The Forerunner Factor

  And again, there was a shadow—one who came even as Simsa of the Burrows came to wonder and to break time’s lock. The globe swooped toward that shadow. It disappeared and she was again able to move. But she knew her first meeting had been the right one. When she doubted then, she had unconsciously attempted to rend something that had been meant to be sealed. Yes, she was Simsa, but—

  By the light of the orb she could see the two hands that reached forth. She seized upon the rod and brought it to her. This was what she had sought—this was the binding beyond any cutting of bonds.

  Dark again, but now no whirling trails of mist people. Simsa opened her eyes. She lay on her side, her knee nudging the rim of the poison pool. Pain . . . she waited for the pain to begin again. Then she realized she had learned, she had gone beyond. The very ancient final test for travelers had been given her and she was the victor. Yet, when she tried to pull herself up, she was very tired, as worn as if she had hiked for days or labored past her bounds of energy.

  She heard the scream of Zass and the zorsal spiraled from the sky haze overhead, to claw a hold on the back of the middle throne. Suddenly, in a rising tide of laughter, Simsa felt within her relief from all that had happened since she had found this chamber.

  “Ha, Rhotgard, wherever you may be—see what wisdom has now come to seat itself in your place.” She moved too fast and grimaced as limbs that had been cramped protested. Making a wry face in the direction of the pool of initiation, she pulled forward her own leaf bag and took a swallow of the water she had brought with her.

  The pool was no longer calm, glasslike as a mirror, nor was it aripple. Still, through its depth so that she caught glimpses now and then, she saw movement, the movement of those shadow people who lived (if they lived) now apart.

  Her fruit was overripe and smelled as though it were close to rotting. But she conscientiously ate it and, with the water, it was summoning back her strength. Zass walked the length of the throne seat and came so to peer into the pool herself.

  She flung up her head so that her antennae tossed like plumes and spat—the ultimate in her gestures of disdain.

  “Be not so bold,” Simsa warned her. “It is a test, but it might be more for an impudent zorsal.” She scrambled awkwardly to her feet and then began stretching and bending each limb, turning her body this way and that. How long had the shadowland kept her? She could not tell—time itself was forgotten here. But the pain that had racked her was gone and what she felt now was only the complaint of cramped muscles.

  She stooped at last and picked up the rod. Perhaps it had not shared her venture, but its essence had brought her through. It would be long, she thought, before she would learn all it was capable of in her hands, even though the Elder One was no longer pushed aside but shared the high seat within her.

  With half-recognition, the girl looked around. She might never have trod the rock of this world before, but this chamber was familiar to her, a place that was to be found in every sector center where the Kalassa went. Kalassa—she had a name and with it a flood of memories which she banished for the moment. Time enough to pull upon those when she had not her own work to undo. That which she had wrought in fear must be broken. Such fears were like the drifting shadows, things now without any real substance at all.

  From this world, there was speeding a ship and on board it, one with whose memories she had meddled. As the valley dwellers, she realized fully now what her fear had led her to do. She had made of him also two people and who better than she could understand what that would mean to any living creature? He would dream and awake with bits of dream so real that it would shake him, his belief in himself. He would walk down some street on another world and see an object that would bring a flash of recognition; he would be talking to friends and suddenly wonder why he had used words . . . He would—

  No!

  If she had learned anything in this time of trial, it was that none should be two. Perhaps, the memory self she had set on Thorn would not be as known to him, as much of a burden as the one she had borne, but he was to be freed from even the shadow of a shadow.

  She put aside her bags and set her improvised pack to one side. With the rod firmly in her right hand, she approached the throne nearest to her.

  “By thy leave, sisterling.” She had not said that aloud, but she was certain that it reached whatever shadow had once had form and had sat there judging. Seating herself forward on the throne, she passed the rod with a wide swing of her arm across the end of the pool nearest to her.

  For the first time, the surface of the water was broken by a troubling which sent wavelets skidding outward from an upsurge in its center. That troubling of the water brought with it a puff of odor—not as foul as one would believe could rise from a poisoned pool, rather one that made her think of a field on Kuxortal where she had once lain down under the sun of spring and spent a quiet hour such as those of the Burrows seldom knew.

  Staring down into the troubled pool, she began tentatively with some fear, which she quickly choked off lest it weaken her, to search. What she had done tied them. The Elder One knew and feared such ties. For if ill came of it, both the captured and the captor suffered. So it was with a sense of duty as strong as any order laid upon her that Simsa began her search.

  First, she visualized her Life Boat, how she had left it among an upturn of rocks that had the appearance of a forest of stone trees stripped of all save their broken boles. He had been there—it was what had sent him questing out across the rock plain. So—

  “Thorn?” No call echoed aloud, but such a seeking as this world, this galaxy, had not known for a thousand years’ planet time—or more. “Thorn?”

  In the pool, she used the troubled waters to build his reflection. So lay his dark hair—so were set the planes of his face, his slanting eyes—so had he looked with that intent study when they had sought the answer to the death that had lain in the ruined city for countless years, with the threat of returning to trouble life-forces again. There were his shoulders, wide under the tight-clinging fabric of his spacer’s uniform, his narrow waist so supple when he moved—Bit by bit, calling her own memories of him to the fore, she built his likeness upon the water.

  Now—she edged forward a fraction on the throne—now she must see him as he went from her the last time, wide-eyed but sightless for a time, his wound dressed with the rags of her blanket, his head still up as if he, too, heard the hum of the flitter come to take him back.

  He was a man, no illusion that she might have constructed to save herself for a space. And because he was a man she owed him—Simsa fingered the rod, drew fiercely upon that other memory—a debt to be paid and only she to pay it.

  15

  Farther—out and out—she had tied a bond between them; surely, she could ride that road to find him. The rod blazed high in her hands and the water in the pool now churned from side to side. Still, below its surface, she could see an outline of a shadow—a ship—the ship that should have borne him away. But that was still standing on its fins, pointing skyward. Not off-world yet?

  Simsa pinned that shadow with part of her will, held it steady, as within it she sought that which she must find. There were living things encased, yes. She brushed past minds, impatient to discover what she sought. None of them—then where—

  Thorn! Of his name she made a cord of concentration, of demanding.

  Thorn! At last she touched! As Zass might use her claws to capture prey, so did Simsa fasten on that other one. Thorn!

  Yet his shadow grew no clearer as she strove to break through the wall she had so harshly and strongly built to control his future. He was like those spacemen clad in armor whom they had fought together on Kuxortal, impervious to the very will that had sent him forth.

  Thorn! she demanded again.

  He was gone!

  The strength she had put into his summoning swung back upon her like a blow until she felt as if the last thread of breath was almost driven from her lungs. She dropped
the rod and caught with both hands at the arms of the throne chair lest she be thrown into the fury of the pool before her, whose contents seethed as if all the fires in the world were bringing them to a boil.

  Simsa swayed again, braced herself. She had so strongly believed that what one had wrought might be also dismissed upon willing. But Thorn—she could not even hold any longer to him at all! Hers the deed and one she would have to live with.

  That backlash of the power she had used was exhausting itself. She felt sick and giddy as she huddled in her seat, watching the whirling of the waters.

  “Elder One.” She did not cry aloud, but the petition of that name echoed through her spare, taut body. “Elder One?”

  Wildly, she threw open her mind, summoned—what, she did not know. Somewhere, there was an answer. She had been so confident that she could break the bonds laid upon Thorn. The valley people had been right in their judgment of her act. She had called forces she could not even put name to and now she would dare to try again—if she could—for her will was a limp thing, drained of all energy, a feeble tool she could not depend upon.

  The tumult in the pool was subsiding and the haze overhead was thickening for night. Still, Simsa crouched within the curve of the throne and Zass, perched on the taller back of the one in the middle, let out a small cry—a querulous one demanding attention.

  At last, Simsa gathered up the rod that lay at her feet and stumbled down and away from her perch. She caught one foot against her pack and would have fallen, looking at it dully. Then, she gathered up her water bags and what else she had carried, turned her back upon the pool and the thrones, and wavered toward the entrance that had brought her hither. Zass cried out again and flew a circle over the girl’s head as Simsa took hesitant step by hesitant step, unaware of the tears wetting her thin cheeks.

  She had been so very sure that she had at last come into her real heritage, that there would no longer be a cleavage within her. But when she had tried to project as she was sure that the Elder One had been able to do—perhaps she had bested the Elder One in spite of herself. Sometimes that which one wanted the most slipped through one’s fingers. And she had been for all this time trying to push away from her that oneness which she had first delighted in.

  As she went, Simsa made no choice of passage to follow. The long, dimly lit hallways fed into one another and she was so weary. Yet, she could not rest here in the place of her great failure. Let her win out of this shrine of the dead, be again under the open haze of nighttime. That she wanted more than anything now with a dumb, inner aching. Twice, the zorsal returned to ride for a short time on her shoulder as she stumbled along. But whenever Simsa stood for a moment or two, supporting herself with one hand against the wall, Zass uttered chirruping cries in her very ear as if she would spur the girl on to greater efforts, as though she knew ahead lay something better than the gloom of these stark corridors.

  At last, a final door stood open and there was more light before her. She wavered out into the open, the stark-walled buildings behind her.

  Here was a platform overhanging a dip in the contour of the land which descended in a series of wide ledges or steps into such a tangle of vegetation as she had seen in the valley. The buildings or building lay entirely behind her and she was free of its hold on her. Simsa crossed the first of those ledges and, on the second, as far from the door through which she came as she could go, she dropped to the stone, the zorsal taking off into the mists of the night with a cry that sounded like a shrilling of triumph.

  There was food and water. Most of the fruit was too bruised and spoiled to eat and she hurled it from her into the growth beneath. She allowed herself only a few sips of the water, not knowing when she would find another spring, and curled up; the weakness and fatigue she had carried as a burden since she came from the initiation chamber finally crushed her. Though there was only the hard stone to lie upon, Simsa drowsed.

  An aching loneliness closed in, flooding her mind as the fatigue tore upon her body. Was this how the flyer had felt when the past was cut from his life and he had been left here alone? She herself had cut off her past deliberately, and now—Was it worth what she had done? That was her last thought before sleep, deep and dreamless, closed upon her. Did she dream? If she did, there was no memory upon awakening. It was Zass’s shrilling cry that pulled her out of that depth. The zorsal walked up and down the ledge within an arm’s length, her antennae weaving furiously. Plainly, she was disturbed or highly excited. It was midday by the look of the haze overhead.

  For the second time, Simsa had awakened so cramped and sore of body that it was a minor agony to move. Before prudence ruled again, she had taken up the leaf carrier that held water within—the other being already flattened and dry—and drank deeply to clear her throat of the dust of this place which still choked her.

  Zass’s talons clicked against the rock of the wide step as she came to squat before the girl, looking up into her face with an interest that demanded attention.

  “Others—”

  “Others?” queried Simsa. What others could there be, unless that wide stretch of vegetation to which the steps led was another inhabited valley. She tried to pick up from the in-and-out emissions of the zorsal’s mind some hint.

  But while she looked to Zass for aid, there came another sound out of the haze overhead, one that made her drag herself up, striving to find the last rags of energy to carry her. Where? Back into the place of the long dead—or forward down the stairs into that green-gold covering? A flitter! She could not mistake that!

  But Thorn—surely he had been firmly under the altered memories when he had left her. When? Days earlier? In this haze, it was easy to lose all track of time. What else would he do but quietly and obediently return to the outer world, wait for his people? There had been no break in the shell she had built about him—that she could swear to. Or dared she swear to anything? Hallucinations might have betrayed her instead of him. Still, she was not ready to confront any off-worlder.

  Simsa pushed a heavy lock of hair out of her eyes. She made her decision quickly as the sound of the flitter grew stronger. There was an odd glow on the haze some distance to the north—as if the machine itself was emitting light in order to break up the haze. Or perhaps these off-worlders with all their bits of knowledge regained from the shattered past could use some mechanical means to so penetrate that curtain which cocooned this part of the planet.

  At any rate, these tall bushes and trees ahead promised better hiding. Were those aloft in the flitter to sight the buildings, she was certain they would land, perhaps upon the very ledge above her, for exploration. Her cramped body protesting every movement, she started running for the end of the second ledge where she had slept, then across the next one. Three such she descended without seeing more of the off-world machine than that spot in the haze, but the sound of the engine was steady—a heavy beat—and it was moving at a pace no faster than a walking one. They were spying below—they had to be.

  She had seen on screens within the spaceship pictures taken from at least six different worlds. They had tried to interest her so, she had thought, that she would not be aware of their intentions concerning herself.

  Her foot came down on a rotted fruit, perhaps one of those she had flung to the winds earlier, and she skidded, flailing arms to try and retain her balance. Her efforts brought her to the right-hand side of that wide flight of stairs so that when she fell it was not on the worked stone but on the earth beyond. She had only a second to ball herself as well as she could. Then she struck with a jolt that drove the air out of her lungs and rolled on down until she hit against the thick stem of a plant that was tree tall and tossed its leafed head from the shaking she gave it.

  For a moment, she could only lie there. Somewhere Zass was airborne and calling to her. But she believed that the zorsal was wary enough to keep away from the flitter still, by the sound, cruising overhead. As soon as she got her breath back fully, paying no attention to bleedin
g scratches or abrasions, she crept on her hands and knees farther on until she was sure that she was under cover. Then she rolled over on her back and stared up at the leafed branches overhead trying to think, to subdue her rush of panic.

  Why had she believed that the ceremony of the forgotten people had made her invincible? That independence which had been hers from birth had made her believe that she was a worker of wonders—

  All right, let her now work one of those wonders on this hovering sky spy. Dared she try to reach any aboard that flyer with a talent that she admitted now she was untrained to use? Had it been her seeking for Thorn at the hall of thrones that had brought the space rovers out again to hunt? Her foolishness was enough to shame her many times over. To attack an enemy when you did not know the range of any weapon that might be brought against you—to overestimate your own . . . Yes, she was a fool and they could be only playing with her in order to cow her into their hands to do their will with even less freedom than a zorsal on a flying leash.

  Thorns tore at her shoulders. A vine, locked about her throat, brought her close enough to the choking point to make her fight vigorously. But all this was under the reaching roof of the trees, and perhaps she passed unseen. Or did they have such spy weapons as could pierce through that leafy covering, center on any life-form that moved below? Simsa all her life had heard so many tales of the invincible machines and installations of the spacemen that she could believe anything might be true.

  There were no paths here, or at least she had not chanced on one.

  One path—just one path—she had no idea why that meant so much to her, unless it promised speed. What did she flee? Some reaching bolt of energy from that flyer overhead? The sound of its engine deepened, almost like the roar of a canzar from her home world.