Key Out of Time

by Norton, Andre

  Now as he balanced in the canoe and tried to keep his mind off the queasiness in his middle and the insecurity of the one thickness of sea-creature hide stretched over a bone framework which made up the craft between his person and the water, Ross still mulled over what might be true. Had the galactic invaders for their own purposes begun to meddle here, leaking weapons or tools to upset what must be a very delicate balance of power? Why? To bring on a conflict which would occupy the native population to the point of exhaustion or depopulation? So they could win a world for their own purposes without effort or risk on their part? Such cold-blooded fishing in carefully troubled waters fitted very well with the persons of the Baldies as he had known them on Terra.

  And he could not set aside that memory of this very coast as he had seen it through the peep, the castle in ruins, tall pylons reaching from the land into the sea. Was this the beginning of that change which would end in the Hawaika of his own time, empty of intelligent life, shattered into a loose network of islands?

  “This fog is strange.” Karara’s words startled Ross to return to the here and now.

  The haze he had been only half conscious of when they had put out from the tiny secret bay where Loketh kept his boat, was truly a fog, piling up in soft billows and cutting down visibility with speed.

  “The Foanna!” Loketh’s answer was sharp, a recognition of danger. “Their magic—they hide their place so! There is trouble, trouble on the move!”

  “Do we land then?” Ross did not ascribe the present blotting out of the landscape to any real manipulation of nature on the part of the all-powerful Foanna. Too many times the reputations of “medicine men” had been so enhanced by coincidence. But he did doubt the wisdom of trying to bore ahead blindly in this murk.

  “Taua and Tino-rau can guide us,” Karara reminded him. “Throw out the rope, Ross. What is above water will not confuse them.”

  He moved cautiously, striving to adapt his actions to the swing of the boat. The line was ready coiled to hand and he tossed the loose end overboard, to feel the cord jerk taut as one of the dolphins caught it up.

  They were being towed now, though both paddlers reinforced the forward tug with their efforts. The curtain gathering above the surface of the water did not hamper the swimmers beneath its surface, and Ross felt relief. He turned his head to speak to Loketh.

  “How near are we?”

  The mist had thickened to the point that, close as the native was, the lines of his body blurred. His clicking answer seemed distorted, too, almost as if the fog had altered not only his form but his personality.

  “Maybe very soon now. We must see the sea gate before we are sure.”

  “And if we aren’t able to see that?” challenged Ross.

  “The sea gate is above and below the water. Those who obey the Sea Maid, who are able to speak thought to thought, will find it if we can not.”

  But they were never to reach that goal. Karara gave warning: “There are ships about.”

  Ross knew that the dolphins had told her. He demanded in turn: “What kind?”

  “Larger, much larger than this.”

  Then Loketh broke in: “A Rover Raider—three of them!”

  Ross frowned. He was the cripple here. The other two, with their ability to communicate with the dolphins, were the sighted, he the blind. And he resented his handicap in a burst of bitterness which must have colored his tone as he ordered, “Head inshore—now!”

  Once on land, even in the fog, he felt that they had the advantage in any hide-and-seek which might ensue with this superior enemy force. But afloat he was helpless and vulnerable, a state Ross did not accept easily.

  “No,” Loketh returned as sharply. “There is no place to land along the cliff.”

  “We are between two of the ships,” Karara reported.

  “Your paddles—” Ross schooled his voice to a whisper, “hold them—don’t use them. Let the dolphins take us on. In the fog, if we make no sound, we may get by the ships.”

  “Right!” Karara agreed, and he heard an assenting grunt from Loketh.

  They were moving very slowly. Strong as the dolphins were, they dared not expend all their strength on towing the skiff too fast. Ross thought furiously. Perhaps the sea could be their way of escape if the need arose. He had no idea why raiding ships were moving under the cover of fog into the vicinity of the Foanna citadel. But the Terran’s knowledge of tactics led him to guess that this impending visit was not anticipated by the Foanna, nor was it a friendly one. And, as veteran seamen who should normally be wary of fog as thick as this, the Rovers themselves must have a driving reason, or some safeguard which led them here now.

  But dared the three spill out of their boat, trust to their swimming ability and that of the dolphins, and invade the Foanna sea gate so? Could they use the coming Rover attack as a cover for their own invasion of the hold? Ross considered that the odds in their favor were beginning to look better.

  He whispered his idea and began to prepare their gear. The boat was still headed for the shore the three could not see. But they could hear sounds out of the white cotton wall which told them how completely they were boxed in by the raiders; creaks, whispers, noises, Ross could not readily identify, carried across the waves.

  Before leaving the cave and beginning this voyage they had introduced Loketh to the use of the gill-pack, made him practice in the depths of the cave pool with one of the extras drawn through the gate among the supplies. Now all three were equipped with the water aid, and they could be gone in the sea before the trap closed.

  “The supply net—” Ross warned Karara. A moment or two later there was a small bump against the skiff at his left hand. He cautiously raised the collection of containers and eased the burden into the water, knowing that one of the dolphins would take charge of it.

  However, he was not prepared for what happened next. Under him the boat lurched first one way and then the other in sharp jerks as if the dolphins were trying to spill them into the sea. Ross heard Karara call out, her voice thin and frightened:

  “Taua! Tino-rau! They have gone mad! They will not listen!”

  The boat raced in a zigag path. Loketh clutched at Ross, striving to steady him, to keep the boat on an even keel.

  “The Foanna—!” Just as Loketh cried out, Karara plunged over the prow of the boat, whether by design or chance Ross did not know.

  And then the craft whirled about, smashed side against side with a dark bulk looming out of the fog. Above, Ross heard cries, knew that they had crashed against one of the raiders. He fought to retain his balance, but he had been knocked to the bottom of the boat against Loketh and they struggled together, unable to move during a precious second or two.

  Out of the air over their heads dropped a mass of waving strands which enveloped both of them. The stuff was adhesive, slimy. Ross let out a choked cry as the lines tightened about his arms and body, pinioning him.

  Those tightened, wove a net. Now he was being drawn up out of the plunging skiff, a helpless captive. His flailing legs, still free of the slimy cords, struck against the side of the larger ship. Then he swung in, over the well of the deck, thudded down on that surface with bruising force, unable to understand anything except that he had been taken prisoner by a very effective device.

  Loketh dropped beside him. But Karara was not brought in, and Ross held to that small bit of hope. Had she made it to freedom by dropping into the water before the Rovers netted them? He could see men gathering about him, masked and distorted in the fog. Then he was rolled across the deck, boosted over the edge of a hatch and knew an instant of terror as he fell into the depth below.

  How long was he unconscious? It could not have been very long, Ross decided, as he opened his eyes on dark, heard the small sounds of the ship. He lay very still, trying to remember, to gather his wits before he tried to flex his arms. They were held ti
ght to his sides by strands which no longer seemed slimy, but were wrinkling as they dried. There was an odor from them which gagged him. But there was no loosening of those loops in spite of his struggles, which grew more intense as his strength returned. And at last he lay panting, knowing there was no easy way of escape from here.

  9

  Battle Test

  Babble of speech, cries, sounded muffled to Ross, made a mounting clamor on the deck. Had the raiders’ ship been boarded? Was it now under attack? He strove to hear and think through the pain in his head, the bewilderment.

  “Loketh?” He was certain that the Hawaikan had been dumped into the same hold.

  The only answer was a low moan, a mutter from the dark. Ross began to inch his way in that direction. He was no seaman, but during that worm’s progress he realized that the ship itself had changed. The vibration which had carried through the planks on which he lay was stilled. Some engine shut off; one portion of his mind put that into familiar terms. Now the vessel rocked with the waves, did not bore through them.

  Ross brought up against another body.

  “Loketh!”

  “Ahhhhh…the fire…the fire—!” The half-intelligible answer held no meaning for the Terran. “It burns in my head…the fire—”

  The rocking of the ship rolled Ross away from his fellow prisoner toward the opposite side of the hold. There was a roar of voice, bull strong above the noise on deck, then the sound of feet back and forth there.

  “The fire…ahhh—” Loketh’s voice rose to a scream.

  Ross was now wedged between two abutments he could not see and from which his best efforts could not free him. The pitching of the ship was more pronounced. Remembering the two vessels he had seen pounded to bits on the reef, Ross wondered if the same doom loomed for this one. But that disaster had occurred during a storm. And, save for the fog, this had been a calm night, the sea untroubled.

  Unless—maybe the shaking his body had received during the past few moments had sharpened his thinking—unless the Foanna had their own means of protection at the sea gate and this was the result. The dolphins….What had made Tino-rau and Taua react as they did? And if the Rover ship was out of control, it would be a good time to attempt escape.

  “Loketh!” Ross dared to call louder. “Loketh!” He struggled against the drying strands which bound him from shoulder to mid thigh. There was no give in them.

  More sounds from the upper deck. Now the ship was answering to direction again. The Terran heard sounds he could not identify, and the ship no longer rocked so violently. Loketh moaned.

  As far as Ross could judge, they were heading out to sea.

  “Loketh!” He wanted information; he must have it! To be so ignorant of what was going on was unbearable frustration. If they were now prisoners in a ship leaving the island behind….The threat of that was enough to set Ross struggling with his bonds until he lay panting with exhaustion.

  “Rossss?” Only a Hawaikan could make that name a hiss.

  “Here! Loketh?” But of course it was Loketh.

  “I am here.” The other’s voice sounded oddly weak as if it issued from a man drained by a long illness.

  “What happened to you?” Ross demanded.

  “The fire…the fire in my head—eating…eating….” Loketh’s reply came with long pauses between the words.

  The Terran was puzzled. What fire? Loketh had certainly reacted to something beyond the unceremonious handling they had received as captives. This whole ship had reacted. And the dolphins….But what fire was Loketh talking about?

  “I did not feel anything,” he stated to himself as well as to the Hawaikan.

  “Nothing burning in your head? So you could not think—”

  “No.”

  “It must have been the Foanna magic. Fire eating so that a man is nothing, only that which fire feeds upon!”

  Karara! Ross’s thoughts flashed back to those few seconds when the dolphins had seemed to go crazy. Karara had then called out something about the Foanna. So the dolphins must have felt this, and Karara, and Loketh. Whatever it was. But why not Ross Murdock?

  Karara possessed an extra, undefinable sense which gave her contact with the dolphins. Loketh had a mind which those could read in turn. But such communication was closed to Ross.

  At first that realization carried with it a feeling of shame and loss. That he did not have what these others possessed, a subtle power beyond the body, a part of mind, was humbling. Just as he had felt shut out and crippled when he had been forced to use the analyzer instead of the sense the others had, so did he suffer now.

  Then Ross laughed shortly. All right, sometimes insensitivity could be a defense as it had at the sea gate. Suppose his lack could also be a weapon? He had not been knocked out as the others appeared to be. But for the bad luck of having been captured before the raiders had succumbed, Ross could, perhaps, have been master of this ship by now. He did not laugh now; he smiled sardonically at his own grandiose reaction. No use thinking about what might have been, just file this fact for future reference.

  A creaking overhead heralded the opening of the hatch. Light lanced down into the cubby, and a figure swung over and down a side ladder, coming to stand over Ross, feet apart for balancing, accommodating to the swing of the vessel with the ease of long practice.

  Thus Ross came face to face with his first representative of the third party in the Hawaikan tangle of power—a Rover.

  The seaman was tall, with a heavier development of shoulder and upper arms than the landsmen. Like the guards he wore supple armor, but this had been colored or overlaid with a pearly hue in which other tints wove opaline lines. His head was bare except for a broad, scaled band running from the nape of his neck to the mid-point of his forehead, a band supporting a sharply serrated crest not unlike the erect fin of some Terran fish.

  Now as he stood, fists planted on hips, the Rover presented a formidable figure, and Ross recognized in him the air of command. This must be one of the ship’s officers.

  Dark eyes surveyed Ross with interest. The light from the deck focused directly across the raider’s shoulder to catch the Terran in its full glare, and Ross fought the need for squinting. But he tried to give back stare for stare, confidence for self-confidence.

  On Terra in the past more than one adventurer’s life had been saved simply because he had the will and nerve enough to face his captors without any display of anxiety. Such bravado might not hold here and now, but it was the only weapon Ross had to hand and he used it.

  “You—” the Rover broke the silence first, “you are not of the Foanna—” He paused as if waiting an answer—denial or protest. Ross provided neither.

  “No, not of the Foanna, nor of the scum of the coast either.” Again a pause.

  “So, what manner of fish has come to the net of Torgul?” He called an order aloft. “A rope here! We’ll have this fish and its fellow out—”

  Loketh and Ross were jerked up to the outer deck, dumped into the midst of a crowd of seamen. The Hawaikan was left to lie but, at a gesture from the officer, Ross was set on his feet. He could see the nature of his bonds now, a network of dull gray strands, shriveled and stinking, but not giving in the least when he made another try at moving his arms.

  “Ho—” The officer grinned. “This fish does not like the net! You have teeth, fish. Use them, slash yourself free.”

  A murmur of applause from the crew answered that mild taunt. Ross thought it time for a countermove.

  “I see you do not come too close to those teeth.” He used the most defiant words his limited Hawaikan vocabulary offered.

  There was a moment of silence, and then the officer clapped his hands together with a sharp explosion of sound.

  “You would use your teeth, fish?” he asked and his tone could be a warning.

  This was going it blind wit
h a vengeance, but Ross took the next leap in the dark. He had the feeling, which often came to him in tight quarters, that he was being supplied from some hard core of endurance and determination far within him with the right words, the fortunate guess.

  “On which one of you?” He drew his lips tight, displaying those same teeth, wondering for one startled moment if he should take the Rover’s query literally.

  “Vistur! Vistur!” More than one voice called.

  One of the crew took a step or two forward. Like Torgul, he was tall and heavy, his over-long arms well muscled. There were scars on his forearms, the seam of one up his jaw. He looked what he was, a very tough fighting man, one who was judged so by peers as seasoned and dangerous.

  “Do you choose to prove your words on Vistur, fish?” Again the officer had a formal note in his question, as if this was all part of some ceremony.

  “If he meets with me as he stands—no other weapons.” Ross flashed back.

  Now he had another reaction from them. There were some jeers, a sprinkling of threats as to Vistur’s intentions. But Ross caught also the fact that two or three of them had gone silent and were eyeing him in a new and more searching fashion and that Torgul was one of those.

  Vistur laughed. “Well said, fish. So shall it be.”

  Torgul’s hand came out, palm up, facing Ross. In its hollow was a small object the Terran could not see clearly. A new weapon? Only the officer made no move to touch it to Ross, the hand merely moved in a series of waves in mid-air. Then the Rover spoke.