The Forerunner Factor Read online

  For a long moment, she simply watched what she still could not believe. Then she took off in a hurry, lest he vanish from sight. What new wonders he might bring into their service she could not guess, but now she would willingly accept all the strange tales which were told of the starmen and what they could do. Even though they never, as far as she knew, had demonstrated any such powers on this world before.

  Her anger lost in her need to know how such a thing might be, Simsa slipped and slid, forgetting her drained strength until she came even with Thorn who walked steadily ahead, leading his floating platform.

  “What do you do?” she got out between gasps of breath as she caught up. “What makes it hang so in the air?”

  She heard him actually give a chuckle and then the look he turned on her was alive with sly humor.

  “If you told those at the port what you now see, they would send me back to my home world, sentenced to stay out of space forever,” he told her, though he seemed only amused at being able to explain what must be a crime among his kind. “I have merely applied to this problem something common on other planets—ones more advanced than yours. And that is a deadly crime according to the laws by which we abide. There is a small mechanism I planted at the right spot back there—” he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder but did not turn his head, “which nullifies gravity to a small extent—”

  “Nullifies gravity,” she repeated, trying to give the strange words the same sound as he had. “I do not know—some people believe in ghosts and demons, but Ferwar said they are mainly what those who believe in them make for themselves by their own fears—that you can believe in any bad dream or thing if you turn your full mind to it. But this is no ghost nor demon.”

  “No. It is this.” They were into the cut of the valley now. The sea wind behind them made the passage more bearable now than she could ever have believed it could be when she had seen it by day. Now as he halted for a moment, it was still not too dark for her to make out what he pointed to as he repeated, “It is this.”

  “This” was what appeared as a black box no bigger than could be covered by his hand were he to set that palm down over it. The thing rested directly in the middle of his drag carrier and now she could see that the cargo on board had been carefully stacked in such a way that the load must weigh evenly along the full length, leaving open only that one spot in the exact center vacant, the place in which sat the box.

  “You toss a stone into the air and it falls,” he said, “it is the attraction of the earth which pulls it down. But if that attraction could be broken sufficiently—then your stone would float. On my world, we wear belts with such attachments which give us individual flying power when they are mated with another force. We can move also much heavier things than this with little trouble. Unfortunately, I could not smuggle through the field guards as large a nullifier as I wanted. This is limited; you see how close to the ground the weight holds it.

  “There is this also—the power is limited. However, it is solar powered and here the sun can renew it, at least for the space in which I think we shall have need of it.”

  Simsa could understand his words easily enough, but the concept they presented was so far from anything she had known that his speech was akin to a wild travel tale, such as the river traders might use to scare off the gullible from their own private ports of trade, as was well known they were apt to do. She thought of such a thing being attached to a belt so that one could share the sky with such as the zorsal and the uses one could put such skill to.

  “The Thieves Guild,” she spoke aloud her own train of thought. “What they would not give for such as that! No,” a shiver which was not from the cooling of the wind shook her, “no, they would kill for that! Is it such as this that Lord Arfellen would hunt you for?”

  She could not understand what such a thing would mean also to even a High Guild Lord.

  “No,” Thorn returned. “It is just what I have said; what he wanted—what I am sure he still wants—is that which we are going to find, up ahead.”

  That this off-world marvel gave them a better chance was what was paramount for Simsa now. Not that their way was too easy. At places the cut through which they made their way was near barricaded by fallen rocks, so that Thorn had to work his towed carrier carefully around stones which it had not power enough to lift above. Heartened by the fact that they did possess such a wonder to make easier their way, Simsa now hurried to lend a hand, steadying, or pushing, or helping to swing the thing back and forth to avoid its being caught.

  Thorn did not push the pace. At intervals, he would stop to rest, more, Simsa guessed—though she did not want to admit that even to herself—on her account than from any need of his own. In the dark, the zorsals came to life, the younger two even taking wing now and then. Also, it would seem that this desert place held inhabitants after all, for one of her creatures, cruising high, gave a hunter’s cry and struck down to make a kill among the rocks, his brother doing the same not too long after.

  Simsa called them in with a whistle. The off-worlder had snapped another stud on that belt of marvels and a beam of pale light answered, forming a ray ahead. Into that the younger of the zorsals flew after a hunting hoot, a dangling thing, which seemed mostly armored tail, in his forefeet. Simsa set Zass down on the bobbing carrier and her son offered the old zorsal the fresh caught prey which she ate eagerly with a crunching of what could be either scales or bones.

  During one of their stops, Thorn showed the girl how the cooling of the stone condensed moisture carried by the sea wind which still was pulled up the cut as if the very force of the desert would draw it in. She laid her torn hand against that damp surface and wondered if there was not some way these precious wet drops could be made to add to their store of water. Drink they did—very sparingly from one of the jars, and ate now of dried meal and fish ground together and made into cakes. The fat which bound the other ingredients together was rancid, but fishermen lived on it at sea for weeks, and this was no country for the fastidious.

  Simsa had no idea how far they had gone, though her feet felt numb—where they did not ache—while the cloth she had bound about them was torn to tatters. She had been too aware of the need for watching for any obstacle which could threaten the carrier, though perhaps the off-worlder was planning to use some other amazing thing to lighten their journey tomorrow. The girl only became aware of the paling of the night sky when he paused and said:

  “We cannot risk day travel. Look there ahead—see where that slide has carried down the rocks? With this,” he laid hand on the side of the carrier so it swung a little under his touch, “set across the top of those we shall have a roof to give us some protection. But we must get the water jars and the food under it before sun rises.”

  Simsa could help with that, using care to prop each water jar stable with small stones so there might not be any chance of a spill. Zass perched first on the lightened sled, which, when all burdens were removed, shot upward until Simsa gave a cry and Thorn hauled it down, bracing it, and then taking off the box and stationing it with the same care as she had used with the water jars, not within the shadow but on a flat rock where the sun would strike it.

  He then touched her shoulder, half giving her a shove towards the improvised shelter.

  “I am going up—” he pointed to the cliff nearest them. “Before it gets too hot, I want to try my bearings and see how near we are to the Hills.”

  She was willing enough to leave that scramble to him, having no wish to expend further energy. Sitting down with her back to one of the rocks which supported the carrier, she busied herself with the windings about her sore feet. How foolish she had been not to bring with her a packet of Ferwar’s healing herbs; she could well do with them now. There was no grease left. However, under the strips of rags which held them on her feet, the sandals were still stout enough so that she was not walking bare of foot—not yet.

  Chirping to the zorsals, she summoned them in, selecting a flat
stone, loosing her head cloth, and coiling it there for a nest. They settled down with drowsy little mutters, their antennae close coiled, far more themselves than they had been by the shore, though they had not yet had to last through the furnace of the day. She was hungry and thirsty, but she would neither eat nor drink until Thorn returned. The energy of the starman amazed her. He had worked through the heat of the past day to make the carrier; to her knowledge he had not rested. Yet, he had kept going with this easy gait all through the night and, now he had made the climb to the top of the cut.

  Of what were these off-worlders made—unwearing material like their mighty starships? She did not believe that even the desert riders of the past could have done so well as Thorn had done this day or night.

  There was the sound of stones falling then, very visible in the now growing light, he landed easily, apparently jumping from a point above, only a few feet away—to move in beside her. She reached for the water pannikan. There were smears of dust across his face and already those were muddied by sweat which trickled down his cheeks.

  He drank slowly, though she was well certain that he would have gulped it in an instant had he not been prudent. She waited until he had swallowed the last drop before she asked:

  “How far?”

  “I am not sure—” At least he was not lying to her and Simsa felt pride that he would not. “It is difficult to judge distances. I would say another night’s travel and we would be close—if not there.”

  He ate doggedly the half cake she offered him and then, without a word, curled his tall body into a position which did not overcrowd her yet still brought him full under the carrier roof, and immediately went to sleep as if that too he could do by his will alone.

  7

  Simsa lay gasping in the pocket of heat. Sun shining into the crevice had turned their refuge into a pot placed over the fire. She had opened her coat, pulled loose chemise and wrappings which had stiffened with the stale sweat of her body. It was too hot to move, to think. The girl wavered in a nightmare land of half-consciousness, arousing twice to tend the zorsals when she thought she could hear their gasping. If any wind blew the sand above the lip of the cut in which they rested, or sent whirling pillars of grit dancing there, it did not spill down to where they lay imprisoned.

  From under swollen eyelids, she glanced at the off-worlder. The upper part of his tight-fitting suit was open, he must have pulled that so without her being aware of any movement. He had turned on his back, and she saw the rise and fall of his pale-skinned chest. Yet he seemed to be asleep, as if his efforts had thrown him so far into weariness that not even the heat could awaken him.

  Time dragged on so slowly the girl felt that she had lain there forever and that there would be no end to this misery. She denied herself water—keeping what she tipped so slowly from the jar they had broached the night before to succor the zorsals.

  She must have slept, for there were blurred dreams which filled much of the day. She was sure that once she had lain and watched Ferwar, wrapped in the many layers of those garments which were made patch upon patch, walk down past the rock on which the off-worlder had set his magic lifting thing. A younger Ferwar that had been, her back not yet curved into a bow, not yet leaning on the staff. She had passed their refuge and gone on with the brisk step of one bound on a certain task which must be accomplished within a given time.

  Simsa shaped the name of that seeming wayfarer but did not speak aloud. Only, as if she had been hailed, the tattered figure paused by the rock on which Thorn had laid his treasure. From under the heavy, shaggy brows, she looked straight at the girl. Then, deliberately, she raised the staff which she did not need now to support herself, swinging it wide so that it swept over the off-world thing. Then its tip pointed up the cut. Her lips in turn moved with words Simsa could not hear. Having surveyed their pitiful camp for a long moment, the Old One turned and went on.

  It was a dream, of course, or some vision brought by the heat and the place in which she lay. Still, Simsa dragged herself up well as she could and watched that walker until suddenly she was not there.

  There was only one reason for her to appear now, Simsa decided, too far sunk in the misery of her body to know fear. Ferwar was dead, she would lead them on until they, too, joined her. The girl found she did not greatly care. She dropped back again, her hand curled up against her cheek. Smoothing cool touched her heated flesh, like a precious drop of water flung out of a fountain—

  With the infinite slowness to which she was reduced, Simsa brought up her hand and looked at the ring. Days earlier, it had become too large for her shrunken flesh, but she had not put it away into safety. Instead, she had wrapped the hoop around and around with torn bits of the cloth as she had used to ease her feet, wedging it so securely as she might. Now, as she looked down into the cloudy, glowing gem which formed the roof of the keep, it was like—almost like—gazing indeed into a pool of water.

  Magic—what was magic? There was the lore of growing things to cure the body—which Ferwar had known and taught her—a little. For it had been true that the old woman had been jealous of her skill and never quick to share knowledge. There were such wonders as the off-worlder seemed to know and use. But those were only things built by men, from their own learning and efforts—solid things one could hold in one’s hand.

  There were the tales of strange powers. Yet no one Simsa had ever known had actually seen these in action. Always such had been viewed in another place, another time, and the girl had never accepted them as anything but tales. Knowledge could be won, then lost, and won again. Those who had lived before could be wiser than the men who came after, if something happened to interrupt the flow of their wisdom from one generation to the next.

  This ring and the other pieces of jewel work she carried hidden on her were finer than any she had seen in the upper-city shops when she had dared go to look upon the riches she had no hope of even laying finger on. That did not mean they were magic—merely that they were old and the fruit of labor of hands long still and dwindled into bone, even into dust.

  Still, as she lay there now staring down into the pool of the grey-blue gem, she was—

  Walls rose about her. There was no sun, still there was heat. Fire blazed and reached out tongues to scorch her. She heard screams, wild cries, and the roar of other sounds the like of which she had never heard before. At her feet there was a pool, bordered by shimmering blocks of blue green stone. She teetered on the very rim of that, afraid to leap, afraid to stay and face a fury which raged closer and closer.

  The darkness of the sky overhead was rent by great flashes of raw fire. She saw that lick at a tower and the tower swayed, came falling down. Simsa screamed and leaped into the waiting water. But it was too hot, searing her. This was death and still it would not close its jaws well upon her—rather it played with her, using torment, as a zorsal would use its claws when, filled of stomach, it played with fresh caught prey. All the world was a fire and she was caught in the middle of its blaze—

  “—wake—wake up!”

  Back and forth the boiling water washed her body. She tried to fight but it had taken her, sapped from her all her strength. Still it played with her.

  “Wake up!”

  Simsa saw a face above her—large as the moon, round—with two dark pits for eyes, a mouth come to suck her out of the water. Still, there would be no safety in that mouth—only another kind of torment—

  “Wake up!”

  The huge face receded, became one she could remember dimly. She blinked, the water had made her sight hazy. She—no dream—no fire—the hands of the off-worlder were on her shoulders shaking her. She gaped at him a moment and then pulled away.

  “You must have had a dream to end all dreams—on the dark side,” he commented as he sat back on his heels. “Here, take this.” He held out the pannikan she had last used to ease the thirst of the zorsals. “Take it,” he urged again when she had not put up her hand.

  This was the vall
ey still and the heat lapped around her. But there was something curious, too. It was as if, from time to time, she saw one thing across another—the valley clear, then veiled by a toppling tower and a pool into which fear was driving her, death before her, behind her and all around.

  “Drink!” He moved, was at her side, his arm firmly about her shoulders, so that she was supported against the swing of the sickening visions, one upon the other. The edge of the pannikan against her sore lips was a small pain, yet it, more than his voice, broke up that last vestige of her dream.

  She did not question that the pannikan was near full. The water was warm and slightly bitter, but she drank it all thirstily, allowing him to hold the cup until the end.

  He settled her shoulders back against the hamper from which she could hear the small panting gasps of the zorsals. They needed tending, but her head felt so light and queer she could not force herself to move—not yet.

  Instead, not understanding what he did, she watched the off-worlder pick up a small vial from the rock by his knee, measure three drops from it into the water he poured with such care. Stoppering the vial and replacing it in his pouch, he lifted the pannikan as one who was meeting a friend in an inn, made a gesture in her direction, and sipped slowly at the portion he had allowed himself. Still over the rim of the cup, he studied her so intently that at last she moved a little, uncomfortable under so keen and searching a gaze.

  “I did have a bad dream,” she said, as if she must justify whatever she had done to so engage his concern. “It—it was a part of this . . . somehow.”

  She raised her hand and let the ring tower stand high. “Fire in the sky and a falling tower—and I jumped into a pool but the water—was boiling.”

  “Lady Simsa,” he still kept that courteous form of speech which had so irritated her—though she would not give him the satisfaction of hearing her protest against what must be a subtle kind of mockery, “have you ever heard among your people of strange talents which some may have? Have you known, or heard, of one who can take a thing into his or her hands and read then the past through which it has come?”