The Forerunner Factor Read online

  THE

  FORERUNNER

  FACTOR

  Andre

  Norton

  Baen Books

  by Andre Norton

  Time Traders

  Time Traders II

  Star Soldiers

  Warlock

  Janus

  Darkness & Dawn

  Gods & Androids

  Dark Companion

  Masks of the Outcasts

  Moonsinger

  Crosstime

  From the Sea to the Stars

  Star Flight

  Search for the Star Stones

  The Game of Stars and Comets

  Deadly Dreams

  Moonsinger's Quest

  The Forerunner Factor

  THE FORERUNNER FACTOR

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Forerunner copyright © 1981 by Andre Norton. Forerunner: The Second Venture copyright © 1985 by Andre Norton.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4516-3808-0

  Cover art by Tom Kidd

  First Baen paperback printing, March 2012

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Norton, Andre.

  [Forerunner]

  The forerunner factor / by Andre Norton.

  p. cm.

  "A Baen Books original"--T.p. verso

  ISBN 978-1-4516-3808-0 (trade pb)

  I. Title.

  PS3527.O632F6 2012

  813'.54--dc23

  2011045755

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  FORERUNNER

  1

  Kuxortal had always been—any trader would have sworn by his guild oath to that. No one had the need to dig deep into the mouldering wet-season, dry-season records (many layers of which had long since become dust, and dust of dust) to know that. The sprawling city stood on its own past, now well above the sea wharves and river landings, raised high on the mount of its own beginnings as men had tirelessly built on the ruins of other men’s warehouses and dwellings, adding to the height of that mountain as the past leveled the holdings of their forebears.

  The city had already been immeasurably old when the first needle ships of the space farers, those merchants of the stars who sewed together world upon world with their own trading ventures, had set down upon the plain beyond.

  Kuxortal was old, but it did not die. Its citizens had become an incredible mixture of races—sometimes of species—or mutations and new beginnings of life forms springing out of old. Kuxortal had been favored ages ago by the fact that it had come to birth at the meeting of the river Kux, which drew upon the trade of a full continent, wafting boats and rafts to the western sea, with that same sea. The harbor was a safe one even during the worst of the wet-season gales. Its natural protections added to by the ingenuity of generations of men who knew all the perils of sea and wind, of gale and raider attack.

  Once more, it was favored when the starmen came seeking not only trade, but an open port where those who dealt in commodities which they dared not be subject to strict legal inspection might buy and sell in complete freedom—once the proper dues had been paid to the Guilds of the city. Now it had been well over tens of double seasons that rocket fire had scorched the plain beyond the town, and no one any longer marveled at the sight of an alien on the crooked streets which sometimes formed a deadly maze for the unwary.

  For where there are traders and their riches, there are also predators. They also had their Guild, their standing in the hierarchy of Kuxortal, it being an old belief that if a man did not guard his own possessions, then he well deserved to lose them. Thus, wily thieves and private guardsmen fought small secret battles, and the peacemen of the Guild kept safe by the rigor of their instant and bloody justice only those streets, those courtyard homes, those trading depots which paid peace tax.

  Just as there were thieves to prey upon the riches of Kuxortal, so were there also the small traders, those who lived like ver-rats in a grainery where there was no winged and clawed zorsal to go a-hunting, aided by dark-piercing eyesight. These, too, bought and sold, and perhaps some of them dreamed of making the big sale, the big find in the drift of strange merchandise, which would give them a chance to rise to greater profits.

  Simsa was Burrow-wise enough not to dream big dreams—at least not enough to cloud the here and now.

  She understood her very lowly place in the general scheme of life where she was near as small as a gamlin and certainly as agile as those furred creatures who were used by the Lovers-of-the-dark in their own raiding parties. She had no people as kin—being, as she had known as far back as any child learns of the world about, one of those strange mixtures of blood and breed which added to the general difference of Kuxortal. Also knowing that her very strangeness made her vulnerable, and so disguising that strangeness as best she could.

  She had been fetcher and errand runner for Ferwar—until the mists of the riverside burrow bit so far into Old One’s crippled bones that her body at last gave up its spirit essence. Simsa it had been who dragged that light, twisted body down to the under holes and heaped over it there the cover stones. Ferwar had had no kin, and was somewhat shunned even by the Burrow dwellers, for she was learned in strange ways—some of which might be profitable, others hinting of danger.

  That Simsa was blood kin to herself Ferwar had denied. However, it was true that she never beat the child with her staff, much as she lashed out with an acid and biting tongue; also, she passed on to Simsa much which would have surprised even a Guild Lord had one known where or what lived in the Burrows beneath his own palace-of-plenty.

  The Burrowers were perhaps the least and lowliest of Kuxortal dwellers. They scooped out their dwellings from the mass of former buildings, sometimes being lucky enough to break into a cellar or a passage which could have been a long forgotten street, roofed over by buildings fallen during some raider assault before the dawn of time. Things could be found in Burrows, things worth trading, especially to the Starmen, who seemed to take a perverse interest in broken bits which meant nothing to any denizen of Kuxortal. So such finds were close-held secrets and even among the Burrowers there were strongly defended treasure houses.

  Simsa had her talents. Her agility had served her many times. Over and over, she practiced ever with her lean body the twists, turns, and certain grips which Ferwar’s hands, cramped even as they were by the painful crippling, had patiently shown her. As a Burrower, she was small, though two seasons after the death of Ferwar, she had suddenly shot up like a well-watered thrum vine. It was in that same season that she had changed her style of drab clothing, for Ferwar had been emphatic with certain warnings for the future. The loose smock she had always worn over breeches, which had left her legs free for running and dodging, was not laid aside. However, under it she had wound a strip of stout chir cloth tightly about her body from waist up, constraining her breasts to give her still a childish flatness. That was a precaution she need only take with strangers—to those who know her, her own natural weapons made her untouchable.

  Simsa’s skin was black, a deep bluish-black; in night darkness she could pad through any street which had no large number of lamps with a spirit’s invisibility. On the other hand, her hair, which she now wore confined and covered with another length of cloth, was pure silver light, as were her brows and lashes. Those, she disguised with sooty fingers rubbed on a fire pot before she ventured out as she did, reveling in her ability to conceal herself.

  She had her own form of steady livelihood, one begun when she had found a broken-winged zorsal fluttering out its life on a waterside rubbish heap—those mounds often provided unexpected finds for Ferwar. The zorsal had tried to bite—its sharp-edged jaws were strong enough to take a finger off a full-grown man. Simsa had not stretched forth any hand at first, had only squatted down beside the injured creature, crooning to it in a small guttural sound which came from far down in her throat and which she had never made before; at that moment, it had just come to her naturally as fit and right.

  As the zorsal’s first hissing and snapping subsided, and it settled down to watch her with huge, round, night-seeing eyes, the girl had perceived that it was a female, its furred body heavy with young. Perhaps it had broken out of some warehouse cage, striving to find a place in freedom in which to nest and bear its coming brood.

  Though Simsa had had no reason in her short life to trust or show any liking for another living creature (her bond with Ferwar being one of respect, awe and more than a little straight wariness), she sensed now within her a reaching out for another living thing which was perhaps as lost as she from any kin-tie. As she crooned, she at last advanced a hand, was able to touch fingertips to the soft down which covered the zorsal’s back, felt even there the fast pound of the flyer’s heart. After long moments, the girl had been able to pick up the hurt creature, which nestled against her, giving Simsa a feeling such as she had never experienced before.

  Zorsals were prized for ridding dwellings a
nd storage places of larger vermin. She had seen them sold for solid sums in the markets and realized that she could now seek out the owner of this stray and perhaps claim a reward. Instead, she took it back to the Burrow, where Ferwar looked at it but said nothing at all. Simsa, prepared to defend her actions, had been left oddly at a loss.

  The zorsal littered within a night of her discovery of it.

  She had bound up its injured wing as best she could, but feared that her tending was so awkward it might remain a cripple. Ferwar had drawn her aching body away from the mat place to watch the girl’s struggle, finally grunting as she brought out of her jealously guarded supplies some salve which smelled oddly fresh and clean in a cave-room never touched by light of day.

  There were two young males. Simsa had been right in her fear concerning the complete recovery of the mother. On the other hand, the adult creature was surprisingly intelligent, in its own fashion, and after its cubs were weaned, it became Simsa’s companion in her own night prowlings. Its eyesight was far keener than that of any human—even one trained as Simsa was, and it could communicate with a series of soft clicks which followed a pattern her own lips and throat could echo, so Simsa learned from it a small vocabulary of sounds which meant danger, hunger, others on the prowl, and the like.

  In turn, the zorsal trained its own young. Then Simsa, after a careful study of the market rented—did not sell—the two to Gathar, a warehouse commander who had dealings with the Burrower people from time to time, and was rated by them as never taking more than half of any profit. She paid her charges visits at regular intervals, not only checking on their care, but also continuing to impress upon them her own personality. When she went forth on most nights, the parent (whom she named Zass from a sound which it uttered when striving to attract her attention) rode on her shoulder, she having fitted a pad there as protection between the strong talons of the hunter and her own flesh.

  Not only did Gathar pay her for the use of the zorsals (which, he admitted once in an unusual burst of good nature after a very successful bit of trading, were very well suited to their job), but also her regular trips to his establishment gave her a familiarity with another section of Kuxortal into which she could not normally have ventured while those on duty there grew used to seeing her come and go; after a season, no one questioned her.

  There were several among the Burrowers who had seen in Ferwar’s death a chance to not only move into a snug and well situated lodging, but also marked Simsa down for bedmate . . . or profit. Traders from up-river—even some of the Guild Lords—liked curiosities in women now and then. There were certain suggestions which she brushed brusquely aside. Then one day, Basher of the Hook decided to play no more with the whims of a female and strode up to establish ownership in a way he had twice before. A small crowd gathered to watch the fun. Simsa, standing straight before the entrance of her Burrow, heard the calling of small wagers back and forth.

  She was so much the smaller and slighter, a child in their eyes, that the bettors found very few who would take their offered rates in her favor. Baslter drank heavily from one of the pots his followers handed him, swiped the back of his hair-furred hand across his blubber lips, and advanced as might one of the fabled Tall Ones from the inner mountains.

  He was still out of reaching distance of the girl when she went into action so fleetly and with such driving force that her body appeared raised by a whirlwind, rather than through any action of her own.

  As her feet lifted from the ground, her bare toes unsheathed to strike full against the man’s protruding belly, raking deeply through even the leather of his jerkin. At the same time, her body arched so that her hands struck the ground and, still raking upward with those claws, she somersaulted, rolled, and came lightly to her feet without more than a heavy intake of breath.

  Baslter squalled. His hand going to the tatters of his jerkin came away red and wet. With the hook that gave him his second name he flailed out, prepared now to bury the metal in her flesh and jerk her close enough to crush the life from her with a single closing of his left fist upon her throat.

  She was no longer there. As a zorsal might bait a pruhound, Simsa moved about the lumbering man. Not only did her toes unsheathe those claws which few of the Burrowers had ever seen, but her outspread fingers carried equally grim and punishing armament. She sprang, tore, was gone, before Baslter, now bellowing his rage, could even turn to face the direction in which some agile bound had taken her.

  At last, streaming blood, having yielded an eye to the punishment, the man was caught by several of his fellows and towed back and away, frothing in a fury which had no sanity left in it. Simsa did not even watch his retreat, but went back into the home she had so defended, there to sit down, shaking a little and fighting within her to control, first her rage, and then the deeper-seated fear from which that rage had sprung. Zass fluttered her good wing, made small movements with the crooked one as, at last, the girl conquered herself enough to take up a cloth, wipe her claws thoroughly; then, with a wrinkled nose, toss the rag into the basket which must be taken to the dump place.

  Her victory over Baslter did not inflict her with overconfidence. She was well aware that there were many ways she could be entrapped by a man subtle enough of thought, and she did not underrate her neighbors on that score. It was then that Simsa realized the true worth of Zass and began to make very sure she was with her on every night foray, and installed a perch above the door of her Burrow where the zorsal could keep sentry duty when Simsa was within.

  That the creature was also wary enough to protect herself the girl became aware on the day when Zass fluttered and hopped to her with a piece of meat, red, raw, of a nature to tempt the appetite. Simsa accepted the strip, examined it closely, discovering within a bluish mark which, she had no doubt, meant poison. It was from that hour that she began to think more constructively of her own future, of what she might do to climb out of the Burrows where she must now be ever on constant alert, not only for her own safety but for that of the creature she had come to value very highly.

  Life in Kuxortal was layered in castes as well as by the mound of the city itself. A Burrower might lurk on the fringe of one of the least of the markets with his or her collection of salvaged bits and pieces, but such a meager trader could not even aspire to the smallest and most primitive of stalls. Thus, most of their trading must be done either through the outlets of the Thieves’ market, where they fared very badly indeed, or by trying to sell to a stall holder.

  Since the coming of the skymen, there had been a second market established down by the edges of the fire-pocked field where their ships planted. But that was far too chancy to depend upon for any settled trading, since no one ever knew when one of the ships might arrive. Also, when it did, the rush was so great that few—only the very lucky—were able to get near enough to one of the crewmen to even show his wares. They might not hope to trade for the cargoes of such ships, those were haggled over by the Guilds, but crewmen often could be coaxed into buying strange odds and ends, carrying out small ventures of their own.

  Simsa had made a habit of hanging about and watching such transactions, and thus she knew that what the starmen wanted most were curious things: old finds or objects which were particular to this world, and small enough to be easily stowed in what must be very crowded and limited space on board those ships, which had never been planned for the comfort of their crews, but rather to handle cargo valuable enough to make the long star flights profitable.

  The cargoes they unloaded were varied also. Sometimes, such simply rested in some warehouse to be picked up again by another starship; in fact, that was most often the case. Simsa, from what she had overheard, was very sure that much of it was Thieves’ loot from a score of worlds—to be sold where it could not be traced.

  On the hour Zass had brought her the poisoned meat and she knew that perhaps she would not even last over the few days left of the season unless she made plans which could outscheme Baslter and others of his ilk (who now held her presence among them to be a personal affront), the girl turned out Ferwar’s hidden treasures to examine them closely.