Harath stirred. He was climbing down from her shoulder, clutching at her robe with his claws, using his two upper tentacles to balance. Then he squatted on the table, flicking forth one of those tentacles, inserting it greedily into the pot of sweet spread, whipping it back to draw through his beak, his tongue curled about it to sweep off the last bit.
But he was acting. Just as she had acted out the role of Zhol Maiden last night. Now he was all small-creature-with-but-a-thought-of-food. And Ziantha, not quite sure how she understood (unless Harath could broadcast on some more subtle mental length) concentrated on watching him. Lick, eat, lick, eat. He did not turn his head again. But now and then he bobbed it energetically up and down, licking splashes of his treat from his chest.
Up—down—slow—now twice fast—Ziantha caught her breath. Harath—Harath was coding! She spread out her hand on the side of the cup as she drank, but her fingers tapped that surface with the same beat.
Bob, bob, bob—she read his warning of a sensitive. Not Ogan—Harath would have no reason to warn of him. To the alien Harath, she and Ogan were of a kind, united. No, this was a stranger. And—
He might only be cruising. One of the Patrol sensitives taping mind levels as their companions, who used physical means of controlling crime, made inspections through those districts where the activities of the Guild might be centered.
Ziantha had been proud of her achievement; now her folly struck her like a forceful blow. If there had been a sensitive anywhere within range of her late exploit, the amount of energy she had loosed would have brought instant investigation. That was why Harath was using code. As long as neither of them tried mind-search they were safe, at least from a spot check. Certainly on suspicion alone no patroller could pick up innocent wayfarers for psychic testing.
Her fingers moved on the mug. Harath bobbed his head. They understood each other. Her one fear was the distance now between them and means of escape. She felt far better than she had when she had crawled out into this place. But she would have to stroll, not hurry, to the flitter park, and she must plan a return route to baffle any trail. Could she trust her exhausted body?
Also, any Patrol sensitive might well be able to recognize the signs of energy exhaustion. He had only to note the least wavering on her part and take her in to be psyched. And then— But she would not let herself think about what would come after that. No, she must summon up all her resolution and make it to the flitter landing without displaying any overt signs to any watcher.
It was growing late, and she could not remain here too long. This place might already have been marked down as one of the sites to look, the need for food and drink . . . Ziantha fumbled for a tal-card made out on a legal business of Yasa's, slipped it into the payment slit. Harath climbed once more to her shoulder as she stood up.
Good. She could walk without believing that each new step was going to spill her forward on her face, that much had food done for her. Now, the flitter park—slow and easy, but not too slow.
Harath had closed his eyes. For all intents he might be sleeping, though his sharp hold on her shoulder did not waver. He had closed his mind, just as she had closed hers. But as she went she used her eyes. Her companion had signaled "he" in relation to the hunter. But the pursuer might just as well be a woman. Four, five, six—a dozen people in sight.
Some were obviously visitors, or at least not in a hurry. There were three others—all men—wearing the dress of merchants. If she could have used mind-touch only for an instant she would know the enemy, but that would have revealed her in turn. Now she must mark faces, make very sure none could follow her back to the villa. All at once that seemed to her to be a very safe refuge.
3
She reached the lift to the flitter landing and was borne aloft, wishing she dared to look back and so sight a follower. But her years of training held, and she drew about her as best she could a concealing cloak of unconcern. A few moments later she dialed the call signal for a robo-flitter. Those last seconds of waiting for the empty transport to slide in before her were the worst, so close to escape, yet at any moment subject to challenge.
The flitter dropped, its cabin door opened, and Ziantha scrambled in with perhaps more haste than was cautious, already reaching for the code key to tap out a destination to confuse the trail. Also she risked a quick glance back at the platform from which she was rising. No sign of pursuit.
But that was no proof that she was not under observation.
Minutes later the flitter set down at the wide and crowded general market just beyond the fringe of the landing port. The dealers who traded here bought from space crewmen, who legally could dabble in the private commerce of small objects, and illegally in contraband. Here the Guild had many contacts planted at strategic points, and no sensitive could pierce their protects. Ziantha relaxed—as much as she could with that lump in her purse—as she threaded a way through the narrow runways between one booth and the next. From those contacts she might claim transportation back to the villa to baffle any ordinary Patrol exercise.
She had the pricking of the band on her left wrist to guide her to the stall where she might claim aid, as that was activated to pick up a Guild signal. Twilight was close, Harath clicked his beak in a warning, fluffing up his down. He did not take kindly to the rising chill of night.
A blink sign proclaimed the name of Kackig, and Ziantha turned there in obedience to her own recognition prick. The man who faced her was as gray-skinned as any Salariki, but without the feline features of that species, clearly more humanoid as to ancestry, in spite of color.
Ziantha raised her hand as if to settle one of the flower-headed pins in her brush of wig, displaying to the full her wrist ring.
"Gentle fem." His voice was a thin pipe, seeming not to issue from his throat but from some place outside his body. "Look you—here lie the scents of a hundred stars. Breathe Flame Spice from Andros, Diamond Dust from Alaban—"
"You have Sickle-lily of the Tenth Day Bloom?"
His expression did not change beyond that of a polite merchant's attention. "By the favor of Three-horned Math, it is ready to pour into your hand, gentle fem, rare as it is. But not here, as you well know. Such a delicate fragrance is easily tainted in the open." He clapped his hands sharply, and a small boy wearing his livery overalls arose from the ground behind the stall.
Kackig snapped his fingers. "Take the gentle fem to Laros—"
Ziantha nodded her thanks and hurried to keep up with the boy, who slipped far more easily than she among the narrow and well-crowded ways of the mart. They came at last to where the delivery flitters parked in a dusty row.
"The fourth." Her guide underlined his information by pointing with a grubby finger. He surveyed what lay about them. "Now!" She crossed the short open space to enter the flitter.
There was a Salariki at the controls who glanced around as if to assure himself she was not an intruder. From the interior also came the subtle fragrance of the Sickle-lily, which the dried petals of the Tenth Day Bloom could retain for years. Yasa's favorite scent was about to be delivered to the villa.
For the first time since Harath's warning, the girl dared use mind-touch with her downy companion.
"We are free?"
"Now." If thought could convey a feeling of irritation, then Harath's curt reply was shadowed by that emotion. He did not add to that, which was not usual, but Ziantha did not press. Now that she was reasonably safe, the fact that she carried with her that which she had no business to have taken began to weigh on her spirits.
It all depended upon how important the apport was. If it had no more meaning for Jucundus than any other of the exotic curiosities which had been with it, then it might not even be missed for some time. And, surely if it did have importance, it would not have been left lying in full sight on the table. It would have been sealed in the safe.
She rested her hand over the bulge in her purse, haunted by the same ambivalence of desires that had ridden her ever since t
his spell had fallen on her. She wanted to use the lump as a focus for exploration, yet she feared it. But she believed now that her desire for knowledge was greater than her fear. It must be, or it would not have pushed her to risk so much in order to get the lump into her possession.
That she intended to keep it a secret—yes. Not that she could for long, because of Harath. He would share information with Ogan. And to suggest that he not do so would be to make sure that he would. One could not credit Harath with human motives. He was programmed to work by an alien set of impulses—which meant—
Harath snapped his beak peevishly, avoiding mind-touch. She set him on the ground as she left the flitter at the villa in-park, and he disappeared with a flash of speed surprising for his small body. Ziantha took warning from that flight and hurried to her own room. If she were to have any use at all from what she had found, it must be here and now.
Dropping among her cushions, she took out the lump, this time without precautions against touching it. Cupping it in her hands she brought it to her forehead, as if at any moment Ogan and Yasa might break in to wrest it away from her.
She swayed, almost crumpled. That thrust of instant reply was as strong as a harsh blow in the face. And yet—she could sort nothing out of the whirl of impressions that rushed so upon her. The worst was a freezing fear, the like of which she had never known before in her life. Perhaps she screamed as it closed about her; she did not know.
But that overpowering force was gone. Ziantha crouched, staring stupidly at her hands, which lay limply on her knees. The lump—the thing—where was it? She shrank from it when she saw it among the cushions as she might from a sudden attack by an alien creature.
Nor could she bring herself to touch it again, though that fear had ebbed, and once more she could feel the faint stirrings of the obsession which had made her covet it. Ziantha dragged herself up, tottered into the fresher, needing to feel the cleansing of water, heat, life, the knowledge that she was herself—Ziantha and not—
"Not who?" She cried that aloud this time, her hands to her head. As she ran she shed wig, clothing, to stand in as hot a mist vapor as her body could tolerate. The warmth that enfolded her skin slowly penetrated to reach that part of her which seemed to remain frozen.
Wrapped in a loose robe, she reluctantly returned to her room. Could she bundle the lump up in a covering—perhaps then bury it in the garden? Still she was drawn to it against her will, though at least she could control herself to the point of not touching it.
Ziantha went on her knees by the cushions, studying the artifact with attention she had not given it when she made that first impulsive attempt to unriddle its secret. Though its appearance was very rough, it was, she was sure, not merely some unworked lump of hard-baked clay or stone. It bore the rude semblance of a crouching figure, so rude one could not rightly say that it was meant to resemble either a monster or a man. There appeared to be four limbs of sorts attached to a barrel body. But the head, if it had even been given one, had vanished. Somehow she believed it had been conceived as it now was.
That it was old past her judging she knew. This extreme age could well have caused that nauseating whirl of impressions from her "reading," for the longer any object wrought by intelligence was in existence, the more impressions it could pick up and store, letting those forth as a chaotic mingling of pictures. It would require many sessions, much careful researching, to untangle even a small fraction of what might be packed into this grotesque object.
For a long time it had been a proved fact that any object wrought by intelligence (or even a natural stone or similar object that had been used for a definite purpose by intelligence) could record. From the fumbling beginnings of untrained sensitives, who had largely developed their own powers, much had been learned. It had been "magic" then; yet the talent was too "wild," because all men did not share it, and because it could not be controlled or used at will but came and went for reasons unknown to the possessors. So that at one instance there had been amazing and clear results that could not be questioned by witnesses, and on a second try, nothing at all.
There had been frauds when those who had reputations of wonder workers could not produce the results called for, and in desperation had turned to trickery. But always there had been a percentage that was unexplained. When man learned to study instead of to scoff, when the talented ones were neither scorned nor feared, progress began. Mind-touch was as well accepted as speech now, and with it all those other "unexplainables" which had been denied for generations. Then when mankind of Ziantha's own species—that first mankind which had neither mutated nor altered as a result of living on planets alien to their home world—when her own species headed into space they found others to whom the "wild talents" were a normal way of life.
There were the Wyverns of Warlock, whose females were age-long mistresses of thought over matter. The Thassa of Yiktor—Ziantha did not need to list them all. Part of her past training had been to study what each newly discovered world could add to the sum total of learning. What she had been able to absorb she had practiced to the height of her powers under Ogan's careful fostering. But this—
Old—old—old!
"How old?" At first Ziantha was so intent upon the problem she did not realize that question had been asked not by her own mind but by— She looked over her shoulder.
Yasa stood in the doorway, her lily scent creeping in to fill the room. At her feet Harath bobbed up and down, hopping on his clawed feet, as if so greatly excited by something that he could not remain still. His beak opened and shut in a harsh clicking.
"Yesss—" Yasa's voice was more of a hiss than usual, and Ziantha recognized that sign of controlled anger. "How old—and what isss thisss thing which isss ssso old?"
"That—" Ziantha pointed to the lump.
The Salarika moved with fluid grace, coming to stand beside where Ziantha crouched. She leaned over, stared round-eyed.
"For thisss you do what issss forbidden? Why, I asssk you now, why?"
Her amber-red eyes caught and held Ziantha mercilessly. Humanoid Yasa might be in general form, but there was no human type of emotion which Ziantha could detect in that long stare.
The girl wet her lower lip with her tongue. She had met so many trials this day, it was as if she were now numb. Ordinarily she would have known fear of Yasa in this mood; now she could only tell the truth, or what seemed the truth.
"I had to—"
"Sssso? What order had been given you to do thissss?"
"I—when I was in Jucundus's apartment this—this pulled me. I could not forget it. It—it made me reach for it—"
"She could be right, you know."
Just as Yasa had entered unbidden and unexpected, now Ogan appeared. "There are strong compulsions sometimes when a sensitive is at top pitch performance. Tell me"—he, too, came to stand over Ziantha—"when were you aware of this first? Before or after you read the tapes?"
"After, when I was going out of the room. It was so strong—a call I never felt before."
He nodded. "Could be so. You had the vibrations high; a thing attuned to those vibrations could respond with a summons. Where was this—in the safe?"
"No." She explained how she had seen it first, one of a number of curiosities set out on a small table.
"What isss all thisss—?" Yasa began when an imperative wave from Ogan's hand not only halted her question but turned her attention back to the artifact.
Ogan's hand now rested on Ziantha's head. She longed to jerk away, throw off that touch, light and unmenacing though it was, but submitted to it. Ogan had his own ways of detecting truth or falsehood, and she needed him more at this moment as a protection against Yasa's wrath.
"This then obsessed you until you had to apport it?" His voice was encouraging, coaxing.
"I could not get it otherwise," she returned sullenly.
"So you were able, because of this obsession, to develop powers you did not use before?"
"I had Harat
h to back me."
"Yesss!" Had Yasa still possessed the tail of her ancestors she might have lashed it at that moment; instead she made her voice a whip to lash with words. "Thisss one takes Harath, and with him sssshe makes trouble!" Harath snapped his beak violently as Yasa paused, as if heartily agreeing with her accusation. "Sssomewhere now in Tikil there isss a Patrol ssssensitive at alert. How long you think before Jucundusss beginsss to wonder?"
To Ziantha's surprise, Ogan smiled. She sensed that under his generally expressionless exterior he was excited, even pleased.
"Lady! Bethink you—how many dwell in that apartment where Jucundus chooses to make his headquarters? Two—three—perhaps four hundred! There are endless possibilities. If Jucundus values this thing so little as to leave it in the open, will he miss it for a while? It is true that a sensitive on patrol might well have picked up the surge of Ziantha's power. But to detect and trace it would be impossible unless he had a scan ready for action. She and Harath were right, or rather Harath was right to shut down on communication when he detected the hunter. All the sensitive can say now is that someone within the park put forth an expenditure of energy in an unusual degree. But"—Ogan looked again at Ziantha—"that you escaped was not due to any intelligence on your part, girl."
She was willing to agree. "No, it was Harath."
"Yes, Harath, who will now tell us what we have here."
"But I—" Ziantha half raised her hand in protest.
"You are of no value in the matter, not now. Have you not already tried?" He spoke impatiently as he might to a child who was being tiresome, as he had in the past when she was younger and would not be as pliable as he wished. "Harath," he repeated coldly.
She wanted to cover the artifact with her hands, her body, hide it. It was hers—from the beginning she had known it to be hers. But she was in no condition to read it; her ill-tried experiment proved that. And she wanted to know what it was, from whence it had come, why it should exert such influence over her.