The Forerunner Factor

by Andre Norton

  3

  The room was low and dark. Along one wall, well-worn curtains hid a number of booths. Some flimsy lengths were drawn, and Simsa, in passing, heard the squeals of women, once the drunken brawling of a riverman’s song. She stepped back to allow the starman to lead the way, her sense of caution fully aroused. On her shoulder, Zass muzzled against her neck, thrusting snout right under her chin, antennae again curled close, as if the zorsal wanted a hiding place and was making do with the best she could find.

  He who had brought them here swept aside a curtain to wave Simsa in. She chose a seat placing her back to the wall from which most of the room was in view. Involuntarily, she flexed her claws a little, projecting their needle tips from her finger sheaths.

  To the crop-headed boy in the stained shirt who lounged over to serve them she quickly gave her own order—making sure that she would not be fuddle-headed by any potion as strong as the traders used to bewilder those they would entangle in some ploy to bring themselves a double return. If starmen followed such practices, she would be prepared.

  This stranger might appear open-faced, even eager, but a man could wear many masks and never show what lay beneath them. What still astonished her the most was that Gathar had spoken of her and that, in turn, this one had recognized her from the waremaster’s description. Unless, of course, it was because of Zass. She smoothed the head fur of the zorsal now. Only, this man had looked upon her down by the ramp when the zorsal had been hidden nearly from view. So—she waited for him to speak, knowing that thus a small advantage was hers.

  He opened a large bag which had swung from his shoulder and which now rested on the stained table between them. From it he took with the same caution that one would use to handle leaf gold, two of the fragments she had traded to Gathar earlier that day. Seeing the care with which he touched those now, Simsa could have snarled in frustration. It was certain that Gathar had made an excellent bargain, far beyond what she had or could hope to gain herself. Under the table, she felt again for the two things in her sleeve pocket and her hopes stirred higher. If such fragments were what this one sought, she perhaps could drive her own price well higher than she had first planned.

  “These—” the starman had laid his hand flat upon the larger of the two, “where were these found?”

  He believed in coming directly to the point. Simsa felt a growing contempt triggered by this display of eagerness. Now she could believe that Gathar must have nicked him well if he had displayed the same eagerness to that trader old in well-learned craftiness.

  “If you know Kuxortal,” she answered, speaking slowly and with care, using the accent of the upper town, “you would also know that such as these,” a flick of the finger pointed to what his hand near covered, “are apt to be found anywhere. Though—” (should she pretend that such “treasures” were hard come by and that she alone held the secret? No, better not chance that; she had no idea what Gathar had told him already. Those she had sold were not the easily found gleanings of any dump, they were the result of seasons of delving first on Ferwar’s part and then by Simsa herself.)

  “You say anywhere—” he spoke slowly as she did, as one feeling his way through an alien tongue. “I do not think that is true. I have already spoken to Guild Lord Arfellen—” He was watching her narrow-eyed now, and Simsa sat very still, holding his stare with her own eyes, determined not to let him see that he made any impression on her, if he had meant that as an implied threat. He could, with fewer words that he had just mouthed, have her up into the question room of a guild and that was something to shake anyone’s mind with fear.

  Zass quivered until the girl could feel the shaking of the small body so closely pressed against her. The zorsal was always, she had discovered long ago, well able to pick up her emotions, translate them in turn into a reaction of the creature’s own. The girl stroked the leather wings covering the upper part of the back, unable to see how she would twist and turn to answer with anything but the truth.

  “Those I did not find—not all of them.” Truth had a bitter taste when it was forced out of one and she seldom had used it save with Ferwar, who had always recognized a lie and could not be misled.

  “The Old One died—what she had saved was then mine. She sought old things and dreamed over them, believing them true treasures.”

  He did not answer her at once, then the serving boy was back with their footed drinking horns, two platters of still smoking stew, tongs and spoon stuffed upward in the center holders. The starman had swept his finds off the table, into his bag, and out of sight with a swift deftness which Simsa was forced to approve. It would seem that, if he was willing to show her what he carried, he had no mind to let others inspect such wares.

  Zass stirred and scrambled down from Simsa’s shoulder quickly. Such a lavish display of food was not common for either of them and the zorsal could be greedy when she had gone on short rations for a day. The girl picked up the tongs, searched for a lump of meat as big as her thumb and preferred it to the creature who seized eagerly with a throaty gurgle.

  “The small one,” the starman observed, “seems well trained.”

  Simsa chewed and swallowed a fragment of crisp tac root, spicy from being broiled in the stew, before she answered:

  “One does not train zorsals . . .”

  Now she saw him smile and his smooth face looked even younger. “So we have been told many times over,” he agreed. “Still, it would seem that this one lives content with you, gentlehomo. While Gathar admits that he has never had better hunters of vermin than those he received from your hands. Perhaps only you have the secrets of the art to make friends between man and such.”

  Was he trying flattery now? There was no reason for him to believe that she could be so moved to his will. He must have sensed her instant wariness, or read it somehow in her face, for he had laid aside his own tongs and spoon, making no headway with his stew, but took up his drinking horn and watched her across the rim of it, as he sat with it half way to his lips, a picture of a man caught up in a puzzle.

  “Your Old One—she was a Burrower.” He did not make that a question but a statement and Simsa knew that he must have gotten from Gathar all the waremaster knew. “Did she find many such in burrowing?”

  Say ‘yes’ Simsa decided quickly and she might unleash on the Burrows half a force of guild men. The same would be well warmed with anger when they found that there were no such pickings left. She must be very careful.

  “I do not know where first she found such.” That was the truth. “Of late, she traded for them—”

  The starman leaned forward, setting down his drink as untasted as his dinner.

  “With whom did she trade?” His voice was low, but he rapped that out with a ring of authority which again hinted of the power to discover what he wished to know if he need call on such aid.

  “There was—” More truth, enough to lead him away from her, point him toward the source which had dried up a good four seasons back and the uncovering of which would reveal nothing now, “one of the rivermen who was in debt to the Old One. From time to time, he brought such, then ceased to come—death is easy along the waters and he was said to be a man with a price on him—a thief who had broken faith with the Master.”

  Though those oddly shaped lids veiled the starman’s eyes, they had not moved quickly enough, she had seen that sparking of interest there. So telling the truth was the right path here after all. Turn this one’s nose up river and she was free of him.

  The heavy downward swing of her sleeve was a reminder of what she still carried. Why not make a deal with him since he was a hunter of old things? He believed her story, of that she was sure and, since he was so eager, she could get enough for them. Quickly Simsa disciplined her soaring hopes, it was never well to tempt fortune by expecting too much.

  Now, she pushed aside the platter before her and moved to unfasten the tight wrist band of her sleeve. Not the jewelry; those she would hold on to until the last. But the
other things.

  She reached inside the inner pocket and pulled out the broken beast carving. He was looking at them now as if they were the plate of stew and he was a Burrower who had gone at least a day and a half without eating.

  “These are the last!” She was determined to make that plain. “I would bargain for them.”

  He picked up the carved beast before she could stop him. Turning it about as if it were the most precious possession of a Guild Lord.

  “X-Arth—It is X-Arth!” His voice was hardly above a whisper and the name meant nothing to her. But her hand shot out to cover the piece even as he tried to raise it closer to his eyes.

  “First we bargain,” Simsa said firmly, taking the opportunity to sweep with her other hand, bringing the second piece of stone under her palm. “First—what is X-Arth?” She might well sell these two bits if the starman met her price, which she had revised upward several times in the space of the same number of breaths. However it would be well to know why these, or at least the one piece, was so important. All such knowledge which could be filed away in one’s head made one just that more able to keep life in one’s body.

  He put the piece down very reluctantly, releasing his hold on it so she gathered it in.

  “It means ‘out of arth’—from another world—a very old world on which, some believe, all our kind originated. Or at least some of us who range the stars believe it. Tell me, have you heard of an off-worlder—a man named Thorn Tseng?”

  “The crazy witling who went up river and then into the desert about the Hard Hills? He went hunting treasure, but he never returned. Men do not spit in the face of luck by journeying so.”

  “He was my elder brother.” If the starman had resented her contemptuous estimate of his close kin-blood’s mentality, he gave no sign of it. “It was another kind of treasure which he sought, knowledge. And he had good reason to believe that he could find it. This—” he touched fingertip to the head of the image, “would argue that he was right. I have come to try to find him.”

  Simsa shrugged. “If a man puts a knife to his throat and says ‘I would let out my life’, why stop him? The world is over-full already of fools and turned-wits,” she repeated words of the Burrows. “Some live, some die, some seek death, others flee it—it is all the same in the end.”

  His face was expressionless now. “Fifty mil-credits.”

  Simsa shook her head. “I do not deal with off-world payments,” she answered decisively. Zass reached a long thin limb across her arm and clawed up a lump of stew for herself. The girl did not care. Her own hunger was not assuaged, but she was uneasy. If this off-worlder knew or guessed, he could take those two bits which he wanted so much and have her thrown out, hunted down slope, perhaps beaten into a broken-boned pulp by merely raising the cry of “Burrower” in this upper-city place.

  Also, if she tried later to get rid of off-world payment in any money changer’s stall, she could condemn herself as an unregistered thief. Now she was well able to see the folly of having come here at all—she was the witling!

  “I will pay the credits to Gathar, he will change them for you.”

  Simsa bared her teeth in just such a snarl as Zass could show when she was crossed. Use the waremaster man for a cross-payer? What did this off-worlder think she was? She would be lucky to get two tens of anything he left for her by doing so.

  “Pay me ten tens of loft marks, in broken silver,” she returned, “and no less.”

  “So be it!” He held out his hand palm down above the two old pieces. The move awoke her complete amazement. For a moment, she regretted not having demanded twice as much. Still, caution advised her quickly; it is never well to be too greedy. For one ten of broken bits, she could establish herself in the lower part of the upper town, find some way to earn her living well away from the Burrows. If the starman did not know how to bargain, then she was the winner.

  Simsa swept both of the pieces back into her sleeve pocket and snapped shut the wrist fastening. Then she dropped her hand across the waiting palm to seal the bargain between them, her skin looking so dark against that of the off-worlder.

  “Bring me the silver and both are yours—the bargain is set and may fortune strike us both with her dark wand if we fail in it!” She recited the old marketplace formula, which even a thief would not gainsay once it passed his lips.

  “Come with me to Gathar’s and I’ll have it in your hands now.”

  Simsa shook her head determinedly. To have such a piece of good fortune viewed by even a half-friend was stupid. Only what if he told Gathar why he wanted such a sum? That would be as bad for her as having it paid right under the other’s eyes. How much did she dare explain to this stranger? Could she depend on any understanding from him at all?

  She had thought herself so clever, her plans had appeared so smooth in anticipation—why had she not foreseen these difficulties? She surveyed that smooth face, those strange half-hidden eyes. Then she looked directly at the zorsal and with tongue against teeth made an odd, clicking noise.

  Zass had finished the piece of meat she had snatched, her thin purple tongue darted into first one corner of her big mouth and then over to the other. At Simsa’s signal, she raised her head with a jerk, her antennae uncurled and rose straight up, the fine feathery hairs along the edges quivered.

  “Put out your finger!” the girl commanded, making a gesture to the zorsal. The off-worlder look at her for a long moment and then obeyed.

  The creature’s long neck stretched, her pointed snout, ringed round with fangs, two of which were hollow and filled with a poison which could make a man suffer for hours, approached that finger. Then the antennae flicked down, the tip-ends just touching hand and finger for a second.

  Zass turned her head on her hunched shoulders, made a guttural sound. Simsa drew a deep breath. This was a new thing between them and it had been used only two or three times before—each time proving that Zass was right in her estimation of the good or ill will of those so tested. There was still the fact that this was an off-worlder and so some strangeness in him might not register properly for the zorsal, but as far as Simsa could now see, she had very little choice anyway. She could only protect herself in so much.

  “Do not tell Gathar of me, or of why you want the silver. Get large pieces, not broken bits from him, and say that you could not find me. Exchange then the takals for bits. Then bring them to—” Not to the Burrow—she had no intention of returning there ever if she could help it. But earlier, after she had put on her new clothing, she had done some scouting of the inns in the lower regions and had marked down one she had thought might serve her purpose—The Spindwaker. It sheltered river traders, but this was not the season when it would be crowded and it had a reputation for not encouraging brawling. Also, the Wifekeeper there paid her dues regularly to the Thieves’ Guild and those within its walls were safe from pilfering. Swiftly Simsa told the off-worlder of the place and how to find it.

  “What do you fear?” he asked quietly when she had done.

  “Fear? Enough of everyone and everything to make as sure as possible I keep breath in my body,” she told him sharply. “This world teaches one sharp lessons: learn or die. I shall expect you before the dawn gong—will that be so?”

  “As close to that as I can make it,” he agreed.

  Simsa slid out of the booth, scooping the zorsal up as she went. The sooner she was undercover in her proposed shelter for the night the better. Though in the streets, now dusk filled, she could depend upon the zorsal to give alarm of any who might follow either to spy or to rob.

  When she leaned against the half-opened shutter of the cubby in the inn, she was torn between walking, or rather stealing forth, from her present room or waiting for the dawn gong and the off-worlder. Simsa had no liking for such risks as she believed she might be running now. She could watch the street below for a goodly length in both directions while the zorsal perched on the edge of the shutter itself, its head bent at what might appear a
n impossible angle, gazing with the same intentness, and, the girl knew, far better night sight.

  There was an over-abundance of shadows along the way. Here in the lower town, the lamps were well apart both for reasons of economy and the desires of those both dwelling and walking here after nightfall. She had marked carefully the comings and goings of a few. But she was sure that perhaps others made far less visible journeys which she was not aware, for the zorsal had picked up at least three such.

  Since there was no reason for the off-worlder to come with any great stealth, she did not allow herself to do more than catch a quick breath or two at the quivering of Zass’s extended antennae and try to judge, by the movements of those slender wands, who passed. She thought once she caught a shadow, but that was all.

  In her room, she had blown out the lamp as soon as the frowsy maid had left. Then, with Zass’s small grunts as a guide, explored it with care, assessing its dimensions by feel and an odd impression of proximity which she had learned during her working with the creature now riding on her shoulder.

  Though she could not in all earnestness say why she felt so uneasy, it was like a warning of trouble to come and, against any such, Simsa prepared in her own way. She had made three circuits of the small room, the first slow and tentative, the last with the sureness of one walking a well-known path. After each, she paused for some time to watch out of the window.

  The off-worlder had offered what was to her a fabulous price. His eagerness without the process of bargaining made her suspect he might have given even more. But greediness itself was a threat, and one she would not bring down upon herself. She still had the jewels, too. The Old One’s treasure was a goodly inheritance indeed.

  There was someone coming, walking plainly down the middle of the narrow, cobble-paved street. He came with confidence and as he passed beneath the light of the second lamp from the first corner, Simsa identified the fitted body-suit of a starman.