by Andre Norton
They reached the torch line. The guards there faced inward to the ship and in this crease of light Tamisan could see that they were all armed with crossbows, not with those of bone which the black-dressed men had earlier worn. Bolts against the might of the ship. The answer seemed laughable, a jesting to delight the simple. Yet the ship lay there and Tamisan could well remember the consternation of those men who had been questioning her within it
There was a dark spot on the hull of the ship and a hatch suddenly swung open. She recognized it as a battle hatch, though she had only seen those via tapes.
“Kas, they are going to fire.” With a laser beam from there they could crisp everything on this field, perhaps clear back to the walls of the High Castle!
She tried to turn in his grasp, to race back and away, knowing already that such a race was lost before she took the first lunging stride. He held her fast
“No muzzle,” he said.
Tamisan strained to see through the flickering light. Perhaps it was a lightening of the sky which made it clear that there was no muzzle projecting to spew a fiery death across them all. But that was a gun port.
As quickly as it had appeared, the opening was closed. The ship was again sealed tightly.
“What?”
Kas answered her half question, “Either they cannot use it, or else they have thought better of doing so—which means, by either count, we have a chance. Now, stay you here! Or else I shall come looking for you in a manner you shall not relish; never fear that I can find you!” Nothing in Tamisan disputed that.
She stood; for after all, apart from Kas's threats, where did she have to go? If she were sighted by any of the guards she might either be returned to prison or dealt with summarily in another fashion. She had to reach Starrex if she were to escape
She walched Kas make good use of the interest which riveted the eyes of the guards on the ship. He crept, with more ease than she thought possible for one used to the luxury of the sky towers, behind the nearest man.
What weapon he used she could not see; it was not the laser. Instead he straightened to his full height behind the unsuspecting guard, reached out an arm and seemed only to touch the stranger on the neck. Immediately the fellow collapsed without a sound, though Kas caught him before he had fallen to the ground and dragged him backward to the slight depression in the field where Tamisan waited.
“Quick,” Kas ordered, “give me his cloak and helm.”
He ripped off his own tunic with its extravagantly padded shoulders, while Tamisan knelt to fumble with a great brooch and free the cloak from the guard, Kas snatched it out of her hands, dragged the rest of it loose from under the limp body, and pulled it around him, taking up the helm and settling it on his head with a tap. Then he picked up the crossbow.
“Walk before me,” he told Tamisan. “If they have a field scanner on in the ship I want them to see a prisoner under guard. That may bring them to a parley. It is a thin chance, but our best.”
He could not guess that it might be a better chance than he hoped, Tumisan knew, since he did not know that she had been once within the ship and the crew might be expecting some such return with a message from the Over-queen. But to walk out boldly past the line of torches— surely Kas's luck would not hold so well; they would be seen by the other guards before they were a quarter of the way to the ship. But she had no other proposal to offer in exchange.
This was no adventure such as she had lived through in dreams. She believed that if she died now she died indeed and would not wake unharmed in her own world. Her flesh Crawled with a fear which made her mouth go dry and her hands quiver as they held wet upon the folds of her robe. Any second now—I will feel the impact of a bolt, hear a shout of discovery, be . . .
But still Tamisan tottered forward and heard, with alerted ears, the faint crunch of boots which was Kas behind her. His contempt for a danger which was only too real for her, made her wonder, fleetingly, if he did indeed still believe this a dream she could control, and need not then watch for any one but her. She could not summon words to tell him of his woeful mistake.
So intent was she upon some attack from behind that she was not really conscious of the ship towards which they went, until suddenly she saw another of the ports open and steeled herself to feel the numbing charge of a stunner.
However, again the attack she feared did not come. The sky was growing lighter, although there was no sign of sunrise. Instead, the first drops of a storm began to fall. Under the onslaught of moisture from lowering clouds, the torches hissed and sputtered, finally flickering out The gloom was hardly better than twilight.
They came close enough to the ship to board, when one of the ramps lowered to them, they stood waiting. Tamisan felt the rise of hysterical laughter inside her. What an anticlimax if the ship refuses to acknowledge us! They could not stand here forever and there was no way they could battle a way inside. Kas's faith in her communication with the ghost of Hawarel seemed too high.
But even as she was sure that they faced failure, there was a sigh of sound from above them. The port hatch wheeled back into the envelope of the ship's wall, and a small ramp, hardly more than a steep ladder, swung creaking out, dropped to hit the charred ground not far from them.
“Go!” Kas prodded her forward.
With a shrug, Tamisan went. She found it hard to climb with the heavy, frayed skirts dragging her back. But by using her hands to pull along the single rail of the ramp, she made progress. Why had not the rest of the guards along that watching line of torches moved? Had it been that Kas's disguise had indeed deceived them, and they thought that Tamisan had been sent under orders to parley a second time with the ship's people?
She was nearly at the hatch now, could see the suited men waiting in the shadows above. They had tanglers ready to fire, prepared to spin the webs to enmesh them both as easily handled prisoners. But before those slimy strands writhed forth to touch (patterned as they were to seek flesh to anchor) both the waiting spacemen jerked right and left, clutched with already dead hands at the breasts of charred tunics from which arose small, deadly spirals of smoke.
They had expected a guard armed with a bow; they had met Kas's laser, to the same undoing as the guardsmen at the castle. Kas's shoulder in the middle of her back sent her sprawling, to land half over the bodies of the two who had awaited them.
She hoard a scuffle, was kicked and rolled aside, fighting the folds of her own long skirt, trying to get out of the confines of the hatch pocket. Somehow, on her hands and knees, she made it forward, since she could not retreat. Now she fetched up against the wall of a corridor and managed to pull around to face the end of the fight.
The two guards lay dead. But Kas held the laser on a third man. Now, without glancing around, he gave an order which she mechanically obeyed.
“The rangier, here!”
Still on her hands and knees, Tamisan crawled far enough back into the hatch compartment to grip one of those weapons. The second she eyed with awakening need for some protection herself, but Kas did not give her time to reach it.
“Give it to me.”
Still holding the laser pointed steadily at the middle of the third spaceman, he groped back with his other hand. I have no choice—no choice—but I do!
If Kas thinks he has me thoroughly cowed . . . Swinging the tangler around without taking time to aim, Tamisan pressed the firing button.
The lash of the sticky weaving spun through the air, striking the wall, from which it dropped away. Then it struck one arm of the motionless captive, who was still under Kas's threat, and there it clung, across his middle, and on through the air until it caught Kas's gun hand, his middle, his other arm and adhered instantly, tightening with its usual efficiency and tying captor to captive.
Kas struggled against those ever tightening bands to bring the laser round to bear on Tamisan. Whether he would have used it even in his white-hot rage, she did not know. It was enough that the tangler made sure she could keep fro
m his line of fire, Having ensnared them enough to render them both harmless for a time, Tamisan drew a deep breath and relaxed somewhat.
She had to be sure of Kas. She had loosed the firing button of the tangler as soon as she saw that he could not use his arms. Now she raised the weapon, and with more of a plan, tied his legs firmly together. He kept on his feet, but he was as helpless as if they had used a stunner on him.
Warily she approached him. Guessing her intent, he went into wild wrigglings, trying to bring the adhesive tangler strands in contact with her flesh also. But she stooped and tore at the frayed hem of her robe, ripping up a strip as high as her waist and winding it about her arm and wrist to make sure she could not be entrapped.
In spite of his struggles she managed to get the laser out of his hold, and for the second time knew a surge of great relief. He made no sound, but his eyes were wild and his lips so tightly drawn against his teeth, that a small trickle of spittle oozed from one corner to wet his chin. Looking at him dispassionately, Tamisan thought him nearly insane at that moment.
The crewman was moving. He hitched along as she swung around with the Jaser as a warning, his shoulders against the wall keeping him firmly on his feet, his unbound legs giving him more mobility, though the cord of the tangler anchored him to Kas. Tamisan glanced around searching for what he appeared desperate to reach. There was a com box. “Stand where you are!” she ordered.
The threat of the laser kept him frozen. With that still trained on him she darted small glances over her shoulder to the hatch. Sliding along the wall in turn, she managed, the tangler thrust loosely into the front of her belt, to slam the hatch door and give a turn to its locking wheel.
Using the laser as a pointer she motioned him to the com, but the immobile Kas was too much of an anchor. Dared she face the crewman? There was no other way. She motioned with one hand.
“Stand well away.”
He had said nothing during their encounter; but he obeyed with an agility which suggested he liked the sight of that weapon in her hand even less than he had liked it when Kas had held it. He stretched to the limit the cord would allow so she was able to burn it through.
Kas spit out a series of obscenities which were only a meaningless noise as far as Tamisan was concerned. Until he was released he was no more now than a well anchored bundle. But the crewman had importance.
Reaching the com before him, she gestured him on to it. She played the best piece she had in this desperate game.
“Where is Hawarel, the native who was brought on board?”
Me could lie, of course, and she would not know it. But it seemed he was willing to answer, probably because he thought that the truth would strike her worse than any lie.
“They have him in the lab—conditioning him.” He grinned at her with some of the malignancy she had seen in Kas.
She remembered the Captain's earlier threat to make of Hawarel a tool to use against the Over-queen and her forces. Was she too late? There was only one road to take and that was the one she had chosen in those few moments when she had taken up the tangler and used it.
She spoke as she might to one finding it difficult to understand her. “You will call, and you will say that Hawarel will be released and brought here.”
“Why?” the crewman returned with visible insolence. “What will you do? Kill me? Perhaps, but that will not defeat the Captain's plans; he will be willing to see half the crew burned—”
“That may be true,” she nodded. Not knowing the Captain she could not tell whether or not that was a bluff. “But will his sacrifice save his ship?”
“What can you do?” began the crewman, and then he paused. His grin was gone, now he looked at her speculatively. In her present guise she perhaps did not look formidable enough to threaten the ship, but he could not be sure. One thing she knew from her own time and place: a spaceman learned early to take nothing for granted on a new planet It might be that she did have command over some unknown force.
“What can I do? There is much.” She took quick advantage of that hesitation. “Have you been able to raise the ship?” She plunged on, hoping very desperately that her guess was right. “Have you been able to communicate with your other ship or ships in orbit?”
His expression was her answer, one which fanned her hope into a bright blaze of excitement. The ship was grounded, and there was some sort of a hold on it which they had not been able to break.
“The Captain won't listen.” He was sullen.
“I think he will. Tell him that we get Hawarel here, and himself, or else we shall truly show you what happened to that derelict across the field.”
Kas had fallen silent. He was watching her, not with quite the same wariness of the crewman, but with an emotion she was not able to read. Surprise? Did it mask some sly thought of taking over her bluff, captive though he was?
“Talk!” The need for hurry rode Tamisan now. By this time those above would wonder why their captives had not been brought before them. Also, outside, the Over-queen's men would certainly have reported that Tamisan and a guard had entered the ship; from both sides enemies might be closing in.
“I cannot set the com,” her prisoner answered.
“Tell me then.”
“The red button.”
But she thought she had seen a slight shift in his eyes. Tamisan raised her hand, to press the green button instead. Without accusing him of the treachery she was suree he had tried, she said again more fiercely,
“Talk!”
“Sannard here.” He put his lips close to the com. They, they have me; Rooso and Cambre are dead. They want the native—”
“In good condition,” hissed Tamisan, “and now!”
They want him now, in good condition,” Sannard repeated. They threaten the ship.”
There came no acknowledgment from the com in return. Had she indeed pressed the wrong button because she was overly suspicious? What was going to happen? She could not wait.
“Sannard.” The voice from the com was metallic, without human inflection or tone.
“Sir?”
But Tamisan gave the crewman a push which sent him sliding back along the wall until be bumped into Kas and the bonds of both men immediately united to make them one struggling package. Tamisan spoke into the com.
“Captain, I do not play any game. Send me your prisoner or look upon that derelict you see and say to yourself, ‘that will be my ship.’ For this is so, as true as I stand here now, with your man as my captive. Send Hawarel alone, and pray to whatever immortal powers you recognize that he can so come! Time grows very short and there is that which will act if you do not, to a purpose you shall not relish!”
The crewman, whose tegs were still free, was trying to kick away from Kas. But his struggles instead sent them both to the floor in a heaving tangle. Tamisan's hand dropped to her side as she leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. With all her will she wanted to control action as she did in a dream, but only fate did that now.
VIII
Though she sagged against the wall Tamisan felt rigid, as if she were in a great encasement of susteel. As time moved at so slow a pace as not to be measured normally, that prisoning hold on her body and spirit grew. The crewman and Kas had ceased their struggles. She could not see the crewman's face, but that which Kas turned to her had a queer, distorted look. It was as if before her eyes, though not through any skill of hers, he was indeed changing and taking on the aspect of another man. Since her return to the sky tower in the second dream, she had known he was to be feared. In spite of the fact that his body was securely imprisoned, she found herself edging away, as if by the very intentness of that hostile stare he could aim a weapon to bring her down. But he said nothing and lay as broodingly quiet and impassive as though he had foreknowledge of utter failure for her.
She knew so little, Tamisan thought, she who had always taken pride in her learning, in the wealth of lore she had drawn upon to furnish her memory for action dreaming. The s
pacecrew might have some way of flooding this short corridor with a noxious gas, or using a hidden ray linked with a scanner to finish them. Tamisan found herself running her hands along the walls and studying the unbroken surface a little wildly, striving to find where death might enter quietly and unseen.
There was another bulkhead door at the end of the short corridor; at a few paces away from the outer hatch a ladder ascended to a closed trap. Her head turned constantly from one of those entrances to the other, until she regained a firmer control of herself. They have only to wait to call my bluff-only to wait. . .
Yes! They have waited and they are ...
The air about her was changing; there was a growing scent in it. It was nut unpleasant, but even a fine perfume would have seemed a stench when it reached her nostrils under present conditions. The light which radiated from the juncture of the corridor roof and ceiling was altering. It had been that of a moderately sunlit day; now it was bluish. Under it her own brown skin took on an eerie look. I have lost my throw! Maybe, if I could open the hatch again, let in the outer air . . .
Tamisan tottered to the hatch, gripped the locking wheel and brought her strength to bear. Kas was writhing again, trying to break loose from his unwilling partner. Oddly enough, the crewman lay limp, his head rolling when Kas's heaving disturbed his body, but his eyes were closed. At the same time Tamisan, braced against the wall, her full strength turned on the need for opening the door, knew a flash of surprise. Was it her over-vivid imagination alone which made her believe that she was in danger? When she rested for a moment and drew a deep breath . . .
In her startlement she could have cried out aloud; she did utter a small sound. She was gaining strength, not losing it She breathed in every lungful of that scented air, and she was breathing deeper and more slowly, as if her body desired such nourishment. It was a restorative.
Kas, too? She turned to glance at him again. Where she breathed deeply, with lessening apprehension, he was gasping, his face ghastly in the change of light. Then, even as she watched, his struggles ended and his head fell back so that he lay as inert as the crewman he sprawled across.