“Think you I have been a fool, my Zass?” The voice was not a whisper or a murmur, rather came as a croak from dried lips, the words hard shaped by a mouth as moistureless as the land. “Ah, Zass—there is folly, and there is choice—against that which is worse.”
The mound of cloak heaved as the wearer it completely covered straightened, lifted her head to peer through the opening between two folds at that sliding of what was not water yet still passed walls of naked stone.
“Folly . . .” There was a bitter tinge to that single word. Even as she admitted to so much, another emotion arose, stark as the land, clear as the rock of any trace of life. Fear had moved her, brought her into this furnace of death, a greater fear than she had known before.
Again the cloak rippled. Simsa closed fingers tightly about that possession which, living, she would never discard. It was not a staff, not long enough for that—rather more a rod of office such as headmen of river towns in the world she had known might carry on occasions of state. Even under the folds of the cloak it shone—the disc at its head, the two curved horns on guard at the sides. Sun and two moons, she had once been told.
“Thorn!” Her tone made a spat oath of that name. The sound seemed to please her, for she said it once again with more force, a further unleashing of fury. “Thorn!” She did not call. Could any voice reach from world to world, lift upward through sky to the emptiness of space—wing from world to ship, ship to world, and bring it to the right ears?
It was Thorn who had introduced her to them—those cool-voiced, veiled-eyed men to whom he had shown respect, whom she had suspicioned from first meeting. She who was—
Again her shoulders shifted. Paws patted lightly against her firmly planted forearm, a small, sharp-snouted face turned up to hers. Those other thoughts, so alien and yet meant to please, to reassure, nibbled at the edge of her mind.
“I am Simsa . . .” She said that slowly with a space of a breath before each word. Simsa—and who else?
Once she had been a light-fingered errand runner for an old and crafty woman who knew much and told little enough. With Ferwar she had sheltered, as far back as her body memory reached, in the Burrows below the city pile of Kuxortal. She had soaked up, as might a sagser root given water, all that could be learned. Still she, even in Ferwar’s days of whining command over her, had been free—
Free as she could, would, never be now! There were degrees of freedom; at least she had come to learn that!
Freedom she had won from the Burrows, only because she had had her fortune twined for a space with that off-worlder who had sought his lost brother—and the secret that brother had hunted in turn. Though she had inwardly rebelled, the stubborn-held life spark within that Simsa had sent her with him into a trap of ancient death and new-come disaster.
Then . . . She lifted her rod of sun-and-moon, with a hand she had not consciously set to that task, so that the tips of the curved moons touched her small, high, near-childish breasts. Her head snapped up; the flow of energy that she thought had forsaken that ancient artifact was not exhausted! Into her now flowed, not the power of destruction she had once called upon, rather a sensation of drinking deeply, feasting well. Through her coursed that reviving surge.
The girl closed her eyes to the opening between cloak folds, seeing once again the waiting one—the other Simsa, a mirror copy of herself. Or, rather, perhaps she was a reflection of that one. At a single touch she had become two, who for a space were wary, jealous of their mutual possession—the Simsa whose black skin now contained them both.
Only for a space had that been so. Then she was one again, but a new one. Scraps of knowledge, of which a Burrows child could never even dream, found space and rooted. She had been triumphant, proud, a great one in those moments. Even Thorn had seen it. Yes, but in seeing it he had also been aroused to make of her—
Zass growled deep in her long thin throat, her wings, covered in ribbed skin, lifted a fraction. Zass had always been able to catch Simsa’s anger—or her fear. It had been Zass who had warned her into this last venture bringing them here.
“Forerunner,” Thorn had called her—talking much of very ancient star-roving peoples unknown to his later kind, who had left their touch on many worlds, still puzzles to all who strove to unlock forgotten mysteries. Forerunner—booty. As much a treasure for him and his fellows as anything grubbed from the earth, shaken clear of age-settled dust. Simsa was to go back to those who searched for such booty. None had asked her consent, nor even told her clearly what was to come.
Thorn had disappeared when she had been escorted to that gaunt, space-blackened man with the eyes that looked yet did not seem to actually see. He might be gazing beyond one to search for some value. In her then the Burrows Simsa stirred awake, and even the ancient Simsa had withdrawn to consider and study and plan . . .
Save that they had not had too much time together, that first Simsa and she from the past. The Burrows-born girl had extended claws and waited to defend herself. Though she had known she dared not call upon the destructive powers centered in that very rod she fondled now, as she relived what had happened. An animal threatened will flee or attack. Simsa—neither Simsa had ever fled. To attack—that was also wrong, the wrongness ground into her sharply. Violence was not the answer to these space people. There were wilier ways. Wait, learn, the Elder One cautioned. Learn what they have to offer—whether it will be of benefit or ill. Weigh the ill—if it be the greater, then plan secretly.
So she had gone aboard the ship without protest. Three zorsals she had had, the two young males she had loosed to their freedom in the skies of their own world—her world. But Zass clung to her and would not be sent away. And, in a way, she clung to Zass as fiercely, a reassuring fragment of the life she had always known.
Simsa had never been aboard a sky ship before. Much was strange there, made even stranger by the fleeting scraps of memory that had awakened in Elder One when led to compare with the far past. She surrendered to that second Simsa all save a scrap of her long-held will, evading questions of these strangers, asking others of her own. Thorn might well have been within the metal skin of the ship which lifted with them, but she had not seen or heard from him.
In the small cabin they had given her for her own place, she had discovered, to her great anger, held rigidly in check, certain small hidden things by which she could be overlooked whenever these space rovers wished. The Burrows Simsa would have torn them loose, smashed them. The Elder One cautioned otherwise. Before each of those hidden spies she had used her rod. Then it was clear that anyone seeking to overlook her would see what was most in their minds concerning her. Meanwhile, she was about her own business—that of escape.
The finding of the spy things had not only aroused hot Burrows anger, but implacable purpose. These off-worlders wanted her for what they could learn. Just as they desired the place from which her twinned self found a storehouse of knowledge, though it was a tangle of ancient wrecked ships being mined by outlaws for unique weapons to be sold to the highest bidders on many different worlds.
From her these strangers sought to draw knowledge not theirs to have or hold, which she was in no mind to surrender. Simsa lay on the sleep place in that prison of hidden eyes and ears, Zass curled by her. And, closing her eyes, she began questing as she would never have believed could be done, but which the Elder One, pressing with her stronger will, found natural.
There was a wild whirl of thoughts pulsing throughout the ship. To plunge into that was like jumping into high sea surf where currents broke about reefs. Simsa of the Burrows struggled feebly, lost. She was drawn along as that other sought her own way of keeping track of these voyagers.
There were two who had centered their innermost attention upon her own self. Sealing away all clamor of others, Simsa followed those thought trails to what lay behind. One was a healer of sorts—a woman whose pitifully small fund of knowledge was considered large and imposing by these others. She was concerned with flesh and bone,
and only a little with that which the body obeyed. Also . . . Simsa’s eyes remained closed, but her lips lifted in the snarl of a Burrower’s child—this one wanted fiercely to slash, to study, to even mutilate if she must, in search of something truly indefinable which was the force of life itself and which she did not even know existed.
The other, who would learn . . . Ahh . . . The snarl relaxed. Instead, her tongue tip smoothed across the lower as one preparing to savor an exotic but promising bit of food. He did have a glimmering idea of that which had been taken from Kuxortal’s planet. Even now, he was considering one approach and then another. One could play sly games with such as he, if there were time.
Time! The very thought of that stung her. Thorn had told her openly that what she knew would be of great interest to a race allied with him, a people whose life-span was so long that they had turned long ago to the study of the rise and fall of species, keeping vast records. Yet the time before . . . ah, the time before was Simsa’s alone and she was the guardian!
Only this ship’s officer, who would make her prisoner even though as yet he had not shown his intent, had no idea of taking her to those of whom Thorn had spoken in awe. He would keep her, somehow train her, for himself alone. Now she laughed silently. Oh, little man, what would best shatter that plan of yours? She could do thus—or thus—Again she laughed without a sound, though Zass stirred against her and growled.
Let him play with his plans, that one. She had other business before her now. Just as she had sent forth seeking thought, so now she sought knowledge, not of what was living within this space-traveling shell but of the shell itself. Some things her older memory touched upon and recognized, yet the structure was different. As might well be, for long ages lay between the time of a ship that had once obeyed her and this one carrying a younger race.
She cared nothing about the source of its power. In the end, all such were not too different, and never had mechanics held any interest for her. There were other places—places that stored knowledge, places that might offer an escape.
The right knowledge she found while skipping randomly from mind to mind of the crew. Yes, there was an exit and those who were trained to use it. But as yet, she was not ready to bend another will to hers and through such a temporary captive learn—Success was again a matter of time.
Why that instinctive need for haste beat at her so, forcing her to wider and wider exploration, Simsa could not have said. However, the fear of her Burrower heritage melded with other uneasiness of the Elder One and thus she did no probing, made no attempt to bend any other mind within this shell to do her will. Not yet.
She was vaguely conscious of an increasing warmth. Even though her eyes were closed, Simsa sensed that the sun-and-moons of her rod were alight. In a way both fed her strength for this weird voyaging of thought—as well as building in her the imperative need for action. Was it chance, or some virtue of the rod, that led her into a thought leap to the mind of a crewman coming off duty and making his way along one of the narrow corridors to meet one of his fellows?
Duty—a regular duty for this one—checking. Simsa became sharply intent.
Beyond the wall where his hand now rested, she picked up the hazy idea of a cavity, within it another ship—a much smaller one. Yes, the Elder One identified, and the Burrows Simsa understood—an escape of a kind. Let this larger ship be injured, its powers fail—then some of those it bore across the star fields would have a way of seeking safety.
Duty—let him do his duty of inspecting the readiness of that Life Boat. The girl allowed herself to issue a thought order, uncertain as to how she could control this newly discovered power of which her Burrower half was still more than half-afraid.
He placed his hands against the wall. Facing the blankness in which her blurred half-vision could see no break, he applied weight. There was a parting of the corridor’s skin and he went in, scraping his body in the narrow space between small ship and the wall of the lock that held it.
There was this to be checked—and that. Each Simsa listed, knowing that such information would never be lost to her now. Room for perhaps three bodies such as hers to lie in cushioned space. She followed his thoughts as he fingered a lever, a button. About them would rise the other simple controls—a foam of protective sealing to preserve the passengers against the shock of ship launching and of its landing.
That button set the strange brain of the ship itself at work, seeking out the nearest world that would give its passengers a chance for life. This lever would assert the right pattern for an orbital descent—and a landing. There were supplies that could be used for a space of time. Those, too, the crewman checked. Simsa released her tap upon his thoughts, drew back into her own inert body.
So, this ship was not wholly a space-borne prison as she had feared. Escape in that smaller vessel could be possible.
She centered a goodly part of her mind on that, leaving only a sentry of the Burrows Simsa on duty against discovery. There was, she realized, and knew she must busy herself with that, a good reason why the Elder One who had awaited so long the coming of her twin had not become sole ruler in her. The Burrows Simsa had cunning and training which that great one had never had to develop down the years.
Once more, she quested for that officer who desired her, who was tempted, who wanted power. He was not with the others but alone—and he was building thought-by-thought to action, examining one proposal against another. A net! Yes, a net such as a fisherman would draw. A net wherein to catch her—hold her. How? This ship he might indeed command. But she was certain that he proposed not to share with another any part of what he was planning. The Life Boat!
For a second, Simsa was astounded. Then she picked up the most vivid picture as if the eyes of her body saw this thing. Herself, drugged, sleeping and this would-be possessor of power casting off in the Life Boat, bound into space. Now his thoughts hazed, became a whirling circle of small bits of desire which might have been lifted from dreams. He strode through all of these like a conqueror in a world his own will might have laid waste.
Simsa opened her eyes, cut the questing tie. There was the slight sound of metal against metal as that hand-sized hatch through which had come food and water opened.
She reached out for the cup of liquid. It appeared pure water, but she distrusted now everything within this prison of a ship. Simsa offered it to the zorsal. Zass dipped a beak to stir the surface of what was within the cup. She did not suck, instead her head swirled a fraction on her long neck as she looked to Simsa, uttering the smallest of croaks, raising her wings a fraction.
Simsa sat up, setting the cup back on its tray. For all their greedy feeding when food and drink were before them, the zorsals possessed keen senses of both taste and smell, far keener than any humanoid Simsa had ever met.
She took up the rod and held it above the cup. Slowly, a greenish tinge, so faint that it could only be seen by one who, as herself, was searching, polluted the water. No poison. No, they were too intent upon squeezing her dry of all they could learn. Was this of the man’s devising or a trick of that so-called healer who would be called then to minister to the ill and so get time for some of the examinations she wished?
It did not matter. Simsa slipped off the sleeping shelf and visited each of those spy buttons. Though the effort was weakening, she changed the projected images she had set up there—strove to seal new ones in place before she stood in the center of her small prison, Zass on her shoulder, her hands both closed tightly about the stem of the rod, thinking.
Had that drug been given by the man, then it was close to time when he must act. Of the two, she thought him the greater threat. How soon would he be on his way here to see how his plan had worked? If he was the one who spied upon her, and she thought he was, he would see her drink the water, fall back upon her bed, Zass also asleep across her breast. Would that image hold long enough? When she would not be here to reinforce it?
Already she had taken two steps forward to the doo
r. It was undoubtedly locked, though she had not tried it. Now she traced the outline of its length and breadth with the moon crescent tips. The compartment door opened. Zass took off from her shoulder, hovered in the air beating her wings, her beaked head turning from side to side to view either end of the corridor before the curve of the passage made further sight impossible.
Simsa needed no contact with the zorsal. As all her kind, Zass had not only superior sight but also hearing. With the zorsal now on guard, the girl found the lock holding the Life Boat without any worry she would not be warned. Though, as she made her way there, she was surprised to find the passages so empty. It was almost as if they had been cleared to draw her into some type of trap. So strong was this impression that as she paused along the way, her attention ever upon Zass, she also released, in a little, her own questing sense.
Now at her goal, she opened the hatch of the small podlike escape ship—an easy exercise, perhaps made so by the very fact that those who might depend upon it for escape could come here injured or even shocked near to madness by whatever catastrophe made escape necessary.
For a long moment, she merely looked within, studying those same buttons and levers that she had seen the crewman test, drawing out of memory his knowledge of what was necessary for those taking shelter in the pod.
Now . . . the larger ship. Though Simsa of the Burrows had but the most limited knowledge of a space ship, and the Elder One whose awakened self had melded with hers knew ships far more intricate than this, she had some idea of the fact that there were indeed two spaces—one that made each star (to those looking up from planets) but a pinpoint of light far removed, and that other which was far different—a kind of timeless, distantless place or nonplace into which the ship entered for a lengthy voyage and which would be unmeasured by man, only by the highly developed, thinking machines. So might a ship travel between spaces Simsa of Kuxortal could not even measure.