Massa shrugged. “It seems that home rules do not apply any more as far as Tan is concerned. And—he came and talked at Jacel—not to him but at him! It was almost evil the way he worked on Jacel, made him believe he was not a real man unless he would go to meet those signalling things. They, neither one of them, would listen to me when I tried to urge some sense. It was as if they were different people from those I had always known. And sometimes, Ayana, I feel different, too. What is this world doing to us?”
There was nothing left of her serene confidence. Rather the eyes now looking into Ayana’s were those of someone lost and wandering in a strange and frightening place. So—she was not alone! Massa felt it also, that this world was somehow altering them to fit a new pattern, one which was for the worse, compared to that they had known.
“If we only knew,” Ayana said slowly, “the reason why the First Ship people left here. That reason—it may be that we have to face it again now. And we have no defense, not even guesses. Was it invasion of furred creatures like those on the bridge, or like these others who now signal in our own old codes? Disease? It could be anything.”
“I only know that Jacel has changed, and Tan is a stranger, and I no longer understand myself at times. You are a trained medic, Ayana. Could this air here, which our ship’s instruments tells us is good, be some kind of subtle poison? Or is it something from those rows of dead buildings, standing there like bones set on end to mark old graves which must not, for some terrible reason, be forgotten—something reaching out to send us mad?”
Her voice rose higher and higher, her hands began to twitch. Ayana put down her mug, caught those hands to hold them quiet.
“Massa! No, do not imagine things—“
“Why not? What have we left us but what we imagine? I did not imagine that Jacel has taken leave of his senses and gone out to hunt evil shadows in those buildings! He is gone, Tan is gone, and both for no sane reason. You cannot say I have imagined that!”
“No, you have not.” By will Ayana kept her own voice level and steady. “But are you of any help now? What if—“
She had no time to see if that argument had any effect on Massa. For at that moment there was a clicking from the corn, and they both looked to it, tense, reading in that rattle of sound the message.
“Need aid-Ayana-medic—“
“Jacel!” Massa jerked from Ayana’s hold, was on her feet. “He is hurt.”
“No. That was Jacel’s sending. Did you not recognize it? And if he is sending, he cannot be the one in need.” Clicks might not have any voice tone, but they had practiced so long together that they were able to distinguish the sender by rate of speed.
And it would only fit the pattern that Tan, driven by whatever beset him on this world, had gotten into difficulty—bad—or Jacel would not have sent for her.
“Keep on that direction beam.” Now that she was being pressed into action, Ayana knew what to do. “We may need a beacon call back.”
“I am going too—“
“No. They need a medic, and we must have someone in the ship. Your place is here, Massa.”
For a long moment it looked as if she would argue that. Then her shoulders slumped, and Ayana knew she had won.
“I will take a belt corn, go in on their out-wave. Set that for me, Massa, while I go to get a suit and my kit.”
“And if this is somehow a trap?”
“We have to take that chance. I must go.” Ayana faced the bare truth squarely.
It was mid-morning with no clouds or sign of storm. The sun was warm, too warm across the glare of fused scars where ships had taken off and landed—how long ago? Beyond, the gray-white cliffs of the buildings. Ayana wearing her protect suit, her belt heavy with explorer’s devices and aids, the medic kit at her back, tramped on, the corn beep at her belt as a compass.
As long as those she sought wore similar devices she would eventually find them. How long would that take? Her impulse was to run, her self-command kept her to a ground-covering stride which would not invite disaster. There had been no more messages. But she had left Massa at the corn in the control cabin ready for any such call.
Massa would relay to her any message, but some-how she was sure that none would come.
Now she approached the buildings. Windows regarded her slyly. The sensation of being spied upon was like a crawling touch on her skin. She had to fight her fears to keep on in the direction the corn marked for her.
Though at a distance the blocks of the buildings seemed to ring in solidly the open landing site, yet, as Ayana advanced, she saw that this was not true. There was a space at a side angle, where one could pass between two towers.
The opening was a narrow street at a sharp angle in relation to the port, so that when Ayana was only a step or so down it, she could no longer look back to the ship. But the corn urged her ahead—this was the way.
There were drifts of sand and earth at the beginning of the street, but farther down, where the wind could not reach so readily, the pavement was bare. On both sides there were no windows or doors in the first stories of the buildings, leaving them blankly solid like the walls of a fortification. Though well above there were windows. It was not until Ayana reached the first crossway that there was a change. Here were doors, windows, at street level. The doors were closed and she tried none of them. Her beeping guide turned her into another cross street which headed yet farther into the city. They had believed that they had built cities on Elhorn during the last two hundred years. But what they had done there was the piling up of children’s blocks compared to this! And what had brought it all to nothing?
There were no signs of such destruction as a natural catastrophe or war might have left. Just silence—but not emptiness! No, with every step she took, Ayana was aware of hidden life. She could not see it, nor hear it, and she did not have a persona detect (that had gone with Tan), but she knew something was there. So her hand swung close to her stunner, and she looked continuously from side to side, sure that soon—from some doorway—
Another crossway, again she was to go right according to the corn. Something— Ayana stopped short, the stunner now drawn; something had scuttled away up ahead. She was sure imagination had not tricked her. She had actually seen that flicker of motion at a door. All her instincts warned her to retreat, but the beep of the corn held steady. Somewhere ahead Jacel, or Tan, or both of them had their corns on call, and that would not happen unless need was greater than caution. She had no choice after all.
But Ayana kept to the middle of the street, well away from those buildings. The open would give her what small advantage there might be. Now she reached the doorway where she had seen the movement. The door there was open, but, as far as she could detect, nothing crouched within. She did not explore. But as she passed it, she went stiff and tense; to have that behind her was bad.
The second cross street brought her out into a place which was in direct contrast to the rest of the city. Here was a sprawl of growing things, a huge, autumn-killed tangle choked in a frame of corroded metal. Ayana, facing that mass, thought she could trace in some of the upright and horizontal crossbeams the frame of a building. But if it had ever been more than just the skeleton of such, the vines and other growth had taken over and destroyed all but the bones.
Much of the riotous vegetation was dry and dead.
But from that black, withered mass new shoots rose. Not of an honest rich green, but of a green that was oddly grayed, as if it were indeed only the ghost of the plants that had put forth new shoots and runners.
It was into the center of that sickly mass that the beep directed her. Though how she could enter such a tangle—
Ayana walked along the outer fringe of the growth, seeking by will, not by inclination, some possible opening. Shortly she came upon a path hacked, bro-ken, burnt. Though why those she sought had forced their way into that unwholesome mass she could not guess.