The Forerunner Factor Read online

  However, as she set spark to the battered saucer-like bowl of mud which held that oil, she was not prepared for the wonderment in the off-worlder’s eyes. For a moment, she was startled at the strange look he turned upon her. Then she remembered that, for the first time in years, she had taken off that discreet covering which had made her “Shadow.”

  “But you are—you are a woman!” His surprise was so open and complete that she was startled a little in turn. Did her disguise then hold so well that even her sex had been undiscovered when she ventured forth? He had indeed, she remembered back now, addressed her by that queer off-planet greeting she had heard given to males. But she had merely thought that these aliens had but one form of greeting for all.

  Now, hardly knowing why, she raised her hands and ran her fingers through her silvery hair. It floated a little at the touch, the electricity aroused by her treatment moving its lighter strands. It was seldom and only in private nowadays that she unwrapped her hair so. In fact, now she felt an odd kind of embarrassment which was better left hidden.

  “I am Simsa—” Perhaps Gathar had already spoken her name.

  She saw the look of awe change into a slight smile on the off-worlder’s face.

  “My House name is Thorn,” he placed his two hands together, palm meeting and bowed across them. “My given-by-father name, Chan-li. My friend name—Yun.”

  Simsa laughed suddenly. “What a world of names! How do those you know choose among them if they would call you?” She seated herself cross-legged on the pile of mats which had been Ferwar’s. With a wave of beringed hand, the girl indicated the smaller collection of woven rush squares which were of her own making and had been her bed-place.

  He seated himself limberly in the same fashion. It was odd what she was finding out about this stranger. His smile was gone from his lips, but it still seemed to hold in his eyes which had opened to their widest extent when he looked at her and now remained that way.

  “Those who are kin say ‘Chan’, my friends ‘Yun’.”

  She gave another combing toss to her hair. To sit here in idle talk was not enough. There was that she must know and as soon as she might.

  “Tell me now,” she commanded, “what dealing have you with Lord Arfellen that his guards follow you and yet you would have none of them? Do you know that he has only to crook his finger joint so much as this,” she stretched out her ringed thumb and made a slight curve in the air, “and he can have the life of near any one in Kuxortal, and set to tremble a few more he could not kill at once? What have you done?”

  This Thorn did not seem in the least disturbed by her questions now. He sat as easily as if he were any Burrower. In fact easier than any who would now dare to enter this particular chamber.

  “I asked questions—questions concerning my brother who went off into your world some seasons ago and of whom there had been no word since, though he was pledged to a meeting he would not have missed unless he had met with dire trouble. You spoke of him as a witling who went into the Hard Hills. I swear to you that no matter how it would seem to your people, he had good reason to go there, to hunt what he had come to discover. Now—” he hesitated for a moment and then added with the sharpness of a Guild man voicing an order, “can you tell me any other rumors concerning him? Or why anyone would wish him to come to ill?”

  “There were tens of tens ways in which he could have come to ill,” she returned, striving to keep her voice as cool and stern as his own. “The Hard Hills have their secrets in plenty. Most men travel by river or by sea. It used to be long ago—when I was very young, that caravans still came in from Qurux across the desert lands which front the Hard Hills. Those were from Semmele and they brought strange things from the north for the trading. Then we heard of a plague which made Semmele a place of dead men and ghosts and no caravans came. What they had ever brought was little—the Guilds could well make up the yield from the rivermen. So the way there was lost. Yes, there was talk when the off-worlder hunted out three of the old caravan men. They say he offered a fortune in broke-bits for a guide. Two of them would have none of his urging—the other got into a shuffle with one of Lord Arfellen’s guards and thereafter agreed to go.” She was suddenly aware of what she had said and repeated slowly, “Lord Arfellen’s guard . . .” more to herself than to him.

  “So and so.” He used the trader’s speech so easily that if she shut her eyes, she could not be sure he was not of Kuxortal. “These other two—are they still here?”

  The girl shrugged. “If they are, surely Gathar will find them for you. Have you not already made such a bargain with him?”

  Again he was smiling. “Your knowledge seems to stretch a long way, Gentlefem Simsa. Does it touch any more on such as this?” He patted with his hand the belt pouch into which he had put the carvings.

  “All I know is that the Old One had a liking for such. What I found, what was brought to her, she kept.”

  “What you found—where?” He caught that up eagerly.

  “In the Burrows. We dig into the back years of Kuxortal, we who live on her refuse. Some of that refuse being very old. Once this,” again she gestured, “might well have been part of some Lord’s palace place. There are bits of wall paint still in yonder corner. Things have been lost as houses collapsed, were built over. Kuxortal was sacked by pirates, three times attacked by armies before the rise of the River lords and their alliance. There has been much destroyed and built upon over and over again. The Burrowers live in the past and on what they can scoop from their tunnels. We are less than dust to the Guild Lords.”

  “Even in your place here, you must have heard things from the upper city,” he seemed unable to take his eyes from her silver hair, he studied her, Simsa began to think, as if she were some bit or piece turned up in the underways, “what do you know of Lord Arfellen?”

  Her interest was caught now. He was speaking to her as an equal, something which had never happened as far as she could remember. To the Old One, she had always been a child, to the Burrowers a stranger, though she had been born among them she was sure. Yet, none of them had ever matched her coloring of skin or hair. To Gathar, her main contact in the upper city, she was only a young one of a people his kind had long held in contempt. Though her management of the zorsals had won grudging respect in so far as it aided him. But to this off-worlder, she was a person one asked advice of, one whose knowledge and opinions were held in the same esteem as if he were speaking to one of the upper town.

  “He is the richest of the Guild Lords, his line the oldest,” she began. “It is he who is the first signer every third season on the trade wares brought in. He is not seen often—having many to be hands and feet for him. He is—” she moistened her lips with tongue tip—what she would say now as pure conjecture and rumor and she hesitated to add that to pad out the little she did know.

  “There is something else,” he broke that minute of silence.

  “They tell tales about him, that he is hunted in one place and cannot be found, later he comes from there and says that he was always there. He is said to go to none of the temples on the heights as do the other lords, but he keeps in his service one who talks with the dead. And that he is a seeker—”

  “A seeker!” Thorn pounced upon that as Zass would upon a ver-rat. “Is it also rumored as to what he seeks?”

  “Treasure. Yet that he does not need, for much flows ever into his stronghold and little comes out again. He hires many guards and sometimes those travel up river. Their leader may come back next season but they do not. Perhaps he sells them as fighters to the River Lords—there is always quarreling there still.”

  “You have never heard of him sending to the Hard Hills?”

  Simsa laughed. “All the treasure in the world would not send him there. No one goes in that direction, I tell you, no one.”

  “But one shall,” he leaned a little forward, caught her gaze with his and held it steady. “For I shall, Gentlefem.”

  “Then you will die
—as did your brother.” She refused to be impressed by more than his folly.

  “I think not.” Now he took from his pouch the two bits of carving he had bought from her. “This I have to tell you, Gentlefem—but first answer me—how safe are you in these Burrows of yours?”

  “Safe? Why do you ask that?”

  Before he could answer, Zass straightened up on her perch over the low door of the Burrow. She flung back her head and gave a cry which brought Simsa upstanding, her claws expanding instantly in answer to an alarm which had reached her brain less than a second earlier. Then through the door itself came two winged creatures. As each seemed to erupt into the chamber, so swift was its emergence from the tunnel beyond, it gave a deeper cry in answer to Zass’s welcome, before both planed down to stand before the girl.

  There was no mistaking these—Zass’s sons. That they were here meant some catastrophe at their abiding place—the warehouse. The alien caught at her hand.

  “Can they be followed?”

  “Not save by another of their kind. And there are none such I know of who are so trained. But—” She looked from the zorsals to the off-worlder. “I do not understand what they are doing here. They would not have left Gathar for any reason unless—unless there is trouble there! Was that the reason you asked of me concerning safety? What has happened to Gathar?” More important what might happen to her who was well known to have dealings with that waremaster even if it were only because of the zorsals? Plenty knew that she had trained them and only rented out the creature’s services, refusing to sell them to him.

  “I did not get your silver from him,” the off-worlder returned. “When I would have gone back to his place, I saw the badges of Arfellen on men at his door. And I had already had warning that my questions had startled the lord. I do not know what he seeks—I have no reason to be connected with any trade trouble which he may have. But one of the starcrew passed me a message that much concerning me has been asked of the captain and that he has received orders that when the ship lifts, I am not to remain.”

  “Yet you came to me!” She spat that in pure anger and wanted nothing more so much as to claw mark that smooth, ivory skin of his so that neither friend nor foe could put rightful name to him again. Only, one ruled by anger, as the Old One had long ago taught her, made fatal mistakes.

  “Because I had to, not only to get what you showed me and what is perhaps a very important pointer to that which I seek, but because you might now be my only contact to gather the knowledge I would have. At any rate,” he did not drop his gaze, there was even a shadow smile at the corner of his mouth, “is it not true that any who have had dealings with Gathar in any way can now be suspected of whatever irregularity which it will be claimed he is concerned in?”

  “What do you want of me?” Both zorsals had crept very close to her feet, were looking up in her face, and uttering small cries as if they would have reassurance. Whatever had driven them from their comfortable quarters had been bad enough to bring them here in open fear.

  “A hiding place, whatever knowledge you can glean, and a way to reach the Hard Hills,” he told her as if he were merely reciting items from some trader’s list.

  She wanted to screech at him in a voice as harsh as Zass’s that she was no worker of powerful fortune. Judging by what she had heard, and now guessed from the arrival of the zorsals, they had been lucky in that they were still uncaptured. Simsa looked about the cavern a little wildly. She had always considered herself a cool and careful person, one who planned and thought before she tried any action. She was beginning to lose confidence in herself.

  No. She bit her lip. There was enough installed by Ferwar’s harsh training to hold her together now. She could think still, plan—For a start she looked to the zorsals and uttered the single short cry which was her order to search. Zass had not descended from her door perch; now she, too, urged her offspring to their duty, sending them out again to hide and spy along the Burrows.

  From any of the kind who dwelt here they would have no help at all. Ferwar had been feared in her day, Simsa resented and, after her besting of Baslter, hated by more than one. They would be eager to reveal to any who came seeking where exactly the prey might have taken cover. Then she and this twice damned off-worlder would be dug out as easily as one dug a well steamed or-crab out of its shell.

  There was only one choice and it was being forced upon her in too swift and too sharp a way—she wanted time to plan and she knew that she had none. With this off-worlder at her heels, she could not melt away again in a shadow role. Anywhere in Kuxortal, he would be as visible as a lighted lamp in a night-dark room.

  “This way.”

  She had wheeled about, went to pull up the sleep mats which had formed Ferwar’s bed place to reveal the secret the Old One had guarded with her own body for seasons of years, judging by the work done on it, and which Simsa herself did not know in all its parts. He joined her without asking, bundling aside the mats she pushed towards him. What lay underneath in the poor light of the Burrow was a long stone seemingly as fixed as a rooted plant. However, the girl, who had learned the secret once when she had tripped over Zass and had fallen with hands outstretched, now knelt and set the palms of her hands hard in certain very shallow indentations she could feel but not see.

  The end of the stone rose as she bore down with her full strength. A musty odor puffed into their faces. Simsa clucked to Zass—knowing she need not recall the other two, for they could trace their dam to the end of this way with ease. She picked up the lamp in one hand, bundled the zorsal up against her with the other, and descended the shallow steps waiting there. The off-worlder swung down behind her. She did not turn her head as she said:

  “There is a hold on the stone, fit your hand to it, close this way after us.” She descended as rapidly as she could to give him the room he need to obey her orders. Then she stood in a very narrow runway which was thick dust underfoot, but which had air with a distinct smell of the river. This was a way out she believed that even Burrowers might take a lengthy time discovering. They could reach the riverside among the refuse dumps—beyond that she would not try yet to plan.

  5

  A smell of the sea tainted with the stench from the refuse dumps met Simsa as she wriggled through the last opening, Zass hopped ahead, grumbled gutturally to herself, the off-worlder kept to more laborious passage behind. Then they were out in the night—though Simsa believed that dawn could not be far distant. She sidled forward with no hope of avoiding all the pitfalls of water-washed trash, the pools of putrid matter, holding one hand across her mouth and nose to screen out what was possible, and regretting that so soon her hard-earned new clothing was thus being reduced to less than the rags she had discarded them for.

  Once away from the worst of the heaps, on the part of sand the incoming tide washed clear by dripping rush, she turned quickly to her companion.

  “Your ship lies there—” she kept her voice low. However, she had caught his arm in the dark, dragged him about to face the distant glow of light marking the landing field. “You can reach it from seaward.”

  “I have no ship to reach,” he returned.

  “You are off-world—” Simsa had yet to understand just what part the Guild Lords could play in the future of any starman. Certainly, they could not touch nor hold him.

  They cared too much for the star trade to anger the off-worlders who manned those ships by making any move against a member of their company. All in Kuxortal knew only too well what might follow any interference with the ship people.

  “I am on my own here,” he answered.

  “You said that Lord Arfellen has given word that when the ship lifts you are not to remain—” she pointed out hotly.

  “I have certain duties which no ship’s captain can question. I came here to hunt for a man. Nor shall I leave until I find him, or else have certain knowledge of what has happened to him—more than a general word that he has vanished in a territory which no one seems to kn
ow anything about and that no search has made for him thereafter.”

  “And how do you get to the Hard Hills then to do that hunting?” Simsa wanted to know. “You will not gain any aid from the men of Kuxortal, not if Lord Arfellen has declared it to be thus.”

  She could not see him clearly, he was only a darker blot in the night. When he answered, it was calmly and with a note in his voice which made her uneasy.

  “There are always ways one can get anything one truly sets all his energy and desire upon gaining. Yes, I shall see the Hard Hills. However, what happens now to you?”

  “So at last your mind turns to that?” she snapped. “Kuxortal is no place for me if Gathar is in trouble. All who had dealings with him shall suffer—for the Guildmen can nose out a trail half a year cold if they wish. Also, the Burrowers will not shield me. I was the Old One’s eyes, feet, and ears—while she lived. Now I am fair game.”

  “Why did they fear her?”

  Simsa did not know why she lingered here arguing with this alien. She owed him no explanations. Only—where might she go now? Gathar, who had been her one contact with the upper town, could no longer be depended upon. She had a bag heavy with broken bits weighing down one sleeve. But bought men and women stayed bought only so long as they were not offered more—either in silver or in freedom from danger—by another.

  “They thought she had a seeing eye. That was not true. She only knew a great deal about people—she could look into their faces, listen to their voices when her eyesight dimmed the more, and tell much of what they thought or felt. She could read and she could speak with many strangers in their own language. She was—different—not a true Burrower. I do not know her beginnings but they must have lain far from where she landed. Now—why do we waste time speaking of a dead woman? You had best go to your ship—if you would stay alive—”