The Forerunner Factor Read online

  “Zzzzaaaaa . . .” that dark thing called.

  “No!” Not the Burrows girl who answered this time, but the Elder One. Simsa held a fan of fleeting memories which reached from her to that bodiless head, strove to weave swiftly as a chain between them. The girl whom Thorn had known drew aside, the Elder One was there, and in her a new emotion stirred until she ruthlessly locked it tightly away.

  “No!” She made no lengthy speech as the Elder One filled her. Instead, her hands moved independently of her conscious will, weaving back and forth so that the moon tips of her power rod might be scrawling some unseen pattern on the air between them. From her throat arose a low hum broken in rhythm now and then, as if she did voice words she made no attempt to speak aloud.

  That black and silver head wove back and forth also, straining upward until there appeared the outline of a shoulder breaking from the shifting sands—black shoulder bare of any covering. Though the head kept its eyes fixed upon her, the mouth no longer moved. Yet its writhing against the hold of the sand, the arising and slipping back of shoulders, gave credence to a struggle, as mighty a struggle as Simsa had ever witnessed.

  “Aaaah—Zaaazzza!” Thrown back, the head opened wide jaws to give utterance to a scream like that of a hunting zorsal. Its eyes were now pointed heavenward. It might have been demanding aid from some presence unseen to those from off-world. If it did so, it was not favored by the answer which it sought. For it was sinking back. The shoulders had already disappeared, now sand lapped up over the chin, sought the open cavity of the mouth.

  The head was gone. A head was gone. Simsa would have flung up her arm to hide that hideous change from sight had it not been that she could not unhinge her fingers from their tight grip upon the shaft of the rod.

  No head now, but a stretch of obscene, greasy yellow skin that was wrinkled about a single great eye. While the whole surface of the river tossed gobbets of sand into the air, spattering over the rock. A thing or a multitude of things was rising to the surface. Simsa of the Burrows would have fled. The Simsa of the Elder Ones only stepped back so that the spattering sand could not reach her. She watched the thing narrowly while the younger, lesser Simsa shared memories again—strange and horrible—of monsters and creatures so far from normal life that even to hold them fleetingly in mind made her shrink from a wash of foulness.

  Still the rod wove and the Elder Simsa hummed or changed. Yet she was also on the move. Transferring her hold from two hands to one, yet keeping the horn points of the rod ever turned toward the wallowing half-seen monster that dragged itself out of hiding so slowly, the girl took up her cloak and the provision bag and the flask of water now near consumed.

  Zass gave two screams, flying to the erupting sand and turning back again swiftly to circle above the girl’s head.

  Thus together they edged back and away from the stream that had been their guide across this stone waste. That which sought them had won free of the sand, which cascaded back into the bed as might water running from thick hide. The creature was ovoid in form, like that thing which Simsa had snared first on the strip from her kilt. Still it did not appear quite sure of its form. For there was a haziness about its outlines and within that veiling, there were changes, some lightning quick and only temporary, some more lasting. Of the weaving tentacles it sprouted, four firmed, stiffened to give it legs.

  Face there was none, though a portion of it upraised to suggest a very ill-shaped head, that broken by a single unblinking eye. As it crouched on the same portion of riverbank where Simsa had made her camp, it shot forward ropy limbs or arms on which there were dark stains as might be given off by something rotting while still it lived. And from it, though there was no wind to send out any odor, there emerged a gagging stench.

  As Simsa continued to retreat at an angle, one that would take her from the stream and yet not too far into the rock that she could lose her single guide—the sand dweller tottered up, to stand as erect as was possible on those stiffened feet. It ceased to wave its tentacles in the air, perhaps to concentrate all its strength on what it wished the most to do—take up the chase on land.

  Zass screamed full-throated on a louder note than she had yet used, swung away from circling above Simsa’s head toward the girl’s right—the wider plain of the stone. Its surface was broken here and there by smaller fissures which did not offer any passage Simsa was aware of to a sand river. However, because they had no surface connection with one another did not mean they were not ponds or lakelets.

  As might a fountain suddenly released flash the first burden of water in its pipes into the air, so above the lip of a near fissure flared an eruption of sand. Breaking through Simsa’s hum came a dull thud of noise, one beat sliding into another as if the underside of the plain over which she was retreating was the surface of a drum answering to the blows of a threatening fist.

  Back, she increased the speed of her withdrawal, taking the same way that had brought her here. The heavy light and heat of the haze was diminishing—though even when it reached its lowest point it still provided enough light to guide one’s way.

  Though she continued to keep the rod between her and that noxious yellow monstrosity, it clumped along, wavering from side to side its swollen, filthy body, leaving behind a trail of slick slime. Simsa glanced hurriedly now and then at that other fissure which still fountained, sand sweeping up over its edge to drift outward. The same partial haze that had half-hidden her first possible enemy was gathering on the lip of that broken way and she thought it well to guess that it heralded the coming of a creature similar to that which already stalked her.

  The zorsal did not swoop any lower, hanging with fast-beating wings for a long moment over the fissure, screaming with rage and, the Simsa of the Burrows realized, fear. There was very little a zorsal feared—being one of the most fierce and practical hunters on its own world. It could even be flown at a man—or a woman—and swoop to tear at eyes and cheeks. Had she not seen Zass’s two sons deal death to a serpent-thing a hundred times their size when she and Thorn had been trapped in another unknown wilderness? The zorsals had torn out the throat of a monster no man would have faced, even with the sharpest and keenest weapons known.

  Yet Zass here made none of those punishing dives. Though she was ready enough to point out the danger to come, she showed no inclination to fight.

  As another thought thrust in with a stroke of pure fear, the girl dared to glance over her shoulder. Were there any more of those fissures close to the path of withdrawal? One—she would need to swing near to the river to avoid that. Her eyes snapped once again to the stalker and then to the second fissure that had shown signs of life. Yes! A long yellowish tentacle waved into the air there, blindly, as if it sought for some hold aloft rather than swinging down to the rock edge.

  The Burrows Simsa might have run until her lungs choked on the heated air—the Elder One held steady in spite of the rising struggle within the one slender black body. If the Elder One could handle this sand-slime, then let her do it—now! Burrow-bred Simsa could see that all that chanting and use of the rod made no difference to this thing. Perhaps a power designed to work on one world was useless on another. Could she tear loose another of the metal strips that made up her kilt—use that as a House Guard used a sword or spear? No, the length of the free limbs that had not adopted the guise of legs could outreach any such attempt she would make.

  Out of the deepening shade of the sky haze there came a new factor into her forced retreat. The sharp crack of sound was unlike anything she had heard before—and the vibration appeared to linger on, actually echoing twice. Did the rock under her feet answer to it? She could not be sure. Perhaps the sudden movement was a shudder of her own body.

  However, the effect on the yellow stream creature and that other one climbing out to join it was much stronger. Though that which walked had no mouth, yet from somewhere out of its body it uttered an answering sound—a thin wail—so high pitched the girl hardly caught it. Its globe
body began to twitch, swaying back and forth on its pillar legs. One of those legs thinned, flipped outward, becoming once again a tentacle, so that the thing was thrown off-balance and, still fighting hard to keep erect, crashed to the rock.

  There was a dull plop. The ovoid body burst like a container of foulness that had held its burden far too long. Before her eyes, the sand dweller began to dissolve. Twice, it reared up, strove to draw about it those rags of mist that brought it the power to change, to solidify and be a living force. And each time it did, the rod in Simsa’s hands quivered also—faint, very muted, it produced the same note as there had been in that shock from overhead. Perhaps it had been at last attuned to service and was no longer so impotent.

  That which had striven to climb from the other fissure showed no more tentacles and the sand thrown forth by its floundering was fast draining back into the cavity. Just so the substance of the one before her was lapping out as liquid now, a wave to flow along the slime trail its stumped feet had left. Back that noisome stuff flowed to the edge of the river. The horn points of the rod continued to sound forth their faint keening so that Simsa now marched forward, as she had before retreated, her rod pointing to the mess on the rock, driving it back into its own sphere with the fervent hope within her that it would not, could not, summon any power again.

  3

  Simsa swayed in turn as the zorsal flew straight for her, coming to perch upon her shoulder, its sudden weight threatening her balance. Zass’s beak-muzzle slipped along the girl’s cheek in one of the creature’s seldom offered caresses. Did Zass judge the trouble over? Simsa gave the sky haze a single quick glance. She needed full attention for the fissures, to pick a way that did not encroach either upon one of those or go too near the riverbank.

  Now that the enemy apparently had withdrawn for a space, she could think more clearly. That sound from the air . . . It seemed faintly familiar, as if she must recognize it. Some flying thing of prey? No, never had she chanced on any life as strange as the blob creatures. If they had some equivalent in the air overhead, then she would indeed have to watch with fear.

  The cries of a zorsal—there were a whole range of those, from the sighting of prey to that squawk of triumph when the victim was safe in its paw talons. On Kuxortal, there existed fumga, which sought its food along the seas’ edge, an eater of carrion—and the quef, said to dwell in the high mountains—of which she had been told, but which she had never seen. Now she turned her head a fraction and dared to withdraw a portion of her concentration from her route, reaching for the small entrance into Zass’s mind which the Elder One had shown could be used to cement yet closer the winged hunter and the girl.

  “What . . . ?” She did not truly think a word, rather she fashioned as best she could a need to know.

  There was the usual misty image she could expect from the zorsal, barely recognizable, since Zass’s power of sight was so different. But even as she caught that lopsided vision, Simsa also guessed at what she had heard. That sound had heralded the approach of a spaceship closing orbit upon this world. That distress signal which she had not been able to quiet had already pulled in a rescuer.

  Simsa hugged her arms about herself, the warmth of the rod against her breasts. Someone from the ship she had been on? That might well be—if they had discovered her gone and had checked upon the Life Boat. If so, should off-worlders low flying sweep to seek her out, how long could she hide?

  Certainly to descend into any of those fissures would be the height of folly. She wondered if she dared lie flat upon the heated rock, the cloak pulled over her to conceal. But she could not remain so for long.

  Simsa frowned, remembering Thorn’s talk of persona units, meant to center upon the body heat of another, devices as quick on the trail and far more tireless than any zorsal.

  Certainly if they sought her, they must come equipped with every such device they knew.

  She was also sure that there was one aboard that ship who would never let her go free if he could help—that ship’s master who had seen her as a tool or weapon to move him into an area of power he had never hoped to reach. Yes, let him be in command of the search party and there would be very little chance of deceiving them by any ordinary means.

  If the orbiting ship had not come from the freighter on which she had voyaged, then it would still be very sure that a search was made. They would discover the Life Boat empty, the supplies gone—therefore they would come looking.

  If this had been a world such as she knew, with ground cover and even heights, she could have played a good game. She could have arranged a scene of accident that would have deceived—no one. Simsa of the Burrows spat. She knew so much, and still there were holes in that knowledge. What might have been possible untold planet-years ago could not be tried here. The discoveries of one race or species had to be refined upon by another, improvements made that could even be unknown from one ship to the next. She had listened, she had thought, she had studied all she could. No, she must believe that sooner or later those who descended from the hazed sky of this unknown planet would be able to find her.

  Accepting that as not only possible, but extremely probable, Simsa had to work out her answer. That depended largely upon who those would-be rescuers were. If from the ship she knew, she would face stricter captivity. But if from another—sworn as they were to the space law of assisting any survival beacon—perhaps she could work out a story. Simsa of the Burrows took command. She had lived most of her life by cunning scheming; now let her loose her imagination.

  The haze had been fast darkening. It was no more than that which might have hung above Kuxortal on an evening fast sliding into night. Her eyes slitting a little, she discovered that she was more at ease than in the glare of daylight. She gathered up her cloak and pulled it about her. Though she had gloried in the kilt and diadem, the dress of the Elder One was foreign to space travelers and she must conceal it as best she could.

  She was faced with two choices—travel on into this unending rock desert with its threat of what might rise from any of the fissures, or return upstream to the boat. She could play a distraught and frightened survivor in the latter case.

  In this now silent world, Simsa stared down at the rod. Zass had refused to quit her shoulder after she had recloaked. She did not try to read the zorsal’s mind pattern again. It was plain enough that Zass sought protection where she had always sought safety before—close to the girl.

  Simsa turned to go forward once more, heading into the unknown, careful only to keep far from any break in the rock. Her pace quickened to a trot as she still busied herself with thoughts of what she must or could do when the final test came and she had to face those intent upon her “rescue.”

  It was certainly plain that she could not remain on this barren world indefinitely, although the Life Boat, having once found a landing, would not rise on its own, being programmed only to carry passengers to worlds with breathable atmosphere where there would be a chance of life. In no way, Simsa thought, was it fitted to judge a strange planet for any other quality.

  She was still considering what part she must act when, listening for any airborne sound to betray a flitter questing after her, she first noted that the haze, which not only cloaked the sky but also hid any sharp line of horizon on all sides, was decidedly darker in one spot ahead. This was the first change from the monotony of the plain she had yet sighted.

  The stream she used at a careful distance as her guide angled slightly east. That dark spot lay to the west and was constantly thickening. Simsa began to trot. Heights curtained by mist? Then she might find a safe haven among those.

  Shorter fissures pocked the plain closer to each other westward. Twice she made a sidewise leap and ran a few steps when an exhalation (or so it sounded) of foul air tainted the night. Still she heard no threatening lap of sand.

  Simsa could soon see more clearly that which rose from the plain—a series of blocks, huge, but so squared in shape that she could not believe that they
were natural formations. About the foot of three such plateaus of different sizes facing her directly the plain was darker—the dark of a fissure or another river of sand—too deep to be gauged from where she now trotted along. If that barrier followed the roots of those cliffs, she might have no way of reaching the heights at all.

  The worst was true. She came out on the rim of a gully. Below swirled more of the moving sand, passing in its slow push, north to south, even as did the river she had quitted. Simsa swung south, eyeing those towering banks beyond. Though the rock rises had looked so even-surfaced from a distance, Simsa could now see that there were fissures of differing depth and length in their faces.

  Only—those fissures were far too even! Nature might have begun the work of pocking those rocks, but some purpose not so slow nor unsystematic had then taken a hand. She might have been looking at sets of windows—perhaps even entrances, if there were ladders within to be shoved into place, or if the inhabitants possessed wings.

  A hiss sounded below her chin, then the prick of claws followed as Zass changed her hold, suggesting one way of discovering whether they had chanced upon a rookery of another threatening form of wildlife. Though the zorsal strove to cling to the underside of the improvised cloak, Simsa dragged her forth enough so that the snouted head with its large eyes did face those patterned cliffs. The feathery antennae, which had been so tightly curled to the small skull, snapped open and out—stiff and straight, pointing to those stone rises.

  Zass made no sound at all, and Simsa waited. Usually, there was a whine, a hiss, or even a short growl from the zorsal. Instead, the girl felt the furred body against hers quiver. The head turned slowly, keeping the antennae always pointing to the cliffs. Simsa tried mind touch.