The Forerunner Factor (22 page)

Three were humanoid, the faces bland, expressionless, with eyes which were mere ovals of smoothed stone. Yet she did not like them. The hostility portrayed by the beasts was open and honest. These others were masks which, she suspicioned, had they been living things, hid emotions and desires more subtle and far worse.

Beyond the passage was another wide space—a road or street. No slippery cobbles set here. The rain had washed across blocks longer than Simsa’s height were she to lie full length upon them, still so closely knit together that though there was a crack here and there through which some thread of greenery had fought its way still the pavement was better kept that any of her home city. This highway was bordered on both sides again by tangles of lush greenery from which there arose buildings, three, four, even five stories high, slatted windows like tears along their sides.

Any walks which must have once led to these doors were long since lost in the luxuriant growth, and vines hugged the walls, forming thick cloaks for a good portion of their heights. Simsa thought that it would surely take the flames of the off-world weapon to clear a path to any of them. Thorn had brought that with them, still steadying it on his hip, one handed.

“Why not take that off since it will not allow you to use the flame thing?” she asked at last, nodding to the cuff.

“Because I cannot—short of cutting it,” he returned quietly. “I have tried.”

With a sudden stab of uneasiness, she turned the ring on her thumb, found it moved easily enough, that she could withdraw it and return it. Then she plucked at the necklace and it also hung free. Why the off-worlder could not shed his portion of her spoil she did not understand.

His “I cannot” had been short and sharp, making plain that he did not want to speak further of the matter. Still she might have persisted, when, suddenly, he made a quick stop, a half turn, to face the eternal mass of growth which stood between them and the buildings. At the same time, she heard, above the noise of insects to which her ears had now become accustomed, another sound, a clicking.

“That way—” Thorn started straight ahead for a wall of tangled brush and vine where Simsa could not distinguish a single opening. Then, as they closed in until the nodding ends of vines, seeking new supports, fluttered near them, she caught glimpses of withered growth, a blackened and scorched tree trunk. Someone had used fire to cut a path through here. Now Thorn fingered the rod he had carried so carefully.

From the end of that shot a brilliant, searing ray. The vegetation became ash, floating through the air. They had a narrow opening before them. What had grown there was but a screen of brush, for open to them now stood the arch of a door which had been completely hidden by vegetation, which now would begin to hide their own passing.

“You say,” Simsa said, as she pressed along on his very heels, having a very unpleasant feeling that the vines and shrubs might begin to close in with an effort to take them prisoner. “You carry a weapon that is not allowed; how did your brother clear this path if he had no such weapon?”

“Well asked,” Thorn commented. “But if he came the same way we did, he may have found that flitter and perhaps, the same as I, a flamer lost by the dead.”

“By the guardians?” It would be long before she forgot those suited figures.

Thorn’s answer was a grunt which meant nothing. He had stepped into a room with painted walls, though there was little light to see those because of the masking of the windows by the growth. Now he switched on his belt light to sweep the beam slowly across the nearest wall.

The paintings were faded but still the colors were visible. They showed odd, asymmetrical arrangements of flowers, and some flying things with brightly spotted wings. The zorsals, now out of the full light, seemed to waken from the stupor which had held them since they had come to Simsa earlier. The two on her shoulders suddenly took wing, up towards the high ceiling. One of them uttered a hunting hoot and swooped into a far corner. What he carried when he arose again made the girl flinch.

“No!” Simsa cried out as the ray of light caught and pinned the zorsal. The thing which he carried, clinging to the prey with his hind paws as he twisted off the head expertly with the front, was only too well known to the girl. What if? She caught at Thorn’s arm.

“That thing feeds upon the dead,” she said in a low voice, which yet sounded far too loud in this chamber. He gave her a slight shove which moved her away.

“Stay!” He mouthed that order even as he strode away. Simsa this time was willing to obey.

She saw Thorn’s ray of light strike into the corner, hold steady for a long moment. Then the off-worlder was returning.

“Whoever it was wore Guildman’s clothing.”

The answer was so different from what she expected, perhaps from what he had also expected to discover, that they stood staring at one another.

“One of those who might have followed your brother?”

“Who will ever know now? Come!” The pace he set as he crossed the chamber was close to a lope. Simsa called the zorsals, but she knew that they would not return to her until their hunting hunger was satisfied. Under another arch man and girl went, and then they were confronted with a long flight of stairs leading upward.

Simsa was not used to climbing such, but the treads were nearly as low and broad as those they had descended into the place of the pool. They reached a level finally to which the vegetation had not yet grown and light came through the windows. There were no designs on the walls here but they had once been painted a plain golden color in which small specks of glitter sparkled tantalizingly as if marking corners of gem stones near buried from sight.

Another arch brought them out, above a sea of green, to walk a narrow bridge which had been built high in the air. Simsa clutched at a railing. To be so out in the air made her feel dizzy, as if she would begin soon to sway from side to side, as the boat had swayed in the hold of the sea; to topple over the edge, and then fall and fall until the ocean of green below would swallow her forever.

Thorn appeared to think this way of traveling entirely natural and was thudding on, never even looking back to where she clung to her anchorage. She set her teeth together and went forward, lest he vanish and be lost in that other building she could see ahead.
He
might be following that off-world guide which would take him along his brother’s marked path, but she had none such to keep her from some wrong turning. For here, even the zorsals (within these tombs of buildings) might become lost.

She had to let go of the rail. Fastening her eyes on Thorn’s disappearing back, she set out after him at a pace which fear increased even as she went.

They did gain the next building without missteps. Thorn stood within the entrance there, that disc once more in his hand, his eyes intent upon it. Simsa had expected to be led to another stair, to descend perhaps as far as they had climbed. Rather, the off-worlder wheeled, passed into a second room, going straight to a window there which was wider than the slits which lay farther down these walls.

He pushed himself up on the ledge to look out and down. Simsa could not see past the width of his shoulders and he said nothing, did not move. At last she could stand the suspense no longer.

“What is it?” She reached out to catch at the arm which wore the cuff, pull at the sleeve so tightly molded against the flesh.

“The end of a world, perhaps.” His words meant very little, but he moved aside so that she could look down in turn.

Almost she cried out, but not quite. Then his hand slid across her lips as an additional seal upon secrecy.

Here there was no forest of green—instead a strip so wide its outer edges were almost lost to sight. In places it was blackened, scarred. While on it—

At first she thought they looked down upon a starship landing field with a fleet in port—a fleet of more ships than had ever come to Kuxortal in a season—in two seasons. Then she saw that most of these ships did not stand erect as if they had landed, as was customary, fins down, noses sky pointed. Two had fallen on their sides, plainly great damaged. Beyond them was a third which was of an entirely different shape altogether than that of the small traders she knew, a round globe from under which protruded a congealed mass of metal: a second ship upon which it had crashed. None of them were—

But, yes, there was one still standing, stark, sky saluting, some distance away. Its sides were smooth and clean where there were the marks of fire, wounds cutting across the others. It looked as if it would be ready to take off at any moment.

But if this was a graveyard for starships which could no longer fly, it was not deserted. Simsa saw what could only be men, men who wore suits like the dead guardians, but who moved, if clumsily. Several sat on carts which went apparently on their own power from one of the wrecked ships to another. Others walked, so slowly in those heavy body coverings, to pile things they had brought out of the wrecks, sorting them.

Thorn’s arm shot out. He was holding the strip which he had told her meant the level of death which lay in such places. She could see that red line, which had been near the middle of the strip when he had first shown it to her, was now a finger-width farther up.

“A deadly place.”

His voice was low, as if he were awed or shocked by the scene they watched.

“But they—”

“Are suited,” he pointed out. “Still, so much danger; what could be worth such exposure?”

“Your weapons of fire?”

“Not just to trade to any little lordlings here,” he returned. “Nor could your Lord Arfellen (though I have some idea he knows something of this) dare to come near what is being gathered. This is what is left of a war command.”

“Your war—did some of your people flee after all their cities were destroyed?”

He was shaking his head. “These are not ships I know, and they are so old—maybe even Forerunner!”

His eyes were wide. “Forerunner arms! Yes! There would be fools on half a hundred worlds who would pay high for such knowledge, even if they could not touch the weapons themselves. You see these can be taken apart, studied, their ways of making taped.
Then
those who made this find—a find that would be blasted into nothingness if it were public knowledge—would have something to sell such as has never been sold before!
This
is a treasure of evil past any reckoning. We have found burned-off planets, but never before a fleet—or even one ship—which fought such wars! Arms to be studied and copied, the ships themselves. These looters can find buyers in plenty and it will mean ruin and death around the galaxy!”

“What will you do?” The force of his words made each come like a small blow. She could understand what he meant. Those working below would take apart these ancient ships and their arms of horror, learn, sell that knowledge. Who on Kuxortal could stop them, when to even go near that ghostly fleet meant death without protection such as only the enemy had?

13

Thorn turned away from the window, once more showing Simsa a closed face. His hands curled into fists, though the fingers of one were still tight about the off-world weapon.

“What will I do?” he repeated softly. He strode two steps across this chamber, turned abruptly and came back to her, to look down at Zass.

“I asked you once before,” he said slowly, as if he were thinking his way from one half tangled and unclear part-idea to the next, “what will these do at your ordering.” Now he nodded at Zass.

“How would you use them?” she countered quickly. To turn her creatures loose on those men below, who were not only completely enclosed in armor suits but were also working, if what Thorn said was true, in an atmosphere deadly to those without protection, was not to be considered.

Thorn was back again at the window, gazing at that scene of activity. “There is a signal, a way to call for help into space, in that wrecked flyer back there,” he said. “If it is not damaged and it could be taken out there and set in the midst of that field . . .”

“Who would hear it?” she demanded. “Do you have a fleet out among the stars waiting for such a call?”

Now he did turn his head to look at her. “When I came here, there were those of my service who were suspicious. We reported our mission to the Patrol. This world is a call-stop mainly for Free Traders, smaller ships who deal on their own, captain and crew sharing in the profits. However, it is known that through the years, Jack ships—pirates—have set down here and sold their takes, gathered supplies and wares which were legal. There has been a watch on Kuxortal for some seasons now for that reason. Thus, there will be a Patrol scout on orbit soon.” He hesitated and frowned. “It may already be there. But it will not touch planet until there is a signal broadcast to bring it down. If we could set up a warn-call—”

Simsa smoothed Zass’s fine fur. Suppose that the zorsals could be led to do as he wished—and they died of this plague? What did she care for the concerns of his League if such action meant death for these who trusted her?

“It might be done at night,” he was continuing. “But also success depends on many factors—whether the signal in the flitter is still usable, whether it can be planted out there, whether I could code in the right call—”

“And whether,” Simsa broke in fiercely, “I am willing to send my zorsals to their deaths! You say that men will die down there if they do not wear those suits; what of these?” She held Zass closer against her, heard anxious twitters and chirps from the two males now drawn to them and fluttering about her head.

“If they go swiftly in and out . . .” but his gaze no longer met hers squarely. Then he added explosively: “I can see no other way, and this MUST be done! Would you see your world die in fire? For I tell you that such as would loot this place of the devices here would make very sure that no one else might come to pick through what they may have missed. They will not have long to make such choices—even in their suits they dare not be exposed to radiation so long as it would take to pick clean each and every one of those ships. What they take will be the richest loot. The rest they shall destroy—and to destroy with the weapons they will loose will leave a sore from which poison shall spread to kill and kill!”