Ayana hated them on sight. She watched with frozen horror as Tan advanced to greet the tallest white-furred one, which seemed to be their leader, squatting down so that his head came closer to that of the creature.
Around its neck hung a small box. It reached with one paw—hand?—and touched that. Then it uttered a series of squeaks, but from the box came distorted but still recognizable words.
“Chief-waits-hurry-hurry—“
“She is here.” Tan nodded toward Ayana. “She is ready.”
“No!” Ayana cried. Not for all the knowledge, all the treasure of this world heaped up before her, would she go with these small horrors deeper into their burrows.
Tan, on his feet, came at her, and she could not get away. She could not even slip along the wall out of his reach.
“Little fool!” He caught her arm in so painful a grip that she gasped. “Do you go with them on your own two feet, or do I inject you with a sleep-shot and let them carry you? No stupidity is going to wreck my plans now, do you understand?”
And she knew that he would do just that. If she went, perhaps with an outward show of willingness, she could at least see the road they took, might even be able to escape. If he drugged her and they took her—no, she had no choice.
“Try no tricks with them, they are not animals.”
Tan showed his teeth almost as if they were the fangs of the waiting squad. “Jacel discovered that. Now get going—“
He gave her a push, and she stumbled toward the door. Around her the creatures closed in.
Ayana stood looking about, first in bewilderment and then with a growing excitement which drew her attention from those chittering things which had brought her here—and even from Tan, who had followed behind and with whom she had not spoken since this nightmare began. For he had actually picked up and carried the chief horror—that half bald, half white-furred leader, exchanging speech with him. The girl had pushed ahead to avoid that monstrous companionship. For monstrous her emotions told her it was!
But this place! She had studied in detail every scrap of information having to do with medical knowledge that they had found in the looted tape banks of the First Ships. Ayana had had access in addition to all the combined learning, surmise, and speculation of those who had had more than a hundred years before her to study the same records.
So now she turned slowly about, surveying a vast and much better lighted chamber, cut by many partitions rising to her shoulder height or beyond, into booths and cubicles. This was indeed a medical center such as her teachers had hardly dared dream existed on the parent world.
Some of the machines she recognized from old diagrams—diagnostic, operative, healing— For a moment, in her amazement and excitement, Ayana forgot her company and went forward confidently, pausing here and there before an installation she did know, passing for now those she could not understand. Why—with these—if they still worked—one could cure a nation!
Ayana put out her hand, ran finger tips along the outer transparent wall of a healing cell. If they worked! But how long had it been since they had been put to use? She might be able to work out the procedure for activating those she did know, always providing they were intact. But if their machinery was at fault, she had no way of knowing what a tech would do to put that right again.
She passed down one aisle between those partitions and came into an open space. There before her—
That table—the smell—the pools of—blood! Ayana recoiled as she faced it. Amid the sterile disuse of the rest of the place, this was like a blow in the face, to bring her to the realization of how she had come here. The tangle of blood-stained instruments thrown in an ugly pile on one end of the table hinted more of cruel butchery than of any desire to heal. What had they done here—these small monsters with whom Tan seemed to have made some evil pact?
“Well?” Tan’s voice from behind made her start, “What do you think of this? Did I not tell you there was more to be found than you could guess? Now- Oudu wants to know if you can use it to cure his chief.”
She looked away from that blood-stained table with a shudder, tried to close her mind to it. And she was able to find voice enough to croak:
“Some of this was on the tapes. The rest”—Ayana shook her head—“is new. And we do not know whether the power works.”
“Oudu will know.” He looked at that thing he carried, as if, Ayana thought, it was human!
“Some work—“ The dry rustle of the words overlay the shrill chittering as the box on the creature’s chest translated. “There is material to try with—“
“Material?” Ayana could not force herself to look directly at Oudu, nor address it—him. “What does he mean?”
“I believe they have been experimenting for themselves. They have taken prisoners from time to time, the animals roaming in here. They use them, just as our ancestors used to do. That’s why those were here in the first place—they were lab animals.”
“We—we were helpers of the Great Ones!” came that other voice. “Workers here. The others, they were used to try the machines upon—as we do now. But many escaped, many lie in wait—kill—destroy. They destroy the records, the knowledge. Soon all will be gone if we do not stop them.”
“See?” Tan demanded. “We have to stop such destruction—or we’ll lose everything.”
“Do not waste time!’ Oudu cut in. “Shimog dies. Let this knowing female use her knowledge to make Shimog live again.’
Ayana swallowed. “I have to see-see—“
“Naturally. They have him down here.” Tan passed that ghastly table as if it did not exist, and she followed, glad to leave it. But she knew now that she played a game, and it would not be Tan’s. No alliance with these things—she could not do it. Not for all the knowledge here!
Not even, asked something within her, if it means the success or failure of your mission? The life or death of those on Elhorn? But Elhorn was far away, and here—here was now, before her. She could only follow Tan’s lead for a time, waiting for a chance, a plan, to wrest herself free of this nightmare.
They came to a cubicle at the end of the line, and there was a gathering of the creatures, several on guard at the door, two by the cot within. Lying on the cot was one even larger than Oudu and even more scantily furred.
It—he—was swollen of paunch. And the skin, where it showed, was dark, scaled with sores. Breath came and went in slow, heavy panting, -as if the effort to breathe was almost too great. Its attendants drew back as Ayana forced herself on her knees close to the creature.
She could not find any pity, even when the thing turned its head a fraction and looked at her. For the consciousness within those eyes was coldly evil. Ayana recognized intelligence of a type so alien to all she believed in that it was like meeting black and deadly hatred formed into a repulsive body.
There was no way of telling how or why Shimog suffered. She could only guess that it was from some disease. But that might be native to this planet, or to the creature’s own foul species. Certainly she had never seen such symptoms before.
“What can you do?” Tan demanded impatiently. What? She had no idea. Except one. She had seen something out there she had recognized—a renewal chamber. If this Shimog was in the least responsive to what would act for humans, that might be the best hope.
“The renewal chamber. If the installation works—that might help.”
“A machine?” Oudu demanded. “You can run this machine?”
“I have seen directions for such,” she answered, careful not to make any promises to these small devils. “I would have to try it, to make sure that it was running properly, before we used it on your chief.”
“To do so then you must have an animal?” came the swift demand.
“But it will only work on one hurt—or ill.”
“We have what is needed.”
Oudu did not add to that, but he might have given some inaudible order, for most of those who had come with them scurried away.
Troubled, Ayana arose. “I must see the renewer—“ Free of that cubicle with its fetid odor, its aura of dark hate, she ran back to the glass-walled booth with the soft flooring. It was large enough to accommodate some twenty beings of Shimog’s size, perhaps five humans.
She did not open the door, but went to the controls.
Since she could not set for any particular disease, well, it would be full treatment. Yes, here were the symbols she had seen on the tapes. And a single finger-press brought an answering spark of life-worked! At least the power was still on. And—