FORERUNNER FORAY

by Andre Norton

  Did he mean reverse the process that one generally used with Harath—lend her energy to the alien, rather than draw upon his as she had in the past?

  “Yes, yes!” He was eager in affirmation of that.

  “I will send,” she agreed without further question.

  With one hand she unsealed her suit, brought out the focus-stones. Whether those might lend any force to this quest she could not tell, but that they needed all the energy they could call upon now she firmly believed.

  Then she leaned forward again over the limp body, touched her fingers to the cold forehead. Around her wrist closed, in a grip as tight as a punishing bond, one of Harath’s tentacles. They were now linked physically as they must be linked mentally if this was to succeed.

  There was a dizzy sensation of great speed, as if she—or that part of Ziantha that was her innermost self—was being swung out and out and out into a place where all was chaos and there was no stability except that tie with Harath. Farther and farther they quested. The focus-stones grew warm in her hand; she was aware of those and that from them was flowing now a steady push of energy. It passed through her body, down her arms, to those fingers, to the tentacle, where their three bodies met in touch.

  Swing, swing, out and out and out—until Ziantha wanted to cry Enough! That if they ventured farther their tie with reality would snap and they would be as lost as he whom they sought and could not find.

  16

  The flaw in the pattern was that she could not build up any mind picture on which to focus the energy. Turan could have been such a goal, but this man she crouched over now she had never seen, could not picture as his head lay in the shadows and she had only touch to guide her. One must have such a focus—

  Did Harath see humans as they were? Could he build such a mind picture as it should be built in order to search? Ziantha doubted it. For their swing was failing now, falling back in waning sweeps.

  “Hunt!” Harath’s urging was sharp.

  “We must have a picture.” She forced upon him in return her own conclusion for the reason of their failure. “Build a picture, Harath!”

  Only what wavered then into her mind was so distorted that she nearly broke contact, so shocked was she by that weird figure Harath projected, a mixture, unbelievable, of his own species and Ziantha’s, something which manifestly did not exist.

  “We must have a true picture.” They were back in the hollow, still united by touch, but warring in mind.

  The alien’s frustration was fast turning to rage, perhaps aimed at her because of his own inadequacies. Ziantha summoned patience.

  “This is a man of my kind,” she told Harath. “But if it is he who followed me into that other time, I do not know him as himself. I cannot build the picture that we need. I must see him as he really is—“

  Because Harath was so aroused by their failure, which he appeared to blame on her, she feared he would withdraw altogether. Their mind-touch was snapped by his will, and his tentacle dropped from her wrist.

  The moon’s greenish light was on the lip of the hollow in which they crouched. If she could somehow pull the inert man at her feet up into that—

  It seemed to her that there was no other way to learn what she must. Putting the Eyes into safekeeping once more, she caught the man’s body, labored to pull it up to the light. But it was a struggle even though he was smaller, lighter than Ogan or one of the crewmen. Finally she brought him to where the moon touched his face.

  It was hard to judge in the weird green glow, but she thought his skin as dark as that of a veteran crewman. His hair was cropped close, also, as if to make the wearing of a helmet comfortable, and it was very tightly curled against his skull.

  His features were regular; he might be termed pleasantly endowed according to the standards of her kind. But what she was to do now was to learn that face, learn every portion of it as well as if she had seen it each and every day of her existence, fix it so straight in her mind that she could never forget or lose it.

  Ziantha stretched out her hand, drawing fingers, with the lightest touch, across his forehead, down the bridge of his nose, tracing the generous curve of his full lips, the firm angle of his chin and jaw. So was he made and she must remember.

  Harath crowded in beside her.

  “Hurry—he is lost. If he is too long lost—“

  She knew that ancient, eating horror of all sensitives when they evoked the trance state—to be lost out of body. But she had to make sure that she would know now whom they sought in those ways which were unlike any world her kind walked.

  “I know—“ Ziantha only trusted that it was now true that she did indeed know.

  Once more she took the Eyes from concealment, gripped them tightly in her left hand, set the fingers of the right to the forehead of the stranger, felt Harath loop tentacle touch to her wrist.

  “Now—“ This time she gave the signal. But she was not aware of that swing out into the void as she had been when the alien had guided their searching. Rather she fastened in her mind, behind her closed eyes, only one thing: the stranger’s face.

  They were not going in search now; they were calling with all the power they possessed, all that could be summoned through the Eyes. Though she did not have a name to call upon, which would have given her efforts greater accuracy, she must use this picture to the full.

  He who has this seeming—wherever he now wanders—let him—COME!

  Her body, her mind became one summoning cry. That she could long hold it to this pitch she doubted. But as long as she might, that she would.

  “Come!”

  A stirring—faint—far away—as if something crawled painfully.

  “Come!”

  There was indeed an answer, weak, but aiming for her with dogged determination. She dared feel no elation, allow any thought of success to trouble the resolute pull of her call.

  “Come!”

  So painfully slow. And she was weakening even with the energy that flowed into her from the stones, from Harath—

  “Come!”

  One last effort to put into that drawing all that she had. Then Ziantha broke, unable any longer to sustain the contact.

  The girl fell face down, one arm across the body of the stranger. She was conscious, but strength was so drained out of her, she felt so weak and sick, that she could neither move nor utter a sound, even when she felt the other stir.

  He pulled free of her, struggling to sit up. Harath was hopping about them both, uttering those clicks of beak that in him signaled unusual emotion. Faintly Ziantha heard the stranger mutter in some tongue that was not Basic. But there was a roaring in her own ears, a need to just lie there, unable to so much as raise a hand as the great weakness that followed her effort held her fast.

  She thought the stranger was dazed, that he did not realize at first where he was or what had happened. But if that were so he made a quick recovery. For he suddenly stooped to look at her, exclaiming in his own language.

  Then he lifted her up, straightening her body so she could lie in a more comfortable position, as if he well understood the malaise that gripped her. But he did not try mind-touch, for which she was grateful. Perhaps his long ordeal had exhausted his psychic energy for the time as much as the search had hers.

  She watched him stand. Much of his body was still in the shadow, and what she could see gave her the impression that he was indeed short in stature and slender. But he was no boy, however much his face had given the impression of youth. That clicking blob, Harath, ran to him, scrambled up the stranger who might be now a tree to be climbed, and settled on his shoulder as if this was a perch he had known many times before.

  The burden of the alien, who was no light weight, might be nothing, as the stranger pulled up between two of the rocks guarding this depression, his attitude one of listening. Ziantha watched him. By rights she should have a long rest now—

  But at last her eyes were truly focusing on the other as he turned around. He was holdin
g night-vision glasses to his eyes, and his clothing was plain to distinguish even in this baneful moonlight. There was no mistaking the emblem on the breast of his planet suit. Patrol!

  What had Harath done to her? Even Ogan—or Iuban—would have been more her friend! What could she do now? If the sensitive was Patrol, as his uniform clearly testified, he was a deadly enemy, and one who already knew from his own participation just what she was doing on this planet. There was no escape, no form of defense she could offer.

  But to be erased—

  Black horror worse than any fear she had ever known in her life closed about Ziantha. Harath had done this to her! She must escape—she must!

  She willed her weak body to obey orders. Though she wavered to a sitting position, the girl realized that she could not escape without some aid. Harath? She could never trust him again.

  Ogan? Much as she feared and now hated the parapsychologist, he did not represent the dreaded fate this stranger threatened. But if she tried to contact Ogan, with her power so depleted, either Harath, the stranger, or both, could pick up her mind-send with ease.

  With her eyes, wide with fear, on the stranger, she tried to edge away, put as much space between them as possible. If she could reach the other side of this hollow, somehow crawl up—get out among the rocks -- But physical efforts were useless; she did not doubt that Harath would easily track her down. The alien knew her mind-pattern and could follow it as some tracking animal might follow footprints or scent.

  Yet Harath was in turn physically limited. And if she could somehow dispose of the stranger, then she might be able to out-travel the alien. Inch by inch she won away from the spot where the stranger had left her, working crabwise over the rough ground without rising to her feet. The effort it cost her left her trembling with weakness, but her will and the danger hanging over her drove her on.

  She kept her attention fixed upon the other, alert to any change that would suggest he planned to join her. But he seemed intent on watching beyond the hollow, centering on it with his back half toward her. It was apparent, she believed, that he expected no trouble from her. And at that Ziantha longed to hiss as Yasa might have done.

  Harath she had to fear as well, but the alien’s head was also turned in the same direction as the attention of the watcher. Perhaps he was mind-searching, feeding any information he could pick up to the stranger.

  In her progress Ziantha’s hand closed upon a rock. With that she could perhaps bring the Patrolman down. But she greatly doubted her accuracy of aim, and to miss would alert him. Now, she could, she would, fight with all her strength if he tried to master her physically, but she must concentrate on escape. She had almost reached the point where she believed she could hope to pull up to the rim.

  Only she was not going to have the chance. For the stranger in a swift movement dropped the glasses to hang on their strap and turned to slide down into the hollow. He stopped short when he saw Ziantha, not where he had left her, but with her back against the wall, the stone gripped tight as a pitiful weapon.

  “What -- ?” He spoke Basic now.

  She raised the stone. As far as she could see he wore no weapon. And certainly he must be worn from his ordeal in the limbo between Turan’s world and this.

  “Stand off!” she warned him.

  “Why?”

  Ziantha could not see him face to face, for he was again in the shadow. But his bulk she could make out. She wondered at the surprise in his voice. Surely he knew that, being what she was, they were deadly enemies?

  “Keep off,” she repeated.

  But he was moving toward her. If she had only left him lost! Fool to trust Harath—the alien was one with Yasa, Ogan and all the others who used her with no thought of her life.

  “I mean you no harm.” He stood still. “Why do you—“

  She laughed then. Only it did not sound like laughter but a crazed, harsh sound that hurt as she uttered it.

  “No harm? No, no more harm than a pleasant visit to the Coordinator—then to be erased!”

  “No!”

  He need not deny that so emphatically. Did he think she was so brain-weakened by what she had been through (and for him!) that she did not remember what happened to sensitives who served the Guild when the Patrol caught them?

  “No—you do not understand—“

  Weakly, but with all the strength she had, Ziantha threw the stone she held. Let him come any closer and she was lost. This was her one chance. And in the same instant as the stone left her fingers there was a burst of pain in her head, so terrible, so overwhelming, that she did not even have a chance to voice the scream it brought to her lips as she wilted down under that thrust of agony.

  The storm was upon them—she must be in the tower. The Lurla—they lay curled, they would not obey, though she sent the commands. They must! If they did not, she would be thrown to the pounding waves below, and the Eyes given to one who could use them. But when she tried the Eyes were dull—they cracked and shivered into splinters, then to dust, sifting through her fingers. And she was left without any weapon.

  They were high in the hills, and below them the enemy forces had gathered. But above and behind, coming steadily with fire beams to hunt them out, were flyers. This was a trap from which there was no escape. She must contrive to have death find her quickly when the jaws of the trap closed. For to be captive in the hands of those from Singakok was a worse ending than the clean death in battle. She was Vintra of the Rebels and would not live to be mocked in the streets of the city. Never! The flyers were very close, already their beams fused the hidden guns. This was death, and she must welcome it.

  Heat, light, life—she was alive. And they would find her. She would be captive in Singakok—No! Let her but get her hands on her own weapons and she would make sure of that. But she could not move. Had she been wounded? So hurt in the assault that her body would not obey her?

  Fearfully she opened her eyes. There was open sky above her. Of course, she lay among the Cliffs of Quait. But the sounds of the flyers were gone. It was very quiet, too quiet. Was she alone in a camp of the dead? Those dead whom she would speedily join if she could?

  Sound now—someone was coming—if one of the rebels she would appeal for the mercy thrust, know it would be accorded her as was her right. She was Vintra; all men knew that she must not fall alive into the hands of the enemy—

  Vintra—but there was someone else—D’Eyree! And then—Ziantha! As if thinking that name steadied a world that seemed to spin around her, she ordered her thoughts. Ziantha—that was right! Unless the Eyes had betrayed her a second time into another return. She was Ziantha and Ziantha was—

  Her memory seemed oddly full of holes as if parts of it had been extracted to frighten her. Then she looked up at a down-furred body perched on two legs ending in clawed feet, a body leaning over her so round eyes could stare directly into hers.

  This was Ziantha’s memory. And that was—Harath! At first she was joyfully surprised. Then memory was whole. Harath was an enemy. She fought to move, to even raise her hand—uselessly. But on wriggling hard to gaze along her body she saw the telltale cords of a tangler. She was a prisoner, and she could share to the full Vintra’s despair and hatred for those who had taken her.

  That Harath had changed sides did not surprise her now. He was an alien, and as such he was not to be subjected to erasure or any of the penalties the Patrol would inflict on her. Undoubtedly he would aid them as he had Ogan in the past.

  Ziantha made no effort to use mind-touch. Why should she? Harath had seemed so much in accord with the stranger she did not believe she could win him back. He had been too frantic when he had begged her aid to redeem the other’s lost personality. What a fool she had been to answer his call!

  She no longer wanted to look at Harath, wedged her head around so she could see only sunlit rock. This was not the same hollow in which she had been struck down. They were in a more open space. And now she could view the stranger also.

>   He lay some distance away, belly down, on what might be the edge of a drop, his head at an angle to watch below. Then she heard the crackle of weapon fire. Somewhere on a lower level a struggle was in progress.

  Ziantha heard the sharp click of Harath’s bill, apparently he was trying to gain her attention. Stubbornly she kept her eyes turned from him, her mind-barrier up. Harath had betrayed her; she wanted no more contact with him. Then came a sharp and painful pull of her hair. By force her head was dragged around, Harath had her in tentacle grip. And, though she closed her eyes instantly against his compelling gaze, Ziantha could feel the force of his mind-probe seeking to reach her. There was no use wasting power she might need later in such a small struggle. She allow mind-touch.

  “Why do you fear?”

  She could not believe that Harath would ask that. Surely he well knew what they would do to her.

  “You—you gave me to the Patrol. They will—kill my talent, that which is me!” she hurled back.

  “Not so! This one, he seeks to understand. Without him you might be dead.”

  She thought of her escape from D’Eyree’s tomb. Better she had died there. What would come out of erasure would no longer be Ziantha!

  “Better I had died,” she replied.

  She was looking straight up into Harath’s eyes. Suddenly he loosed his hold on her hair, dropped mind-touch. She watched him cross the rock, his beak clicking as if he chewed so on her words, joining the man who still lay watching the battle below.

  Harath uncoiled a tentacle, reached out to touch the stranger’s hand. Ziantha saw the other’s head turn, though she could catch only a very foreshadowed view of his brown face. She was sure that Harath and he were in communication, but she did not try to probe for any passage of thought between them.

  Then the stranger rolled over to look at her. When she stared back, hostile and defiant, he shrugged, as if this was of no matter, returning to his view below.

  There was a sound. Under them the rock vibrated. Up over the cliff rose the nose of a ship, pointing outward, the flames of her thrusters heating the air. On she climbed and was gone, with a roar, leaving them temporarily deaf.