“Unregistered and unlawful entrance—”
That was not the voice that had issued from Fanyi’s lips. It sounded more like the one that had gabbled at him earlier during his journey through these burrows. Where was what he sought? Hidden in one of these cases—?
“Mark one protection—”
He did not know the meaning of all those words. It was enough that they must be a threat. Not attempting to get to his feet, Sander took from the front of his belt the rod that had armed Maxim. He thumbed the highest button on its length and aimed it at the tall box that showed the most lights. The beam struck full, ate into the metal. At the same time Sander was aware of a trundling noise. Coming toward him out of the shadow was a mobile metal thing.
“Seize for interrogation—” yammered the voice, as the metal creature scuttled toward Sander.
He was backed tight to the broken wall. Dare he turn the rod on that thing moving toward him? If it were controlled elsewhere, what—
There was a flare of light. The box he had attacked spurted small tongues of flame. He did not wait, but swung the beam to the next one that showed activity. Something closed about his ankle. A line had snaked forth from the running machine, had locked about his flesh. Another was whipping toward his body. Then a furred form flashed between. There was a growl as the line wrapped around Kai, imprisoning the fisher.
Sander continued to play the beam on target. The second panel blew. Kayi had joined her mate, only to be caught, yet keeping the lines spun by the sentry away from Sander.
Pulling away as far as his trapped ankle allowed, the smith sprayed the beam down the line. Four, five, six—suddenly the line that held him uncurled, fell limp to the floor. Sander scrambled up, moved to destroy more of the panels. When he reached them, the beam no longer responded. But then neither did any more lights show. The burnt odor was stifling. He attempted to close his cut hand. If that would serve him, he would try to finish off the rest by hammer. Was this the lair of the Presence? If it was not—
Sander choked and coughed, his eyes smarted, his throat was painfully dry. The air here hurt deep into his nose and throat as he breathed. He must get back—out, even if he had not completed the job—
Through a haze, Sander pulled his way back, holding onto one half-melted panel and then the next, seeking the entrance hole. When he pulled through, he saw Fanyi—not sitting now, but lying in a small heap on the floor, as if she had slid helplessly from the chair. He lurched to her, but the fishers were ahead of him, Kayi licking the girl’s face, pawing at her body, uttering small whimpers.
Sander went cold. Had—had he killed Fanyi? Was she— He stumbled to her. Kayi growled warningly, but let him lay hands on the girl, his cut one leaving bloody prints on her shoulders and her arms.
Her eyes were closed, her face empty of expression—but she was alive!
He rested there, her head resting in his lap, his wounded hand stretched along the seat of the chair. Then he remembered the pendant he had tucked into his belt. One-handedly he drew it forth and laid it on her breast where she had always worn it.
Fanyi’s eyelids moved. She gazed up at him in an unfocused way that again awoke his fears. Then her gaze cleared. It was plain she knew him.
“It is—crippled!” she said.
He gave a sigh. So he had not won completely after all.
“How badly?” he asked.
There was a long moment before she replied. “It—it is part gone—those who know how might still use some of it.”
“No!” He remembered what had brought him here. The thing he had destroyed might make any man master of this riven world. But there was no man strong enough, wise enough, no man left to use such knowledge.
“No,” she echoed him.
“Your weapons to save your people—” he said.
“Your smith’s knowledge—” She matched him.
“It is of another world,” she said slowly. “Even though that which made it our enemy has gone out of it, let it be. It is not ours.”
He thought of the Traders, of the White Ones whom this thing had summoned.
“It must be no one’s.”
She nodded, pulling herself up. Then with a cry of concern she caught his hand.
Later they sat on the floor by their worn trail gear. He had dragged Maxim’s body out of sight. Fanyi treated his hand with her salves, but it would be days before he could use his hammer again.
There was a coldness in this place, a sense of life gone, that was akin to the terror they had felt earlier on those storm-battered heights. The girl fingered Maxim’s first rod, which she had thrown away in the chamber of the Presence.
“It cannot repair itself. And I do not think it has anyone to serve it here now. Maxim must have been the last, but there might be those who would try.”
“There is still some power in that,” Sander nodded at the rod. “Perhaps enough to seal the outer entrance.”
Fanyi touched the pendant that still hung around her neck. “I do not think there is another one of these. If we can do that—seal the entrance—no one will find it. The White Ones, they do not know exactly what they seek. Their Shamans are dreamers—of dreams sent by that thing.”
“Machine—or man?” Sander wondered.
Fanyi shivered. “Both. But how the Before Men could do that—! It may still live, though you have destroyed that which gave it power. If so—what a horror faces it—life locked into a prison without end.”
“What of your people?” he asked.
“What of yours?” she countered.
Sander answered first. “Mine do well enough. They have a smith, not as good as my father, but one they trust. I—they are kin. Still I find it hard now to remember any face among them that I long greatly to see again.”
“I am yet bound.” Fanyi held the pendant. “We may be able to seal one danger in the earth. There are others without. What I can do to aid my clan, that I shall, though I bring no greater strength with me. I failed Padford, therefore the debt is mine.”
“And how will you repay?”
“There are ways to travel south. If any of my people live captive there, then they still have claim on me.”
Sander stirred, his hand hurt when he moved it, in spite of the dressing she had put on the cuts. Traveling one-handed for a while would be awkward.
“South it is then. Once we have made secure what lies here.”
She frowned. “This is no duty of yours, smith!”
He smiled. “Perhaps so. But I have chosen the out trail. Does it matter where one wanders when one is kinless by will? There is this thought in mind, Shaman. We came here seeking knowledge. We have found it, though not as we expected.”
“What’s your meaning, smith?”
“Just this: we have tried long to live upon the remnants of the Before Time, ever looking backward. But why should we? There is no night without stars, and the blackness of our night can be lighted by our own efforts. We are ourselves, not the Before Ones. Therefore, we must learn for ourselves, not try to revive what was known by those we might not even want to call kin were we to meet them. I am no kin of Maxim!”
“No kin—” she repeated. “Yes, that rings true, smith! Neither am I kin to those who stored such knowledge as that thing strove to make me use. We begin again, light our night stars, and hope to do better.”
“We begin again,” Sander agreed and then added, “to the south, Fanyi, since you are duty-bound. Let us see if the Sea Sharks can be defied by our own means. After all, have we not bested here something far worse than any peril we knew?”
“Smith, you are a man who believes in his own worth.”
Sander, nursing his torn hand, rose to his feet. He put out his sound one to rest on Rhin’s shoulder.
“It never harms a man to value himself,” he returned mildly. “And if he has good companions and a trade, what more does he want?”
Fanyi laughed now. “Well, perhaps one or two things more, Sander. But those shall doubtless also come in their own season. No night lasts forever.”
THE END