by Andre Norton
That it was old past her judging she knew. This extreme age could well have caused that nauseating whirl of impressions from her “reading,” for the longer any object wrought by intelligence was in existence, the more impressions it could pick up and store, letting those forth as a chaotic mingling of pictures. It would require many sessions, much careful researching, to untangle even a small fraction of what might be packed into this grotesque object.
For a long time it had been a proved fact that any object wrought by intelligence (or even a natural stone or similar object that had been used for a definite purpose by intelligence) could record. From the fumbling beginnings of untrained sensitives, who had largely developed their own powers, much had been learned. It had been “magic” then; yet the talent was too “wild,” because all men did not share it, and because it could not be controlled or used at will but came and went for reasons unknown to the possessors. So that at one instance there had been amazing and clear results that could not be questioned by witnesses, and on a second try, nothing at all.
There had been frauds when those who had reputations of wonder workers could not produce the results called for, and in desperation had turned to trickery. But always there had been a percentage that was unexplained. When man learned to study instead of to scoff, when the talented ones were neither scorned nor feared, progress began. Mind-touch was as well accepted as speech now, and with it all those other “unexplainables” which had been denied for generations. Then when mankind of Ziantha’s own species—that first mankind which had neither mutated nor altered as a result of living on planets alien to their home world—when her own species headed into space they found others to whom the “wild talents” were a normal way of life.
There were the Wyverns of Warlock, whose females were age-long mistresses of thought over matter. The Thassa of Yiktor—Ziantha did not need to list them all. Part of her past training had been to study what each newly discovered world could add to the sum total of learning. What she had been able to absorb she had practiced to the height of her powers under Ogan’s careful fostering. But this—
Old—old—old!
“How old?” At first Ziantha was so intent upon the problem she did not realize that question had been asked not by her own mind but by -- She looked over her shoulder.
Yasa stood in the doorway, her lily scent creeping in to fill the room. At her feet Harath bobbed up and down, hopping on his clawed feet, as if so greatly excited by something that he could not remain still. His beak opened and shut in a harsh clicking.
“Yesss—“ Yasa’s voice was more of a hiss than usual, and Ziantha recognized that sign of controlled anger. “How old—and what isss thisss thing which isss ssso old?”
“That—“ Ziantha pointed to the lump.
The Salarika moved with fluid grace, coming to stand beside where Ziantha crouched. She leaned over, stared round-eyed.
“For thisss you do what issss forbidden? Why, I asssk you now, why?”
Her amber-red eyes caught and held Ziantha mercilessly. Humanoid Yasa might be in general form, but there was no human type of emotion which Ziantha could detect in that long stare.
The girl wet her lower lip with her tongue. She had met so many trials this day, it was as if she were now numb. Ordinarily she would have known fear of Yasa in this mood; now she could only tell the truth, or what seemed the truth.
“I had to—“
“Sssso? What order had been given you to do thissss?”
“I—when I was in Jucundus’s apartment this—this pulled me. I could not forget it. It—it made me reach for it—“
“She could be right, you know.”
Just as Yasa had entered unbidden and unexpected, now Ogan appeared. “There are strong compulsions sometimes when a sensitive is at top pitch performance. Tell me”—he, too, came to stand over Ziantha—“when were you aware of this first? Before or after you read the tapes?”
“After, when I was going out of the room. It was so strong—a call I never felt before.”
He nodded. “Could be so. You had the vibrations high; a thing attuned to those vibrations could respond with a summons. Where was this—in the safe?”
“No.” She explained how she had seen it first, one of a number of curiosities set out on a small table.
“What isss all thisss -- ?” Yasa began when an imperative wave from Ogan’s hand not only halted her question but turned her attention back to the artifact.
Ogan’s hand now rested on Ziantha’s head. She longed to jerk away, throw off that touch, light and unmenacing though it was, but submitted to it. Ogan had his own ways of detecting truth or falsehood, and she needed him more at this moment as a protection against Yasa’s wrath.
“This then obsessed you until you had to apport it?” His voice was encouraging, coaxing.
“I could not get it otherwise,” she returned sullenly.
“So you were able, because of this obsession, to develop powers you did not use before?”
“I had Harath to back me.”
“Yesss!” Had Yasa still possessed the tail of her ancestors she might have lashed it at that moment; instead she made her voice a whip to lash with words. “Thisss one takes Harath, and with him sssshe makes trouble!” Harath snapped his beak violently as Yasa paused, as if heartily agreeing with her accusation. “Sssomewhere now in Tikil there isss a Patrol ssssensitive at alert. How long you think before Jucundusss beginsss to wonder?”
To Ziantha’s surprise, Ogan smiled. She sensed that under his generally expressionless exterior he was excited, even pleased.
“Lady! Bethink you—how many dwell in that apartment where Jucundus chooses to make his headquarters? Two—three—perhaps four hundred! There are endless possibilities. If Jucundus values this thing so little as to leave it in the open, will he miss it for a while? It is true that a sensitive on patrol might well have picked up the surge of Ziantha’s power. But to detect and trace it would be impossible unless he had a scan ready for action. She and Harath were right, or rather Harath was right to shut down on communication when he detected the hunter. All the sensitive can say now is that someone within the park put forth an expenditure of energy in an unusual degree. But”—Ogan looked again at Ziantha—“that you escaped was not due to any intelligence on your part, girl.”
She was willing to agree. “No, it was Harath.”
“Yes, Harath, who will now tell us what we have here.”
“But I—“ Ziantha half raised her hand in protest.
“You are of no value in the matter, not now. Have you not already tried?” He spoke impatiently as he might to a child who was being tiresome, as he had in the past when she was younger and would not be as pliable as he wished. “Harath,” he repeated coldly.
She wanted to cover the artifact with her hands, her body, hide it. It was hers—from the beginning she had known it to be hers. But she was in no condition to read it; her ill-tried experiment proved that. And she wanted to know what it was, from whence it had come, why it should exert such influence over her.
It seemed that Harath had to be coaxed. For he caught at the fluttering ends of Yasa’s fringed skirt, turning his head away, only clicking his beak in a staccato of protest when Ogan ordered him to touch the lump.
Yasa folded her slender legs, gracefully joining Ziantha on the floor. She ran her fingers gently over the head of the small alien, purring soothingly, making no mind-send the girl could detect, but in some manner of her own, communicating, coaxing, bringing Harath to a better temper.
At last, with a final ruffle of beak drum, he loosed his hold on her skirt and crossed the cushions with extreme wariness, as if he fully expected an explosion to follow any touch, even through the mind alone. Squatting down, he advanced from his down-covered pocket a single tentacle, brought it over so that the tip alone just touched the artifact.
Eagerly Ziantha opened her own channel of communication, ready to pick up whatever the alien would report.
“Not early”—that was Ogan’s caution. “Give us the latest reading.”
Ziantha picked up a sensation of distress.
“All ways at once—much—much—“ Harath’s answer was a protest.
“Give us the latest,” Ogan insisted.
“Hidden—deep hidden—oheee—dark—death—“ Harath’s thought was as sharp as a scream. He snatched away his tentacle as if the figure were searing hot.
“How did Jucundus get it?” It was Yasa this time who asked. “Little one, little brave one, you can see that for us. What is this precious thing?”
“A place, an old place—where death lies. Hidden, old—strange. It is cold from the long time since it was in sun and light. Death and cold. Many things around it once—a great—great lord there. No—not to see!”
He whipped the tentacle away again, into complete hiding. But he did not turn away, rather stood regarding the artifact.
Then: “It is of those you call Forerunners. The very ancient ones. And it is—was—once one of two—“
Ziantha heard a hiss which formed no word. Yasa’s lips were a little apart, there was an avid glow in her large eyes.
“Well done, little one.” She put out her hand as if to fondle Harath. But he turned, made his way unsteadily across the pillows to stand beside Ziantha.
“I do not know how,” he reported on the open mind-send they all now shared, “but this one, she is a part of it. It is Ziantha who can find, if finding comes at all, where this once lay. Dark and cold and death.” His round eyes held unblinkingly on Ziantha. She shivered as she had when she had come out of the trance of the apport. But she knew that what he said was the truth. By some curse of temperament or fortune she was linked to this ugly thing beyond all hope of freedom.
“Forerunner tomb!” Yasa held one of her girdle scent bags to her nose, sniffing in refreshment the strong odor of the powdered lily petals. “Ogan, we must discover whence Jucundus had this—“
“If he bought it, Lady, or if he brought it with him—“ It was plain that Ogan was equally excited.
“What matter? Whatever a man has discovered can be found. Do we not have more eyes and ears almost than the number of stars over us?”
“If bought, it could well be loot from a tomb already discovered,” Ziantha ventured.
Yasa looked at her. “You believe that? That it is some unknown curiosity picked up perhaps at the port mart with no backtracing for its origin? It has no beauty to the eye—age alone and a link with the Forerunners would make it worthy to be displayed and cherished. Also Jucundus has pretensions to hist-tech learning. He backed three survey groups on Fennis, striving to place the mound builders there. But old as those were, they were not true Forerunners, nor were there tombs. No, Jucundus kept this with him because of its history, which we must learn. Now we shall put it in safekeeping until—“
She would have taken it up. But, though her fingers scrabbled in the air, she could not touch its surface.
“Ogan! What is the matter?”
He came swiftly around the mound of cushions. After a slow study of the artifact he caught Yasa’s wrist.
“Psychokinetic energy. It is charged past a point I have never seen before. Lady, this—this thing must once have been a focus for some parapsychological use. That which gathered in it during the time it was used has now been brought to life by the power bent on it when apported. It is like mind-power itself. Unless it is discharged in some fashion, it is highly dangerous to the touch. Unless—“ He turned on Ziantha. “Pick it up! At once, do you hear!”
The snap of his order made her move before she thought. Her hand closed about the lump with no difficulty. It appeared to be warm—or was that only her imagination, primed by what Ogan had just said? But if Yasa had been unable to touch it, that barrier did not hold for her.
“Psychic tie,” Ogan pronounced. “Until it is fully discharged, if it ever will be, Lady, this girl is the only one who can handle it.”
“Surely you can neutralize it in some manner! You have all your devices—of what good are those?” Yasa was plainly not prepared to accept his decision.
“Of this condition we have theoretical knowledge, Lady. But in a hundred planet years or more no worship object of an alien race has ever been found to be so studied. An artifact which has been the object of worship of a nation or species acquires, with every ceremony of worship, a certain residue of power. So charged, it literally becomes, as the ancient men said, god-like. There were god-kings and -queens of old who were the objects of worship by those who served them, and who were fed by the psychic energies of those who adored them. Thus they achieved the power which made them perform miracles and brought them indeed close to the might they professed to have.”
“And you believe this to be such a god-thing?” There was a shadow of disbelief in the Salarika’s voice.
“It is clearly a thing of psychic power far past the ordinary. And I tell you I dare not put it to any test I could devise, because I might destroy what it holds. We may have chanced on such a treasure as we could not have hoped to discover in a lifetime.”
Perhaps it was the word “treasure” which brought the throat-purr of satisfaction from Yasa.
“But you believe that you can perhaps use it—through our cubling here—“ The look she now gave Ziantha was both forgiving and approving.
“I will and can promise nothing, Lady. But with such a key I think old doors can be opened. We must start, of course, to trace its history while it was in Jucundus’s possession. Whether its import was known to him in more than a general way, I greatly doubt. He does not like sensitives, as well we know. Men with secrets to hide do not. I can believe that while it was in his hands no one capable of sensing its real value and meaning could have seen it. Though it must have been aroused by apporting. Only Ziantha knew it for what it was, or felt its pull, when she passed by the table on which it lay. A combination of lucky chances, Lady. That she should be in a heightened state when she first found it, so drawn to it, that she should then set it afire by using psychokinetic means to obtain it. Two factors out of the normal, reacting on it and on her in a short time, have set up a rapport we can use very well.
“Now, my girl,” he spoke to Ziantha, “you will be advised to try to read this.”
“I cannot!” she cried. “I tried, but I cannot! It—it was horrible.”
Yasa laughed. “To teach you, cubling, not to take such grave matters on yourself. You will, however, attend to what Ogan is saying or suffer a mind-lock.” She spoke lightly enough, but Ziantha had no doubt that she meant exactly what she threatened. Only the girl did not need such a threat; her fascination with the artifact had not been in any way lessened, though she had suffered enough during that one attempt to solve its mystery to know that she could not try that again—not as she felt now.
“In your guardianship then, cubling.” Yasa arose. “Or perhaps in its own, if Ogan’s reading of its present state continues. Meanwhile we shall take up the matter of where Jucundus first found it.”
4
There was no need of any warning. Ziantha realized she had in truth condemned herself to captivity in the villa while that vast underground of spies Yasa maintained went into action. The girl had expected Ogan to show more interest, though, both in her sudden development of psychokinetic powers and in the artifact. She had anticipated, with dread, hours of lab testing. And, when no such summons came, she was first relieved, then a little piqued at being so ignored. Did the parapsychologist think the artifact would continue to be so “charged” that it would defy his powers of research? Or was he only preparing stiffer tests?
Whatever the cause of her semi-imprisonment, Ziantha became more and more uneasy as the hours, and then the days, wore on. There were amusement and information tapes in plenty to draw upon, and the tri-dee casts from Tikil on her screen if she cared to tune them in. But all the various things with which she had filled waiting hours before no longer had the power to hold her at
tention.
After she made two tangles in the belt she was knotting by a process Yasa’s Salarika maid had taught her, and found that she could not concentrate on a tape of Forerunner “history” she had in the reader, she gave up on the morning of the third day. Sitting in the deep window-sill lounge, she looked out into the garden, which was a type of jungle, carefully maintained in that state to ensure Yasa’s privacy.
Forerunners—there were many different kinds, civilizations, species -- Not even the Zacathans—those reptilian-evolved, very long-lived Hist-techneers and archaeologists of the galaxy—had ever been able to chart them all. Her own species was late come to the stars, springing from a small system on the very edge of this galaxy, that which contained the fabled Terra of Sol. Waves of emigration and settlement had gone forth from that planet—some fleeing wars at home, some questing for adventure and new beginnings. They had found new worlds—some of them—and in turn those worlds altered, changed the settlers through generations. New suns, different trace elements in soil, air, food, had brought about mutations. There was still a legendary Terran “norm,” but she had yet to meet a single person who directly matched it. There were “giants” compared to the given height, as well as “dwarfs.” Skin color, hair hue or lack of hair, number of digits, ability or limitation of sight, hearing, the rest of the senses, all these characteristics existed in a vast number of gradations and differences. To realize that, one need only visit the Dipple, where the sweepings of the civilizations of half a hundred planets had been dropped, or walk the streets of Tikil with an intent of measuring those differences.