He was not one to be used as a tool, but rather one who used tools himself. The physical envelope he had worn as Turan continued to mislead her. Now she strove to build up a personality with no association with the dead Lord Commander. It was like fitting together shards of some artifact of whose real shape she was unaware.
But that depression which she had held in abeyance settled down on her full force. In all her life, in the Dipple and after Yasa had taken her from that place of despair, she had had no one of her own. The Salarika veep had given her shelter, education, a livelihood. But Ziantha had always known that this was not because she was herself, but because she represented an investment that was expected to repay Yasa for her attentions many times over.
Ogan had been a figure of awe at first, then one to be feared and resented. She admitted his mastery, and she hated him—yes, she recognized her depth of emotion now—for it. Sooner or later now she would have to face Ogan and fight for her freedom. She had not been a real person when he had taught her, only a thing he could shape. Now she was herself, and she intended to remain so.
Yasa and Ogan—they had been the main factors in her existence. To neither was she bound by any ties of softer emotion. Harath—the closest she had ever come to having what one might deem a “friend”—was a strange alien creature. She trusted Harath.
Then—Turan. It had not been master and pupil between them, or benefactor and servant, but rather what she imagined was the comradeship between two crewmen, or two of the Patrol who faced a common danger and depended upon one another in times of crisis.
As he had depended upon her at the last!
Ziantha felt moisture gather under her closed eyelids. She had never wept except for physical reasons when a child—cold, hunger. These tears now were for a sense of loss transcending all those, a wound so deep within her that she was just beginning to know what damage it had wrought. And Ogan had done this thing—sent the other after her—and had left him to die.
Therefore her reckoning with Ogan, overdue as it was, would be eagerly sought by her. But at her time, not his. For she did not in the least undervalue her opponent.
She was roused from her thoughts by Ogan’s hand on her shoulder.
“Up—we have to get under cover. Mauth has been scouting ahead and has found shelter.”
The girl glanced around. One of the men was gone, the other held a click com in his hand, was listening to the message it ticked out. She got to her feet with a sigh. If it were much further she was not sure she could make it.
“Hurry!” Ogan pulled at her.
Of course they had to climb again and took a very roundabout way, as if Ogan was determined they remain as much undercover as possible. Twice Ziantha slipped and fell, and the second time she was unable to regain her feet unaided. But Ogan drew her along, cursing under his breath.
So he brought her to a cave, and thrust her back into the shadows well away from the door. When she sprawled there again he made no move to help her up, but let her lay where she had fallen, while he returned to the entrance, giving a low-voiced order to the crewmen that sent one of them away once more.
15
Night shadows were gathering. The sun, so brazen and naked over this riven land, was gone, though its brilliant banners still lingered in part of the sky. Ziantha crouched at the back of the cave. Her body ached from the unaccustomed exercise, but her mind was alert.
The man Ogan had sent out did not return. Twice click signals she could not decode came, and with each Ogan grew more restless. Whatever his plans, they were manifestly being frustrated. At last he came back to where she sat, hunkered down so that their faces were on a level.
“You are safe here—“
“Safe from Iuban?” she dared to interrupt. “Are his men trailing us?
“Iuban!” He gestured as if the Jack captain were a gaming piece of little value to be swept from the board. “No—there is a greater complication than that. There is a Patrol ship down out there!”
“Patrol! But how—“ Among all the possible dangers she had not expected this one.
Ogan shrugged. “How indeed? But there are always ears to listen, mouths to be bought. Yasa went through Waystar. And Waystar is not Guild; it can be infiltrated—in fact it has been, at least once. And there is a chance I may have been followed also. But how they came does not matter. That they are here does.”
He was silent for a moment, eyeing her narrowly.
“You know the penalty for using sensitive power for the Guild—remember it well, girl.”
Her mouth was suddenly dry. Yes, it had been hammered into her from the earliest days of her training what her fate would be if the forces of the law caught her during a Guild foray. Not death, no. In some ways death would be more welcome. But erasure—brain erasure—so that the person who was Ziantha would vanish from life, and some dull-witted creature fit only for a routine task would stand in her place. All memory, personality, wiped permanently away.
There was a glint of satisfaction in Ogan’s expression; he must have seen her recoil.
“Yes, remember that and keep remembering it, Ziantha. Erasure—“ Ogan drawled that last word. It became an obscenity when one knew its meaning. “You stay undercover exactly as you are bid. Unfortunately the Patrol ship has landed in just that area where it can cause us the greatest inconvenience, and we have to remain hidden until they convince themselves that the Jack ship is the only one here.”
“But your ship—they can locate that.”
He shook his head. “Not a ship, Ziantha. I landed from space in an L-B. And that is under detect protection. My ship will return, but it is not in orbit now to be picked up by a Patrol detect.”
“They have other detects, persona ones, do they not? What if they use those?” She fought for control, determined not to let the fear he sparked in her become panic.
“Naturally. And they are out there now, combing with such. They will pick up the Jacks, unless they are equipped with distorts. We do have those—“
A distort could throw off a persona, she knew. Just as a visual distort could throw off sight. There was one other way—if they had a sensitive—
“They do not!” Ogan might have read her mind. “Though they might have on such a mission, by so much fortune we are favored. I have probed for one and there is no trace. So we are safe as long as we take precautions. But we do not have much time. The L-B is set on a time return, and unless I can get to it and reset it, it will take off without us.”
“You are going to try that?”
“I must. Therefore I shall leave you here with Mauth. There is always the hope that the Patrol and the Jacks will keep each other busy. But understand—if they find you”—he again made that sweep-away gesture—“you are finished. There is no one to lift a hand to save you. So—you have the focus-stones—give them to me. I shall put them in the L-B for safety.”
“They will be of no value to you.” Ziantha began her own game. It all depended on how much she could make Ogan believe. “They are now mind-linked to me. I have learned their full secret, and they will answer only to the one who awakened them.”
Would he accept that? He had no way of testing it one way or the other since his lab equipment was worlds away.
“What can you do with them?” he asked.
Ziantha thought frantically. She had to provide some major advantage now for keeping the stones.
“If the Patrol here has no sensitive, I may be able to use these as a mind distort. They were once used for controlling—“ For controlling the Lurla, animal things—would they work on men? But she need not explain that to Ogan.
“You have learned much. When there is time you shall tell me all of it.”
“All,” she echoed as if she were still under his domination.
“But perhaps it is best that you do keep the stones,” Ogan continued to her great relief. “And you shall stay with Mauth until my return.”
Ziantha knew that he went unwillingly, that above all he was now intrigued by her disclosures and frustrated that he could not put her statements to instant testing. Ogan had never been the most patient of men where his absorption in parapsychology was concerned.