by Andre Norton
They joined Iuban’s ship and were again boxed for the voyage. From what Ziantha had seen of the ship and its crew, to be so sealed from them was an excellent choice. Once more she prepared to sleep away time with the lump beside her. If she had dreamed any dreams induced by its proximity before, she had not remembered them, and this second time she did not fear the long sleep.
When they were aroused, Iuban’s ship was already in orbit around a planet, and he summoned Yasa and Ziantha to the control cabin to watch through the visa-screen the changing view of the world below.
“Where do we set down, gentle fem?” he asked harshly.
He was young, or young seeming, for his command, and not unhandsome—until one saw the dead chill of his eyes, which made him the semblance of a man without warmth or emotion. Perhaps he was of mutation or crossbreed, for his hands were six-fingered and his ears mere holes. By the way his space tunic fitted Ziantha guessed that he had other body peculiarities.
It was plain that he had tight command of his motley crew. And it was also apparent that he united in his person the ruthlessness of a top-rated Jack captain with an intelligence that might differ in part from the Terran but in its own way was of a high level.
Yasa put her hand on Ziantha’s arm. “Where?” she asked the girl. “Have you any guide?”
As Ziantha hesitated, unable to answer, Iuban uttered an impatient sound. Then he added:
“We have neither time, manpower, nor supplies, gentle fem, to search the whole planet. Besides”—he touched a button and the scene on the visa-screen sharpened—“that’s no territory to search. By the looks, it’s been near to a burn-off down there.”
Ziantha had seen in the video-history tapes the records of planets burned off, not only in war, but in some ancient disaster. Some were cinder balls; on others, mutant and ofttimes radioactive vegetation straggled, attempting to keep a few forms of life in the pockets between churned and twisted swaths of soil and recooled molten rock.
From the picture now flitting before her as the ship swung in orbit, she could see that some disaster, either manmade or a vast convulsion of nature, had struck this unknown world. There were great, deep-riven chasms, their rims knife-sharp; stretches of what could be only deserts, with, at great intervals, some touch of color suggesting vegetation. They were over a sea now, one manifestly shrunken to half its former size.
But she had no guide—
Fool! There was Singakok. It was as if a ripple had crossed the screen. She saw a city, rich land around it. Why, she could easily distinguish the Tower of Vut, long avenues, the—
“There!”
But even as she cried that aloud, Singakok was gone. There was only rock and more rock. Ziantha shook her head. Singakok—Vut—the avenues—from whence had come those names? How had she seen a city, known it as if she had walked its pavements all her life? They had asked her and she had seen it, as if it were real! Yet it could not have been.
Iuban no longer gave her any attention. He spoke to the astro-navigator. “Got it?”
“Within measurable error, yes.”
She must tell them, not let them land because of that weird double flash of sight. Then prudence argued that she leave well enough alone. It might be that the artifact had given her vision of something which had once existed on that site, and, since they had picked up nothing else of any promise that was as good a place as any to begin looking. Yet she was uneasy at Iuban’s quick acceptance, and of what might happen should her suggestion prove to be wrong.
They strapped down for a landing that had to be carefully plotted in that rough country. Nor did they stir from their places until the readings on atmosphere and the like came through. For all its destroyed surface, it registered Arth-type One, and they would be able to explore without helmets and breathing equipment.
But they had landed close to evening and Yasa and Iuban agreed not to explore until morning. He turned his own cabin over to the women, staying in the control section above. When they were alone Ziantha dared to make plain her fear.
“This may not be what you wish—“ she said in a half-whisper, not knowing if some listening device could be now turned on them.
“What made you select it then?” Yasa wanted to know.
Ziantha tried to describe those moments when the picture of Singakok had flowed across the screen, a city which seemingly no longer existed.
“Singakok, Vut,” Yasa repeated the names.
“That is the closest I can say them,” the girl said. “They are from another language—not Basic.”
“Describe this city, try to fix it in your mind,” Yasa ordered.
Detail by detail Ziantha strove to remember that fleeting picture. And she found that the harder she tried to remember, the more points came clearer in her mind. As if even now she could “see” what she strove to describe.
“I think you have had a true seeing,” Yasa commented. “When Ogan arrives, we can—if we have not by then located any trace—entrance you for a far-seeking reading.”
“Then Ogan comes?”
“Cubling, did you think that I throw away any advantage blindly? We needed Sreng’s computer records. In their way they are more complete than even those of Survey, since they deal with sections of the starways even the Survey Scouts have not fully pioneered. But to then meekly make a pact with Waystar—no, that is not what any but a fool would do! Ogan will have traced us. He brings with him those sworn to me alone. Whatever treachery Sreng contemplates through Iuban and such trash will not avail. Now listen well—if we find traces of your city tomorrow, well and good. We must keep Iuban tail down here until Ogan arrives. But play your guiding well; delay all you can—try not to bring us to this tomb of Turan until we do have reinforcements of our own.”
Tomb of Turan—the words rang in Ziantha’s mind. There was a stir deep down—not of memory (how could it be memory?) but of intense fear. She was instantly awake.
6
“Ziantha!”
Not a spoken call to bring her so out of sleep. No, this was a stir within her mind, though it awoke her so she lay in the cramped berth looking into the dark—listening—
“Ziantha?”
She had not been dreaming then. Ogan? She sent out a mind-seek before she thought of the danger that Iuban might be equipped with some Guild device to pick up and register such activity.
“Harath!” Her recognition of the mental force meeting hers was instantaneous and left her bewildered. But Harath must be back on Korwar. Ogan surely had not brought the alien on this foray. And there was no possible method by which mind-touch could cross the stellar distance between this unknown planet and Korwar.
“What -- ?” Questions crowded. But the beaming of the other overrode all her own thoughts with the intensity of the message he would deliver.
“Think—think of me! We must have a reference point.”
Allies after all—this was what Yasa had warned of—her following must be guided in. Obediently Ziantha produced a mental picture of Harath, held that with all the strength she could summon, pushing aside her curiosity in the need for providing a beacon guide to those the Salarika expected.
As suddenly as a clap of hands a new message came. “It is well.”
She was cut off by the rise of Harath’s mind shield. Having what he needed, the alien had severed connections. And Ziantha knew of old that communication could not be renewed without his cooperation.
The girl turned her head. Through the dim night light she could see Yasa curled up opposite her, hear the soft regularity of her breathing. The Salarika was asleep. Should she wake her, tell her Ogan was on the way?
But Harath—how had he come into this? No, she would wait until she was sure. Twice before morning she mind-called. But if the alien was still within beam, he would not answer, and she had to accept that.
They were roused early, and Ziantha, fearful of some snooper, decided to wait until they were away from the ship before she relayed her news. Iuban had sui
ted up too, plainly prepared to go with them. And she must be most careful about awakening any suspicion.
The Jack captain eyed her while she buckled on belt with ration pouch and water carrier as if he would like to have added a leash to keep her to his hand. And she noted at once that he wore a stunner, but neither she nor Yasa had been offered such a weapon.
They came out on the ramp, to stand for a moment just beyond the lock, looking about them at the wild desolation of this broken country. Her vision of a city—how could she have seen it here?
This earth was scored by deep crevices, blasted into a land which had repudiated life before they set foot on it. Ziantha’s hands, without conscious willing, went to the bag she had fashioned, the cord of which hung about her neck, so that the lump rested against her breast. If she were to have any guide, that would be it.
Yasa moved up beside her.
“Singakok,” the Salarika said softly. “Is this your city?”
She had good reason to question. In all that mass of tortured rock that lay about them there was no resemblance to anything wrought by the work of intelligent beings—unless the destruction itself could be taken for such evidence.
“I—I do not know!” Ziantha turned her head from side to side. Where were the tower, the great avenues—all the rest? Or had that vision been hallucination, born from some quirk of her own imagination and fed into her mind as a “seeing”?
“Which way do we cast?” Iuban, two of his men, armed and ready, caught up with them. “I do not see any signs of a city here. Are you playing games then?”
Yasa turned on him. “Know you nothing of the art of a sensitive, sky rover? The talent cannot be forced. It comes and goes, and sometimes not to any bidding. Let the girl alone; in her own time and way she shall pick our path.”
There was little expression on his face, nor did his dead eyes show life. But Ziantha was aware of his emotions none the less, impatience and disbelief being well to the fore. And she did not think he would take kindly to any evasion he could detect. Also she was sure she was not clever enough to play the delaying role Yasa wanted. If she found any hint of what they sought she must use it to satisfy him.
It seemed that they were leaving the leadership of this expedition to her. And, with no way of escape, she walked slowly down the ramp, stepped out on the barren rock below. There she fumbled with the bag, unwrapped the lump, held it in her hands.
Ziantha closed her eyes. The answer came with the force of a blow which nearly beat her to the ground. There was the sensation that she stood in a city street amid a press of people, with the passing of strange machines. The force of life feelings, of random thoughts she could not understand, was so great it made her giddy.
“Ziantha!” A hand tightened on her arm. She opened her eyes. Yasa half supported her, the Salarika’s eyes intent upon her.
“This—is—was a city,” the girl answered.
Iuban had come to face them. “Well enough, but one we cannot search now—unless we can turn back time. Where do we go to look for anything that remains? Can you tell us that, dreamer?” He made a scoffing challenge of his demand.
There had been no selectivity to that impression of the city. Ziantha’s hold on the artifact tightened. Suppose she were to open the crude outer casing, release the jewel inside, would that lead them to what they sought? But she shrank from that act. Let her try as long as she could to use it as it was.
“Let me try—“ she said in a low voice, twisting loose from Yasa’s hold. There was a ledge of rock nearby, and she reached that, to sit down, hunched over the lump. Wetting her lips, she forced herself to touch it to her forehead.
It was like being whirled through a vast flow of faces, voices. They shouted, they whispered, they grew large, dwindled, they spoke in tongues she had never heard, they laughed, wept, howled, screamed -- She made herself try to steady upon one among the many, concentrate on learning what she could.
Singakok—Turan! The second name she held to, using it as an anchor that she might not be carried away in the sea of faces, deafened by the voices, the clamor of the long-vanished city.
“Turan!” she used the name to demand an answer.
The faces withdrew, formed two lines melting into one another, their cries stilled. Between the lines moved a shadow procession. That was Turan, and behind him was her place, her own place. She must follow—for there was no escape—
“What is she doing?” Very faint, that question.
“Be still! She seeks—“ came in answer.
But that exchange had nothing to do with Turan. She must follow him. The shadows grew no denser, but they remained, a little ahead. No longer were there faces on either side—only Turan and her tie to him.
Now and then that scene shimmered, tore, as if it were fashioned of the thinnest gauze, shredded by a breeze. Then she saw only distorted rocks and a barren land that was not Singakok. When that happened she had to stop, call upon Turan, rebuild the vision.
Very dimly she heard chanting, sweet and high, like the caroling of birds released from captivity, or the thud of drums which were of the earth, the earth reluctant to lose Turan. Turan—
The shadows were gone, whipped away. Ziantha could not again summon them. She stood with the artifact before a great rise of bare red rock, a wall of cliff. But she knew that what she had sought lay behind it, that the artifact had led her to a place from which it had once come.
The girl looked back over her shoulder. Yasa, Iuban, his men, all were watching her.
“What you seek—“ she said, the energy fast draining from her as it always did when she had made such an effort, “lies there.” She pointed ahead at the rock, staggering then to an outcrop where she might sit, for she feared her trembling legs would no longer support her.
Yasa came to her quickly. “You are sure, cubling?”
“I am sure.” Ziantha’s voice was close to a whisper. She was so spent in her struggle to hold the vision that she longed only for rest and quiet, for no more urging to push her talent.
The Salarika held out two revive capsules, and Ziantha took them with a shaking hand, put them in her mouth to dissolve slowly. Iuban had gone to the face of the cliff, was examining it intently, and at a signal his men split to search left and right.
“I can see nothing—“ he was beginning when the crewman to his right gave a hail. The Jack captain hurried toward him.
Yasa bent over Ziantha. “I told you—be slow—do not reveal anything before Ogan comes—“
“He is here, or near.” Ziantha felt the aid of the revive. “In the early morning I had a message—“
“Ahhhh—“ A purr of satisfaction. “It goes well, very well, then. And you play no game with Iuban; this is the place?”
Ziantha regarded the wall. “Turan lies there,” she said flatly.
But who was Turan—or what? Why should this artifact bind her to him? She looked at the cliff, and now her fatigue was tinged with fear. Behind that—behind that lay -- She wanted to scream, to run. But there was no escape, never any escape from Turan; she might have known that.
Only who was Turan? There seemed to be two identities within her now. One she knew; it was the Ziantha she had always been. But another was struggling for life—the one—the thing that knew Turan—Singakok—the one to whom she must never yield!
Iuban had been conferring with his crewmen, and one now headed back toward the ship while the Jack captain came to them.
“There are marks of a sealed way there. We shall have to laser our way in.”
“With care,” Yasa warned swiftly. “Or do you have a depth detect for such purposes?”
“With care, and a detect,” he replied. Now he glanced past the Salarika to Ziantha. “What more can she tell us? Is this a tomb?”
“Turan lies there,” the girl answered.
“And who is Turan?” he prodded her. “A king, an emperor, a stellar lord? Is this a Forerunner of a star empire, or only an ancient of some earthbound
planet? What can you tell us?”
Yasa swept in between them fiercely. “She is tired—such reading weakens a sensitive. Get that storehouse open and let her psychometrize some artifact from within and she can tell you. But she must rest now.”
“At least she brought us here,” he conceded. And with that he tramped back to the walled-in door. But Yasa sat down beside Ziantha, putting her arm about the girl’s shoulders, drawing her close, as she asked in a very low voice:
“Have you contact now with Ogan? It is now he must come.”
Ogan? Summoning up what strength she had Ziantha formed a mind picture of the parapsychologist, sent forth mind-search. Harath had cut communication so summarily earlier she did not try him. The alien could be capricious on occasion, better aim directly for Ogan. Only she had no—
Answer? A flash of contact, as instantly gone. Ogan? It was not Harath, because even so light a touch would have revealed the alien. This had been wholly human. Ogan, then—but for some reason unwilling to accept a message. She said as much.
“Do not seek then. There may be a detect he has reason to fear. But as he did make contact, he will know where we are and the urgency of the matter. You have done well in this matter, cubling. Be sure I shall not forget what I owe you.”
The crewman returned, another with him. Between them they carried a box and a portable laser—of the type used for asteroid mining. But it was the detect which Iuban first put into action.
Yasa and Ziantha joined him as he crouched over the box, studying the small visa-tape on its top.
“An open space, three cycles within,” he reported. “The tomb chamber perhaps. Low frequency setting to bore us a door without any side flare.”