ORDEAL IN OTHERWHERE Page 8

  Charis shook her head. “I don’t know.” It was the truth, but would this Lantee believe it?

  He nodded. “Like that, eh? Some of their dreaming . . . “

  It was her turn for surprise. What did this officer know of the Wyverns and their Otherwhere? He was smiling slowly, an expression which modified his usual set of mouth, made him even more youthful.

  “I, too, have dreamed,” he said softly.

  “But I thought -- !” She had a small prick of emotion which was not amazement but, oddly, resentment.

  His smile remained, warm and somehow eager. “That they do not admit males can dream? Yes, that is what they told us, too, once upon a time.”

  “Us?”

  “Ragnar Thorvald and I. We dreamed to order—and came out under our own command, so they had to give us equal status. Did they do the same to you? Make you visit the Cavern of the Veil?”

  Charis shook her head. “I dreamed, yes, but I don’t know about your cavern. They taught me how to use this.” On impulse she held up the disk.

  Lantee’s smile vanished. “A guide! They gave you a guide. So that’s how you got here!”

  “You don’t have one?”

  “No, they never offered us those. And you don’t ask—“

  Charis nodded. She knew what he meant. With the Wyverns, you waited for their giving; you did not ask. But apparently Lantee and this Thorvald had better contact with the natives than the traders had been able to establish.

  The traders—the raid here. She did not realize that she was speaking aloud her thoughts as she said:

  “That man with the blaster!”

  “What man?” Again that official voice from Lantee.

  Charis told him of that strange last night in the post when she had awakened to find herself in a deserted building, of her use of the com and the answer the sweep had picked up in the north. Lantee shot questions at her, but the answers she had were so limited she could tell him little more than the fact that the stranger in the visa-plate had worn an illegal weapon.

  “Jagan had a limited permit,” Lantee said when she had done. “He was here on sufferance and against our recommendations, and he had only a specified time in which to prove his trade claim. We heard he had brought in a woman as liaison, but that was when he first set up the post . . . “

  “Sheeha!” Charis broke in. Rapidly she added that part of the story to the rest.

  “Apparently she couldn’t take the dreams,” Lantee observed. “They reached for her, just as they did for you. But she wasn’t receptive in the right way, so it reacted on her, broke her. Then Jagan made another trip and got you. But this other crowd—the one you picked up that night—that spells trouble. It looks as if they hit here—“

  Charis glanced at the body. “Is that Jagan? One of his men?”

  “It’s a crewman, yes. Why did you come here? You taped a call for help to escape that night.”

  She showed him the stunner, told him of where and how she had found it. Lantee was far from smiling now.

  “The com in the post was smashed along with everything else inside that wasn’t blast-burned. But—there was something else. Have you ever seen a mate to this before, or was it part of Jagan’s stock—a keepsake?”

  Lantee moved back to the body he had warned her not to approach and picked an object from the ground beside it. When he came back, he held an unusual weapon, now horribly stained for a third of its length. It had the general appearance of a spear or dart, but the sawlike projections extended farther down its shaft than was natural in a spearhead.

  Charis’s fingers were a tight fist about her disk as Lantee held it closer to her. The bone-white substance was very like that used in the guide.

  “I never saw it before.” She told the truth, but in her a fear was growing.

  “But you have an idea?” He was too acute!

  “Suppose, just suppose,” Lantee continued, no longer holding her eye to eye as if demanding her thoughts, but regarding the strange spear with a brooding expression, “that this is native to Warlock!”

  “They don’t need such weapons,” Charis flashed. “They can control any living thing through these.” She waved her balled fist.

  “Because they dream,” Lantee noted. “But what of those of their race who do not dream?”

  “The—the males?” For the first time Charis wondered about that. Now she remembered that, in all the time she had spent with the Wyverns, she had not seen any male of their species. That they existed she knew, but there appeared to be a wall of reticence surrounding any mention of them.

  “But—“ she could not believe in Lantee’s suggestion “—that is the sign of blaster fire.” With her chin she pointed to the post.

  “Yes. Blaster fire, systematic wrecking of every installation—and then this—used to kill an off-worlder. It’s as complicated as a dream, isn’t it? But this is real, too real by far!” He dropped the stained spear to lie between them. “We have to have answers and have them quick.” He looked up at her. “Can you call them? Thorvald went out to the Citadel for a conference before he knew about this.”

  “I tried to go back before—they’d walled me out.”

  “We have to know what happened here. A body with this in it. Up there—“ Lantee waved toward the plateau, “—an empty ship just sitting. And out of here, as far as Taggi can trace, not a single trail. Either they lifted in by aircraft or—“

  “The sea!” Charis finished for him.

  “And the sea is their domain; there is not much happens out there that they are not aware of.”

  “You mean—they planned this?” Charis demanded coldly. To her mind violence of this kind was not the Wyvern way. The natives had their own powers and those did not consist of blaster fire and serrated spears.

  “No,” Lantee agreed with her promptly. “This has the stamp of a Jack job, except for that.” He toed the spear. “And if a Jack crew planeted here, the sooner we combine forces against them, the better!”

  To that Charis could agree. If Jagan’s poor outfit had been fringe trading, it had still been on the side of the law. A Jack crew was a thoroughly criminal gang, pirates swooping on out-world trading posts to glut, kill, and be off again before help could be summoned. And on such an open world as Warlock, they might well consider lingering for awhile.

  “You have a Patrol squad on world?” she asked.

  “No. We’re in a peculiar situation here. The Wyverns won’t allow any large off-world settlement. They only accepted Thorvald and me because we did, by chance, pass their dream test when we were survivors of a Throg raid. But they wouldn’t agree—or haven’t yet—to any Patrol station. We have a scout that visits from time to time and that’s the limit.

  “This post of Jagan’s was an experiment, pushed on us by some of the off-world veeps who wanted to see how a non-government penetration would be accepted. And the big Companies didn’t want to gamble. That’s how a Free Trader got it. There are just Thorvald, Taggi, his mate Togi and their cubs, and me, plus a com-tech generally resident at headquarters.”

  As if the mention of his name summoned him, the brown animal lumbered forward. He sniffed the spear and growled. Tsstu spat, her claws pricking through to Charis’s skin.

  “What is he?” she asked.

  “Wolverine, a Terran-mutated team animal,” Lantee answered a little absently. “Could you try to raise them again? I have a hunch that time is getting rather tight.”

  Gytha—among the Wyverns Charis had been the closest to that young witch who had shared some of her instruction—maybe she could break through by beaming the power directly at Gytha and not at the Citadel as a whole. She did not answer Lantee’s question in words but breathed upon the disk, and closed her eyes the better to visualize Gytha.

  At her first meeting with the Wyverns, they had had a physical uniformity which made it difficult for an off-worlder to see them as individuals. But Charis had learned that their jeweled skin-patterns varied, that thi
s adornment had meaning. The younger members of their species, when they came to adulthood and the use of the Power, could take certain simplifications of designs worn by the elders of their family lines and then gradually add the symbols of their own achievements, spelled out in no code Charis could yet understand, although by it she could now recognize one from another.

  So it was easy to visualize Gytha, to beam her desire for her friend. She expected mind contact but, at an exclamation from Lantee, she opened her eyes to see Gytha herself, the gold and crimson circles about her snout agleam in the sun, the spine ridges along her back moving a little as if she had actually used them to fly here.

  “He-Who-Dreams-True.” The mental greeting reached out to Lantee.

  “She-Who-Shares-Dreams.” Charis was startled when the Survey man answered in the same way. So he did have communication with the Wyverns in spite of the fact he possessed no disk.

  “You have called!” That was aimed at Charis with a sharpness which suggested her act had been an error of judgment.

  “There is trouble here—“

  Gytha’s head turned; she surveyed the wreckage of the post, glanced once at the body.

  “It does not concern us.”

  “Nor this either?” Lantee made no move to pick up the spear again, but with boot toe he nudged it a little closer to the Wyvern.

  She looked down, and a barrier between her and Charis snapped into place, as a door might slam. But Charis had been long enough among Gytha’s kind to read the flash of agitation in the sudden quiver of the Wyvern’s forehead crest. Her indifference of moments before was gone.

  “Gytha!” Charis tried to break through the barrier of silence. But it was as if the Wyvern was not only deaf but that Charis and Lantee had ceased to exist. Only the bloodstained spear had reality and meaning.

  The Wyvern made no gesture of warning. But they were there—two more of her kind. And one—Charis took a quick step back—one of the new arrivals had a head crest which was close to black in shade; the whole surface of her scaled skin was covered with such a multiplicity of gemmed design that she flashed. Gysmay—one of the Readers of Rods!

  With her came the impact, first of irritation; then, as the Wyvern looked at Lantee, a cold anger, cold enough to strike as a weapon.

  Though the Survey officer swayed, his face greenish under the brown, he stood up to her. Under that momentary burst of anger, Charis caught the suggestion of surprise in the Wyvern.

  The second Warlockian who had accompanied Gysmay at Gytha’s summons made no move. But from her, too, flowed emotion—if one could name it that—a feeling of warning and restraint. Her head crest was also black, but there was no flashing display of patterned skin bright in the sun. At first glance Charis thought she wore no designs at all, even the “encouragement” ones of her ancestors. Then the girl noted that there was a series of markings, deceptively simple, so close in hue to the natural silver of her skin as to make a brocade effect detectable only after concentrated study.

  For Lantee or Charis this newcomer had no attention at all; she was staring unwinkingly at the spear. That rose from the spot where Lantee had dropped it, moving up horizontally on a level with the Wyvern’s eyes, coming to her. Then it stopped, balanced in the air for a long moment.

  It whirled end for end and dashed groundward. There was a sharp snapping as it shattered into bits. It might have been broken against rock instead of bare earth. Then the splinters whirled about and rose in turn. Charis watched unbelievingly as those needle-small remnants of the spear spun madly about. They fell, stilled, but now they formed what was surely a pattern.

  The girl reeled. Tsstu, in her arms, screeched. The wolverine squalled. Charis watched Lantee collapse limply under a mental blow of rage, so raw and hot as to be a fire within one’s tormented brain. There was a red cloud about her, but Charis was most aware of the pain in her head.

  That pain accompanied her into the dark, nibbled at her will, weakened her struggle to pull away from it. Was it pain or something behind the pain, compelling her, making her no longer Charis Nordholm but a tool to be used, a key to turn for another, stronger personality?

  The pain pushed at her. She crawled through a red haze—on and on. Where? for what purpose? There was only the whip of pain and the need to obey that other will which wielded such a lash. Red, red, all about her. But the red was fading slowly as a fire falls into ash. Red to gray, gray which remained about her, a gray she could see . . .

  Charis lay on her back. There was an arch of wall close to her right hand; it sloped inward over her head. She had seen that wall before. Half-light so dim—bare walls—a drop table—a seat by it. The trading post—she was back in the trading post!

  IX

  It was oddly still. Charis sat up on the cot, pulled her coverall into place. Coverall? Something buried deep inside her questioned, and a seed of doubt plagued her. Yes, the post was very still. She went to the door, set her hands on either side of the sealed slit. Was she locked in? But when she applied pressure, the portal opened and she was able to look out into the corridor.

  The doors along it gaped open as she slipped into freedom. Listening brought no trace of sound, no murmur of voices or the heavy breathing of a sleeper. She went on down the hall, the floor chill to her bare feet.

  But this—all of this, whispered that rebellious voice deep within her, she had done before. Yet on the surface, this was the here and now. The rooms were empty; she paused at each to make sure of that. Then the fourth room: a com screen against its wall, chairs and piles of record tapes. The com—she could use its sweep, try to pick up the government base. But first she must make sure she was safely alone.

  A hurried search of the post, room by room. Time—it was a matter of time. Then she was back in the com room, leaning over the key board, picking out the proper combination to trigger a sweep ray.

  A wait, and then a signal to the northeast. The visa-plate clouded and then cleared. Charis dodged from her position before it. A man was standing out of the mist, a man wearing a dingy uniform of a trader. Charis studied him, but he was unknown to her. Only the illegal blaster holstered at his belt made him different from any other fringe crewman. Charis’s hand swept out to break contact.

  She activated the sweep once again, tried south, and picked a signal—the insignia of Survey with a seal of Embassy. Slowly then she began to click out a message for the tape.

  She was on a hillside. It was cold, dark, and she was running, running until her breath made a sharp stab beneath her ribs. The hunt would be up soon. Or would Tolskegg be willing to let her go, to die alone in the heights of exhaustion, starvation, or at the claws of some beast? He had Demeter and the settlement below now within his hold.

  Demeter! The part of her which had been denying that this was the here and now struggled. Charis shook with more than cold. She was climbing to the heights above the settlement, yet the belief that this was all false grew stronger and stronger.

  A dream. And there were those who used dreams and the stuff of dreams as a potter spun clay on his wheel. If she was caught in a dream, then she must wake—wake soon. Not a dream. Yes—a dream. She felt her own exhaustion, the pinch of hunger which was pain, the rough ground over which she stumbled, the bushes she grasped to steady her.

  Not real—a dream! The bushes thinned until they were unsubstantial ghosts of themselves. Through their wavering outlines she saw a wall—yes, wall, solid wall. She was not on Demeter—she was—she was . . .

  Warlock! As if the recognition of that name were a key, the now shadowy slope of Demeter vanished, driven away like smoke by a rising wind. She lay on a pad of mats. To her right was a window giving on the dark of night with a frosting of stars in the sky. This was Warlock and the Citadel of the Wyverns.

  She did not move but lay quietly trying to separate dream from reality. The post—it had been raided. That Survey officer Shann Lantee -- She could see him as plainly now as if he stood before her, the blood-spattered al
ien spear held between them.

  The spear. It had splintered under the action of the Wyvern. The broken bits had moved in that weird dance until they had fallen in a pattern which had awakened such rage in the Warlockians. And that rage . . .

  Charis sat bolt upright on the mats. Lantee crumbling under the Power of the Wyverns, herself returned to relive portions of the past—for what purpose she could not divine. Why had that rage been turned on Lantee? In a way, it had been her fault for summoning Gytha. She had been too impulsive.

  Her hands went to the pouch at her belt. It was empty of the disk. That had been in her hand when the Power had taken her on the shore. Had she dropped it or had they taken it from her?

  That could mean that the Wyverns no longer considered her in the guise of friend or ally. What had the broken spear meant to them? Without the disk Charis was a prisoner here in this room. At least there was no reason why she could not attempt at once to find out what bonds had been set upon her freedom. Would she discover herself as unable to move as she had been on her flight along the shore when it had suited the Wyverns to control her?

  “Tsstu?” Charis held that call to hardly above a whisper. She did not know how much of an ally the small curl-cat could be against the Wyverns, but she had come to depend upon her for companionship more heavily than she had guessed.

  A drowsy sound came from the shadow directly below the window near which her head had rested. Tsstu lay there, curled in a ball, her eyes closed, her ears folded back tight against her head. Charis stooped and drew her fingers lightly across that head.

  “Tsstu,” she whispered coaxingly. Was the curl-cat—she had adopted Lantee’s name for Tsstu’s species since it fitted so well—deep in her own kind of dream, too deep to be aroused now?

  The ears twitched and slits of eyes showed between lids. Then Tsstu yawned widely, her yellow tongue curled up and out. She lifted her head to eye Charis.

  To communicate more than just vague impressions without the aid of the disk—could she do that? Charis made a sudden swoop to gather up the curl-cat, holding Tsstu aloft so that those narrow felinelike eyes looked straight into hers. Was Tsstu so closely linked to the Wyverns that she would serve them rather than Charis now?