She reached the lift to the flitter landing and
was borne aloft, wishing she dared to look back and so sight a
follower. But her years of training held, and she drew about her as
best she could a concealing cloak of unconcern. A few moments later
she dialed the call signal for a robo-flitter. Those last seconds
of waiting for the empty transport to slide in before her were the
worst, so close to escape, yet at any moment subject to
challenge.
The flitter dropped, its cabin door opened, and Ziantha
scrambled in with perhaps more haste than was cautious, already
reaching for the code key to tap out a destination to confuse the
trail. Also she risked a quick glance back at the platform from
which she was rising. No sign of pursuit.
But that was no proof that she was not under observation.
Minutes later the flitter set down at the wide and crowded
general market just beyond the fringe of the landing port. The
dealers who traded here bought from space crewmen, who legally
could dabble in the private commerce of small objects, and
illegally in contraband. Here the Guild had many contacts planted
at strategic points, and no sensitive could pierce their protects.
Ziantha relaxed—as much as she could with that lump in her
purse—as she threaded a way through the narrow runways
between one booth and the next. From those contacts she might claim
transportation back to the villa to baffle any ordinary Patrol
exercise.
She had the pricking of the band on her left wrist to guide her
to the stall where she might claim aid, as that was activated to
pick up a Guild signal. Twilight was close, Harath clicked his beak
in a warning, fluffing up his down. He did not take kindly to the
rising chill of night.
A blink sign proclaimed the name of Kackig, and Ziantha turned
there in obedience to her own recognition prick. The man who faced
her was as gray-skinned as any Salariki, but without the feline
features of that species, clearly more humanoid as to ancestry, in
spite of color.
Ziantha raised her hand as if to settle one of the flower-headed
pins in her brush of wig, displaying to the full her wrist
ring.
“Gentle fem.” His voice was a thin pipe, seeming not
to issue from his throat but from some place outside his body.
“Look you—here lie the scents of a hundred stars.
Breathe Flame Spice from Andros, Diamond Dust from
Alaban—”
“You have Sickle-lily of the Tenth Day Bloom?”
His expression did not change beyond that of a polite
merchant’s attention. “By the favor of Three-horned
Math, it is ready to pour into your hand, gentle fem, rare as it
is. But not here, as you well know. Such a delicate fragrance is
easily tainted in the open.” He clapped his hands sharply,
and a small boy wearing his livery overalls arose from the ground
behind the stall.
Kackig snapped his fingers. “Take the gentle fem to
Laros—”
Ziantha nodded her thanks and hurried to keep up with the boy,
who slipped far more easily than she among the narrow and
well-crowded ways of the mart. They came at last to where the
delivery flitters parked in a dusty row.
“The fourth.” Her guide underlined his information
by pointing with a grubby finger. He surveyed what lay about them.
“Now!” She crossed the short open space to enter the
flitter.
There was a Salariki at the controls who glanced around as if to
assure himself she was not an intruder. From the interior also came
the subtle fragrance of the Sickle-lily, which the dried petals of
the Tenth Day Bloom could retain for years. Yasa’s favorite
scent was about to be delivered to the villa.
For the first time since Harath’s warning, the girl dared
use mind-touch with her downy companion.
“We are free?”
“Now.” If thought could convey a feeling of
irritation, then Harath’s curt reply was shadowed by that
emotion. He did not add to that, which was not usual, but Ziantha
did not press. Now that she was reasonably safe, the fact that she
carried with her that which she had no business to have taken began
to weigh on her spirits.
It all depended upon how important the apport was. If it had no
more meaning for Jucundus than any other of the exotic curiosities
which had been with it, then it might not even be missed for some
time. And, surely if it did have importance, it would not have been
left lying in full sight on the table. It would have been sealed in
the safe.
She rested her hand over the bulge in her purse, haunted by the
same ambivalence of desires that had ridden her ever since this
spell had fallen on her. She wanted to use the lump as a focus for
exploration, yet she feared it. But she believed now that her
desire for knowledge was greater than her fear. It must be, or it
would not have pushed her to risk so much in order to get the lump
into her possession.
That she intended to keep it a secret—yes. Not that she
could for long, because of Harath. He would share information with
Ogan. And to suggest that he not do so would be to make sure that
he would. One could not credit Harath with human motives. He was
programmed to work by an alien set of impulses—which
meant—
Harath snapped his beak peevishly, avoiding mind-touch. She set
him on the ground as she left the flitter at the villa in-park, and
he disappeared with a flash of speed surprising for his small body.
Ziantha took warning from that flight and hurried to her own room.
If she were to have any use at all from what she had found, it must
be here and now.
Dropping among her cushions, she took out the lump, this time
without precautions against touching it. Cupping it in her hands
she brought it to her forehead, as if at any moment Ogan and Yasa
might break in to wrest it away from her.
She swayed, almost crumpled. That thrust of instant reply was as
strong as a harsh blow in the face. And yet—she could sort
nothing out of the whirl of impressions that rushed so upon her.
The worst was a freezing fear, the like of which she had never
known before in her life. Perhaps she screamed as it closed about
her; she did not know.
But that overpowering force was gone. Ziantha crouched, staring
stupidly at her hands, which lay limply on her knees. The
lump—the thing—where was it? She shrank from
it when she saw it among the cushions as she might from a sudden
attack by an alien creature.
Nor could she bring herself to touch it again, though that fear
had ebbed, and once more she could feel the faint stirrings of the
obsession which had made her covet it. Ziantha dragged herself up,
tottered into the fresher, needing to feel the cleansing of water,
heat, life, the knowledge that she was herself—Ziantha and
not—
“Not who?” She cried that aloud this time, her hands
to her head. As she ran she shed wig, clothing, to stand in as hot
a mist vapor as her body could tolerate. The warmth that enfolded
her skin slowly penetrated to reach that part of her which seemed
to remain frozen.
Wrapped in a loose robe, she reluctantly returned to her room.
Could she bundle the lump up in a covering—perhaps then bury
it in the garden? Still she was drawn to it against her will,
though at least she could control herself to the point of not
touching it.
Ziantha went on her knees by the cushions, studying the artifact
with attention she had not given it when she made that first
impulsive attempt to unriddle its secret. Though its appearance was
very rough, it was, she was sure, not merely some unworked lump of
hard-baked clay or stone. It bore the rude semblance of a crouching
figure, so rude one could not rightly say that it was meant to
resemble either a monster or a man. There appeared to be four limbs
of sorts attached to a barrel body. But the head, if it had even
been given one, had vanished. Somehow she believed it had been
conceived as it now was.
That it was old past her judging she knew. This extreme age
could well have caused that nauseating whirl of impressions from
her “reading,” for the longer any object wrought by
intelligence was in existence, the more impressions it could pick
up and store, letting those forth as a chaotic mingling of
pictures. It would require many sessions, much careful researching,
to untangle even a small fraction of what might be packed into this
grotesque object.
For a long time it had been a proved fact that any object
wrought by intelligence (or even a natural stone or similar object
that had been used for a definite purpose by intelligence) could
record. From the fumbling beginnings of untrained sensitives, who
had largely developed their own powers, much had been learned. It
had been “magic” then; yet the talent was too
“wild,” because all men did not share it, and because
it could not be controlled or used at will but came and went for
reasons unknown to the possessors. So that at one instance there
had been amazing and clear results that could not be questioned by
witnesses, and on a second try, nothing at all.
There had been frauds when those who had reputations of wonder
workers could not produce the results called for, and in
desperation had turned to trickery. But always there had been a
percentage that was unexplained. When man learned to study instead
of to scoff, when the talented ones were neither scorned nor
feared, progress began. Mind-touch was as well accepted as speech
now, and with it all those other “unexplainables” which
had been denied for generations. Then when mankind of
Ziantha’s own species—that first mankind which had
neither mutated nor altered as a result of living on planets alien
to their home world—when her own species headed into space
they found others to whom the “wild talents” were a
normal way of life.
There were the Wyverns of Warlock, whose females were age-long
mistresses of thought over matter. The Thassa of
Yiktor—Ziantha did not need to list them all. Part of her
past training had been to study what each newly discovered world
could add to the sum total of learning. What she had been able to
absorb she had practiced to the height of her powers under
Ogan’s careful fostering. But this—
Old—old—old!
“How old?” At first Ziantha was so intent upon the
problem she did not realize that question had been asked not by her
own mind but by— She looked over her shoulder.
Yasa stood in the doorway, her lily scent creeping in to fill
the room. At her feet Harath bobbed up and down, hopping on his
clawed feet, as if so greatly excited by something that he could
not remain still. His beak opened and shut in a harsh clicking.
“Yesss—” Yasa’s voice was more of a hiss
than usual, and Ziantha recognized that sign of controlled anger.
“How old—and what isss thisss thing which isss ssso
old?”
“That—” Ziantha pointed to the lump.
The Salarika moved with fluid grace, coming to stand beside
where Ziantha crouched. She leaned over, stared round-eyed.
“For thisss you do what issss forbidden? Why, I asssk you
now, why?”
Her amber-red eyes caught and held Ziantha mercilessly. Humanoid
Yasa might be in general form, but there was no human type of
emotion which Ziantha could detect in that long stare.
The girl wet her lower lip with her tongue. She had met so many
trials this day, it was as if she were now numb. Ordinarily she
would have known fear of Yasa in this mood; now she could only tell
the truth, or what seemed the truth.
“I had to—”
“Sssso? What order had been given you to do
thissss?”
“I—when I was in Jucundus’s apartment
this—this pulled me. I could not forget it. It—it made
me reach for it—”
“She could be right, you know.”
Just as Yasa had entered unbidden and unexpected, now Ogan
appeared. “There are strong compulsions sometimes when a
sensitive is at top pitch performance. Tell me”—he,
too, came to stand over Ziantha—“when were you aware of
this first? Before or after you read the tapes?”
“After, when I was going out of the room. It was so
strong—a call I never felt before.”
He nodded. “Could be so. You had the vibrations high; a
thing attuned to those vibrations could respond with a summons.
Where was this—in the safe?”
“No.” She explained how she had seen it first, one
of a number of curiosities set out on a small table.
“What isss all thisss—?” Yasa began when an
imperative wave from Ogan’s hand not only halted her question
but turned her attention back to the artifact.
Ogan’s hand now rested on Ziantha’s head. She longed
to jerk away, throw off that touch, light and unmenacing though it
was, but submitted to it. Ogan had his own ways of detecting truth
or falsehood, and she needed him more at this moment as a
protection against Yasa’s wrath.
“This then obsessed you until you had to apport it?”
His voice was encouraging, coaxing.
“I could not get it otherwise,” she returned
sullenly.
“So you were able, because of this obsession, to develop
powers you did not use before?”
“I had Harath to back me.”
“Yesss!” Had Yasa still possessed the tail of her
ancestors she might have lashed it at that moment; instead she made
her voice a whip to lash with words. “Thisss one takes
Harath, and with him sssshe makes trouble!” Harath snapped
his beak violently as Yasa paused, as if heartily agreeing with her
accusation. “Sssomewhere now in Tikil there isss a Patrol
ssssensitive at alert. How long you think before Jucundusss
beginsss to wonder?”
To Ziantha’s surprise, Ogan smiled. She sensed that under
his generally expressionless exterior he was excited, even
pleased.
“Lady! Bethink you—how many dwell in that apartment
where Jucundus chooses to make his headquarters?
Two—three—perhaps four hundred! There are endless
possibilities. If Jucundus values this thing so little as to leave
it in the open, will he miss it for a while? It is true that a
sensitive on patrol might well have picked up the surge of
Ziantha’s power. But to detect and trace it would be
impossible unless he had a scan ready for action. She and Harath
were right, or rather Harath was right to shut down on
communication when he detected the hunter. All the sensitive can
say now is that someone within the park put forth an expenditure of
energy in an unusual degree. But”—Ogan looked again at
Ziantha—“that you escaped was not due to any
intelligence on your part, girl.”
She was willing to agree. “No, it was Harath.”
“Yes, Harath, who will now tell us what we have
here.”
“But I—” Ziantha half raised her hand in
protest.
“You are of no value in the matter, not now. Have you not
already tried?” He spoke impatiently as he might to a child
who was being tiresome, as he had in the past when she was younger
and would not be as pliable as he wished. “Harath,” he
repeated coldly.
She wanted to cover the artifact with her hands, her body, hide
it. It was hers—from the beginning she had known it to be
hers. But she was in no condition to read it; her ill-tried
experiment proved that. And she wanted to know what it was, from
whence it had come, why it should exert such influence over
her.
It seemed that Harath had to be coaxed. For he caught at the
fluttering ends of Yasa’s fringed skirt, turning his head
away, only clicking his beak in a staccato of protest when Ogan
ordered him to touch the lump.
Yasa folded her slender legs, gracefully joining Ziantha on the
floor. She ran her fingers gently over the head of the small alien,
purring soothingly, making no mind-send the girl could detect, but
in some manner of her own, communicating, coaxing, bringing Harath
to a better temper.
At last, with a final ruffle of beak drum, he loosed his hold on
her skirt and crossed the cushions with extreme wariness, as if he
fully expected an explosion to follow any touch, even through the
mind alone. Squatting down, he advanced from his down-covered
pocket a single tentacle, brought it over so that the tip alone
just touched the artifact.
Eagerly Ziantha opened her own channel of communication, ready
to pick up whatever the alien would report.
“Not early”—that was Ogan’s caution.
“Give us the latest reading.”
Ziantha picked up a sensation of distress.
“All ways at once—much—much—”
Harath’s answer was a protest.
“Give us the latest,” Ogan insisted.
“Hidden—deep
hidden—oheee—dark—death—”
Harath’s thought was as sharp as a scream. He snatched away
his tentacle as if the figure were searing hot.
“How did Jucundus get it?” It was Yasa this time who
asked. “Little one, little brave one, you can see that for
us. What is this precious thing?”
“A place, an old place—where death lies. Hidden,
old—strange. It is cold from the long time since it was in
sun and light. Death and cold. Many things around it once—a
great—great lord there. No—not to see!”
He whipped the tentacle away again, into complete hiding. But he
did not turn away, rather stood regarding the artifact.
Then: “It is of those you call Forerunners. The very
ancient ones. And it is—was—once one of
two—”
Ziantha heard a hiss which formed no word. Yasa’s lips
were a little apart, there was an avid glow in her large eyes.
“Well done, little one.” She put out her hand as if
to fondle Harath. But he turned, made his way unsteadily across the
pillows to stand beside Ziantha.
“I do not know how,” he reported on the open
mind-send they all now shared, “but this one, she is a part
of it. It is Ziantha who can find, if finding comes at all, where
this once lay. Dark and cold and death.” His round eyes held
unblinkingly on Ziantha. She shivered as she had when she had come
out of the trance of the apport. But she knew that what he said was
the truth. By some curse of temperament or fortune she was linked
to this ugly thing beyond all hope of freedom.
“Forerunner tomb!” Yasa held one of her girdle scent
bags to her nose, sniffing in refreshment the strong odor of the
powdered lily petals. “Ogan, we must discover whence Jucundus
had this—”
“If he bought it, Lady, or if he brought it with
him—” It was plain that Ogan was equally excited.
“What matter? Whatever a man has discovered can be found.
Do we not have more eyes and ears almost than the number of stars
over us?”
“If bought, it could well be loot from a tomb already
discovered,” Ziantha ventured.
Yasa looked at her. “You believe that? That it is some
unknown curiosity picked up perhaps at the port mart with no
backtracing for its origin? It has no beauty to the eye—age
alone and a link with the Forerunners would make it worthy to be
displayed and cherished. Also Jucundus has pretensions to hist-tech
learning. He backed three survey groups on Fennis, striving to
place the mound builders there. But old as those were, they were
not true Forerunners, nor were there tombs. No, Jucundus kept this
with him because of its history, which we must learn. Now we shall
put it in safekeeping until—”
She would have taken it up. But, though her fingers scrabbled in
the air, she could not touch its surface.
“Ogan! What is the matter?”
He came swiftly around the mound of cushions. After a slow study
of the artifact he caught Yasa’s wrist.
“Psychokinetic energy. It is charged past a point I have
never seen before. Lady, this—this thing must once have been
a focus for some parapsychological use. That which gathered in it
during the time it was used has now been brought to life by the
power bent on it when apported. It is like mind-power itself.
Unless it is discharged in some fashion, it is highly dangerous to
the touch. Unless—” He turned on Ziantha. “Pick
it up! At once, do you hear!”
The snap of his order made her move before she thought. Her hand
closed about the lump with no difficulty. It appeared to be
warm—or was that only her imagination, primed by what Ogan
had just said? But if Yasa had been unable to touch it, that
barrier did not hold for her.
“Psychic tie,” Ogan pronounced. “Until it is
fully discharged, if it ever will be, Lady, this girl is the only
one who can handle it.”
“Surely you can neutralize it in some manner! You have all
your devices—of what good are those?” Yasa was plainly
not prepared to accept his decision.
“Of this condition we have theoretical knowledge, Lady.
But in a hundred planet years or more no worship object of an alien
race has ever been found to be so studied. An artifact which has
been the object of worship of a nation or species acquires, with
every ceremony of worship, a certain residue of power. So charged,
it literally becomes, as the ancient men said, god-like. There were
god-kings and -queens of old who were the objects of worship by
those who served them, and who were fed by the psychic energies of
those who adored them. Thus they achieved the power which made them
perform miracles and brought them indeed close to the might they
professed to have.”
“And you believe this to be such a god-thing?” There
was a shadow of disbelief in the Salarika’s voice.
“It is clearly a thing of psychic power far past the
ordinary. And I tell you I dare not put it to any test I could
devise, because I might destroy what it holds. We may have chanced
on such a treasure as we could not have hoped to discover in a
lifetime.”
Perhaps it was the word “treasure” which brought the
throat-purr of satisfaction from Yasa.
“But you believe that you can perhaps use it—through
our cubling here—” The look she now gave Ziantha was
both forgiving and approving.
“I will and can promise nothing, Lady. But with such a key
I think old doors can be opened. We must start, of course, to trace
its history while it was in Jucundus’s possession. Whether
its import was known to him in more than a general way, I greatly
doubt. He does not like sensitives, as well we know. Men with
secrets to hide do not. I can believe that while it was in his
hands no one capable of sensing its real value and meaning could
have seen it. Though it must have been aroused by apporting. Only
Ziantha knew it for what it was, or felt its pull, when she passed
by the table on which it lay. A combination of lucky chances, Lady.
That she should be in a heightened state when she first found it,
so drawn to it, that she should then set it afire by using
psychokinetic means to obtain it. Two factors out of the normal,
reacting on it and on her in a short time, have set up a rapport we
can use very well.
“Now, my girl,” he spoke to Ziantha, “you will
be advised to try to read this.”
“I cannot!” she cried. “I tried, but I cannot!
It—it was horrible.”
Yasa laughed. “To teach you, cubling, not to take such
grave matters on yourself. You will, however, attend to what Ogan
is saying or suffer a mind-lock.” She spoke lightly enough,
but Ziantha had no doubt that she meant exactly what she
threatened. Only the girl did not need such a threat; her
fascination with the artifact had not been in any way lessened,
though she had suffered enough during that one attempt to solve its
mystery to know that she could not try that again—not as she
felt now.
“In your guardianship then, cubling.” Yasa arose.
“Or perhaps in its own, if Ogan’s reading of its
present state continues. Meanwhile we shall take up the matter of
where Jucundus first found it.”
She reached the lift to the flitter landing and
was borne aloft, wishing she dared to look back and so sight a
follower. But her years of training held, and she drew about her as
best she could a concealing cloak of unconcern. A few moments later
she dialed the call signal for a robo-flitter. Those last seconds
of waiting for the empty transport to slide in before her were the
worst, so close to escape, yet at any moment subject to
challenge.
The flitter dropped, its cabin door opened, and Ziantha
scrambled in with perhaps more haste than was cautious, already
reaching for the code key to tap out a destination to confuse the
trail. Also she risked a quick glance back at the platform from
which she was rising. No sign of pursuit.
But that was no proof that she was not under observation.
Minutes later the flitter set down at the wide and crowded
general market just beyond the fringe of the landing port. The
dealers who traded here bought from space crewmen, who legally
could dabble in the private commerce of small objects, and
illegally in contraband. Here the Guild had many contacts planted
at strategic points, and no sensitive could pierce their protects.
Ziantha relaxed—as much as she could with that lump in her
purse—as she threaded a way through the narrow runways
between one booth and the next. From those contacts she might claim
transportation back to the villa to baffle any ordinary Patrol
exercise.
She had the pricking of the band on her left wrist to guide her
to the stall where she might claim aid, as that was activated to
pick up a Guild signal. Twilight was close, Harath clicked his beak
in a warning, fluffing up his down. He did not take kindly to the
rising chill of night.
A blink sign proclaimed the name of Kackig, and Ziantha turned
there in obedience to her own recognition prick. The man who faced
her was as gray-skinned as any Salariki, but without the feline
features of that species, clearly more humanoid as to ancestry, in
spite of color.
Ziantha raised her hand as if to settle one of the flower-headed
pins in her brush of wig, displaying to the full her wrist
ring.
“Gentle fem.” His voice was a thin pipe, seeming not
to issue from his throat but from some place outside his body.
“Look you—here lie the scents of a hundred stars.
Breathe Flame Spice from Andros, Diamond Dust from
Alaban—”
“You have Sickle-lily of the Tenth Day Bloom?”
His expression did not change beyond that of a polite
merchant’s attention. “By the favor of Three-horned
Math, it is ready to pour into your hand, gentle fem, rare as it
is. But not here, as you well know. Such a delicate fragrance is
easily tainted in the open.” He clapped his hands sharply,
and a small boy wearing his livery overalls arose from the ground
behind the stall.
Kackig snapped his fingers. “Take the gentle fem to
Laros—”
Ziantha nodded her thanks and hurried to keep up with the boy,
who slipped far more easily than she among the narrow and
well-crowded ways of the mart. They came at last to where the
delivery flitters parked in a dusty row.
“The fourth.” Her guide underlined his information
by pointing with a grubby finger. He surveyed what lay about them.
“Now!” She crossed the short open space to enter the
flitter.
There was a Salariki at the controls who glanced around as if to
assure himself she was not an intruder. From the interior also came
the subtle fragrance of the Sickle-lily, which the dried petals of
the Tenth Day Bloom could retain for years. Yasa’s favorite
scent was about to be delivered to the villa.
For the first time since Harath’s warning, the girl dared
use mind-touch with her downy companion.
“We are free?”
“Now.” If thought could convey a feeling of
irritation, then Harath’s curt reply was shadowed by that
emotion. He did not add to that, which was not usual, but Ziantha
did not press. Now that she was reasonably safe, the fact that she
carried with her that which she had no business to have taken began
to weigh on her spirits.
It all depended upon how important the apport was. If it had no
more meaning for Jucundus than any other of the exotic curiosities
which had been with it, then it might not even be missed for some
time. And, surely if it did have importance, it would not have been
left lying in full sight on the table. It would have been sealed in
the safe.
She rested her hand over the bulge in her purse, haunted by the
same ambivalence of desires that had ridden her ever since this
spell had fallen on her. She wanted to use the lump as a focus for
exploration, yet she feared it. But she believed now that her
desire for knowledge was greater than her fear. It must be, or it
would not have pushed her to risk so much in order to get the lump
into her possession.
That she intended to keep it a secret—yes. Not that she
could for long, because of Harath. He would share information with
Ogan. And to suggest that he not do so would be to make sure that
he would. One could not credit Harath with human motives. He was
programmed to work by an alien set of impulses—which
meant—
Harath snapped his beak peevishly, avoiding mind-touch. She set
him on the ground as she left the flitter at the villa in-park, and
he disappeared with a flash of speed surprising for his small body.
Ziantha took warning from that flight and hurried to her own room.
If she were to have any use at all from what she had found, it must
be here and now.
Dropping among her cushions, she took out the lump, this time
without precautions against touching it. Cupping it in her hands
she brought it to her forehead, as if at any moment Ogan and Yasa
might break in to wrest it away from her.
She swayed, almost crumpled. That thrust of instant reply was as
strong as a harsh blow in the face. And yet—she could sort
nothing out of the whirl of impressions that rushed so upon her.
The worst was a freezing fear, the like of which she had never
known before in her life. Perhaps she screamed as it closed about
her; she did not know.
But that overpowering force was gone. Ziantha crouched, staring
stupidly at her hands, which lay limply on her knees. The
lump—the thing—where was it? She shrank from
it when she saw it among the cushions as she might from a sudden
attack by an alien creature.
Nor could she bring herself to touch it again, though that fear
had ebbed, and once more she could feel the faint stirrings of the
obsession which had made her covet it. Ziantha dragged herself up,
tottered into the fresher, needing to feel the cleansing of water,
heat, life, the knowledge that she was herself—Ziantha and
not—
“Not who?” She cried that aloud this time, her hands
to her head. As she ran she shed wig, clothing, to stand in as hot
a mist vapor as her body could tolerate. The warmth that enfolded
her skin slowly penetrated to reach that part of her which seemed
to remain frozen.
Wrapped in a loose robe, she reluctantly returned to her room.
Could she bundle the lump up in a covering—perhaps then bury
it in the garden? Still she was drawn to it against her will,
though at least she could control herself to the point of not
touching it.
Ziantha went on her knees by the cushions, studying the artifact
with attention she had not given it when she made that first
impulsive attempt to unriddle its secret. Though its appearance was
very rough, it was, she was sure, not merely some unworked lump of
hard-baked clay or stone. It bore the rude semblance of a crouching
figure, so rude one could not rightly say that it was meant to
resemble either a monster or a man. There appeared to be four limbs
of sorts attached to a barrel body. But the head, if it had even
been given one, had vanished. Somehow she believed it had been
conceived as it now was.
That it was old past her judging she knew. This extreme age
could well have caused that nauseating whirl of impressions from
her “reading,” for the longer any object wrought by
intelligence was in existence, the more impressions it could pick
up and store, letting those forth as a chaotic mingling of
pictures. It would require many sessions, much careful researching,
to untangle even a small fraction of what might be packed into this
grotesque object.
For a long time it had been a proved fact that any object
wrought by intelligence (or even a natural stone or similar object
that had been used for a definite purpose by intelligence) could
record. From the fumbling beginnings of untrained sensitives, who
had largely developed their own powers, much had been learned. It
had been “magic” then; yet the talent was too
“wild,” because all men did not share it, and because
it could not be controlled or used at will but came and went for
reasons unknown to the possessors. So that at one instance there
had been amazing and clear results that could not be questioned by
witnesses, and on a second try, nothing at all.
There had been frauds when those who had reputations of wonder
workers could not produce the results called for, and in
desperation had turned to trickery. But always there had been a
percentage that was unexplained. When man learned to study instead
of to scoff, when the talented ones were neither scorned nor
feared, progress began. Mind-touch was as well accepted as speech
now, and with it all those other “unexplainables” which
had been denied for generations. Then when mankind of
Ziantha’s own species—that first mankind which had
neither mutated nor altered as a result of living on planets alien
to their home world—when her own species headed into space
they found others to whom the “wild talents” were a
normal way of life.
There were the Wyverns of Warlock, whose females were age-long
mistresses of thought over matter. The Thassa of
Yiktor—Ziantha did not need to list them all. Part of her
past training had been to study what each newly discovered world
could add to the sum total of learning. What she had been able to
absorb she had practiced to the height of her powers under
Ogan’s careful fostering. But this—
Old—old—old!
“How old?” At first Ziantha was so intent upon the
problem she did not realize that question had been asked not by her
own mind but by— She looked over her shoulder.
Yasa stood in the doorway, her lily scent creeping in to fill
the room. At her feet Harath bobbed up and down, hopping on his
clawed feet, as if so greatly excited by something that he could
not remain still. His beak opened and shut in a harsh clicking.
“Yesss—” Yasa’s voice was more of a hiss
than usual, and Ziantha recognized that sign of controlled anger.
“How old—and what isss thisss thing which isss ssso
old?”
“That—” Ziantha pointed to the lump.
The Salarika moved with fluid grace, coming to stand beside
where Ziantha crouched. She leaned over, stared round-eyed.
“For thisss you do what issss forbidden? Why, I asssk you
now, why?”
Her amber-red eyes caught and held Ziantha mercilessly. Humanoid
Yasa might be in general form, but there was no human type of
emotion which Ziantha could detect in that long stare.
The girl wet her lower lip with her tongue. She had met so many
trials this day, it was as if she were now numb. Ordinarily she
would have known fear of Yasa in this mood; now she could only tell
the truth, or what seemed the truth.
“I had to—”
“Sssso? What order had been given you to do
thissss?”
“I—when I was in Jucundus’s apartment
this—this pulled me. I could not forget it. It—it made
me reach for it—”
“She could be right, you know.”
Just as Yasa had entered unbidden and unexpected, now Ogan
appeared. “There are strong compulsions sometimes when a
sensitive is at top pitch performance. Tell me”—he,
too, came to stand over Ziantha—“when were you aware of
this first? Before or after you read the tapes?”
“After, when I was going out of the room. It was so
strong—a call I never felt before.”
He nodded. “Could be so. You had the vibrations high; a
thing attuned to those vibrations could respond with a summons.
Where was this—in the safe?”
“No.” She explained how she had seen it first, one
of a number of curiosities set out on a small table.
“What isss all thisss—?” Yasa began when an
imperative wave from Ogan’s hand not only halted her question
but turned her attention back to the artifact.
Ogan’s hand now rested on Ziantha’s head. She longed
to jerk away, throw off that touch, light and unmenacing though it
was, but submitted to it. Ogan had his own ways of detecting truth
or falsehood, and she needed him more at this moment as a
protection against Yasa’s wrath.
“This then obsessed you until you had to apport it?”
His voice was encouraging, coaxing.
“I could not get it otherwise,” she returned
sullenly.
“So you were able, because of this obsession, to develop
powers you did not use before?”
“I had Harath to back me.”
“Yesss!” Had Yasa still possessed the tail of her
ancestors she might have lashed it at that moment; instead she made
her voice a whip to lash with words. “Thisss one takes
Harath, and with him sssshe makes trouble!” Harath snapped
his beak violently as Yasa paused, as if heartily agreeing with her
accusation. “Sssomewhere now in Tikil there isss a Patrol
ssssensitive at alert. How long you think before Jucundusss
beginsss to wonder?”
To Ziantha’s surprise, Ogan smiled. She sensed that under
his generally expressionless exterior he was excited, even
pleased.
“Lady! Bethink you—how many dwell in that apartment
where Jucundus chooses to make his headquarters?
Two—three—perhaps four hundred! There are endless
possibilities. If Jucundus values this thing so little as to leave
it in the open, will he miss it for a while? It is true that a
sensitive on patrol might well have picked up the surge of
Ziantha’s power. But to detect and trace it would be
impossible unless he had a scan ready for action. She and Harath
were right, or rather Harath was right to shut down on
communication when he detected the hunter. All the sensitive can
say now is that someone within the park put forth an expenditure of
energy in an unusual degree. But”—Ogan looked again at
Ziantha—“that you escaped was not due to any
intelligence on your part, girl.”
She was willing to agree. “No, it was Harath.”
“Yes, Harath, who will now tell us what we have
here.”
“But I—” Ziantha half raised her hand in
protest.
“You are of no value in the matter, not now. Have you not
already tried?” He spoke impatiently as he might to a child
who was being tiresome, as he had in the past when she was younger
and would not be as pliable as he wished. “Harath,” he
repeated coldly.
She wanted to cover the artifact with her hands, her body, hide
it. It was hers—from the beginning she had known it to be
hers. But she was in no condition to read it; her ill-tried
experiment proved that. And she wanted to know what it was, from
whence it had come, why it should exert such influence over
her.
It seemed that Harath had to be coaxed. For he caught at the
fluttering ends of Yasa’s fringed skirt, turning his head
away, only clicking his beak in a staccato of protest when Ogan
ordered him to touch the lump.
Yasa folded her slender legs, gracefully joining Ziantha on the
floor. She ran her fingers gently over the head of the small alien,
purring soothingly, making no mind-send the girl could detect, but
in some manner of her own, communicating, coaxing, bringing Harath
to a better temper.
At last, with a final ruffle of beak drum, he loosed his hold on
her skirt and crossed the cushions with extreme wariness, as if he
fully expected an explosion to follow any touch, even through the
mind alone. Squatting down, he advanced from his down-covered
pocket a single tentacle, brought it over so that the tip alone
just touched the artifact.
Eagerly Ziantha opened her own channel of communication, ready
to pick up whatever the alien would report.
“Not early”—that was Ogan’s caution.
“Give us the latest reading.”
Ziantha picked up a sensation of distress.
“All ways at once—much—much—”
Harath’s answer was a protest.
“Give us the latest,” Ogan insisted.
“Hidden—deep
hidden—oheee—dark—death—”
Harath’s thought was as sharp as a scream. He snatched away
his tentacle as if the figure were searing hot.
“How did Jucundus get it?” It was Yasa this time who
asked. “Little one, little brave one, you can see that for
us. What is this precious thing?”
“A place, an old place—where death lies. Hidden,
old—strange. It is cold from the long time since it was in
sun and light. Death and cold. Many things around it once—a
great—great lord there. No—not to see!”
He whipped the tentacle away again, into complete hiding. But he
did not turn away, rather stood regarding the artifact.
Then: “It is of those you call Forerunners. The very
ancient ones. And it is—was—once one of
two—”
Ziantha heard a hiss which formed no word. Yasa’s lips
were a little apart, there was an avid glow in her large eyes.
“Well done, little one.” She put out her hand as if
to fondle Harath. But he turned, made his way unsteadily across the
pillows to stand beside Ziantha.
“I do not know how,” he reported on the open
mind-send they all now shared, “but this one, she is a part
of it. It is Ziantha who can find, if finding comes at all, where
this once lay. Dark and cold and death.” His round eyes held
unblinkingly on Ziantha. She shivered as she had when she had come
out of the trance of the apport. But she knew that what he said was
the truth. By some curse of temperament or fortune she was linked
to this ugly thing beyond all hope of freedom.
“Forerunner tomb!” Yasa held one of her girdle scent
bags to her nose, sniffing in refreshment the strong odor of the
powdered lily petals. “Ogan, we must discover whence Jucundus
had this—”
“If he bought it, Lady, or if he brought it with
him—” It was plain that Ogan was equally excited.
“What matter? Whatever a man has discovered can be found.
Do we not have more eyes and ears almost than the number of stars
over us?”
“If bought, it could well be loot from a tomb already
discovered,” Ziantha ventured.
Yasa looked at her. “You believe that? That it is some
unknown curiosity picked up perhaps at the port mart with no
backtracing for its origin? It has no beauty to the eye—age
alone and a link with the Forerunners would make it worthy to be
displayed and cherished. Also Jucundus has pretensions to hist-tech
learning. He backed three survey groups on Fennis, striving to
place the mound builders there. But old as those were, they were
not true Forerunners, nor were there tombs. No, Jucundus kept this
with him because of its history, which we must learn. Now we shall
put it in safekeeping until—”
She would have taken it up. But, though her fingers scrabbled in
the air, she could not touch its surface.
“Ogan! What is the matter?”
He came swiftly around the mound of cushions. After a slow study
of the artifact he caught Yasa’s wrist.
“Psychokinetic energy. It is charged past a point I have
never seen before. Lady, this—this thing must once have been
a focus for some parapsychological use. That which gathered in it
during the time it was used has now been brought to life by the
power bent on it when apported. It is like mind-power itself.
Unless it is discharged in some fashion, it is highly dangerous to
the touch. Unless—” He turned on Ziantha. “Pick
it up! At once, do you hear!”
The snap of his order made her move before she thought. Her hand
closed about the lump with no difficulty. It appeared to be
warm—or was that only her imagination, primed by what Ogan
had just said? But if Yasa had been unable to touch it, that
barrier did not hold for her.
“Psychic tie,” Ogan pronounced. “Until it is
fully discharged, if it ever will be, Lady, this girl is the only
one who can handle it.”
“Surely you can neutralize it in some manner! You have all
your devices—of what good are those?” Yasa was plainly
not prepared to accept his decision.
“Of this condition we have theoretical knowledge, Lady.
But in a hundred planet years or more no worship object of an alien
race has ever been found to be so studied. An artifact which has
been the object of worship of a nation or species acquires, with
every ceremony of worship, a certain residue of power. So charged,
it literally becomes, as the ancient men said, god-like. There were
god-kings and -queens of old who were the objects of worship by
those who served them, and who were fed by the psychic energies of
those who adored them. Thus they achieved the power which made them
perform miracles and brought them indeed close to the might they
professed to have.”
“And you believe this to be such a god-thing?” There
was a shadow of disbelief in the Salarika’s voice.
“It is clearly a thing of psychic power far past the
ordinary. And I tell you I dare not put it to any test I could
devise, because I might destroy what it holds. We may have chanced
on such a treasure as we could not have hoped to discover in a
lifetime.”
Perhaps it was the word “treasure” which brought the
throat-purr of satisfaction from Yasa.
“But you believe that you can perhaps use it—through
our cubling here—” The look she now gave Ziantha was
both forgiving and approving.
“I will and can promise nothing, Lady. But with such a key
I think old doors can be opened. We must start, of course, to trace
its history while it was in Jucundus’s possession. Whether
its import was known to him in more than a general way, I greatly
doubt. He does not like sensitives, as well we know. Men with
secrets to hide do not. I can believe that while it was in his
hands no one capable of sensing its real value and meaning could
have seen it. Though it must have been aroused by apporting. Only
Ziantha knew it for what it was, or felt its pull, when she passed
by the table on which it lay. A combination of lucky chances, Lady.
That she should be in a heightened state when she first found it,
so drawn to it, that she should then set it afire by using
psychokinetic means to obtain it. Two factors out of the normal,
reacting on it and on her in a short time, have set up a rapport we
can use very well.
“Now, my girl,” he spoke to Ziantha, “you will
be advised to try to read this.”
“I cannot!” she cried. “I tried, but I cannot!
It—it was horrible.”
Yasa laughed. “To teach you, cubling, not to take such
grave matters on yourself. You will, however, attend to what Ogan
is saying or suffer a mind-lock.” She spoke lightly enough,
but Ziantha had no doubt that she meant exactly what she
threatened. Only the girl did not need such a threat; her
fascination with the artifact had not been in any way lessened,
though she had suffered enough during that one attempt to solve its
mystery to know that she could not try that again—not as she
felt now.
“In your guardianship then, cubling.” Yasa arose.
“Or perhaps in its own, if Ogan’s reading of its
present state continues. Meanwhile we shall take up the matter of
where Jucundus first found it.”