by Andre Norton
Someone bent over her. She saw Ogan, put out a hand weakly.
“Come!” he swept her up, carried her out of that black and haunted place into the open where the freshness of the air she drew in was a promise of safety ahead. But she was so tired, so drained. Her head lay heavy on Ogan’s shoulder as the darkness closed about her once more.
How long did she sleep? It had been night, now it was day. For she did not wake in the ship but out in the open, with a sunlit sky arching above her. And, for the first moments of that awakening, Ziantha was content to know she was free, safely returned to her own time. But that other—he had not returned!
The sense of loss that accompanied that realization was suddenly a burden to darken the sky, turning all her triumph into defeat. She sat up in a bedroll, though that movement brought dizziness to follow.
No ship—then -- But where—and how? There were peaks of rock like shattered walls, and, in a cup among those, bedrolls. Ogan sat cross-legged on one such within touching distance, watching her in a contemplative way. Before him on the ground was a piece of clothing and resting on that—the Eyes!
Ziantha shuddered. Those she never wanted to see again.
“But you must!” Ogan’s thought ordered.
“Why?” She asked aloud.
“There are reasons. We shall discuss them later.” He picked up one end of that cloth, dropped it to cover the gems. “But first—“ He arose and went to fetch her an E-ration tube.
There were two other men in the camp, and they were, she noted, plainly, on sentry duty, facing outward on opposite sides of the cup, weapons in hand. Ogan expected attack. But where was Yasa? The Salarika had expected Ogan to join forces with her. Had Iuban made Yasa a prisoner?
“Where is Yasa?” Ziantha finished the ration, felt its renewing energy spread through her.
Ogan reseated himself on the bedroll. In this rugged setting he looked out of place, overshadowed by the grim rocks—almost helpless. But Ziantha did not make the mistake of believing that.
He did not answer her at once, and he had a mind-shield up. Was—was Yasa dead? So much had changed in her life that Ziantha could even believe the formidable veep might have been removed from it. Iuban had tried to use her powers to his own advantage. She struggled now to remember what she had heard before he had forced her to look into the focus-stone. It was plain he had been moving against Yasa, even as the Salarika had earlier schemed to take over the expedition herself.
“Yasa”—Ogan broke through her jumbled thought—“is on the Jack ship. I believe that they intend to use her as a hostage—or bargaining point.”
“With you—for them?” Ziantha gestured to the covered stones.
“With me—for you and them,” he assented. “Unfortunately for them I have all the necessities, and I do not need Yasa. In fact I much prefer not having to deal with her.”
“But Yasa—she expected you to come, to help—“
“Oh, I had every intention of coming, and, as you see, I did. To your service I did. Yasa may be all powerful on Korwar, but here she has stretched her authority far too thin. I am afraid it has just snapped in her face.”
“But—“ Ogan had always been Yasa’s man, a part of her establishment. Ziantha had believed him so thoroughly loyal to the veep that his attachment could not be questioned.
“You find it difficult to believe that I have plunged into a foray on my own? But this is a matter which touches my talents. Such a discovery is not to be left to those who do not understand the power of what has been uncovered. They cannot use it properly; therefore, why should they have it to play with in their bungling fashion? I know what it is, they only suspect as yet.”
He knew what it was, Ziantha digested that. And he knew she had used it. He would take her in turn, use her, wring her dry of all she had learned. Make her -- A small spark of rebellion flared deep in Ziantha. She was not going to serve Ogan’s purposes so easily.
And with that determined, she began to think more clearly. That other sensitive—it had not been Ogan who had entered Turan and shared her adventures. But the sensitive had worked with Harath and -- Was he someone Ogan had brought in? If so, why had the parapsychologist not mentioned him?
Ziantha realized that there was more than a little mystery left and the sooner she learned all she could, the better. At that moment she felt Ogan’s testing probe and snapped down a mind-barrier.
Trace of a frown on his face. The probe grew stronger. She stared back at him level-eyed. Then, for the first time in her relationship with him, she made resistance plain.
“Ask your questions if you wish—aloud.”
His probe was withdrawn. “You are a foolish child. Do you think because you have managed to use the stones, after some undisciplined fashion, you are now my equal? That is pure nonsense; your own intelligence should tell you so.”
“I do not claim to be anything more than I am.” From somewhere came the words and even as she uttered them Ziantha knew wonder at her defiance. Had she indeed changed? She knew well all that Ogan could do to her mentally and physically to gain his own will. Still there was that in her now which defied him to try it—a new confidence. Though until she was more certain of what she had gained she must be wary.
“That is well.” He seemed satisfied, though her statement might be considered an ambiguous one. He must be judging her by what she had been and not what she now was.
“Where is Harath?” she asked abruptly, wishing to clear up the mystery of who had been with her, yet not wanting to ask openly.
“Harath?” He looked at her sharply.
She held tight to her barrier. Had she made an error in asking that?
But Harath had been here; she had known his touch, that she could not have mistaken. Why then should Ogan be surprised that she asked for him? Harath was Ogan’s tool; it was natural that they be together, just as it had been natural for the unknown sensitive to use the alien to contact her.
“Harath is on Korwar.”
Ziantha was startled by so flat a lie. Why did Ogan think she would believe it? He knew that Harath had been used to contact her; there was no reason to conceal it. And if he denied Harath so, then what of the other sensitive? Was this loss of one who had been a tool such that Ogan must cover with lies? But lies which he knew she would not accept? She felt for an instant or two as if she were plunged back into that whirling place which had no sane anchorage. Ogan was not acting in character, unless he had devised some kind of a test she did not understand.
Another thrust of mind-probe, one forceful enough to have penetrated her defenses in other days. But she held against it. Until she knew more she must hold her barrier.
“Why do you expect to find Harath here?” If his defeat at reading her thoughts baffled him, his chagrin was not betrayed by his tone.
“Why should I not?” Ziantha countered. “Have we not always used him for relaying and intensifying the power? Here do we not need him most?”
To Ziantha, her logic sounded good. But would Ogan accept it? And where was Harath? Why had Ogan made such a mystery of his presence?
Ogan arose. “Harath is too unique to risk,” he said. His head turned from her; he stood as if listening. Then, in some haste, he crossed the depression to join one of the sentries.
Ziantha watched him. It was plain he expected trouble. It might be that Iuban had grown impatient, or even that Yasa had once more made common cause with the Jack captain when she discovered Ogan a traitor. The Salarika was no fool. Though she had made an independent bid for what the focus-stone might deliver, she would never have shut off all roads of retreat.
The Eyes—Ziantha’s attention shifted to the stones under their cloth covering. That they were a prize beyond any one tomb, no matter how rich, she now realized. Ogan suspected that, and perhaps Yasa also. But they did not have her proof. There was also this: were the Eyes unique in answering to one sensitive alone, or could any, including Ogan, bring them into action?
Sh
e had worn them twice in those other worlds, as Vintra, who had not known the power of the stone that was forced upon her by her enemies, and as D’Eyree, who had known it very well and had put it to use. She had not been an onlooker, but had entered into Vintra, D’Eyree. Therefore the stones had answered her will. Were they “conditioned” then to her? And if so, did she now have a bargaining point with Ogan?
But that other kept intruding into her half-plans and hopes. Who was the sensitive who had been sacrificed to help her out of the past—and where was Harath, that source of energy? Ziantha tried not to think of Turan, except as a problem she must solve for her own safety in future relations with Ogan. She tried to hold off the dark shadow that came at the very name of Turan. Turan was a dead man—and he who had accompanied her through that wild adventure had been a stranger, some tool of Ogan’s, to whom she owed nothing now. But she did! The fact that Ogan had used him made him no less. Ogan had used her, too, in the past, over and over again, molded and trained her to do just what he—or Yasa—wanted. So why could she feel that this other was any less than she had been? Ogan had used him and he had died. Ogan would try again to use her, and, if the circumstances answered, he would discard her as easily at any moment.
Ziantha snatched up the stones, put them in the front of her planet suit, resealing it. If Ogan thought to treat her so, he might have a surprise. She knew what D’Eyree had been able to do with the Eyes. It might be that she could put them to far more potent use than Ogan guessed. And that she would try it before the end of this venture, Ziantha was now certain.
There remained Harath. If the alien were still on-planet she would reach him. The bond between them was one which Ogan had first brought into being, that was true. However she wanted to hold that much of the past. Of all who were now on the surface of this half-destroyed world, Harath was the only one whom she could trust.
Ogan came back to her. “We are moving on.”
“To your ship?” She hoped not, not yet. Oddly enough while she was in the open she at least had the illusion of freedom.
“Not yet.” But he did not amplify that, as he knelt to fasten her bedroll.
With those slung as packs, and the men each carrying in addition a sling of supplies, they edged between the fanglike rocks and climbed down into a very deep valley. In the depths of this a thread of water trickled along, and there were some stunted bushes. Here and there a coarse tuft of grass gave more signs of life than she had seen elsewhere.
What had happened to the world of Turan to reduce Singakok and the land around it to this state? Only a disastrous conflict or some unheard-of natural catastrophe would have wrought this. And how many planet centuries ago had it all happened?
The footing was very rough and, though Ogan apparently wanted to set a fast pace, they did not keep to what was any better than perhaps a slow walk on smoother surface. Also the scrambling up and down was most wearying, and Ogan himself began to breathe heavily, rest more often.
As they traveled, the valley opened out, the vegetation grew in greater luxuriance, though all of it was stunted, rising at the highest no farther than one’s shoulder. Yet as it thickened it slowed their advance even more. So far Ziantha had seen no other life except that rooted in the soil. And she wondered if all else had been slaughtered in the doom which came to Singakok.
Then one of the men gave a furious exclamation and flashed a laser beam into the bushes. As he called a warning Ziantha saw on his out-thrust boot the scoring of teeth spattered with yellow foam.
“Lizard thing—watch out for it.” He set his foot on a rock and leaned over to examine the boot. “Didn’t go through.” Then he dabbled his foot in the stream, letting the current wash away that foam. Meanwhile his partner methodically lasered the ground ahead, cleaning it down to the bare rock, until Ogan caught at his arm.
“Do not use all your charge on this—“
The man jerked away. “I am not going to get a poison bite,” he returned sullenly. But he did not continue with the laser.
Their progress slowed again beyond that clearer section because they had to watch the ground carefully. Ziantha’s legs ached. She was not used to such vigorous and continued exercise, and she liked this ground less with every moment they fought their way across it.
Twice Ogan had fallen back a pace or so behind; then they made one of their frequent halts, his attitude still that of one who listened. Ziantha decided he must be using mind-send to check on some possible pursuer. But she did not release her own probe to follow his. It might be a trick of Ogan’s to force her barrier down to his own advantage. She must be on constant guard with him, as she well knew.
They came to a barrier formed by the land. The stream spilled here in a long ribbon of falling water over the edge of a drop. And they must now strike east, climbing up one of the valley walls, since the descent before them was too steep to attempt.
This left them in the open on fairly level ground, and the attitude of both Ogan and his men was that of those exposed to possible attack. So they hurried on, Ogan even taking her by the arm and pulling her forward, coming thus to another upstand of rocks into which they crawled.
Here they broke out rations and ate. Ziantha rubbed her aching legs. She was not sure if she could keep going, though she was very certain Ogan would see to it that she did if they had to drag her. It was plain he wanted to avoid some pursuers. Iuban was perhaps not waiting for negotiations over Yasa but again striking out on his own as he had when he took her to the tomb.
“Is it Iuban?” She rolled the empty E-Tube into a tight ball.
Ogan merely grunted. She recognized the signs of ultraconcentration. He was trying mind-search, striving to learn what he could. But there was no confidence in his tension; rather the strain of his effort grew more apparent. And she was troubled by that. In the ordinary way any crewman such as Iuban led would be well open to reading by a master as competent as Ogan. That the mysterious pursuers were not, as his concern suggested, meant they were equipped with shields. But why, if he had discovered that fact, as he would have at once, did he still struggle to touch?
And why had he not ordered her to back him in a thrust? It was, Ziantha decided, as if he had a reason to keep her from learning the nature of what he sought to penetrate. Or was she only imagining things? She leaned her back against an upstanding rock and closed her eyes.
If Ogan was not present she could try herself. Not to cast to what might be trailing them, but for Harath. Somehow it was important that she find out where the alien had gone and why Ogan denied he was here.
And for Harath—again her thoughts slid on to the one whose power Harath had guided to her: Ogan’s tool—Turan—but he was not Turan. She tried to recall now all those she had seen from time to time visiting Ogan’s lab at the villa. He could have been any one of those, for Ogan had kept her aloof from the others he used in his experiments. The one thing that puzzled her now was that Turan (he must remain Turan for she knew no other name to call him) was indeed a trained sensitive of such power that she could not easily see him subordinated to Ogan.
He was not one to be used as a tool, but rather one who used tools himself. The physical envelope he had worn as Turan continued to mislead her. Now she strove to build up a personality with no association with the dead Lord Commander. It was like fitting together shards of some artifact of whose real shape she was unaware.
But that depression which she had held in abeyance settled down on her full force. In all her life, in the Dipple and after Yasa had taken her from that place of despair, she had had no one of her own. The Salarika veep had given her shelter, education, a livelihood. But Ziantha had always known that this was not because she was herself, but because she represented an investment that was expected to repay Yasa for her attentions many times over.
Ogan had been a figure of awe at first, then one to be feared and resented. She admitted his mastery, and she hated him—yes, she recognized her depth of emotion now—for it. Sooner or later
now she would have to face Ogan and fight for her freedom. She had not been a real person when he had taught her, only a thing he could shape. Now she was herself, and she intended to remain so.
Yasa and Ogan—they had been the main factors in her existence. To neither was she bound by any ties of softer emotion. Harath—the closest she had ever come to having what one might deem a “friend”—was a strange alien creature. She trusted Harath.
Then—Turan. It had not been master and pupil between them, or benefactor and servant, but rather what she imagined was the comradeship between two crewmen, or two of the Patrol who faced a common danger and depended upon one another in times of crisis.
As he had depended upon her at the last!
Ziantha felt moisture gather under her closed eyelids. She had never wept except for physical reasons when a child—cold, hunger. These tears now were for a sense of loss transcending all those, a wound so deep within her that she was just beginning to know what damage it had wrought. And Ogan had done this thing—sent the other after her—and had left him to die.
Therefore her reckoning with Ogan, overdue as it was, would be eagerly sought by her. But at her time, not his. For she did not in the least undervalue her opponent.
She was roused from her thoughts by Ogan’s hand on her shoulder.
“Up—we have to get under cover. Mauth has been scouting ahead and has found shelter.”
The girl glanced around. One of the men was gone, the other held a click com in his hand, was listening to the message it ticked out. She got to her feet with a sigh. If it were much further she was not sure she could make it.
“Hurry!” Ogan pulled at her.
Of course they had to climb again and took a very roundabout way, as if Ogan was determined they remain as much undercover as possible. Twice Ziantha slipped and fell, and the second time she was unable to regain her feet unaided. But Ogan drew her along, cursing under his breath.
So he brought her to a cave, and thrust her back into the shadows well away from the door. When she sprawled there again he made no move to help her up, but let her lay where she had fallen, while he returned to the entrance, giving a low-voiced order to the crewmen that sent one of them away once more.