Ziantha stiffened. Had he detected the seam? Would he now open it? Instead, he gave the artifact a push in her direction.
“Keep it with you, girl. I am told the power of these things increases if they continue in a sensitive’s hold. We shall need your direction again. It is well”—he spoke now to Yasa—“this is worth the use of a ship. Iuban is in orbit. He had only an abortive raid on Fenris and is under obligation to me for supplies. A class D Free Trader convert. Rough travel, gentle fems—“
“Deep sleep will answer that,” Yasa returned. “We have no wish to be cabin passengers on such a ship. You will time-lock our sleep boxes.”
“How wise of you, gentle fem,” his menace-smile showed two teeth almost as fanglike as Yasa’s own. “Deep sleep and time locks—set so myself. Iuban is my man, however.” Those last words were a warning which Yasa accepted with a surface good humor. To Ziantha the Salarika veep seemed uncommonly trusting. But perhaps here she could do no more than accept Sreng’s arrangements.
Where was Ogan? Since their transfer to the shuttle which had brought them to Waystar after their first awakening, they had seen nothing of him. But that he was to be ruled out of this venture, Ziantha did not believe.
The rest of their stay on Waystar was short, and they kept to the chamber Sreng had assigned them. Twice more Ziantha was aware of that elusive scan. It had first alarmed her, but later she sought it, her curiosity aroused. It was not mechanically induced, of that she was certain. The touch was that of a living entity—Ogan? But the wave length seemed different. And she thought it was not seeking her so much as pursuing some purpose of its own.
They joined Iuban’s ship and were again boxed for the voyage. From what Ziantha had seen of the ship and its crew, to be so sealed from them was an excellent choice. Once more she prepared to sleep away time with the lump beside her. If she had dreamed any dreams induced by its proximity before, she had not remembered them, and this second time she did not fear the long sleep.
When they were aroused, Iuban’s ship was already in orbit around a planet, and he summoned Yasa and Ziantha to the control cabin to watch through the visa-screen the changing view of the world below.
“Where do we set down, gentle fem?” he asked harshly.
He was young, or young seeming, for his command, and not unhandsome—until one saw the dead chill of his eyes, which made him the semblance of a man without warmth or emotion. Perhaps he was of mutation or crossbreed, for his hands were six-fingered and his ears mere holes. By the way his space tunic fitted Ziantha guessed that he had other body peculiarities.
It was plain that he had tight command of his motley crew. And it was also apparent that he united in his person the ruthlessness of a top-rated Jack captain with an intelligence that might differ in part from the Terran but in its own way was of a high level.
Yasa put her hand on Ziantha’s arm. “Where?” she asked the girl. “Have you any guide?”
As Ziantha hesitated, unable to answer, Iuban uttered an impatient sound. Then he added:
“We have neither time, manpower, nor supplies, gentle fem, to search the whole planet. Besides”—he touched a button and the scene on the visa-screen sharpened—“that’s no territory to search. By the looks, it’s been near to a burn-off down there.”
Ziantha had seen in the video-history tapes the records of planets burned off, not only in war, but in some ancient disaster. Some were cinder balls; on others, mutant and ofttimes radioactive vegetation straggled, attempting to keep a few forms of life in the pockets between churned and twisted swaths of soil and recooled molten rock.
From the picture now flitting before her as the ship swung in orbit, she could see that some disaster, either manmade or a vast convulsion of nature, had struck this unknown world. There were great, deep-riven chasms, their rims knife-sharp; stretches of what could be only deserts, with, at great intervals, some touch of color suggesting vegetation. They were over a sea now, one manifestly shrunken to half its former size.
But she had no guide—
Fool! There was Singakok. It was as if a ripple had crossed the screen. She saw a city, rich land around it. Why, she could easily distinguish the Tower of Vut, long avenues, the—
“There!”
But even as she cried that aloud, Singakok was gone. There was only rock and more rock. Ziantha shook her head. Singakok—Vut—the avenues—from whence had come those names? How had she seen a city, known it as if she had walked its pavements all her life? They had asked her and she had seen it, as if it were real! Yet it could not have been.
Iuban no longer gave her any attention. He spoke to the astro-navigator. “Got it?”
“Within measurable error, yes.”
She must tell them, not let them land because of that weird double flash of sight. Then prudence argued that she leave well enough alone. It might be that the artifact had given her vision of something which had once existed on that site, and, since they had picked up nothing else of any promise that was as good a place as any to begin looking. Yet she was uneasy at Iuban’s quick acceptance, and of what might happen should her suggestion prove to be wrong.
They strapped down for a landing that had to be carefully plotted in that rough country. Nor did they stir from their places until the readings on atmosphere and the like came through. For all its destroyed surface, it registered Arth-type One, and they would be able to explore without helmets and breathing equipment.
But they had landed close to evening and Yasa and Iuban agreed not to explore until morning. He turned his own cabin over to the women, staying in the control section above. When they were alone Ziantha dared to make plain her fear.
“This may not be what you wish—“ she said in a half-whisper, not knowing if some listening device could be now turned on them.
“What made you select it then?” Yasa wanted to know.
Ziantha tried to describe those moments when the picture of Singakok had flowed across the screen, a city which seemingly no longer existed.
“Singakok, Vut,” Yasa repeated the names.
“That is the closest I can say them,” the girl said. “They are from another language—not Basic.”
“Describe this city, try to fix it in your mind,” Yasa ordered.
Detail by detail Ziantha strove to remember that fleeting picture. And she found that the harder she tried to remember, the more points came clearer in her mind. As if even now she could “see” what she strove to describe.
“I think you have had a true seeing,” Yasa commented. “When Ogan arrives, we can—if we have not by then located any trace—entrance you for a far-seeking reading.”
“Then Ogan comes?”
“Cubling, did you think that I throw away any advantage blindly? We needed Sreng’s computer records. In their way they are more complete than even those of Survey, since they deal with sections of the starways even the Survey Scouts have not fully pioneered. But to then meekly make a pact with Waystar—no, that is not what any but a fool would do! Ogan will have traced us. He brings with him those sworn to me alone. Whatever treachery Sreng contemplates through Iuban and such trash will not avail. Now listen well—if we find traces of your city tomorrow, well and good. We must keep Iuban tail down here until Ogan arrives. But play your guiding well; delay all you can—try not to bring us to this tomb of Turan until we do have reinforcements of our own.”
Tomb of Turan—the words rang in Ziantha’s mind. There was a stir deep down—not of memory (how could it be memory?) but of intense fear. She was instantly awake.
6
“Ziantha!”
Not a spoken call to bring her so out of sleep. No, this was a stir within her mind, though it awoke her so she lay in the cramped berth looking into the dark—listening—
“Ziantha?”
She had not been dreaming then. Ogan? She sent out a mind-seek before she thought of the danger that Iuban might be equipped with some Guild device to pick up and register such activity.
“Harath!” Her recognition of the mental force meeting hers was instantaneous and left her bewildered. But Harath must be back on Korwar. Ogan surely had not brought the alien on this foray. And there was no possible method by which mind-touch could cross the stellar distance between this unknown planet and Korwar.
“What — ?” Questions crowded. But the beaming of the other overrode all her own thoughts with the intensity of the message he would deliver.