by Andre Norton
None of those aboard paid him any more attention. He made himself push aside panic and take stock of that company. Their former captives sat well to the back, crowded in not too far from him, and the four who had come to their rescue occupied the fore seats.
They were dressed uniformly, in space suits, and had their hair bristle short as did most crewmen. The leader seemed to be the man now at the controls of this small ship. It was never easy to guess ages, but Farree thought that he was younger than Quanhi. He had a seam of scar from one corner of his mouth to his jawline. Otherwise there was nothing about him to suggest that he was any different from any crewman Farree had seen off duty in the Limits.
The man by him was, in spite of his spacer clothing, a different type. Had Farree not seen him here, he would have thought him a wealthy tourist, the kind who sometimes ventured into the Limits for a thrill and then often complained of thievery or ill-usage. He was stout – almost enough so to appear bloated – and his features were of an unusual smallness, squeezed together at the forefront of his head, with a high, bulbous forehead and a neck which in the nape was marked by two rolls of fat. It was on his knees that the box of power rested, now fitted into a case. He kept running his pudgy hand about its surface as if he felt chilled and this kept warmth for him. His lips were pushed out in a petulant pout, and it was plain that he was far from satisfied with their just-past action, yet he made no protest in words.
There was no way that Farree could either see out of the flitter or even mark the time they spent in the air. His bonds allowed him no movement, and he could guess that what lay ahead was nothing to try to anticipate.
They came in at last for a landing, which jarred Farree again against the wall and would have brought a whimper of pain from him had he not once more bitten down upon his lip. To let any of these see that he was frightened would be the last thing he would do. He clung fiercely to that, and for a moment thought of how Lord-One Krip had told him of running in the body of something called a barsk – so fierce an animal that all feared it. What would happen if he could claim now the claws, the strength, the bulk of Bojor?
However, there was no chance of that. He would remain what he had always been: too weak and helpless a creature to stand against anything thrust upon him. Even now, one picked him up and slung him easily to another man waiting at the hatch. And as that one carried him he got his first look at what lay about him.
He was upon an open plain with no sign of the cliff which had broken the other one. Instead a mound arose, plainly not a natural one. On that was a broken, ragged heap of tumbled-down stone walls while a tower in its middle pointed a finger to sunset clouds. As much of a ruin as the place looked, there were dwellers within. He saw movement along the near-broken walls as he was carried up the incline to where the tower stood.
A courtyard with walls and half-destroyed buildings verging on all four sides surrounded the tower, but it was to the latter that he was carried. Then, being carelessly knocked against the wall, he was transported upward to be tossed like a bit of unwanted refuse into a narrow room with a wider arc of wall narrowing to nearly a point where the door now slammed into place, leaving him alone.
A window broke the arc of the far wall, but there was no famishing here, only the bare stone that already had given him bruises. He had landed on his back and the pain in his hump awoke from an ache to a burning stab, until he man-aged to roll over on one side, facing that high window where all he could see was a narrow slit of sky.
For the first time since he had been taken, Parree had time to think. It was plain that the Thassa part of Lord-One Krip had managed to keep him from being swallowed up in the same trap. But what could these who held him. Dung from the Limits, hope to learn from him alone? He knew so little: only that some time ago the Lord-One and the Lady Maelen had helped to break up an operation of the Guild and could still be in danger because the Guild could not allow its might to be flouted easily, or because they had certain knowledge which went beyond that particular action and which might lead to another discovery.
Good enough reason for their capture and the attempts to take over the ship. But Farree had not been with them during that earlier exploit and certainly had no knowledge that could be sifted out for the Guild's profit. Maybe they intended to use him for a bargaining piece ...
Farree's mouth twisted wryly. What was he to the two of the Thassa that they should risk anything in his behalf? True, they had taken him out of the morass of the Limits. However, they had a feeling for helpless animals as he had learned from their talk. But one did not risk all for an animal and certainly he, Farree, could not rate any higher than that. It would seem that he was now as much on his own as he had always been in the Limits and with far less to help him here.
Chapter 9.
It would seem that none were in a hurry to make what use they could of him, for he continued to lie alone, wrapped by the near-strangling cords of the tangler, in the tower room. Hunger awoke in him and thirst, both of which he had known too many times before to yield to now. He lay and watched the scrap of sky, which was edged by the high window, and he slept for a while or at least had no memory of the passing time. It was dusk beyond the window when the door was at last opened. Quanhi came in to stir him with one boot toe.
The spaceman pointed a laser on lowest beam at one stretch of the tangler cords, and those straightaway began to shrivel up until the ashy remnants fell away and Farree was free of bonds. His whole body ached dully as the boot reached out once more to prod at him.
"On your feet, Dung. You are needed."
His arms and legs were so numb from his bonds that he found it almost more than he could do to get to his feet. But a stubbornness in him would not let him crawl, and he made it, though he wavered toward the wall of the room and had to steady himself there.
"Move – or do you want a touch of this?" The spacer twirled his laser, and Farree lurched forward. Though there was the pain of returning full circulation and the ever-present aching in his hump, he managed to keep his feet and go on.
Though the curve of a stair which hugged the wall, cracked and worn as to steps, nearly defeated him, Farree at last reached the ground level of the tower and was herded on into another section of the ruin. His glimpse of the open before entering the other building gave him a chance only to see that there was indeed a force here – men coming and going, all of them wearing space clothing.
However, the room he was now herded into might have been lifted out of some Lord's holding back on Grant's World. Hangings of a blue-copper cross-spinning covered the ancient walls, and there was actually a matching carpet under his feet. He was brought to a halt before a table of silvery wood. Behind it were two folding chairs of tapestry and precious gonder wood. The table itself had been recently used for what Farree would have thought a feast, but the soiled plates and cups had been pushed to the far end, and now there were several boxes set out before the two men seated there.
One was the overfleshed man from the flitter, and his hands still caressed that box he had brought from the scene of Farree's undoing, stroking it as if he so pleasured a pet animal. His companion at the table was of a different pattern. There was in his look, his every movement, an air of command that led Farree to believe he was fronting the leader of this outlaw company. Though the face before him bore no disfiguring scar nor was he high-nosed in manner like one of the upper city Lords, Farree, after one meeting with those eyes, shivered and longed to draw himself into a ball as Toggor did when threatened.
It was the fat man who spoke first: "This is the one which was drawn . . ."
Had there or had there not been a thread of uneasiness in that? Farree thought he distinguished a suggestion that the fat one was not as pleased with his capture as he might have been.
"And the others?" the leader asked quietly, even mildly, as if he lacked much interest in the proceedings.
For a moment the fat man was silent, and even his pudgy hands ceased their gentling o
f the box. He pursed his lips as if he searched for a proper word or would get one out of his captive if he dared.
"The others?" the leader repeated in the same quiet tone.
"They withstood ..." The admission was dragged from his companion, and Farree saw those hands tense on the box.
"Yes. The Thassa ..." The leader could have been merely beginning an observation, but Farree was aware, by his own feelings of tension and fear, that the fat man changed position a fraction, nearly as if he winced.
"They are reputed to have more than one skill," the leader continued after a pause. "How do you think they have continued to exist for centuries of planet time with the Lords of Yiktor both jealous and afraid?"
"We had none to test," the fat man said with a note of defense in his voice. "Our material – "
"Was such as this?" the leader gestured toward Farree.
"He was with them the whole time." It was Quanhi who volunteered that.
"They gather strange life forms for the showing, do they not? What could they find more strange than this lump of offal? You" – his hard eyes caught Farree's and held them captive – "what were you to these Thassa?"
Farree had to moisten his lips with tongue tip twice before he could find answer. "I helped with the animals, Lord-One," he said in a hoarse whisper.
"Helped with? Or were one? Do you not know by now that these Thassa consider themselves above the rest of us?"
"Commander." Again it was Quanhi who dared to interrupt. "This one helped in taking back the ship – "
The leader gave a single bark of laughter that was more like a burst of oath. "A mighty opponent indeed. I wonder that you acknowledge his part in that."
"Commander." The man refused to be silenced. "He speaks with thoughts like those others."
"Yes, as you have said before several times. Well, Dung, can you read my thoughts now in your twisted head?"
"You are protected, Lord-One," Farree answered with the truth.
"Just so – protected. But so were the two aboard that ship and yet they fell into a Thassa trap. However, as you are not Thassa, we need not take the precaution of silencing you. In fact it is better not. Seek your friends – your masters – whatever those witch people are to you, and beg for their help. I will wager that such a call will bring nothing, but one can always hope, and these Thassa are ridiculously mindful of their own – even their animals. Now" – he leaned a little farther across the table – "let us get to the matter of what Dung knows about his betters. Why did Vorlund and the woman come here?"
"I do not know." Farree barely got the words out of his mouth when a heavy-handed blow from Quanhi sent him forward to come up against the table edge with bruising force.
"Let me fry a finger from him. Commander. Such a reminder – "
The man at the table held up a hand which instantly silenced the other. Farree might not now be able to read minds but he could feel the emotions heating in this room and that from Quanhi was a tinge of fear.
"Dung, do you know what these Thassa do with those they take?" inquired the same low and level voice. "They change people – men – into animals and animals into men. Do you wish to find all that is you behind the hide and fleas of, say, a zinder?"
He spoke of a mound of foul oozelike flesh which fed and crawled and was an abomination in the eyes of all unfortunate enough to meet it. Parree shivered. Not that he believed that he – that anyone – would be so treated by those he had met wearing the name of Thassa, but the picture of the creature in his mind made him ill.
Apparently his shiver informed them that such a fear did lie deep in him. But how wrong they were. To be an animal – a swift, beautiful runner such as Yazz, a mound of strength and courage like Bojor – to him who was Dung – what could be a more welcome change?
"I see you understand me. Did you not know that they would not keep such an abomination as you with them? You would find yourself furred or feathered or caged soon enough. Now, let us ask again: Why did Vorlund and the woman come here? The Thassa have no ships, and that one which brought you is too small to carry many. But only a few recruits and they could cause us a problem – a small problem. Did they ever mention the planet Sehkmet to you, humpback?"
Farree considered quickly. He could well pretend that the fear of the animal transformation governed any answer. And what did he have, in truth, to say? He was not sure why they had come to Yiktor – save that the Lady Maelen was moved by a pressing desire to set down here when the three-ringed moon swung in the sky and that that had something to do with her powers. He was having to think faster than he had ever been pressed to do before, weighing one fact against a supposition and a guess against a fact.
"They said only that there had been a great find there and that they had something to do with it. It was a matter in the past which they spoke little of."
"A matter of the past reaching well into the future – which is now. Yes, something was found on Sehkmet, and they had a hand in it – those two." Though there was no change in the Commander's set expression of half boredom and flagging interest, still there was a note in his voice which suggested that he might not be broadcasting fear now but rather anger.
"You read minds, I am told." He leaned forward a fraction to look down into Parree's face only inches above the top of the table. "Therefore you could know what they did not say as well as what they said. Now what of that?"
The hunchback shook his head. "Lord-One, those can cut off their thought by will even as you are shielded. I could read only what they willed me to – the small things that they thought it needful for me to know."
For a very long moment the other simply observed him. The dark eyes were expressionless and there seemed to be no surface life in them. It was as if the Guild leader could shutter them at will.
"That could almost be the truth. Dung. Only I cannot be sure, can I? We shall do some probing when Isfahan gets here with the reader. There is nothing human which can hide a thought from that. So you will share our hospitality for a time. If you wish to bespeak your friends – "
Farree had already made a decision, the best he could summon in the here and now.
"Lord-One, when that summoned" – he pointed at the box the fat man still so jealousy guarded – "did I not come? They did not, but saved themselves by their own ways. Therefore why should I believe that they care now what happens to such as me?"
"The truth again. The Thassa do not fight, nor war even when they are attacked, but always withdraw. They will be in no haste to rescue one who is as you – a misshapen thing out from the slime, which they might have taken merely for an experiment."
Perhaps that was the truth. Now that he was not near the Lady Maelen or the Lord-One Krip, how could he be sure that it was not? He need only look down at what he could see of himself and think a bitter truth or two. On Grant's World he had had some value. What was he here but some refuse swept up during their escape – of less worth than Yazz or Bojor?
"I see that I have given you something to think about. Consider it carefully. Return him into keeping."
Return him to the tower room they did, though they shoved into his hands a roll of nearly stone-hard ration crisp and a canteen of water. He ate slowly, chewing at the hard stuff with caution lest he break a tooth. It would have been easier to put some drug in that scant ration of water than in the roll of hardened nutrient. There could be no sleep gas here, but neither had they rebound him. It might be well that they thought him so safely caged that they need take no such precautions anymore.
He could not put his back against the wall; his hump was still tender. Now he sat cross-legged in a comer of the room farthest from the door and tried to think.
What he had gained when Lord-One Krip had told him of the past and other hints garnered along the way – even what his present captors had said – all linked together. There had been a find – doubtless a big Forerunner one (such could make the finder wealthy beyond dreams) on a world named Sehkmet. The Guild had b
een busied with looting it when in some way Krip Vorlund and the Lady Maelen had spoiled their action. Now the Guild (and he did not doubt that the Commander here was truly a Guild Veep of some standing) had a double reason for wanting to lay hands on the two Thassa again: once for retribution and once to learn if there were more such finds to be uncovered.
Nor did he doubt that the Guild controlled that which would win their desires – first from him and then from the Thassa. It was a well-known fact that the Guild was ever on the search for new weapons – or old ones of lost and forgotten races – which could be used with effect. This one which had brought him into their hands was surely such. Yet Lord-One Krip had been able to withstand its demanding call.
Thankfully there was little they could get out of him. He was very glad that he had not been deep in any plans the Thassa might have made. Certainly he could fight and he would, testing his will to the uttermost. But in the end they would wring him dry as one wrings a washing rag. That they could and would use him as trap bait – that he also supposed to be the truth. But he had no idea that any Thassa would venture into the heart of enemy territory to have him out. They had treated him well, near as if he were standing tall and fully human. But . . .
He slowly turned his large head from side to side. Put that shadow of hope out of mind. He had no chance of being plucked out of the hands of the Guild. It was all he could do to fight down the waves of dark fear that rolled over him until he was breathing in small throat-hurting gasps and the sweat rolled down his cheeks like tears.
There was no weapon. He had no Toggor this time to even give him a hazy picture of what lay outside. His hands, thin and long as they were, were only collections of brittle bones that could be easily snapped by a single kick or blow. And they had mentioned laser burns . . .
Farree's head fell forward until it rested on his drawn-up knees. He wound his arms about his legs until he was near a ball of distorted flesh and bone open to any attack which might come. But his mind . . . ? Feeling very open to evil he sent forth a questioning tendril of thought.