by Andre Norton
“On foot!” Massa repeated. “They have been gone”—she consulted the timekeeper on the cabin wall above them—“two complete dial circles.”
“But the coms! Why are you not monitoring the coms?”
“The hook-up is in.” Massa laid her hand on the wall com. “They have not reported for a half-circle. I have the repeat demand on automatic. If they answer we can hear them at once.”
“We can trace their way in then, through that.” Ayana nodded to the com.
“Yes. But dare we try to use it so? I was trying to decide.” Massa set her elbows on the table, leaned her head forward into her hands. “Trying to decide,” she repeated dully. “If we leave the ship and go hunting and are caught by those creeping horrors—”
“Creeping horrors?”
“Tan went out early this morning. He returned with recordings. The picture was blurred, but it showed small life forms, in an open place between buildings. They signaled him with one of the old recognition codes—though it did not quite make sense by our records. There was no place near that point where he could land the flyer. That's why they went on foot. But I say that those things—they were not people!”
“But to go out like that, it is against everything we have been taught, against all the rules of safety.”
Massa shrugged. “It seems that home rules do not apply any more as far as Tan is concerned. And—he came and talked at Jacel—not to him but at him! It was almost evil the way he worked on Jacel, made him believe he was not a real man unless he would go to meet those signaling things. They, neither one of them, would listen to me when I tried to urge some sense. It was as if they were different people from those I had always known. And sometimes, Ayana, I feel different, too. What is this world doing to us?”
There was nothing left of her serene confidence. Rather the eyes now looking into Ayana's were those of someone lost and wandering in a strange and frightening place. So—she was not alone! Massa felt it also, that this world was somehow altering them to fit a new pattern, one which was for the worse, compared to that they had known.
“If we only knew,” Ayana said slowly, “the reason why the First Ship people left here. That reason—it may be that we have to face it again now. And we have no defense, not even guesses. Was it invasion of furred creatures like those on the bridge, or like these others who now signal in our own old codes? Disease? It could be anything.”
“I only know that Jacel has changed, and Tan is a stranger, and I no longer understand myself at times. You are a trained medic, Ayana. Could this air here, which our ship's instruments tell us is good, be some kind of subtle poison? Or is it something from those rows of dead buildings, standing there like bones set on end to mark old graves which must not, for some terrible reason, be forgotten—something reaching out to send us mad?”
Her voice rose higher and higher, her hands began to twitch. Ayana put down her mug, caught those hands to hold them quiet.
“Massa! No, do not imagine things—”
“Why not? What have we left us but what we imagine? I did not imagine that Jacel has taken leave of his senses and gone out to hunt evil shadows in those buildings. He is gone, Tan is gone, and both for no sane reason. You cannot say I have imagined that!”
“No, you have not.” By will Ayana kept her own voice level and steady. “But are you of any help now? What if—”
She had no time to see if that argument had any effect on Massa. For at that moment there was a clicking from the com, and they both looked to it, tense, reading in that rattle of sound the message.
“Need aid—Ayana—medic—”
“Jacel!” Massa jerked from Ayana's hold, was on her feet. “He is hurt.”
“No. That was Jacel's sending. Did you not recognize it? And if he is sending, he cannot be the one in need.”
Clicks might not have any voice tone, but they had practiced so long together that they were able to distinguish the sender by rate of speed.
And it would only fit the pattern that Tan, driven by whatever beset him on this world, had gotten into difficulty—bad—or Jacel would not have sent for her.
“Keep on that direction beam.” Now that she was being pressed into action, Ayana knew what to do. “We may need a beacon call back.”
“I am going too—”
“No. They need a medic, and we must have someone in the ship. Your place is here, Massa.”
For a long moment it looked as if she would argue that. Then her shoulders slumped, and Ayana knew she had won.
“I will take a belt com, go in on their out-wave. Set that for me, Massa, while I go to get a suit and my kit.”
“And if this is somehow a trap?”
“We have to take that chance. I must go.” Ayana faced the bare truth squarely.
15
It was mid-morning with no clouds or sign of storm. The sun was warm, too warm across the glare of fused scars where ships had taken off and landed—how long ago? Beyond, the gray-white cliffs of the buildings. Ayana wearing her protect suit, her belt heavy with explorer's devices and aids, the medic kit at her back, tramped on, the com beep at her belt as a compass.
As long as those she sought wore similar devices she would eventually find them. How long would that take? Her impulse was to run, her self-command kept her to a ground-covering stride which would not invite disaster. There had been no more messages. But she had left Massa at the com in the control cabin ready for any such call. Massa would relay to her any message, but somehow she was sure that none would come.
Now she approached the buildings. Windows regarded her slyly. The sensation of being spied upon was like a crawling touch on her skin. She had to fight her fears to keep on in the direction the com marked for her. Though at a distance the blocks of the buildings seemed to ring in solidly the open landing site, yet, as Ayana advanced, she saw that this was not true. There was a space at a side angle, where one could pass between two towers.
The opening was a narrow street at a sharp angle in relation to the port, so that when Ayana was only a step or so down it, she could no longer look back to the ship. But the com urged her ahead—this was the way.
There were drifts of sand and earth at the beginning of the street, but farther down, where the wind could not reach so readily, the pavement was bare. On both sides there were no windows or doors in the first stories of the buildings, leaving them blankly solid like the walls of a fortification. Though well above there were windows. It was not until Ayana reached the first crossway that there was a change. Here were doors, windows, at street level. The doors were closed and she tried none of them. Her beeping guide turned her into another cross street which headed yet farther into the city. They had believed that they had built cities on Elhorn during the last two hundred years. But what they had done there was the piling up of children's blocks compared to this! And what had brought it all to nothing?
There were no signs of such destruction as a natural catastrophe or war might have left. Just silence—but not emptiness! No, with every step she took, Ayana was aware of hidden life. She could not see it, nor hear it, and she did not have a persona detect (that had gone with Tan), but she knew something was there. So her hand swung close to her stunner, and she looked continuously from side to side, sure that soon—from some doorway—
Another crossway, again she was to go right according to the com. Something—Ayana stopped short, the stunner now drawn; something had scuttled away up ahead. She was sure imagination had not tricked her. She had actually seen that flicker of motion at a door. All her instincts warned her to retreat, but the beep of the com held steady. Somewhere ahead Jacel, or Tan, or both of them had their coms on call, and that would not happen unless need was greater than caution. She had no choice after all.
But Ayana kept to the middle of the street, well away from those buildings. The open would give her what small advantage there might be. Now she reached the doorway where she had seen the movement. The door there was open, but, as far
as she could detect, nothing crouched within. She did not explore. But as she passed it, she went stiff and tense; to have that behind her was bad.
The second cross street brought her out into a place which was in direct contrast to the rest of the city. Here was a sprawl of growing things, a huge, autumn-killed tangle choked in a frame of corroded metal. Ayana, facing that mass, thought she could trace in some of the upright and horizontal crossbeams the frame of a building. But if it had ever been more than just the skeleton of such, the vines and other growth had taken over and destroyed all but the bones.
Much of the riotous vegetation was dry and dead. But from that black, withered mass new shoots rose. Not of an honest rich green, but of a green that was oddly grayed, as if it were indeed only the ghost of the plants that had put forth new shoots and runners.
It was into the center of that sickly mass that the beep directed her. Though how she could enter such a tangle—
Ayana walked along the outer fringe of the growth, seeking by will, not by inclination, some possible opening. Shortly she came upon a path hacked, broken, burnt. Though why those she sought had forced their way into that unwholesome mass she could not guess.
What bothered her most was the sight of a couple of the ghost-gray vines, perhaps as thick as two fingers together, looped directly across the hacked way. They looked as if they had had days to re-establish themselves, although they could only have had hours.
Slipping her hands into the suit gloves, making sure her flesh was well covered, Ayana reached out and jerked at the stalks. They broke easily, showing hollow stems from which spurted thin streams of reddish liquid. But the noisome smell of rot made her gag.
Broken, the vines visibly shriveled, wilted back against the mass from which they had trailed. Ayana forced herself into the path.
Her boots sank a little at each step into a muck which gave off putrid puffs. Soon, unable to take that continued assault on her nostrils, she stopped to draw up her face mask. What this place had been she could not guess. But the eroded partitions showing here and there were pillars which must have once supported a roof.
The hacked way was several times barred by vines she had to snap. There was no difficulty doing that; they offered no resistance. Except that Ayana had such a horror of touching them, even with gloved hands, that she had to force herself to the act each time.
So she reached the center of this horror garden, if garden it had been. There was a wide, square opening in the ground. Oddly enough, none of the vegetation crowded near that hole, or door. For it was not a chance opening. Around it was a band of stone over which none of the vines hung.
The signal was—down. But how? Ayana shone her hand lamp into the hole. Flashing here and there showed her a room, or perhaps a section of corridor. And the floor was not too far below. If she hung by her hands, with her suit inflated for a landing, she could make it. Again it would seem she had no choice.
Ayana landed. When she got to her feet, swinging the lamp around, she saw that this was a small chamber with a door in only one wall—that way—
What had Tan—Jacel—been hunting which had brought them here? To her it had more and more the smell of a trap. But it had been Jacel who had beamed that help call, and he would not have urged either Massa or her into danger. Or, could one depend on Jacel's reactions anymore?
In the underground ways the beep was even louder, more persistent than it had been above. By all indications she was close to what she sought. There was no turning back—
Ayana held the lamp in one hand, her stunner ready in the other as she went on. Then she stiffened, stood very still, listening.
Sound ahead, but not a call of her kind, or the tread of one walking in protect boots, but rather a swishing noise. She longed to call out, to be reassured by a human voice that one of those she hunted was there. But fear kept her dumb. It needed all her will-power to force her ahead.
A crosswise passage—At her belt the beep was a continuous note. She was close to its source. To her right, along that sideway . . .
“Ayana!”
Jacel! Her lips, her mouth were so dried she could not produce more than a hoarse croak in return. But she began to run, turned right. And there was light ahead.
* * *
Furtig sat by the stream from the spring. The morning was going to be fair. He sniffed the air, good smells. He had not realized how few good smells there were in the lairs. Oh, there were those places where things grew, but those seemed different, even if they were plants. It was as if they had never been the same as those of the wilds, or else that far back, like the People, they had been somehow changed. He feasted eye and nose now on what was familiar and right, and had not been wrought upon by any Demon knowledge.
It was a promising morning—outwardly. But of what it promised for his mission here there was no hint. None of the Elders, or even the younger warriors, had spoken after the withdrawal of the Choosers. Furtig thought that a bad sign. His people were normally curious. If they did not ask questions about the weapons or the lairs, such silence seemed hostile.
“A good day—” Foskatt came down the slope. He had spent the night in the outer part of the cave of his own family line. Now he squatted on his heels by the water, running the fingers of one hand back and forth across the scar of his healed wound as if that still itched a little.
“Any talk?” he asked.
“Not so. It was as if I had come from a hunt only, and an unsuccessful one at that,” Furtig growled.
“With me the same. But do not forget that Liliha argued well for us. If she convinced the Choosers—”
Furtig gave a hiss of irritation, though he knew that Foskatt spoke the truth. It was the Choosers who ruled when it came to the point of safety for the full clan.
“Ssss—warriors who greet the dawn!” Both their heads turned swiftly.
Eu-La stood, her hands on her slender hips, her tail switching gently, evoking an answering whisper from the dry grasses it brushed. She was smaller than Liliha, but her body was well rounded. Yes, she was close to the season when it would be her turn to sit high on the Choosing ledge and watch warriors contend for her favor.
“We are not the only ones early astir,” Furtig answered. “What brings the cave sister from her sleeping nest?”
“Dreams—dreams and wishes—” Suddenly she flung wide her arms, holding high her hands to the sky. “Long have I dreamed, and wished, and now it seems that I shall walk into the full of my dreams, have my wishes—”
“Those being?” Foskatt's question rumbled hoarsely.
“That I go to Gammage, that I learn more than can be learned in these caves—that I can use these, my hands, for greater things than I do here!” Now she held her hands before her face, flexing her fingers. These were not as long as Liliha's, but neither were they as closely stubbed as those of many of her sisters. “If the clans decide to go or not, still I travel with you, cave brother.” She looked to Furtig. “I have spoken to Liliha and she has agreed. It is my right as much as any warrior's to go to Gammage!”
“True,” Furtig had to agree. She was correct. If she longed for what the lairs had to offer, then she could profit by what she could learn there.
Perhaps this was another way out. Perhaps even if the Elders held back those of the clans who were bound by custom, there would be those, among the younger ones, who would go to Gammage and so swell even by a few the force within the lairs.
It was as if Eu-La could read his thought at that moment, for after she jumped lightly down beside them and leaned forward, about to lap daintily from the free-flowing water, she glanced up to add: “But I think that the Elders of the Choosers will have made up their minds soon. There was talk in the second cave last night. When it comes to the safety of younglings, then they listen well. And Liliha answered many more questions in the dark hours. Do not believe you have failed until you are told so.”
She dabbled in the water, flicking droplets here and there like a youngling pl
aying. But Furtig, watching her, was reminded again of Fas-Tan, who acted as one alone even when she knew well that warriors watched her longingly. Again he saw on Foskatt's face that same intent look he had seen the night before.
For a moment a growl rumbled deep in Furtig's throat. Eu-La he had known for a long time. It was she who had encouraged him before he went to Gammage. Eu-La was very precious. But if Eu-La were at this moment a Chooser and looked at him, Furtig, would he rejoice?
The turn of his thoughts surprised him almost as much as Foskatt's reaction to Eu-La had done. Eu-La choosing him? He liked her much, but not, he realized, as Foskatt did. He would fight for her in one way, to protect her against harm. But he would not strive to win her Choosing favor. That was not how he thought of Eu-La.
When he thought of a Chooser—Sternly Furtig tried to order those straying thoughts. There was no more chance of that than there had been in the other days of winning Fas-Tan's favor. Not all warriors won even the passing interest of a Chooser. And they lived and did as they had to—though many became far rovers without clans.
He was lucky. Within the lairs there was much to be done. If he could not equal the In-born with their learning and their mastery of the Demon machines, there was always exploring and fighting the Rattons. Yes, he was lucky to have so much, and ought not, even in his thoughts, reach for that which he could never win. Foskatt—Eu-La—if it came to that it might be very well.
But these were days to think not of Choosing and the beginnings of new clans and families, but of what was going to happen to those already in existence.
Eu-La proved right. In the end the Choosers' decision was that the move to the lairs was better than a life in the wilds, where younglings might be taken as had those of the Tuskers. Their answer to the threat of Rattons and Demons was that four Demons with their own weapons turned against them were not formidable. As for Rattons—from the earliest legends of the People such had been their natural prey. Therefore Gammage might expect these clans to come to him before the moon overhead vanished into the Nights of Dark.