That part of it then turned out to be easier than she’d expected. Essu’s mind already was well organized for her purpose. She flicked through installed telepathic channels to indicated control points. By the time she’d scanned the system, knew she understood it, most of the Tolant’s concepts were becoming comprehensible to her. She checked on the immediately important point. What was he to do with her after she came awake and Sasar pronounced her condition to be satisfactory?
Response came promptly. Essu would take her to Stiltik’s private lockup, inform Stiltik of the fact, and stay with Telzey until Stiltik wanted her. The lockup was a small sealed circuit section known only to Stiltik and Essu. Stiltik believed the human psi would be an important catch. She didn’t want her enemies to hear about it until she’d finished squeezing the truth from the Alatta, and had searched through Telzey’s mind for information she could turn to political advantage. It appeared Stiltik was engaged in a power struggle with Boragost, the other High Commander in the Elaigar circuit.
Essu’s shield hardened again until it appeared solidly locked, though a really close investigation would have revealed that contact remained now between his mind and Telzey’s. Telzey didn’t want to break that contact unless she had to. The Tolant should turn out to be as useful as she’d thought, and she had to do a good deal of work on him before he’d be ready for use—which made it time to be restored officially to consciousness and health. Once Stiltik was informed the prisoner was safely in the lockup, she should be satisfied to leave it to Essu to see Telzey stayed there.
And that would be essential for a while.
A thought whispered, “I know you’re planning to escape from the Elaigar! Would you permit me to accompany you?”
For an instant Telzey froze in shock. That had been a human thought. Otherwise there hadn’t been—and still wasn’t—the slightest indication of another human being around. She flicked back a question. “Where are you?”
“Not far away. I could be with you in a minute.”
Now she’d noticed something. “You’re human?” she asked.
“Of course. My name is Thrakell Dees.”
“It seems to me,” Telzey remarked. “there’s something here that could be part of the two Tanven minds I’ve been in contact with—or perhaps a third Tanven mind. But if you look closely, it’s only the impression of a Tanven mind.”
Silence for a moment. “A projected form of concealment,” Thrakell Dees’s thought said then. “One of the means I’ve developed to stay alive in this cave of devils.”
“How do you happen to be in the circuit?”
“I was trapped here over six years ago when the Elaigar suddenly appeared. I’ve never found a way to get out.”
Telzey gave Essu’s mind a questioning prod. “You mean you don’t know where the exits to Tinokti are?” she asked Thrakell Dees.
“I have an approximate idea of where they should be. However, they’re very securely guarded.”
Yes, wild humans. Essu was thinking. Quite a number of humans had managed to hide out in the circuit in the early period. Hunting them had been good sport for a while. There were occasional indications that a few still survived, skulking about in unused sections.
“What happened to the other human beings in the circuit?” Telzey asked Thrakell Dees.
“The Elaigar and their serfs killed most of them at once. I myself was nearly caught often enough in those days. Only my psi abilities saved me. Later I learned other methods of avoiding the creatures. The circuit is very large, and only a part of it is occupied by them.”
“Is anyone left besides you?”
“No, I’m the last. A year ago I encountered another survivor, but he was killed soon afterwards. The Elaigar have brought in captured humans from time to time, but none ever escaped and few lived long. Today I learned from a serf mind that Stiltik had trapped a human psi. I began looking for you, thinking I might be of help. But it seems you have your own plans. I suggest we cooperate. I can be very useful.”
“What do you know about my plans?” Telzey asked.
“Nothing directly. Your thoughts were too closely screened. But I’ve been following the responses you drew from the Tanvens. They indicate you intend to attempt an escape.”
“All right.” Telzey said. “I will try to escape. If you want to come along, fine. We should be able to help each other. But keep out of the way now, because I’ll be busy. The Tolant will be taking me somewhere else soon. Can you follow without letting him see you?”
“I’m rarely seen unless I want to be.” His reply seemed to hold a momentary odd note of amusement. “I can follow you easily in the general circuit. I have keys for some sealed areas, too. Not, of course, for all of them.”
“We’ll be in a sealed area for a while, but we’ll come back out.” Telzey told him. “Let’s not talk any more now. I’m going to wake up.”
She dissolved the memory taps in the Tanven minds and that of the old Elaigar, stirred about on the cot, then opened her eyes, looked up into Couse’s green face and glanced over at Sasar who had drawn back a trifle when she began to move.
“What’s happened?” Telzey asked. She looked at Couse again, blinked. “You’re the interpreter . . .”
“Yes, I am,” said Couse.
Sasar said in the Tanven tongue, “What is the human saying? Ask her how she feels,” the thoughts carrying through the meaningless sound. Essu, hearing the voices, had appeared in the entrance again and was watching the group.
Couse relayed the question, adding that Sasar had been acting as Telzey’s physician after she had been injured. Telzey shifted her shoulders, twisted her neck, touched herself cautiously.
“He’s a very good physician!” she told Couse. “I’m still aching a little here and there, but that’s all.”
Couse translated that twice, first for Sasar, and then for Essu, who had some understanding of translingue but not enough to be certain of what Telzey was saying.
“The human aches a little!” Essu repeated. “It’s awake and it can walk, so it’s healthy enough. Tell your healer he’s relieved of his responsibility, and be on your way, both of you!”
The Tanvens left quickly and quietly. There was a belt of woven metal fastened around Telzey’s waist, with a strap of the same material attached to the belt. The other end of the strap was locked to the wall beyond the cot. Essu unfastened it now and brought Telzey flopping off the cot to the floor with a sudden haul on the strap. A short green rod appeared in Essu’s free hand then. He pointed it at Telzey’s legs, and she felt two sharp insect stings.
“Get hup!” said Essu. practicing his translingue.
She got up. He shoved her hands through loops in the back of the belt, and tightened the loops on her wrists. Then he took the end of the strap and left the room with the prisoner in tow. The Tanvens had turned right along the passage. Essu turned left. A closed door blocked the end, and as they approached it, he took something from his pocket, touched the device to the doorlock. The door swung open. They went through into an extension of the passage, and the door swung shut on its lock behind them.
There was a sudden heavy stirring in Telzey’s mind . . . Elaigar thoughts. The old male was coming alert. She realized suddenly he could hear them. This seemed to be his area—and Essu was unaware it had an occupant. There was a heavily curtained doorspace in the wall just ahead—
As they came up to it, the. curtains were swept aside and a huge Sattaram loomed above them. She felt Essu’s shock of alarm. Then the Elaigar’s hand flicked out with the same startling speed Stiltik had shown. Telzey was struck across the side of the head, went stumbling back against the wall. With her hands fastened behind her. she couldn’t get her balance back quickly enough and sat down.
It hadn’t been too hard a blow—from the giant’s point of view no more than a peevish cuff. But he wasn’t finished. He’d whipped a heavy knife from his belt, and was looking down at her. A human! He’d had no sport for too long
a time. His lip curled, drawing up from big yellowed teeth.
Telzey felt dismay rather than fright. Fast-moving they were—but this Elaigar’s mind was open to her and he wasn’t aware of the fact. She could slash psi-death into it through the sloppily held screens before the knife touched her skin.
But that could cost her too much—Essu. for one thing. He knew she was a psi, and if a Sattaram died in the act of attacking her. he wasn’t likely to consider it a coincidence. He’d try to get the information to Stiltik at once. She was beginning to develop some degree of control over Essu but was unsure of its effect on the unfamiliar Tolant mind. In any case, she couldn’t control him enough at present to override any sudden strong motivation. She might have to kill him in the same manner.
It was Essu who saved matters then.
He’d hung on to the end of the strap when Telzey fell, but he stood as far from her and the Elaigar as he possibly could, arm stretched out, eyes averted from both, as if detaching himself completely from this unpleasant situation. When he spoke in the Elaigar language, he appeared to be addressing the wall before him.
“Glorious One—is it your intention to deprive Stiltik of prey?”
Slow surge of alarm in the old Sattaram. Stiltik? The hate-filled eyes grew vague. He swung his ponderous head toward the Tolant, stared a long moment, then turned and lumbered back through the doorspace. The curtains swung shut behind him.
Essu was beside Telzey, jerking her up to her feet.
“Come! Come!” he hissed in translingue.
They hurried quietly on along the passage.
VI
Essu, though a bold being, had been shaken by the encounter, and it continued to preoccupy him. As a rule, the green uniform of Stiltik’s servants was safeguard enough against mistreatment by other Elaigar even when they weren’t aware that he was her valued assistant. But when age came on them, they grew morose and became more savage and unpredictable than ever. The great knife might have turned swiftly on him after it finished Telzey; and to use one of the weapons on his belt then would have been almost as dangerous for Essu as not using them. Self-defense was no excuse for killing or injuring one of the masters.
Much greater, however, had been his fear of facing Stiltik after letting her prisoner get killed. He blamed Telzey for putting him in such a terrible predicament, and was simmering with vengeful notions. But he didn’t let that distract him from choosing the rest of their route with great care.
Telzey, aware of Essu’s angry spite, was too busy to give it much consideration. Being involved in Stiltik’s business, the Tolant knew a great deal more about the circuit and what went on in it than the Tanvens; she was getting additional information now. The four Alattas involved in bringing her into the circuit had been operating here as Otessans—Tscharen and the woman Kolki Ming in Stiltik’s command, the other two in Boragost’s. Tscharen was permanently stationed in the circuit; the others were frequently given outside assignments. Stiltik had been watching Tscharen for some time; her spy system indicated he was occasionally engaged in off-duty activities in unused sealed areas, and she had her scientists set up traps. His secret meeting with the other three and the human they’d brought into the circuit with them was observed on a scanner. Knowing now that she dealt with Alatta infiltrators, Stiltik sprang her traps. But so far only Tscharen and the human had been caught. The others had withdrawn into sealed sections, and a search force of Elaigar and Tolants sent to dig them out had run into difficulties and returned empty-handed.
This obviously was a vast portal system which might almost rival the Luerral in its ramifications. Essu had seen a good deal of it on Stiltik’s business, but by no means every part; and he was no more aware of exits to the planet or able to consider the possibility of making use of them than the Tanvens. How the Elaigar could have taken over such a complex, and killed off the humans living there, without creating a stir on Tinokti, was something else he didn’t know. The answer might be found in the material Telzey’s memory tap had drawn from the old Elaigar, but she couldn’t spare time to start sorting through that at present.
None of the sections along their route seemed to be in use by the Elaigar. It was like moving about parts of a deserted city through which a marauding army had swept, stripping all removable equipment from some points while others remained overlooked. Where maintenance machinery still functioned completely, it often appeared that the former occupants might have left only the day before.
But all was silent; all was psi-blocked. Even where daylight or starshine filled empty courtyards or flowering gardens, impenetrable energy screens lay between them and the unaware world outside.
The arrangements of Stiltik’s lockup were much like those in the series of sections through which Tscharen had taken Telzey. It lay well within a sealed area, and its connecting portals showed no betraying gleam, remained barely visible for the moment it took Essu and Telzey to pass them. The Tolant shoved her eventually into a small room, slammed and locked the door. She stayed with him mentally as he went off down a passage to report by communicator to Stiltik, who might be on the far side of Tinokti now.
He returned presently. The Elaigar commander had indicated it still could be several hours before she sent for them. When he opened the door, the prisoner was leaning against the wall. Essu went over to the single large cot the room contained, sat down on it, and fixed his round white eyes on the human.
Telzey looked at him. Torture and killing were the high points of Essu’s existence. She didn’t particularly blame him. Tolants regarded warfare as the natural way of life, and when a group found itself temporarily out of neighbors, it relieved the monotony by internal blood feuds. Under such conditions, the exercise of cruelty was the antidote to fear, became a practical virtue. Elaigar service had done nothing to diminish the tendency in Essu.
If he hadn’t been required to take on responsibility for the human captive, he would have been assisting Stiltik now in her interrogation of Tscharen. That pleasure was denied him. The human, in addition, very nearly had placed him in the position of becoming a candidate for Stiltik’s lingering attentions himself. Clearly, she owed him something! He couldn’t do much to her, but Stiltik wouldn’t begrudge him some minor amusements to help while away the waiting period.
Very deliberately then, Essu brought out the green device with which he’d jabbed Telzey before, and let her look at it.
Telzey sighed. She was now supposed to display fear. Then, after she’d cringed sufficiently at the threat of the prod, the hot stings would begin. If necessary, she could shut out most of the pain and put up with that kind of treatment for quite a while. Essu wouldn’t risk carrying it far enough to incapacitate her. But it seemed a good time to find out whether it was still necessary to put up with anything at all from him.
She sent a series of impulses through one of the control centers she’d secured in Essu’s mind. Essu carefully turned the green rod down, pointed it at his foot. One of his fingers pressed a button. He jerked his foot aside and uttered a shrill yelp. Then he quietly returned the rod to his pocket.
It was a good indication of solid control. However, she didn’t feel quite sure of the Tolant. An unshielded telepathic mind which wasn’t resisting might be taken over almost in moments by another psi, particularly if the other psi was of the same species. All required channels were wide open. A nontelepathic mind, even that of another human, could require considerable work. In Essu’s mind, nontelepathic and nonhuman, there were many patterns which closely paralleled human ones. Others were quite dissimilar. Stiltik had left a kind of blueprint in there for Telzey to follow, but she didn’t know whether she’d interpreted all the details of the blueprint correctly.
She put in some ten minutes of testing before she was certain. Essu performed perfectly. There was no reason to think he wouldn’t continue to perform perfectly when he was no longer under direct control.
They left the sealed area together, moved on quickly. Stiltik wasn’t lik
ely to come looking for them soon, but as a start, Telzey wanted to put considerable distance between herself and the lockup. Some while later, she was on a narrow gallery overlooking a huge hall, watching Essu cross the hall almost two hundred yards below. He knew where he could pick up a set of circuit maps without drawing attention to himself. was on his way to get them. Dependable maps of the portal system was one of the things she was going to need. She’d kept one of Essu’s weapons, a small gun which didn’t demand too much experience with guns to be used effectively at close range. She also was keeping his key pack, except for the keys he needed for his present mission.
She followed him mentally. Essu knew what he was doing and it wouldn’t occur to him to wonder why he was doing it. He’d simply serve her with mechanical loyalty, incapable of acting in any other way. As he reached the portal toward which he’d been headed and passed through it, his thought patterns vanished. But here, within the psi blocks enclosing the great hall and part of the structure behind Telzey, something else remained. The vague impression of a Tolant mentality.
So that veteran wild human Thrakell Dees had managed to follow them, as he’d said he would, and was now trying to remain unobtrusive! Telzey considered. Shortly after the encounter with the old Elaigar, she’d become aware of Thrakell’s light, stealthy probe at her screens. She’d jabbed back irritatedly with psi and drawn a startled reaction. After that, Thrakell refrained from manifesting himself. She hadn’t been sure until now that he was around.
He might, she thought, turn out to be more of a problem than a help. In any case, they’d have to have a definite understanding if they were to work together to reach a portal exit. He’d soon realize that Essu had left the area. Telzey decided to wait and see what he would do.
She settled herself on the gallery floor behind the balustrade, from where she could keep watch on the portal where Essu presently would reappear, and began bringing up information she’d tapped from the old Elaigar’s mind and hadn’t filtered through her awareness yet. She could spend some time on that now. Part of her attention remained on Thrakell’s dimly shifting Tolant cover impressions.
Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 237