Chapters 18
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1 Ch01-Lotus World 23:22
Lotus World. There was a shading of rose in the pearl arch of sky, deepening at the horizon meeting of sea and air in a rainbow tint of cloud. The lazy swells of the ocean held the same soft color. Darkened with chrism veins, where spirals of weed drifted. A rose world bathed in soft sunlight, knowing only gentle winds, peace, and slope. Ross Murdock leaned forward over the edge of the rock ledge to peer down at a beach of fine sand, pale pink sand, with here and there a glitter of a crystalline shell. Or were those delicate fluted oval shells? Even the waves came in languidly, and the breeze which ruffled his hair, smoothed about his sun-brown half-bare body, caressed it, did not buffet on his way inland to stir the growths which the Terran settlers called trees, but which possessed long, lacy fronds instead of true branches.
Havokaw, named for the old Polynesian paradise, a world seemingly without flaw, except the subtle one of being too perfect, too welcoming, too wooing. Its long, uneventful, unchanging days enticed forgetfulness, offered a life without effort, except for the mystery.
Because this world was not the one pictured on the tape which had brought the Terran settlement team here. A map, a directing guide, a description all in one. That was the ancient voyage tape Ross himself had helped to loot a storehouse on an unknown planet for a cargo assist tapes. Once they had been the space navigation guides, For a race or races who had ruled the Star Lanes ten thousand years in his own world's past, a civilization which had long since sunk again into the dust of its beginning.
Those tastes returned to Terra after their chance discovery, were studied, probed, deciphered by the best brains of his time, shared out by a lot between already suspicious Terran powers. Bringing into the exploration of space bitter rivalries and old hatreds. Stitcha tape had landed their ship on Havakka, a world of shallow seas and archipelicose, instead of true continents. The settlement team had had all the knowledge contained on that tape crowded into them, only to discover that much they had learned from it was false. The course None of them had expected to discover here still the cities, the civilization the Tape had projected as existing in that long-ago period. But no present island-strain they had visited approximated those on the maps they had seen.
And so far they had not found any trace that any intelligent beings had walked, built, lived on these beautiful, slumberous atolls. So what had happened to the Havakika of the Tape? Ross's right hand rubbed across the red scars which disfigured his left one, to be carried for the rest of his life as a mark of his meeting with the star voyagers in the past of his own world. He had deliberately seared his own flesh to break the mental control they had asserted. Then the battle had gone to him, but from it he had brought another scar. The unease of that old terror which Ross Murdock, fighter, rebel, outlawed by the conventions of his own era, Ross Murdock, who considered himself an exceedingly tough individual, that Tuftla steeled by the training for time agent sorties, had come up against a power he did not understand, instinctively hated and feared.
Now he breathed deeply of the wind, the smell of the sea, the scents of the land growths, strange but pleasant, So easy to relax, to drop into the soft, lulling swing of this world, in which they had found no fault, no danger, no irritant. Yet once these things had been here, the blue-suited, hairless ones he called baldies, and what had happened then, or afterward. A black head, brown shoulder, slender body broke the sleepy slip of the waves. A simmering mass covered the face, Catching glitter fire in the sun. Two hands freed a chin curved, yet firmly set. A mouth paid more for laughter than sternness. Wide, dark eyes. Karwa Trehearne, of the Alai, the one-time Hawaiian god-cheapton line, was an exceedingly pretty girl.
But Ross regarded her aloofly, with a coldness which bordered on hostility, as she flipped her mask into his pocket on top of the gill pack. Below his rock perch, she came to a halt, her feet slightly apart in the sand, an impish twist to her lips that she called mockingly. "'Why not come in? The water's fine!' Perfect, like all the rest of this. Some of his impatience came out in a sour tone. "'No luck as usual?' "'As usual,' Carawagh conceded, "'if there ever was a civilization here, It's been gone so long we'll probably never find its traces. Why don't you just pick out a good place to set up that time probe and try it blind?
Ross cowled. Because. His patience was exaggerated to the point of insult. We have only one peep probe. Once it's set, we can't tear it down easily for transport somewhere else, so we want to be sure there's something to look at beyond. She began to wring the water out of her long hair. "'Well, as far as we've explored, nothing. Come yourself next time. Tino Ra and Tara aren't particular. They like company.' Putting two fingers to her mouth, Carawa whistled. Twin heads popped out of the water, facing the shore and her. Projecting noses, mouths with upturned corners so they curved in a lasting pleasant grin, at the mammals on the shore. The dolphin pair, mammals whose ancestors had chosen the sea, whistled back in such close counterfeit of the girl's signal that they could be an echo of her call.
Years earlier, their species intelligence had surprised, almost shocked men. Experiments, training, cooperation had developed a tie which gave the water-limited race of mankind New eyes, ears, minds to see, evaluate, and report concerning an element in which the bipeds were not free. Hand in hand with that cooperation had gone other experiments. Just as the clumsy armored diving suits of the early 20th century had allowed man to begin penetration into a weird new world, so had the frogman equipment made him still freer in the sea. And now the gill pack, which separated the needed oxygen from the water, made even that lighter burden of tanks obsolete. But there remained depths into which man could not descend, whose secrets were closed to him.
There, the Dauphins operated, in a partnership of minds, equal minds, though that last fact had been difficult for man to accept. Ross's irritation, unjustified as he knew it to be, Did not rest on Tina Ra or Tara. He enjoyed the hours when he buckled on Gilpeck and took to the sea with those two ten-foot black and silver escorts sharing the action. But Karawa, Karawa's presence, was a different matter altogether. The Aegis teams had always been strictly masculine. Two men partnered for an interlocking of abilities and temperaments, going through training together. Becoming two halves of a strong and efficient whole. Before being summarily recruited into the project, Ross had been a loner, living on the ragged edges of the law, an indigestible bit for the civilization which had become too ordered and adjusted to absorb his kind.
But in the project he had discovered others like himself, men born out of time, too ruthless, too individualistic for their own age, but able to operate with ease in the dangerous paths of the time agents. And when the time search for the wrecked alien ships had succeeded, and the first intact ship found, used, duplicated, the agents had come from forays into the past to be trained anew for travel to the stars. First there had been Ross Murdock, criminal. Then there had been Ross Murdock and Gordon Ash, time agents. Now there was still Ross and Gordon, and a quest as perilous as any they had known. Yet this time they had to depend upon Carrawa and the Dolphins. Tomorrow. Ross was still not sorting out his thoughts, truly aware of the feeling which worked upon him as a thorn in the finger.
I will come. Good. If she recognized his hostility for what it was, that did not bother her. Once more she whistled to the Dolphins. waved a casual farewell with one hand, and headed up the beach towards the base camp. Ross chose a more rugged path over the cliff. Suppose they did not find what they sought here. Yet the old tape map suggested that this was approximately the site starred upon him, marking a city, a star park. Ashton volunteered for Havaya Key, demanded this job after the disastrous Topaz affair, when the team of Apache volunteers had been sent out too soon to counter what might have been a Red Sneak settlement. Ross was still unhappy over the ensuing months, when only Major Kilgarys, and maybe in a lesser part, Ross had kept Gordon Ash in the project at all.
That Topaz had been a failure was accepted when the settlement ship did not return, and that had added to Ash's sense of guilt for having recruited and partially trained the lost team.
Among those dispatches over Ash's vehement protests had been Travis Fox, who had shared with Ash and Ross the first galactic flight in an age-old derelict spaceship. Travis Fox, the Apache archeologist, had he ever reached Topaz? Or would he and his team wander forever between worlds? Did they set down on a planet where some inimical form of native life or a red settlement had awaited them? The very uncertainty of their fate continued to ride ash.
So he insisted on coming out with the second settlement team, the volunteers of Samoan and Hawaiian descent, to carry on a yet more exciting and hazardous exploration. Just as the project had probed into the past of Terra, So would Ash and Ross now attempt to discover what lay in the past of Abacchi, to see this world as it had been at the height of the galactic civilization, and so to learn what they could about their forerunners into space. And the mystery they had dropped into upon landing added to the necessity for that discovery of discoveries.
Their probe, if fortune favored them, might become a gate through time. The installation was a vast improvement over these passage points they had first devised. Technical information had taken a vast leap forward after Terran engineers and scientists had had access to the tapes of the Stellar Empire. Adaptations and shortcuts developed, so that a new hybrid technology came into use. Woen from the knowledge and experimentation of two civilizations thousands of years apart in time. If and when he or Ash or Karwa and her dolphins discovered the proper site, the two agents could set up their own equipment. Both Ross and Ash had had enough drill in the process. All they needed was a brick of discovery.
Then they could build their wall, but they must find some remainder of the past, the smallest trace of ancient ruin upon which to center their peep probe. And since landing here, the long days had flowed into weeks with no such discovery made.
Ross crossed the ridge of rock, which formed a coxcomb rise on the island's spine, and descended to the village. As they had been trained, the Polynesian settlers adapted native products to their own heritage of building and tools. It was necessary that they live off the land, for their transport ship had had storage space only for a limited number of supplies and tools. After it took off to return home, they would be wholly on their own for several years. Their ship, a silvery ball, rested on a rock ledge, its pilot and crew having lingered to learn the results of Asche's search. Four days more, and they would have to live for home even if the agents still had only negative results to report.
That disappointment was driving Ash, the way that six months earlier his outrage and guilt feelings over the Topaz affair had driven him. Karawa's suggestion carried weight the longer Ross thought about it. With more swimmers hunting, there was just that much increased chance of turning up some clue. So far, the dolphins had not reported any dangerous native sea life, or any perils except the natural ones any diver always had at his shoulder under the waves. There were extra gill packs, and all the settlers were good swimmers. An organized hunt ought to shake the Polynesians out of their present do-it-to-morrow attitude. As long as they had had definite work before them—the unloading of the ship, the building of the village, all the labors incidental to the establishing of this base—the They had shown energy and enthusiasm.
It was only during the last couple of weeks that the land corps, which appeared part of the atmosphere here, had crept up on them, so that now they were content to live at a slower and lazier pace. Ross remembered Asha's comparison made the evening before, liking Haviyaki to a legendary Terran island where the inhabitants lived a drugged existence. Feeding upon the seeds of a native plant. Haviochi was fast becoming a lotus land for Terence.
Through here, then westward. Ash hunched over the crepe table in the mat-walled house. He did not look up as Ross entered. Carwa's still damp head was bowed until those black locks, now sleek to a round skull, almost touched a man's close-cropped brown hair. They were both studying map as if they saw not lines on paper, but the actual inlets and lagoons which that drawing represented. You're assured, Gordon, that this is a modern point to match the sight on the tape? The girl brushed back, straying hair. Ash shrugged. There were tight brackets about his mouth which had not been there six months ago. He moved jerkily, not with the fluid grace of those old days, When he had faced the vast distance of time travel with unruffled calm and a self-confidence to steady and support to novice Ross.
The general outline of these two islands could stand for the capes on this. He pulled a second map, this on transparent plastic, to fit over the first. The capes marked on a much larger body of land did slip over the modern islands with a surprising fit. The once large island, shattered and broken, could have produced the groups of atolls and islets they now prospected. How long? Karwa mused aloud. And why? Ash shrugged. Ten thousand years? Five? Two? He shook his head. We have no idea. It's apparent that there must have been some worldwide catalysm here to change the contours of the land-masses so much. We may have to wait on a return space flight to bring a chopper or a hydroplane to explore further.
His hand swept beyond the boundaries of the map to indicate the whole of Havaka Key. A year, maybe two, before we could hope for that, Ross cut in. Then we'll have to depend on whether the council believes this important enough. The contrariness which spiked his tongue whenever Carawa was present made him say that without thinking. Then the twitch of Aisha's lip brought home Ross's error. Gordon needed reassurance now. Not a recitation of the various ways Zermesian could be doomed. Look here, Ross came to the table, his hand sweeping past Carrawa as he used his forefinger for a pointer. We know that what we want could be easily overlooked, even with the Dauphin's helping us to check. This whole area is too big.
And you know that it is certain that whatever might be down there could be hidden with sea-rows. Suppose ten of us start out in a semicircle from about here and go as far as this point, heading inland. Video cameras here and here. Comb the whole sector inch by inch if we have to. After all, we have plenty of time and manpower. Carwell asked softly, Manpower? Always manpower, Ross. But there is womanpower, too. And we have perhaps even sharper sight. But this is a good idea, Gordon. Let me see. She began to tell off names on her fingers. But Kiki, Viola, Hori, Lilaya, Tama, Yui, Honoyura, they are the best in the water. Me, you, Gordon, Ross. That makes ten with keen eyes to look, and always there are Tina Ra and Tara.
We will take supplies and camp here on this island, which looks as much like a finger crook to beckon. Yes, somehow that beckoning finger seems to me to promise better fortune. Shall we plan it so?
Some of that tight look was gone from Ash's face, and Ross relaxed. This was what Gordon needed, not to be setting in here going over maps, reports, reworking over and over their scant leads. Ash had always been a field man, and his settlement work had been stupefying a laborious chore for him.
When Carrawha had gone, Ross dropped down on the bunk against a side wall. What did happen here, do you think? Half was real interest in a mystery they had mulled over and over, Since he had landed on Avakaki, which diverged so greatly from the maps, the other half a desire to keep Ash thinking on a subject removed from immediate worries. An atomic war? Could be there are old radiation traces, but these aliens had, I'm sure, progressed beyond atomics. Suppose, just suppose, they could tamper with the weather, with the balance of the planet's crust. We don't know the extent of their powers, how they would use them. They had a colony here once, or there would have been no guide tape, and that is all we are sure of.
Suppose," Ross rolled over on his stomach, pillowed his head on his arms, we could uncover some of that knowledge. The twitch was back at Asher's lips. "'That's the risk we have to run now. Risk?' Would you give a child one of those hand weapons we found in the derelicts? Naturally not, Ross snapped, and then saw the point. You mean—we aren't to be trusted. The answer was plain to read in Asher's expression. Then why this old set-up, this hunt for what might mean trouble? The old pink, the bad one. What if the reds discover something first? They drew some planets in the tape lottery, remember? It's a seesaw between us. We advance here, they there. We have to keep up the race or lose it. They must be combing their stellar colonies for a few answers just as curiously as we are.
Shall we go into the past to hunt if we have to? Well, I think I could do without answers such as the Baltis would know, but I will admit that I would like to know what did happen here two, five, ten thousand years ago. Ash stood up and stretched. For the first time, he smiled. Do you know I rather like the idea of feasting off Carawalt's barricading finger? Maybe she's right about that changing our luck. Ross kept his face carefully expressionless as he got up to prepare their evening meal.
This concludes Chapter One.
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2 Ch02-Lair of Mano-Nui 23:10
Lair of Mano Nui.
Just under the surface of the water, the sea was warm. Weird life showed colors Ross could name, shades he could not. The corals, the animals masquerading as plants, the plants disguised as animals which inhabited the oceans of Terra, had their counterparts here, and the settlers had given them the familiar names. Though the crabs, the fish, the anemones, and weeds of the shallow lagoons and reefs were not identical with Terran creatures. The trouble was that there was too much. Such a wealth of life to attract the eyes hold attention that it was difficult to keep to the job at hand, the search for what was not natural, for what had no normal place here.
As the land seduced the senses and bewitched the off-worlder, So did the sea have its enchantment to pull one from duty. Ross resolutely skimmed by a force of weaving, waving lace, which varied from a green which was almost black, to a pale tint he could not truly identify. Among those waving fans lurked ghost-feet, fanned swimmers transparent enough so that one could sight through their pallid sights the evidences of recently ingested meals.
The Terrans had begun their sweep search a half-hour ago, slipping overboard from a ferry canoe, heading in towards the checkpoint of the Finger Isle, forming an arc of expert divers, men and girls so at home in the ocean that they should be able to make the discovery ash needed, if such did exist. Mystery built upon mystery on Avakaki. Ross thought, as he used his spear-gun to push aside A floating banner of weed in order to peer below its curtain. The native life on this world must always have been largely aquatic. The settlers had discovered only a few small animals on the islands, the largest of which was a burrier, a creature not unlike a miniature monkey in that it had hind legs on which it walked erect, and forepaws, well clawed for digging purposes, which it used with as much skill and dexterity as a man used hands.
Its body was hairless, and it was able to assume chameleon-like, the color of the soil and rocks where it dimmed. The head was set directly on his bowed shoulders without vestige of neck, and it had round bubbles of eyes near the top of his skull, a nose which was a single vertical slit, and a wide-mouthed fang for crushing the shell creatures on which it fed. All in all, to Terran eyes, it was a vaguely repulsive creature, but as far as the settlers had been able to discover, it was the highest form of land life. The smaller rodent-like things, the two species of wingless diving birds, and an odd assortment of reptiles and amphibians sharing the island were all the burriers' prey. A world of sea and islands.
What type of native intelligent life had it once supported? Or had this been only a galactic colony with no native population before the coming of the stellar explorers? Ross hovered above a dark pocket, where the bottom had suddenly dipped into a saucer-shaped depression. The sea growth about the rim rippled in the water raggedly, but there was something about its general outline.
Ross began a circumference of that hollow, allowing for the distortion of the growths, which had formed lumpy excretions or re-turns towards a surface. Yes, allowing for those, this was decidedly something out of the ordinary. The depression was too regular, too even. Ross was certain of that. With a thrill of excitement, he began a descent into the cup, striving to trace signs which would prove his suspicion correct. How many years, centuries, had the slow coverage of the sea-life gathered there, flourished, died, with other creatures to build anew on the remains. Now there was only a hint that the depression had other than a natural beginning.
Anchoring with a one-handed grip on a spike of a Vachychean coral, smoother than the Terran species, Ross aimed the butt of his spear-gun at the nearest wall of the saucer, Striving to reach into a crevice between two lumps of growth, and so probe into what might lie behind. The spear rebounded. There was no breaking that crust with such a fragile tool. But perhaps he could have better luck lower down. The depression was deeper than he had first judged. Now the light which existed in the shadows vanished. Red and yellow as colors went, but Ross was aware of blues and greens, in shades and tints which were not visible above. He switched on his diving torch, and color returned within its beam. A swirl of weed, pink in the light, became darkly emerald beyond, as if it possessed the chameleon ability of the burroars.
He was distracted by that phenomenon, and so he transgressed the diver's rule of never becoming so absorbed in the surrounding as to forget caution. Just when did Ross become aware of that shadow below? Was it when a school of ghost-feasts burst unexpectedly between weed-groves, and he turned to follow them with a torch? Then the outer edge of his beam caught the movement of a shape—a flutter in the water of the gloomy depths. Ross swung around, his back to the wall of the saucer, as he aimed the torch down at what was arising there. The light caught, and held for a long moment of horror something which might have come out of the nightmares of his own world. Afterward, Ross knew that the monster was not as large as it seemed in that endless minute of fear, perhaps no bigger than the dolphins.
He had had training in shark-confested seas on terra, being carefully briefed against the danger from such hunters of the deep and ocean jungles. But this kind of thing had only existed before in the fairy tales of his race as a dragon of old lore. A scaled head with wide eyes gleaming in the light beam, with cold and sullen hate, a gaping mouth fang-filled, a horn-set muzzle, that long undulating neck, and below it the half-seen bulk of a monstrous body. His spear-gun, the knife at his waist belt, Neither were protection against this. Yet, to turn his back on that rising head was more than Ross could do. He pulled himself back against the wall of the saucer. The thing before him did not rush to attack.
Plainly, it had seen him, and now it moved with the leisure of a hunter having no fears concerning the eventual outcome of the hunt. But the light appeared to puzzle it. and Ross kept the beam shining straight into those evil eyes. The shock of the encounter was wearing off. Now Ross edged his flipper into a crevice to hold him steady, while his hand went to the sonic comm at his waist. He tapped out a distress call which the dolphins could relay to the swimmers. The swaying dragon head paused, held rigid on a stiff, scaled column in the center of the saucer. That sonic vibration, either surprised or bothered the hunter, made it wary. Ross tapped again. The belief that if he tried to escape, he was lost.
That only while he faced it, so had he any chance, grew stronger. The head was only inches below the level of his flippered feet as he held to the weeds. Again that weaving movement, the rise of head, A tremor along the serpent neck, and agitation in the depths. The dragon was on the move again. Ross aimed the light directly at the head. The scales as far as he could determine were not horny plates, but lapped silvery oval such as a feast possessed, and the underparts of the monster might even be vulnerable to his spear. But knowing the way a Terran shark could absorb the darts of that weapon and survive, Ross feared to attack except as a last resort.
Above and to his left, there was a small hollow where, in the past, some portion of the gross had been ripped away. If he could fit himself into that crevice, perhaps he could keep the dragon at bay until help arrived. Ross moved with all the skill he had. His hand closed upon the edge of the nick, and he whirled himself up. Just making it into that refuge, as the head lashed at him wickedly. His suspicion that the dragon would attack anything on the run was well founded, and he knew he had no hope of winning to the surface above. Now he stood in the crevice facing outward, watching the head darting in the water. He had switched off the torch, and the loss of light appeared to bewilder the reptile for some precious seconds.
Ross pulled as far back into the niche as he could, until the point of one's shoulder touched a surface which is sleek, smooth, and cold. The shock of that contact almost sent him hurtling out again.
Gripping the spear before him in his right hand, Ross cautiously felt behind him with the left. His fingertips glided along a seamless surface where the gross had been torn or peeled away. Though he could not or dared not turn his head to see, He was certain that this was his proof that the walls of the saucer had been fashioned and placed there by some intelligent creature. The dragon had risen, hovering now in the water directly before the entrance to Rossa's hole. His neck curled back against its bulk. It had wide flippers moving like planes to hold it poised. The body, sloping from a massive round of shoulders to a tapering rear, was vaguely familiar. If one provided a terran seal with a gorgon head and scales in place of fur, the effect would be similar.
But Ross was assuredly not facing a seal at this moment. Slight movement of the flippers kept it as stabilized as if it sprawled on a supporting surface. With the neck flattened against the body, the head curved downward until the horn on a snout pointed the tip straight at Ross's middle. The Terran steadied his spear-gun. The dragon's eyes were its most vulnerable targets. If the creature lost the attack, Ross would aim for them. Both man and dragon were so intent upon their duel that neither was conscious of the sudden swirl overhead. A sleek, dark shape struck down, swimming across the humpback ridge of the dragon. Some of the settlers had empathy with the dolphins to a high degree, But Ross's own powers of contact were relatively feeble.
Only now he was given an assurance of aid and a suggestion to attack. The dragon-head writh, twisted as the reptile attempted to see above and behind its own length, but the dolphin was only a streak fast disappearing, and that writhing changed the balance the monster had maintained, pushing it towards Ross. The Terran fired too soon and without proper aim. So the dark snake passed ahead, but the harpoon line half hooked about the neck and seemed to confuse the creature. Ross squirmed as far back as he could into his refuge and drew his knife. Against those fangs, the weapon was an almost useless toy, but it was all he had. Again, the dolphin dived to attack on the reptile, this time seizing in its mouth the floating cord of the harpoon and giving it a jerk, which jolted the dragon even more off balance, pulling it away from Ross's niche and out into the center of the saucer.
There were two dolphins in action now, Ross saw, playing the dragon as matadors might play a bull, keeping the creature disturbed by their agile maneuvers. Whatever prey came naturally to the Vakakian monster was not of this type. and the creature was not prepared to deal effectively with their teasing dodging tactics. Neither had touched the beast, but they kept it constantly striving to get at them. Though it swam in circles attempting to face its teasers, the dragon did not abandon the level before Ross' refuge, and now and then it darted its head at him, unwilling to give up its prey. Only one of the dolphins frisked and dodged above now As the sonic on Ross's belt vibrated against his lower ribs, with its message warning to be prepared for further action.
Somewhere above, his own kind gathered. Hurriedly, he tapped out in code his warning in return.
Two dolphins busy again. Their last dive over the dragon, pushing the monster down past Ross's nets toward the saucer's depths. Then they flashed up and away. The dragon was rising in turn, but coming to meet the Avakakian creature was a ball giving off light, bringing sharp vision and color with it. Ross's arm swung up to shield his eyes. There was a flash. Such answering vibration carried through the waves that even his nerves, far less sensitive than those of the life about him, reacted. He blinked behind his mask. A beast floated by, spiraling up, its belly exposed. And about him Gross drooped, trailed lifelessly through the water, while there was a now motionless bulk sinking to the obscurity of the depression floor.
A weapon perfected on Terra to use against sharks and barracuda had worked here to kill what could have been more formidable prey. The Terran wiggled out of the nets, rose to meet another swimmer, As Ash descended, Ross relayed his news via the sonic. The dolphins were already nosing into the depths in pursuit of their late enemy. Look here. Ross guided Ash to the crevice which had saved him, aimed a torch-beam into it. He had been right. There was a long groove in the covering built up by the gross. A vertical strip, some six foot long, of a uniform gray showed. Ash touched the find, and then gave the alert via the sonic code. Metal or an alloy? We found it. But what did they have? Even after an hour's exploration by the full company, Ash's expert search with his knowledge of artifacts and ancient remains, they were still baffled.
It would require labor and tools they did not have to clear the whole of the saucer. They could be sure only of its size and shape, and the fact that its walls were of an unknown substance which the sea could cloak but not erode, for the length of the gray surface showed not the slightest pitting or time wear.
Down at its center-most point they found the dragon's den, an arch coated with growth, before which sprawled the body of the creature. That was dragged aloft with the dolphin's aid, to be taken ashore for study, but the arch itself—was that part of some old installation? Tortuous to the fore, they entered its shadow, only to remain baffled. Here and there were patches of the same gray showing in its interior. Ash dug the butt of his spear-gun into the sand on the flooring to uncover another oval depression. But what it all signified— Or what had been its purpose, they could not guess. Set up the peep-probe here, Ross asked. Asher's head moved in a slow negative. Look further. Spread out, the sonic clicked.
Within a matter of minutes, the dolphins reported new remains. Two more saucers, each larger than the first, set in a line on the ocean floor, pointing directly to Cacarys, Finger Island. Cautiously explored, These were discovered to be free of any but harmless life. They stirred up no more dragons. When the Terrans came ashore on Finger Island to rest and eat their midday meal, one of the men paced along the beached dragon. Ashore, it lost none of its frightening aspect. And seeing it, even beached and dead, Ross wondered at his luck in surviving the encounter without a scratch. I think that this one would be alone. Pa'kaki commented. Where there is an eater of this size, there is usually only one.
Mano Nui. The girl Tama shivered as she gave to this monster the name of the shark demon of her people. Sichuan is truly King Shark in these waters. But why have we not sighted its like before? Tino Ra? Ta? They have not reported such. Probably, as Papa Key says, these things are rare, Ash returned. A carnivore of size would have to have a fairly wide hunting range. Yet there's evidence that this thing has layered in that den for some time, which means that it must have a defined hunting territory, allowing no trespassing from others of its species. Carwa nodded. Also, it may hunt only at intervals. Eat heavily and lie quiet until that meal is digested. There are large snakes on terra that follow that pattern.
Ross was in its front yard when it came after him. From now on, Ashford a quarter of fruit, we know what to watch for, and the weapon which will finish it off. Don't forget that. The delicate mechanisms of their sonics had already registered the vibrations which would warn of a dragon's presence, and the death globes would then do the rest.
Big Skull, oversized for the body, Pakkeke squatted on his heels by the head, lying on the sand at the end of the now fully extended neck.
Ross had heretofore been more aware of the armament of that head. The fangs set in the powerful jaws, the horn on the snout, But Pakkeke's comment drew his attention to the fact that the scale-covered skull did dome up above the eye pits in a way to suggest ample brain room. Had the thing been intelligent? Carrawa put that into words. Rule One. She went over to survey the carcass. Ross resented her half-questioned, whether it was addressed to him or mere thinking allowed on her part. Rule One. Conserve native life to the fullest extent. Human in which form may not be the only evidence of intelligence. There were the dolphins to prove that point right on Terra. But did Rule One mean that you had to let a monster nibble at you, because it might just be a high type of alien intelligence?
Let Kara Wasp out Rule One while backed into a crevice under water with that horn stabbing at her midsection. Rule One does not mean to forego self-defense, Ash commented mildly. This thing is a hunter, and you can't stop to apply recognition techniques when you are being regarded as legitimate prey. If you are the stronger, or an equal, yes, stop and think before becoming aggressive. But in a situation like this, take no chances. Anyway, from now on, Karawa pointed out, It could be possible to shock instead of kill. Gordon? Pockakee swung around. What have we found here besides this thing? I can't even guess, except that those depressions were made for a purpose and have been there for a long time.
Whether they were originally in the water or the land sink, that we don't know either. But now we have a site to set up the peep probe. We do that right away, Ross wanted to know. Impatience bit at him. But Ash still had a trace of frown. He shook his head. Have to make sure of our sight? Very sure. I don't want to start any chain reaction on the other side of the time wall. And he was right, Ross was forced to admit, remembering what had happened when the Galactics had discovered the red time gates and traced them forward to their 20th century source. Ruthlessly destroying each station. The original colonists of Hawakaki had been as giants to Terran Pygmies when it came to Texaco knowledge. To use even a peep probe indiscreetly near one of their outposts might bring swift and terrible retribution.
This concludes a reading of Chapter Two.
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3 Ch03-The Ancient Mariners 21:36
THE ANCIENT MARINERS.
Another map spread out and this time pinned down with small stones on beach gravel. Here, here, and here. Ash's finger indicated the points marked in a pattern which flared out from three sides of Finger Island. Each marked a set of three undersea depressions in perfect alliance with the land, which, according to the galactic map, had once been a cape on a much larger land mass. Though the Terrans had found the ruins, if those saucers in the sea could be so termed, the remains had no meaning for the explorers. Do we set up here? Ross asked. If we could just get a report to send back. That might mean the difference between awakening the cooperation of the project policymakers so that a flood of supplies and personnel would begin to head their way.
We set up here, Ash decided. He had selected a point between two of the lines where a reef would provide them with a secure base, and once that decision was made, the Terrans went into action. Two days to go to install the peep probe and take some shots before the ship had to clear with or without their evidence. Together, Ross and Ash floated the installation out to the reef. Yui and Carrara helped to tow the equipment and parts, the dolphins landing pushing noses on occasion. The aquatic mammals were as interested as the human beings they aided, and in water their help was invaluable. Had dolphins developed hands, Ross wondered pleasingly, would they have long ago wrested control of their native world, or at least of its seas, from the human kind?
All the human beings worked with practiced ease. Even while masked and submerged. To set the probe in place, aiming it landward at the checkpoint of the finger's protruding nail of rock. After Ash made the final adjustments, tested each and every part of the assembly, he gestured them in. Karawa's swift hand movement asked a question, and Ash's sonic code clicked in reply. At twilight. Yes, dusk was a proper time for using a peep probe. To see without risk of being sighted in return was their safeguard. Here, Axe had no historical data to guide him. Their search for the former inhabitants might be a long-drawn-out process, skipping across centuries as the machine was adjusted to Terran time years.
When were they here? Back on shore, Carawatt shook out her hair, spread it over her shoulders to dry. How many hundred years back will the probe return? More likely thousands, Ross commented. Where will you start, Gordon? Ash brushed sand from the page of the notebook he had steadied against one belt knee, and gazed out at the reef where they had set the probe. Ten thousand years. Why? Carrawha wanted to know. Why that exact figure? We know that galactic ships crashed on Terra, then. So their commerce and empire, if it was an empire, was far flung at that time. Perhaps they were at the zenith of their civilization. Perhaps they were already on a down slope. I do not think they were near the beginning.
So that date is as good a starting place as any. If we don't hit what we're after, then we could move forward until we do. Do you think that there ever was a native population here? Might have been. But without any large land animals, no modern traces of any, she protested. Of people, I shrugged. Good answers for both. Suppose there was a worldwide epidemic of proportions to wipe out a species, or a war in which they used forces beyond our comprehension to alter the whole face of this planet, which did happen, the alteration, I mean. Several things could have removed intelligent life. Then such species as burros could have developed or evolved from smaller, more primitive types. Those ape-things we found on the desert planet, Ross thought back to their first voyage on the homing derelict.
Maybe they had once been men and were degenerating. And the wing people, they could have been less than men on their way up. Ape-things? Wing people? Carawa interrupted. Tell me.
There was something imperious in her demand, but Ross found himself describing in detail their past adventures. First on the world of sand and sealed structures, where the derelict had rested for a purpose its involuntary passengers had never understood, and then of the Terran's limited exploration of that other planet, which might have been the capital world of a far-flung stellar empire. There they had made a pact with the winged people living in the huge buildings of a jungle-choked city. But you see, the Polynesian girl turned to Ash when Ross had finished. You did find them, those eight things and the winged people. But here there are only the dragons and the burrowers. Are they the start or the finish?
I want to know. Why, Ash asked. Not just because I am curious. Though I am that also, but because we too must have a beginning and an end. Did we come up from the seas, rise to know, and feel, and think, just to return to such beginnings at our end? If your wing people were climbing and your ape things descending, she shook her head. It would be frightening to hold a cord of life, both ends in your hands. Is it good for us to see such things, Gordon? Men have asked that question all their thinking lies, Karla. There have been those who have said no, who have turned aside and tried to halt the growth of knowledge here and there, attempted to make men stand still on one tread of a stairway. Only there is that in us which will not stop, ill-fitted as we may be for the climbing.
Perhaps we shall be safe and untroubled here on Havaka Key if I do not go out to that reef tonight. By that action, I may bring real danger down on all of us. Yet I cannot hold back for that. Could you? No. I do not believe that I could, she agreed. We are here because we are of those who must know, volunteers. And being of that temperament, it is in us always to take the next step. Even if it leads to a fall, she added in a low tone, Ash gazed at her, though her own eyes were on the sea where a lace of waves marked the reef. Her words were ordinary enough, but Ross straightened to match Ash's stare. Why had he felt that odd instant of uneasiness as if his heart had fluttered instead of beating true?
I know of you time agents, Carawa continued. There were plenty of stories about you told while we were in training. Tall tales, I can imagine, most of them, Ash laughed, but his amusement sounded forced to Ross. Perhaps, though I do not believe that many could be any taller than the truth. And so also I have heard of that strict rule you follow, that you must do nothing which might alter the course of history. But suppose, suppose here that the course of history could be altered. that whatever catastrophe occurred might be averted. If that was done, what would happen to our settlement in the here and now? I don't know. That is an experiment which we have never dared to try, which we won't try.
Alternate worlds, then, maybe. Roster's imagination caught up that idea. Two worlds from a change point in history, he elaborated, noting her look of puzzlement. One stemming from one decision, another from the alternate. I've heard of that. But, Gordon, if you could return to the time of decision here, and you had it in your power to say, yes, live, or no, die, to the alien natives, what would you do? I don't know, but neither do I think I shall ever be placed in that position. Why do you ask? She was twisting her still damp hair into a ponytail, and tying it so with a cord. Because—because I feel—no? I cannot really put it into words, Gordon. It is a feeling one has on the eve of some important event—anticipation, fear, excitement.
You'll let me go with you tonight, please. I want to see it. Not the Avaca Key that is—but But that other world with another name, the one they saw and knew. An instant protest was hot in Ross's throat, but he had no time to voice it, for Ash was already nodding. All right, but we may have no luck at all. Feething in time is a chancy thing, so don't be disappointed if we don't turn you up that other world. Now I'm going to pamper these old bones for an hour or two. Amuse yourself, children. He lay back and closed his eyes. The past two days had wiped half the shadows from his lean, tanned face. He had dropped two years—three, Ross thought thankfully. Let them be lucky tonight, and Aisha's cure would be nearly complete.
What do you think happened here? Karawa had moved so that her back was now to the wash of waves, her face more in the shadow. How do I know? Could be any of ten different things. "'And will I please shut up and leave you alone?' she countered swiftly. "'Do you wish to savor the excitement, then, explore a world upon world, or am I saying it right? We have a Vakikee I, which is a new world for us. Now there is a Vakikee II, which is removed in time, not distance, and to explore that—' We won't be exploring it, really,' Ross protested. Why? Did your agents not spend days, weeks, even months of time in the past on terra? What is to prevent their doing the same here? Training. We have no way of learning the drill.
What do you mean? Well, it wasn't as easy as you think to think it was on terra, he began scornfully. We didn't just stroll through one of those gates and set up business, say, in Nero's Rome. or Montezuma's Mexico. An agent was physically and psychologically fitted to the ear he was to explore. Then he trained, and how he trained. Ross remembered the weary hours spent learning how to use a bronze sword, the technique of beaker trading, the hypnotic instruction in a language which was already dead centuries before his own country existed. He learned the language, the customs. Everything you could about your time and your cover. You were letter-perfect before you took even a trial run. And here you would have no guides, Carlos said, nodding.
Yes, I can see the difficulty. Then you will just use the P-Probe. Probably. Oh, maybe later on we can scout through a gate. We have the material to set one up. But it would be a strictly limited project. allowing no chance for being caught. Maybe the big brains back home can take peep data and work out some basis of infiltration for us from it. But that would take years. I suppose so. Only you begin to swim in the shallows, don't you? Not by jumping off a cliff. She left. True enough. However, even a look into the past might solve part of the big mystery. Ross grunted and stretched out to follow Aisha's example, but behind his closed eyes his brain was busy, and he did not cultivate the patience he needed.
Peep probes were all right, but Carrawa had a point. You wanted more than a small window into a mystery. You wanted a part in solving it. The setting of the sun deepened rose to red, making a dripping wine-hued banner of most of the sky. so that under it they moved in a crimson sea. Looked back at an island where shadows were embers instead of ashes, three humans, two dolphins, and a machine mounted on a reef which might not even have existed in the time they sought. Ash made his final adjustments, and then his finger pressed a button, and they watched the visiplate no larger than the palms of two hands. Nothing. A dull gray. Nothing. Something must have gone wrong with their assembly work. Ross touched Asha's shoulder, but now there were shadows gathering on the plate, thickening sharp into a distinct picture.
It was still the sunset hour they watched, but somehow the colors were paler, less red, and so on than the ones about them in the here and now. And they were not seeing the aisle towards which the probe had been aimed. They were looking at a rugged coastline, where cliffs lifted well above the beach strand. While on those cliffs, Ross had not realized Carawa had reached out to grasp his arm until her nails bit into his flesh, and even then he was hardly aware of the pain, because there was a building on the cliff. Massive walls of native rock reared in outward defenses, culminating in towers. And from the high point of one tower, the pointed tail of a banner cracked in the wind. There was a headland of rock reaching out not toward them but to the north, and rounding that—war canoe, Carrawa exclaimed.
But Ross had another identification—long boat. In reality, the vessel was neither one nor the other. Not the double canoe of the Pacific, which had transported warriors on raid from one island to another, or the shield-hung warship of the Vikings. But the Terrans were right in its purpose. That Reiki's sharp-fraud ship had been fashioned for a swift passage of the seas, for maneuverability as a weapon. Behind the first nose, another, and a third. Their sails were dyed by the sun, but there were devices painted on them. And the lines of those designs glittered as if they had been drawn with a metallic fluid. The castle, Asher's cry, pulled their attention back to land. There was movement along those walls.
Then came a flash, a splash in the water close enough to the lead ship to where their deck was frayed. They're fighting Carawa's shoulder against Ross for a better look. The ships were altering course, swinging away from land out to sea. Moving too fast for sails alone, and I don't see any oars," Ross was puzzled. How do you suppose?
The bombardment from the castle continued, but did not score any hits. Already the ships were out of range. The lead vessel off the screen of the peep as well. Then there was just a castle in the sunset. Ash straightened up. "'Rocks,' he repeated wonderingly. "'They were throwing rocks!' But those ships, they must have had engines. They weren't just depending on sails when they retreated. Ross added his own cause for bewilderment. Carawa looked from one to the other. There is something here you do not understand. What is wrong? Catapults, yes, Ash said with a nod. Those would fit periods corresponding from the Roman Empire into the Middle Ages. But you're right, Ross. Those ships had power of some kind to take them offshore that quickly.
A technically advanced race coming up against a more backward one, hazarded the younger man. Could be. Let's go forward some. The incoming tide was washing well up on the reef. Ash had to don his mask as he plunged head and shoulders under water to make the necessary adjustment. Once more he pressed a button. And Ross's gasp was echoed by one from the girl. The cliff again. But there was no castle dominating it. Only a ruin, hardly more than rubble. Now above the sights of the Saucer depression, great pylons of silvery metal, warmed into fire brilliance by the sunset, raked into the sky like gaunts, kelt, and fingers. There were no shifts, no signs of any life. Even the vegetation which had showed on shore had vanished.
There was an atmosphere of stark abandonment and death, which struck the Terrans forcibly. Those pylons, Ross studied them. Something familiar in their construction teased his memory. That refuel planet where the derelict ship had set down twice, on the voyage out and on their return. That had been a world of metal structures, and he believed he could trace a kinship between his memory of those and these pylons. Surely they had no connection with the earlier castle on the cliff. Once more Ash ducked to reset the probe, and in a fascinating light they watched a third and last picture. But now they might have been looking at the island of the present, save that it bore no vegetation, and there was a rawness about it.
A sharpness of rock outline now vanished.
These pylons, were they the key to the change which had come upon this world? What were they? Who had set them there? For the last, Ross thought he had an answer. They were certainly the product of the Galactic Empire, and the castle, the ships, natives, settlers, two widely different eras. And the mystery still lay between them. Would they ever be able to bring the key to it out of time? They swam for the shore, where Huey had a fire blazing and their supper prepared. How many years lying between those probes, Ross pulled Royal Feach apart with his fingers. That first was ten thousand years ago. The second, Ash paused. Only two hundred years later.
But, Ross stared at his superior. That means that there was a war or some drastic form of invasion, yes. You mean that the star people arrived and just took over this whole planet, Karawa asked? But why? And those pylons, what were they for? How much later was that last picture? Five hundred years. The pylons were gone, too, then, Ross commented. But why? He echoed Carr was questioned. Ash had taken up his notebook, but he did not open it. I think—there was a sharp, grim note in his voice. We had better find out. Put up a gate? Ash broke all the previous rules of their service with his answer. Yes, a gate. This concludes the reading of Chapter Three.
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4 Ch04-Storm Menace 20:16
Davis.
Key Out of Time by Andre Norton. Chapter Four. Storm Menace.
We have to know," Ash leaned back against the crate they had just emptied. Something was done here in two hundred years, and then an empty world. Pandora's box. Ross drew a hand across his forehead, smearing sweat and fine sand into a brand. Ash nodded. Maybe we run that risk, loosing all the devils of the aliens. But what if the Reds opened the box first on one of their settlement worlds? There it was again, the old thorn which prodded them into risk and recklessness. Danger ahead on both paths. Don't risk trying to learn galactic secrets, but don't risk your enemies learning them either.
You hold a white-hot iron in both hands in this business, and Ash was right. They had stumbled on something here which hinted that a whole world had been altered to suit some plan. Suppose the secret of that alteration was discovered by their enemies. Were the ship and castle people natives, Ross wondered aloud? Just as I guessed they were, or at least settlers who had been established here so long they had developed a local form of civilization, Which was about at the level of a feudal society.
You mean because of the castle and the rock bombardment. But what about the ships? Two separate phases of a society at war. Perhaps a more progressive against a less technically advanced. American warships paying a visit to the Shoguns Japan, for example. Ross Grint. Those warships didn't seem to fancy their welcome. They steered out to sea fast enough when the rocks began to fall. Yes, but the ships could exist in the castle pattern. The pylons could not. Which period are you aiming for first, the castle or the pylons? Castle first, I think. Then, if we can't pick up any hints, we'll take some jumps forward until we do connect. Only we'll be under severe handicaps. If we could only plant an analyzer somewhere in the castle as a beginning.
Ross did not show his surprise. If Ash was talking on those terms, then he was intending to do more than just lurk around a little beyond the gate. He was really planning to pick up alien speech patterns, eventually assume an alien agent identity. Gordon. Carawa appeared between two of the lace trees. She came so hastily that the contents of the two cups she carried slopped over. You must hear what Horry has to say. The tall Samoan who trailed her spoke quickly. For the first time since Ross had known him, he was very serious. A frown line between his eyes. "'There's a bad storm coming. Our instruments rest to it.' "'How long away?' Ash was on his feet. "'A day? Maybe two.' Ross could see no change in the sky, islands, or sea.
They had had idyllic weather for the sixth week since their planeting. No sign of any such trouble in the Abacacian paradise. It's coming, Horry repeated. The gate is half up, Ash thought aloud. Too much of it's set to be dismantled again in a hurry. If it's completed, Horry wanted to know, would it ride out a storm? It might. Behind that reef where we have it based, to finish it would be a fast job. Horry flexed his hands. We've more brawn than brain in these matters, Gordon, but you've all our help, for what it's worth. What about the ship? Does it lift on schedule? Check with Rimbalt about that. This storm, how will it compare to a Pacific typhoon? Samoan shook his head. How do we know? We have not yet had to face the local variety.
The islands are low, Carawa commented. Winds and water could—yes, we'd better see Rimbalt about a shelter if needed. If the settlement had drowsed, now its inhabitants were busy. It was decided that they could shelter in a spaceship should the storm reach hurricane proportions. But before its coming, the gate must be finished. The final fitting was left to Ash and Ross, and the older agent fastened the last bolt when the waters beyond the reef were already wind-ruffled, the sky darkening fast. The dolphins swam back and forth in the lagoon and with them Karawa, though Ash had twice waved her to the shore. There was no sunlight left, and they worked with torches. Ash began his inspection of the relatively simple transfer, the two upright bars, The slab of opaque material forming a doorstep between them.
This was only a skeleton of the gates Ross had used in the past, but continual experimentation had reduced this more easily transported installation. Piled in a net were several supply containers ready for an exploring run. Extra gill packs, the analyzer, emergency rations, a medical kit, all the basics. Was Ice going to try now? He had activated the transfer. The rods were glowing faintly, the slab they guarded having an eerie blue glimmer. He probably only wanted to be sure it worked. What happened at that moment Ross could never find any adequate words to describe, nor was he sure he could remember. The disorientation of the pass-through he had experienced before This time he was whirled into a vortex of feeling in which his body, his identity, were ripped from him, and he lost touch with all stability.
Instinctively he lashed out, his reflexes more than his conscious will keeping him above water in the wild rage of a storm-whipped sea. The light was gone. Here was only dark and beating water. Then a lightning flash ripped wide to heavens over Ross as his head broke the surface, and he saw, with unbelieving eyes, that he was being thrust shoreward, not to the strand of Finger Island, but against a cliff where water pounded an unyielding wall of rock.
Ross comprehended that somehow he had been jerked through the gate. that he was now fronting the land that had been somewhere beneath the heights supporting the castle. Then he fought for his life to escape the hammer of the sea, determined to crack him against the surface of the cliff. A rough surface loomed up before him, and he threw himself in that direction, embracing a rock, striving to cling through the back force of the wave which had brought him there.
His nails grated and broke on the stone, and then the fingers of his right hand caught in a hole, and he held with all the strength in his gasping, beaten body. He had had no preparation, no warning, and only the tough survival will which had been trained and bred into him saved his life. As the water washed back, Ross drove to pull up further on his anchorage, to be above the strike of the next wave. Somehow he gained a foot before it came. The mask of the gill pack saved him from being smothered in that curling torment as he clung stubbornly, resisting again the pull of the retreating sea. Ench by Ench, between raves, he fought for footing and stable support. Then he was on the surface of the rock.
Out of all but the liceous fray, he crouched there, spent and gasping. The thunder roar of the surf And beyond it, the deeper mutter of the rage in the heavens was deafening, dulling his sense as much as the ordeal through which he had passed. He was content to cling where he was, hardly conscious of his surroundings. Sparks of light along the shore to the north at last caught Ross's attention. They moved, some clustering along the wave line. A few strung up the cliff, and they were not part of the storm spirals. Men here? Why at this moment? Another bolt of lightning showed him the answer. On the reef fringe, which ran a tongue of land into the sea, hung a ship. Two ships, pounded by every hammer wave.
Shipwrecks, and those lights must mark castle-dwellers drawn to aid the survivors. Ross crawled across his rock on his hands and knees. Wavered along the cliff wall until he was again faced with angry water. To drop into that would be a mistake. He hesitated, and now more than his own predicament struck home to him. Ash. Ash had been ahead of him at the time gate. If Ross had been jerked through to this pass, then somewhere in the water on the shore, Gordon was here too. But where to find him? Setting his back to the cliff, And holding to the rough stone, Ross got to his feet, trying to see through the welcher of foam and water. Not only the sea poured here, but a torrential rain fell into the bargain, streaming down about him, battering his head and shoulders.
A chill rain which made him shiver. He wore a gill-pack, weighted belt with a sheath-tool and knife, flippers, and a pair of swimming-trunks. which had been suitable for the back of Key, he knew. But this was a different world altogether. Dare he use his torch to see the way out of here? Ross watched the lights to the north, deciding they were not too unlike his own beam, and took the chance.
Now he stood on a shelf of rock pitted with depressions, all pools. To his left was a drop into a boiling, whirling cauldron, from which points of stone fanged. Ross shuddered. At least he had escaped being pulled into that. To his right, northward, there was another space of sea, a narrow strip, and then a second ledge. He measured the distance between that and the one on which he perched. Staying where he was would not locate ash. Ross stripped off his flippers, made them fast in his belt, Then he leaped and landed painfully as his feet slipped and he skidded face down on the northern ledge. As he sat up, rubbing a bruised and scraped knee, he saw lights advancing in his direction, and between them a shadow crawling from water to shore.
Ross stumbled along the ledge, hastening to reach that figure, who lay still now just out of the ways. Ross's limping pace became a trot, but he was too late. The other likes, two of them, had reached the shadow. A man, or at least a body which was humanoid, sprawled face down. Other men, three of them, gathered over the exhausted swimmer. Those who held the torches were still partially in the dark, but the third stooped to roll over their find. Ross caught the glint of light on a metallic head cupboard. The glisten of wet armor of some type on a fellow's back and shoulders as he made quick examination of the seized victim. Then Ross halted, his eyes wide. A hand rose and fell with expert precision.
There had been a blade in that hand. Already the three were turning away from the man so ruthlessly dispatched. Ash? Or some survivor of the wrecked ships? Ross retreated to the end of the ledge, the narrow stream of water dividing it from the rock where he had one on shore washed into a cave in the cliff. Dare he try to work his way into that? Masked with the gill-pack, he could go under surface if he were not smashed by the waves against some wall. He glanced back. The lights were very close to the end of his ledge. To withdraw to the second rock would mean being caught in a dead end, for he dared not enter the whirlpool on its far side. There is really no choice. Stay and be killed, or try for the cave.
Ross fastened on his flippers and lowered his body into the narrow stream. The fact that it was narrow and guarded on either side by the ledges tamed the waves a little. and Ross found a tug against him not so great as he feared it would be. Keeping hand-holes on the rock, he worked along, head and shoulders often under the wreaths of rolling water, but winning steadily to the break in the cliff wall. Then he was through, into his face much larger than the opening, water filled but not with a wild turbulence of waves. Had he been sighted? Ross kept a hand-hole to the left of that narrow entrance, his body floating with the rise and fall of the water. He could make out the gleam of light without.
It might be that one of those hunters had leaned out over the runnel of the cave entrance, was flashing his torch down into the water there. Behind mask plate, Ross's lips ripped in a snarl of the hunted. In here he would have the advantage. Let one of them— Or all three try to follow through that rock entrance and—but if he had been sighted at the mouth of the lair, none of his trackers appeared to whoosh to press the hunt. The light disappeared, and Ross was left in the dark. He counted a hundred slowly, and then a second hundred before he dared use his own torch. For all its slit entrance, this was a good-sized hideaway, he had chanced upon. And he discovered, when he ventured to release his wall-hole and swim out into the middle, the bottom arose in a slope towards its rear.
Moments later Ross pulled out of the water once more. The crouched shivering on a ledge only lapped now and then by wavelets. He had found a temporary refuge, but his good fortune did not quiet his fears. Had that been ash on the shore? And why had the swimmer been so summarily executed by the men who found him? The ships caught on the reef, the castle on the cliff above his head, enemies, ships, crews, and castle men. But the callous act of the shore patrol argued a state of war carried to fanatic proportions, perhaps interracial conflict. He could not hope to explore until the storm was over. To plunge back into the sea would not find ice, and to be hunted along the shore by an unknown enemy was simply asking to die without achieving any good in return.
No, he must remain where he was for the present. Rosh unhooked the torch from his belt and used it on this higher portion of the cave. He was perched on a ledge which protruded into the water in the form of a wedge. At his back, the wall of the cave was rough, and trails of weed were festooned on its projections. The smell of faecy decay was strong enough to register as Ross pulled off his mask. As far as he could now see, there was no exit except by sea. A movement in the water brought his light flashing down into the dark flood. Then a sleek head arose in the path of that ray. Not a man swimming, but one of the dolphins. Ross's explanation of surprise was half gasp, half cry. The second dolphins showed for a moment, and between the shadow of their bodies, just under the surface moved a third form.
Ash? Ross had no idea how the dolphins had come through the time gate. But that they had guided to safety a Terran, he did not doubt at all. Ash? But it was not Ash who came wading to the ledge where Ross waded with hand outstretched. He had been so sure of the other's identity that he blinked in complete bewilderment as his eyes met Carr was, and she half stumbled, half reeled against him. His arms about her shoulders steadied her, and her shivering body was close to his as she leaned her full weight upon him. Her hands made a feeble movement to her mask, and he pulled it off. Uncovered, her face was pale and drawn, her eyes now closed, and her breath came in ragged, tearing sobs, which shook her even more.
"'How did you get here?' Ross demanded, even as he pushed her down on the ledge. Her head moved slowly in a weak gesture of negaton. "'I don't know. We were close to the gate. There was a flash of light. Then,' her voice sealed up with a note of hysteria in it, "'Then I was here, and Tara with me.' Tina Raw came. Ross! Ross! There was a man swimming. He got ashore. He was getting to his feet, and—and they killed him! Ross's hole tightened. He stared into her face with a fierce demand. Was it Gordon? She blinked, brought her hand up to her mouth, and wiped it back and forth across her chin. There was a small red trickle growing between her fingers. dripping down her arm. Gordon! She repeated it as if she had never heard the name before.
Yes. Did they kill Gordon? In his grasp, she was swaying back and forth. Then, realizing he was shaking her, Ross got himself under control. But a measure of understanding had come into her eyes. No, not Gordon. Where is Gordon? You haven't seen him? Ross persisted, knowing it was useless. Not since we were at the gate. Her words were less slurred. Weren't you with him? No, I was alone. Ross, where are we?
Better say, when are we, he replied. We're through the gate and back in time, and we have to find Gordon. He did not want to think of what might have happened out on the shore.
This concludes the reading of Chapter Four.
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5 Ch05-Time Wrecked 21:15
Davis. Key Out of Time by Andre Norton. Chapter Five. Time-Rack. "'Can we go back?' Carrawa was herself again, her voice crisp. "'I don't know.' Ross gave her the truth. The force which had drawn him through the grate was beyond his experience. As far as he knew, there had never been such an involuntary passage by Time Gate, and what their trip might mean he did not know. The main concern was that Ash must have come through too, and that he was missing. Just let the storm abate, and with the dolphin's aid, Ross's chance for finding the missing agent was immeasurably better. He said so now, and Carawa nodded. Do you suppose there is a war going on here? She hugged her arms across her breasts, her shoulders heaving in a torchlight with shudders she could not control.
The damp chill was biting, and Ross realized that was also danger. Could be— He got to his feet, switched the light from the girl to the walls. That seaweed, could it make them some form of protective covering? Hold this. Aim it there. He thrust a torch into her hands and went for one of the loops of kelp. Ross reeled in lines of the stuff. He was rank-smelling, but only slightly damp. And he piled it on the ledge in a kind of nest. At least in the hollow of that mound, they could be sheltered after a fashion. Karwa crawled into the center of the mass, and Ross followed her. The smell of the stuff filled his nose. It was almost like a visible cloud, but he had been right. The girl stopped shivering, and he felt a measure of warmth in his own shaking body.
Ross snapped off the torch, and they lay together in the dark, the half-rotten pile of weed holding them. He must have slept, Ross guessed. When he stirred, raising his head, His body was stiff, aching. As he braced himself up on his hands and peered over the edge of their kelp nest, there was light in the cave, a pale, grayish wharf which grew stronger toward the slit opening. It must be day, and that meant they could move. Ross, groping in the weed, his hand falling on a curve of shoulder. "'Wake up!' His voice was hoarse and held a snap of an order. There was a startled gasp in answer, and the mound beside him heaved as a girl stirred. Day out, Ross pointed. In the storm. She stood up. I think it is over.
It was true that the level of water within the cave had fallen. That Waveless no longer laughed with the same vigor. Morning. The storm over. And somewhere, ash. Ross was about to snap his mask into place when Carawa caught at his arm. Be careful. Remember what I saw last night? They were killing swimmers. He shook her off impatiently. I'm no fool, and with the packs on we do not have to surface. Listen. He had another thought, one which would provide an excellent excuse for keeping her safely out of his company, reducing his responsibility for her. "'You take the dolphins and try to find the gate. We'll want out as soon as I locate Ash.' "'And if you do not find him soon?' Ross hesitated. She had not said the rest.
What if he could not find Gordon at all? But he would. He had to. "'I'll be back here.' He checked his watch. "'No longer an accurate timekeeper. For Habakkukian days, held an hour more than the Terran Twenty-Four, but the settlers kept the off-world measurement to check on work periods. In, say, two hours. You should know by then about the gate, and we'll have some idea of the situation along the shore. But listen. Ross caught her shoulders in a taut grip, pulled her around to face him, his eyes hot and almost angry as they held hers. Don't let yourself be seen. Don't let yourself be seen. He repeated the cardinal rule of agents in new territory. We don't dare risk discovery. Carawa nodded, and he could see that she understood, was aware of the importance of that warning.
Do you want Tina Ra or Tara? No, I'm going to search along the shore first. Ash would have tried for that last night. was probably driven in the way we were. He'd go to ground somewhere. And I have this. Ross touched a sonic on his belt. I'll set it on his call. You do the same with yours. Then if we get within distance, he'll pick us up. Back here in two hours. Yes. Carawa kicked free of the weed, was already wading down to where the dolphin circled in the cave pool, waiting for her. Ross followed, and the four swam for the open sea. It could not be much after dawn, Ross thought, as he clung by one hand to a rock and watched Carrawa and the Dolphins on their way. Then he paddled along the shore northward for his own survey of the coast.
There was a rose cast in the sky, warming the silver along the far reaches of the horizon, and about him bobbed Storm Flossam. so that he had to pick a careful way through floating debris. On the reef, one of the wrecked ships had vanished entirely. Perhaps it had been battered to death by the waves, ground to splinters against the rocks. The other still held, its prow well out of the now receding waves. Jagged holes in a side through which spurts of water cascaded now and then. The wreck which had been driven landward was composed of planks, boxes, and containers rolled by the waves' force. Much of this was already free of the sea, and on the beach figures moved examining it. In spite of the danger of chance discovery, Ross edged the long rocks, seeking a vantage point from which he could watch that activity.
He was flat against a sea-girt boulder, a swell of floating weed draped about him, when the nearest of the foraging parties moved into good view. Men. At least they had the outward appearance of men, much like himself, though their skin was dark and their limbs appeared disproportionately long and thin. There were two groups of them, four wearing only a scanty loin-cough, busy turning over and hunting through the debris under the direction of the other two.
The workers had thick growths of hair, which not only covered their heads, but down their spines and the outer sides of their thin arms and legs to elbow and knee. The hair was a pallid yellow-white in vivid contrast to their dark skins, and their chins protruded sharply, allowing the lower line of their faces to take on a vaguely disturbing likeness to an animal's muzzle. Their overseers were more fully clothed, wearing not only helmets on their heads, whose helms had a protective visor over the face, but also breast and back plates molded to their bodies. Ross thought that these could not be solid metal, since they adapted to the movements of the wearers. Feet and legs were covered with casing combination of shoe and leggings colored dull red.
They were armed with swords of an odd pattern. Their points curved up so that the blade resembled a piece hook. Unsheathed The blades were clipped to a wrist belt by Kessius, which glittered in a weak morning light as if Jim sat. Ross could see little of their faces, for the beaked visors overhung their features. But their skins were as dusky as those of the laborers, and their arms and legs of the same unusual length, men of the same race, he deduced. Under the orders of the armed overseers, the laborers were reducing the beach to order. Sorting out the flotsam into two piles. Once they gathered about a find, and the sound of excited speech reached Ross as an agitated clicking. The armored men came up, surveyed the discovery.
One of them shrugged and clicked in order. Ross caught only a half glimpse of the thing two of the workers dragged away. A body. Aish. The Terran was about to move closer when he saw the green cloak Dragging about the corks. No, not Gordon. Just another victim from the wrecks. The aliens were working their way towards Ross, and perhaps it was time for him to go. He was pushing aside his well-arranged curtain of weed when he was startled by a shout. For a second he thought he might have been sighted, until resulting action on shore told him otherwise. The furred workers shrank back against the mound to which they had just dragged the body. While the two guards took up a position before them, Kers's swords snapped from their belt hooks, ready in their hands.
Again that shout. Was it a warning or a threat? With the language barrier, Ross could only wait to see. Another party approached along the beach from the south. In the lead was a cloaked and hooded figure, so muffled in its coverings of silver-gray that Ross had no idea of the form beneath. Silvery-gray? No. Now that hue was deepening with blue tones, darkening rapidly. By the time the cloaked newcomer had passed the rock which sheltered the Terran, the covering was a rich blue which seemed to glow. Behind the leader were a dozen armed men. They wore the same beaked helmets, The subtle and casing breast and back plates, but their leggings were gray. They, too, carried curved swords. But the weapons were still latched to their belts, and they made no move to draw them in spite of the very patent hostility of the guards before them.
Blue Cloak halted some three feet from the guards. The sea wind pulled at the cloak, wrapping it around the body beneath. But even so... The wearer remained well hidden. From under a flapping edge came a hand. The fingers, long and slender, were curled around an ivory-colored wand, which ended in a knob. Sparks flashed from it in a continuous flickering. Ross clapped his hand to his belt. To his complete amazement, the sonic disc he wore was reacting to those flashes. Pricking sharply in perfect beat to their blink-blink, The Terran cupped his scarred fingers over the disc as he waited to see what was going to happen, wondering if the holder of that wand might, in return, pick up the broadcast of the code set on Asha's call.
The hand clasping the wand was not dusky-skinned, but had much of the same ivory shade as the rod, so that to Ross the meeting between flesh and wand was hardly distinguishable. Now, by one firm thrust, the hand planted the rod into the sand, leaving it to stand sentinel between the two parties. Retreating a step or two, the red-clad guards gave ground, but they did not reclasp their swords. Their attitude, Ross Judge, was that of men in some awe of their opponent, but men urged to defiance, either by a belief in the righteousness of their cause, or strengthened by an old hatred. Now the cloaked one began to speak, or was that speech. Certainly the flow of sound had little in common with the clicking tongue Ross had caught earlier.
This trill of notes possessed the rise and fall of a chant or song, which could have been a formula of greeting or a warning, and the lines of warriors escorting the chanter stood to attention. Their weapons still undrawn. Ross caught his lower lip between his teeth and bit down on it. That channing. It crawled into the mine, set up a pattern. He shook his head vigorously, and then was shocked by that recklessness, not that any of those on shore had glanced in his direction. The chant ended on a high, broken note. It was followed by a moment of silence, through which sounded only the wind and the beat of wave.
Then one of the laborers flung up his head and clicked a word or two. He and his fellows fell face down on the beach, cuffing their hands to pour sand over their unkept heads. One of the guards turned with a sharp yell to boot the nearest of the workers in the rifts.
But his companion cried out. The wand, which stood so erect when it was first planted, now inclined towards the working party, its sparks shooting so swiftly and with such slight break between that they were fast making a single beam. Ross jerked his hand from contact with the sonic. A distinct throb of pain answered that stepping up of the mysterious broadcast. The laborers broke and ran, or rather crawled on their bellies until they were well away before they got to their feet and pelted back down the strand. However, the guards were a sterner stuff. They were withdrawing all right, but slowly backing away. Their swords held up before them, as men might retreat before insurmountable odds. When they were well gone, the roved one took up the wand.
Holding it out beyond, the cloaked leader of the second party approached the two piles of salvage the workers had heaped into rough order. There was a detailed inspection of both until the robed one came upon the body. At a thrilled order, two of the warriors came up and laid out the corpse. When the robed one nodded, they stood well back. The rod moved, the tip rather than the nobbed head being pointed at the body. Ross's head snapped back. That bolt of light, energy, fire, whatever it was, issuing from the rod had dazzled him, into momentarily blindness, and a vibration of force through the air was like a blow. When he was able to see once more, there was nothing at all on the sand where the corpse had lain, nothing except a glassy trough from which some spirals of vapor arose.
Ross clung to his rock support badly shaken, men with swords, and now this. Some form of controlled energy which argued of technical development and science. Just as the cliff castle had bombarded with rocks, ships sailing with a speed which argued engine power of an unknown type. A mixture of barbaric and advanced knowledge. To assess this, he needed more experience, more knowledge than he possessed. Now Ash could—Ash? Ross would jerk back to his own quest. The rod was quiet. No more sparks were flung from a snob, and under Ross's touch his sonic was quiet also. He snapped off the broadcast. If that device had picked up the flickering of the rod, the reverse could well be true.
The cloaked one chose from the pile of goods, and its escort gathered up the designated boxes, a small cask or two. So laden, the party returned south the way they had come. Ross allowed his breath to expel in a sigh of relief. He worked his way further north along the coast, watching other parties of the furred workers and their guards. Lines of the former climbed the cliff, hauling their spoil, their destination the castle. But Ross saw no sign of ice, received no answer to the sonic code he had reset, Once the strangers were out of distance, and the Terran began to realize that his present search might well be fruitless, though he fought against accepting it. When he turned back to the Slick Cave, Ross's fear was ready to be expressed in anger, the anger of frustration over his own helplessness.
With no chance of trying to penetrate the castle, he could not learn whether or not Ash had been taken prisoner. And until the workers left the beach, he could not prowl there hunting the grimmer evidence his mind flinched from considering. Carwell waited for him on the inner ledge. There was no sign of the dolphins, and as Ross pulled out of the water, pushing aside his mask, her face in the thin light of the cave was deeply troubled. Did you find him? She made that a statement rather than a question. No. And I did not find it. Ross used a length of weed from the nest as a towel, but now I stood very still. The gate? No sign of it? Just this. She reached behind her and brought up a sealed container.
Ross recognized one of the supply cans they had had in the catch by the gate. There are others, scattered. Tala and Tina Ra seek them now. It is as if all that was on the other side was sucked through with us. Are you sure you found the right place?
Is—is this not part of it? Again the girl sought for something on the ledge. What she held out to him was a length of metal rod, twisted and broken at one end, as if a giant hand had wrenched it loose from the installation. Rod nodded dully. Yes? His voice was harsh, as if the words were pulled out of him against his will and against all hope. That's part of a sidebar. It must have been totally wrecked. Yet, even though he held that broken length in his hands, Ross could not really believe the gate was gone. He swam out once more, heading for the reef where the dolphins joined him as guides. There was a second piece of broken tube. The scattered containers were surprised. That was all. The Terrans were wrecked in time as surely as those ships had been wrecked on a sea-reef the night before.
Ross headed once again for the cave. Their immediate needs were of major importance now. The containers must be all gathered and taken into their hiding-place, because upon their contents three human lives could depend. He paused just at the entrance to adjust the net of containers he transported, and it was that slack chance which brought him knowledge of the intruder. On the ledge, Carwa was heaping up the kelp of the nest, but to one side and on a level with the girl's head, Ross dared not flash his torch, thus portraying his presence. Leaving the net hitched to the rock by its sling, He swam underwater along the side of the cave by a route which should bring him out within striking distance of that hunched figure perching above to watch Carawass every move.
This concludes a reading of Chapter Five.
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6 Ch06-Loketh The Useless 18:40
Locus the Useless. The warship waves covered Ross's advance until he came up against a wall not too far from the spies' perch. Whoever crouched there still leaned forward to watch Carrar, and Ross's eyes, having adjusted to the gloom of the cavern, made out the outline of head and shoulders. The next two or three minutes were the critical ones for the Terran. He must emerge on the ledge in the open before he could attack. Carrawha might also have read his mind and given conscious help, for now she went out to the point of the ledge to whistle the dolphin's summons. Tina Ross's sleek head bobbed above water as he answered the girl with a bubbling squeak. Carrawha knelt, and a dolphin came to butt against her outheld hand.
Ross heard a gasp from the watcher. A faint sound of movement. Carrawa began to sing softly, her voice rippling in one of the liquid chants of her own people, the Dauphin interjecting a note or two. Ross had heard them at that before, and it made perfect cover for his move. He sprang. His grasp tightened on flesh, fingers closed about thin wrists. There was a yell of astonishment and fear from the stranger, as the Terran jerked him from his perch to the ledge. Ross had his opponent flattened under him before he realized that the other had offered no struggle, but lay still. What is it? Kerwa's torch-beam caught them both. Ross looked down into a thin brown face, not too different from his own.
The wide-set eyes were closed, and the mouth gaped open. Though he believed the Vakakian unconscious, Ross still held hold on those wrists as he moved from the sprawled body. With the girl's aid, he used a length of kelp to secure the captain. The stranger wore a garment of glistening skin-type material, which covered body, legs, and feet, but left his lanky arms bare. A belt about his waist had loops for a number of objects, among them a hook-pointed knife, which Ross prudently removed. Why, he's only a boy, Carrawha said. Where did he come from, Ross? The Terran pointed to the wall crevice. He was up there watching you. Her eyes were wide and round. Why?
Ross dragged her prisoner back against the wall of the cave. After witnessing the fate of those who had swum ashore from the wreck, he did not like to think what motive might have brought the Avakakian here. Again, Carrawa's thoughts must have matched his, for she added, but he did not even draw his knife. What are you going to do with him, Ross? The problem already occupied the Terran. The wisest move, undoubtedly, was to kill the native out of hand, but since ruthlessness was more than he could stomach, and if he could learn anything from the stranger, gain some knowledge of this new world and its ways, he would be twice winner. Why, this encounter might even lead to ash. Ross? His leg? See?
The girl pointed. The tight fit of the alien's clothing made the defect clear. The right leg of the stranger was shrunken and twisted. He was a cripple. What of it? Ross demanded sharply. This was no time for an appeal to the sympathies. But Carrawa did not urge any modification of the bonds, as he half feared she would. Instead, she sat back, cross-legged, and odd, withdrawn expression, making her seem remote, though he could have put out his hand to touch her. His lameness. It could be a bridge, she observed through Rossa's mystification. A bridge? What do you mean? The girl shook her head. This is only a feeling, not a true thought, but also it is important. Look, I think he is waking. The lids above those large eyes were fluttering.
Then, with a shake of the head, the Abakakian blinked up at them. Blank bewilderment was all Ross could read in a stranger's expression, until the alien saw Kerouac. Then a flood of clicking speech poured from his lips.
He seemed utterly astounded when they made no answer, and the fluency of his first outburst took on a pleading note. While the expectancy of his first greeting faded away. Carrawa spoke to Ross. He is becoming afraid, very much afraid. At first, I think, he was pleased, happy. But why? The girl shook her head. I do not know. I can only feel. Wait! Her hand rose in inference command. She did not rise to her feet, but crawled on hands and knees to the edge of the ledge. Both dolphins were there, raising their heads well out of the water, their actions expressing unusual excitement. "'Ross?' Keroua's voice rang loudly. "'Ross? They can understand him. "'Tina Ra and Ta can understand him.' "'You mean they understand this language?
Ross found that fantastic, awesome as the abilities of the dolphins were. No, his mind.' "'It's his mind, Ross.' Somehow he thinks in patterns they can pick up and read. They do that, you know, with a few of us, but not in the same way. This is more direct, clearer. They're so excited. Ross glanced at the prisoner. The alien had wiggled about, striving to raise his head against the wall as a support. His captor pulled the Avakakean into a setting position. But the native accepted that aid almost as if he were not aware of Ross's hands on his body. He stared with a kind of horrified disbelief at the bobbing dolphin heads. He is afraid, Carrawa reported. He has never known such communication before.
Can they ask him questions? demanded Ross. If this odd metal tie between Terran Dauphin and Vakakin did exist, Then there was a chance to learn about this world. They can try. Now he only knows fear, and they must break through that. What followed was the most unusual foresighted conversation Ross could have ever imagined. He put a question to Carrawal, who related to the dolphins. In turn, they asked it mentally of the Vakakian, and conveyed his answer back via the same route. It took some time to allay the fears of the stranger. But at last the Avakakian entered wholeheartedly into the exchange. "'He is the son of the Lord ruling the castle above,' Carrawha produced the first rational and complete answer.
"'But for some reason he is not accepted by his own kind. Perhaps,' she added on her own, "'it is because he is crippled. The sea is his home, as he expresses it, and he believes me to be some mythical being out of it.' He saw me swimming, masked, and with the dolphins, and he is sure I changed shape at will. She hesitated. Ross, I get something odd here. He does know, or thinks he knows, creatures who can appear and disappear at will, and he is afraid of their powers. Gods and goddesses, perfectly natural. Karwa shook her head. No, this is more concrete than a religious belief. Ross had a sudden inspiration. Hurriedly, he described the cloaked figure who had driven the castle people from the piles of salvage.
Ask him about that one. She relayed the question. Ross saw the prisoner's head jerk around. The Avakakean looked from Carrawa to her companion. A shade of speculation in his expression. He wants to know why you ask about the Poana. Surely you must well know what manner of beings they are. Listen. Ross was sure now that he had made a real discovery, though its importance he could not guess. Tell him we come from where there are no falana, that we have powers and must know of their powers. If he could only carry on this interrogation straight and not have to depend upon a double translation. And could he even be sure his questions reached the alien undistorted? Wearily, Ross sat back on his heels.
Then he glanced at Carrawa with a twinge of concern. If he was tired by the roundabout communication, she must be doubly so. There was a droop to her shoulders, and her last reply had come in a voice hoarse with fatigue. Abruptly, he started up. That's enough for now. Which was true. He had to have time for evaluation, to adjust to what they had learned during the steady stream of questions passed back and forth. And in that moment he was conscious of his hunger, just as his voice was paper-dry from lack of drink, the canister of supplies he had left by the cave entrance. "'We need food and drink,' he fumbled with his mask. But Carra motioned him back from the water. "'Taw brings weight.' The Dauphin trailed the net of containers to them.
Ross unscrewed one, pulled out a bulb of fresh water. A second box yielded the dry wafers of emergency rations. Then, after a moment's hesitation, Ross crossed to the prisoner, cut his wrist bonds, and pressed both a bulb and a wafer into his hold. The Avakakian watched the Terrans eat before he bit into the wafer, chewing it with vigor. Turning the bulb around in his fingers with alert interest before he sucked at its contents. As Ross chewed and swallowed, mechanically, and certainly with no relish, he fitted one fact to another to make a picture of this Avakakean time period in which they were now marooned. Of course, his picture was based on facts they had learned from their captive. Perhaps he had purposely misled them, or fogged some essentials.
But could he have done that in a mental context? Ross would simply have to accept everything with a certain amount of cautious skepticism. Anyway, there were the records of the castle. Petty lordlings setting up their holes along the coasts, preying upon the shipping which was the lifeblood of this island-water world. The Terrans had seen them in action last night and today, and if the captive's information was correct, It was not only the storm's fury which brought the waves harvest. The wreckers had some method of attracting ships to crack up on their reefs. Some method of attraction? And that force which had pulled the Terrans through the time gate? Could there be a connection? However, there remained the wreckers on the cliff, and their prey, the seafarers of the ocean, with an understandably deep amenity between them.
These two parties Ross could understand and be prepared to deal with, he thought, but there remained the Fianna, and from the prisoner's explanation the Fianna were a very different matter. They possessed a power which did not depend upon swords or ships or the natural tools and weapons of men. No, they had strengths which were unearthly to give them superiority in all but one way, numbers. Though the Pauana had their warriors and servants, as Ross had seen on the beach, they themselves were of another race, a very old and dying race, of which few remained. How many? Their enemies could not say, for the Pauana had no separate identities known to the outer world. They appeared, gave their orders, levied their demands, opposed or aided as they wished, always just one or two at a time.
Always so muffled in their cloaks that even their physical appearances remained a mystery. But there was no mystery about their powers. Ross gathered that no record lord, no matter how much a leader, among his own kind, how ambitious, had yet dared to oppose actively one of the Poana, though he might make a token protest against some demand from them. And certainly the Capte's description of those powers in action suggested a supernatural origin of phoana knowledge, or at least for its application. But Ross thought that the answer might be that they possessed a remnant of some almost forgotten textical know-how, the heritage of a very old race. He had tried to learn something of the origin of the phoana themselves, wondering if the rogue ones could be from the Galactic Empire.
But the answer had come that the phoana were older than recorded time. That they had lived in the great citable before the race of the Terran's prisoner had risen from very primitive savagery. What do we do now? Carole broke in upon Ross's thoughts as she had refashioned the containers.
These slaves that the records take upon occasion may be ash. Ross was catching at very fragile straws. He had to, and the stranger had said that able-bodied men who swam ashore Relatively uninjured, were taken captive. Several had been the night before. Loka. Ross and Carrawa looked around. The prisoner put down the water bulb, and one of his hands made a gesture they could not mistake. He pointed to himself and repeated that word. Loka. The Terran touched his own chest. Ross Murdock.
Perhaps the other was as impatient as he with their roundabout method of communication, and had decided to try and speed it up. The analyzer. Ash had included the analyzer with the equipment by the gate. If Ross could find that, why, then the major problem would be behind them. Swiftly he explained to Carrawha, and with a vigorous nod of assent, she called to Tom. Ordering the rest of the salvage material from the gate be brought to them. Loka, Ross pointed to the youth. Ross, that was himself. Keroua, he indicated the girl. Ross. The alien made a clicking hiss of the first name. Keroua. He did better with the second. Ross carefully unpacked the box Taw had located. He had only slight knowledge of how the device worked.
It was intended to record a strange language, break it down into symbols already familiar to the time agents. But could it also be used as a translator with a totally alien tongue? He could only hope that the rough handling of its journey through the gate had not damaged it, and that the experiment might possibly work. Putting the box between them, he explained what he wanted, and Carrawa took up the small micro-disc, Speaking slowly and distinctly the same liquid civil wolf she had used in the dolphin song. Ross clicked the lever when she was finished, and watched the small screen. The symbols which flashed there had meeting for him right enough. He could translate what she had just taped. The machine still worked to that extent.
Now he pushed the box into place before Loka, and made the visibly reluctant Habakkuken take the disc from Carrawha. Then, through the dolphin length, Ross passed on definite instructions. Would it work as well to translate a stellar tongue as it had the languages past and present of his own planet? Reluctantly, Locuth began to talk to the disk, at first in a very rapid mumble, and then, as there was no frightening response, with less speed and more confidence. There were symbol lines on the visiplate in accordance, and some of them made sense. Ross was elated. Ask him, Can one enter the castle unseen to check on the slaves? For what reason? Ross was sure he had read those symbols correctly. Tell him that one of our kind may be among them.
Locus did not reply so quickly this time. His eyes, grave and measuring, studied Ross, then Carawal, then Ross again. There is a way. Discovered by this useless one. Ross did not pay attention to the odd adjective Locust chose to describe himself. He pressed to the important matter. Can and will he show me that way? Again, that long moment of appraisal on the part of Locust, before he answered. Ross found himself reading the reply symbols aloud. If you dare, then I will lead. This concludes the reading of Chapter Six.
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7 Ch07-Witches' Meat 20:55
Witches' Meat. He might be recklessly endangering all of them, Ross knew. But if Ash was immurred somewhere in that rock-pile over their heads, then the risk of trusting Lokuth would be worth it. However, because Ross was chancing his own neck did not mean that Karawa need be drawn into immediate peril, too. With the dolphins at her command and the supplies, scanty as those were, she would have a good chance to hide here safely. Holding out for what? She asked quietly after Ross elaborated on this subject, thus bringing him to silence, because her question was just. With the gate gone, the Terrans were committed to this time. Just as they had earlier been committed to Avakiki when on their home world, they had entered a spaceship for the takeoff.
There was no escape from the past, which had become their present. The Poana, she continued, These wreckers, the sea people, all at odds with one another. Do we join any? Then their quarrels must also become ours. Ton noticed the ledge behind the girl, squeaked a demand for attention. Karawa looked around at Loka. Her look was as searching as the one the native had earlier turned on her and Ross. He, the girl nodded at the Abacacian, wishes to know if you trust him. And he says to tell you this, because the shades chose to inflict upon him a twisted leg, he is not one with those of the castle, but to them a broken, useless thing. Ross, I gather he thinks we have powers like the foanna, and that we may be supernatural.
But because we did not kill him out of hand and have fed him, he considers himself bound to us. Rachel of bread and salt. Could be. Though it might be folly to match alien customs to Terran. Ross thought of that very ancient pact on his own world. Eat a man's food, become his friend, or at least declare a truce between you. Stiff taboos and codes of behavior marked nations on Terra, especially warrior societies, and the same might be true here. Ask him, Ross told Kerouac. What is the rule for food and drink between friends or enemies? The more he could learn of such customs, the better protection he might be able to weave for them. Long moments for the relay of that message, and then Lokus spoke into the micro-disk of the analyzer, slowly, with pauses, as if trying to make sure Ross understood every word.
To give bread into the hands of one you have taken in battle, Makes him your man, not as a slave to labor, but as one who draws sword at your bidding. When I took your bread, I accepted you as cup lord. Between sits there is no betrayal, for how may a man betray his lord? I, locust, am now a sword in your hands, a man in your service. And to me this is doubly good, for as a useless one I have never had a lord. Nor one to swear to. Also, with his sea-maid and her followers to listen to thoughts, hath could any man speak with a double tongue were he one who consorted with the shadow and wore the cloak of evil. He's right, Kirawa added. His mind is open. He couldn't hide his thoughts from Ta and Tina Raw even if he wooshed.
All right, I'll accept that. Ross glanced about the ledge. They had piled the containers at the far end. For Karawas to move might be safe. He said so. Move where? she asked flatly. Those men from the castle are still hunting drift out there. I don't think anyone knows of this cave. Ross nodded to Loka. He did, didn't he? I wouldn't want you trapped here, and I don't want to lose those supplies. What is in those containers may be what saves us all.
We can thank those over by the wall. Weigh them down in a net. Then if we have to move, they will be ready. Do not worry. That is my department. She smiled at him with a slightly mocking lift of lips. Ross subsided, though he was irritated because she was right. The management of the Dauphin team and sea matters were her department, and while he resented her reminder of that point, He could not deny the justice of her retort.
In spite of his crippled leg, Locust displayed an agility which surprised Ross. Freed from his ankle bonds, he beckoned a Terran back to the very niche where he had hidden to watch Carrawell. Up he swung into that, and in a second had vanished from sight. Ross followed, to discover it was not a niche after all, but the opening of a crevice. Leading upward as a vent, and it had been used before as a passage. There was no light, but the native guided Ross's hands to the hollow climbing holes cut into the stone. Then Locketh pushed past and went up the crude ladder into the dark. It was difficult to judge either time or distance in this black tomb. Ross counted the holes for some check. His agent training made one part of his mind sharply aware of such things.
The need for memorizing a passage which led into the enemy's territory was apparent. What the purpose of this slit had originally been, he did not know. But strongholds on Terra had had their hidden ways in and out for use in times of siege, and he was beginning to believe that these aliens had much in common with his own kind. He had reached twenty in his counting, and his senses, alerted by training and instinct, told him there was an opening not too far above. But the darkness remained so thick it fell in tangible folds about his sweating body. Ross almost cried out as fingers clamped about his wrist when he tried to reach for a new hole. Then urged by that grasp, he was up and out, sprawling into a vertical passage.
Far ahead was a gray of faint light.
Ross choked, and then sneezed as dust puffed up from between his scrambling hands. The hold which had been on his wrist shifted to his shoulder, and with a surprising strength, Locust hauled a Terran to his feet. The passage in which they stood was a slit extending in height well above their heads, but narrow, not much wider than Ross's shoulders. Whether it was a natural fault or had been cut, he could not tell. Locust throws a head again, his rocking limp making the outline of his body a jerky up-and-down shadow. Again his speed and agility amazed the Terran. Locust might be lame, but he had learned to adapt to his handicap very well. The light increased, and Rossmark slits in the walls to his right.
No wider than the breadth of his two fingers. He peered out of one and was looking into empty air, while below he heard the murmur of the sea. This way must run in the cliff face above the beach. A click of impatient whisper drew him on to join Loka. Here was a flight of stairs, narrow of tread, and very steep. Loka turned back and sighed against these to climb. His outspread hand flattened on a stone as if it possessed adhesive qualities to steady him. For the first time, his twisted leg was a disadvantage. Ross counted again, ten, fifteen of those steps, bringing them once more into darkness. Then they emerged from a well-like opening into a circular room. A sudden and dazzling flare of light made the Terran shade his eyes.
Locus set a pallid but glowing cone on a wall-shell, and the Terran discovered that the burst of light was only relative to the dark of the passage. Indeed, it was very weak illumination. The Abacacian braced his body against the far wall. The strain of his effort, whatever its purpose, was easy to read in the contorted line of his shoulders. Then the wall slid under Locus' urging. A slow move, as if the weight of the slab he strove to handle was almost too great for his slender arms, or else a need for caution was intensified here. They now fronted a narrow opening, and the light of the cone shone only a few feet into the space. Locust beckoned to Ross, and they went on. Here the left wall was cut in many places, emitting patches of light in a way which bore no resemblance to conventional windows.
It was like walking behind a pierced screen, which followed no logical pattern in the cutaway portions. Ross gazed out and gasped. He was standing above the center core of the castle, and the life below and beyond drew his attention. He had seen drawings reproducing the life of a feudal castle. This resembled them, and yet... As Ross studied the scene closer, the differences between the Terran past and this became more distinct. In the first place, there were those animals. Or were they animals? Being hooked up to a cart, they had six limbs, walking on four, holding the remaining two folded under their necks. Their hornets consisted of a network fitted over their shoulders, anchored to the folded limbs.
Their grotesque heads bobbing and weaving on lengthy necks. Their bodies were sleekly scaled. Ross was startled by a resemblance he traced to the sea-dragon he had met in the future of this world. But the creatures were subject to the men harnessing them, and the activity in other respects. Ross had to fight a wayward and fascinated interest in all he could see, force himself to concentrate on learning what might be pertinent to his own mission. But Lokoth did not allow him to watch for long. Instead, his hand on the Terran's arm urged the other down the gallery behind the screen, and once more into the bulk of the fortress. Another narrow way ran through the thickness of the walls. Then a patch of light, not that of outer day, but a reddish gleam from an opening waist-high.
There Lokoth went awkwardly to his good knee, motioning Ross to follow his example. What lay below was a hall furnished with a barbaric rawness of color and glitter. There were long strips of brightly-hued woven stuff on the walls. Touched here and there were sparkling glints, which were jewel-like. And set at intervals among the hangings were oval objects, perhaps Ross's height, on which were designs and patterns picked out in paint and metal. Maybe the stylized representation of native plants and animals. The whole gave an impression of clashing color, just as the garments of those gathered there were garish in turn. There were three Avacacians on the two-step dais. All wore robes fitting tightly to the upper portion of their bodies, girded to their waist with elaborate belts, then falling in long points to floor level, the points being finished off with tassels.
Their heads were covered with tight caps, which were a latest work of decorated strips, glittering as they moved, and a mixture of colors in their apparel was such as to offend Terran eyes with their harsh clash of shade against shade. Drawn up below the dais were two rows of guards, but the reason for the assembly baffled Ross, since he could not understand the clicking speech. There came a hollow echoing sound as from a gong. The three on the dais straightened, turned their attention to the other end of the hall. Ross did not need locust gesture to know that something of importance was about to begin. Down the hall was a somber note in a splash of clashing color. The Terran recognized the gray-blue robe of the Froana.
There were three of the robed ones this time, one slightly in advance of the other two. They came at a gliding pace, as if they swept along above that paved flooring, not by planting feet upon him. As they halted below the dais, the men there rose. Ross could read their reluctance to make that concession in the slowness of their movements. They were plainly being compelled to render deference when they longed to refuse it. Then the middle one of the castle lords spoke first. "'Zahur,' Locke reads in Ross's ear, His pointed finger indicating the speaker. Ross longed vainly for the ability to ask questions, a chance to know what was in progress. That the meeting of the two Avakakian factions was important he did not doubt.
There was an interval of silence after the castle lord finished speaking. To the Terran this fun on and on, and he sensed a mounting tension. This must be a show-down. Perhaps even a declaration of open hostilities between wreckers and the older race. Or perhaps the pause was a subtle weapon of the falana, used to throw a less sophisticated enemy off balance as a judo fighter might use an opponent's attack as part of his own defense. When the falana did make answer, it came in the sing-song of chanted words. Ross felt locust shiver. Felt the crawl of chill along his own spine. The words—if those were words, and not just sounds intended to play upon the mind and emotions of a listener—cut into one.
Ross wanted to close his ears, thrust his fingers into them to drown out that sound. Yet he did not have the power to raise his hands. It seemed to him that the men on the dais were swaying now as if the chant were a rope leased about them, Pulling them back and forth. There was a clatter. One of the guards had fallen to the floor and lay there, rolling, his hands to his head. A shout from the dais. The chanting reached a note so high that Ross felt a torment in his ears. Below, the lines of guards had broken. A party of them were heading for the end of the hall, making a wide decur around the foanna. Locust gave a small choked cry. His fingers tightened on Ross's forearm with painful intensity as he whispered.
What was about to happen meant something important. To Lokuth or to him? Ash. Was this concerned with Ash? Ross, crowded against the opening, tried to see the direction in which the guards had disappeared. The weight made him doubly impatient. One of the men on the dais had dropped on the bench there. His head forward in his hands, his shoulders quivering. But the one Locuth had identified as Zephyr still fronted the Phelanus spokesman, and Ross gave tribute to the strength of will which kept him there. They were returning, the guards, and herded between their lines three men. Two were of Achacians, their bare dark bodies easily identifiable, but the third, Ash, Ross almost shouted his name aloud.
The Terran stumbled along, and there was a bandage above his knee. He had been stripped to his swimming trunks, all his equipment taken from him. There was a dark bruise on his left temple, the angry whale of a lash mark on neck and shoulder. Ross's hands clenched. Never in his life had he so desperately wanted a weapon as he did at that moment. To spray the company below with a machine-gun would have given him great satisfaction. But he had nothing but the knife in his belt, and he was cut off from Ash as if they were in separate cells of some prison. The caution, which had been one of his inborn drifts, and which had been fostered by his training, clamped down on his first wild desire for action.
There was not the slightest chance of his doing Ash any good at the present. But he added this much, he knew that Gordon was alive and that he was in the alien's hands. Based by those facts, Ross could plan his own moves. The Fiona chant began again, and the three prisoners moved. The two Avakakians turned, set themselves on either side of Ash, and gave him support. Their actions had a mechanical quality, as if they were directed by a will beyond their own. Ash gazed about him at the wreckers and the rogue figures. His awareness of them both suggested to Ross that if the natives had come under the control of the Falanna, the Terran resisted their influence. But Ash did not try to escape the assistance of his two fellow prisoners, and he limped with their aid back down the hall, following the Falanna.
Ross deduced that the captives had been transferred from the Lord of the Castle to the Fawanna, which meant Ash was on his way to another destination. The Terran was on his feet and headed back, intent on returning to the Sea Cave and starting out after Ash as soon as he could. "'You have found Gordon?' Carrawha read the news from his face. The Wreckers had him prisoner. Now they've turned him over to the Fawanna. "'What will they do with him?' the girl demanded of Locust. His answer came round about, as usual as a native squatted by the analyzer, and clicked his answer into it. They have claimed the wreck survivors for tribute. Your companion will be witch's meat. Witch's meat? repeated Ross, uncomprehending.
Then Carrawha drew a gagged breath, which was a gasp of horror. Sacrifice! Ross, he must mean they are going to use Gordon for a sacrifice. Ross stiffened, and then whirled to catch Loka by the shoulders. The inability to question the native directly was an added disaster now. Where are they taking him? Where? He began that fiercely, and then forced control on himself. Karwa's eyes were half closed, her head back. She was manifestly aiming that inquiry at the Dauphin's to be translated to Loka. Symbols burned on the analyzer screen. These Boenna have their own fortress. It can be entered best by sea. There is a boat. I can show you, for it is my own secret. Tell him, yes, as soon as we can, Ross broke out.
The old feeling that time was all important worried at him. Witches' meat? Witches' meat? The words were sharp as a lash. This concludes the reading of Chapter Seven.
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8 Ch08-The Free Rovers 23:17
The Free Rovers. Twilight made a gray world where one could not trace the true meaning of land and water, sea and sky. Surely the haze about them was more than just the normal dusk of coming night. Ross balanced in the middle of the skip as it bobbed along the swell of waves inside a barrier reef. To his mind, the craft carrying the three of them and their net of supplies was too frail, rode too high. But Carrawa, paddling in the bow, and locusts at the stern seemed to be content, and Ross could not, for pride's sake, question their compensate. He comforted himself with the knowledge that no agent was able to absorb every primitive skill, and Carrawa's people had explored the Pacific in outrigger canoes hardly more stable than their present vessel, navigating by currents and stars.
Smothering his feeling of helplessness and a slow anger that roused in him, the Terran busies himself with study of a sort. They had had the longer part of the day in the cave before Locus would agree to venture out of hiding and paddle south. Ross, using the analyzer, had, with Locus' aid, set about learning what he could of the native tongue. Now possessed with a working vocabulary of clicked words, He was able to follow Loka's speech so that translation through the dolphins was not necessary except for complicated directions. Also he had a more detailed briefing of the present situation on Avakaki, enough to know that they might be embarking on a mad venture. The Citadel of the Fawana was distinctly forbidden ground, not only for Loka's people, but also for the Fawana's Avakakian followers, who were housed and labored In an outer ring of fortification come village.
Those natives were, Ross gathered, a hereditary corps of servants and warriors, born to that status and not recruited from the native population at large. As since they were armored by the magic of their masters. If the phoana are so powerful, Ross had demanded, why do you go with us against them? To depend so heavily on the native made him uneasy. The Hawakakian looked to Kaurah, one of his hands raised, his fingers guessed a sign towards the girl. With the sea-maid and her magic I do not fear. He paused before adding, Always has it been said of me, and to me, that I am a useless one, fit only to do women's tasks. No word-weaver shall ever chant my battle-deeds in the great hall of Zahir. I, who am Zahir's true son, cannot carry my sword in any lord's train.
But now you offer me one of the great to be remembered quests. If I go, so may I prove that I am a man, even if I go limpingly. There is nothing the Fialina can do to me which is worse than what the shadow has already done. Choosing to follow you, I may stand up to face Zahur in his own hall. Showing that the blood of his house has not been drained from my veins because I walk crookedly. There was such bitter fire, not only in the sputtering rush of Locke's words, but in his eyes, his face, the wry twist of his lips, that Ross believed him. The Terran no longer had any doubts that the castle outcast was willing to brave the unknown terrors of the Fulana keep. Not just to aid Ross, whom he considered himself bound to serve by the customs of his people, but because he saw in this venture a chance to gain what he had never had—a place in his warrior culture.
Shut off from the normal life of his people, he had early turned to the sea. His twisted leg had not proved a handicap in the water, and he stated with confidence that he was the best swimmer in the castle. Not that the men of his father's following had taken greatly to the sea, which they looked upon merely as a way of preying upon the true sea-rollers. The reef on which the ships had been wrecked was a snare of sorts. First by the whim of nature when wind and current piled up the trading ships there. Then Ross was startled when Lokus elaborated on a later development of that trap. So Zaheer returned from this meeting, and set up a great magic among the rock, according to the spells he was taught.
Now ships are drawn there, so the wrecks have been many, and Zahir becomes an even greater lord, with many men coming to take sword oath under him. This magic, asked Frost. Of what matter is it, and where did Zahir obtain it? It is fashioned so. Locusts catched two straight lines in the air, not curved as a sword. and the color of water under a storm sky, both rods being as tall as a man. There was much care to set them in place. This was done by a man of Glickmus. A man of Glickmus? Glickmus is now the High Lord of the Ikko. He is blood-kin to Zahir. Yet Zahir must take sword oath to send to Glickmus a fourth of all his sea-gleamings for a year in payment for this magic. And Glickmus? Where did he get it?
From the Pholana? Lokoth made an empathic denial of that. No, the Pholana has spoken out against their use, making even greater ill feeling between the Old Ones and the Coast People. It is said that Glickmus saw a great wonder in the sky and followed it to a high place of his own country. A mountain broke in twain, and a voice issued forth from the rent, Calling that the lord of the country come and stand to hear it. When Glikvus did so, he was told that the magic would be his. Then the mountain closed again, and he found many strange things upon the ground. As he uses them, they make him akin to the Thoana in power. Some he gives to those who are his blood-kin, and together they will be great until they close their fists not only upon the sea-rovers, but upon the Fawanna also.
This they have come to believe. But you do not? Carrara asked them. I do not know, sea-made. The time is coming when perhaps they shall have their chance to prove how strong is their magic. Already the rovers gather in fleets as they never did before. And it seems that they too have found a new magic. For their ships fly through the water, depending no longer on wind-filled sails, or upon strong arms of men at long paddles. There is a struggle before us, but that you must know, being who and what you are, she made. And what do you think I am? What do you think Ross is? If the Poana dwell on land, and hold old knowledge and power beyond our reckoning in their two hands, he replied, then it is possible that the same could have roots in the sea.
It is my belief that you are of the shades, but not the shadow. And this warrior is also of your kind, but perhaps in a different degree, putting into action your desires and whooshes. Thus, if you go up against the phoena, you shall be well matched, kind to kind. Nice to be so certain of that, Ross thought. He did not share Locke's confidence on that subject. The shades? The shadow? Carrera persisted. What are these, locusts? An odd expression crossed the Evacucan's face. Are these not known to you, sea-maid? Indeed, then, you are of a breed different from the men of land. The shades are those of power who may come to the aid of men should it be their desire to influence the future. And the shadow?
The shadow is that which ends all. Man? Hope, good, to which there is no appeal, and which holds a vast and enduring hatred for that which has life and full substance. So Zahir has this new magic. Is it the gift of shades or shadow? Ross brought them back to the subject, which had sparked in him a small warning signal. Zahir prospers mightily. Loka's answer was ambiguous. And so the shadow could not provide this magic, the Terran poosh. But before the Avakakian had a chance to answer, Carrera added another question. But you believe that it did? I do not know. Only the magic has made Zahir a part of Glikmus, and Glikmus is now perhaps a part of that which spoke from the mountain. It is not well to accept gifts which tie one man to another Unless there is from the first a saying of how deep that bond may run.
I think you are wise in that, Locust, Carrara said. But the uneasiness had grown in Ross. Alien powers out of a mountain heart passed from one lord to another. And on the other hand, the rover's sudden magic in turn, lending the ship's wings. The two facts balanced in an odd way. Back on Terra there had been the sudden and unaccountable jumps in technical knowledge on the part of the enemy, jumps which had set in action the whole time-travel service of which he had become a part. And these jumps had not been the result of normal research. They had come from the looting of derelict spaceships wrecked on his world in the far past. Could driblets of the same stellar knowledge have been here? Deliberately fed to warring communities.
He asked Locus about the possibility of space-born explorers. But to the Havakakian, that was a totally foreign conception. The stars for Locus were the doorways and windows of the shades, and he treated the suggestion of space travel as perhaps natural to those all-powerful specters, but certainly not for beings like himself. There was no hint that the Bacchi had been openly visited by a galactic ship, though that did not barge its landings. The planet was, Ross thought, thinly populated. Whole sections of the interiors of the larger islands were wilderness, and this world must be in the same state of only partial occupation as its own Earth had been in the Bronze Age, when tribes on the march had fanned out into virgin wilderness, great force, and steps unwalked by man before their coming.
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, begin 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? This cold-blooded fishing in carefully troubled waters fitted very well with the persons of the Baldees, 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, a castle in ruins, tall pylons reaching from the land into the sea. Was this the beginning of that change, which would end in the Abacaki of his own time, empty of intelligent life, shattered into a loose network of islands? This fog is strange, Carrewha'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 Locust kept his boat was truly a fog, piling up in soft billows and cutting down visibility with speed. The Poana, Locust's answer was sharp, a recognition of danger. They're magic. They hide their place so.
There is trouble. Trouble on the move.
To bring on a conflict which would occupy the native population to the point of exhaustion or deep population, so they could win a world for their own purposes, without effort or risk on their part. Since 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 Abacaki of his own time, empty of intelligent life, shattered into a loose network of islands? This fog is strange, Carawas' 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 Locust kept his boat was truly a fall, piling up in soft billows and cutting down visibility with speed. The foanna, Locust's answer was sharp, a recognition of danger. They're 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 Polanna. Too many times the reputations of medicine men had been so enhanced by coincidence, but he did doubt the wisdom of trying to bore a head blindly in this murk. Tau and Tinaraw can guide us, Karawa reminded him. Throw out the roe-cross. 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 a loose end overboard, to feel the cord jerked taut as one of the dolphins caught it up. They were being towed now, though both paddlers reinforced a forward tug with their efforts.
The curtain gathering above the surface of the water did not hamper the swimmers beneath the surface, and Ross felt relief. He turned his head to speak to Loka. 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 Seagate 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 bat de pot, will find it if we cannot. But they were never to reach that goal. Karawa 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 Lokoth broke in. A rover Raider. Three of them. Ross Brown. He was a 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. Hand in shore. 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, as St. Ross did not accept easily. "'No,' Locust returned as sharply, "'there is no place to land along the cliff.' "'We are between two of the shifts,' Carawa 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, Carrawha agreed, and he heard an ascending grunt from Loka. They were moving very slowly. Strong as the dolphins were, they dared not expend all their strength on toying 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 Foana Citadel. But the Terran's knowledge of tactics led him to guess that this impending visit was not anticipated by the Falena, 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 for 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 Fawanna 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 Locust 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 Carrawa. A moment or two later, there was a small bump against a 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 him. However, he was not prepared for what happened next.
Under him, the boat lurks first one way and then the other in sharp jerks, as if the dolphins were trying to spill them into the sea. Ross heard Carrawa call out. Her voice thin and frightened. Tau! Tiena Ra! They have gone mad. They will not listen. The boat raced in a zigzag path. Locust clutched at Ross, striving to steady him to keep the boat on an even keel. The Fawanna. Just as Locust cried out, Cariwau 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 Locust, 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, at his seat, slimy. Ross let out a choked cry as the lines tightened about his arms and body, pinioning him. Those tightened, woven in. Now he's being drawn up out of the plunging skiff, a helpless captain. His flailing legs, still free of the slimy cords, struck against the sides 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. Locusts dropped beside him, but Carilaw 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 a 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 tight 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 panning, knowing there was no easy way of escape from here.
This concludes the reading of Chapter Eight.
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9 Ch09-Battle Test 22:03
J. Davis. Key Out of Time by Andre Norton. Chapter Nine Battle Test Babel of Speech Cries, sounded muffled to Ross, made a mounting clamor on the deck. Had the raider's ship been boarded? Was it now under attack? He strove to hear and think through the pain in his head. The bewilderment. Locust? He was certain that the Bacchiaen 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 he carried through the planks on which he lay was stilled. Some engines 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. Lokoth. Ah! 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 towards the opposite side of the hole. There was a roar of voice, Bull Strong above the noise on deck, then the sound of feet back and forth there. The fire! Oh! Locust'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 seagate, and this was the result. The dolphins, what had made Tina Ra and Tawel react as they did, and if the rover's ship was out of control, it would be a good time to attempt escape. Locusth? Ross dared to call louder. Locusth? 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 Terrans heard sounds he could not identify, and the ship no longer rocked so violently. Lokuth moaned. As far as Ross could judge, they were heading out to sea. Lokuth? 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 panning with exhaustion. Ross? Only a evacacian could make that name a hiss. Here, Locusth. But of course it was Locusth. 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!' Lokith's reply came with long pauses between the words. The Terran was puzzled. What fire? Lokith 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 Locust talking about? I did not feel anything, he stated to himself, as well as to the Avakakian. Nothing burning in your head? So you could not think? No. It must have been the philanna magic, fire eating so that a man is nothing, only that which fire feeds upon. Carwa! Rosch's thoughts flashed back to those few seconds when the dolphins had seemed to go crazy. Carwa had then called out something about the foanna.
So the dolphins must have felt this, and Carwa, and Locust, whatever it was, but why not Ross Murdock? Carwa possessed an extra, undefinable sense which gave her contact with the dolphins. Locust had a mind which those could read in turn. But this 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 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 seagate.
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 covey, and a figure swung over and down a side ladder, coming to stand over Ross, feet apart for balancing, accommodatingly to the swing of the vessel with the ease of long practice. Thus Ross came to face to face with his first representative of the third party in the Abacacian 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 tents wove opaline lines. His head was bare except for a broad, scaled band running from the nape of his neck to the midpoint 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 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. Sisbravado 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 Froana? He paused as if waiting for an answer. Denial or protest? Ross provided neither. No, not the Froana, nor the scum of the coast either. Again a pause. So what matter of feast has come to the net of Torgul? He called an order aloft. A rope here. We'll have this feast and his fellow out. Loketh and Ross were jerked up to the upper deck, dumped into the midst of a crowd of seamen.
The Abacquean 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 beast does not like the net. "'You have teeth, beasts. Use them. Slice yourself free.' A murmur of applause from the crew answered that mild talk. Ross thought it time for a counter move. "'I see you do not come too close to those teeth.' He used the most defiant words his limited Avakakian 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, Fisch,' he asked, and his tone could be a warning.
This was going blind with 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. Mr. Mr. Mr. More than one voice called. One of the crew took a step or two forward. Like Torgul, he was tall and heavy, his overlong 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 Visterfys? Again the officer had a formal note in his question. as if this was all part of some ceremony. If he meets 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 Vistar'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. Mr. Laft. Well said, Fisch. So be it. Torgel'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 midair.
Then the rover spoke. He carries no unlawful magic. Mr. nodded. He's no foanna. And what need have I to fear the spells of any coast-crawler? I am Vister. Again the yells of his supporters arose in hearty answer. The statement held more complete and quiet confidence than any worldly boast. And I am Ross Murdock, the Terran master rover, tone for tone. But does a feast swim with its fins bound to its sides? Or does Vister fear a free feast too greatly to face one? His taunt brought the result Ross wanted. The ties were cut from behind to flutter down as withered, useless strings. Ross flexed his arms. Tight as those thongs had been, they had not constricted circulation, and he was ready to meet Vister.
The Terran did not doubt that the rover champion was a formidable fighter, but he had not had the advantage of going through one of the agent training courses. Every trick of unarmed fighting known on his own world had been pounded into Ross long ago. His hands and feet could be as deadly weapons as any crook-bladed sword or gun, provided he could get close enough to use them properly. Vister stripped off his weapon belt. Put to one side his helmet, showing that under it his hair was plaited into a braid coiled about the crown of his head, to provide what must be an extra padding for that strangely narrowed helm. Then he peeled off his armor, peeled it literally indeed, catching the lower edge of the scale covering with his hands, and pulling it up and over his head and shoulders as one might skin off a knitted garment.
Now he stood facing Ross, wearing little more than the Terran swimming trunks. Ross had dropped his belt and gill pack. He moved into the circle the crew had made. From above came a strong light, centering from a point on the main mast and giving him good sight of his opponent. Vister was being urged to make a quick end of the reckless challenger, his supporters shouting directions and encouragement. But if the rover had confidence, he also possessed the more intelligent and valuable trait of caution in the face of the unknown. He outweighed, Apparently outmatched Ross, but he did not rush in rashly as his backers wished him to. They circled, Ross studying every move of the rover's muscles, every slight fraction of change in the other's balance.
There would be something to telegraph an attack from the other, for he intended to fight purely in defense.
The charge came at last as the crew grew impatient, and yelled their impatience to see the prisoner taught a lesson. But Ross did not believe it was that which sent Vister at him. The Avakakian simply thought he knew the best way to take the Terran. Ross ducked so that a hammer blow merely grazed him, but the Terran's stiffened hand swept sideways in a judo chop. Vister gave a whooping cry and went to his knees, and Ross swung again, sending the rover flat to the deck. It had been quick, but not so vicious as it might have been. The Terran had no desire to kill or even disable Mr. for more than a few minutes. His victim would carry a couple of aching bruises, and perhaps a hearty respect for a new mode of fighting from this encounter.
He could have as easily been dead, had either of those blows landed other than where Ross chose to plant them. Ah! The Terran swung around, setting his back to the foot of the mast. Had he guessed wrong? With their chosen champion down, would their crew now rush him? He had gambled on the element of fair play, which existed in a primitive Terran warrior society after a man-to-man challenge. But he could be wrong. Ross waited tense. Just let one of them pull a weapon, and it could be his end. Two of them were aiding Vistar to his feet. The rover's breath whistled in and out of him with that same whooping. And both of his hands rose unsteadily to his chest. The majority of his fellows stared from him to the slighter Terran, as if unable to believe the evidence of their eyes.
Torgo gathered up from the deck the belt and gilpac Ross had shed in preparation for the fight. He turned the belt around over his forearm until the empty knife-sheet was uppermost. One of the crew came forward and slammed back into its proper place, The long diver's knife, which had been there when Ross was captured. Then the rover offered Belt and Gilpak to Ross. The Terran relaxed. His gamble had paid off. By the present signs, he had won his freedom. And my swordsman? As he buckled on a belt, Ross nodded at Lokoth, still lying bound where they had pushed him at the beginning of the fight. He is sworn to you? Thorgal asked. He is. Loose the Kostrat, then, the rover ordered. Now, tell me, stranger, what matter of man are you?
Do you come from the Poana, after all? You have a magic which is not our magic. Since the stone of Pukka did not reveal it on you, are you from the Shades? His fingers moved in the same sign Locust had made before Carrawha. Ross gave his chosen explanation. I am from the sea, Captain. As for the Fawanna, they are no friend to me, since they hold captive in their keep one who is my brother Ken. Torgel stared him up and down. You say you are from the sea? I have been a rover since I was able to stumble on my two feet across the deck, after the manner and custom of my people. Yet I have never seen your like before. Perhaps your coming means ill to me and mine, but by the law of battle you have won your freedom on this ship.
I swear to you, however, stranger, that if ill comes from you, then the law will not hold, and you shall match your magic against the strength of Pukka. That, you shall discover, is another thing altogether. I will swear any oath you desire of me, Captain, that I have no will towards you and yours. There is only one whoosh I hold, to bring him who I seek out from the Fajona hold, before they make him which is meet. That will be a task worthy of any magic you may be able to summon, stranger. We have tasted this night of the power of the sea-gate. Through it we went in under the wheel of Puka. We were as weeds whirled about on the waves. Who enters that gate must have more force than any we now know.
And you, too, then, have a score to settle with the Phoenna. "'We have a score against the Phoenna, or against our magic,' Torgel admitted. "'Three ships, one island faring, are gone as if they never were. And those who went with them are of our fleet plan.' "'There is a work of the shadow stretching dark and heavy across the sea, new come into these waters.' But there remains nothing we can do this night. We have been lucky to win to sea again. Now, stranger, what shall we do with you? Or will you take to the sea again, since you name it as home? Not here, Ross countered swiftly. He must gain some idea of where they might be in relation to the island. How far from its shore? Carrewha and the Dolphins, what has happened to them?
You took no other prisoners? Ross had to ask. "'There were more of you?' Torgale cantered. "'Yes. No need to say how many,' Ross decided. "'We saw no others. You—all of you,' the captain rounded on the steel-clustered crew. "'Get about your work. We must raise Kyan Ad by morning and report to the council.' He walked away, and Ross, determined to learn all he could, followed him into the stern cabin. Here again the Terran was faced with barbaric splendor, in carvings, hangings, a wealth of plate and furnishings not too different from the display he had seen in the wrecker's castle. As Ross hesitated just within the doorway, Torgo glanced back at him. "'You have your life, and that of your man, stranger.
Do not ask more of me, unless you have that within your hands to enforce the asking.' "'I want nothing, save to be returned to where you took me, Captain.' Torgel smiled grimly. "'You are the sea. You yourself said that. The sea is wide, but it is all one. Through it you must have your own paths. Take any you choose. But do not risk my ship again into what lies in wait before the gates of the Phoana.' "'Where do you go, then, Captain?' Dekayan added, You have your own choice, stranger—the sea or our ferry. There would be no way of changing the rover's decision, Ross thought, and even with the gilpac, he could not swim back to where he had been taken. There were no guideposts in the sea. But a longer acquaintance with Torgel might be helpful.
Kyanad then, Captain. He made the next move to prove equality and establish himself with this rover, seating himself at the table as one who had the right to share the captain's quarters. This concludes the reading of Chapter Nine.
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10 Ch10-Death at Kyn Add 20:46
Death at Cyan-An.
The hour was close to dawn again, and a need for sleep weighed in Ross's eyelids, was a craving as strong as hunger. Still, restlessness had brought him on deck, sent him to pacing, alert to this vessel and its crew. He had seen the ships of the Terran-Bron Age treasures, small craft compared to those of his own time. Depending upon oarsmen, when the wind failed or sails, Creeping along coasts rather than venturing too far into dangerous seas, sometimes even tying up at the shore each night. There had been other ships, leaner, hardier, those that plunged into the unknown, touching lands beyond the sea-mist, sailed and oared by men plagued by the need to learn what lay beyond the horizon. And here was such a ship, taught, well-kept, Larger than the Viking long-boats, Ross had washed on the tapes of the project's collection, yet most like those far-faring Terran craft.
The prow curved up in a mighty bowspheres, where was the carved likeness of the sea-dragon Ross had fought in the Vakaki of his own time. The eyes of that monster flashed with a regular blink of light, which the Terran did not understand. Was it a signal, or merely a device to threaten a possible enemy? There were sails, now flurled, as this ship bore on, answering to the steady throb of what could only be an engine, and his puzzlement held. As Viking longboat powered by a motor, the mixture was incongruous. The crew were uniform as to face. All of them wore the flexible, pearly armor, the skull-stripped helmets, though there were individual differences in ornaments and the choice of weapons.
The majority of the men did carry curved-pointed swords, though these were broader and heavier than those the Terran had seen ashore, but several had axes with sickle-shaped heads, whose points curved so far back that they nearly meant to form a circle.
Spaced at regular intervals on deck were box-like objects fronting what resembled gun ports, and smaller ones of the same type were on the raised deck at the stern, and mounted in the prow, their muzzles, if the square fronts might be deemed muzzles, flanking the blinking dragon head. Catapults of some type, Ross wondered. Ross? His name was given the hiss Locust used. But it was not the wrecker youth who joined him now at the stern of the ship. Ho! That was strong magic, that fighting knowledge of yours. Vister rubbed his chest reminiscently. "'You have big magic, sea-man. But then you serve the maid, do you not?' "'Your swordsman has told us that even the great fish understand and obey her.' "'Some fish,' qualified Ross.
"'Sich fish as that, perhaps?' Vistar pointed to the curling wake of foam. Startled, Ross stared in that direction. Torgal's command was the centermost of a trio of ships, and those crews in a line—' Leaving three trails of troubled wake behind them. Coming up now to port in the comparative calm between two wakes was a dark object. In the limited light, Ross could be sure of nothing save that it trailed the ships, appeared to rest on, or only lightly, in the water, and that its speed was less than that of the vessels it doggedly pursued. A feast? That? Ross asked. Watch, Mr. ordered. But the Avakakian sight must have been keener than the Terran's. Had there been a quick movement back there, Ross could not be sure.
What happened? He turned to Vissar for enlightenment. As a Salkar, he leaps now and then above the surface. But that is no Salkar. Unless, Ross, you who say you are from the sea, have servants unlike any finned one we have drawn in by net or line before this day. The Dauphins? Could Tina Ra or Ta be both in steady pursuit of the ships? But Karwa, Ross leaned against the rail, stared until his eyes began to wander from the strain of trying to make out the nature of the black blot. No use. The distance was too great. He brought his fist down against the wood, trying to control his impatience. More than half of him wanted to burst into Torgo's quarters, demand that the captain bring the ship about to pick up or contact that trailer or trailers.
Yours? again Vistar asked. Ross had tight rein on himself now. I do not know. It could well be. It could well be also that the smart thing would be to encourage the rovers to believe that he had a force of sea-dwellers much larger than the four time castaways. The leader of an army, or a navy, Had more prestige in any truth discussion than a member of a lost scouting party. But the thought that the dolphins could be trailing held both promise and worry. Promise of allies, and worry over what had happened to Carwa. Had she, too, disappeared after Ash into the hold of the Fawanna? The day did not continue to lighten. Though there was no cottony mist that had enclosed them the night before, There was an odd muting of sea and sky limiting vision.
Shortly Ross was unable to sight the follower or followers. Even Vistar admitted he had lost visual contact. Had the block been hopelessly outdistanced, or was it still dogging the wakes of the rover's ships? Ross shared the morning meal with Captain Torgul. A round of leathery substance with a salty, meaty flavor and a thick mixture of what might be native fruit reduced to a tart paste. Once before he had tasted alien food, when in a derelict spaceship it had meant eat or starve. And this was a like circumstance, since their emergency ration supplies had been lost in the net, but though he was apprehensive, no ill effects followed. Torgel had been uncommunitive earlier. Now he was looser of tongue, Volunteering that they were almost to their port, the ferry of Kian Az.
The Terran had no idea how far he might question the Abacacan. Yet, the fuller his information, the better. He discovered that Torgal appeared willing to accept Ross's statement that he was from a distant part of the sea, and that local customs differed from those he knew.
Living on and by the sea, the rovers were quick-witted, adaptive, with a highly flexible, if loose-knit organization of fleet clans. Each of these had control over certain islands, which served them as farings, forts for refitting, and anchorage between voyages, usually ruggedly wooded, where the sea-people could find the raw material for their ships. Colonies of clans took to the sea, Not in the slim, swift cruisers like the ship Ross was now on, but in larger, deeper vessels, providing living quarters and warehouses afloat. They lived by trade and rating. Spending only a portion of the year ashore to grow fast-sprouting crops on their faring islands, and indulge in some manufacture of articles, the inhabitants of the larger and more heavily populated islands were not able to duplicate.
Their main article of commerce was, however, a sea-dwelling creature whose subtle and well-tanned hide formed their defensive armor and served manifold other uses. This could only be hunted by men trained and fearless enough to brave more than one danger, Torgo did not explain in detail, and a cargo of its skins brought enough in trade to keep a normal-sized fleet clan for a year. There was warfare among them. Rival clans tried to jump each other's hunting territories, raid ferries. But until the media passed, Ross gathered, such encounters were relatively bloodless affairs, depending more upon craft and skillful planning to reduce the enemy to a position of disadvantage, in which he was forced to acknowledge defeat, rather than a ruthless battle of no quarter.
The shore-side's record lords were always considered fair game. And there was no finesse in rover raids upon them. Boas were conducted with a cold-blooded determination to strike hard at a long-time foe. However, within the past year there had been several raids on Farings with the same bloodbath result of a foray on a wrecker port. And since all the fleet plans denied the sneak and strike, kill and destroy tactics which had finished those rover holdings, The seafarers were divided in their opinion as to whether the murderous raids were the work of wreckers, suddenly acting out of character and taking to the siege to bring war back to their enemies, or whether there was a rogue fleet moving against their own kind for some purpose no rover could yet guess.
And you believe, Ross asked as Torgel finished his resume of the new dangers besetting his people. Torgel's hand His long, slender fingers, spidery to tear an ice, rubbed back and forth across his chin before he answered. It is very hard for one who has fought them long to believe that suddenly those shore rats are entrusting themselves to the waves, venturing out to stir us with their swords. One does not descend into the depths to kick a choker in a rump, not if one still has its wit's safety encased under his skull braid. As for a rogue fleet, what would turn brother against brother to the extent of slaying children and women? Raiding for a wife? Yes, that is common among our youth, and there have been killings over such matters, but not the killing of a woman, never of a child.
We are a people who have never as many women as there are men who wish to bring them into the home cabin. And no clan has as many children as they hope the shades will send them. Then who? When Torgel did not answer at once, Ross glanced at the captain, and what the Terran thought he saw showing for an instant in the other's eyes was a revelation of danger. So much so that he blurted out, You think that I? We?
You have named yourself of the sea, stranger. And you have magic which is not ours. Tell me this in truth. Could you not have killed Vister easily with those two blows if you had whooshed it? Ross took the bowl course. Yes, but I did not. My people kill no more wantonly than yours. The coast-rats I know, and the Poana, as well as any man may know their kind and ways, and my people. But you I do not know, sea stranger. And I say to you, as I have said before, make me regret that I suffered you to claim battle rights, and I shall speedily correct that mistake. Captain! The cry came from the cabin door behind Ross. Torgel was on his feet with swift movements of a man called many times in the past for an instant response to emergency.
The Terran was close on the rover's heels as they reached the deck. A cluster of crewmen gathered on the port side near the narrow bow. That odd misty quality this day held provided a murk hard to pierce, but the men were gesturing at a low-riding object rolling with the waves. That was near enough for even Ross to be able to distinguish a small boat akin to the one in which he, Carwa, and Locuth had dared to see gate of the Thawana. Torgel took up a great cur's shell hanging by a thong on the main mass. Setting its narrow end to his lips, he blew. A weird booming note, like the coughing of a sea monster, carried over the waves. But there was no answer from the drifting boat. No sign it carried any passengers.
Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Targo's signal was re-echoed by shell calls from the other two cruisels. Heave to, the captain ordered. Wachty. Zyman. Joanna. Out and bring that in. Three of the crew leaped to the railing, poised there for a moment, and then dived almost as one into the water. A rope end was thrown, caught by one of them, and then they swam with powerful strokes towards a drifting boat. Once a rope was made fast, a small craft was drawn towards Togo's command. The crewmen swimming beside it. Ross longed to know the reason for the tense expectancy of the men around him. It was apparent the skiff had some ominous meaning for them. Ross caught a glimpse of a body huddled within the craft. Under Torgal's orders, a sling was dropped, to rise, weighted with a passenger.
The Terran was shouldered back from the rail by his limp body was hurried into the captain's cabin. Several crewmen slid down to make an examination of the boat itself. Their heads came up. Their eyes searched along the rail and centered on Ross. The hostility was so open that Terran braced himself to meet those cold stairs as he would a rush from a challenger. A slight sound behind sent Ross leaping to the right, wanting to get his back against solid protection. Lokuth came up, his limp making him awkward so that he clutched at the rail for support. In his other hand was one of the hook's swords barred and ready. "'Get the murderers.' Someone in the back line of the massing crew yipped that.
Ross drew his diver's knife. Shaking at this sudden change in the crew's attitude, he was wearily on the defensive. Locust was beside him now, and the Avakakian nodded to the sea. "'Better go there,' he cried. "'Over before they try to gut you. Kill!' The words shrilled into a roar from the rovers. They started up the deck towards Ross and Loken. Then someone leaped between, and Vister fronted his own comrades. Stand away. One of the others ran forward, thrusting at the tall rover with a stiff and outheld arm to bend him out of their path. Vister rolled a shoulder, sending the man shunting away. He went down, while two more, unable to halt, thudded on him. Vister stamped on an outstretched hand and sent a sword spinning.
"'What goes here?' Torgals demand, was loud enough to be heard. It stopped a few of the crew, and two more went down as the captain struck out with his fist. Then he was facing Ross. The chill in his eyes was a threat the others had voiced. "'I told you, sea stranger, that if I found you are a danger to me or mine, you would meet the justice of Putka.' You did, Ross returned. And in what way am I now a danger, Captain? Kai and Ad has been taken by those who are not wreckers, not rovers, not those who serve the Falanna, but strangers out of the sea. Ross could only stare back, confused, and then the full force of his danger struck home. Who those raiding sea-strangers could be, he had no idea.
But that he was now condemned out of his own mouth was true, and he realized that these men were not going to listen to any argument from him in their present state of mind. The growl of the crew was that of a hungry animal. Ross saw the wisdom in Locust's choice. Far better chance the open sea than the mob before them. But his time for choice had passed. Out of nowhere whirled a lacy gray-white net. Slapping him back against a bulkhead to glue him there. Ross tried to twist loose, got his head around in time to see Loka scramble to the top of the rail, turn as if to launch himself at the men speeding for the now helpless Terran. But the Evacquian's crippled leg failed him, and he toppled back over side.
No! Again Torgul's shout halted the crew. He shall take the black curse with him when he goes to meet the shadow. And only one can speak that curse. Bring him. Helpless, reeling under their blows, dragged along, Ross was thrown into the captain's cabin, confronted by a figure braced up by coverings and cushions in torgles on chair. A woman, her face a drawn death-head of skin pulled tight upon bone, yet a fiery inner strength holding her mind above the suffering of her body, looked at the Terran with narrowed eyes. She nursed a bandaged arm against her, and now and then her mouth quivered as if she could not altogether control some emotion or physical pain. "'Yours is a cursing, lazy Jaza. Make it heavy to bear for him, as his kind has laid the burden of pain and remembering on all of us.' She brought her good hand up to her mouth, wiping its back across her lips as if to temper their quiver.
and all the time her eyes held upon Rush. "'Why do you bring me this man?' Her voice was strained. "'He is not of those who brought the shadow to Kyanad?' "'What?' Torgel began, and then schooled his voice to a more normal tone. "'Those were from the sea.' He was gentle in his questioning. "'They came out of the sea, using weapons against which we had no defense.' She nodded. "'Yes.' They made very sure that only the dead remained. But I had gone to the shrine of Pootka since it was my day of duty, and Pootka's power threw its shade over me. So I did not die, but I saw. Yes, I saw. Not those like me? Ross dared to speak to her directly. No, not those like you. There were few. Only so many. She spread out her five fingers.
And they were all one, like as if born in one birth. They had no hair on their heads, and their bodies were of this hue. She plucked at one of the coverings they had heaped about her. It was a lavender-blue mixture. Ross sucked in his breath, and Torgel was fast to pounce upon the understanding he read in the Terran's face. "'Not your kind, but still you know them.' "'I know them,' Ross agreed. They are the enemy. The Baldies from the ancient space ships, that wholly alien race with whom he had fought a desperate encounter on the edge of an unnamed sea in the far past of his own world. The galactic voyagers were here, and in active, if secret, conflict with the natives.
This concludes the reading of Chapter 10.
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11 Ch11-Weapon From The Depths 20:50
J. Davis. Key at a Time by Andre Norton. Chapter 11. Weapon from the Depths. Josje told her story with an attention to time and detail which amazed Ross and won his admiration for her breed. She had witnessed the death and destruction of all which was her life, and yet she had to wit to note and record mentally for possible future use all that she had been able to see of the raiders. They had come out of the sea at dawn, walking with supreme confidence and lack of any fear. Axes flung when they did not reply to the sentry's challenges had never touched them, and a bombardment of heavier missiles had been turned aside. They proved invulnerable to any weapon the rovers had. Men who made suicidal rushes to use sword or battle-axe hand to hand had fallen, before they were in striking distance.
From spraying tongues of fire from tubes the aliens carried. Rovers were not fearful or easily cowed, but in the end they had fled from the five invaders, gone to ground in their halls, tried to reach their beach ships, only to die as they ran and hid. The slaughter had been remorseless and entire, leaving Jazia in the hill shrine as the only survivor. She had hidden for the rest of the day, seen the killing of a few fugitives, and that night had stolen to the shore, lost one of the ship's boats, which was in a cove well away from the main harbor of the ferry, heading out to sea in the hope of meeting the homing cruisers with our warning. They stayed there on the island, Ross asked. That point of her story puzzled him.
If the object of that murderous raid had been only to stir up trouble among the Avakakian rovers, perhaps turning one clan against the other, As he had deduced when he had listened to Torquil's report of similar happenings, then the star men should have withdrawn as soon as their mission was complete, leaving the dead to call for vengeance in the wrong direction. There would be no reason to court discovery of their true identity by lingering. When the boat was a sea, there were still lights in the fairing hall, and they were not our lights, nor did the dead carry them, she said slowly. Why add those to fear? They cannot be killed.
If they are still there, that we can put to the test, Torgel replied grimly, and a murmur from his officers bore out his determination. And lose all the rest of you? Ross retorted coldly. I have met these before. They can will a man to obey them. Look, you. He slammed his left hand flat on the table. The ridges of scar tissue were plain against his tan skin. He knew no better way of driving home the dangers of dealing with the star men than providing this graphic example. I held my own hand in fire, so that the hurt of it would work against their pull upon my thoughts, against their willing that I come and be easy meat for their butchering. Jazia's fingers flickered out. smoothed across his old scars lightly as she gazed into his eyes.
"'This, too, is true,' she said slowly, "'for it was also pain of body which kept me from their last snare. "'They stood by the hall, and I saw Pahad, Okun, Moshai come out to them to be killed, as if they were in a whole net and were drawn. "'And there was that which called me also,' so that I would go to them, though I called upon the power of Puka to save. And the answer to that plea came in a strange way, for I fell as I went from the shrine, and cut my arm on the rocks. The pain of that hurt was as a knife severing the net. Then I crawled for the wood, and that calling did not come again. If you know so much about them, tell us what weapons we may use to pull them down. That demand came from Vister.
Ross shook his head. I do not know. Yet, Jazzy amused, all things which live must also die sooner or later. And it is in my mind that these have also a fate they dread and fear. Perhaps we may find and use it. They came from the sea by a ship, then? Ross asked. She shook her head. No, there was no ship. They came walking through the breaking waves as if they had followed some road across the sea bottom. A sub. What is that? Torgel demanded. A type of ship which goes under the waves, not through them, carrying air within its hull for the breathing of the crew. Torgel's eyes narrowed. One of the other captains who had been summoned from the two companion cruisers gave a snort of disbelief. There are no ships, he began.
To be silenced by a gesture from Torgel, we know of no such ships, the other corrected, but then we know of no such devices as Jazia saw in operation either. How does one war upon these under-the-sea ships, Ross? The Terran hesitated. To describe to men who knew nothing of explosives the classic way of dealing with a sub via depth charges was close to impossible. But he did his best. Among my people, one imprisons in a container a great power. Then the container is dropped near the sub, and—and how, broke in the skeptical captain, do you know where such a ship lies? Can you see it through the water? In a way, not sea, but here. There is a machine which makes for the captain of the above-seas ship a picture.
of where the sub lies or moves, so that he may follow his course. Then, when he is near enough, he drops a container, and the power breaks free, to also break apart the sub. Yet, the making of such containers and the imprisoning of the power within them, Torgel said, this is the result of a knowledge which is greater than any safety phoena may possess. You do not have it? His conclusion was half statement, half question. "'No, it took many years and the combined knowledge of many men among my people to make such containers such a listening device. I do not have it.' "'Why, then, think of what we do not have?' Torgel's return was decisive. "'What do we have?' Ross's head came up. He was listening, not to anything in that cabin, but to a sound which had come through the fork just behind his head.
There. It had come again. He was on his feet. What? Vister's hand hovered over the axe at his belt. Ross saw their gaze centered on him. We may have reinforcements now. The Terran was already on his way to the deck. He hurried to the rail and whistled. The thin, shrill summons he had practiced for weeks before he had ever begun this fantastic adventure. A sleek, dark body broke water, and the dolphin's grin was exposed as Tina Ra answered his call. Though Ross's communication powers with the two-finned scouts was very far from Karros, he caught the message in part and swung around to face the rovers who had crowded after him. We have a way now of learning more about your enemies. A boat! It comes without sail or oars, one of the crew pointed.
Ross waved vigorously, but no hand replied from the skip. Though it came steadily onward, the three cruisers its apparent goal. Karawa, Ross called. Then side by side with Tina Ra were two wet heads, two masked faces showing as the swimmers trod water. Karawa and Loka. Drop ropes. Ross gave that order as if he rather than Torgul commanded, and the captain himself was one of those who moved to obey. Locust came out of the sea first, and as he scrambled over the rail he had his sword ready, looking from Ross to Torgul. The Terran held up empty hands and smiled. No trouble now. Locust snapped up his mask, so the sea-maid said the finned ones reported. Yet before... These thirsted for your blood on their blades.
What magic have you worked? None. Just the truth has been discovered. Ross reached for Carrawa's hand as she came nimbly up the rope, swung her across the rail to the deck, where she stood unmasked, brushing back her hair and looking around with a lively curiosity. Carrawa, this is Captain Torgel. Ross introduced the rover commander, who was staring round-eyed at the girl. Kiriwa is she who swims with the finned ones, and they obey her. Ross gestured to Tina Ross. It is Taw who brings the ship, he asked the Polynesian. She nodded. We followed from the gate. Then Lokus came and said that—that—she paused and then added, But you do not seem to be in danger. What has happened? Much. Listen, this is important.
There is trouble at an island ahead. The Baldies were there. They murdered the kin of these men. The odds are they reached there by some form of sub. Send one of the Dauphins to see what is happening, and if they are still there. Karawa asked no more questions, but whistled to the Dauphin. With a flip of tail, Tina Ra took off. Since they could make no concrete plan of action, the cruiser captains agreed to wait for Tina Ra's report, and to cruise well out of sight of the faring harbor until it came. This police fin magic, Ross remarked at Carrawha, has one advantage. The natives seem able to take in their stride the fact the dolphins will scout for us. They have lived their lives on the sea, for yet they must have a vast respect.
Perhaps they know, as did my people, that the ocean has many secrets, some of which are never revealed, except to the forms of life which claim their homes there. But even if you discover this baldy sub, what will the rovers be able to do about it?" I don't know. Yet. Ross could not tell why he clung to the idea that they could do anything to strike back at the superior alien force. He only knew that he was not yet willing to relinquish the thought that in some way they could. And Ash. Yes, Ash. I don't know. It hurt Ross to admit that.
Back there, what really happened at the gate? He asked Keroua. All at once, the dolphins seemed to go crazy. I think for a moment or two they did. You felt nothing? No. It was like a fire slicing through the head. Some protective device of the thawanna, I think. A metal defense to which he was not sensitive, which meant that he might be able to breach that gate if none of the others could. But he had to be there first. Suppose, just suppose, Torgel could be persuaded that this attack on a gutted Kyan ad was useless. Would the rover commander take them back to the Kauanakeep? Or with the Dauphins and the Skiff, Could Ross himself return to make the try? That he could make it on his own, Ross doubted.
Excitement and willpower had buoyed him up throughout the past of Bacchiaen day and night. Now, fatigue closed in, past his conditioning and the built-in stimulant of the Terran rations, to enclose him in a groggy haze. He had been warned about this reaction. But that was just another item he had pushed out of his conscious mind. The last thing he remembered now was seeing Carrawa move through a fuzzy cloud.
Voices argued somewhere below. The force of that argument carried more by tone than by any words Ross could understand. He was pulled sluggishly out of a slumber too deep for any dream to trouble, and lifted heavy eyelids to see Carrawa once again. There was a prick in his arm, or was that part of the unreality about him? Four, five, six, she was counting, and Ross found himself joining in. Seven, eight, nine, ten. On reaching ten, he was fully awake, and knew that she had applied the emergency procedure they had been drilled in using, giving him a pep shot. When Ross sat up on the narrow bunk, There was a light in the cabin, and no sign of day outside the porthole. Torgel, Vister, the two other cruiser captains, all there, and Jazya.
Ross swung his feet to the deck. A pep-shot headache was already beginning, but would wear off soon. There was, however, a concentration of tension in the cabin, and something must have driven Carrawha to use the drug. What is it? Kerwa fitted the medical kit into the compact carrying case. Tina Ra has returned. There is a sub in the bay. Suppose the rovers could find a way of cutting off the power. The seamaid told us that this ship sits on the bottom of the harbor. If we could board it, began Torgill. Yes, Vister brought his fist down against the end of the bunk, on which the Terran still sat, jarring the dull Drug-borne pain in Ross's head. Take it, then turn it against its crew. There was an eagerness in all rover faces, for that was a game the Avakakian seafarers understood.
Take an enemy ship and turn his armament against its companions in a fleet. But that plan would not work out. Ross had a healthy respect for the technical knowledge of the galactic invaders. Of course, he... Carrawa, even Locuth, might be able to reach the sub. Whether they could then board her was an entirely different matter. Now the Polynesian girl shook her head. But broadcast there, Tina Raw rates it as lethal. There are dead beasts floating in the bay. He had warning at the reef entrance. Without a shield, there would be no way of getting in. Might as well whisper a death bomb, Ross began, and then stopped. You have thought of something? A shield. Ross repeated her words. It was so wild, this thought of his, and one which might have no chance of working.
He knew almost nothing about the resources of the invaders. Could that broadcast which protected the sub, and perhaps activated the weapons of the invaders ashore, be destroyed? A wall of fish, sea-life herded in there as a shield. Wild, yes, even so wild it might work. Ross outlined the idea, speaking more to Carrawa than to the rovers. "'I do not know,' she said doubtfully. "'That would need many fish, too, many to herd and drive. "'Not fish,' Targo cut in. "'Salkars.' "'Salkars? "'You have seen the bow carving on this ship. "'That is a Salkar.' Sitch are larger than a hundred beasts. Salkars driven in, they might even wreck this undersea ship with their weight and anger. And you can find these Salkars nearby?
Ross began to take fire. That dragon which had hunted him. The bulk of the thing was well above any other sea life he had seen here. And to its furosity he could give testimony.
At the spawning reefs. We do not hunt at this season which is the time of the taking of mates. Now, too, they are easily angered, so they will even attack a cruiser. To slay them at present is a loss, for their skins are not good, but they would be ripe for battle were they to be disturbed. And how would you get them from the spawning reefs to Kyan Ad? That is not too difficult. The reef lies here. Torgel drew lines with the point of his sword on the table top. And here is Kyanad. Sulkars have a great hunger at this time. Show them bait, and they will follow. Especially will they follow swimming bait. There were a great many holes in the plan, which had only a halfway chance of working. But the rover seized upon it with enthusiasm, and so it was set up.
Perhaps some two hours later, Ross swam towards the land-mast of Kyanad. Gleams of light pricked on the shore well to his left. These must mark the rover's settlement, and again the Terran wondered why the invaders had remained there, unless they knew that there had been three cruisers out on a raid, and for some reason they were determined to make a complete mop-up. Carrawha moved a little to his right, Taw between them. The Dauphin super senses their guide and warning. The swiftest of the cruisers had departed. Locuth on board to communicate with Tina Ra in the water. Since the male Dauphin was best equipped to provide a fox for Shulkar hounds, he was the bait for this weird fishing expedition.
No further. Ross's sonic pricked a warning against his body. Through that he felt a jolt which sent him back away from the bay entrance. On the reef, Carawas' tap-coat drew him on a new course. Moments later they were both out of the water, though the wash of waves over their flippered feet was constant. The rocks among which they crouched were a rough harborage from which they could see the shore as a dark blot, but they were well away from the break and a one-in-a-million chance. Ross commented as he put up his mask. Was not the whole time agent project founded on just such chances? Carrawa asked the right question. This was Ross's kind of venture. Yes, one in a million chances had been pulled off by the time agents.
Why, it had been close to those odds against their ever finding what they had first sought along the back trails of time—direct spaceships. Just suppose— This could be a rehearsal for another attack. If the saw-cars could be made to crack the guard of the Baldies, could they also be used against the Foanna Gate? Maybe. But take one fight at a time. They come. Carrawa's fingers gripped Ross's shoulder. Her hand was hard, bar rigid. He could see nothing, hear nothing. That warning must have come from the dolphins. But so far their plan was working. The monsters of the Abakchachean Sea were on their way. This concludes the reading of Chapter 11.
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12 Ch12-Baldies 22:23
J. Davis. Key Out of Time by Andre Norton Chapter 12 Baldies Oh! Carrawha clutched at Ross, her breath coming in little gasps, giving bent to her fear and horror. They had not known what might come from this plan. Certainly neither had foreseen the present chaos in the lagoon. Perhaps the broadcast energy of the enemy whipped the already vicious-tempered Salkars into this insane fury. But now the moonlit water was beaten into foam as a creature spot there. attacking each other with a ferocity neither Terran had witnessed before. Lights climbed along the shore, for the alien invaders must have been drawn by the clamor of the fighting marine reptiles. Somewhere in the heights above the beach of the lagoon, a big band of rovers should now be making their way from the opposite side of Kyan Ad under strict orders not to go into attack unless signaled.
Whether the independent sea warriors would hold to that command was a question which had worried Ross from the first. Tina, Ra, and Taw, in the waters in the seaweed of the reef, the two Terrans on that barrier itself, and between them and the shore, the wild melee of Madden Salkars. Ross started. The sonic warning, which had been pulsating steadily against his skin, cut off sharply. The broadcast in the bay had been silenced. This was the time to move, but no swimmer could last in the lagoon itself. Along a reef, Carrawa said. That would be the long way round, Ross knew, but the only one possible. He studied the cluster of lights ashore. Two or three figures moved there. Seemingly, the attention of the aliens was well centered upon the battle still in progress in the lagoon.
Stay here, he ordered the girl. Adjusting his mask, Ross dropped into the water, cutting away from the reef, and turning to swim parallel with him. Tina Ra matched him as he went. Guiding Ross to a second break in the reef toward the shore some distance from where the conflict of Salkars still made a hideous din in the night. The Terran waited in the shadows. Stripping off his slippers and snapping them to his belt, letting his mask swing free on his chest. He angled towards the beach where the aliens had been. At least he was better armed for this than he had been when he had fronted the rovers with only a diver's knife. From the time agent supplies, he had taken the single hand weapon he had long ago found in the armory of the derelict spaceship.
This could only be used sparingly, since they did not know how it could be recharged, and the secret of its beams still remained secret as far as Terran technicians were concerned. Ross worked his way to a curtain of underbrush from which he had a free view of the beach and the aliens. Three of them he counted, and they were baldies all right, taller and thinner than his own species. Their bald heads, gray-white, The upper dome of their skulls overshadowing the features of their pointed chin faces. They all wore the skin-tight blue-purple-green suits of the space-forgers. Suits, which Ross knew of old, were insulated and protective for their wearers, as well as a medium for keeping in touch with one another, just as he, wearing one, had once been trailed over miles of wilderness.
To him, all three of the invaders looked enough alike to have been stamped out of one pattern, and their movements suggested that they worked or went into action with drilled precision. They all faced Seaward, holding tubes aimed at the Salkar-infested lagoon. There was no sound of any explosion, but green spheres of light shrunk at the scaled bodies plunging in the water, and where those beams struck, flesh seared. Methodically, the trio raked a basin, but Ross noted those beams which had been steady at his first sighting were now interrupted by flickers. One of the Baldies upended his tube, wrapped its butt against a rock as if trying to correct a jamming. When the alien went into action once again, his weapon flashed and failed.
Within a matter of moments, the other two were also finished. The lighted rods pushed into the sand, giving a glow to the scene, darkened as a fire might sink to embers. Power fading. An ungainly shape floundered out of the churned water. Lumbered over the shale of the beach, its subtle neck outstretched, its horned nose down for a gore-threatening charge. Ross had not realized that the saw-cars could operate out of what he thought was their natural element. But this wild-eyed dragon was plainly bent on reaching its tormentors. For a moment or two the baldies continued to front the creature. Almost, Ross thought, as if they could not believe that their weapons had failed them. Then they broke and ran back to the faring, which they had taken with such contemptuous ease.
The shalkar plowed along in their wake, but its movements grew more labored the further it advanced. until at last it lay with only its head upraised, darting it back and forth, its fanged jaws well agape, voicing a copping howl. Its flaint was answered from the water as a second of its kind wallowed ashore. A terrible wound had tore its skin and flesh just behind its neck, yet still it came on, hissing and bubbling a battle challenge. It did not attack its fellow. Instead it dragged its boat past the first comer, on its way after the Baltis. The Sokars continued to come ashore. Two more, a third, a fourth, mangled and torn, pulling themselves as far as they could up the beach. To lie facing inland, their necks weaving, their horned heads bobbing, their cries a frightful din.
What had drawn them out of their preoccupation of battle among themselves into this attempt to reach the aliens Ross could not determine, unless the intelligence of the beasts was such that they had been able to connect the searing beams which the Baltis had turned on them so tellingly with the men on the beach, and had responded by striving to reach a common enemy.
But no desire could give them the necessary energy to pull far ashore. Almost helplessly, They continued to dig into the yielding sand with their flippers in a vain effort to pursue the aliens. Ross skirted the clambering berry of Salkars and headed for the ferry. A neck snapped about. A head was lowered in his direction. He smelled the rank stench of reptile combined with burned flesh. The nearest of the brutes must have scented the Terran in turn, as it was now trying vainly to edge around to cut across Ross's path, but it was completely outclassed on land, and the man dodged it easily. Three Baltis had fled this way, yet Jazia had reported five had come out of the sea to take Kyanad. Two were missing.
Where? Had they remained in the fairing? Were they now in the sub? And that sub, what had happened to it? The broadcast had been cut off. He had seen the failure of the weapons and the shorelights. Might the sub have suffered from Sulkar attack? Though Ross could hardly believe that the beast could wreck it. The Terran was traveling blindly, keeping well under cover of such brush as he could, knowing only that he must head inland. Under his feet, the ground was rising, and he recalled the nature of this territory as Torgul and Jazia had pictured it for him. This had to be part of the ridge wall of the valley in which lay the buildings of the ferry. In these heights was the shrine of Kuka, where Jazia had hidden out.
To the west now lay the Rover village. So he had to work his way left, downhill, in order to reach the hole where the Baldies had gone to ground. Ross made that progress with the stealth of a trained scout. Habakkukia's moon Triplen's eyes to tear his companion was up, and the landscape was sharply clear, with shadows well defined. The glow, weird to Terran eyes, added to the effect of being abroad in a nightmare, and the bellowing of the grounded salkars continued a devil's course. When the rovers had put up the buildings of their fairing, they had cleared a series of small fields radiating outward from those structures. All of these were now covered with crops almost ready to harvest. The grain, if that Terran term could be applied to this Abacacian product, was housed in long pods, which dipped from shoulder-high bushes, and the pods were well equipped with horny projections which tore.
A single try at making his way into one of those fields convinced Ross of the folly of such an advance. He sat back to nurse his scratched hands and surveyed the landscape. To go down a very tempting lane would be making himself a clear target for anyone in those buildings ahead. He had seen the flamers of the Baldi's fail on the beach, but that did not mean the aliens were now weaponless. His best chance, Ross decided, was to circle north, come back down along the bed of a string. And he was at the edge of that water course when a faint sound brought him to a frozen halt, weapon ready. Ross, Loken, and Torgel, and Vistar. This was a party from the opposite side of the island, gone expertly to Earth.
In the moonlight Ross could detect no sign of their presence, yet their voices sounded almost beside him. They are in there, in the great hall. That was Torgel. But no longer are there any lights. Now, an urgent explanation drew their attention. Light below, but not the glow of the rods Ross had seen on the beach. This was a warm, yellow-red of honest fire, bursting up, the flames growing higher as if being fed with frantic haste. Three figures were moving down there. Ross began to believe that there were only this trio ashore. He could sight no weapons in their hands, which did not necessarily mean they were unarmed. But the stream ran close behind the rear wall of one of the buildings, and Ross thought his bed could provide cover for a man who knew what he was doing.
He pointed out as much to Torgol, and if their magic works, and you are drawn out to be killed, the rover captain came directly to the point. This is a chance to be taken, but remember— The magic of the foanna at the sea-gate did not work against me. Perhaps this won't either. Once earlier I won against it. Have you then another hand to give to the fire as your defense? That was Vister, but no man has the right to order another's battle challenge. Just so, replied Ross sharply, and this is a thing I have long been trained to do. He slid down into the stream bed. Approaching from this angle, the structures of the fairing were between him and the fire. So screened, he reached a log wall, got to his feet, and edged along it.
Then he witnessed a wild scene. The fire raged in great sky-touching tongues, and already the roof of one of the rover buildings smoldered. Why the aliens had built up since the conflagration, Ross could not guess. A signal designed to reach some distance? He did not doubt there was some urgent purpose, for the three were dragging in fuel with almost frenzied haste, bringing out of the rover buildings, bales of cloth to be ripped apart and whirled into the devouring flames, furniture, everything movable which would burn. There was one satisfaction. The Baldies were so intent upon this destruction that they kept no watch Say that now and then one of them would run to the head of the path leading to the lagoon and listen as if he expected a saw-car to come pounding up the slope.
They're—they're rattled. Ross could hardly believe it. The Baldies, who had always occupied his mind and memory as practically invisible supermen, were acting like badly frightened primitives. And when the enemy was off balance, you pushed. You pushed hard. Ross thumbed the button on the grip of the strange weapon. He sided with deliberation and fired. The blue figure at the top of the path wilted, and for a long moment neither of his companions noted his collapse. Then one of them whirled and started for the limp body, his colleague running after him. Ross allowed them to reach his first victim before he fired the second and third time. All three lay quiet, but still Ross did not venture forth until he had counted off a dozen Terran seconds.
Then he slipped forward, keeping to cover until he came up to the bodies.
The blue-clad shoulder had a flaccid feel under his hand, as if the muscles could not control the flesh about them. Ross rolled the alien over, looked down in the bright light of the fire into the Baldi's wide-open eyes. Amazement. The Terran thought he could read that in the dead stare which answered his intent gaze. And then anger, a cold and deadly anger which chilled into ice. Kill! Ross slew around, still down on one knee, to face the charge of a rover. In the firelight, the Abacacian's eyes were blazing with fanatical hatred. He had his hooked sword ready to deliver a finishing stroke. The Terran, blocked with a shoulder to meet the rover's knees, threw in back. Then Ross landed on top of the fighting's crewman, trying to pin the fellow to earth and avoid that recklessly slicing blade.
"'Lokuth, Vister!' Ross shouted as he struggled. More of the rovers appeared from between the buildings, bearing down on the limp aliens and the two fighting men. Ross recognized the limping gait of Lokuth, Using a branch to aid him into a running shuttle across the open. Locust, here. The Abacacian covered the last few feet in a dive, which carried him into Ross and the rover. Hold him, the tarrant ordered, and had just time enough to throw himself between the Baltis and the rest of the crew. There was a snarling from the rovers, and Ross, knowing their temper, was afraid he could not save the captives, which they considered fairly their legitimate prey. He must depend upon the hope that there were one or two cooler heads among them with enough authority to restrain the would-be avengers.
Otherwise he would have to beam them into helplessness. "'Torgel!' he shouted. There was a break in the line of runners speeding for him. The big man lunging straight across could only be Vister. The other, yelling orders, was Torgel. It would depend upon how much control the captain had over his men. Ross scrambled to his feet. He had clicked on the beamer to its lowest frequency. It would not kill, but would render his victim temporarily paralyzed. And how long that state would continue, Ross had no way of knowing. Tried on Terran laboratory animals, the time had varied from days to weeks. Vistar used the flat side of his war-axe, Clapping it against the foremost runners, setting his own bulk to impose a barrier.
And now Torgor's orders appeared to be getting through. More and more of the men slacked. Leaving a trio of hotheads, two of them Vistar sat reeling with his fists. The captain came up to Ross. They are alive, then? He leaned over to inspect the Baldy the Terran had rolled on his back, assessing the alien's frozen stare with thoughtful measurement. Yes, but they cannot move. Well enough, Torgel nodded. They shall meet the justice of Putka after the law. I think they will wish that they had been left to the boarding-axes of angry men. They are worth more alive than dead, Captain. Do you not wish to know why they have carried war to your people? How many of them there may yet be to attack, and other things?
Also— Ross nodded at the fire now catching the second building. Why have they built up that blaze? Is it a signal to others of their kind?
Very well said. Yes, it may be well for us to learn such things. Nor will Puka be jealous of the time we take to ask questions and get answers. Many answers. He prodded the baldy with the toe of his seabird. How long will they remain so? Your magic has a bite to it. Ross smiled. Not my magic, Captain. This weapon was taken from one of their own ships. As to how long they will remain so? That I do not know. Very well. We can take precautions. Under Torgos' orders, the aliens were draped with capture nets like those Ross and Locuth had worn. The sea-grown plant adhered instantly. Wet strands, knitting in perfect restrainers, as long as it was uncut. Having seen to that, Torgel ordered the evacuation of Kyanad.
As you say, he remarked to Ross, that fire may well be a signal to bring down more of their kind. I think we have had the favor of Fuca in this matter, but the prudent man stretches no favor of that kind too far. Also, he looked about him, we have given to Fuca and the shades are dead. There is nothing for us here now but hate and sorrow. In one day we have been broken from a clan of pride and ships to a handful of standardless men.
You will join some other clan? Karawah had come with Jazia to stand on a stone ledge, chipped to form a base for a column bearing a strange, brooding-eyed head-looking seaward. The rover roaming was superintending the freeing of the head from the column. At the Terran girls' question, the captain gazed down into the dreadful chaos of the valley. They could yet hear the roars of the dying Salkars. The reptiles that had made their way to land had not withdrawn, but still lay, some dead now, some with weaving heads reaching inland, and the whole of the fairing was ablaze with fire. We are now blood-sworn men, sea-made, for since there is no clan, there is only the hunting and the kill. With the magic of Puka, perhaps we shall have a short hunt and a good kill.
There! Now! So! Jazia stepped back. The head which had faced the sea was lowered carefully to a wide strip of chrism and gold stuff she had brought from Torgal's ship. With her one usable hand, the rover woman drew the fabric about the carving, muffling it except for the eyes. Those were large ovals, deeply carved, and in them Ross saw a glitter. Jules sat there. Yet he had a queer, silvery feeling that something more than gems occupied those sockets, that he had actually been regarded for an instant of time, assessed and dismissed. We go now. Jazia waved, and Torgel sent men forward. They lifted the raft carving to a board carried between them and started down slope. Karawa cried out, and Ross looked around.
The pillar which had supported the head was crumbling away, breaking into a rubble which cascaded across the stone ledge. Ross blinked. This must be an illusion, but he was too tired to be more than dully amazed. as he became one of the possession returning to the ships. This concludes a reading of chapter 12.
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13 Ch13-The Sea Gate of the Foanna 22:27
Ross raised a shell cup to his lips, but hardly sipped the fiery brew it contained. This was a gesture of ceremony, but he wanted a steady head and a quick tongue for any coming argument. Torgal, a Fuchta, Ungah, the three commanders of the rover-cruisers, Jazia, who represented the mysterious power of Fuchta, Vistur, and some other subordinate officers. Cariwal himself, with Locust hovering behind, a council of war, but summoned against whom? The Terran had come too far afield from his own purpose, to reach ash in the Poana Keep, and to further his own plans was a task he doubted his ability to perform. His attack on the Baldies had made him too important to the Rovers for them to allow him willingly to leave them on a quest of his own.
These star men, Ross set down the cup, tried to choose the most telling words in his limited Hevachycan vocabulary, possess weapons and powers you cannot dream of, that you have no defense against. Back at Kyanad, we were lucky. The Salkars attacked their sub and halted the broadcasts, powering their flamers. Otherwise we could not have taken them, even though we were many against their few. Now you talk of hunting them in their own territory, on land and in the mountains where they have their base. That would be folly akin to swimming barehanded to front a salkar. So, then we must set and wait for them to eat us up, flared Ongel. I say it is better to die fighting with one's Blade wet. Do you not wish to take at least one of the enemy with you when you fight to that finish?
Ross countered. These could kill you before you came in blade range. You had no trouble with that weapon of yours, Baccheta spoke of. I have told you. This weapon was stolen from them. I have only one, and I do not know how long it will continue to serve me. or whether they have a defense against it. Those we took were naked to any force, for their broadcast had failed them, but to smash blindly against their main base would be an act of madmen. The saw cars opened a way for us. That was Torgel. But we cannot move a pack of those inland to the mountains, Vister pointed out reasonably. Ross studied the captain. that Torgel was groping for a plan, and that it had to be a shrewd one, the Terran guests.
His respect for the rover commander had been growing steadily since their first meeting. The cruiser raiders had always been captained by the most daring men of the rover clans. But Ross was also certain that a successful cruiser commander must possess a level-headed leaven of intelligence, and be a strategist of parts. The Abacchaean force needed a key which would open the Baldy base as the Salkars had opened the lagoon, and all they had to aid them was a handful of facts gained from their prisoners. Oddly enough, the picklock to the captains' minds had been produced by the dolphins. Just as Tina Ra and Tau had formed a bridge of communication, between the Terran and Locus, so did they read and translate the thoughts of the galactic invaders.
For the Baldies, among their own kind, were telepathic, vocalizing only to give orders to inferiors. Their capture by these primitive inferiors had delivered the first shock, and the mind-probes of the dolphins had set the supermen close to the edge of sanity. To accept an animal form as an equal had been shattering, but the star-minted thoughts and memories had been winnowed at last, and the results spread before this impromptu council. Rovers and Terrans were briefed on the invaders' master plan for taking over a world. Why they desired to do so, even the dolphins had not been able to discover. Perhaps they themselves had not been told by their superiors. It was a plan almost contemptuous in its simplicity, as if the galactic force had no reason to fear effective opposition except in one direction, one single direction.
Ross's fingers tightened on the shell cuff. Had Torgel reached that conclusion yet? The belief that the Phoenic could be their key. If so— They might be able to achieve their separate purposes in one action. It would seem that they are weary of the foanna, he suggested, alert to any tell-tale response from Torgel. But it was Jazia who answered the Terran's half-question. The foanna have a powerful magic. They can order wind and wave, man and creature, if so be their will. Well might these killers fear the foanna. Yet now they move against them, Ross pointed out, still eyeing Torgel. The captain's reply was a small, quiet smile.
Not directly, as you have heard. It is all a part of their plan to set one of us against the other, letting us fight many small wars, and so use up our men while they take no risk. They wait the day when we shall be exhausted, And then they will reveal themselves to claim all they wish. So today they stir up trouble between the wreckers and the foanna, knowing that the foanna are few. Also they strive in turn to anger us by raids, allowing us to believe that either the wreckers or foanna have attacked. Thus he held up his left thumb, made a pincers of right thumb and forefinger to close upon it. They hoped to catch the foanna between wreckers and rovers. Because the foanna are those they reckon the most dangerous, they move against them now, using us and weakening our forces into the bargain.
A plan which is clever, but the plan of men who do not like to fight with their own blades. They are worse than a co-scum, these cowards, ongle spat. Torgal smiled. That is what they believe we will say, kinsmen, and so underrate them. By our customs, yes, they are cowards. But what care they for our judgments? Did we think of the sulcars when we used them to force the lagoon? No. They were only beasts to be our tools, so now it is the same with us. Except that we know what they intend, and we shall not be such obedient tools. If the foanna are our answer, then—he paused, gazing into his cup as if he could read some shadowy future there. If the foanna are the answer, then what? Raspoush. Instead of fighting the foanna, we must warn, cherish, try to ally ourselves with them, and do all that while we still have time.
Just how do we do these things? demanded Ongel. The foanna you would warn, cherish, claim as allies, are already our enemies. Were we not on the way to force their sea-gate only days ago? There is no chance of seeking peace now. And have the finned ones not learned from the woman killers that already there is an army of wreckers camped about the citadel to which these sons of the shadow plan to lend certain weapons? Do we throw away three cruisers, all we have left, in a hopeless fight? Such is the counsel of one struck by loss of wits. There is a way, my way, Ross seizing the opening, and the Poana Citadel is my sword lord, to whose service I am vowed. We were on our way to attempt his freeing when your ship picked us out of the waves.
He is learned beyond me in the dealing with strange peoples, and if the Fawana are as clever as you say, they will already have discovered that he is not just a slave they claim from Lord Zaheur. There it was in the open, his own somewhat tattered hope that Ash had been able to impress his captors with his knowledge and potential. Trained to act as contact man with other races, There was a chance that Gordon had saved himself from whatever fate had been planned for the prisoners the Fawanna had claimed. If that happened, Ash would be their opening wedge in the Fawanna stronghold.
This also I know. That which guards the gate, which turns your minds whirling, and sets you back from your raid, does not affect me. I may be able to win inside and find my clansman, and in that doing treat with the Fawanna. The Baldy prisoners had not underestimated the attack on the Fawanna Citadel. As the rover cruisers beat in under the cover of night, the fires and torches of both besieged and besiegers made a wild glow across the sky. Only on the seaside of the fortress there was no sign of involvement. Whatever guarded the gate must still be enforced. Ross stood with his feet well apart to balance his body against a swing of the deck. His suggestion had been argued over, protested, but at last carried with the support of Torgal and Jazio.
And now he was to make his try. The sum of the rover's and locust's knowledge of the Seagate had been added for his benefit, but he knew that this venture must depend upon himself alone. The Dolphins, the Avakakians, were all too sensitive to the barrier. Torgel moved in the faint light. We are close. Our power is ebbing. If we advance, we shall be drifting soon. It is time, then. Ross crossed to the rope ladder, but another was there before him. Carrawha pursed on the rail. He regarded her angrily. You can't go. I know. But we are still safe here. Just because you are free of one defense of the gate, Ross, do not believe that makes it easy. He was stung by her assumption that he would be so self-assured.
I know my business. Ross pushed past her, swinging down the rope ladder, pausing only above water level to snap on flippers, make sure of the set of his weighted belt, and slide his gill mask over his face. There was a splash beside him, As the net containing spare belt, flippers, and mask hit the water, and he caught at it. These would provide Asher's escape from the fortress. The lights on the shore made a wide arc of radiance across the sea. As Ross headed toward the wave-course coast, he began to hear shouting and other sounds, which made him believe that the besiegers were in the midst of an all-out assault. Yet those distant fires and rocket-like blasts into the sky had a wavery blur, and Ross, making his way with the effortless watercleaving of the diver, surfaced now and then to spot film curling up from the surface of the sea between the two standing rock pillars which marked the sea gate.
He was startled by a thunderous crack, rending the air above the small bay. Ross pulled one of the pillars, studied himself with one hand against it, Those twists of film rising from the surging surface were thickening. More tentacles grew out of the parent stems to creep along above the waves, raising up sprouts and branches in turn. A wall of mist was building between gate and shore. Again a thunderclap overhead. Involuntarily, the Terran ducked. Then he turned his face up to the sky. Striving to see any evidence of storm. What hung nurse fed the growth of the fog on the water? Yet, where the fog was gray-white, it was a darkness spouting from the highest point of the citadel. Ross could not explain how he was able to see one shade of darkness against equal dusk, but he did.
Or did he only sense it? He shook his head, willing himself to look away from the finger. Only it was a finger no longer. Now it was a fist aimed at the stars it was fast blotting out. A fist rising to the heavens before it curled back descended to press the fortress and its surroundings into rock and earth.
Fog curled about Ross, spilled outward through the sea-gates. He loosed his grip on a pillar and dived, swimming on through the gap with the fortress of the falana before him. There was a jetty somewhere ahead. That must be new from Torkel's description. Those who served the Poana sometimes took sea-roads, and they had slim, fast cutters for such coast-wise travel. Ross surfaced cautiously. To discover, there was no visibility to wave level. Here the mist was thick, a smoldering cover so bewildering he was confused as to direction. He ducked below again and flippered on. Was his confusion born of the fog, or was it also in his head? Did he, after all, have this much reaction to the gate defense?
Ross ducked that suspicion as he had ducked the moist blanket on the surface. He had come from the gate, which meant that the jetty must lie there. A few moments later, Ross had proof that his sense of direction had not altogether failed him. when his shoulder grazed against a solid obstruction in the water, and his exploring touch told him that he had found one of the jetty piles. He surfaced again, and this time he heard not a thunder roll, but the sing-song chanting of the falana. It was loud, almost directly above his head, but since the cotton mist held, he was not afraid of being sighted. The chanter must be on the jetty. And to Ross's right was a dark bulk, which he thought was one of the cutters.
Was a sortie by the besieged being planned? Then out of the night came a dazzling beam, well above the level of Ross's head, where he clung to the piling. It centered on the cutter, slicing into the substance of the vessel with the ease of steel-piercing clay. The chanting stopped on mid-note. Broken by cries of surprise and alarm. Ross, pressing against the pile, received a jolt from his belt sonic. There must be a baldy sub in the basin inside the gate. Perhaps the flame beam now destroying the cutter was to be turned on the walls of the keep in turn. The Terran's body jerked. His mask smothered a cry of pain. About his legs and middle immersed in the waves, There was cold so intense that it seared.
Fear goaded him to pull up on one of the under beams of the pier. He reached that refuge and rubbed his icy legs with what vigor he could summon. Moments later, he crept along towards the shore. The energy ray had found another target. Ross paused to watch a second cutter slice. If the counter-stroke of the philano would rout the invaders, It had not yet begun to work. The net holding the extra gear brought along in hopes of Asher's escape Wade to tear him down, but he would not abandon it as he felt his way from one foot and hand-hole to the next. The ways below gave off an icy exudation which made him shiver uncontrollably, and he knew that as long as that effect lasted he dared not venture into the sea again.
Light, along with the cold, there was a phosphorescence on the water, white patches floating, dipping, riding the waves. Some of them gathered under the pier, clustering about the pilings, and the fog thinned with their coming, as if those irregular blotches absorbed and fed upon the mist. The Terran could see now he had reached the land end of the jetty. He wessed his flippers into his belt, Pulled on over his feet the covers of Salkar hide Torgal had provided. Save for his belt, his trunks, and the gill pack, Ross's body was bare and the cold caught at him. But slinging the carry net over his shoulder, he dropped to the damp sand and stood listening. The clamor of the attack, which had carried all the way offshore to the rover cruisers, had died away.
And there were no more claps of thunder. Instead, there was now a thick wash of rain. No more fire rays as he faced Seaward, and the fog was lifting so Ross could distinguish the settling cutters. Their bows still moored to the jetty. There was no movement there. Had those on the pier fled?
Ross did not drop the net, but he crouched back in the half-protection of the piling. For a moment was stretched beyond Tarrantin's time measure, He froze so, waiting.
Not the prickle induced by the enemy installations. It was a real coded call picked up by a sonic and one he knew. Don't rush, he told himself sharply. Play it safe. By rights, only two people in this time and place would know that call, and one would have no reason to use it. But—a trap? This could be a trap. Awe of the Fawanna powers had touched him a little in spite of his off-world skepticism. He could be lured now by someone using Asher's call. Ross stripped for action after a fashion. Bundling the net and its contents into a hollow, he scooped behind a pile well above water level. The alien hand weapon he had left with Carrar, not trusting it to the sea. But he had his diver's knife, and his two hands, which, by training, could be, and had been, deadly weapons.
With a sonic against the bare skin of his middle, where it was registered strongest, knife in hand, Ross moved into the open. The floating patches did not supply much light, but he was certain the call had come from the jetty. There was movement there. A flash or two. And the sonic? Ross had to be sure, very sure. The broadcast was certainly stronger when he faced in that direction. Dared he come into the open? Perhaps in the dark he could cut Ash away from his captors so they could swim for it together. Ross clicked a code reply.
The answer was quick, in parity. Where? Surely no one but Ash could have sent that. Ross did not hesitate. Be ready. Escape. No. Even more imperative. Friends here. Had he guessed rightly? Had Ash established friend relations with the Foanna? But Ross kept to the caution which had been his defense and armor so long. There was one question he thought only Ash could answer, something out of the past they had shared when they had made their first journey into time, disguised as beaker traders of the Bronze Age. Deliberately he tapped that question. What did we kill in Britain? Tensely he waited, but when the reply came it did not pulse from a sonic under his fingers. Instead, a well-remembered voice called out of the night, A White Wolf, and the words were Terran English.
Aish! Ross leaped forward, climbed towards a figure he could only dimly see.
This concludes the reading of Chapter 13.
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14 Ch14-The Foanna 21:36
The Poana. Ross. Ash's hands gripped his shoulders as if never intending to free him again. Then you did come through. Ross understood. Gordon Ash must have feared that he was the only one swept through the time door by that freak chance. And Carrera and the Dolphins. Here now? In this black bowl of the Citadel Bay, Ash was only a shadow with voice and hands. No, out with the rover cruisers. Ash... Do you know the Baltis are on Avakaki? They've organized this whole thing. The attack here? Trouble all over. Right now, they have one of their subs out there. That's what cut those cutters to pieces. Five days ago, five of them wiped out a whole rover ferry. Just five of them. Gordong. Unlike the hissing speech of the Avakakians, this new voice made a singing.
Lilting call of Aisha's name. "'This is your swordsman, in truth?' Another shadow drew near them, and Ross saw the flutter of cloaked edge. "'This is my friend.' There was a tone of correction in Aisha's reply. "'Ross, this is the guardian of the sea-gate.' "'And you come,' the phoana continued, "'with those who gather to feast at the shadow's table? But your rovers will find little loot.' to their liking. No, Ross hesitated. How did one address the foanna? He had claimed equality with Torgel, but that approach was not the proper one here. Instinct told him that. He fell back on the complete truth uttered simply. We took three of the Baldy killers. From them we learned they moved to wipe out the foanna first.
For you, he addressed himself to the cloaked shape, They believed to be a threat. We heard that they urged the wreckers to this attack, and so—and so the rovers come, but not to loot? Then they are something new among their kind. The Poana's reply was as chill as the sea-bay's water. "'Loot does not summon men who want a blood price for their dead kin,' Ross retorted. "'No, and the rovers are believers in the balance of hurt against hurt.' The philatric conceded. Do they also believe in the balance of aid against aid? Now that is a thought upon which depends much. Gordon, it would seem that we may not take to our shifts, so let us return to counsel.
Asher's hand was on Rosser's arm, guiding him through the murk. Though the fog which had choked the bay had vanished, thick darkness remained. and Ross noted that even the fires and flares were dimmed and fewer. Then they were in a passage where a very faint light clung to the walls. Robe Poanna, three of them, moved ahead with that particular gliding progress. Then Ash and Ross, and bringing up the rear, a dozen of the male guards. The passageway became a ramp. Ross glanced at Ash. Like the Poanna, The Terran agent wore a cloak of gray, but his did not shift color from time to time, as did those of the Abacacian Enigmas, and now Gordon shoved back his foals, revealing supple body armor. Questions gathered in Ross.
He wanted to know, needed desperately to know, Aisha standing with the Poana. What had happened to raise Gordon from the status of captive in Zahir's hold To familiar companionship with the most dreaded race on this planet. The ramp's head faced blank wall with a sharp-angled turn to the right of a narrower passage. One of the foanna made a slight sign to the guards, who turned with drilled precision to march off along the passage. Now the other foanna held out their wands. What a moment later had been unbroken surface showed an opening. The change had been so instantaneous that Ross had not seen any movement at all. Beyond that door, they passed from one world to another. Ross's senses, already acutely alert to his surroundings, could not supply him with any reason by sight, sound, or smell, for his firm conviction that this hold was alien as neither the Rucker Castle nor the Rover ships had been.
Surely the Poano were not the same race. Perhaps not even the same species as the other native Abacacans.
Those robes, which he had seen both silver-gray and dark blue, now faded. Pearled, thinned, until each of the three still gliding before him were opacent columns without definite form. Ash's grasp fell on Ross's arm once more, and his whisper reached the younger man thinly. They are mistresses of illusion. Be prepared not to believe all that you see. Mistresses? Ross caught that first. Women? Or least female, then. Illusion? Yes. Already he was convinced that here his eyes could play tricks on him. He could hardly determine what was robe, what was wall, or if more than shades of shades swept before him. Another blank wall? Then an opening, and flowing through it to touch him such a wave of alienness that Ross felt he was buffeted by a storm-wind.
Yet, as he hesitated before it, reluctant in spite of Asher's hold to go ahead, he also knew that this did not carry with it the cold hostility he had known while facing the bodies. Alien? Yes. Inimical to his kind? No. You were right, younger brother. Spoken those words were forming in his mind. Ross was in a place which was sheer wonder. Under his feet, dark blue, the blue of a Terran sky at dusk. Caught up in it, twinkling points of light, as if he strode, not equal with stars, but above them. Walls? Were there any walls here? Or shifting, swaying blue curtains on which silvery lines ran to form symbols and words which some bemused part of his brain almost understood, but not quite. Constant motion, no quiet, until he came to a place where those swaying curtains were stilled, where he no longer strode above the sky but on soft surface, a mat of gray, living sod, where his steps released a spicy fragrance.
And there he really saw the foanna for the first time. Where had their cloaks gone? Had they tossed them away during that walk or drift across this amazing room? Or had the substance which had formed those coverings flowed away by itself? As Ross looked at the three in wonder, he knew that he was seeing them as not even their servants and guards ever viewed them. And yet, was he seeing them as they really were? Or as they wished him to see them. As we are, younger brother, as we are. Again, an answer which Ross was not sure was thought or speech. In form they were humanoid, and they were undoubtedly women. The muffling cloaks gone, they wore sleeveless garments of silver, which were girded at the waist with belts of blue gems.
Only in their hair and their eyes did they betray alien blood, for the hair which flowed and wove about them, cascading down shoulders, rippling about their arms, was silver too, and it swirled, moved as if it had a separate life of its own, while their eyes—Ross looked into those golden eyes and was lost for seconds until panic awoke in him, forcing him, after sharp struggle, to look away. Laughter. No, he had not heard laughter, but a sense of amusement tinged with respect came to him. "'You are very right, Gordon. This one is also of your kind. He is not witch's meat.' Ross caught the distaste, the kind of haunting unhappiness which colored those words, remnants of an old hurt. "'These are the foanna.' Asha's voice broke more of the spell.
The Lady Yianen, the Lady Yangram, the Lady Yianvalda, the Poana, these three only? She whom I should name Wieland, whose eyes had entrapped and almost held what was Ross Murdock, made a small gesture with her ivory hand. And in that gesture, as well as in the words, Witches' Meat, the Terran read the unhappiness, which was as much a part of this room as the rest of its mystery. The Fawanna are now but three. They have been only three for many weary years, old man from another world in time, and soon, if these enemies have their way, there will not be three but none. But Ross was still startled. He knew from Locust that the wreckers had deemed the Fawanna few in number, An old and dying race.
But that there were only three women left was hard to believe. The response to his unspoken wonder came clear and determined. We may be but three, however our power remains, and sometimes power distilled by time becomes the stronger. Now it would seem that time is no longer our servant, but perhaps among our enemies. So tell us this tale of yours as to why the rovers Would make one with the foanna. Tell us all, younger brother. Ross reported what he had seen, what Tino Ra and Tau had learned from the prisoners taken at Cayenet. And when he had finished, the three foannas stood very still, their hands clasped one to the other. Though they were only at arm's distance from him, Ross had the feeling they had withdrawn from his time and world.
So complete was her withdrawal that he dared to ask Ash one of the many questions which had been boiling inside him. Who are they? But Ross knew he really meant, What are they? Gordon Ash shook his head. I don't really know. The last of a very old race which possesses powers and knowledge different from any we have believed in for centuries. We have heard of witches. In the modern day, we discount the legends about them. The Fawanna bring those legends alive, and I promise you this, if they turn those powers loose... He paused. It will be such a war as this world, perhaps any world, has never seen.
That is so. The Fawanna had returned from the place to which they had withdrawn. And this is also the truth, or one face of the truth. The Rovers are right in their belief that we have kept some measure of balance between one form of change and another on this world. If we were as many as we once were, then against us these invaders could not move at all. But we are three only, and also, do we have the right to evoke disaster, which will strike not only the enemy, but perhaps recoil upon the innocent? There has been enough death here already. And those who are our servants shall no longer be asked to face battle, to keep an empty shell inviolate. We would see with our own eyes these invaders.
Probe what they would do. There is ever change in life, and if a pattern grows too set, then the race caught in it may wither and die. Maybe our pattern has been too long in its old design. We shall make no decision until we see in whose hands the future may rest. Against such finality of argument there was no appeal. These could not be influenced by words. Gordoon, there is much to be done. Do you take with you this younger brother and see to his needs? When all is in readiness, we shall come. One minute Ross had been standing on the carpet of living moss. Then— He was in a more normal room with four walls, a floor, a ceiling, and light which came from rods set in the corners. He gasped. "'Stun me, too, the first time they put me through it,' he heard Ash say.
"'Here, get some of this inside you. It'll steady your head.' There was a cup in his hand, a beautifully carved, rose-red container shaped in the form of a flower. Somehow Ross brought it to his lips with shaking hands, gulped down a good third of its contents. The liquid was a mixture of tart and sweet, cooling his mouth and throat, but warming as it went down, and that glow spread through him. "'What? How did they do that?' he demanded. "'I shrugged. How do they do the hundred and one things I have seen happen here? You've been teleported.' How it's done, I don't know any more than I did the first time it happened. Simply a part of Poana magic, as far as spectators are concerned. He sat down on a stool, his long legs stretched out before him.
Other worlds, other ways, even if they are confounded queer ones. As far as I know, there's no reason for their power to work, but it does. Now, have you seen a time gate? Is it in working order? Ross put down the now empty cup and set down opposite Ash. As concisely as he could, he outlined the situation with a quick resume of all that had happened to him, Carrawha and the Dolphins, since they had been sucked through the gate. Ash asked no questions, but his expression was that of the agent Ross had known, evaluating and listing all the younger man had to report. When the other was through, he said only two words. No return. So much had happened in so short a time that Ross's initial shock at the destruction of the gate had faded, been well overlaid by all the demands made upon his resources, skill, and strength.
Even now, the fact Ash's voice seemed of little consequence balanced against the struggle in progress.
Ross rubbed his hands up and down his arms, brushing away grains of sand. Remember those pylons with the empty sea coast behind them? Does that mean the Baldies are going to win? I don't know. No one has ever tried to change the course of history. Maybe it is impossible even if we dared to try. Ash was on his feet again, pacing back and forth. Try what, Gordon? Ross jerked around. Ais halted. One of the Poanas stood there, her hair playing about her shoulders, as if some breeze felt only by hers stirred those long strands. Dare to try and change the course of the future, Ais explained, accepting her materialization with the calm of one who had witnessed it before. Ah, yes. You're traveling in time.
And now you think that perhaps this poor world of ours has a choice as to which overloads it will welcome. I do not know either, Gordon, whether the future may be altered, nor if it is wise to try. But also, well, perhaps we shall see our enemy before we are set in any path. Now it is time that we go. Younger brother, How did you plan to leave this place when you accomplished your mission? By the Seagate. I have extra swimming equipment cached under the jetty. And the rover ships await you at sea? Yes. Then we shall take your way, since the cutters are sunk. There's only one extra gill pack, and that baldy sub is out there, too. So, then we shall try another road. Though it will sap our power temporarily.
Her head inclined slightly to the left, as if she listened. Good. Our people are now in the passage, which will take them to safety. What those outside will find here when they break in will be of little aid to their plans. Secrets of the falina remain secrets past others prying. Though they shall try, oh, how they shall try to solve them! There is knowledge that only certain types of minds can hold and use, and to others it remains for all time unlearnable. Now— Her hand reached out, flattened against Ross's forehead. Think of your rover's ship, younger brother. See it in your mind, and see well and clearly for me. Torgel's cruiser was there. He could picture with details he had not thought he knew or remembered.
The deck in the dark of the night, with only a shade of light at the mask. The deck. Ross gave a choked cry. He did not see this in his mind. He saw it with his eyes. His hand swung out in an involuntary gesture of repudiation, and struck painfully against Wood. He was on the cruiser. A startled explanation from behind him, then a shout. Ash was here, and beyond him three cloaked figures. The Fawana. They had their own road indeed, and had taken it. You, Ross? Vister fronted them, his face a mixture of bewilderment and awe. The Fawana, said in a fat whisper, echoed by crewmen gathering around, but not too close. Gordon Carrawha elbowed her way between two of the Avakakians and read across the deck.
She caught the agent's both hands as if to assure herself that he was alive and there before her. Then she turned to the three foanna. There was an odd expression on the Polynesian girl's face. First of measurement with some fear, and then of dawning wonder. From beneath the cloak of the middle foanna came the rod of office with its sparkling knob. Carrawa dropped Asha's hands, took a tentative step forward, and then another. The knob was directly before her, breast high. She brought up both hands, cupping them about the knob, but not touching it directly. The sparks, it admitted, could have been flashing against her flesh, but Carrawa displayed no awareness of that. Instead, she lifted both hands farther, palm up and cupped, as if she carried some invisible bounty, then flattened them, loosing what she held.
There was a sigh from the crewmen. Carrawa's gesture had been confident, as if she knew just what she was doing and why, and Ross heard Ash draw a deep breath also, as a Terran girl turned, allying herself with the foanna. "'These great ones stand in peace,' she said. "'It is their will that no harm comes to this ship and those who sail in her.' What do the Great Ones want of us? Torgel advanced, but not too near. To speak concerning those who are your prisoners.
So be it, the captain bowed. The Great Ones' will is our will. Let it be as they wish.
This concludes the reading of Chapter Fourteen.
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15 Ch15-Return To The Battle 22:35
He had awakened in that quick transference from sleep to consciousness, which was always his when on duty. But he made no attempt to move. Ash was still sleeping. Ash, whom he thought or had thought he knew as well as one man could ever know another, who had taken the place of family for Ross Murdock, the loner, years, years, Two, four of them now since he had made half that partnership. His head turned. Though he could not see that lean body, that quiet, controlled face, Ash still looked the same. But—Ross's sense of loss was hurt, and anger mingled. What had they done to Gordon? Those three, bewitched. Tales Terrence had accepted as pure as fantasy for centuries came into his mind. Could it be that his own world once had its phoana?
Ross gowled. You couldn't refute their magic. Call it by what scientific name you wooshed. Hypnotism? Teleporting? They got results, and the results were impressive. Now I remembered the warning the phoana themselves had delivered hours earlier to the rovers. There were limits to their abilities. Because they were forced to draw on mental and physical energy, they could be exhausted. Thus they had barriers, too. Again Ross considered the subject of barriers. Carrawa had been able to meet the aliens, if not mind to mind, then in a closer way even than Ash. The talent which tied her to the dolphins had in turn been a bond with the foanna. Ash and Carrawa could enter that circle. But not Ross Murdock.
Along with his new separation from Ashe came that feeling of inferiority to bite on, and the taste was sour. This isn't going to be easy.
So Ashe was awake. What can they do? Ross asked in return. I don't know. I don't believe that they can teleport an army into Baldy headquarters the way Torgal expects. But it wouldn't do such an army much good to get there and then be outclassed by the weapons the Baltis might have, Ash said.
Ross had a moment of warmth and comfort. He knew that tone of old. Ash was studying the problem, willing to talk out difficulties as he always had before. No, outright assault isn't the answer. We'll have to know more about the enemy. One thing puzzles me. Why have the Baldi's suddenly stepped up their timing? What makes you think they have? Well, according to the accounts I've heard, it's been about three or four planet years here since some off-world devices have been infiltrating the native civilization. You mean such things as those attractors set up on the reef at Zahur's Castle? Ross remembered Loka's story. Those and other things. The refinements added to the engine power on these ships.
Torgal said they spread from rover fleet to fleet. No one's sure where they started. The Baltis began slowly, but they are speeding up now. Those sparing attacks have all been recent, and this assault on the Poana Citadel blew up almost overnight on a flimsy excuse. Why the quick push after the slow beginning? Maybe they decided the natives are easy pushovers, and they no longer have to worry about any real opposition, Ross suggested. Could be. Self-confidence becoming arrogance when they didn't uncover any opponent strong enough to matter? Or else they may be spurred by some need with a time limit. If we knew the reason for those pylons, we might guess their motives. Are you going to try to change the future?
That sounds arrogant, too. Can we, if we wish to? We never dared to try it on Terra, and the risk may be worse than all our fears. Also, the choice is not ours. There's one thing I don't understand, Ross said. Why did the poanna walk out of the Citadel and leave it undefended for their enemies. What about their guards? Did they just leave them, too? He was willing to make the most of any flaw in the alien's character. Most of their people had already escaped through underground ways. The rest left when they knew the cutters had been sunk, Ash returned. As to why they deserted the Citadel, I don't know. The decision was theirs. Their. up with the barrier between them again. But Ross refused to accept the cutoff this time, determined to pull Ace back into the familiar world of the here and now.
That keep could be a trap. About the best on this planet. The idea was more than just a gamblet to attract Ace's attention. It was true. A perfect trap to catch Baldi's. Don't you see? Ross sat up, Slapping his feet down on the deck as he leaned forward eagerly. Don't you see? If the Baldies know anything at all about the Poana, and I'm betting they do, and want to learn all they can, they'll visit the Citadel. They won't want to depend on second- and third-hand reports of the place, especially ones delivered by primitives such as the Wreckers. They had a sub there. I'll bet the crew are in picking over the loot right now. If that's what they're hunting, there was amusement in Asher's tone. They won't find much.
The Poana have better locks than their enemies have keys. You heard Wieland before we left. Any secrets left will remain secrets. But there's bait. Bait for a trap, argued Ross. You're right, to the younger man's joy. Asher's enthusiasm was plain. And if the Baldies... could be led to believe that what they wanted was obtainable with just a little more effort or the right tools. The trap could net bigger kits than just underlings. Ross's thought matched Ashes. Why, it might even pull in the VIP, directing the whole operation. How can we set it up? And do we have time? The trap would have to be a foanna setting. Our part would come after it was sprung. Ash was thoughtful again. But it is the only move which we can make at present with any hope of success, and it will only work if the Fawanna are willing.
Have to be done quickly, Ross pointed out. Yes, I'll see. Ash was a dark figure against the thin light of the companionway as he slid back the cabin door. If Wivalda agrees, as he went out, Ross was right behind him. The foanna had been given by their own choice. Quarters on the bow deck of the cruiser were sailcloth had been used to form a tent. Not that any of the awe-stricken rovers would venture too near them. Ash reached for the flap of the fabric, and a lilting voice called, "'You seek us, Gordon?' This is important. Yes, it is important. For the thought which brings you both has merit. Enter then, brothers.' The flap was looped aside, and before them was a swirling of mist. Light, sheets of pale color.
Ross could not have described what he saw, save if the foanna were there, he could not distinguish them from the rippling of their hair, the melting film of their robes. So, younger brother, you think that which was our home and our treasure box has now become a trap for the confounding of those who believe we are a threat to them. Somehow Ross was not surprised that they knew about his idea before he had said a word, before Ash had given any explanations. Their omniscience was only a small portion of their other talents. Yes. And why do you believe so? We swear to you that the coast folk cannot be driven into those parts of the castle which mean the most, any more than our sea-gate can be breached unless we will it so.
Yet I swam through the sea-gate, and the sub was there also. Ross knew again a flash of—was it pleasure—at being able to state this fact. There were chinks in the Poana deep entrance. Again the truth. You have that within you, young brother. Which is both a lac and a shield. True, also, that this undersea ship entered after you. Perhaps it has a shield as part of it. Perhaps those from the stars have their own protection. But they cannot reach the heart of what they wish, not unless we open the doors for them. It is your belief, younger brother, that they still strive to force such doors? Yes. Knowing there is something to be learned, They will try for it. They will not dare not to. Ross was very certain on that point.
His encounters with the Baltis had not led to any real understanding. But the way they had wiped out the line of Russian time stations made him sure that they dealt thoroughly with any situation they considered a threat.
From the prisoners taken at Kyanad, they had learned the invaders believed the foanna their enemies here. Even though the old ones had not repulsed them or their activities. Therefore, it followed that, having taken the stronghold, the Baldies would endeavor to rip open every one of its secrets. A trap with good bait. Ross wondered which one of the faunas said that. To see nothing but the swirls of mist color, listen to disembodied voices from it, was disconcerting. Part of the stage dressing, he decided, for building their prestige with the other races with whom they dealt. Three women alone would have to buttress their authority with such trappings. Ah, younger brother, indeed you are beginning to understand us.
Laughter, soft, but unmistakable. Ross frowned. He did not feel the touch-go-touch of mental communication which the dolphins use. But he did not doubt that the phoana read his thoughts, or at least a few of them.
Some of them echoed from the mist. Not all. Not as your older brother's, or the maiden whose mind meets with ours. With you, younger brother, it is a thought here, a thought there, and only our intuition to connect them into a pattern. But now there is serious planning to be done. And knowing this enemy, You believe they will come to search for what they cannot find. So you would set a trap. But they have weapons beyond your weapons. Have they not, younger brother? Brave as are these rover kind, they cannot use swords against flame. Their hands against a killer who may stand apart and slay. What remains, Gordun? What remains in our favor? You have your weapons, too, Aish answered. Yes, we have our weapons, but long have they been used only in one pattern, and they are attuned to another race.
Did our defensives hold against you, Gordon? Even you strove to prove that you were as you claimed to be. And did another repulse younger brother when he dared to Seagate? So can we trust them in turn against these other strangers with different brains? Only at the testing shall we know. And in such learning, perhaps, we shall also be forced to eat the sourness of defeat. To risk all may be to lose all. That may be true, Asha said. You mean the sight you have had into our future says that this happens? Yes, to stake all and to lose, but only for ourselves, but for all others here. That is a weighty decision to make. Gordun. But the trap promises. Let us think on it for a space. Do you also consult with the rovers if they wish to take part in what may be desperate folly?
Torgel paced the afterdeck, well away from the tent which sheltered the foanna, but with his eyes turning to it as Ross explained what might be a good attack. Those women killers. Have no fear of phoenomagic? Rather would they come to seek it out? It would be a chance to catch leaders in a trap? You have heard what the prisoners said or thought. Yes, they would seek out this knowledge, and we would have this chance to capture them. With what? Torgel demanded. I am not ongle to argue that it is better to die in pursuit of blood payment. than to take an enemy or enemies with me. What chance have we against their powers? Ask that of them. Ross nodded toward the still silent tent. Even as he spoke, the three cloaked foanna emerged, pacing down to midship, where Torgel and his lieutenants, Ross and Ashe, came to meet them.
We have thought on this. The lilting half-chant which the foanna used for ordinary communication was a song in the dawn wind. It was in our minds to retreat, to wait out this troubling of the land, since we are few, and that which we hold within us is worth the guarding. But now, what profit such guardianship when there may be none to whom we may pass it after us? And if you have seen the truth, Elder Brother, the cow's head swung to ash, then there may be no future for any of us. But still there are our limitations. Rover? Now they spoke directly to Torgel. We cannot put your men within the Citadel by desiring. Not without certain aids, which lie sealed there now. No, we, ourselves, must win inside bodily, and then, then perhaps we can pull tight the lines of our net.
To run a cruiser through the gate, Torgel began. No, not a ship, Captain. A handful of warriors in the water can risk the gate, but not a ship. Ash broke in. How many gill packs do we have? Ross counted hurriedly. I left one catch to shore, but there's mine, and Karawas, and Locusts, also two more. To pass the gates, that was a phoana. We ourselves shall not need your underwater aids. You? Ross said to Ash. and I with Carawa's pack. Or Carawa. Both the Terrans looked around. The Polynesian girl stood close to the Polannus, smiling faintly. This venture is mine also, she spoke with conviction, as it is Tina Ross and Taos. Is that not so, daughters of the ally of this world? Yes, sea maid. There are weapons of many sorts, and not all of them fit into a warrior's hand, or can be swung with the force of a man's arm and shoulder.
Yes, this venture is yours also, sister. Ross's protest bubbled unspoken. He had to accept the finality of the Palana decree. It seemed now that the make-up of their task force depended upon the whims of the three, rather than the experience of those trained to such risks. And Ash was apparently willing to accept their leadership. So it was an odd company that took to the water, just as dawn colored the sky. Lokoth had clung fiercely to his pack, insisting that he be one of the swimmers, and the Fawana accepted him as well. Ross and Ash, Lokoth and Balakoo, a young under-officer of Angolce, accorded the best swimmer of the fleet, Carrawa and the Dolphins, and with them those three others, Shafes sliding smoothly through the water, as difficult to define in this new element as they had been in their tent.
Before them prisked the dauphins. Tina Ra and Tao played about the foanna in an ecstatic joy, and when all were in the sea, they shot off shoreward. That sub within the seagate? Had it unleashed the same lethal broadcast as the one at Kyanad? But the dauphins could give warning if that were so. Ross swam easily. Ash next, Locuth on his left. Ballicu a little behind, and Carrawha to the fore, as if in vain pursuit of the dauphins. The Foanna well to the left. A queer invasion party, even queerer when one totalled up the odds which might lie ahead. There was no mist or storm this morning to hide the headlands where the Foanna Citadel stood. And the promontories of the sea-gate were starkly clear in the glowing light.
The same drive which always was a part of Ross when he was committed to action sustained him now, though he was visited by a small prick of doubt when he thought that the leadership did not lie with Ash, but with the Foanna. No warning of any trouble ahead as they passed through the mighty sea-sunk bases of the gate pillars. Ross depended upon his sonic. But there was no adverse report from the sensitive recorder. The terrible chill of the water during the night attack had been dissipated. But here and there dead sea-things floated, being torn and admired by hunters of the waves. They were well past the pillars when Ross was aware that Lokoth had changed place in the line, spurting ahead. After him went Balikoo, they caught up with Karawaf, flashed past her.
Ross looked to Ash. On to the Falana, but saw nothing to explain the action of the two Abacacians. Then his sonic beat out a signal from Ash. Danger. Follow the Falana. Left. Karawai had already changed course to head in that direction. Ahead of her, he could see Locust and Balikoo both still bound for the midpoint of the shore where the jetty and the sunken cutters were. Ash passed before him, and Ross reluctantly followed orders. A shelf of rock reached out from the cliff wall, under it a dark opening. The Pauanus sought this without hesitation. Ash, Kerwa, and Ross following. Moments later, they were out of the water, where footing sloped back and up. Below them, Tina, Ra, and Tal Nose Arise, their heads lifting out of the water as they spoke.
and Carrawa hastened to reply. Loka! About a coup! Ross began when he caught a metal stroke of anger so deadly that it was a chill lance into his brain. He faced the Poana, startled and a little frightened. They will not come, now. A knob-crowned wand stretched out in the air, pointing to the upper reaches of the slope. Nor can any of their blood, unless we win. What is wrong? Aish asked. You were right, very right, men out of time. These invaders are not to be lightly dismissed. They have turned one of our own defenses against us. Locust, Balikou, all of their kind can be made into tools for a master. They belong to the enemy now. And we have failed so early, Carawal wanted to know. Again that piercing thrust of anger, so vivid that it was no mere emotion, but seemed a tangible force.
Failed? No. Not yet have we even begun to fight. You were very right. This is such an evil as must be faced and fought, even if we lose all in battle. Now, we must do that which none of our own race has done for generations. We must open three locks. Throw wide the great door, and seek out the keeper of the closed knowledge. Light, a sharp ray sighting from the tip of the wand, and the foanna followed that beam, the three Terrans coming after into the unknown.
This concludes a reading of chapter 15.
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16 Ch16-The Opening of the Great Door 21:56
The opening of the great door.
It was not the general airlessness of the long-closed passage which wore on Ross's nerves. Maid Carrera suddenly reached out and clasped fingers about the wrists of the two men she walked between. It was a crushing sensation of age, of a toll of years so long, so heavy, as to make time itself into a turgid flood which tugs at their bodies, mired their feet as they trudged after the poanna. This sense of age, of a dead and heavy past, was so stifling that all three Terrans breathed in gasps. Carrera's breasts became sobs. Yet she matched her pace to Ais and Ross, kept going. Ross himself had little idea of their surroundings, but one small portion of his brain asked answerless questions. The foremost being, why did the past crush in on him here?
He had traveled time, but never before had he been beaten with the field of countless dead and dying years. Going back, that coarse whisper came from Ash, and Ross thought he understood. A time-gate? He was eager to accept such an explanation. Time-gates he could understand. But that the Poana used one. "'Not our kind,' Ash replied. But his words had pulled Ross out of a spell which had been as quicksand about him, and he began to fight back with a determination not to be sucked into what filled this place. In spite of Ross's efforts, his eyes could supply him with no definite impression of where they were. The ramp had led them out of the sea. But where they walked now, linked hand to hand, Ross could not say.
He could see the glimmer of the phoena. Turning his head, he could see his companions as shadows. But all beyond that was utter dark.
Ah! Karawas Sobs gave way to a whisper which was half-mown. This is a way of gods, old gods, gods who never dealt with men. It is not well to walk the road of the gods. Her fear laughed to Ross. He faced that emotion as he had faced so many different kinds of fear all his life. Sure, he felt that pressure on him. Not the pressure of past centuries now, but a power beyond his ability to describe. Not our gods. Ross put his stubborn defiance into words, more as a shield against his own wavering. No power where there is no belief. From what half-forgotten bit of reading had he dredged that knowledge. No being without belief, he repeated. To his vast amazement, he heard a laugh, though the sound bordered on hysteria.
No belief, no power, the older man replied. You speared to write peace, Ross. No gods of ours dwell here, And whatever God does has no rights over us. Hold to that girl, hold tight.
Ah, ye forty thousand gods, ye gods of sea, of sky, of woods, of mountains, of valleys, ye assemblies of gods, ye elder brothers of the gods that are, ye gods that once were, ye that whisper, ye that watch by night, ye that show your gleaming eyes, Come down, awake, stir. Walk this road, walk this road. She was singing, first softly and then more strongly. The liquid words of her own tongue repeated in English, as if what she strove to call she would share with her companions. Now there was triumph in her singing, and Ross found himself echoing her. Walk this road, as I demand. It was still there, all of it. The crushing weight of the past, and that which rooted within that past, which had reached out for them to possess or to alter.
Only they were free of that reaching now, and they could see too. The fuzzy darkness was lighter, and there were normal walls about them. Ross put out his free hand, and rubbed finger-tips along rough stones. Once more, their senses were assaulted by a stealthy attack from beyond. The bounds of space and time, as the walls fell away and they came out into a wide space whose boundaries they could not see. Here that which brooded was strong. A mighty weight poised aloft to strike them down. Come down. Awake. Stir. Carrawa's pleading sank again to a whisper. Her voice sounded hoarse, as if her mouth were dry. Her words formed by a shrunken tongue. issued from a parched throat. Light spreading in channels along the floor, making a fiery pattern.
Patterns within patterns, intricate designs within designs. Ross jerked his eyes away from those patterns. To study them was danger. He knew without being warned. Carrawa's nails bit into his flesh, and he welcomed that pain. It kept him alert, conscious of what was Ross Murdock. Holding them safely apart from something greater than he, but entirely alien. The designs and patterns were lines on a pavement, and now the three foanna, swaying as if yielding to unseen winds, began to follow those patterns with small dancing steps. But the Terrans remained where they were, holding to one another for the sustaining strength their contact offered.
Back, forth. The foanna danced. And once more their cloaks vanished, or were discarded. So their silver-bright figures advanced, retreated, weaving away from one a rapskoo to another, first about the outer rim, and then in, by spirals and circles. No light except the chrism-glowing rivulets on the floor. The silver bodies of the foanna moved back and forth, in and out. Then suddenly the three dancers halted. huddled together in an open space between the designs, and Ross was startled by the impression of confusion, doubt, almost despair, wafted from them to the Terrans. Back across the patterned floor they came, their hands clasped even as the Terrans stood together, and now they fronted the three out of time.
Too few. We are too few, she who was the mid-one of the trio said. We cannot open the great door. "'How many do you need?' Caravau's voice was no longer parched. Frightened. She might have traveled through fear to a new serenity. "'Why did he think that?' Ross wondered pleasingly. "'Was it because he, too, had had the same release?' The Polynesian girl loosed her grip on her companion's hands, taking a step closer to the Joanna. Three can be four.' Or five. Ash moved up beside her, if we suit your purpose. Was Gordon Ash crazy, or had he fallen victim to whatever filled this place? Yet it was Ash's voice, sane, serene, as Ross had always heard it. The younger agent wet his lips. It was his turn to have a dry mouth.
This was not his game. It could not be. Yet he summoned voice enough to add in turn. Six. When it came, the Fawana answer was a warning. To aid us, you must cast aside your shields. Allow your identities to become one with our forces. Having done so, it may be that you shall never be as you are now, but changed. Changed? The word echoed, perhaps not in the place where they stood, but in Rossa's head. This was a risk such as he had never taken before. His chances in the past had been matters of action, where his own strength and wit were masked against the problem. Here, he would open a door to forces he and his kind should not meet. Expose himself to dangers such as did not exist on the plain, where weapons and strength of arm could decide victory or defeat.
And this was not really his fight at all. What did it matter to Terence, ten thousand years or so in the future, What happened to the Abacacians in this past? He was a fool. They were all fools to become embroiled in this. The Baltis and their stellar empire, if that ever had existed as the Terran surmised, was long gone before his breed entered space. If you accomplish this with our aid, said Ashe, will you be able to defeat the invaders? Again a lengthening moment of silence before the phoana replied.
We cannot tell. We only know that there is a force laid up here, set behind certain gates in the far past, upon which we may call for some supreme effort. But this must we also know. The evil of the shadow reaches out from here now, and where that darkness falls, men will no longer be men, but things in the guise of men who obey and follow as mindless creatures. As yet this shadow of the shadow is a small one, but it was spread, for that is the nature of those who have spawned it. They have chanced upon it and corrupted a thing we know. Since power feeds upon the will to power. Having turned it to their bidding, they will not be able to resist using it, for it is so easy to do, and results exalt the nature of those who employ it.
You have said that you and those like you who travel the time trails feared to change the past. Here, the first steps have been taken to alter the future, but unless we complete the defense, it will be ill for all of us. And this is your only weapon? Ash asked once more. The only one strong enough to stand against that which is now unleashed. In the pavement, the fiery lines were bright and glowing. Even when Ross shut his eyes, parts of those designs were still visible against his eyelids. "'We don't know how,' he made a last people protest on the side of Prudence. "'We couldn't move as you did.' "'Apart, no. Together, yes.' The silvery figures were once more swaying, the mist which was their hair flowing about them.
Carrawa's hands went out, and the slender fingers of one of the foanna lifted, closed about firm, brown, taran flesh. Ash was doing the same. Ross thought he cried out, but he could not be sure. As he watched Carawalt's head begin to sway in concert with her foanna partner, her black hair springing out from her shoulders to rival the rippling strands of the aliens. Ash was consciously matching steps with the companion, who also drew him along a flowing line of fire. In this last instant, Ross realized the time for retreat was past. There was no place left to go. His hands went out, though he had to force that invitation because in him there was a shrinking horror of the surrender. But he could not let the others go without him.
The foanna's touch was cool, and yet it seemed that flesh met his flesh. Fingers as normal as his bit fingers in that grasp. And when that hold was complete, he gave a small gasp. For his horror was wiped away. He knew in his place a burst of energy, which could be disciplined to use as a weapon or a tool in concentrated and complicated action. His feet so, and then so. Did those directions flow without words from the Fuanus' fingers to his? and then along his nerves to his brain. He only knew which was the proper next step, and the next, and the next, as they wove their way along the patterned lines. With their going adding a necessary thread to a design. Forward four steps, backward one. In and out.
Did Ross actually hear that sweet thrumming, akin to the lilting speech of the phoana, or was it a throbbing in his blood? In and out. What had become of the others, he did not know. He was aware only of his own path, of the hand in his, of the silvery shape at his side, to whom he was now tied as if one of the rover captor nets enclosed them both.
The fiery lines under his feet were smoking, tendrils rising and twisting as a hair of the falana rippled and twisted. And the smoke clung. reached his body. They moved in a cocoon of smoke, thicker and thicker, until Ross could not even see the Poana who accompanied him, was only assured of her presence by the hand which grasped his. And a small part of him clung desperately to the awareness of that clasp as an anchorage against what might come, a tie between the world of reality and the place into which he was passing. How did one find words to describe this? Ross wondered with that part of him which remained stubbornly, Ross Murdock, turn time agent. He thought he did not see with his eyes, hear with his ears, but used other senses his own kind did not recognize or acknowledge.
Space? Not a room. A cave, anything. Made by normal nature. Space which held something. Pure energy? His tern mind strove to give name to that which was nameless. Perhaps it was that spark of memory and consciousness which gave him that instant of seeing. Was it a throne? And on it, a simmering figure? He was regarded intently, measured, and set aside. There were questions, or a question he could not hear, and perhaps an answer He would never be able to understand. Or had any of this happened at all? Ross crouched on a cold floor, his head hanging, drained of energy, of all that feeling of power and well-being he had had when they had begun their dance across the symbols. About him, those designs still glowed dully.
When he looked at them too intently, his head ached. He could almost understand. But the struggle was so exhausting he winced at the effort. Gordon? There was no clasp on his hand. He was alone, alone between two glowing Arab's cues. That loneliness struck at him with the sharpness of a blow. His head came up frantically. He stared about him in search of his companions. Gordon? His plea and demand in one was answered. Ross? On his hands and knees, Ross used the rags of his strength to crawl in that direction, stopping now and then to shake his eyes with his hands, to peer through the cracks between his fingers for some sight of ash. There he was, sitting quietly, his head up as if he were listening or striving to listen.
His cheeks were sunken. He had the drained, worn look of a man strained to the limit of physical energy. Yet, There was a quiet peace in his face. Ross crawled on, put out a hand to Ash's arm, as if only by touching the other could he be sure he was not an illusion. And Ash's fingers came up to cover the younger man's, in a grasp as tight as a phoenna's hold had been. We did it. Together we did it, Ash said. But where? Why? These questions were not even at him, Ross knew. But at the moment the younger man did not care where they had been, what they had done. It was enough that his terrible loneliness was gone, that Ash was here. Still keeping his hold on Ross, Ash turned his head and called into the wilderness of the symbol glowing space about them.
Carrawa! She came to them, not crawling, not wrung almost dry as spirit and strength, but on her two feet. About her shoulders her dark hair waved and spun. Or was it dark now? Along those strands there seemed to be threaded motes of light, giving a silvery sheen, which was a faint echo of the phoanus tresses. And was it only his bemused and bewildered sight? Ross mused, or was her skin fairer? Carrawa smiled down at them and held out her hands, offering one to each. When they took them, Ross knew again that surge of energy he had felt when he had followed the phoana into the maze dance. Come, there is much to do. He could not be mistaken. Her voice held the singing lilt of the phoana. Somehow she had crossed some barrier to become a paler, perhaps a lesser, but still a copy of the three aliens.
Was this what they had meant when they warned of a change which might come to those who followed them into the ritual of this place? Ross looked after the girl to Ash with searching intensity. No, he could not see no outward change in Gordon, and he felt none within himself. Come. Some of Keroua's old impetuousness returned as she tugged at them, urging them to their feet, and drawing them with her. She appeared to know where they must go, and both men followed her guidance. Once more they came out of the weird and alien into the normal, for here were the rock walls of a passage running up at an angle, which became so steep they were forced to pull along by hand-holes hollowed in the walls. "'Where are we going?' I asked.
"'To cleanse.' Kerwa's answer was ambiguous. and she sped along, hardly touching the hand-holes, but hurried. They finished their climb and were in another corridor, where patches of sunlight came through a pierced wall to dazzle their eyes. This was similar to the way which had run beside the courtyard in Zeheer's Castle. Ross looked out of the first opening down into a courtyard, but where Zeheer's had held the busy life of the castle, this was silent. Silent, but not deserted. There were men below, armed, helmed. He recognized the uniform of the wrecker warriors. Saw one or two who wore the gray of the Fawanna servants. They stood in lines, unmoving, without speech among themselves. Men who might have been frozen into immobility and arranged so for some game in which they were the voiceless, willless pieces.
And their immobility was a thing to arouse fear. Were they dead? And still standing? Come, Carrawa's voice had sunk to a whisper, and her hand pulled at the men. What? began Ross. Ash shook his head. Those rows below drawn up as if in order to march, unliving rows. They could not be alive as the Terrans knew life. Ross left his vantage point. Ready to follow Cariwal, but he could not blot from his mind the picture of those lines, nor forget the terrible blankness which made their faces more unhuman, more frighteningly alien than those of the falina.
This concludes a reading of chapter 16.
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17 Ch17-Shades Against Shadows 22:04
Against Shadow.
The corridor ended in a narrow slit of room, and a wall before them was not the work stone of the Citadel, but a single slab of what appeared to be glass, curdled into creamy ridges and depressions. Here were the foanna, the robes once more cloaking them. Each held point out one of the rods. They moved slowly, But with the precise gestures of those with a demanding and very important task, as they traced each depression in the wall before them with the wand points. Down, up, around. As their feet had moved in the dance pattern, so now their wands moved to cover each line. Now. The wands dropped points to the floor. The poanna moved equidistant from one another. Then, as one, the rods were lifted vertically, brought down together with a single loud tap.
On the wall, the blue lines they had traced with its care darkened, melted. The glassy slabs shivered, shattered, fell outward in a lace of fragments. So the narrow room became a balcony above a large chamber. Below, a platform ran the full length of that hall. and on it were mounted a line of oval disks. These had been turned to different angles, and each reflected light. A ray-beam directed at them from a machine, whose metallic casing projecting antenna was oddly out of place here. Once more the stance of the flana raised as one in the air. This time, from the knobs held out over the hall blazed, not the usual whirl of small sparks, but strong beams of light, blue light, darkening as it pierced downward until it became thrusting lines of almost tangible substance.
When those blue beams struck the nearest ovals, they webbed with lines which cracked wide open. Shattered bits tinkled down to the platform. There was a stirret into the hall where the machine stood. Figures ran into plain sight. Baldi's. Ross cried out a warning as he saw those star-men raise weapon tubes aimed at the perch on which the foanna stood. Fire, crackling with the speed and sound of lightning, lashed up at the balcony. The lances of light met the spheres of dark, and there was a flash which blinded Ross, a sound which split open the whole world. The Terran's eyes opened, not upon darkness, but on dazzling light. Flashes of it which tore over him in great sweeping arch. Dazed, sick, he tried to press his prone body into the unyielding surface on which he lay, but there was no way of burying out of this wild storm of light and clashing sound.
Now under him the very fabric of the floor rocked and quivered, as if it were being shaken apart into crumbling rubble. All the will and ability to move was gone. Ross could only lie there and endure. What had happened? He did not know save that what raged about him now was a warring of inimical forces, perhaps both beating on each other even as they strove for mastery. The play of Raze resembled sword-blades crossing, fencing. Ross threw his arm over his eyes to shut out the intolerable brilliance of that thrust encounter. His body tingled and winced as the whirlwind of energy clashed and reclashed. He was beaten, stupid, as a man pinned down too long under a heavy shelling. How did it end? In one terrific thunderclap of sound and blasting power.
And when did it end? Hours? Days later? Time was a thing set apart from this. Ross lay in the quiet, which his body welcomed thirstily. Then he was conscious of the touch of wind on his face, wind carrying the hint of sea salt. He opened his eyes and saw above him a patch of clouded sky. Shakily, he levered himself up on his elbows. There was no complete walls any more, just jagged points of masonry. Broken teeth set in his skull's jawbone. Open sky, dark clouds, Spattering rain. Gordon. Cariwell. Ross's voice was a thin whisper. He licked his lips and tried again. Gordon. Had there been an answering whimper? Ross crawled into a hollow between two fallen blocks. A pool of water. No. It was the cloak of one of the foanna, spread out across the flooring in this fragment of room.
Then Ross saw that Ash was there. The cloak's figure braced against the Terran's shoulder as he had supported, half-embraced, the foanna. Vivalda, Ash called, that with an urgency which was demanding. Now the foanna moved, raising an arm in the cloak's flowing sleeve. Ross sat back on his heels. Ross! Ash! He turned his head. Kerr while stood there then came forward, planting her feet with Kerr. Her hands outstretched, her eyes wide and unseen. Ross pulled himself up and went to her, finding that the once solid floor seemed to dip and sway under him until he too must balance and creep. His hands closed on her shoulders and pulled her to him in mutual support. Gordon? Over there. You all right?
I think so. Her voice was weak. The falana. Why lamb? Why, Valda? Steadying herself against him, she tried to look around. The place, which had once been a narrow room, then a balcony, was now a perch above stomach-turning space. The hall of the oval mirrors was gone. Having disappeared into a hollow, the depths of which were veiled by a vapor, which boiled and bubbled, as if far below, some huge cauldron hung above a blazing fire. Karawa cried out, and Ross drew her back from that drop. He was clear-headed now, and looked about for some way down from this doubtful perch. Of the other two foanna, there was no sign. Had they been sucked up and out in the infernal they had created with their unleashing of energy against the Baldi's installation?
Ross? Look! Karawa's cry! Her upflung arm directed his attention along. Under the sullen gathering of the storm, a sphere arose as a bubble might seek the surface of a pool before breaking. A ship—a baldy ship taking off from the ruined citadel. So some of the enemy had survived that trial of strength. The globe was small, a scout used for within-atmosphere exploration, Ross judged. It arose first. Anun moved inland, fleeing the gathering storm to be out of sight in moments, inland where the mountain base of the invaders was reputed to be, retreating or bound together at reinforcement. Baldi's Carrawa asked. Yes. She wiped her hand across her face, smearing dust and grime on her cheeks. As raindrops pattered about them, Ross drew the girl with him into the alcove, where Ash sheltered with the falana.
The cowed alien was setting up, her hands still gripping one of the wands. Now a half-melted ruin. Ash glanced at them as if for the first time he remembered they might be there. Baldy's ship just took off inland, Ross told him. We didn't see either of the other falana. They have gone to do what is to be done. Ash's companion replied. So some of the enemy fled. Well, perhaps they have learned one lesson, not to meddle with others' devices. Ah, so much gone, which will ever come again, never again. She held up the half-melted wand, turned it back and forth before Herb, before she cast it away. It flew out, up, up, up. then dropped into the cauldron of the hall which had been. A gust of rain, cold, chilling the lightly-clad terrens swept across them.
The foanna was helped to her feet by ash. For a moment she turned slowly, giving a lingering look to the ruins. Then she spoke. Broken stone holds no value. Take hands, my brothers, my sister. It is time we go hence. Kerr was hand in Ross's right, Aschus in his left, and both linked to Vivalda in turn. Then they were indeed elsewhere, in a courtyard where bodies lay flackened under the drenching downpour of the rain, and moving among those bodies were the two other foanna, bending to examine one man after another. Perhaps over one and three they so inspected, They held concentration before a wand was used in tracing certain portions of the body between them. When they were finished, the man stirred, moaned, showed signs of life once more.
From behind a tumbled wall crept a Avakakian who did not wear the guard armor of the others. Gil-pack, flippers, divers built, had been stripped from him. There was a bleeding gash down the side of his face, and he held his left arm against his body, supported by his right hand. Bally Coo! The rover pulled himself up to his feet and stood slain. Ross reached him quickly to catch him as he slumped forward. Loka, the Terran asked. The woman killers took him. Somehow the rover got that out as Ross half supported, Half led him to where the Falana were gathering those they had been able to revive. They wanted to learn. Maluku was obviously making a great effort to tell his story. About—about where we came from.
Where we got the packs. So now they will know of us, or will if they get the story out of Loka. Ash worked with Ross to splint the rover's broken arm. How many of them were there, Bellicoux? The rover's head moved slowly from side to side. I do not know in truth. It is—was—like a dream. I was in the water swimming through the seagate. Then suddenly I was in another place where those from the stars waited about me. They had our packs and belts, and these they showed us, demanding to know where of these were. Locketh was like one deep in sleep, and they left him so when they questioned me. Then there came a great noise, and the floor under us shook, lightning flashed through the air. Two of the women killers ran from the room, and all of them were greatly excited.
They took up Locketh and carried him away with him, the packs, and other things. And I was left alone, though I could not move. As if they had left me in a net, I could not see. More and more were the flashes. Then one of those slayers of women stood in the doorway. He raised his hand, and my feet were free, but I could not move otherwise than to follow after him. We came along a hall, and into this court were men stood unstirring, although stones fell from the walls upon some of them, and the ground shook. Balis Kuh's voice grew shriller. His words ran together. The one who pulled me after him by his will. He cried out and put his hands to his head. Back and forth he ran, bumping into the standing men, and once running into a wall as if he were blinded.
And then he was gone, and I was alone. There was more falling stone, and one struck my shoulder, so I was thrown to the ground. There I lay until you came. So few, out of many, so few. One of the Thoanna stood beside them, her cloak streaming with the falling rain. And for these, she faced the lines of those they had not revived. There was no chance. They died as helplessly as if they went into a meeting of swords with their arms bound to their sides. Evil have we wrought here. Ash shook his head. Evil has been wrought here, Wieland, but not by your seeking. And those who died here helplessly may be only a small portion of those yet to be sacrificed. Have you forgotten slaughter at Kyanad, and those other fairings where women and children were also struck down to serve some purpose we do not even yet know?
Lady, great one. Vallecou struggled to set up, and Ross slipped an arm behind him in aid. She for whom I made a bride cup was meet for them at Kyanan, along with many others. If these slayers are not put to the sword's edge, there will be other fairings so used. And these shadow ones possess a magic to draw men to them helplessly to be killed. Great one, you have powers. All men know that wind and wave obey your call. Do you now use your magic? It is better to fall with the power we know than answer such spells as those killers have netted about the men here.
This is one weapon which they shall not use again. Why, Valda rose from a stone block where she had been sitting, and perhaps in its way it was one of the most dangerous. But in defeating it, we have by so much weakened ourselves also. And the strong place of these starmen lies not on the coast, but inland. They will be warned by those who fled this place. Wind and wave, yes, those have served our purpose in the past. But now, perhaps, we have found that which our power will not best. Only, for this, her gesture was for the ruins of the Citadel and the dead. There shall be a payment exacted, to the height of our desire.
Whether the Poana did have any control over the storm winds or not, the present deluge appeared not to accommodate them. The dazed, injured survivors of the courtyard were brought to shelter in some of the underground passages. There appeared to be no other reminders of the wrecker force which had earlier besieged the keep than those survivors. But within hours, some of those who had served the Fawanna were generations returned, and the Fawanna themselves opened the sea-gates so that the rover cruisers anchored in the small bay below their ruined walls. A small force, and one ill-equipped to go up against the Baltis, some five-star men's bodies had been found in the Citadel, but the ship had gone off to warn their base.
To Ross's thinking, the advantage still lay with the invaders. But the Avakakians refused to accept the idea that the odds were against them. As soon as the storm blew out its force, Angol's cruiser headed northwest to other clan fairings, where the rovers could claim kinship. Anaphukta sailed on the same air in south. While some of the wreckers were released to carry the warning to their lords, Just how great a force could be gathered through such means, and how effective it would be, was a question to make the Terrans uneasy. Kiriwa disappeared with the foanna into the surviving Inner Cliff burrows below the Citadel. But Ash and Ross remained with Torgal and his officers, striving to bring organization out of the chaos about them.
We must know just where their lair lies. Torgel stated the obvious. The mountains, you believe, and they can fly in sky-ships to and from that point. Well, he spread out a chart. Here are the mountains on this island, running so. An army marching hither could be sighted from sky-ships. Also, there are many mountains. Which is the one or ones we must seek? It may take many tens of days to find that place. While they will always know where we are, watch us from above, Prepare for our coming. Again, Ross mentally paid tribute to the captain's quick grasp of essentials. "'You have a solution, Captain?' Ash asked. "'There's a river here,' Torgel said reflectively. "'Perhaps, I think, in terms of water, because I am a sailor.' But here it does run, and for this far along it our cruisers may ascend."
He pointed with his fingertip. "'This lies, however, in Glickba's land.' and he is now the mightiest of the wrecker lords. His sword always drawn against us. I do not believe that we could talk him into. Glickmus, Rossum interrupted. They both looked at him inquiringly, and he repeated Loka's story of the wrecker lord, who had had dealings with a voice from the mountain, and so gained the wrecking devices to make him the dominant lord of the district. So, Torgel exclaimed, That is the evil of this shadow in the mountains. No, under those circumstances I do not think we shall talk Glistmus into furthering any raid against those who have made him great over his fellows. Rather will he turn against us and our cause?
And if we do not use the cruisers up the river, Ash conned a map, then perhaps a small party or parties working overland could strike the stream here nearer to the uplands. Torgel frowned at the map. "'I do not think so. Even small parties moving in that direction would be sighted by Gwipa's people. The more so if they headed inland. He will not wish to share his secrets with others.' "'But, say, a party of Foanna?' The captain glanced up swiftly to favor Ash with a keen regard. Then he would not dare. No, I am sure he would not dare to interfere. Not yet has he risen high enough to turn the hook of his sword against them, but would the foanna do so? If not the foanna, then others wearing like robes, Ash said slowly.
Others wearing like robes? repeated Torgel, but his frown was heavy. No man would take on the guise of the foanna. He would be blasted by their power for so doing. If the foanna will lead us in their persons, Then we shall follow gladly, knowing that their magic will be with us. There is also this, Ross broke in. The Baldies have the gill packs they took from Balakoo and Loka, and they have Loka. They will want to learn more about us. We hoped that the Citadel would provide bait to draw them, and it did. That our plan for a trap there was spoiled was ill fortune. But I am sure that if the Baldies believe we are coming to them, they will hold off an all-out attack against our march, hoping to gather us intact.
They'd risk that. Ash nodded. I agree. We are the unknown they must solve now. And this much I am sure of. The future of this world and her people balances on a very narrow line of choice. It is my hope that such a choice is still to be made. Torgle smiled thinly. We live in perilous times when the shades require our swords to go up against the shadow.
This concludes a reading of Chapter 17.
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18 Ch18-World In Doubt 27:32
The final chapter.
Key at a Time by Andre Norton. Chapter 18 World in Doubt The day was dully overcast, as all days had been since they had begun this sulk and marsh penetration into the mountain territory. Ross could not accept the idea that the Puanha might actually command wind and wave, storm and sun, as the Abacacans firmly believed, but the gloomy weather had favored them so far. And now they reached the last breathing point before they took the plunge into the heart of the enemy country. About the way in which they were to make that plunge, Ross had his own plan, one he did not intend to share with either Ash or Carrawha, though he had had to outline it to one now waiting here with him. This is still your mind, younger brother?
He did not turn his head to look at the cloaked figure. It is still my mind. Ross could be firm on that point. The Terran backed out of the bandage place, from which he had been studying the canyon-like valley cupping the Baldy spaceship. Now he got to his feet and faced by land, his own gray cloak bellowing out in the wind to reveal the rover-scale armor underneath. "'You can do it for me?' he asked in turn. During the past days the Poana had admitted that the weird battle within the Citadel had weakened and limited their magic. Last night they detected a force barrier ahead, and to transport the whole party through that by teleporting was impossible. Yes, you alone. Then my wand would be drained for a space.
But what can you do within their hold, save be meat for their taking? There cannot be too many of them left there. That's a small ship. They lost five at the Citadel, and the Rovers have three prisoners. No sign of the scout ship we know they have, so more of them must be gone in it. I won't be facing an army, and what they have in the way of weapons may be powered by installations in the ship. A lot of damage done there, or even if the ship lifted. He was not sure of what he could do. This was a venture depending largely on improvisation at the last moment. You propose to send off the ship? I don't know whether that is possible. No, perhaps I can only attract their attention. Break through the force shield so the rest may attack.
Ross knew that he must attempt this independent action, that in order to remain the Ross Murdoch he had always been, he must be an actor, not a spectator. The Poana did not argue with him now. Where? Her long sleeve rippled as she gestured to the canyon. Dull as the skies were overhead, there was light here. Too much of it for his purpose as a ground about the ship was open. To appear there might be fatal. Ross was grasped by another and much more promising idea. The foanna had transported them all to the deck of Torgel's cruiser after asking him to picture it for her mentally. And to all outward appearances, the Baldy ship before them now was twin to the one which had taken him once on a fantastic voyage across a long-vanished stellar empire.
Such a ship he knew. Can you put me in the ship? If you have a good memory of it, yes. But how know you these ships? I was in one once for many days. If these are alike, then I know it will. And if this is unlike, to try, such may mean your death. He had to accept her warning, yet outwardly this ship was a duplicate, and before he had voiced on a derelict he had also explored a wrecked freighter on his own world thousands of years before his own race had evolved. There was one portion of both ships which had been identical, save for size, and that part was the best for his purpose. Send me here.
With closed eyes, Ross produced a metal picture of the control cabin. Those seats, which were not really seats, but webbing support, swinging before banks of buttons and levers. All the other installations he had watched, studied, until they were as known to him as the plate bulkheads of the cabin below in which he had slept. Very vivid, that memory. He felt the touch of the foanna's cool fingers on his forehead. Then it was gone. He opened his eyes. No more wind and gloom. He stood directly behind a pilot's web slung facing a visita plate and rows of controls. Just as he had stood so many times in the derelict, he had made it. This was the control room of the spacer, and it was alive. The faint thrumming in the air, the play of lights on the boards.
Ross pulled the crown of the phoenicloak up over his head. He had had days to accustom himself to the bulk of the robe, but still his swathings were sometimes a hindrance rather than a help. Slowly he turned. There were no baldees here, but the well-door to the lower levels was open, and from it came small sounds echoing up the communication ladder. The ship was occupied. Not for the first time since he had started on this venture, Ross wooshed for more complete information. Doubtless, several of those buttons or levers before him controlled devices which could be the greatest aid to him now, but which and how he did not know. Once in just such a cabin he had meddled, and in activating a long silent installation, had called the attention of the Baldies to their wrecked ship, to the Terrans looting it.
Only by the merest chance had the avenging of the stellar space-fence fallen then on the Russian investigators, and not on his own people. He knew better than to touch anything before the pilot's station, but the banks of controls to one side were concerned with the inner well-being of the ship, and they tempted him. To go up blind was, however, more of a risk than he dared take. There was one future precaution for him. From a very familiar case beside the pilot's seat, Ross gathered up a collection of discs. Sorted through them hastily, for one which bore a certain symbol on its covering. There was only one of these. Slapping the rest back into their container, Ross pressed a button on the control board.
Again, his guests paid off. Another disk was exposed as a small panel slid back. Ross clawed that out of the holder, put in its place the one he had found. Now, if his choice had been correct, the crew took off in this ship, unless they checked the route tape first, would find themselves heading to another primitive planet and not returning to base. Perhaps exhaustion of fuel might ground them past hope of ever regaining their home port again. Next to damaging the ship, which he could not do. This was the best thing to ensure that any enemy leaving Avakaki would not speedily return with a second expeditionary force. Ross dropped the root disk he had taken out into a pocket on his belt, to be destroyed when he had the chance.
Now he cat-footed across the deck to look into the well and listen. The walls glowed with the fused light. From here, the Terran could count at least four levels under him, with perhaps another. The bottom two ought to be supplies and general storage. Then the engine room, tech labs above, and next to the control room, the living quarters. Through the fabric of the ship, shivering up his body from the soles of his feet, he could feel the vibration of engines at work. One sits must control the force field, which reigned this canyon. Perhaps even power to weapons the invaders could turn against any assault. Ross whirled about, his foanna cloak in a wide swing. There was one control which he knew.
Yes, Again, the board was the same as the one he was familiar with. His hand plunged out and down, wrecking the lever from one major point to the very end of the slit in which it moved. Then he planted himself with his back to the wall. Whoever came up the well hunting the cause of the failure would be facing the other way. Ross crouched a little, pushing the cape well back on his shoulders to free his arms. There was a feline suppleness in his stance just as a jungle cat might wait coming of his prey. What he heard was a shout below, the click of footgear on the rungs of the level ladder. Ross's lips drew back in a snarl, which was also feline. He thought that would do it. Space men were ultra-sensitive to any failure in air flow.
Whitehead, bare many hair, Finn's shoulders a little hunched under the blue-green lavender stuff of the Baldy's uniforms. Head turning now, so that the eyes could see the necessary switch. An explanation from the alien end. But the Baldy never had a chance to complete that turn. Looked behind him. Ross sprang, and struck with the sight of his hand. The hairless head snapped forward. His hands, already hooked in the other's armpits, The Terran heaved the alien up and over onto the deck of the control cabin. It was only when he was about to bind his captive that Ross discovered the Baldy was dead. A blow calculated to stun the alien had been too severe. Breathing a little faster, the Terran rolled the body back and hoisted it into the navigator's swing seat.
Fastening it with the takeoff belts, one down, how many left? He had little time to wonder. For before he could reach the well once again, there was a call from below, sharp and demanding. The Terran searched his victim, but the Baldy was unarmed. Again a shout, then silence. To complete a silence. How could they have guessed trouble so quickly? Unless—unless the Baldy's mental communication had been at work. They might even now know their fellow was dead. But not how he died. Ross was prepared to grant the Baldy's superterran abilities, but he did not see how they could know what had happened here. They could only suspect danger, not know the form it had taken, and sooner or later one of them must come to adjust the switch.
This could be a duel of patience. Ross squatted at the edge of the well, trying to make his ears supply him with hints of what might be happening below. Had there been an alteration in the volume of vibration? He set his palm flat on the deck, tried to deduce the truth, but he could not be sure. That there had been some slight change, he was certain. They could not wait much longer without making an attempt to reopen the air supply regulator, or could they? Again, Ross was hammered by lack of information. Perhaps the baltics did not need the same amount of oxygen his own kind depended upon. And if that were true, Ross could be the first to suffer in playing a waiting game. Well, air was not the only thing he could cut off from here, though it had been the first and most important to his mind.
Ross hesitated. Two-edged weapons cut in both directions, but he had to force a counter move from them. He pulled another switch. The control room, the whole of the ship was plunged into darkness. No sound from below this time. Ross pictured the interior layout of the ships he had known. Two levels down to reach the engine room. Could he descend undetected? There was only one way to test that. Try it. He pulled the phoana cloak about him. Were several rungs down on the latter when the glow in the walls came on? An emergency switch? With a forward scramble, Ross swung into one of the radiating side corridors. The sliding door panels along it were all closed. He could detect no sounds behind them, but the vibration in the ship's walls had returned to its steady beat.
Now the Terran realized the folly of his move. He was more securely trapped here than he had been in the control cabin. There was only one way out. Up or down the ladder, and the enemy could have that under observation from below. All they would need to do was to use a flamer or a paralyzing ray, such as the one he had turned over to Ash several days ago. Ross marched along to the stairwell. A faint pad of movement, a shadow of sound from the ladder. Someone on the way up. Could they mentally detect him? Know him for an alien intruder by the broadcast of his thoughts? The Baldies had a certain respect for the Poana, and might desire to take one alive. He drew the robe about him, using it to muffle his figure completely as a true wearer's did.
But the figure pulling painfully up from rung to rung was no Baldi. The lean Abacacian arms, the thin Abacacian face, drawn of feature, painfully blank of expression, locus, Under the same dread spell as it held the warriors in the Citadel courtyard, could the aliens be using this Avakakian captive as a defense shield, moving up behind him? Locus' head turned. Those blank eyes regarded Ross, and their depths were troubled, recognition of a short returning. The Avakakian threw up one hand in a beseeching gesture, and then went to his knees in the corridor. Great One! Great One! The words came from his lips in a breathy hiss as he groveled. Then his body went flacket, and he sprawled face down, his twisted leg drawn up as if he would run but could not.
Boana! The one word came out of the walls themselves, or so it seemed. Boana! The wise learn what lies before them when they walk alone in the dark. The Avakakian speech was stilted, accented, but understandable. Ross stood motionless. Had they somehow seen him through Locus' eyes, or had they been alerted merely by the Avakakian's call? They believed he was one of the phoana. Well, he could play that row. Phoana, sharper this time, demanding. You lie in our hand. Let us clasp the fingers tightly, and you shall be not. Out of somewhere the words Carrara had chanted in the Fawanna Temple came to Ross. Not in her Polynesian tongue, but in the English she had repeated, and softening his voice to his best approximation of the Fawanna sing-song, Ross sang.
Ye forty thousand gods, ye gods of sea, of sky, of stars, he improvised. Ye elders of the gods that are, ye gods that once were, Ye that whisper, yet that watch by night. Ye that show your gleaming eyes. Boana. The summons was on the ragged edge of patience. Your tricks shall not move our mountains. Ye gods of mountains, Ross returned. Of valleys, of shades, and not the shadow. He wove in the beliefs of this world, too. Walk now this world between the stars. His confidence was growing, and there was no use in remaining pent in this quarter. He would have to chance that they were not prepared to kill summarily one of the foanna. Ross went to the well, went down the ladder slowly, keeping his robe about him.
Here at the next level there was a wider space about the opening and three door panels. Behind one must be those he sought. He was buoyed up by a curious belief in himself, almost as if wearing this robe did give him in part the power attributed to the poanna. He laid his hand on the door to his right, and sent it snapping back into its frame, stepped inside as if he entered here by right. There were three baldees. To his Terran eyes, they were all superficially alike, but the one seated on a control stool had a cold arrogance in his expression, a pitiless half-smile which made Ross face him squarely. The Terran longed for one of the Poana staffs and the ability to use it. To spray that energy about this cabin might reduce the baldy defenses to nothing.
But now two of the paralyzing tubes were trained on him. "'You have come to us, Poana. What have you to offer?' demanded the commander, if that was his rank. Offer? For the first time, Ross spoke. There is no reason for the Coana to make any offer, Slayer of Women and Children. You have come from the stars to take. But that does not mean we choose to give. He felt it now, that inner pulling, twisting in his mind, the willing which was their more subtle weapon. Once they had almost bent him with that willing, because then he had worn their livery. A space suit taken from the wrecked freighter. Now he did not have that chink in his defense, and all that stubborn independence and determination to be himself alone resisted the influence with a fierce inner fire.
We offer life to you, Foanna, freedom of the stars. These other dirt creepers are nothing to you. Why take you weapons and their cause? You are not of the same race. Nor are you. Ross's hands moved under the envelope of the robe, unloosing the two hidden clasps which held it. That bank of controls before which the commander sat. To silence that would cause trouble, and he depended upon Wylan. The rovers should now be massed at either end of the canyon, waiting for the force field to fail and let them in. Ross steadied himself, poised for action. "'We have something for you, star men.' He tried to hold their attention with words. Have you not heard of the power of the Poana, that they can command wind and wave, that they can be where they were not in a single movement of the eyelid?
And this is so. Behold! It was the oldest trick in the world, perhaps on any planet, but because it was so old, maybe it had been forgotten by the aliens. For as Ross pointed, Those heads did turn for an instant. He was in the air, the robe gathered in his arms, wide-spread as bat-wings. And when they crashed in a tangle which bore them all back against the controls, Ross strove to ammess them in the robe, using the pressure of his body to slam them all on the buttons and levers of the board. Whether that battering would accomplish his purpose, he could not tell. But that he had only those few seconds Torn out of time to try, he knew, and determined to use them as best he could. One of the baldies had slithered down to the floor, and another was aiming strangely ineffectual blows at him.
But the third had wiggled free to bring up a paralyzer. Ross slewed around, dragging the alien he held across his body just as the other fired. But though the fighter went limp and heavy in Ross's hold, But Terran's whole right arm fell to his side. His upper chest was numb, and his head felt as if one of the rover's boarding-axes had clipped in. Ross reeled back and fell, his left hand raking down the controls as he went. Then he lay on the clavin floor and saw the convulsed face of the commander above him, a paralyzer aimed at his middle. To breathe was an effort Ross found torture to endure. The red haze in his head filled all the world. Pain. He strode to flee the pain, but was held captive in it, and always the pressure on him kept that agony steady.
Let be. He wanted to scream that. Perhaps he had, but the pressure continued. Then he forced his eyes open. Ash. Ash and one of the phoena bending over him. Ash's hands on his chest, pressing. Relaxing. Pressing again. It is good, he heard Wivalda's voice. Her hand rested lightly on his forehead, and from that touch Ross drew again the quickening of body and spirit he had felt on the dancing floor. How? He began, and then changed to—where? For this was not the engine room of the spacer. He lay in the open, with sweet Rain-wet wind filling his starved lungs now without Ash's forced aid. It is over, Ash told him. All over. For now. But not until the sun reached the canyon hours later, and they sent in council, did Ross learn all the tale.
Just as he had made his own plan for reaching the spacer, so had Ash, Kirwa, and the Dolphins worked on a similar attempt. The river, running deep in those mountains' gorges, had provided a road for the dolphins, and they found beneath its surface an entrance past the fourth barrier. The Baltis were so sure of their superiority on this primitive world, they set no guards save that field, Ash explained. We slipped through five swimmers to reach the ship, and then the field went down thanks to you. So I did help that much, Ross grinned wily. What had he proved by his sorting? Nothing much, but he was not sorry he had made it, for the very fact he had made it on his own had eased in part that small ache which was in him now when he looked at Ash and remembered how it had once been.
Ash might be, always would be, his friend, but the old tight-locking comradeship of the project was behind them, vanished like the time-gate. And what will you do with them? Ross nodded toward the captives, the three from the ship, two more taken from the small scouting globe, which had home to find their enemies ready for them. "'We wait,' Wivalda said. "'For those on the rover's ship to be brought hither. By our laws they deserve death.' The rovers at that council nodded vigorously. All save Torgal and Jazya. The rover woman spoke first. They bear the curse of Pukka heavy on them. To live under such a curse is worse than a clean, quick dying. Listen. It has come upon me that better this curse not only eat them up, but be carried by them to rot those who sent them.
Together the Fawana nodded. There has been enough of killing, said Wieland. No, warriors. We do not say this because we shrink from rightful deaths. But Jazia speaks the truth in this matter. Let these depart. Perhaps they will bear that with them which will convince their leaders that this is not a world they may squeeze in their hands as one crushes a white kwawa to eat its seeds. You believe in their cursing rovers? Then let the fruit of it be made plain beyond the stars. Was this the time to speak of the switch tapes? Ross wondered. No. He did not really believe that the rover curse or the retreatment of the captives would, either one, influence the star leaders. But if the invaders did not return to their base, their vanishing might also work to keep another expedition from invading of Achaecan skies.
Leave it to chance, a curse, and time? So it was decided. Have we won? Ross asked Ash later.
Do you mean that we change the future? Who can answer that? They may return in force. This may have been a step which was taken before. Those pylons may still stand in the future above a deserted sea and island. We shall probably never know. That was also their own truth. For them also there had been a substitution of journey tapes by fate. And this was now their avacaccia. Ross Murdock, Gordon Ash, Carrera Trehearne, Tina Ra, Tau, Five Terrans forever lost in time, in the past with a dubious future. Would this be the Baron Lotus World, or another now? Yes, no, either. They had found their key to the mystery out of time, but they could not turn it. And there was no key to the gate which had ceased to exist.
Grasp tight the presence. Ross looked about him. Yes, the presence, which might be very satisfying after all.
This concludes the reading of the final chapter, 18, of Andre Norton's Key Out of Time.