The Forerunner Factor

by Andre Norton

  The only emotion she could pick up was a blurred picture—a suggestion rather—of bafflement that was fast becoming curiosity. Zass raised a front paw to push aside the edge of the cloak, emerging completely out of cover, though clinging still to the coarse covering with all four paws.

  Those antennae began to wave, combing the air, a sign Simsa knew of old. Zass was arousing to hunt, showing no fear at all now, rather more and more interest. Before Simsa could catch and control her, the zorsal took off into the dusk, climbing steadily through the air, then swung out across that other sand river, heading for a square of deeper shadow on the nearest of the cube cliffs.

  Simsa whistled that sound which had always brought the zorsal from hiding. Zass did not reappear. She had gone into the door, window—whatever that opening might really be—not to show herself again. Nor could the girl even discover that in-and-out wave of thought pattern which marked her companion. There was only silence—the dusk, and that gaping opening, a mouth that had swallowed but had not closed.

  That she could leave the zorsal never crossed Simsa’s mind—the Burrows Simsa who had considered the night hunter her only close touch with real emotion was now in command. She set her jaw stubbornly, advanced to the very edge of the gulf, her wary attention divided between the surface of the flowing sand and that window-door-hole into which Zass had vanished. There was no picking up the zorsal by mind touch, even when she struggled to the extent of the talent the Elder One had opened in her. Nothing! Still, Simsa was somehow sure that if Zass had gone to her death in that reckless flight, she herself would have known it.

  Since the zorsal could not or would not answer, then the girl must find her own path. Slowly, from right to left and back again, she surveyed the sand stream. There was just one place where the rock walls confining it appeared to approach each other, and that was still farther south.

  She counted aloud the openings on the one level, to set deeply into her mind the one Zass had entered. Then she strode determinedly for that narrowing of the stream.

  Simsa was agile, her body fine-trained to many feats of strength that would have astounded anyone not used to the dangers of the Burrows and the skills one developed there merely to stay alive, but there seemed no hope of crossing this stream. On the far side of the narrowing there did rise the wall of one of the cube mounds, but there was a space between its roots and the edge of the river broad enough for a path.

  In fact—Simsa’s dark tongue tip emerged and swept over her lower lip as she considered narrowly the whole positioning of the rock ledges here. That shelf over the stream was cut in so far so that even a portion of the wall overhung it. Yes. She could mind-picture a temporary bridge here, one that could be easily drawn should any danger come from the rock plain.

  If a bridge had been there, it was long gone. She dropped to sit cross-legged, trying now in her need to do what she had been wary of doing much since she had met and melded with that other Simsa. Her own only answer was a running jump to span the flood, and that she did not dare, even used as she was to falls and climbs in the lower depths of Kuxortal. So . . . what did the Elder One have to suggest?

  Simsa strove to render her mind blank as far as her Burrows past was concerned. She and Thorn had both made climbs aplenty in the ruined city where the Elder One had waited in her great hall for so long. But there had also been vines and ropes and all else that intelligence could call into use as aides. Here, there was only rock, with not even a stunted bush or tree above, and sand which could hide—

  Simsa shook her head vigorously. She was not going to remember that—not in any detail. What had the Elder One to offer? She squeezed her familiar self well back, called openly for the other to think or to plan, if there was any plan possible. And—

  The answer was not quite an illusion, for it would be of this world, solid, supportive as long as it was held so by concentration. Concentration—her silver-white brows twisted into a frown and her shoulders straightened. She got to her feet, still holding the moon-sun rod in one hand, its symbol rising without her willing until the moon tips touched her own forehead above her eyes.

  Warmth—

  Without breaking that touch or changing the line of her set stare, Simsa reached to hook fingers in the cloak which had slipped down her body. With it in her left hand, trailing across the rock, she took steps that brought her to the very edge of the river’s gully.

  Her left arm whirled and the cloak arose with the gesture, stiff and heavy, dragging at her fingers. She willed with all her might—and threw—

  The stiff, dark fabric went out, flapping edges like a creature of real life. It settled. One of its edges touched her feet, the other, bridging the sand flow, lay well into the niche on the other side.

  “Believe!” She might not have shouted that order aloud, but it was so much a part of her that it filled her whole head. There was no longer any cloak—there was a bridge, firm and steady for her feet. This was the truth! The truth!

  Holding the rod steady though its points were still warming—near searing hot now—against her skin, not looking down, for even to do that was to deny the needed belief a fraction, Simsa took one step and then again. She was treading on the cloak—no, not a cloak, a bridge, one summoned and held by will—her will!

  There was a bridge prepared and she walked it. From the roots of her silver-white hair fell drops of moisture which ran down her face like tears, to drip from her chin to her breast and shoulders. The hair itself rose from her scalp in streamers that fluttered as might a lord’s tower standard on a brisk and windy day.

  The pain of the rod’s touch was sharp. Simsa held fast. Within her, there was an outgoing, a draining—still she went forward on the bridge that was not a cloak. She stumbled, falling forward, her free hand clawing outward ahead to catch on rock. She made a last great effort and half-threw, half-twisted her body to follow that hold—to lie suddenly cold and very weak on rock while the warmth of the rod vanished as from a lamp that had been snuffed.

  Panting with shallow breaths that seemed never to fill her lungs as she needed, Simsa shifted her body away from the edge of the drop. The ledge, which might have been cut to support a long vanished bridge, was narrow, so already she was back from its lip, bunching the now limp cloak under her as she wriggled along on her back. At that moment, she could not have again lifted a hand, neither to pick up the rod now lying sullenly cold across her breast nor to reach out for some sustaining hold.

  This weakness she had felt before when she had opened wide to that one who could indeed use the rod, but never to the extent that she felt it now. She could not even raise her head, though she managed to turn it with great effort.

  It was true. That was where she had been—over there! And here she was. The cloak was just a roll of cloth—yet—

  Her eyelids seemed too heavy to keep up and slow, soft waves of drowsiness swept over her. No—she must not sleep, not just yet. It was as if that other part of her delivered more than safe passage and a warning. She did not know enough—she had no training in this power which drained so. She was again Simsa of the Burrows and as that, she dared not call on the Elder One, that other.

  Thirst cut through her weakness first. Her mouth felt as if it were filled with sand from below. There were her rations from the Life Boat—but water she had scanted on at every meal in this bone-bare waste. It was too bad that she could not command another illusion, one that would take on life once it was summoned—a stream of clear, pure—

  Simsa’s head jerked and the rock on which it rested bruised her painfully. She saw—she heard—she—smelt! Not water, that was the least of her worries at the moment. No, it was what appeared out of nowhere, leaning perilously forward from a window hold above her, its head downturned so that large faceted eyes met hers.

  Feathered antennae curved forward. But this was not Zass. The great creature of the rock shared no other feature with the zorsal. Most of the face or forepart of the head was those two eyes, golden in color
and broken up into many, many small circles, lidless as far as she could see and opaque when she strove to reach behind them.

  Where a mouth and chin should be were small black mandibles or several pairs of jaws clicking together with the sharp sound that had first drawn her attention to the in-dweller. There were jointed forearms clutching with double claws the sides of its hole. What she could see of the body appeared to be covered with a thick plush of short green fur. The arms—or upper limbs—were black, the skin hard and shiny, a row of spikes running from the claws up to what would be a humanoid’s shoulder.

  Simsa at that moment could not have pulled herself up to any defense, and she glanced from the claws of the fore-limbs, those busy clicking, to the moving mouth with an uneasiness that began to be real fear.

  Anyone who had ever visited a spaceport or heard the tales of the space rovers, knew that intelligence and “Human” classification came in many sizes, shapes, and colors. Her own striking appearance was unlike any of the other Burrow dwellers and, Thorn had once told her, totally unlike any that he had seen while he was a forescout and explorer for the Zacathan record keepers, despite the fact that they had untold species and subspecies indexed in their massive historical records.

  That this thing so intently observing her now was not an “animal” or a “creature” on the same level as that she had fished from the sand river was something that seeped slowly into her mind. She gathered some of her depleted force to attempt such mind contact as she had with Zass, deciding that any intelligence possessed by this inhabitant of the rock pile might be very different, if no less keen than her own.

  Her attempt was a failure. She could not even raise those in-and-out hazy “picture impressions” that were her communication in depth with Zass. For the moment, apparently, the thing was just willing to stand watching her (if standing was its posture), perhaps as baffled by her as she was by it.

  Then, astounded enough to let out a gasp, she was sent rolling to the wall abutting on the ledge. The wrinkled rolls of her cloak had been jerked abruptly from her, though she could see no hand or mouth to grasp it. Since one end dangled well over the drop, she could only think at first that one of the yellow bulbous creatures had hooked it from below and was preparing to climb up to where she lay.

  Only the dangling end flopped up, striking half across her body as it fell as the result of another unseen pull. There was something in this action that chilled her enough to leave her cowering against the wall, watching the square of cloth instead of the creature above her. Before she could grasp at it, or make herself put forth a hand to do so, the cloak rose, straightened out flat in the air as if it were one of those flyers Thorn had shown her in action—a manmade thing ready for flight.

  Then it flipped over, to display its other side, before whatever power moved it so was withdrawn and the whole of it fell back. She had just time and wit enough left to grab it before its folds vanished down toward the swallowing sand. Once more, she was free to look up at the stranger above.

  Sitting on one plush-covered shoulder was Zass!

  The zorsal looked as thoroughly at home as if Simsa herself offered it a perch. But its antennae were completely uncoiled and the one nearest to the massive-eyed head touched a similar appendage on the alien, its tip curled a fraction about the much larger and more feathered sense organ of the stranger.

  Swiftly, Simsa attempted contact with the zorsal and was again astounded. Only once before had she ever met such a wave of joy and sheer ecstasy. Once when, with her rod, she had managed to heal a broken wing that had so long kept Zass from the air and the flight the creature considered its proper sphere. Yet Zass had not been healed of any hurt this time. There was no reason for such waves of joyful emotion.

  It was Zass herself who arose at last from the perch on the alien’s shoulder. The inhabitant of the rock made no sign or move to prevent the flight, remaining motionless, its wide and lidless eyes fixed on Simsa. That it had some agency to lift the cloak she was sure, though for what purpose she had no notion—unless to impress her with the fact that it had powers she might find difficult to face.

  Zass landed on her shoulder, pushing a furred body close to her head, nuzzling her cheek with sharp muzzle, Zass’s bid for full attention and cherishing.

  Absently, Simsa answered as she always had, putting up her left hand to scratch between the roots of the zorsal’s antennae.

  “Power—much power—”

  No, that comment had not come from Zass, though in a way it had filtered through the zorsal’s limited mind. Simsa was sure of the origin of the words which had seemed to boom directly into her ears, though all she still really heard was the clicking of a set of mandibles.

  “Who are you?” she asked aloud, because that still came the easiest, but at the same time she thought—tried to think—to Zass as if the zorsal were one of those communication devices she had seen in use by Thorn and the other space people.

  “Come!” The big head leaned farther out of the rocky opening, loosing both appendages from their claw grip on the stone, stretching down toward her.

  Simsa wavered to her feet. Her body still felt as if she had suffered a perilous illness. This ledge led no place and it would seem she really had no choice now. That she could once more make the inanimate obey her command, fashion a bridge, she doubted completely. The Elder One had withdrawn to her own place for now, only Simsa of the Burrows was here.

  She looked at those claws which moved slightly, thinking of them curved about her wrists, choosing to tighten—to cut—Yet that instinct of awareness of danger which had been her shield so often in the depths under Kuxortal did not come to life now:

  Simsa somehow knotted the cloak to hold about her waist, then planted herself facing the wall, outward from the overhang. Drawing a deep breath, she thrust the cloak’s edge between her lips and bit down fiercely on it. That she dared not lose. Then she extended her arms and hands as far as she could upward.

  Zass had left her shoulder and was up there again with the alien. Simsa both saw and felt those claws close about her wrists, even as she had half-feared that they would.

  4

  She was wafted aloft as easily as if she wore one of those gravity-nullifying cubes Thorn had used during their exploration of the forgotten city in which she had found her other self. But this wafting was by no machine—rather, through the strength of the rock dweller who slipped back into the shadowed window hole even as Simsa was drawn upward so that when the grip was released, she stood on her own two feet inside a dusky hollow. There was a faint light which issued not from any crack in the rock walls now closing about her, but from the body of the creature who had brought her here.

  It stood taller than she—perhaps able to match height with the untrustworthy officer on the spacer. There appeared to be no neck. The round ball of the head, with the still clicking mandibles and the huge eyes, sat directly on its rounded upper torso. That was a well-stuffed oval of the plush fur connected to the lower portion of the thing’s body by an overly narrow waist. The lower portion of the body was nearly twice the length of the upper and banded across the fur by stripes of a darker shade. The hind legs were the most strange of all. They were very long and powerful and, when the alien squatted back on the middle joints of the appendages, they reached above that thin waist. Like the upper “arms,” these bore no masking fur, only two rows of spikes erect and as menacing-looking as the claws which scratched the floor when it moved a fraction. The bottom of the lower portion of the body also touched the floor, apparently giving the stranger balance.

  Zass had been flying in circles; now the zorsal settled down once again on Simsa’s shoulder, claws digging painfully into the girl’s skin. Bending her head closer, Zass rubbed cheek with Simsa.

  “What do you?”

  An abrupt question delivered with a sense of impatience. The girl looked around at the zorsal and then at the waiting monstrosity. It was plain that they could communicate after a fashion, but on
ly through the aid of Zass. For when she tried with all her might to center thought toward the waiting stranger, Simsa received nothing in return but a sickening, whirling sensation which made her close her eyes for a moment and hold on tightly to that which was real—that she stood here with Zass and that—that—thing and was not tossing elsewhere in a place that had no safe anchor.

  “I run,” she returned, simply because she felt that only the absolute truth was possible with this one. Zass could pick her thought out from her words, or her head, but enough of the old Simsa remained that she must speak aloud in order to hold on to reality at all.

  “What runs behind?” At least the answering message relayed through the zorsal was logical.

  What did run, in truth? Perhaps the officer from the ship she had fled, perhaps another of his humanoid species. But mainly, Simsa knew at that moment, she ran not from any person or living thing, but because of her own fear—her own determination that she would remain free within as well as without herself.

  She could never free herself now from the Elder One. That she had faced and admitted. At first, she had been welcoming, aflame that she had found something, a part of her that had been lacking all her life and that she must have. Then she had realized that, to this new inner dweller, there must follow a surrender of that other Simsa whom she knew the better. Free? Inner freedom she could not control, but freedom without she could.

  “I do not know.” Again it was the truth which that other drew from her.

  There was no expression readable to human eyes on the big-eyed round of the greenish furred face. She would not try again to reach the other by straight thought. However, she did aim a question of her own, determined somehow to keep a kind of parity with the alien, not to be as a small child answering questions of an Elder.

  “Who are you?” She tried to make that emphatic, hardly knowing how it might reach the other through the filter of the zorsal’s skittery thoughts.