by Andre Norton
And if the Terrans had been so modified and altered by their spread to the stars, then those earlier races they called the Forerunners must have suffered in their time the same changes. But they had left behind them enigmatic traces of their passing. When that passing had resulted from titanic conflicts, one found “burned-off” worlds reduced to such cinders as to remain horror monuments to deadly fury. However, there were other planets where wondering men found ruins, tombs, even installations which could still work after what, a million years of planet time?
Each find usually added a new question, did not answer many. For those who studied the discoveries could not string together a quarter of such remains into a pattern they could recognize as belonging to any one civilization or people. Here and there a legend collected by the patient netting of the Zacathans from star to star gave a name—of a race? A ruler? Often they were not even sure. And so, for example, the pillar city on Archon IV and two ports on Mochican and Wotan were tentatively linked as “Zaati” because of some similar carvings.
The hopes were always for the discovery of some storehouse of knowledge, of tapes, or of records that could enlighten a little. Two years ago there had come the discovery of a world which was a single huge city, the apex of one of the civilizations of star-traveling races. That was being explored now.
Ziantha brushed her hand across her forehead. She had always been interested in Forerunners. But now -- She glanced over her shoulder to that box on the table. When Yasa had left the artifact in her keeping she had emptied her lockbox and had bundled the lump, still wrapped in the scarf she had put about it, into the box and had not looked at it since. But neither had she been able to put it out of mind.
A ring with a strange and deadly gemstone had been the key to the city-world. The story of that quest had been told and retold on tri-dee casts a thousand times. What had she found? Another key—to open what door and where?
Korwar had its own ancient mystery—Ruhkarv. That was a maze of underground ways built by a people, or entities, totally alien. It was a wicked trap, so the Rangers of the Wild had force-walled it against penetration. No one knew who had dug the ways of Ruhkarv, whether it was to be named “city” or “hive,” or whether it was a fort, an indwelling, or a way-station for alien off-worlders.
Slowly Ziantha arose, moving against her will, compelled by the force that the artifact could exert. She shrank from what the box held, yet she picked it up and brought it back into the shaft of strong sunlight which beat through the window, as if something in that natural light could disarm what she held, render it her captive rather than allow her to remain in its thrall.
Drawing out the wrapped lump, she set it in the sun, plucked at the folds of scarf covering it until they fell away. It was dull, ugly; it could have been the result of a child’s attempt at modeling the clay gouged from some riverbank. There was certainly nothing about it that hinted at any higher star-reaching, far ranging civilization—very primitive.
Greatly daring, Ziantha put forth a hand, touched. But this time there was no answering flare of energy. Ogan’s theory that the act of apporting might have charged it—was she now proving the truth of that? The girl began to run her finger back and forth, with more confidence, across the upper portion, where there should have been a head.
Though the lump seemed rough to the eye, to the touch it was smooth. And she picked up only a faint flicker of something—
Suddenly Ziantha caught it up between her palms, pressed thumbs on the top, four fingers underneath, and gave a quick twist of the right wrist, wrenching at the lump. She did not know why, only this she must do.
The deceptively rough-looking shell moved at her action. Half of it turned away from her. It did not crumble but parted evenly in two as if it were a box.
Within was a nest of silver, glittering thread coiled about and about, plainly designed to protect an inner core. Ziantha set the half of the artifact which held this on the window sill. She was cautious enough not to touch the thread with her bare fingers. Instead she brought from the table a long-hafted spoon she had used to stir a glass of fal-berry juice.
Reversing this, she began to probe the puff of thread warily, pushing in until she cleared a peephole. The sun reached beyond the brilliant sparks awakened from the spun filaments and touched what she had uncovered, bringing a wink of blue-green.
An oval stone lay there—a gem she was sure, though she did not recognize it by color alone. It was about half the length of her thumb and cut smoothly cabochon, not faceted. She turned her head quickly, pushing the covering back over it, knowing in that instant it had almost entranced her.
Crystallomancy was one of the oldest ways of inducing clairvoyance. Focusing on a globe wrought of some clear stone or gem brought the sensitive to the point where the power was released. Ogan was right about such objects. When in long use they built up psychic energy within them. This was what she had—a gazing crystal which had been used for a long time to release talent.
As swiftly as she could Ziantha set the two halves of the lump together, closed it with a counter twist. She studied its surface. There was no sign of that seam, not the slightest indication it could be opened. With a sigh of relief she rewrapped it and stowed it in the box. Only when that was locked away did she relax.
If she had taken it, used it as it was meant to be used, what would she have seen? The death and dark that it had broadcast through its outer protection? She had no intention of trying to find out, nor did she intend to let Ogan or Yasa know of this second discovery. That they would set her to using the stone she did not doubt. And she dared not.
She had time to school herself a mind-protection, though she doubted whether she would be able to hold that if Ogan suspected. However, it seemed that events beyond the villa were in her favor. For before midmorning she was summoned to Yasa’s chamber, passing through the cloud of perfumed vapor to find the Salarika veep with a man she knew to be one of the traveling coordinators of the Guild.
He scrutinized Ziantha coldly, as if she were not a person but a tool—or weapon—and he were judging her effectiveness. In Yasa, Ziantha detected no sign of unease, though the upper grades of the Guild were perilous to those who aspired to gain them. Advancement went largely by assassination. An “erase” could be ordered for any veep who was either considered “unsafe,” or who stood in the path of some ambitious underling.
When a check was run by one of the coordinators, there was always a question of trouble. But if Yasa had any reservations concerning this visit, no human would be able to read that from her, any more than a detect could ensnare her thoughts when she wished to retire behind her own alien “cover.” Now she watched Ziantha with a lazy, unblinking stare, but on her knee sat Harath, his eyes closed as if he were asleep. Ziantha, seeing him, was instantly warned. She had been long enough in this household to mark any deviation from the routine as a battle signal and to take up her part of the defense.
Yasa was not as easy as she seemed, or Harath would not be playing the pet role. He had been ordered to pick up any leakage from the visitor’s mind-lock. Which meant that Yasa would give no information to this coordinator, and Ziantha must be very careful what she herself said. Since the artifact was the main concern at present, that, above all, must be secret.
She had only a moment or two to grasp this, to prepare a defense, when Yasa waved a hand in her direction.
“This is the sensitive who gathered the tape readings, Mackry. You asked to see her; she is here.”
He was a large man, once well-muscled and imposing-looking, now a little jowly, a little too paunchy. The spacer’s uniform he wore, with a captain’s wings, fit a little too tight. Either it had not been tailored for him, or he had put it aside for some time and now found it irksome. On his chin was a small beard, smoothed and stiffened to curl out in an imperious point. But the rest of his face was smooth, dark red in color; his head was shaved bare and then overlaid with a filigree of silver in swirls, as one might wear
a very tight cap.
His eyes were deeply sunken, or perhaps it was the puffiness of his cheeks which made them appear so, and his brows had been treated to stand out in points to match his beard. Those eyes, for all their retreat behind flesh and hair, were very hard and bright, reminding Ziantha unwillingly of the glitter of that thread which nested the seeing gem, a memory she hastily buried.
He grunted, perhaps an acknowledgment to Yasa’s half introduction. Then he launched into a sharp questioning of Ziantha concerning her visit to Jucundus’s apartment, though he, of course, did not inquire what had been on the tapes, since Ogan had erased that. He took her step by step through the whole foray from the moment the palm lock on the door had yielded, to the end of her journey on her return to the villa. Having Yasa’s unspoken warning, the girl omitted all reference to the artifact and the subsequent apporting of it.
When she had finished, and there had not been the slightest change in Yasa’s expression to signal either that she was correctly following subtle directions, or making perhaps a totally irredeemable mistake, Mackry grunted again. Yasa uncurled from her usual lounging position.
“You see. Ogan checked with every scanner. It is exactly as we reported, gentle homo. There was no possible hint of detection.”
“So it would seem. But the city is hot, blazing hot, I tell you! In some way that heat is tied to Jucundus. But that has-been has not made a single move to suggest that he knows his microrecords were scanned. They have a sensitive out, sniffing hard. You have kept this one”—again he regarded Ziantha, to her rising irritation, with a look that relegated her to the status of tool—“under wraps?”
“You can ask.” Yasa yawned daintily. “She is here, and has been here. Our detection devices have not traced any mind-scan as a probe. With Ogan’s lab here do you think such would go undetected?”
“Ogan!” He made that name into a snort, as if he classed the parapsychologist with Ziantha. “Well, you cannot keep her here—not now. So far our plans concerning Jucundus are going well; we want no interference. Get her off-world at once!”
Yasa yawned again. “It is near time for my leave. And I have an excellent excuse to go and visit the Romstk trading post. She shall go with my household.”
“Agreed. You shall be told when to return.” With no further word he stalked from the room, his rudeness deliberate, Ziantha knew. Her guess was confirmed when she looked at Yasa.
The feline contoured face of the Salarika was expressionless as far as the human eye could tell, except that the alien’s lips were drawn very tight against her teeth, showing the sharp white points of what in her ancestors had been tearing, death-dealing fangs.
“Mackry,” Yasa observed in a thoughtful tone, her voice almost as emotionless as she could make her features, “takes his missions with a seriousness that suggests he sees before him a flight of stairs climbing to heights. Oftentimes when one’s attention is fixed too far ahead and at the wrong angle, one can trip over a crevice before one’s very feet. But in so much does he serve our purpose—we needed a reason to take off from Korwar without question from those using Mackry—though he does not reckon the truth that he is my servant here, rather than master.”
“You have learned something?” Ziantha asked.
Yasa purred. “Naturally, cubling. When Yasa tells eyes to see, ears to listen, noses to sniff, they obey. We know the general direction from which came Jucundus’s toy. Now we go in search of those who make it their mission in life to learn what is unknown or long forgotten. We go to Waystar.”
Waystar! Ziantha had heard of it all her short life. It was considered a legend by most of the star rovers, but it existed, as all the Guild knew well, though perhaps only a handful of a handful among them even guessed in what part of the galaxy it was located. It served the Guild in some respects, but it was not a possession of the veeps of the underworld as were some other secret bases.
Long before the Guild came into power, before the first of the Terrans felt their way along unmapped stellar roads, Waystar had been. It was a port of outlaws, a rendezvous for space pirates when piracy existed. Now it was a meeting place for Jacks, those outlaws who raided sparsely settled planets and installations, and for the Guildmen, who bought the loot from such raids, or hired Jacks at times to carry out some ship plan of their own.
According to the stories, it had once been a space station located in a system now so old its planets were cinders in orbit around an almost dead red dwarf sun. If it were as old as the worlds it companied, or even as old as the life that had once ruled them, it was beyond any reckoning of age by those who now used it. It had, however, in recorded time, such a dark history as to overshadow all speculation. Going to Waystar was like saying one planned to venture into the bowels of Ruhkarv, with perhaps as good a reason to expect the worst thereafter.
“This Mackry—if we go to Waystar—“ Ziantha ventured. Though the Guild did not rule there, their influence would weigh deeply enough so Yasa might be found to be playing traitor. What would happen then? When a veep fell, his or her personal following were also swept away, unless they were extraordinarily fortunate or had secret ties with the one or ones who brought about that downfall.
Yasa smoothed Harath’s downy head, uttered a sound amazingly like the snapping of the creature’s beak.
“Mackry is one who runs hither and thither with messages, is that not so, my soft one?” she asked Harath aloud.
His mind-send was clear. “He tries to find something with which he can cause trouble for you. So far his search has brought nothing. He believes his detect shields him.” There was such a strong note of scorn in that beaming that Ziantha was startled into a question of her own.
“It does not?”
Harath turned his head to look directly at her. Though that seemed an impossible angle for flesh and bone to endure, he held so, his huge eyes unblinking. “Harath can read.” Again he beak-clicked scornfully.
Ziantha had not realized that the alien could penetrate the mind-seals worn as a matter of course by Guild men. She was so inured to the marvels of their techs that she accepted as a fact that such a shield could not be pierced by normal means. But then, of course, Harath was not “normal” by her species’ standards at all.
Then Yasa did have a guard when Harath was with her. Doubtless he could have relayed to the Salarika every thought passing through Mackry’s mind. Or Ziantha’s mind -- ! The stone! No, do not think of that! The trouble was when there was something not to be brought to the readable fore of one’s mind, that is the very thought which haunted one. Something else—Waystar—think of Waystar—
Again the Salarika purred. “Harath reads well.” There was warm approval not comment. “And there are those at Waystar before whom, for all his ambition, Mackry would dwindle until he was smaller than our Harath is in body, as he is already smaller in talent and courage.”
“One has to reach Waystar to evoke the backing of such,” Ziantha found the courage to point out.
“One need not put obvious truths into words, cubling. However we have not been idle. Plans were made before Mackry arrived to provide us with cover. But this will not be a luxurious voyage. We must travel in voyage-sleep and a sealed cabin.”
Ziantha wished she dared refuse, though there could not ever be a chance for her to set her will against that of the Salarika. Voyage-sleep and a sealed cabin was primitive travel indeed in these days, generations after the first ships traveled with their crews and passengers in frozen sleep, not knowing if they would ever awaken again. She thought now that perhaps it was not the ruggedness of the accommodations which might force this now ancient process on them, but perhaps the secrecy of Yasa’s plan.
But she was not given much time to worry about possibilities, because by dusk one of Yasa’s private flitters had brought them to the airport where they were escorted on board an inner world liner. Only they did not remain there. For they had no more than stepped within the cabin assigned to them before Yasa whipped
two hooded cloaks from her top luggage case. So with distort outer garments they made a circuitous way along empty corridors to a lower hatch and, covered by the dusk and the distorts, swung down to ground level again on a luggage lift.
In spite of her cloak, Ziantha felt vulnerable as she scurried after Yasa across the edge of the landing field and into the shadows. Thus they came to that end of the port where few passenger ships ever sat down, which was reserved for Free Traders and lesser transports. Yasa, without hesitation, seeming to know very well what she sought, caught at Ziantha’s hand and urged her to a faster pace to reach the space-scoured side of a transport on which the name and emblem was so badly worn that in this limited light the girl could make out neither symbol.
The landing ramp was out, but there was no crewman on guard at either end. Again Yasa did not hesitate, but, drawing the girl with her, hurried up into the ship. They met no one. It might have been totally deserted; Ziantha decided there must have been orders given that they not be observed entering.
Yasa climbed three levels, bringing them not far above the cargo holds. Here was an open door which they entered, Yasa closing it quickly behind them.
“Pleasant voyaging, gentle fems.” Ogan leaned against the wall. He looked oddly out of place in a drab uniform of a workman, as he stood guard over two long, narrow chests. Ziantha could not subdue the shiver which ran through her as she threw off the cloak and looked at those, knowing well what ordeal lay before her now. In spite of all that man had learned to make space flight safe, there were always failures, and she had never been off-world that she could remember. Though, of course, like all those in the Dipple, she had originally come to Korwar from some war-swept planet.
“It has gone well so far.” Yasa folded their cloaks small, made pillows of them she stowed in the boxes. “Ziantha, you have the artifact—give it here.”
Because she had no reason to defy that, the girl handed over the container for the lump, which she had held tightly to her during their flight across the port. Yasa stood for a moment with it in her hands. If she had intended to open it, to assure herself their prize was within, she did not do so. Instead she set it with extra care beside one of those cloak-pillows.