Complete Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by James H. Schmitz

  She stepped out before the doorspace, gun pointing into the room behind it.

  It was a rather small room, as dimly lit as the rest of the section, and empty. Not-there effect or not, Thrakell wasn’t in it; after a moment, Telzey felt sure of that. There was another doorway on one side. She couldn’t see what lay beyond it. But if it was a dead end, if it didn’t lead to a portal, she had Thrakell boxed in.

  She started cautiously into the room.

  Her foot went on down through the floor as if nothing were there. She caught at the doorjamb with her free hand, discovered it had become as insubstantial as the floor. Falling, she twisted backward, landed on her back in the passage, legs dangling from the knees down through the nothingness of the room’s floor . . . through a portal.

  She discovered then that she’d hung on to the gun. She let go of it, squirmed back from the trap, completely unnerved.

  X

  No need to look farther for Thrakell Dees! When Telzey felt steady enough to stand up, she went back to the two rooms she’d checked. A partly disassembled piece of machinery stood in one of them. She looked it over, discovered a twelve-foot section of thin, light piping she could remove, detached it and straightened it out. She took that to the room with the portal flooring, reached down through the portal with it. The tip didn’t touch anything even when she knelt in the doorway, her hand a few inches above the floor, and when she twisted the piping about horizontally, she didn’t reach the sides of whatever was below there either.

  She drew the piping out again. It was cold to the touch now, showed spots of frosting. The portal trap extended about twelve feet into the room. It had been activated by her key pack, as it had been activated by the pack Thrakell had taken from her. Wherever he’d gone, he wasn’t likely to be back.

  Essu and Thrakell had heard that the group Stiltik sent into the sealed areas after the Alattas had run into difficulties and returned. If this was a sample of the difficulties they’d run into, it wasn’t surprising that Stiltik seemed to have been in no great hurry to continue her efforts to dig the three out of hiding.

  When Telzey started off again to look for the portal which would take her on to the next section, her key pack was fastened to the tip of the piping, and she didn’t put her foot anywhere the pack hadn’t touched and found solid first. Her diagram maps didn’t tell her at all definitely where she was, but did indicate that she’d moved beyond the possibility of being picked up in scanning systems installed by Stiltik’s technicians. What lay ahead was, temporarily at least, Alatta territory. And the Alattas had set up their own scan systems. Presently she should be registering in them.

  She uncovered a number of other portal traps. One of them, rather shockingly, was a wall portal indistinguishable from all the others she’d passed through. If she hadn’t been put on guard, there would have been no reason to assume it wasn’t the section exit she was trying to find. But a probe with the piping revealed there was a sheer drop beyond. The actual exit was a few yards farther on along the wall. She passed through a few larger sections of the type she’d had in mind as a place to get rid of Thrakell Dees, stocked with provisions sufficient to have kept him going for years, or until someone came to get him out. She stopped in one of them long enough to wash the Fossily tiger striping from her face.

  And then she was in a section where it seemed she couldn’t go on. She’d been around the walls and come back to the portal by which she’d entered. She stood still, reflecting. She’d expected to reach a place like this eventually. What it would mean was that she had come to the limit of the area made open to Tscharen’s portal keys. There should be a second portal here—one newly provided with settings which could be activated only by keys carried now by the other three Alattas.

  But she hadn’t expected to get to that point so soon.

  Her gaze shifted to an area of flooring thirty feet away. There was a portal there. A trap. An invisible rectangle some eight feet long by six wide, lying almost against the wall. She’d discovered it as she moved along the wall, established its contours, gone around it.

  She went back there now, tapping the floor ahead of her with the key pack until it sank out of sight. She drew it back, defined the outline of the portal with it again, moved up to the edge. She hadn’t stopped to probe the trap before; there’d been no reason for it. Now she reversed the piping, gripped it by the pack, let the other end down through the portal.

  There was a pull on the piping. She allowed it to follow the pull. It swung to her left as if drawn by a magnet on the far side of the portal, until its unseen tip touched a solid surface. It stayed there. Telzey’s eyelids flickered. She moved quickly around to that end of the portal, knelt down beside it, already sure of what she’d found.

  She pulled out the piping, reached through the portal with her arm, touched a smooth solid surface seemingly set at right angles to the one on which she knelt. She patted it probingly, lifted her hand away and let it drop back—pulled by gravity which also seemed set at right angles to the pull of gravity on this side of the portal. She shoved the piping through then, bent forward and came crawling out of the lower end of a wall portal into a new section.

  Something like two hours after setting out from the big room with Thrakell Dees, she knew she’d reached the end of her route. She was now on the perimeter of the area the Alattas had made inaccessible to all others. She’d checked the section carefully. The only portal she could use here was the one by which she’d entered. Her key pack would take her no farther.

  There was nothing to indicate what purpose this section originally had served. It was a sizable complex with a large central area, smaller rooms and passages along the sides. It was completely empty, a blank, lifeless place in which her footsteps raised hollow echoes. She laid the piping down by a wall of the central area, got her Tinokti street clothes out of the Fossily tool bag, changed to them, and sat down with her back to the wall.

  A waiting game now. She leaned her head against the wall, closed her eyes. Mind screens thinned almost to the point of nonexistence, permitting ultimate sensitivity of perception. Meanwhile she rested physically.

  Time passed. At last, her screens tightened in abrupt warning. She thinned them again, waited again.

  Somewhere something stirred.

  It was the least, most momentary of stirrings. As if ears had pricked quietly, or sharp eyes had turned to peer in her direction, not seeing her yet but aware there was something to be seen.

  A thought touched her suddenly, like a thin cold whisper:

  “If you move, make a sound, or think a warning, you’ll die!”

  There was a shivering in the air. Then a great dagen crouched on the floor fifteen feet away, squatted back on its haunches, staring at Telzey. Swift electric thrills ran up and down her spine. This was a huge beast, bigger and heavier than the other two she’d seen, lighter in color. The small red eyes in the massive head had murder in them.

  Her screens had locked instantly into a defensive shield. She made no physical motion at all.

  The mind hound vanished.

  Telzey’s gaze shifted to the left. A tall figure stood in a passage entrance, the Alatta woman Kolki Ming. For a moment, she studied Telzey, the Fossily bag, the length of piping with the attached key pack.

  “This is a surprise!” she said. “We didn’t expect you here, though there was some reason to believe you were no longer Stiltik’s captive. You came alone?”

  “Yes.”

  The Alatta nodded. “We’ll see.” She remained silent a minute or two, eyes fixed expressionlessly on Telzey. Telzey guessed the dagen was scouting through adjoining sections.

  Kolki Ming said suddenly, “It seems you did come alone. How did you escape?”

  “Stiltik put a Tolant in charge of me. Essu. We were off by ourselves.”

  “And you took Essu under control?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He got killed. We ran into some of Bor
agost’s people.”

  “A patrol in the ninety-sixth sector?”

  “A big greenhouse.”

  “You’ve been busy today!” Kolki Ming remarked. “That patrol was reported wiped out by gunfire. Tell me the rest of it.”

  Neto Nayne-Mel wouldn’t be mentioned. Telzey gave a brief and fairly truthful account of her activities otherwise. She’d planned to get back to Tinokti at once, had realized by the time she reached the planetary exit why she couldn’t—that she didn’t know enough about the role the Alattas were playing in connection with the Tinokti circuit and in the Hub. She found then she’d worked Korm up too far to restrain him sufficiently. She and Thrakell Dees left for the sealed areas, while Korm went after the exit guards.

  “Where is Boragost’s strangler now?” the Alatta asked.

  “We had a disagreement. He fell through one of your portal traps.”

  Kolki Ming shook her head slightly.

  “And you’re here to find out what we’re doing,” she said. “The Elaigar have one dagen less at their disposal, which is no small advantage to us. We might seem to owe you the information. But we can’t let you take it to the Psychology Service. Essu’s body, incidentally, wasn’t found with the dead of the patrol.”

  “We took him along and hid him somewhere else,” Telzey said. “I thought Stiltik mightn’t know yet that I’d got away.”

  “She may not.” The Alatta considered. “We’re involved in an operation of extreme importance. Tscharen’s capture has forced us to modify it and made it much more difficult than it should have been. It will have to be concluded quickly if it’s to succeed. I’m not sure we can fit you in, but for the moment, at least, you’re coming with me. Let me have your gun.”

  They emerged from a portal into a dark narrow street a few minutes later. The only light came from dim overhead globes. Looking back as they walked on, Telzey saw a dilapidated wall looming behind them. They’d stepped out of that. To right and left were small shabby houses, pressed close together. The cracked pavement was covered here and there by piles of litter. There was a stale smell in the air, and from somewhere arose a vague rumbling, so indistinct it seemed a tactile sensation rather than something heard.

  “This section was some Phon’s private experimental project,” Kolki Ming said. “It doesn’t appear on any regular circuit map and the Elaigar never found it, so we’re using it as a temporary operations base.” She glanced about. “Some two hundred people were trapped here when the Elaigar came. They escaped the general killing but were unable to leave the section and died when their supplies gave out.”

  She broke off. Something flicked abruptly through Telzey’s awareness—a brief savage flash of psi. There was a gurgling howl, and the dagen materialized across the street from them.

  “Scag was waiting for us, hoping to remain unnoticed,” Kolki Ming said.

  “He was going.to attack?”

  “If he got the chance. When he’s under light working controls, as at present, he needs careful watching.” They’d turned into another street, somewhat wider than the first, otherwise no different from it. On either side was the same ugly huddle of houses, lightless and silent. The mind hound was striding soundlessly along with them now, thirty feet away. The Alatta turned in toward one of the larger houses. “Here’s my watchpost.”

  The ground floor of the house had been cleared of whatever it might have contained. Two portal outlines flickered on the walls, and a variety of instruments stood about, apparently hastily assembled. Kolki Ming said, “Ellorad and Sartes won’t be back for a while. Sit down while I check on my duties.”

  “There’s one thing I’d like to know,” Telzey said.

  “Yes?”

  “How old are you?”

  The Alatta glanced over at her.

  “So you’ve learned about that,” she said. “I’m twenty-seven of your standard years. As for the rest of it, there may be time to talk later.”

  Telzey sat down on an empty instrument case, while Kolki Ming spoke briefly into a communicator. She seemed to listen then to a reply which remained inaudible to Telzey, and turned to a panel of scanning devices.

  Presently they had time to talk.

  The Elaigar’s transition to the Sattaram form at maturity was connected with a death gene the Grisand cult on Nalakia had designed to help keep the mutation under control. The Elaigar didn’t know it. After they destroyed the Grisands, they developed no biological science of their own, and to allow serf scientists to experiment physically with the masters was unthinkable under their code system.

  But an early group had broken that rule. They set alien researchers the task of finding a method of prolonging their lives. They were told that for them as individuals there was no method, but that the gene could be deleted for their offspring. They settled for that—the Alattas came into existence. They remained Otessans in physical structure and had regained a normal human life span. With it, they presently regained lost interests and goals. They had time to learn, and learned very quickly because they could draw in the Elaigar manner on alien science and technology. Now they began making both their own.

  Most of the Elaigar despised them equally for having abandoned the majestic structure of the mature Lion People and for degrading themselves with serf labor. They did their best to wipe out the new strain, but the Alattas drew ahead from the start.

  “That was centuries ago, of course,” said Kolki Ming. “We have our own civilization now and no longer need to borrow from others—though the Federation of the Hub was still one of our teachers on occasion as little as eighty years ago. The Elaigar remain dependent on their slave people and are no longer a match for us. And their codes limit them mentally. Some join us of their own accord, and while we can do nothing for them, their children acquire our life span. Otherwise, we collect the Elaigar at every opportunity, and whether they want it or not, any children of those we collect are also born as Alattas. They hate us for that, but they’ve become divided among themselves. In part, that’s what led them to risk everything on this operation in the Hub. Bringing the old human enemy under control seemed a project great enough to unite them again. When we discovered what they were doing, we came back to the Federation ourselves.”

  Telzey said, “You’ve been trying to get them out of the Federation before we found out they were around?”

  “That was the plan. We want no revival of that ancient trouble. It hasn’t been a simple undertaking, but we’ve worked very carefully, and our preparations are complete. We three had the assignment to secure the central control section of the Tinokti circuit at a given moment. If we can do it now, most of the Sattaram leadership in the Hub will be trapped. We’ve waited months for the opportunity. We’re prepared to move simultaneously against all other Elaigar positions in the Federation. So there’s a great deal at stake. If we can’t get the Elaigar out unnoticed before human forces contact them, it may become disastrous enough for all sides. To expect Federation warships to distinguish neatly between Alattas and Elaigar after the shooting begins would be expecting too much. And it would be no one-sided matter. We have heavy armament, as do the Elaigar.”

  She added, “The Elaigar are essentially our problem, not that of the Federation. We’re still too close to them to regard them as enemies. My parents were of their kind and didn’t elect to have their gene patterns modified. If they hadn’t been captured and forced to it, I might have fought for Suan Uwin rank in my time as ruthlessly as Boragost or Stiltik—and, as I judge you now, so might you if your ancestors had happened to be Grisand research subjects on Nalakia. But we’re gaining control of the Elaigar everywhere. If we succeed here, the last Sattaram will be dead less than thirty years from now.”

  She broke off, studied a set of indicators for a moment, picked up the communicator. Voice murmuring reached Telzey. It went on for perhaps two minutes. Kolki Ming set the communicator aside without replying. One of the other Alattas evidently had recorded a message for her.


  She stood up, face thoughtful, fastened on a gun belt.

  “We’ve been trying to force Boragost and Stiltik to open the Lion Game with us,” she said. “It’ll be the quickest way to accomplish our purpose. Perhaps the only way left at present! It seems we’ve succeeded.” She indicated the street door. “We’ll go outside. The first move should be made shortly. I must call in Scag.”

  Telzey came to her feet. “What’s the Lion Game?”

  “The one you’re playing, I think,” said Kolki Ming. “I don’t believe you’ve been entirely candid with me. But whether it was your purpose or not, it seems you’re involved in the Game now.”

  XI

  Kolki Ming had set up a light outside the house which brought full visibility to a hundred yard stretch of the dismal street and its house fronts. She and Telzey remained near the entrance. Scag now appeared abruptly in the illuminated area, stared coldly at them, glanced back bristling over his shoulder and was gone again.

  Telzey had done the Alattas a greater favor than she knew in eliminating Stiltik’s dagen. When they learned of it, they’d been able to go about their work more freely. A situation involving the possible use of dagens became so dangerously complicated that those threatened by them had to direct their primary efforts to getting the beasts out of the way. Scag had killed several of Stiltik’s people during their surprise attack in the sealed areas; so it was known the three Alattas had brought a mind hound in with them.

  There were two other dagens at present in the circuit, Boragost’s and one whose handler was a Sattaram leader who had arrived with his beast during the week. Predictably, if Boragost was to take action against the Alattas, as it now seemed he would, his first step would be to use the pair to get rid of Scag. If the Elaigar dagens could be finished off at the same time, it would be worth the loss of Scag to the Alattas. They could go ahead immediately then with their plans.