"I am bound—" he said shortly, making no move to wipe that mark from his hands as he returned his weapon to his girdle.
"So done. The hour grows late. Have you eaten, sworn man? Drink up, for I have much to talk of now and time itself is snapping at my heels."
"I have not eaten." Jofre's hold left a faint bloodstain on the drinking vessel. "But if time is limited, that is of no importance."
The Zacathan's long jaws opened in what must have been a smile. "I assure you I am not so blind to the needs of any employee. As it happens, I myself have not eaten." He crossed back to the opening in the wall from which he had taken the drinks. A button brought up light in a square and Jofre saw marks in a series cross that.
Then the Zacathan busied himself with the lower line of buttons before that light square was gone. "They do vespar well here," he said, "it is considered, of course, in this setting a novelty. And there are some other things I think you will find to your taste. We are not too unlike in our eating habits, we two peoples."
As quickly as he had gone to one wall so now he turned to another and set fingers in a ridge to open another door.
"This is the fresher," he said, "and here," he had found another doorhold and opened that also, light streaming up even as the portal went back, "are sleeping quarters. Settle in while we wait to be served."
Jofre merely glanced into the sleeping room. There were two bed places which looked to be as luxuriously soft as a district lord might aspire to. But the fresher drew him most.
Austere and barren to city eyes as the Lair might be, it was always meticulous clean and cleanliness was part of issha training. This tiled chamber did not resemble the bathing place he had always known but it promised a relief.
The Zacathan had opened another door within that place of ease to display a cubicle and now he indicated various small levers jutting from its inner wall.
"Hot steam or water as you wish, cold, soap power spray, and air-drying hose. Make yourself free—"
Then he was gone. Jofre rummaged in his bundle and brought out much creased but clean underdrawers, and shirt. But before he tried the amenities of that strange room he made a careful inspection. There was no entrance save that through which he had come and there was certainly no place where there could be a place of concealment. Not that he had any fears of this being a trap—he was oathed and, therefore, as tied to Zurzal now as if he were one of the Zacathan's scaled kin.
It took him a little time to master what the fresher had to offer and inwardly he marveled. No Lair Master could hope for such luxury as this and he savored the feeling of cleanliness afterwards; almost he wished he did not have to rewear his travel-stained outer clothing. But he made very sure that the stone he had found at Qaw-en-itter was again well secured in the wrapping of his sash girdle.
Zurzal was waiting in the outer room beside a larger table to which were drawn up two of the tall seats, these not so encushioned as the others. On the table itself were set out covered bowls and platters and two plates. By the side of each of those there was an array of knives and spoons and some odd-looking cutlery which ended in a set of points and which Jofre could not identify.
"It was good, lord," he glanced over his shoulder at the now closed door of the fresher, "my thanks for your offering—"
The Zacathan had already seated himself and whipped the cover from the largest of the bowls so that steam and a smell, which made Jofre suddenly very aware how long it had been since he had last eaten, filled the air.
"I am no lord." Zurzal was now busy ladling some of the contents of the bowl onto the plate before Jofre as the younger man slipped rather awkwardly onto that elevated seat. "I am Zurzal, I do have a title—which means nothing on most worlds other than my own. I am called a Histechnic which only means that I have completed a series of studies to the satisfaction of my elders and betters. I am Zurzal. And you?"
"The Master named me Jofre."
"Jofre—" repeated the Zacathan, "sky given. Because of your finding, I suppose."
Jofre was again a little shaken at Zurzal's quick grasp of his name meaning, for that was a word of the high country and not the lowlands where a visitor might have traveled enough to learn something of the native tongues.
"Yes—" He eyed his plate now, drawing his knife to cut at the generous portion of smoking vespar which had been served him.
"Your Master made no attempt to report your finding to the port authorities?"
Jofre shook his head. "The Lairs have their own ways. He could have sent me to one of the valley lords but he did not. He was a man who kept his thoughts much to himself."
"I have heard that the Brothers are indeed secret in their ways; it is part of the faces they turn to the world. At any rate he gave you a trade, this Master of yours."
"He judged me issha," Jofre said and remembered his inner pride, which he had taken precautions to hide on the day he had received the Three Weapons and the Cloak. Not that any of those had come with him on his being exiled.
He was having a hard time curbing his hunger now, making himself chew and swallow slowly. The food was diverse. As he had spoken, Zurzal had heaped on the plate before Jofre large portions from at least five of the dishes.
"You need my services—" Jofre was perhaps too abrupt in turning from his past to the immediate present but he had no wish to dwell now on what lay behind him.
"I do."
"What lord has declared blood price against you?"
"It is no feud, as I have said, like those of your nobles. There are those who are opposing me openly, and recently I have learned that there is an even greater problem in the nature of some who want what I am working upon for their own purposes. Those you took me from tonight might well not have been seeking my life, but rather my person and what I know."
Though earlier he had admitted hunger, Zurzal seemed more intent now on talking. He sipped from his drinking vessel, but, though he stabbed at a portion of vespar on his plate with one of the pointed pieces of cutlery, he did not yet raise it to his mouth.
"You must understand those of my stock," he said. "To us knowledge is everything. And one of the sources of knowledge which we hope to find are records—records of the Forerunners—"
"Forerunners?" That was one term Jofre had not heard before.
"We did not come first into space. There are worlds upon worlds, some very old. It is a pattern with sentient people that they rise to a high point of civilization and then some inner lack or flaw within them saps the energy which sent them climbing and they decline, sometimes to actually disappear and be forgotten. So we are not the first rovers of the lanes; there were others before us and they left their traces here and there. There is a great reward posted for any major find which is made of such peoples— for they certainly were not all of the same stock or even the same time. Their civilizations may well have been as varied as our present ones. You saw in the lobby below life-forms which did not share a common beginning with yours. Yet all those are now citizens and equal under the galactic laws.
"Thus we have tantalizing hints on this world and that of other peoples, some we are sure were not native to the planets where they left these remains, but space rovers such as ourselves. One of my colleagues was able to find an entire planet city, stretching completely round the world which supported it, of a highly technical civilization. There are experts there now studying it under supervision.
"So many finds come by chance alone—but if there were some way that such could be traced—" There seemed to be tiny cores of light in the Zacathan's eyes; his neck frill was rising to frame his head and shading into a green-blue.
"And there is a reward for such discoveries?" Jofre thought he understood.
"Yes—but greater than any reward is the knowledge itself!" Now Zurzal's frill was a vivid fan.
"You are hunting such? But I have never heard of any old things on Asborgan and the Shagga priests have very ancient records. If there was knowledge, they would have sought i
t out."
"No, I am not hunting Forerunners here—rather a man. I was in trace of him this evening. He may be the key to a great discovery— We have records and also we have access to special knowledge. I have a discovery I must try. At present I am not well accepted by my people; they believe that my research for the past few years has been for a very childish and no-purpose reason. I am young, as my people count years, and oftentimes the young are dismissed for thinking something can be done in a different way.
"There was a discovery made and ill-used on a world named Korwar. The results were so terrifying at the time that the man who backed that expedition saw that—or thought he saw that—the instrument used was destroyed and all the plans from which it had been manufactured were completely wiped from the records.
"But the idea of what had been done could not be denied and there was an undercover rumor of what had happened which spread. That there could be an artifact which would summon up an accurate picture of the past had now to be accepted. But the machine was gone and even mention of it was thoroughly suppressed.
"Not so well suppressed that it was totally forgotten, however. Two planet years ago those plans were rediscovered in a mass of material turned over to my home section of the archives by the Patrol after they had raided a Jack outfit. There was a mixture of reports, some log books of old ships taken by Jacks—and it needed sifting for anything of value. I was given the task of that sorting—mainly because I was the youngest member of our group and considered the least responsible.
"But what I found was a complete plan for a probe, such a probe as would make any Histechnic give perhaps all his fangs for. I took this to my superior. He was not interested, pointing out this had been tried once with dire results and that my people would not tamper with anything of the sort. He confiscated what I had found and told me to keep quiet.
"I did. But I had those plans here." Zurzal laid aside his eating tool and tapped his forehead. "And keeping quiet I went to work until I had that scanner rebuilt. I ran one trial in a place I knew of and the result was astonishing, but it came and went in a flash and I knew that the remains on which I tried it were so well-known that I could be accused of falsifying evidence—which among my people, Jofre, is akin to oath breaking, if you can imagine that. Therefore, I must find someplace unknown where I could hope to tap into history totally newfound, and I also worked steadily on a true scanner, hoping to produce a way for it also to make a permanent record of what it draws from the past."
That the Zacathan believed in what he was saying was very apparent. That it could be done—well, Jofre would want to see for himself. Meanwhile it was more important to know who might be the enemy.
"It is your leader who would hunt you down now?" he asked.
Zurzal shrugged. "If he knew, he would oppose me legally, then I would have the Patrol on my heels. No, so far I do not believe they suspect what I would do. But the information on which I based my work was from a Jack hold, and that means it could have been kept to be sold to the Guild—surely you can guess what possibilities their Veeps could see in such."
"Treasure hunting." Jofre could see. However, if the Thieves Guild was to supply his potential enemies, he had accepted a very direful oath indeed.
"Treasure hunting," Zurzal conceded but the Zacathan did not seem upset at the thought of taking on the most dangerous starwide organization—next to the Patrol—which existed.
HOWEVER," ZURZAL HAD TAKEN TIME TO consume a good portion of what was on his plate, as if he must also do a little arranging of his thoughts, "it is not what the Guild might consider treasure, adaptable in their consciences as they are. No, what I want is knowledge—to find a place where there was a storehouse of records—"
"Does such exist?" Jofre had cleaned his own plate and was watching the Zacathan's neck frill a little bedazzled. It continued to glow as ripples of rich color spread along the creases.
"I spoke of the world found by one of my colleagues where a vast city covered the major continents. There were archives there and—maps—"
Zurzal swallowed another bite. "Star maps. Though the language of the archives is yet to be broken down for translation, there were certain symbols which we recognized. That was indeed a Forerunner world, a planet where a technical civilization had reached a peak before the end and yet they were in turn latecomers to the star lanes, for they had museums, they had visual records, of much older civilizations which had preceded them. There were hints of finds to be made, which some freak of their own time prevented their making. My people impounded all such records with the blessing of Central Control. And it was my good fortune to be allowed some access to them.
"No, I do not hunt what the Guild would consider useful—the only market for my hoped-for finds would be my own people and, therefore, no market at all. I search for archives and perhaps the only way I can find them is by reaching into the past with the scanner for long enough to pinpoint the position of what I seek. Having made such a find, I will have redeemed myself in the eyes of my colleagues as well as added to the sum of our knowledge. None of my race could wish for a greater treasure hunt than that."
"Here on Asborgan—?"
Zurzal gave an impatient shake of the head. "No, as I said, here I seek a man, if he still lives. He did two band moons ago but he is in the last stages of graz addiction and I can only hope he still exists. He was the member of a First-In expedition to a world which, on Patrol charts, is named Lochan for the man who first made landfall there. What its inhabitants—they are listed as extremely primitive and at least nine points away from human—name it we do not know.
"As a primitive D class world it is off-limits to all but the smallest of Free Traders, those who nose around the lanes for the crumbs and are regulated by the Patrol as to what they may carry. ThereIS trade, however. A kind of clay which, when ground into sand texture, is highly desired by the potters on Reese, and there is some exchange for unusual furs and other oddments.
"But there is also a ruin which was reported by the First-In scout and then partially explored by the first expedition. They made certain records of the finds, one of which—" The Zacathan left his seat and went to a set of shelves on the other side of the room. He came back holding a box hardly bigger than his hand, which he put down before Jofre with the instruction, "Look!"
There was a round of glassy substance not unlike a mirror in one end of the box and into that Jofre obediently looked. The surface of that disc was changing color and now he could see what might have been a picture of a portion of a strange landscape. The ground was dull, black-sprinkled grey and would seem to be bare earth with no form of vegetation. From that sea of coarse, dull colored sand projected a straggle of rocks, so eroded that one could not tell whether they were a showing of the planet bones or the work of men.
The picture was moving, drawing closer as if he were approaching closely one of those rock humps. Here there had been a clearing, the sand had been dug or pushed away, and then it was as if Jofre stood at the edge of that pit looking down. The uncovered base of the rock reached deep, until it joined another at right angles. And on that second there was a flashing marking.
"The F ray brought that out." The Zacathan was beside him. "It must have been set with great care to have lasted so long a time."
"What is it?" Jofre was completely mystified.
"It is a symbol which has been found twice before and each time it indicated a storehouse," Zurzal informed him. "Only there was to be no follow-up; the expedition was attacked by desert dwellers. Two men escaped, one dying before they reached the landing port, the other very badly injured. He managed only to bring this recording with him but he was unconscious and could not explain its value nor even where they had been excavating to discover it. His brush with the natives appeared to plunge him into a deep trauma—for a year or more he was plagued by nightmares and had to be kept sedated. He resigned his position, dropped out of sight, and turned to graz. It was as if he had faced something so terrible
that he dared not live conscious of the past at all—"
"The natives?" Jofre looked away from the small mirrored picture.
"Perhaps—very few of them come to the port and those that do any trading with off-worlders keep much to themselves. They seem to travel in fear themselves. There must be some menace which they do not discuss with outsiders.
"However, this," Zurzal took up the box again, "and the memories of that man are all the clues we have to what may be the greatest discovery of this generation. That same symbol elsewhere led Zammerly to the cache of star maps on Homeward, and the same sign brought Zage to the lost library of the Woland Priest Kings. It is as if some of the Forerunners deliberately marked such sites either for preservation or for a future exploration which never came to be. Thus Lochan is the goal, and the site of this," he tapped the box with one finger, "depends on the memory of one Garsteon z'Vole, who is now living out what is left of his life in the Stinkhole."
"They say graz rots out a man's mind. His memory may be already gone," Jofre pointed out. To him this seemed a business in which there were too many loopholes through which failure could thread. But he was oathed and it was now his business as well as he could carry it out.
"That can only be determined by meeting the man. Which perhaps we can tomorrow."
To that Jofre was ready to agree. He refused the comfort of the second bed in the Zacathan's inner chamber, taking his proper place, as a bodyguard should, in front of the doorway. The carpeting in the room was far softer than any sleeping pallet he was used to and he knew that no one could enter without his knowing.
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