The X Factor Read online

  Then common sense reasserted control. The Zacathan could not make him try contact, not unless the alien put him under some form of hypo-control. And he would make sure that did not happen. Diskan was about to voice that defiance when they were startled by a sound echoing down the passage from which they had just emerged.

  Zimgrald's features, with their lizard cast, sharpened; his neck frill arose in a wide fan behind head and shoulders.

  "So, they found our surprise." His words were close to a hiss. "We have very little time after all!"

  Julha caught at the Zacathan's arm. "High One, what do we do?"

  The Zacathan's frill fluttered and began to refold. "Why, little one, we splash forward—or rather we pick the best footing possible." He looked at the furred one. "This one knows what we want—escape. It will, I believe, continue to aid us. Certain emotions are strong enough to project in themselves—fear, hate, love—and fear we shall depend upon now to do our pleading for us. But it is best we move on. That surprise will deter them from the trail for a space, but it is no lasting barrier."

  But they did not go forward, out into the swamp. The furred one dropped to all fours and headed right, along the wall through which the passage had entered. Zimgrald appeared quite content to follow the animal's lead. A hand on Diskan's arm, he pulled the young man forward, Julha on his other side.

  Once again the Zacathan switched off the lamp. Diskan was about to protest when he saw the wisdom of that action. The far-flung beam might not only advertise their coming to some unknown menace ahead, but it could also be sighted readily by those following.

  Here the luminescence of the growths was not quite so concentrated as it had been in the passage, but there was enough radiance to show them their footing, and the animal's, a few paces in advance.

  "What is this place?" Julha ventured after they had gone a short way.

  "Who knows?" Zimgrald answered. "For some reason, the city builders needed it. These piers must support a goodly portion of buildings above. But the why of this cave? Who can tell that?" His frill lifted a little as he shrugged. "In its time it had a use or it would not be. This city has always been wedded to water—"

  "Yes," Diskan broke in dreamily, "the flowing streets, the cool, clean flowing streets—"

  "Yes," prompted the Zacathan gently. "What of these flowing streets?"

  For a second of time Diskan was back in his dream. "Sweet water, scented water—water of the streets of Xcothal—" His voice trailed off as he came out of that half spell and knew that both of them were listening to him alertly.

  "You have dreamed?" Not gently now—a demand, quick and pressing.

  "Once I walked in Xcothal with the water washing about me." Diskan gave the alien the truth.

  "And what did you learn of Xcothal when you walked thus?"

  "That it was beauty, color, light—a very fair place."

  "And that you would walk there again if you could?"

  "Yes—" At that admission he felt the Zacathan's grasp on his arm tighten and then relax.

  "So they reached you—with that they reached you! You see, little one." Zimgrald spoke to the girl. "The dreams are not evil; they were reaching—"

  She shook her head emphatically. "No! Those dreams were horrible; they threatened! I did not walk streets of water in beauty; I fled through dark hallways and ever they hunted me!"

  "Who?" Diskan asked. "The Jacks?"

  Again she shook her head, with even more force. "No, I never saw who—only knew that they wanted me. And it was very bad. We did not dream alike, though I, too, was in a city—"

  "Xcothal—" Zimgrald repeated the name thoughtfully. "This name for the city, it is from your dream?"

  "It is. And this is Xcothal—but not the one I saw then."

  "Living flesh for a moment laid across the crumbling bones. You have some strange gift, Fentress, one that I envy you. In my mind I can build a picture when I look out over tumbled stones and long deserted buildings. Training, memory, surmise all give me bits to fit together into a picture, but I know that never is the picture the full truth. Sometimes it may fit close, but a line is wrong here and a curve there—"

  Diskan had an inspiration. "The X factor?"

  Zimgrald chuckled again. "Undoubtedly—the X factor. It is missing for me; it may not be for you. Perhaps you can evoke the picture that fits perfectly!"

  "I'm no archaeologist."

  "What are you, Diskan Fentress?" asked the Zacathan.

  The old bitterness shadowed his reply. "Nothing—nothing at all. No—" The desire arose in him to shock, to break the Zacathan's calm. "That is not the truth. I am a criminal— a subject for stabilizing treatment if I am found!"

  Julha missed a step, but Zimgrald gave a small sound like a snort.

  "I do not doubt that either, Fentress; you are so proud of it, as a definite victory for you. But why do you consider it a victory? What life-vise are you fleeing in such haste? No, do not fret— I shall not pick below the surface you have chosen to shell you in. Only you are far more than you guess. Do not crawl into the mud when you can soar. Ha—do you notice anything about the atmosphere now, children?"

  The quick change of subject left Diskan tongue-tied, but Julha responded.

  "It is warmer!"

  "I thought so, though the Sustain has given me protection against any chill. Now why is this so?"

  Not only was it indeed warmer—the warmest Diskan had known, save directly by the fireside, since he had landed on Mimir—but the rank air carried another taint. Zimgrald sniffed, drawing in deep breaths and expelling them several times, before he gave a small nod.

  "Warm springs, perhaps. A natural phenomenon, but hardly to be expected under a city, though we should always disabuse our minds of the 'expected.' There is never just what we expect. Our friend waits—"

  The Mimiran animal had indeed halted at the foot of a broad stone, slimed here and there with splotches of evil-looking growths, angled to their left and lifting at an incline out into the open marsh. Zimgrald surveyed what they could see of it.

  "A bridge of sorts. But watch the footing. On stone, those slime patches can be highly treacherous."

  "They were!" Julha darted forward, to pick up and bring back a gleaming object. She held it out to the Zacathan. "Mik dropped this!"

  "A refill tube for a hand beam." Zimgrald identified it.

  "Yes, we might reasonably suppose this to be s'Fan's." He clicked on his more powerful lamp, bringing into brilliant focus that rising arch of stone and its approaches. Well up the incline was a smear. A body crushing one of the growths in a fall could well have left that sign.

  "Mik!" Julha clapped her hands together. "He must be ahead of us—on this very way! He could still be alive, he could be!"

  "It is possible," Zimgrald agreed. But inwardly Diskan doubted that the Zacathan was any more hopeful of finding the missing explorer than he was. "No, child." The alien put out a hand to restrain Julha. "Hurry here we do not! We cannot risk any accidents. See, observe the caution of our guide—"

  The furred one had started up the bridge, if bridge it was, but as the Zacathan pointed out, the animal advanced with caution, weaving a crooked way that took it around those slime patches. And, gingerly, the three fell into a single line, to track in the same way.

  As they went, the chemical fumes grew thicker, rising from the swamp. The reek reached them in puffs, as if exhaled in regular gasps. Once up the first approach, the ramp ceased to climb but leveled off and ran, as a rampart or road, straight out between two ranks of the thick block supports, into the general gloom of the cavern.

  For spaces, the slime patches failed and the furred one hurried. Then would come another line of splotches, and they went back to their weaving in and out among them. Diskan thought that their guide not only feared the slipperiness of those smears but also knew that contact with them was dangerous. He remembered the stinging burn from the growth he had brushed against back in the passage and decided that such
caution was well merited.

  "Where can the end of this be?" Julha asked at last.

  Time was only relative to action, Diskan knew, but they had been walking this raised road for what seemed a long period. He glanced back several times, trying to make out the wall from which they had come, but the limited light from the fungi made shadows close in behind them, and he could see very little. Meanwhile, the ramp stretched endless before them.

  "The end, little one, is when and where we find it." Zimgrald answered her with a tired slur to his words.

  She must have noted that at once, for she caught at the Zacathan's hand, held it in both of hers.

  "High One, you tire! We must rest, eat, see to you!"

  Diskan half expected the Zacathan to deny that, and he was disturbed when the alien nodded agreement. Was the other beginning to fail?

  "As always, little one, you speak with good sense. Yes, let us rest, for a short space only. And eat. Those are good thoughts to put into action."

  They sat down in one of the spaces free from the slime, and the girl opened her pack, taking out ration tubes of a like brand to those Diskan had found in the cache. But she made the Zacathan swallow a tablet before he sucked at what was a mixture of food and drink in the container.

  Diskan hesitated and then twisted in half the tube he held, the material of it coming apart under his strength, hardened by those years of physical labor. Keeping the oozing top section, he held out the other to the furred one.

  The animal arose and limped to his side. Erect on its haunches, it held the tube to its mouth and squeezed out the contents with the claws of its forepaws. Now Diskan saw why something about those claws had puzzled him at the time he had first sighted one of this species. Claws and paws, yes, but the dexterity was that of a hand, not human perhaps, but still a hand.

  He glanced around to find Zimgrald watching him. "They are not animals." The Zacathan might have been speaking Diskan's own thoughts aloud. "What are they? That is a very important question—what are they?"

  And another important question, Diskan wanted to add but did not, is what do they want with us?

  XIII

  The warmth of the underground world was lulling. Perhaps the exhalation of the swamp carried a drugging quality. Diskan had no desire to go on. Neither did either of his companions appear eager to take to their feet again. Julha was watching the Zacathan carefully.

  "High One"—she broke the silence first—"is it well with you?"

  The edge of his neck frill stirred. "Do not fret, little one. This old creeper will be able to creep yet farther, if for no other reason than curiosity, which will not let me rest until I see what lies at the end of the trail. It is in my mind that this was once a place of water. They loved water —those who have gone, long gone, before us. But why it must wash the deep foundations of their walls and towers, that is only to be guessed at—"

  "An amphibian, water-born race?" Diskan hazarded.

  "Perhaps. There are such—or were such—just as there are races who fly or creep. Yet our friend here"—he nodded to the Mimiran animal—"is not of the water."

  Greatly daring, Diskan risked a question of his own. "What do the legends say of Xcothal?"

  Zimgrald smiled. "Very little. A hint—such an old hint— of treasure to be found in a city of the sea—"

  "Treasure!"

  The Zacathan's frill was rising to frame his lizard, shadowed face. "Ah, that is a word that makes the blood run faster, does it not? But I believe that Xcothal's treasure is not that which one can hold in his two hands, count into boxes, feast the eyes upon. Oh, all races have their wealth, sometimes gathered into piles and stores. But if there was wealth such as that here once, I believe the years have seen to its scattering, and those Jacks will not find what they seek, not even if they dismantle Xcothal stone by stone—the which they are certainly not prepared to do."

  "Treasure—knowledge?" Diskan speculated.

  "Just so—knowledge. Always remember this, youth. Beneath the wildest tale from a people's past lies a crumb of truth. Sometimes that crumb may be very small and much distorted by rumor and legend, but it is there. And if it can be sifted free from all the accumulation of the years, then it is worth more than all the precious metal and gems a man may heap up to feast his eyes upon, for the feasting of the mind is the richer experience and lasts the longer. The hunters behind us pursue their 'treasure,' which may long since have ceased to be, but I do not believe it is the same I seek here."

  "But royal tombs, storehouses—"

  Zimgrald nodded. "Those can be found—and looted. And I may be wrong also. I have never claimed infallibility, my children. Look, our guide is growing impatient. I would say it is time we were once more on the tramp."

  Diskan aided the Zacathan to his feet. For all his brave words to Julha earlier, it was plain that Zimgrald was failing. Their rest and food might have given the alien a return of strength, but how much longer he could keep going was a question. And as far as Diskan could see, there was no end to their present road.

  The Mimiran animal, having seen them rise, turned and moved on, its head carried well up, as if it sought some airborne scent. But the odors from the waste below, Diskan thought, were enough to make anyone breathe less heavily. He kept a back watch for the enemy, but if the Jacks had passed the booby trap, they seemed in no hurry to catch up with the fugitives. Only the thought of the hunt made Diskan speed his pace until he was treading close on the heels of the other two.

  "There is no need for pushing. The High One can go no faster," Julha snapped.

  "I am afraid reason supports the thought that there is," Zimgrald told her. "We would present excellent targets for an attack, and I do not wish to leave this roadway unless there is no other choice."

  With that, Diskan was in hearty agreement. He had the stunner with a close-to-exhausted charge and the blaster he had taken from Julha. But to stand up against a determined Jack rush with no more defense than that was sheer suicide.

  A man did not turn Jack, preying on traders and colonists on frontier worlds, unless he was already an outlaw to the point of no return. And to get what they wanted, these looters would have no scruples at all. They might keep the Zacathan alive—until they had what they wanted from him. And Julha, as a woman, would be an extra bonus. Him they would burn down without a thought, and he would be the lucky one. But how could the Jacks be so sure as to center a major grab operation on Mimir? Was it just Zimgrald's reputation that had brought the pirates here—the fact that the Hist Techneer had made two outstanding archaeological finds in the past? That was a gamble nearly to the point of being stupid—and stupid the Jacks were not. Those who were died early and were not equipped for a planned raid the way these were. All they had done here bore the marks of a carefully thought out operation.

  On the other hand, the Zacathan had been telling the truth a few minutes ago when he had said that the treasure he was after was not material. So, what did that mean? What secret from the past was so rich a find as to bring on a grab?

  "What do they want here?" Diskan demanded out of his thoughts.

  "Loot!" Julha said scornfully.

  "But our young friend means what kind," Zimgrald said. "Yes, that has been a small puzzle among the larger for me also. They are very well prepared, these Jacks, and they have had detailed briefing on our plans. They are very sure that they are in quest of something worth such a major effort, as if they have had success promised to them. Yet I do not know what could be worth the risk and expenditure of this grab."

  "You?" Diskan asked. Could it be that—a highly successful Hist Techneer to be kidnapped and kept on ice? But that would be pure speculation of the kind that was too great a gamble for Jacks with their need for a quick profit and an even more speedy getaway.

  "Flattering." A chuckle warmed Zimgrald's voice. "But, except for how I may aid them here, I think not. The law of averages would dictate that no man can continue to make big finds year after year. No, what t
hey seek is here, unfortunately for us. They believe that we have the secret, and that makes us important. Otherwise, they would write us off and go treasure hunting—to leave us wandering about this pile, marooned and helpless."

  "Rrrrrrugggg!"

  Julha cried out. The Zacathan's frill shot up and fanned. Diskan's hand went to the butt of the blaster. The furred one, who had been silent during their whole journey through this stinking pit, had uttered that nerve-rasping cry. It stopped short and reared on its haunches, its clawed forefeet advancing a little, its muzzle gaping to show fangs. There was no mistaking that stance—it was facing danger.

  Diskan shouldered past the Zacathan and Julha, shucking his pack as he went.

  "Get down!" he ordered with a thought of blaster fire sweeping the ramp road. He was in a half crouch, trying to pierce the gloom ahead, to distinguish the menace there.

  After that first battle cry, the Mimiran animal was silent, but Diskan could hear the faint hissing of its breath.

  "Zimgrald," he cried, "use the lamp!"

  The broad beam might betray them, but it would also reveal what lurked there. That was better than supine waiting for danger to come to them, perhaps in a fashion for which there was no defense.

  Yellow-white was the glare behind him, making his shadow and that of the furred one great black fingers across the stone. And it also showed, only too clearly to off-world eyes, that which squatted in the middle of their path. Diskan shrank back a step before he steadied. That thing was far worse than the monster he had faced in the pass. With all its alienness, that had been akin to beasts he had known on other planets.

  But this repulsive thing was akin to nothing outside of an insane nightmare. The front portion had reared up above the main bulk and was weaving to and fro, an obscene pillar, tapering, having no features Diskan could discern, save a puckered opening, which moved with the swaying, opening and closing.