had at
last registered on whatever safeguard the invaders had mounted.
“So you do understand that?” The medic nodded.
“I thought you would. Now, you had better talk and fast! The
captain might just turn you over to the bulls.”
“The snakes!” Charis found words at last. “You
mean give me to the snakes?” She did not have to counterfeit
her repulsion.
“That gets to you, does it? It should; they hate the
Power. And they’ll willingly destroy anyone who uses it if
they can. So—make your deal with the captain. He’s
willing to offer a good one.”
“Simkin!”
There was such urgency in that hail that the medic whirled to
the door. There was a growing murmur of sound—some of it
sharp, the rest shouting. The medic ran, leaving the door open.
Charis was up and into Lantee’s room instantly.
The hissing blatt-blatt of a blaster in action came now. And she
had heard that claking before when the birds had hunted her along
the Warlockian cliff.
Then, like a swifter beat of her heart, a pulse along all the
veins and arteries of her body—
“Now!”
The signal was not spoken but to it all of Charis responded. She
saw Lantee slide from the cot in one supple, coordinated
movement—as ready as she.