“I mean you no harm.” He stood still. “Why do you—“
She laughed then. Only it did not sound like laughter but a crazed, harsh sound that hurt as she uttered it.
“No harm? No, no more harm than a pleasant visit to the Coordinator—then to be erased!”
“No!”
He need not deny that so emphatically. Did he think she was so brain-weakened by what she had been through (and for him!) that she did not remember what happened to sensitives who served the Guild when the Patrol caught them?
“No—you do not understand—“
Weakly, but with all the strength she had, Ziantha threw the stone she held. Let him come any closer and she was lost. This was her one chance. And in the same instant as the stone left her fingers there was a burst of pain in her head, so terrible, so overwhelming, that she did not even have a chance to voice the scream it brought to her lips as she wilted down under that thrust of agony.
The storm was upon them—she must be in the tower. The Lurla—they lay curled, they would not obey, though she sent the commands. They must! If they did not, she would be thrown to the pounding waves below, and the Eyes given to one who could use them. But when she tried the Eyes were dull—they cracked and shivered into splinters, then to dust, sifting through her fingers. And she was left without any weapon.
They were high in the hills, and below them the enemy forces had gathered. But above and behind, coming steadily with fire beams to hunt them out, were flyers. This was a trap from which there was no escape. She must contrive to have death find her quickly when the jaws of the trap closed. For to be captive in the hands of those from Singakok was a worse ending than the clean death in battle. She was Vintra of the Rebels and would not live to be mocked in the streets of the city. Never! The flyers were very close, already their beams fused the hidden guns. This was death, and she must welcome it.
Heat, light, life—she was alive. And they would find her. She would be captive in Singakok—No! Let her but get her hands on her own weapons and she would make sure of that. But she could not move. Had she been wounded? So hurt in the assault that her body would not obey her?
Fearfully she opened her eyes. There was open sky above her. Of course, she lay among the Cliffs of Quait. But the sounds of the flyers were gone. It was very quiet, too quiet. Was she alone in a camp of the dead? Those dead whom she would speedily join if she could?
Sound now—someone was coming—if one of the rebels she would appeal for the mercy thrust, know it would be accorded her as was her right. She was Vintra; all men knew that she must not fall alive into the hands of the enemy—
Vintra—but there was someone else—D’Eyree! And then—Ziantha! As if thinking that name steadied a world that seemed to spin around her, she ordered her thoughts. Ziantha—that was right! Unless the Eyes had betrayed her a second time into another return. She was Ziantha and Ziantha was—
Her memory seemed oddly full of holes as if parts of it had been extracted to frighten her. Then she looked up at a down-furred body perched on two legs ending in clawed feet, a body leaning over her so round eyes could stare directly into hers.
This was Ziantha’s memory. And that was—Harath! At first she was joyfully surprised. Then memory was whole. Harath was an enemy. She fought to move, to even raise her hand—uselessly. But on wriggling hard to gaze along her body she saw the telltale cords of a tangler. She was a prisoner, and she could share to the full Vintra’s despair and hatred for those who had taken her.
That Harath had changed sides did not surprise her now. He was an alien, and as such he was not to be subjected to erasure or any of the penalties the Patrol would inflict on her. Undoubtedly he would aid them as he had Ogan in the past.
Ziantha made no effort to use mind-touch. Why should she? Harath had seemed so much in accord with the stranger she did not believe she could win him back. He had been too frantic when he had begged her aid to redeem the other’s lost personality. What a fool she had been to answer his call!
She no longer wanted to look at Harath, wedged her head around so she could see only sunlit rock. This was not the same hollow in which she had been struck down. They were in a more open space. And now she could view the stranger also.
He lay some distance away, belly down, on what might be the edge of a drop, his head at an angle to watch below. Then she heard the crackle of weapon fire. Somewhere on a lower level a struggle was in progress.
Ziantha heard the sharp click of Harath’s bill, apparently he was trying to gain her attention. Stubbornly she kept her eyes turned from him, her mind-barrier up. Harath had betrayed her; she wanted no more contact with him. Then came a sharp and painful pull of her hair. By force her head was dragged around, Harath had her in tentacle grip. And, though she closed her eyes instantly against his compelling gaze, Ziantha could feel the force of his mind-probe seeking to reach her. There was no use wasting power she might need later in such a small struggle. She allow mind-touch.
“Why do you fear?”
She could not believe that Harath would ask that. Surely he well knew what they would do to her.
“You—you gave me to the Patrol. They will—kill my talent, that which is me!” she hurled back.
“Not so! This one, he seeks to understand. Without him you might be dead.”
She thought of her escape from D’Eyree’s tomb. Better she had died there. What would come out of erasure would no longer be Ziantha!
“Better I had died,” she replied.
She was looking straight up into Harath’s eyes. Suddenly he loosed his hold on her hair, dropped mind-touch. She watched him cross the rock, his beak clicking as if he chewed so on her words, joining the man who still lay watching the battle below.
Harath uncoiled a tentacle, reached out to touch the stranger’s hand. Ziantha saw the other’s head turn, though she could catch only a very foreshadowed view of his brown face. She was sure that Harath and he were in communication, but she did not try to probe for any passage of thought between them.
Then the stranger rolled over to look at her. When she stared back, hostile and defiant, he shrugged, as if this was of no matter, returning to his view below.
There was a sound. Under them the rock vibrated. Up over the cliff rose the nose of a ship, pointing outward, the flames of her thrusters heating the air. On she climbed and was gone, with a roar, leaving them temporarily deaf.
Surely not Ogan’s L-B. Such a craft was far too small to have made such a spectacular take-off. That must have been the Jack ship! The girl lost all hope now; she had been left in Patrol hands. Ziantha could have wailed aloud. But pride was stubborn enough to keep her lips locked on any weakling whimper.
Who had driven the Jack ship off? The Patrol? Ogan? If the latter, he must have been reinforced. If so, feverishly her mind fastened on that, Ogan was still here—she could reach him—
The stranger walked back toward her, standing now as if he feared no danger of detection. She could see him clearly. Turan she had learned to know, even when she realized that his body was only a garment worn by another. But now more than the uniform this one wore was a barrier between them. There was not only the fear of the Patrol but a kind of shyness.
In the past, on Korwar, she had lived a most retired life. Those forays Yasa had sent her on were tasks upon which it was necessary to concentrate deeply, so that during them she observed only those things that applied directly to the failure or success of her mission. Yasa’s inner household had been largely female, Ziantha’s life therein strictly ordered as if she were some dedicated priestess—which in a way, she had been.
Ogan had never seemed a man, but rather a master of the craft which exercised her talents—impersonal, remote, a source of awe and sometimes of fear. And the various male underlings of the household had been servants, hardly more lifelike to her than a more efficient metal robo.