by Andre Norton
Something stung with a sharp stab of pain. And that pain had not been in his innermost self… no, he had felt that in his body. The virus ridden horror? His imagination painted a picture of that climbing doggedly up the cliff, coming to embrace him—to…
Gasping, be opened his eyes. A man wearing the badge of a medic leaned over him, watching him with a steady, measuring gaze. Burr blinked and blinked again. He felt dazed, unable to put name to this place at first.
“You’ll do…”
Even those words spoken in Basic sounded queer and far away.
His whole body was stiff as he raised his hand jerkily. The helmet was gone. He was back! Recognition came now with a warm rush. He levered himself up on the divan.
“Uahach?” Burr got out the name in a shaken voice.
“She’ll do,” the Medic reassured him. “Close thing there though…”
“The other one!” Burr remembered. “The other dreamer…”
He saw the Medic’s eyes narrow. The man was attached to the Council HQ here, he would have been briefed before this experiment.
“She…” a voice as weak as his own brought Burr’s head around.
Dreamer’s helmet had been shed. A thin girl with cropped hair of dull brown, her wan features sharp as those of a famine victim, sat on the side of the other divan. Her slender arms were folded over her middle and she was so different from the fighting Kaitilih he had known in that other place that it was almost impossible to equate this wan and drab other being with his companion.
“Come…” Uahach attempted to rise to her feet, wavered and fell back. The Medic turned quickly.
“Lie still!” he ordered.
“No!” her answer came as emphatically. “We must… go… to… her… now!”
Burr wavered to his feet. He was as weak as if he had come out of the nightmare of the tower world sorely wounded.
“She’s right,” he said. “It has to be finished.”
He was glad when another man, wearing a guard’s side arm stepped into his line of vision, put out a hand to steady him. While the Medic, though looking as if he highly disapproved of the whole affair, was aiding Uahach up.
“Where is she?” It was Burr who asked that.
“Lost… there…” Uahach’s faint answer did not quite make sense.
As the Medic supported her from the room, the Foostmam stood just outside the door, facing them with an expressionless face. She made no move to step aside, barring their way.
“By order of your own lords,” the Medic snapped, “give us free passage.”
“The Hive cannot be forced!” the woman retorted sharply.
“In this case, yes.” The Medic gave a jerk of his head which brought another guard into sight “Step aside, or be put aside.”
A spasm of pure hate contracted her features. “You take too much on you, off-worlder. The Hive cannot be so used.”
“As you have used it for murder?” Burr asked.
She swung around to face him, her face once more expressionless.
“That is not the truth. I have already been proven, by your own methods of questioning, blameless.”
“But you harbor a dreamer who is not…” the Medic retorted. “Now we go to face her. And later there shall be inquiries as to her briefing, Foostmam. Perhaps you shall discover those who may give the Hive a darker repute than it now has.”
“The Hive is innocent. Dreamers cannot kill…” Her armor of defense remained undented.
“I can testify,” Burr said, “that they can try…”
His weakness was ebbing, he was able to stand now without the support of the guard.
Uahach had said nothing during their exchange. Her face was set, her body once more rigid as it had been when she had thrown all her power into the search for their unknown enemy. The Medic glanced at her and then nodded.
“Step aside!”
This time the Foostmam shrugged and obeyed. They proceeded down the hall, around into a second corridor. The ruler of the Hive must have followed them for now her voice was raised in a new protest.
“There are no dreaming rooms here… You must not enter the private chambers!”
The Medic did not even answer her. His arm around Uahach kept her on her feet. Burr guessed that the draining of the girl’s Esper power to effect their return had been far more serious than his own ordeal. Yet she moved forward now as if driven by the need to find the source of the energy which had attempted to lock them into the dream world.
She swayed to a stop before a door at the far end of the corridor, putting out her hand to rest fingertips on the closed portal.
“Inside…” Her voice had gained no strength.
XII
At a gesture from the Medic the guard who had loomed over the Foostmam set his palm on the seal of the door. For a moment or so it would seem that had been locked against any outside interference. Then it began to roll aside, slowly and grudgingly.
From inside came a noise, a kind of mewling such as a sick animal might make. The Medic, staring over Uahach’s head, showed such shock that Burr moved up beside him. Instantly the man pushed Uahach back, flung out an arm to bar Burr’s advance.
“Close that, damn you!” he ordered. And the guard, wearing the same expression of shock and horror, slammed the barrier to. But not before Burr had had a single glimpse of what half lay across the divan within, was making an effort to rise, its blind, eroded face turned questioningly toward those it wanted as prey.
It was not as far gone as the horror which had hunted them on the cliff. But there was no mistaking the signs of the same dread disease. Burr made a quick move to support Uahach as the Medic rounded on the guards with a series of orders.
And it was Burr who led the girl back to the dreaming chamber. As he settled her on the divan and sat beside her, his arm about her shoulders, she spoke slowly:
“It… recoiled. What she dreamed against us became a part of her.”
“How could that happen?” Burr asked. He tried not to remember what he had seen in that room, what must now be destroyed without mercy and as swiftly as possible.
“I don’t know,” Uahach returned. “But I think that she was not a true dreamer, not one such as they have always known on Ty-Kry. And she has been using her powers deliberately to kill. They said that she was a late developer… perhaps she was something else, a mutant of the dreamer stock. But I believe she was striving to send that crawling death against us even as we broke into wakefulness. Then, somehow, the force returned upon its sender. They called her Dynamis. We must find out now from whence she came, and who stands, or stood behind her.”
“Not our job,” Burr told her. “Let the regular hounds take over that coursing now.”
Uahach sighed. “We must report…”
“That much I agree upon. But let the Organization take over then. We are entitled, I am sure, to hazard leave.”
“And, by the way,” he added a moment later. “What is your real name? I refuse to settle for either Kaitilih, as good a fighter as she was, or Uahach, a dreamer…”
She shivered. “I am not a dreamer! It was as if with that statement she thrust aside all which had menaced them, up to and including that last burst of horror found in the Hive chamber.
Burr smiled. “That you are not! They say that Avalon is an excellent leave planet. But I’d like a name to enter on the request token.”
“I am Ludia Tanguly,” she answered. And her voice was firm. “Yes, indeed I am Ludia Tanguly!” It was as if she must affirm that identity and make sure that nothing remained of Uahach.
Burr nodded. “Very well, Ludia Tanguly, it is now our duty to get to HQ, to give recorded statements and then…”
She straightened up within the half circle of his arm as if new strength flowed back into her. “And then… I shall think about your suggestion,” she ended firmly.
Contents
PART ONE:
PART TWO:
PART THREE:
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nbsp; PART FOUR:
