The Forerunner Factor

by Andre Norton

  She would not, could not, linger too near. Whether that which fed the sparks dared venture out of the dark well into the corridor, she had no way of knowing. Only she must put between its source and herself as much space as possible.

  Thus, even as she had climbed there in her hunt for Zass, so did she now scramble down, fighting to remember so that she would miss no finger- or toehold. It was not until she had reached the foot of the cliff and looked up at the dark opening above that she was angered at her own fear. There were indeed those raw and smarting places on her skin to make plain the threat offered, but now she had a feeling that she had given way far too easily to what was more threat than attack.

  Before her was that slowly flowing river of sand. She had crossed that with the bespelled cloak. Now she hunkered down on that carven place where a true bridge must once have been end-rooted. Sliding out of the cloak, she laid it flat on the stone, her flesh cooled by puffs of a wind that did not ripple the sand below but was becoming swiftly forceful.

  Trying to beat her from her perch into the sand river? No! There was a danger in such a belief. Had it not been belief that had forged the bridge for her on this very place? She must not speculate, must keep closed those corners of her mind into which could intrude and be nourished the thought of dangers.

  She ran one hand across the rumpled cloak, her fingers catching in the edge of the hole where she had torn a place for her head. Then upon it she laid the rod from her girdle. There was no warmth in it. There had not been since she had dropped from that window above. There could be tens of tens reasons why. The Elder One—

  Simsa shook her head and grimaced. This she must do herself, for to loose that other one, to call upon her . . . That one might well have no sympathy for what Burrows Simsa was doing now. The Elder One would have no reason to succor any life she had helped to warn of. She might perhaps even try to extinguish it with her own power. Simsa of the Burrows must go forward now, and how she could do that?

  She got wearily to her feet, tugged on the cloak again, swung the rod back and forth as if it were only a fishing spear. North or south? She had come in from the northeast when she had discovered this place. Surely, the swirling sand flood could not cut it off entirely from the outer world—she had never heard of a stream that ran in a circle with no inlet or outlet.

  South, then, for she had already made the journey along the northern way before she had found the bridge place. It would not be easy—but what had been on this world?

  There was no “beach” along the edge above the sand river, nor would she have gone too close to what might climb out of the water. Rather she continually climbed and descended a series of tumbled rocks or edged fearfully along slides of gravel where a wrong step might send her spinning down into that noxious flood.

  Zass had not returned, and she had flown north when leaving the valley. Therefore, she herself might have a long march back even if she could locate a crossing of the flood. And she was tired. Night and day flowed so easily one into the other on this world she had long ago lost all sense of time as an exact measurement. But now her flesh and bones measured for her. There was just so far she could force her feet to carry her, and realizing that she was near the end of endurance, Simsa dropped down behind a large boulder that formed a small wall of its own, shutting her in so that she need not watch the stream. She took a scant mouthful of liquid from the flask she had filled at the fountain, ate two of the sticky fruit. Then with the rod upon her breast as she had slept ever since it had come into her hands, Simsa forced her mind quiet, for she needed a clear mind and a rested body. She walled fiercely away all thought of what might have happened to the flitter and those within, and sought sleep.

  Here where there was no rising sun one could truly see, no cry of bird or buzz of insect to disturb slumber, she did not know how long a time had passed before she wriggled in her pocket of rock and wall and moved stiffly to sit up.

  Those small burns the fire had left her all sprang to life. She saw the spots of seared skin on her arms and hands, felt them on her cheeks and throat. There was no healing from the alien source this time; she shrugged and looked over the edge of the rock that had sheltered her.

  And there—she had been so close! A few steps more and she might have—Simsa again shook her head at her thoughts. To have taken that path when she was so weary would have been folly. There were at least two places to pass that would require all her courage and strength.

  At some time in the past, there had been on the other side of the stream another outcropping of the blocklike rocks, not quite as tall as those to her right. There was very little regularity to that formation, so she could believe that it had not been shaped by intelligent endeavor to form an outpost for the valley defense—save that one corner to the east was acute- and regular-angled. The rest of it had been shattered. Some mighty blow had crushed the stone, crumbled it to a riven mass.

  However, a portion of that mass had landed in the sand river, supplying an impediment where the thick stuff parted to flow, a narrower ribbon right below her perch, a wider one to the east. She could drop to that mass. The first of the streams was small enough to leap. The second one—let her reach it, and she could see better what was to be done!

  She ate and drank sparingly, made sure that her supplies were as safe as she could make them. Then she descended to a rock where a center ridge afforded a precarious perch.

  Did it offer enough of takeoff for a leap? And what of that gap farther on? She studied her possible landing and decided that the gap was better than her present perch. Working her way to the end of the ridge piece, she saw to the safety of her cloak, now twisted as tightly about her above her waist as she could manage. Also, she brought forth the rod and thrust it in twice to make sure that she would not lose it.

  The rippling of the sand at the foot of her rock was steady, but Simsa would not allow herself to look. Instead, drawing upon the skills of her lean body, she jumped, landing only barely on the other rock, fighting desperately for hand- and footholds. Here she lay for a space, breathing fast and staring up into the haze. It was midday or later, and now she was conscious of the heat both of the air and of the rock beneath her.

  Rolling over, she crawled on hands and knees to the other end of the rockfall and there surveyed the rest of the passage. This break was wider than the other portion of the stream and it had no good landing strip beyond. Simsa refused to accept that. There must be a way.

  Looking higher, she picked out, partly shadowed by a tumble of rock, a darker spot, which, as she studied it, took on something of a likeness to the window holes in the fortress? home? city? behind her. Had she had about her all that she carried in the Burrows when about her nearly illegal business—a stout rope, with a small knife that opened into a grapple—the crossing would have been, perhaps not easy, but possible. But she was not equipped as in the old days.

  Still, that thought held in her mind—a rope and a grapple. If the grapple held true, she could swing across above the surface of the sand, reach the narrow top of one of the tumbled rocks just below the suspected opening.

  Simsa shed the cloak. The rod? It was too precious to risk. That left the metal strips of her kilt—which she had been so proud to assume and which she had since worn even when it would have been better not to in order to avoid attention. One strip still lay back beside that other river where she had been tempted to fish with such ill results. But with two—four more . . .

  She speedily loosened a pair. They were limber in her hold, not stiff, but they were also hard to bend, and she had to pound them against the rock with the help of a small stone until she had them entwined together, with two prongs pointed outward in opposite directions.

  Rope? There could be only one source for that. Simsa now fell upon the cloak and tore a wide strip, or rather worried it loose with the edge of her grapple. Into this she fitted her small store of supplies—it would make a pack she could bind to her back. The rest of the tough material she tor
e, pulled, cut, and knotted into an unwieldy length of line perhaps half the width of her palm in thickness.

  Knotting this to the improvised grapple, she again tested each and every knot. She was not depending upon illusion, or will, or power now, but on knowledge she had learned for herself, and that thought strengthened her determination to succeed. If she fell, she thought wryly, then that Elder One, with all her learning and skills, would end just as quickly as the beggar-thief out of the Burrows. Save that she was set on victory this time on her own.

  It took three casts, even in the full light, to bring the grapple within that broken window place. Then Simsa threw all her weight backward, not just once but three times. Without realizing that she did so, she was mumbling one of the charms Ferwar had always sworn by and made her learn to summon fortune.

  She was very careful in tying on her improvised pack, allowing herself two swallows of water. Her skin was slippery with sweat now and she deliberately rubbed her palms across the rock surface to pick up any grit that might adhere.

  “Ready as I shall ever be!” She said that aloud stoutly as both a challenge and encouragement. Then, the awkward “rope” in her grasp, she cast herself directly into the hands of fortune by jumping from the end of her perch.

  The swing of her rope took her only an arm’s distance above the sand, and the force of her jump brought her up against a far rock with such a blow as nearly drove all the air from her lungs. But she held and began to climb, her feet braced against the riven face of the rock, her hands and arms cruelly strained. She reached the end of the rope, swung up one hand to hook over the edge where the grapple was fixed, and at last tumbled head forward into a cramped hollow where she merely lay, her breasts heaving from the struggle and the fear which, at the last moment, broke through the guards she had set.

  She was safe across and, for a time, that was all that counted. Her many bruises and scratches joined those earlier hurts, and she felt as if she wanted nothing but to lie where she was indefinitely. To be back on her pallet of rags in Ferwar’s smelly burrow with a pot of fish stew and edible fungi boiling over the fire under the tending of her foster mother—that was sheer luxury. Why had fortune not granted that she remain so for her lifetime? She had meddled with things that were better left to slumber aeons longer. Now, it was as if she were one of Lame Ham’s people, made of sticks and rags, which he so skillfully used to summon up a crowd on market days while his partner Wulon plucked purses from the unwary.

  This could be welcome sleep and a good dream. Yes, she was in no rock hollow, but underground, sheltered as always, where she had learned to be quick and clever and had few equals. There was Ferwar true enough; she need only put out her hand and she could clasp the edge of the old woman’s outer cloak fashioned of patches upon patches.

  “Ferwar?”

  At her call, the other swung around. Her face was very wrinkled and there was a difference in her eyes. She answered, with a zorsal’s loudest scream.

  7

  “Zass!” Her own cry of recognition roused Simsa out of the deep exhaustion that had held her.

  The zorsal perched on a point of broken wall well above the girl’s head, nodding so that the stiffly held antennae were a misty pattern against the haze-shrouded sky. Zass was licking her paws with smug satisfaction, cleaning sticky patches from her claws and then her coat. The smell of overripe fruit reached Simsa, and she knew that her companion had been raiding those supplies she had brought out of the valley. Or had she? A quick glance at the bundle showed no change of wrapping. But Zass had the gift of wings—what did that lengthy journey through dark back to the valley mean to her?

  Simsa whistled weakly. The zorsal paused in her leisurely toilet to look down. Her muzzle wrinkled, and her tongue shaped one of the low cries that the girl knew of old. Zass was very satisfied with herself. Now the small furred body rose as the leathern wings unfurled and she flapped down to squat once again, this time beside the girl’s body as Simsa fought bruises and stiff muscles to sit up.

  Zass’s self-satisfaction was familiar to Simsa. Just so did a zorsal signify a successful finish to any hunt. Then it was true—that last small doubt was gone. Thorn was here, somewhere in this wilderness of barren rock, and Zass had found him.

  The girl ate a little of the fruit, too, soft now, not far from spoilage under the glaring heat of this outer country, allowed herself sips of water. She offered some to Zass, but the zorsal refused it.

  It was hard to reckon time, but the sky haze was darker close to the eastern horizon and brightest behind the tumbled rocks, the upstanding cubes. She had best be on her way. Simsa grimaced sourly as she got to her feet. Those burns from the tunnel’s sparks, all the scrapes and bruises of her journey made themselves into small torments when she strove to stretch, to rub muscles in the calves of her legs which knotted painfully. As she shouldered the bag of supplies she spoke once more to Zass, trying at the same time to empty the fore of her mind of all but that face she had seen on the haze of the valley.

  “Thorn!”

  Zass clapped her wings, producing a smacking sound which echoed among these rocks or ruins, whichever they might be, then took lazily to the air. She flapped about in a circle as Simsa worked her way out of that foreguardian of the valley world and trod once again the rock plain between cracked fissures. Having seen the girl so prepared to follow, Zass’s flight straightened into a line pointing east yet, to Simsa’s surprise, south. The girl had expected a northern pathway.

  Nor did Zass keep to the air, but returned now and then to perch on the girl’s shoulder and chitter what Simsa understood as complaints. Always the zorsal disliked any long march since, winged, she could outfly those moving on the ground, and this was difficult ground to cover because of the constant breakage of the fissures. Sometimes it was necessary to detour for a space to get around one, and Simsa remained alert to any movement within, expecting at any moment to witness an upward surge of sand heralding the emergence of a monster. She swung the rod back and forth at waist level, always careful to point the horn tips toward any fissure she had to pass.

  She was suddenly aware that the wind was coming in faster puffs than usual. Then her head came up with a jerk, and she faced directly into the lightest of breezes, still near furnace hot from the day.

  Burning. Something burnt, and a stench of other odors that she had not breathed since she had left the foul agelessness of the Burrows. She moved the rod up and out. It was warmer in her hand. Another of the beasts about to attack?

  Zass took off, her claw tips scouring Simsa’s shoulder where there was no longer any protecting cloak. The zorsal angled even more to the right, heading over two large fissures and giving a loud squawking cry. Simsa began to run, though her way was a zigzag and not a straight path, to where the zorsal was again circling in a wheeling pattern of flight, continuing to give voice.

  The other river! Simsa made herself slow lest she suddenly skid over some lip of rock into that flood. What had Thorn to do with rivers—such rivers as befouled this world?

  She came upon disaster so warned, but still astounded. Zass had settled down—not on the rocky shore of the stream, but on a mass of broken metal which protruded out of the ripples of sand that must be tugging at it, though so far not able to swallow up the wreckage.

  A flitter right enough, but one that looked as if a giant had caught the machine out of the sky and twisted it between his hands even as one might twist reeds to fashion a basket—only this had then been idly thrown aside. Marks on the rock showed where the flyer had skidded after a forceful landing, heading straight for the river which now held a good third of it in its thick grasp.

  There were no signs of life about the cabin of the downed flitter. The rough, transparent, glasslike substance the off-worlders used to give vision but also withstand any attack of enemy or nature was so crackled that she could not see inside. The worst was that the skid that had taken it into the river had landed it against, and well up on, the far bank
. Between Simsa and the wreck was a broad band of flowing sand.

  The girl dropped her bundle and grimaced at being faced again by the problem of sand rivers and their hidden inhabitants. There was a chance that she could leap from the solid base of this shore to the top of the wreckage, but she did not know how well-based the latter might be. She might land on a mass which would then simply tip her off into that muck which she had no intention of entering.

  The zorsal was walking across the clouded upper portion, pausing now and then to lower her head and peer into a portion fairly clear of such veiling. Then she fanned her wings and sank her claws, extended as Simsa could see to their fullest reach, into one of the cracks, rising in a small jump with the aid of her wings while all four limbs were anchored in the shattered material.

  A crackling answered her and Zass bounced higher into the air, bearing with her a three-cornered fragment. With a series of splitting sounds, the rest of the badly broken window dome fell out and slipped down the tail of the flitter to cascade into the sand, where it speedily disappeared.

  Simsa had no difficulty now in seeing bodies trapped in the wreckage; two of them, wearing the shining, one-piece uniforms of spacers, were wedged within. One had fallen forward, his or her head resting on unmoving knees. But it was the other Simsa saw and knew.

  Her haze-borne vision in the valley was true. Thorn, his head up and back, sat pinned there. His eyes were closed and there was that thin runnel of blood coming from the corner of his mouth. Dead?

  On her hands and knees, lest she somehow lose balance and fall into the sand trap, the girl crept to the very edge of the cut in the rock that held the river, and tried to distinguish any signs of life. But he was too far away.