The Forerunner Factor Read online

  “Does—he—live?” She aimed her most urgent thought, adding to it all she had learned, at the zorsal, uncertain whether Zass could even pick up that question. Surely she knew the difference between life and death. Any hunter would. Simsa watched the zorsal alight again and move forward, with a strange caution. Zass might be approaching some trap which she must spring. With her hind claws caught in a pinch grip on the frame of the one-time viewplate, she folded her wings and swung head down, her front hand-feet widely spread apart.

  A moment later, those closed one on either side of Thorn’s lolling head, and shifted it around a fraction while the zorsal studied the bleeding mouth, the closed eyes, with the experience of predator.

  The sensation that was her answer reached Simsa just as the zorsal let go and moved over to test in the same way the other body.

  Alive! But how badly hurt? And was that flitter equipped with the same help-summoner as the Life Boat carried? Would it summon assistance in time from wherever this party had planeted? It might well be that all her solicitude was not needed, that already help was on the way, help Simsa had no intention of meeting.

  The second one was dead—again an assured report from the zorsal. Zass had tugged the other’s head up, and Simsa saw that this was that woman whose mind she had touched only to be revolted and frightened. This was that one who would seek out secrets with a knife, or by machines that would maim and kill! Knowledge so sought was debased and vile. Before she thought, Simsa followed the customs of the Burrows and spat as she would have into the footprints of one upon whom she called ill fortune. But there was no need for that. The ill fortune of her own kind—the fortune they believed the worst—had already struck.

  Her own kind? Simsa straightened and clutched the rod as if to turn it on herself. No! Not now—but there were no barriers that she could hold for long against that moving inside her. Out of hiding, or the resting place into which she had retreated after she had worked her power, the Elder One was again emerging.

  There was already that slight shift in Simsa’s sight. Some things sharpened, others faded as if there dwelt in her now another range of vision. Yet when she looked at Thorn, she knew that this was a task from which she would not be allowed to turn, even if she wanted to—that that broken body set just out of her reach had importance not only to Simsa of the Burrows, but also to her who co-dwelt within.

  Zass loosened her hold on the woman, allowing the dead to crumple back. The zorsal did not have the strength or means to free the spaceman—that would lie with Simsa. And the Elder One—by all means the Elder One!

  It seemed to Simsa, even as she yielded once more to the other, that each time she did so, the Elder One grew stronger, more ready to take command. Only, having once begun the withdrawal of herself, she had always known she could no longer withstand the other.

  What could the Elder One do here that Simsa could not? Build a bridge? Of what? The cloak was shredded. And Simsa would not go down into that flood of sand and what it must conceal to reach the broken flyer.

  The zorsal had returned to Thorn, settling on the edge of the frame that had enclosed the broken transparent bubble, and once more set her foreclaws again expertly to cradle the unconscious spaceman’s head. This time she turned it cautiously so that his closed eyes were directly facing Simsa. Having adjusted the hold to her satisfaction, Zass raised her own head and gave a chirrup which was a bid for attention.

  In Simsa’s hand the rod moved, or rather the Elder One moved it. There came a beam of light, green-blue—rippling as if it spouted from a fountain, narrowing until the ray appeared solid in its intensity. It struck directly above and between those closed eyes.

  So it was held steady, not by Simsa’s will, but by that other’s. The knowledge of what was happening was not shared. Simsa could only guess that this was meant to benefit. Then that beam flashed off as speedily as it had first shown.

  Now it returned to alter target, striking upon the wreckage itself. No narrow beam now, rather a new kind of haze, puffing forth to envelop the whole of the broken flitter, encasing it, growing ever more dense. Simsa, who must stand by and watch while the Elder One was in command, uttered a cry.

  The wreck, which was now but a black shadow within the haze the rod had engendered, slid away from the other bank, dropping its crumpled nose into the sand river. Yet the girl was certain that the Elder One had no mind to lose Thorn. Why then let him fall into the hidden territory of the slime blobs?

  The haze thickened below, thinned above. The broken observation bubble was nearly clear, while the underpinning was hidden. Yet still it moved.

  It moved and, within her, there came in answer such a draining of energy and life as she had never known, even when the Elder One had ruthlessly used her to some purpose such as the releasing of the valley whirlwind. There was no way to fight, to protect herself—she could only give and give.

  Having woven its web of haze, the rod flipped back against her breasts and again Simsa cried out—this time in pain, for it might have been a glowing brand held forcibly to her skin. Nothing drifted or spun from the horns now. And there was nothing left within her to give. What the Elder One had wrought exhausted her. She fell upon her knees, the rod dropping from her grasp as she braced herself with both hands and straightened arms to keep from crashing headlong on the rock.

  There was an impatience rising in her now—not borne from her own thoughts or desires, but out of the wishes of the Elder One. It would seem that she found this Simsa too frail, too feeble—

  While the haze-enclosed wreck was down across the river now, it had not dipped into it as she had expected it to do, rather seemed supported by the haze upon the surface of the flowing sand. However, as she watched, the even flow of the sand was troubled by a dimpling of its surface; small hillocks broke out of the flow. And from these grew, like upside-down roots of hideous and poisonous plants, the weaving yellow tentacles of the blobs, small at first but spreading ever larger, longer.

  It would seem, however, that the rod’s haze bore within it some ingredient that held them back. For, though they strove to penetrate it with tentacle point, those strings of unwholesome flesh were powerless to fasten on the wreckage.

  The flitter’s movement toward where Simsa crouched was very slow. She could see that the whole of its bulk had cleared the opposite shore and was pointed toward the rock rim immediately below her. She had to brace her head upon her folded arm, lying near flat on the rock now, her strength seemingly continuing to drain without visible threading through the rod.

  “Will!” That command was like a shout, cutting through the tangle of her thoughts and fears. “Will!”

  Will the broken machine to her? Simsa of the Burrows could see little aid in that. But ruthlessly this other was taking over more and more of her mind, centering all her thought upon the wreck. Will—yes, let it come to her, come to her. It rang like a chant and, though she did not know it, she was sitting up, her face frozen in a mask as she intoned aloud, though not even her own ears—only her body—knew the rhythm of that call:

  “Come—come—come!”

  She knew nothing of the forces that other commanded. Seemingly, she was now the tool in place of the spent rod. Her hands raised from her knees, weakly wavering, but still motioning, emphasizing her chant.

  “Come!”

  There sounded the cry of a fighting zorsal. Simsa heard it only from a distance and as something that had no meaning now. All that did matter was that dark core of the haze moving toward this bank.

  Splashing, a sucking, coughing sound. Still Simsa was not free to look, to break the compulsion holding her.

  “Come!”

  Something moved within the haze—something that hunched along the length of the flyer, answering to her beckoning even as the flitter appeared to do.

  “Come!” One small, helpless part of her shivered, if a thought, a memory, could shiver. Did she summon one of those blob-things which had climbed to ride the wreck? In spite o
f that tremor within her, she waved and called for the last time: “Come!”

  The crushed nose of the wreck must be now against the rock shore below her. Once more she was herself, the power flowing out of her and leaving only a weakened husk of a person behind. The haze was fading, but that which crawled along the dark shape reached out for the rock—reached with a hand, not tentacles.

  Simsa stumbled to the very lip of the rock, caught those groping hands in hers, then was herself thrown backward, another larger and hard-muscled body covering hers. She looked up into the face of Thorn.

  In that face, the eyes were still closed. Blood trickling from his mouth spattered on her. She had strength enough to wriggle out from under his inert body, leaving him facedown and unmoving now upon the rock.

  There was a sound as if some great creature had sucked or inhaled. The haze was abruptly gone. She could see the yellow horrors from the river climbing in a solid mass upon the wreckage, bearing it down the faster with their weight. Luckily, they were more conscious of this invader of their own place than they were of those on the bank.

  Zass cried again—a battle cry that brought Simsa’s attention to where the zorsal cruised back and forth upstream. The whole surface of the sand there was pocked and heaped. There seemed no end to the creatures moving toward the wreck.

  She crept forward and caught Thorn by one shoulder. To turn his body over was a task almost beyond her much-impaired vitality, but she managed it. Now she unsealed the uniform he wore, much as she had seen him do, in a search for injuries. Catching up the rod once again, she passed it slowly over him, hoping that through it, she might learn if his hurts were critical. She thought a rib was broken, there was a contusion on his head just above the nape of his neck, and the blood, she discovered when she was able to pry his mouth open, did not come from a punctured lung as she had feared, but rather from a tear in his lower lip.

  Ferwar had been, in her time, one wise enough to care for hurts such as come easily to the Burrowers. Simsa now stripped off a section of the rope she had made for crossing the other stream and tightly bound the rib. She washed the graze on his head, separating the short strands of blood-matted hair. A second piece of her rope went into the dressing of it. Last of all, she dribbled a little of the water from the valley’s fountain into his slack mouth, holding it shut until she felt him swallow.

  When she loosed that last grip on him, he stirred and muttered in a language strange to her. His eyes opened and he looked up at her, but they did not focus or show any knowledge that she was with him.

  Zass flew in from the river. Now she streaked back and forth, shrieking on a note so high that Simsa’s ears could barely catch it, and the girl knew that the zorsal was aroused to the peak of rage and fear.

  Just as the attack of the river-thing had earlier summoned its fellows from the inland fissure, so did the uncommon commotion about the wreck, which had nearly disappeared beneath the sand, draw the others once more.

  Simsa and Thorn were on a small height of the rock and the nearest fissure lay some distance away. Still the girl could see weaving yellow ribbons of unclean life streaming, jerking up into the air, across the stretch between her and that pile of rocks which had once formed the outer point of defense of the valley. They were cut off. Even if she could get Thorn aware and on his feet, she could see no chance of their escaping in that direction. And the fissures lay north and south, as well as west, while the river was east. They were boxed in.

  There was a thing with a handgrip fastened to the belt she had unbuckled and thrown to one side when she had searched for the spaceman’s hurts. Undoubtedly, a weapon of sorts, but how one used it and whether it would be effective against the sand river monsters the girl had no idea.

  Only they could not remain tamely where they were, to be pulled down, torn by those deadly weaving ribbons. And she could not carry Thorn. It would seem that the Elder One had given her this duty and then withdrawn—again, leaving her exhausted and without resources.

  There must be a uniting between the two of them. Simsa at last accepted that, though all her normal instincts rebelled. Back when the Elder One had first entered her, she had been exultant, feeling whole and full of such energy and power as she had not known could exist. Her disenchantment had come little by little—to have one full memory and another that was only shatters of half-seen, never understood pictures, had been a true and growing torment. And then, when the off-worlders had thought to take her apart as it seemed, to shatter her for that broken memory, she had thought of the Simsa of the Burrows as her shield and escape—having from then on fought to contain those complete memories as well as she could.

  Which had sent the Elder One into hiding and brought her, Simsa, into choices and action that was left unfinished—weak, drained, unable to fight—

  Zass swooped down and settled on Thorn’s body, her wings fanning, her head slanted so her feather antennae were turned straight at the girl.

  “Go!” That was as potent an order as her own “Come!” had earlier been.

  Go she might be able to do, yes. Though at the moment she did not feel she had the strength to take more than a step or two away from this one stretch of unfissured rock. But though Thorn’s eyes were open and he rolled his head back and forth against her knee, crying out whenever the bandaged head wound touched the rock, he was certainly not conscious of where he was.

  She leaned over him, trying to sight some knowledge of her in his open-eyed gaze. Then she thought out carefully the speech she had learned from the ship people. To speak to him in that tongue might have some effect.

  “Thorn Yan!” Once he had told her that that was a “friend name,” used only in comradeship with those he trusted and his kin. “Thorn Yan!”

  The blankness of his face was troubled by a frown.

  “We must go. There is trouble.” She spoke slowly in the ship language, making each word as emphatic as she could. Reaching out, she drew that unknown weapon from the belt holder.

  “Trouble—” She dangled the weapon before his eyes. A handgrip together with a tube. What would issue from it and how one could make it work she did not know.

  Thorn’s lips moved. He turned his head to spit a mouthful of blood onto the rock. That small bit of action seemed to recall him to himself. Now he looked at her and his frown grew the stronger.

  “Simsa—”

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Thorn!” Now she dared take him by the shoulder and give him a small upward pull, once more holding out the weapon.

  “Look!” Purposely, she did not point to the riotous scene at the wreckage, but rather to those things issuing from the fissures inland—the ones that drew their slimy bodies purposefully toward their own perch.

  She had steadied his head as he lifted it against her arm, and now look he did. Then his hand fell on hers and twisted the weapon out of her grip, striving to steady it as he viewed their attackers.

  8

  “Greeta! Greeta!” Thorn shouted the name of the dead woman—but even that part of the flitter which contained her body was lost to view. The creatures of the sand crawled and heaped themselves most thickly on that section of the wreckage and had, by their weight, pushed it completely under so that although here and there, an end of broken metal might be seen and the tail of the fuselage was still tilted above the surface, the rest was only a writhing struggle of the yellow things.

  “She is dead,” Simsa said sharply. “You cannot bring her forth from that!” She waved a hand toward the struggling mass of ovoid bodies and tangled tentacles.

  Thorn gave her a quick glance, and there was certainly no sign of friendliness or gratitude beneath those knotted brows or in that rage-thinned mouth. That deep anger filled him, making him forget the pain of his own hurts, Simsa sensed without being told.

  He crooked his left arm at eye level, used it so to steady the barrel of his weapon. Down into that heaving mass of filthiness shot a ray of fire so brilliant Simsa closed her eyes for an instant that
she might not be blinded.

  Deep inside of her mind arose a scream—not from any fear or torture wreaked upon her own body, but surely coming from those sand-dwelling things now feeling the searing pain of the attack.

  That faint stench which had first guided her in this direction was now a fetid cloud.

  She reached up, averting her gaze from that beam, to catch his elbow with a fierce grip.

  “No!” Both by word of mouth and in her mind she shouted that. “She was dead when I found you—you can do her no service, only bring those things upon us now. Would you sacrifice your life for the dead who are safely past the Star Gate and no longer aware of this world, or any other men know? She was dead! By this”—with her other hand she waved the rod before him—“will I swear it!”

  For a long moment, he either did not hear or else had no belief in what she said. Then that beam of deadly light was cut off, and his weapon-holding hand fell to his side, though Simsa kept her grasp on his other arm. She dragged Thorn around, his back to the river, to face the long space that lay between them and that outcrop of rock which was the tricky entrance to the valley.

  She had been very right to fear those fissures. Now, as she looked out over the broken surface of the plane, most of them were throwing out gouts of sand, or there were tentacles fastened on the rock that bound them at the surface, and here and there a gob of yellow was already well out of the depths and turning toward the two.

  “What are they?” For the first time, Thorn spoke to her with a rational voice.

  “Death,” she returned briefly, and then added, “Here they rule. There”—she pointed to the pile of rocks which was throwing a longer and longer shadow across the plain, reaching for the very foot of the small rise on which they now stand—“there is hope—a little . . .” She was bitterly frank, for she was sure that his useless attack on the flitter’s blobs had done much to arouse even the most sluggish of the crawlers. “If we can reach there. But how? Can you burn us a path, out-worlder?”