The Forerunner Factor

  “Not my kind,” Thorn answered her decisively. “They were warriors. After the ruin which came to my world, our way of life was changed. We followed another path and that does not lead to war. If we kill—” she saw him shiver then and under her gaze it was as if his face grew gaunt and older in an instant—“if we take life knowingly and willingly, except to save ourselves or another, then there is that in us which takes command of our minds and we die. We are no longer men!”

  She could not be sure of what he meant, but she knew that it was dire. Also, she believed that he should not be allowed to think on what her words had summoned to his mind.

  “Not your people, then. But you know other worlds. Can you tell from which these came?”

  “I shall find out!” He reached forward and dropped the rod on the carrier. She saw the roosting zorsals edge away from it, as if they sensed that it was a thing of dark power. “Indeed, I am going to find out!”

  11

  “So,” Simsa also arose, “in which direction do we now search? The zorsals can find living things. Dead men wrapped in dead metal they will not hurt.”

  The two winged hunters were up once more from the carrier, coasting out over the thick stand of green stuff. Simsa could guess that they were hungry and went to prey upon what their acute sensors could pick up, even though day was upon them. Perhaps, because of that stand of thick green, the heat and glare were not so intense here. Or their interlude in the strange pool had heartened them, as she was sure it had done her, to the point that they could bear far more of the day’s light.

  “We?” then Thorn began and she already guessed that he was about to deny her any part in this. However, Simsa had no intention of either remaining here, overwatched by alien dead, or staying purposeless wherever the off-worlder would elect as a place of safety while he ranged outward.

  “We!” Simsa repeated firmly. “You say you have found a broken ship. Even if it was not made for star travel, still it was not of this world. If it rode in the air, then how may it be traced to its home port any more than a seaship can be followed through trackless waves?”

  When he did not answer her, she felt a small glow of triumph. Let this off-worlder not believe that he was the only one who could reason with good logic and to the point.

  “It would seem that the way these were left,” once more she indicated the encased dead, “has meaning. They are not as old as this place—that must surely be true. I think this was long forgotten before they came from the sky. It is—” For the first time she pushed the dead aliens to the back of her mind, thought of those faces she had seen so boldly carved along the walls, especially that special one which had so impressed her, leaving her feeling both frightened and, in a manner, unclean.

  “This is,” she continued after a moment’s hesitation, “a place of this world. And the pool . . .” Hardly aware of what she was doing, she fingered the ring on her hand, rubbing across the stone which had held so much color of that “water” in it. “My people—we of the Burrows—swear by no gods or forces save Fortune. For it is true, I think, that there are none such who concern themselves with us and our fate. Still, in that pool there is life.” She spoke as if something else fed the words into her mind. Yet, even as she mouthed them, Simsa was aware also that there was truth in what she said. “I do not know who they were, these people of the Hard Hills. However, it is plain they had secrets of their own, as powerful for us as the flame death is for those of your blood. How felt you when you came from that place?”

  “There is some form of radiation there,” again he was using a term out of his own knowledge. “Only it is such as I cannot measure. As to how I felt, I was . . . renewed, I think.” He had been holding the cuff in one hand, as if it were of little or no importance. Now, she saw him suddenly slip it up over his fingers and palm, squeezing those together to allow it to pass. Even as he did that, he stood staring down at the band of metal which rucked up a little of the sleeve of his off-world garment.

  “Why did I do that?” He seemed as bewildered as if he had been in the power of another, sent a task he did not understand in the least. “It somehow it feels right, but—” He stretched out the same hand for the stock of the rod weapon, jerked back with a cry of mingled pain and shock.

  “I—it forbids me to take up that! But this is insane! The sun—I must have had a touch of sun to . . .”

  Simsa smiled. So the wonders one could summon here were not so one-sided after all. She herself could supply something which would astound and dismay even one who talked of the destruction of worlds, and of wars flung wide enough to engulf whole legions of stars.

  “Perhaps there are also weapons which your people do not understand.” She pulled at the necklace on her breast, twirled the ring out into the full of the sun. “You hunt one mystery here, starman; there may be others.”

  He still stared down at the cuff, though he had ceased to try to rid himself of it. Nor did he attempt again to take up that weapon of his own kind. Simsa reached out her arm so that Zass could climb this bridge to the zorsal’s usual riding place on her shoulder. A wind had been rising, sending branches and leaves rustling. Even though these grew so closely together here, one could not see how even the fingers of a light breeze could reach within the shadows to trouble them. The girl glanced at the sky. To the north clouds massed, a sight she had never expected to see over desert lands, or even this early in the season. Though this growing dark was no surprise to any who knew the way of the wet-time.

  She turned to face the guardian in the other section of that way. “There is rain there.” She pointed to the clouds. “Though a storm at this season is unusual, still I guess it best for us to seek cover. You speak of danger lingering in your broken sky-traveling thing, so perhaps it is best we take this other way.”

  A sudden heavy gust of air swooped down upon them, bringing with it the zorsals screaming with rage, and, she was sure, a beginning of fear. The creatures caught at the lashing on the carrier and held fast, their teeth fully displayed as they made apparent what they thought of such a freak storm.

  The girl stooped and caught at the pull rope of the carrier. For the first time, she exerted her strength against the pull of that and felt the thing answer. Perhaps because she still held to that supply of new strength she had brought from the pool, she took pleasure in the fact that she was taking the lead in their journey.

  Only Thorn reached her in two strides, caught the rope out of her hand. He had awakened out of whatever dazzlement or deep thought had entrapped him by the cuff. Now he moved with his old authority and confidence.

  A second gust of air bore up sand grit to sting their faces and eyes, actually carrying with it bits of twig and torn leaf. It was as if something about this open space in the long dead keep or city attracted the gathering strength of the storm. Simsa, remembering traders’ tales of certain rocks, peaks, even outcroppings of sea reefs, which did pull the fury of tempests, was eager to get under cover.

  Their way was still blocked by the suited dead. The space on either side of that standing figure was too narrow for the carrier. Thorn did not wait to study the problem. Thrusting the lead rope of the carrier back into the girl’s hands, he strode forward to grasp the shoulders of the figure. Though, Simsa was pleased to note, he did not stare at what lay behind the open part of that bubble helmet, rather kept his gaze turned to one side as he exerted strength (and it clearly needed full strength on his part; his muscles stood out visibly under the smooth fitting of his suit) to shove it to one side.

  Some inequality of the pavement, or incautious movement on his part had a sudden answer. The dead thing tottered. Simsa cried out, her voice rising above the howling of the zorsals, as it rocked forward. Thorn stepped aside just as it crashed, to lie on the pavement, still as stiff and stark in its new position as it had been when it had denied them entrance to the way beyond.

  Simsa sidled well away from it as she came on, giving a vigorous jerk to the carrier. Thorn stood above t
he fallen figure with clenched hands, looking down at its back almost as if he expected to see those stiffly suited arms go out, the legs move, and the dead arise to give battle.

  The bottom of the carrier rasped across the bubble head of the fallen to nudge against the off-worlder. He gave a start, then stepped wide across it almost as if he feared the dead could reach out, catch at one of his scuffed boots. Then they were both beyond, passing out of the fast fading light of the day where the storm clouds swung slow, into a corridor.

  Though this passage grew increasingly dusky, Thorn made no move toward lighting the lamp at his belt and Simsa did not want to break the silence of this place by asking for that aid. For, even as they went by the guardian, the zorsals had abruptly ceased to cry.

  Under her feet was the velvety gathering of long years of dust, as soft as the silvery sands which had encircled the pool. She glanced down at it now and again but they were already too far advanced into the twilight of the windowless and lightless passage for her to see if that was track-imprinted by any who might have passed this way before.

  Outside, the storm hit at last with a roar, which followed them along the corridor like the outraged cry of a hunting beast through whose paws they had luckily escaped. There were flashes, too—lightning had been unleashed.

  Still Thorn walked, beside her now, his hand on the tow rope not far from hers, allowing the girl to share his responsibility. Zass hissed into Simsa’s ear after each lightning flash, flattening her body as close to the girl’s shoulder as she could.

  The passage was not altogether dark for the further they withdrew from the entrance of the guardian, the more visible came another gleam of light ahead. Twice, warned, or alarmed, by lightning which had given her a momentary glimpse of something leaning outwards from the wall, first on one side and then the other, Simsa had pulled aside only to realize that what she avoided were images nearly life-size which began to mark the walls at regular intervals. Her first thought was that these were more of the dead.

  Perhaps Thorn had been startled out of his preoccupation by the same thought. For at last, he snapped on his lamp for a fraction of time, only to reveal the figures were of stone not metal. That flash of clear sight had given Simsa only a swift impression of something man-like, but she wanted to see no more of such.

  Instead, she centered her gaze steadily ahead to that wan promise of more light. Doubtless, the off-worlder had some good reason for his now-cautious use of the lamp. Perhaps its power only lasted so long—even as he had warned her that of the box which lifted the carrier must be renewed.

  They emerged at length into grey light again, though they were not fully in the open. Even as they stepped free of the passage, Thorn cried out, threw his arm about Simsa to hold her against him, pushing back into the archway behind. Down into the center part of the open space before them smashed a great block of stone, striking with force enough to crunch and send splinters flying in all directions.

  Simsa stared up. They were under a roof in which there was a great jaggered crack, through which showed the night dark of the storm. She could see through this gloom other pieces of the dome which had fallen in the past. Thorn pulled her to the left, leading her under what seemed a much more secure overhang. Here she was as ready to hug the wall as he was to press her closer to it.

  This space was no rough underground cavern. They were separated from the central cathedral and dangerous part by a series of pillars placed in regular order at the edge of the overhang. Each of these was carved in the form of either a standing figure, or a thick stemmed growth, half vine, half tree. All loomed well above even the off-worlder’s head. Simsa felt a beginning of curiosity, a desire to inspect them more closely, but her companion did not linger, and urged her on by the grip he still held on her arm.

  There were no more openings nor doors in the wall which formed the left side of this covered way. On that space were deep carvings, but no faces leered at her, rather these ran in lines as might some gigantic record left to puzzle those with whom the builders shared no blood tie nor memory.

  She could not guess how far they had gone in their half trot along that wall when suddenly there was a flare of light directly ahead—darting upward, then spreading out to catch them both in its beam. There had been no more crashes of stone from above, yet the sound of the storm echoed hollowly here. Thus Simsa caught only a faint sound from her companion.

  He dropped his hold on both her and the carrier, whirled to catch up that weapon rod awkwardly in his cuffless left hand. A leap carried him before her with one end of the rod clapped tightly to his side by his bent arm, his fingers hooked about a projection a third of the way down its length.

  That flare ahead did not fade or fail, remaining near as bright as the sun. Simsa had involuntarily shaded her eyes at first, now as her sight adjusted, she first peered between her fingers, and then dropped her hand entirely.

  This was not a fire, rather it burned steadily, as might a lamp. A camp? Of whom? No guild force or traders she knew of had such day-clear illumination to serve them.

  Then—could the dead have left this on guard for some lost reason?

  The girl, recalling only too well Thorn’s tales of a slaying fire, reached out to sweep the other two zorsals to her. They had hunched their heads between their shoulders, half raised their wings as shields against the glare. She caught their honks of fear and misery. With Zass still in her usual place on one shoulder, the other two now crowded onto her arm (so heavy a weight together that she had to steady them against her body). Simsa backed against the wall, wondering if she dared to turn and run, believing she was too well revealed to try. She had no doubt that any weapons off-worlders might carry would have a range of least as far as a bow and she was well within arrow length of the light’s source.

  Thorn stood, his feet slightly apart, facing that beacon directly. Now he called out, waited, and called again—three times in all. His voice sounded differently. Simsa half guessed that he was speaking other tongues.

  There came no answer save the continued flare of the light. From here she could not even see the source from which that sprung. Thorn raised his other hand so she caught the shine of the cuff, waved her to stay where she was. Then he began to walk steadily, with obvious purpose, toward the glare.

  Simsa’s breath came raggedly as if she had run some race. She waited for fire, for some other strange and horrible fate, to cut him down. There was no belief in her that there could be any friends here.

  But no war arrows, cut to whistle alarmingly as they took the air, no spouting of off-world fire, followed. Thorn was merely walking as if back in the desert and that light was the cruel heat of the sun.

  She could see him so clearly, though only his back now. Still he waited for death to claim him. Then he turned a little from the column of the light, passed to one side to hide—consumed?

  The zorsals still cried and clung to her, showing no desire to take flight. Was it the light which kept them so? Or did they sense some greater danger? Their antennae were all closely rolled to their small skulls, and their big eyes squeezed shut.

  Then, a dark blot which could only be Thorn—she was sure it was—showed once more between her and that light. While the light itself was reduced in both length of beam and harshness of glare, so she could see he stood there waving her forward. Because she must trust him, if she trusted anyone beyond herself in this place, the girl picked up the rope of the carrier, set herself to the forward pull of its weight and obeyed his signal.

  By the time she had reached the source of the light, it had been softened to hardly more than that which a fire might give on a chill night of the wet-season’s ending. Now she could see a space in which there had been set up what seemed to be a kind of fortified camp—if all those lumps of stone had been dragged there for walls of protection.

  Piled against these blocks were containers and boxes—some of the type which she had seen unloaded many times from traders’ rafts on the river. The
others were of metal—surely off-world.

  While the light itself came from a cylinder placed on a plate of metal in the middle of the camp, Simsa looked hurriedly around. Where were those who had set the light? She half expected to see, marching towards her, suited bodies—living bodies—of off-worlders. Dead men, she told herself firmly, do not make camps—they do not!

  Only there was no one there save Thorn. He, however, had no longer any attention for her. Instead he was on his knees by one of the off-world containers, this one thin in width and slightly curved. Simsa thought it might just have been shaped to fit upon a man’s back, for straps dangled down the inner side. Thorn had flung up the lid of that and was delving inside. Two small boxes, neither much larger than his own hand, had been set out. Then there was a larger one which flapped open as he pulled it free. Inside were blocks which fell out—one bouncing across to Simsa.

  She had set the zorsals on one of the barricade rocks. Now she stooped to pick up that wandering square—and froze before her fingers quite touched it. She jerked her hand back, old half-forgotten stories shifted into her mind.

  Caught—a man’s, a woman’s innermost spirit caught—fastened, made so a possession of another that such a thing could be used to summon, to torment, to—kill! Ferwar had laughed at such tales. But Ferwar—not even the Old One had seen such as this. For what she looked upon must indeed be the root of such stories. She was looking down—at herself. Imprisoned in the transparent cube was a figure so much alive that Simsa could not look aside.

  That was how she must have appeared when she had drawn herself up on the silver sand of the pool, before she had pulled on again that dirty and confining clothing. The black skin of the prisoner was rounded, or spare—just as she was so shaped. If she could put finger within that transparent cover, surely she would touch flesh. That silver hair curled, as if just tossed in a loosening rain-wind. The ends lay soft across the shoulders, one strand half concealing a small, proud jutting breast. There was no coarse clothing, rather around the trim hips rested a chain as silver bright as the hair. From this, hung a kilt fringe of gems strung in patterns made by the use of silver balls between stones—just such gems as those of the necklace.