Flight In Yiktor Part 7

Put it on alpha then - He had crawled until he could see their boots clearly. Having once lost his feet, that treacherous wave of force kept him low, so he came as a spirit-broken animal might slink to Russtif at the crack of a whip.

It is on alpha. I tell you we deal with the unknown. And - There was a startled cry from one of Farree's captors. The hunchback now sat within touching distance of that shining box. He was soaked with sweat from his fight against the power, tasting blood in his mouth where he had bitten down on his lip in that agony of struggle. But Parree looked up to see he who knelt by the box, swaying back and forth, a look of torment on his face. One hand was going forward to the strange weapon, advancing plainly against his will.

One of the other men from the flitter gave a harsh exclamation and joined his fellow by the box, slicing a hand down with vicious suddenness so that it struck against the wrist of that groping one. There was a cry of pain and the first man nursed his wrist against his body.

Take off! While we can! It was Quanhi who yelled that. They have strengths we don't know - n.o.body can withstand this. The one who attacked his fellow said that grimly.

No? I see Krip Vorlund over there still. Did you think to bring him crawling to us like this? The toe of a boot flashed out to catch Farree in the ribs, and the pain drowned out the pain he felt in his hump.

There are Tha.s.sa here, and it is the cycle of the third ring. No one on Yiktor goes up against them - So we just go? demanded the other.

So we go, but not empty-handed. We have this one, and perhaps he is less idiotic than he looks. Gompar knows what questions to ask and how. He'll spill out his insides easily enough.

It would seem that this speaker had command of the force, because they did turn toward the flitter. Farree was picked up and slung aboard, then a tangler was turned on him and before he could hope to move the sticky cords had netted him in.

He had already striven to reach the minds of those who had taken him - and came up against the blankness of shields. Now he was a small ball of misery and fear pushed to the back of the flitter where he lay, his hump rubbing painfully against the wall, as the small craft arose with an upward leap.

None of those aboard paid him any more attention. He made himself push aside panic and take stock of that company. Their former captives sat well to the back, crowded in not too far from him, and the four who had come to their rescue occupied the fore seats.

They were dressed uniformly, in s.p.a.ce suits, and had their hair bristle short as did most crewmen. The leader seemed to be the man now at the controls of this small ship. It was never easy to guess ages, but Farree thought that he was younger than Quanhi. He had a seam of scar from one corner of his mouth to his jawline. Otherwise there was nothing about him to suggest that he was any different from any crewman Farree had seen off duty in the Limits.

The man by him was, in spite of his s.p.a.cer clothing, a different type. Had Farree not seen him here, he would have thought him a wealthy tourist, the kind who sometimes ventured into the Limits for a thrill and then often complained of thievery or ill-usage. He was stout - almost enough so to appear bloated - and his features were of an unusual smallness, squeezed together at the forefront of his head, with a high, bulbous forehead and a neck which in the nape was marked by two rolls of fat. It was on his knees that the box of power rested, now fitted into a case. He kept running his pudgy hand about its surface as if he felt chilled and this kept warmth for him. His lips were pushed out in a petulant pout, and it was plain that he was far from satisfied with their just-past action, yet he made no protest in words.

There was no way that Farree could either see out of the flitter or even mark the time they spent in the air. His bonds allowed him no movement, and he could guess that what lay ahead was nothing to try to antic.i.p.ate.

They came in at last for a landing, which jarred Farree again against the wall and would have brought a whimper of pain from him had he not once more bitten down upon his lip. To let any of these see that he was frightened would be the last thing he would do. He clung fiercely to that, and for a moment thought of how Lord-One Krip had told him of running in the body of something called a barsk - so fierce an animal that all feared it. What would happen if he could claim now the claws, the strength, the bulk of Bojor?

However, there was no chance of that. He would remain what he had always been: too weak and helpless a creature to stand against anything thrust upon him. Even now, one picked him up and slung him easily to another man waiting at the hatch. And as that one carried him he got his first look at what lay about him.

He was upon an open plain with no sign of the cliff which had broken the other one. Instead a mound arose, plainly not a natural one. On that was a broken, ragged heap of tumbled-down stone walls while a tower in its middle pointed a finger to sunset clouds. As much of a ruin as the place looked, there were dwellers within. He saw movement along the near-broken walls as he was carried up the incline to where the tower stood.

A courtyard with walls and half-destroyed buildings verging on all four sides surrounded the tower, but it was to the latter that he was carried. Then, being carelessly knocked against the wall, he was transported upward to be tossed like a bit of unwanted refuse into a narrow room with a wider arc of wall narrowing to nearly a point where the door now slammed into place, leaving him alone.

A window broke the arc of the far wall, but there was no famishing here, only the bare stone that already had given him bruises. He had landed on his back and the pain in his hump awoke from an ache to a burning stab, until he man-aged to roll over on one side, facing that high window where all he could see was a narrow slit of sky.

For the first time since he had been taken, Parree had time to think. It was plain that the Tha.s.sa part of Lord-One Krip had managed to keep him from being swallowed up in the same trap. But what could these who held him. Dung from the Limits, hope to learn from him alone? He knew so little: only that some time ago the Lord-One and the Lady Maelen had helped to break up an operation of the Guild and could still be in danger because the Guild could not allow its might to be flouted easily, or because they had certain knowledge which went beyond that particular action and which might lead to another discovery.

Good enough reason for their capture and the attempts to take over the ship. But Farree had not been with them during that earlier exploit and certainly had no knowledge that could be sifted out for the Guild's profit. Maybe they intended to use him for a bargaining piece ...

Farree's mouth twisted wryly. What was he to the two of the Tha.s.sa that they should risk anything in his behalf? True, they had taken him out of the mora.s.s of the Limits. However, they had a feeling for helpless animals as he had learned from their talk. But one did not risk all for an animal and certainly he, Farree, could not rate any higher than that. It would seem that he was now as much on his own as he had always been in the Limits and with far less to help him here.

It would seem that none were in a hurry to make what use they could of him, for he continued to lie alone, wrapped by the near-strangling cords of the tangler, in the tower room. Hunger awoke in him and thirst, both of which he had known too many times before to yield to now. He lay and watched the sc.r.a.p of sky, which was edged by the high window, and he slept for a while or at least had no memory of the pa.s.sing time. It was dusk beyond the window when the door was at last opened. Quanhi came in to stir him with one boot toe.

The s.p.a.ceman pointed a laser on lowest beam at one stretch of the tangler cords, and those straightaway began to shrivel up until the ashy remnants fell away and Farree was free of bonds. His whole body ached dully as the boot reached out once more to prod at him.

On your feet, Dung. You are needed.

His arms and legs were so numb from his bonds that he found it almost more than he could do to get to his feet. But a stubbornness in him would not let him crawl, and he made it, though he wavered toward the wall of the room and had to steady himself there.

Move - or do you want a touch of this? The s.p.a.cer twirled his laser, and Farree lurched forward. Though there was the pain of returning full circulation and the ever-present aching in his hump, he managed to keep his feet and go on.

Though the curve of a stair which hugged the wall, cracked and worn as to steps, nearly defeated him, Farree at last reached the ground level of the tower and was herded on into another section of the ruin. His glimpse of the open before entering the other building gave him a chance only to see that there was indeed a force here - men coming and going, all of them wearing s.p.a.ce clothing.

However, the room he was now herded into might have been lifted out of some Lord's holding back on Grant's World. Hangings of a blue-copper cross-spinning covered the ancient walls, and there was actually a matching carpet under his feet. He was brought to a halt before a table of silvery wood. Behind it were two folding chairs of tapestry and precious gonder wood. The table itself had been recently used for what Farree would have thought a feast, but the soiled plates and cups had been pushed to the far end, and now there were several boxes set out before the two men seated there.

One was the overfleshed man from the flitter, and his hands still caressed that box he had brought from the scene of Farree's undoing, stroking it as if he so pleasured a pet animal. His companion at the table was of a different pattern. There was in his look, his every movement, an air of command that led Farree to believe he was fronting the leader of this outlaw company. Though the face before him bore no disfiguring scar nor was he high-nosed in manner like one of the upper city Lords, Farree, after one meeting with those eyes, shivered and longed to draw himself into a ball as Toggor did when threatened.

It was the fat man who spoke first: This is the one which was drawn . . .

Had there or had there not been a thread of uneasiness in that? Farree thought he distinguished a suggestion that the fat one was not as pleased with his capture as he might have been.

And the others? the leader asked quietly, even mildly, as if he lacked much interest in the proceedings.

For a moment the fat man was silent, and even his pudgy hands ceased their gentling of the box. He pursed his lips as if he searched for a proper word or would get one out of his captive if he dared.

The others? the leader repeated in the same quiet tone.

They withstood ... The admission was dragged from his companion, and Farree saw those hands tense on the box.

Yes. The Tha.s.sa ... The leader could have been merely beginning an observation, but Farree was aware, by his own feelings of tension and fear, that the fat man changed position a fraction, nearly as if he winced.

They are reputed to have more than one skill, the leader continued after a pause. How do you think they have continued to exist for centuries of planet time with the Lords of Yiktor both jealous and afraid?

We had none to test, the fat man said with a note of defense in his voice. Our material - Was such as this? the leader gestured toward Farree.

He was with them the whole time. It was Quanhi who volunteered that.

They gather strange life forms for the showing, do they not? What could they find more strange than this lump of offal? You - his hard eyes caught Farree's and held them captive - what were you to these Tha.s.sa?

Farree had to moisten his lips with tongue tip twice before he could find answer. I helped with the animals, Lord-One, he said in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

Helped with? Or were one? Do you not know by now that these Tha.s.sa consider themselves above the rest of us?

Commander. Again it was Quanhi who dared to interrupt. This one helped in taking back the ship - The leader gave a single bark of laughter that was more like a burst of oath. A mighty opponent indeed. I wonder that you acknowledge his part in that.

Commander. The man refused to be silenced. He speaks with thoughts like those others.

Yes, as you have said before several times. Well, Dung, can you read my thoughts now in your twisted head?

You are protected, Lord-One, Farree answered with the truth.

Just so - protected. But so were the two aboard that ship and yet they fell into a Tha.s.sa trap. However, as you are not Tha.s.sa, we need not take the precaution of silencing you. In fact it is better not. Seek your friends - your masters - whatever those witch people are to you, and beg for their help. I will wager that such a call will bring nothing, but one can always hope, and these Tha.s.sa are ridiculously mindful of their own - even their animals. Now - he leaned a little farther across the table - let us get to the matter of what Dung knows about his betters. Why did Vorlund and the woman come here?

I do not know. Farree barely got the words out of his mouth when a heavy-handed blow from Quanhi sent him forward to come up against the table edge with bruising force.

Let me fry a finger from him. Commander. Such a reminder - The man at the table held up a hand which instantly silenced the other. Farree might not now be able to read minds but he could feel the emotions heating in this room and that from Quanhi was a tinge of fear.

Dung, do you know what these Tha.s.sa do with those they take? inquired the same low and level voice. They change people - men - into animals and animals into men.

Do you wish to find all that is you behind the hide and fleas of, say, a zinder?

He spoke of a mound of foul oozelike flesh which fed and crawled and was an abomination in the eyes of all unfortunate enough to meet it. Parree shivered. Not that he believed that he - that anyone - would be so treated by those he had met wearing the name of Tha.s.sa, but the picture of the creature in his mind made him ill.

Apparently his shiver informed them that such a fear did lie deep in him. But how wrong they were. To be an animal - a swift, beautiful runner such as Yazz, a mound of strength and courage like Bojor - to him who was Dung - what could be a more welcome change?

I see you understand me. Did you not know that they would not keep such an abomination as you with them? You would find yourself furred or feathered or caged soon enough. Now, let us ask again: Why did Vorlund and the woman come here? The Tha.s.sa have no ships, and that one which brought you is too small to carry many. But only a few recruits and they could cause us a problem - a small problem. Did they ever mention the planet Sehkmet to you, humpback?

Farree considered quickly. He could well pretend that the fear of the animal transformation governed any answer. And what did he have, in truth, to say? He was not sure why they had come to Yiktor - save that the Lady Maelen was moved by a pressing desire to set down here when the three-ringed moon swung in the sky and that that had something to do with her powers. He was having to think faster than he had ever been pressed to do before, weighing one fact against a supposition and a guess against a fact.

They said only that there had been a great find there and that they had something to do with it. It was a matter in the past which they spoke little of.

A matter of the past reaching well into the future - which is now. Yes, something was found on Sehkmet, and they had a hand in it - those two. Though there was no change in the Commander's set expression of half boredom and flagging interest, still there was a note in his voice which suggested that he might not be broadcasting fear now but rather anger.

You read minds, I am told. He leaned forward a fraction to look down into Parree's face only inches above the top of the table. Therefore you could know what they did not say as well as what they said. Now what of that?

The hunchback shook his head. Lord-One, those can cut off their thought by will even as you are shielded. I could read only what they willed me to - the small things that they thought it needful for me to know.

For a very long moment the other simply observed him.

The dark eyes were expressionless and there seemed to be no surface life in them. It was as if the Guild leader could shutter them at will.

That could almost be the truth. Dung. Only I cannot be sure, can I? We shall do some probing when Isfahan gets here with the reader. There is nothing human which can hide a thought from that. So you will share our hospitality for a time. If you wish to bespeak your friends - Farree had already made a decision, the best he could summon in the here and now.

Lord-One, when that summoned - he pointed at the box the fat man still so jealousy guarded - did I not come? They did not, but saved themselves by their own ways. Therefore why should I believe that they care now what happens to such as me?

The truth again. The Tha.s.sa do not fight, nor war even when they are attacked, but always withdraw. They will be in no haste to rescue one who is as you - a misshapen thing out from the slime, which they might have taken merely for an experiment.

Perhaps that was the truth. Now that he was not near the Lady Maelen or the Lord-One Krip, how could he be sure that it was not? He need only look down at what he could see of himself and think a bitter truth or two. On Grant's World he had had some value. What was he here but some refuse swept up during their escape - of less worth than Yazz or Bojor?

I see that I have given you something to think about. Consider it carefully. Return him into keeping.

Return him to the tower room they did, though they shoved into his hands a roll of nearly stone-hard ration crisp and a canteen of water. He ate slowly, chewing at the hard stuff with caution lest he break a tooth. It would have been easier to put some drug in that scant ration of water than in the roll of hardened nutrient. There could be no sleep gas here, but neither had they rebound him. It might be well that they thought him so safely caged that they need take no such precautions anymore.

He could not put his back against the wall; his hump was still tender. Now he sat cross-legged in a comer of the room farthest from the door and tried to think.

What he had gained when Lord-One Krip had told him of the past and other hints garnered along the way - even what his present captors had said - all linked together. There had been a find - doubtless a big Forerunner one (such could make the finder wealthy beyond dreams) on a world named Sehkmet. The Guild had been busied with looting it when in some way Krip Vorlund and the Lady Maelen had spoiled their action. Now the Guild (and he did not doubt that the Commander here was truly a Guild Veep of some standing) had a double reason for wanting to lay hands on the two Tha.s.sa again: once for retribution and once to learn if there were more such finds to be uncovered.

Nor did he doubt that the Guild controlled that which would win their desires - first from him and then from the Tha.s.sa. It was a well-known fact that the Guild was ever on the search for new weapons - or old ones of lost and forgotten races - which could be used with effect. This one which had brought him into their hands was surely such. Yet Lord-One Krip had been able to withstand its demanding call.

Thankfully there was little they could get out of him. He was very glad that he had not been deep in any plans the Tha.s.sa might have made. Certainly he could fight and he would, testing his will to the uttermost. But in the end they would wring him dry as one wrings a washing rag. That they could and would use him as trap bait - that he also supposed to be the truth. But he had no idea that any Tha.s.sa would venture into the heart of enemy territory to have him out. They had treated him well, near as if he were standing tall and fully human. But . . .

He slowly turned his large head from side to side. Put that shadow of hope out of mind. He had no chance of being plucked out of the hands of the Guild. It was all he could do to fight down the waves of dark fear that rolled over him until he was breathing in small throat-hurting gasps and the sweat rolled down his cheeks like tears.

There was no weapon. He had no Toggor this time to even give him a hazy picture of what lay outside. His hands, thin and long as they were, were only collections of brittle bones that could be easily snapped by a single kick or blow. And they had mentioned laser b.u.ms . . .

Farree's head fell forward until it rested on his drawn-up knees. He wound his arms about his legs until he was near a ball of distorted flesh and bone open to any attack which might come. But his mind . . . ? Feeling very open to evil he sent forth a questioning tendril of thought.

Time and time again that came against the blankness which he knew marked a shielded man. There was no chance at all of contacting any of them. Then he found a spark of thought - not coherent but rather all emotion, and that emotion was mainly hunger underlaid with wary fear.

An animal of some sort, perhaps the same type of vermin as might be drawn to an inhabited building in the Limits. It was a very limited mind, but it was not shielded. He saw so little by its aid - only a dark run which he guessed was within the walls. But he rode with it, beginning by very slow sendings to build up the sensation of hunger which should bring the creature he had netted out into the open.

Hunger - the kind of hunger he himself had known only too often in the past. It was easy to think hunger-impress it on the hurrying creature in the wall. There was thin light in the haze of the run; the hunter must be approaching some exit to the outside. Hunger! With the same pressure he had used with Toggor he fed that need - hunger!

The creature was out of the wall into full light. But the picture was so hazy he could not be sure just where it was - within one of the buildings or clear in the open. Hunger-food-feed! He bore down upon that order which the minute brain of the hunter could hold.

There was a sudden leap which caught Farree by surprise. And now-food-he could pick up every nuance of that feeding, the tearing, the gulping - then - There was a sudden sense of spinning, of falling, and at the end - Farree withdrew touch in a hurry. That creature he had ridden was nearly dead. He filled his lungs deeply, clasped his hands upon his arms with a nail-cutting grip. Almost he had gone into death! He could only believe that the forager had been caught and killed. Yet - insofar as he was successful-there was or had been one mind within these walls which had not been shielded. He had not only found it but made use of it after a fashion. Where there was one there might be more.

Also - and this was something new he had gained - he had not had to focus on a clear mental picture in order to make contact, as he always had or thought he had had to do with Toggor. Now, his eyes closed, his body still in that tense ball, he began another search.

From the single window in the wall so far above his head there was framed the sky. What life, other than Guild men in flitters, rode that sky? Awkwardly at first and with little success he thought of sky, and vaguely of a winged creature which rode the winds there. He knew little or nothing of birds. Their like did not abound in the Limits, save a few lice-covered eaters of carrion haunting some of the darker ways.

There was something about the - A trace of thought! Farree poured all his strength into touching that, wrapping about it, finding its source. This was an air dweller, a flyer - and again it was hunger and the l.u.s.t for a hunt that moved the unknown. He strove to see, but the difference in their sight organs was too much or - It was as if someone had pressed a b.u.t.ton. He could see: the earth spread below him like a great floor. The buildings on the knoll were a gray-black stain with flickers of light here and there. He could - Who?

The hunger and the desire to hunt had been cut off as sharply as the change in vision had come to him. There was - another!

Tha.s.sa? He thought that.

Tha.s.sa. There was no mistaking the sharp a.s.sent which came to his single-word question. Who?

Farree strove to mind picture himself in all his misshapenness. He could not be sure if the other were to follow him as he had followed the trace of the flying thing.

Here! That was no bird thought; rather it spoke in his own mind even as he strove to contact it a second time.

No! He had respect for the Guild. Mind shielded they might be, but in dealing with the Tha.s.sa they might also have alarms that could betray such an entrance as much as if an enemy of his captors rode into the gate.

Not so. The answer came so firm and loud that Farree uncoiled and looked sharply at the door, almost sure that had been uttered aloud rather than by mind speech. You are - There came no other word for a long breath or two. Then with the same clear sharpness that mind voice said: We are on a level not well known - not known. There seemed to be almost an aura of surprise in that. They have their safeguards, but those are for minds such as theirs. They will not know. What has happened?

Tha.s.sa you are, Parree thought back slowly. There was no mistaking the kinship of this voice to the one which had come to them earlier in the ship. Why?

Why? Because you are open to us and all else is closed save vermin of the walls and that which flies. Who are these and what is their purpose?

He was sure now that this was one of the four who had stood in judgment over Maelen at the gathering. Perhaps the one who had sealed his ears to that intolerable dirge that the people had sung back in the audience chamber.

Though he would have wished the Lady Maelen that was his own wish - though the Tha.s.sa meant hardly more to him than a name, yet what was threatened touched those he knew. He ordered his thoughts quickly and strove to relive in his mind that meeting with the Commander.

So. The mind voice had but that comment. And they think to perhaps use you as bait in some trap?

Which will not work, he answered quickly. What am I that any should venture for me here? But they bring other Machines - Machines! The other voice made that sound like an oath. Already they have profaned the Old Place with their flyers, and now they would seek to use other things. But have hope yourself, little one. I say this and it is never a thing lightly promised, though you do not know us well enough to understand that. The Song has been sung in your hearing. Now you are under the wands of the Singers and what comes to you also touches us. You are not forgotten. Think you on that and be steady as you have been!

Abruptly, as with the flying thing, the voice was gone, and he had a strange sensation as if in some manner it had drawn that which was the inner part of him a short way after it. But no, that was no escape. He was still crouched here - Dung of the Limits. He could not see that there was any hope of escape. Were he on his home world, a number of things would come to mind; here was nothing.

He wondered over that promise, if promise it had been. From Maelen, he might have believed in it and taken heart again. But from one he did not know - the many sorrows of the past made him doubt. They might wish to help him, he allowed that. But that they could do anything he did not believe.

Thus it was his own fight. He thought of that creature that had run in the walls - if there were many of them and if they could all be aroused to attack some food supply. What might he gain from such a skirmish? He had no idea but he filed that possibility away. There was at least one flying thing he had touched - though it might be wholly under the control of the Tha.s.sa and might not be within reach again. If only he had Bojor!

Though even if he could summon that giant to him he doubted that he would. A laser would bring the bartle quick and painful death and avail him nothing. Once more he rolled himself into a ball and tried to shut out the thoughts from his mind to sleep.