A little slip of the tongue there? Briv had assumed, and he was the leader. But had all of the aliens assumed the Surveymen were “death-bringers”? Thayenta had tried to warn Ken away from the planet, so her motives at least had to be ambiguous.
R.C. spoke to the alien leader. “According to our maps, there are none of our people on this world save ourselves. And according to our maps you shouldn’t be here, either. We are very curious to know where you came from.”
Silence. Thayenta looked timorously at Briv, awaiting instructions.
Briv jerked his head in that alien nod, chin toward his right shoulder. Permission granted, Thayenta went on, “We are the M’Nae. We came here with the Gera-ana. This world is ours. We were here before the death-bringers came.”
Ken and R.C. glanced at one another. The pilot spoke for them both. “In what way did you come to this world? Our people came to this world twenty orbits ago.” Since there wouldn’t be any exact correlation for Terran “years,” he settled on “orbits” logically. R.C. went on slowly, “Our people explored this world, and there was no one here. Not our people … or the M’Nae.”
Briv tensed and looked sharply at Thayenta, winging an order her way silently. She hastily used the translator again. “It is the world of the M’Nae. We were here before the death-bringers.”
“Apparently that’s their story and we’re stuck with it,” Ken muttered. He stared at the prism of shifting shapes, the alien transmitter. What kind of range did it have? Enough to send the M’Nae from one world to another?
But the theory of matter transmitters demanded a reception point — some kind of focussing device — at the terminal.
R.C. sighed, giving up on his original tack, adopting another. “Very well. May we know what happened between you and these death-bringers? You showed us an image of one of the M’Nae lying dead. And you showed us a human with a weapon. How did the death occur? Was there a battle?”
More telepathic conferring. When it was over, Thayenta said, “Hli was our speaker, our dealer with other peoples — should we meet any. When we saw the death-bringers come, Hli went to them to speak with them. He was to tell them that this is our world, and they must leave it to the M’Nae.”
“Ambassador from the M’Nae to the Terrans,” Ken speculated softly.
“And an ambassador should be secure from attack,” R.C. said.
Thayenta licked her pale lips, shivering at the memory of what had happened. “They would not let Hli speak. They came at him with evil. Hli tried to come back to the shadow of the Iontran. But before he could, one of the death-bringers killed him.”
Again that bloody image, a recreation of tragedy, erupted in Ken’s mind, underlining Thayenta’s narration. The effect wasn’t dulled by repetition.
“Iontran,” he said when the murderous image faded. “The shadow of the Iontran.” He wove pieces of the puzzle together. There were still many gaps in it, but the holes were filling up. That prism, the blurred area they’d seen from space, the purple mist; the Iontran could have been any one of those items, or all of them together.
There had been a debate among the M’Nae. Now Briv snatched the translator back from Thayenta rudely, saying, “You are of the same species as the death-bringers. They will not kill you. They will listen to you.”
“… and you want us to carry the message this time,” R.C. finished for the alien leader.
The “death-bringers” had already killed the M’Nae ambassador in cold blood. What guarantee was there that they wouldn’t shoot anyone on sight — human or not?
“Yes! This is M’Nae world. The Gera-ana is now in place. Soon our followers will come. The world must be ready for the M’Nae!”
More of them were coming. That meant more chances for fatal clashes between M’Nae and humans.
Ken pondered the crux of the matter. Who were those other humans, the death-bringers? “A shipwreck,” he said, the logic inescapable. The captain didn’t respond. Ken pursued the point. “If some humans crashed here, maybe they were dragged down by that same gravity force. And maybe they’ve got a working sub-space radio left. But if that’s true, why haven’t they sent out an S.O.S.?”
“Perhaps they did, and Earth Central hasn’t received it yet.” R.C. said. ‘We’re a long ways out.”
“Not that far out,” Ken argued, unconvinced. R.C. let it lie. The variables stretched in all directions. “There’s only one way we’re going to get to the bottom of this. Take the M’Nae up on it. We’ll have to go and talk with these ‘death-bringers’.”
“If we can get to them without being killed,” R.C. reminded him. “At least the M’Nae are willing to let us try.”
Zachary turned to Briv and said formally, “We will present the M’Nae claim to these other humans. But how shall we go to them? We don’t know where we are. You have captured us and brought us to this place in the mist. Our ship has been destroyed, and all our equipment …”
Destroyed by telepathic overload? Ken wondered. If Briv could bring him and the captain to the ground with those telepathic claws and materialize objects out of nothing, he could probably burn the supposedly non-flammable, non-explosive wiring inside a ship’s bulkheads.
Briv stabbed a finger at Thayenta. “She will go with you.”
Thayenta jumped. Apparently that physical reaction was the same for both M’Nae and humans. Ken put himself in her shoes — ordered to volunteer for a very dangerous mission. The last M’Nae who’d ventured into the territory of these unknown humans had ended up dead.
R.C. wasn’t pleased by the assignment. “That won’t be necessary. If you’ll just show us the way, we will arrange to meet the Terrans ourselves.”
“She will go with you,” Briv said with heavy finality. This decision wasn’t for the humans’ convenience, but for the M’Nae. “She is now our speaker, our dealer with other peoples. She will find for us the death-bringer who killed Hli.”
As a result of his ambassador’s death, Briv was short a subordinate so he would appoint a new ambassador: An apprentice who liked to talk too much and lowered herself to the point of associating with humans. There was a tinge of sadism in Briv’s order.
He was sending R.C. and Ken out as Judas goats, and Thayenta along as a spy and a cheap sacrifice, if required. They must go to the humans who had killed the first ambassador, pinpoint the murderer, and then deliver the man to the M’Nae.
Ken had gone through an exquisitely painful sample of Briv’s punishment technique — a simple search for information. What would Briv do to the man who had killed his ambassador? Maybe the human had panicked, seeing an alien on this supposedly uninhabited world.
“We’ll have to accept,” R.C. whispered, unhappy at the prospect.
“Captain, if the woman is going with us, I can work with her,” Ken said encouragingly. “She’s not vindictive. There will be some cooperation going both ways.”
“Maybe you can reach her, Ken, but so can Briv,” R.C. said. “However, we have no choice.”
*
The alien leader returned the translator to Thayenta. It seemed to constitute the only supplies she was going to get on her hazardous assignment. Briv eyed the translator with disgust, glad to be rid of it. In his view, it was merely a device to cope with an inferior, non-telepathic race, not a useful tool.
Thayenta pulled her shoulders back and held her head high, silently acknowledging her orders and receipt of the translator. Then she walked toward Ken and R.C. She looked apprehensive, a young woman tackling a large job, one she feared was too big for her.
Without farewell to her people, Thayenta started walking into the shadows of the prism-room. Ken and R.C. followed her uncertainly. Were they on their way to the “death-bringers” right now?
A few strides farther, the great open space containing the prism and the alien conference disappeared, swallowed up in the darkness. Ahead of Thayenta a ribbon of light stretched out, simultaneously lengthening on their pathway and shrinking to the rear. An a
lien spotlight tracked them as they walked. Ken matched Thayenta’s pace, staying within that nimbus. He craned his neck, trying to discern the source of the mysterious light. No originating point was apparent — not to the side, front, rear, or overhead. The ribbon of light simply was a path leading them into nowhere.
Thayenta took the endless stretching and shrinking sourceless light for granted. It was part of her world and no more in need of explanation than her clothing made from willow leaves, the glowing, constantly shape-changing prism-transmitter, the plastic that wasn’t plastic lining the walls of their dungeons, or the doors that appeared and disappeared without use of machinery.
Ken accepted many things from his own culture without inquiry. He couldn’t build a spaceship or refine metal or manufacture the cloth that made up his fatigues, but he didn’t puzzle over such matters, either. He accepted them and used them.
A little farther on, she held up her hand and the light-path suddenly stopped. In the same instant the world expanded as though illusionary curtains were being drawn back. A flood of natural light fell over the three travellers, and the purplish mist was all around them.
A stream rippled by, half a meter away. R.C. squatted on the bank and stirred some floating twigs. “Water,” he said, a bit disappointed. “Plain, everyday water.” He fingered the grass on the side of the stream. Typical flora of NE 592. “I think we’re back in real time and space again.”
Thayenta sidled past Ken and R.C., heading for a white, irregularly formed raft of Briv’s plastic wedged onto the bank of the fog-swathed stream. Thayenta stepped out onto it, then looked back at the men, puzzled by their hesitation. “Please step onto the carrier. We must travel thirty jarda-ans before we reach your people.”
“Terrans,” Ken defined for her. Warily, he planted a boot on the plastic raft, then hurriedly shifted his full weight on board. The craft teetered a bit, then stabilized. It wobbled again as R.C. jumped onto it, then settled onto the stream’s current.
The current was sluggish, but they made good progress. Thayenta was narrow-eyed, concentrating, tuning up some alien power for the plastic raft. In a few seconds they were sailing along at a speedy clip.
Although the raft rode smoothly, Ken would have preferred a more sedate ride. He presumed Thayenta knew what she was doing, but it gave him a queasy feeling to be floating so quickly on an uncharted stream without any conception of his destination.
CHAPTER 7
R.C. was watching Thayenta. She stood near the bow of the alien raft, gazing ahead into the mist and concentrating very hard on her telepathic powering and steering of the wavy sheet of plastic. Since her back was to the men, Ken had no difficulty guessing what was on R.C.’s mind.
“I don’t believe that’s a good idea, Captain,” he said politely. “I’m not sure you should even think it. Briv is probably eavesdropping, tuning in on everything.”
“Oh?” R.C. was deceptively blank. “Just what idea were you talking about?”
“Grabbing Thayenta as a hostage.” As Ken spoke her name the woman turned to look at them briefly. If she understood the discussion, she gave no sign of it. She devoted her attention to steering the raft.
“It seemed a viable tactic,” R.C. muttered, conceding Ken’s guess.
“They’d never let us get away with such a hostile gesture.” Ken sat down, determined to enjoy the raft cruise as long as it might last.
R.C. sighed and slumped down beside his apprentice. The pilot massaged his eyelids. “Telepaths. That covers a multitude of possibilities. There are so many theories, and we have very little experience with true races of the creatures.”
“You’ve dealt with the Capellan Thought-Wings,” Ken began.
Sloughing past experience aside, R.C. said, “That doesn’t apply at all. It’s completely new territory.” The older man sighed again and smiled wanly. “All the telepathic species I’ve encountered were primitive types. The Capellans are practically embryos compared to Briv and Thayenta and the others. No, the two of us are starting fresh. Nothing I’ve dealt with can help us here on NE 592, not with the M’Nae.” The Survey pilot traced an invisible figure one on the raft’s irregular surface. “One telepathic ability we’ve confirmed. They can force themselves into our minds.”
“But how much did they learn when they did?” Ken argued. “Until Briv teleported that translator to the conference, we were operating on totally different wavelengths. Language alone is a terrific barrier. You said it yourself — we had to catch every nuance. So do they.”
“Agreed. They may not know much more about us than we do about them.” R.C. traced a two beside the invisible one. “All right. We’ve learned they can teleport objects, range and size limitations unknown to us as yet. Three — they’ve got that undulative machine with the prismatic effect.”
“Their matter transmitter terminal,” Ken offered. R.C. mulled that over for a moment, then nodded.
“How did they get it here?” the older man asked. “I didn’t see any indications of a space ship technology.”
“Or any other technology, as we know technology,” Ken said. “We have to assume they teleported the prism here from —”
“Another planet.” R.C. and Ken stared at each other, and the pilot cracked out a rare, incredulous grin. “If that’s an explanation, the whole thing’s beyond our comprehension.”
Ken leaned forward and spoke earnestly. “Maybe we’re beyond theirs, Captain. Thayenta projected her image out to me in space, warning us to get away before we were trapped in their gravity field. She really believed we could pull away. Suppose the M’Nae don’t realize what Terran technology can — and can’t — do, how limited we are.”
“Very limited,” R.C. agreed sourly. “As far as we’re concerned, it might as well be non-existent.”
“Unless these ‘death-bringers’ salvaged some equipment from their shipwreck,” Ken said. “I wonder what kind of equipment it could be? Civilian, or military? The needlers the M’Nae showed us in the telepathic images are definitely Patrol weapons. But wouldn’t we have heard about a Patrol ship missing in this vicinity?”
After a year as Zachary’s apprentice, Ken had learned to detect the subtle shifts and alterations in the man’s seemingly inscrutable face. What Ken read now made him press for an answer. “You know who these Terrans are, don’t you?”
There was a long silence. Thayenta drove the raft swiftly down the stream. Along the banks indigenous fauna — insects, birds thrumming songs, skittering rodents — rustled and hopped in the purplish grass and pink-leaved willows. They rode through a foggy Eden. Not a harsh world, a man could get used to it, if he must.
“Captain,” Ken prodded gently, “I’ll have to know sometime. We’re on our way to meet with these Terrans right now. Do I have to play junior ambassador when I don’t know what my government’s instructions are?”
His feeble joke did the trick. R.C. evaded Ken’s gaze as he said, “1 didn’t want to keep you in the dark. Orders.”
It fitted. R.C. Zachary, the by-the-book expert. He’d take such orders from HQ, even if he didn’t like them. Ken let the pilot off the hook. “There isn’t much point in top secrets now. HQ won’t hear from us for months, unless they automatically track you down. Were the orders critical to security?”
R.C. shook his head, retracing the series of numerals he had drawn on the raft. “Not critical. And I’m afraid in some respects I made sure we’d be hard to find — not specifying to HQ exactly which nooks and crannies I’d take, or in what order.” Ken gawked, hardly able to accept such deviant behavior, and the space veteran looked embarrassed. “I didn’t expect things to end up this way, but when I took the assignment I never dreamed we’d run smack into the M’Nae.”
Ken sucked in a deep breath of the foggy air. “Now that we’re here, what’s the score?”
“Postulate a gap in the master ship inventory at Earth Central Clearing. The computer runs a standard, random check and comes up short one old mercantile hau
ler, a Class-D. It should have been safely mothballed in the Proxima asteroids. But it wasn’t.” Some of R.C.’s outrage at the theft was betrayed in his tone.
Ken whistled, earning a glance from Thayenta. He smiled at her, and she turned back to her steering, apparently reassured that whistling wasn’t a Terran alarm. Lowering his voice, Ken said, “Stealing a Class-D would take a lot of courage and planning. You can’t just walk out of a deep-spacer berth with a ship under your arm. It would take a crew, fuel —”
“And connections,” R.C. added, his furry brows drawn. “Bribery in high places and manipulation of the computer inventory. The theft would have gone unnoticed for years if a random check hadn’t caught it. One missing ship, fuel illegally requisitioned —”
“Let me guess,” Ken interrupted. “A five-year food supply, building materials, medicines — the manifest you would have for a Pioneer Colony.” R.C. brightened appreciatively, gesturing for Ken to continue. “It follows the pattern. If you steal a ship and set about hiding the evidence for years, that means one of two things. Either you’re ready to start a war, or you’re planning to get a long way off the beaten path and hide out on the fringes where the Patrol can’t find you.”
R.C. slapped a hand down loudly on Ken’s shoulder. Thayenta jerked around apprehensively, but her tension melted when she saw the captain’s broad smile. Very female, she sniffed disdainfully at these rough, physical habits.
“Good!” the pilot exclaimed.
That one word meant a lot from a man stingy with praise. But Ken kept to the point. “Do you know who engineered this scheme? You said you had several possible starting shots in the investigation. What made you pick NE 592 as a hide-out planet?”
The captain grew introspective. “It had promise. NE 592 was damned far out. The patrol wouldn’t come here for decades. But I hadn’t counted on that blurry area or the M’Nae gravity trap.”
Again, the pilot was evading a direct answer. Who plotted the spaceship theft?
The purplish mist was thinning rapidly. They must be passing the outer perimeter of M’Nae territory and re-entering the real world of NE 592. The land here was hilly and rocky. The stream’s current was picking up as they raced between low banks and boulder outcroppings. A plume of white mist rose up in the distance, and Ken heard a rumble rising to a crescendo.
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