Ziantha raised her hand as if to settle one of the flower-headed pins in her brush of wig, displaying to the full her wrist ring.
“Gentle fem.” His voice was a thin pipe, seeming not to issue from his throat but from some place outside his body. “Look you—here lie the scents of a hundred stars. Breathe Flame Spice from Andros, Diamond Dust from Alaban—“
“You have Sickle-lily of the Tenth Day Bloom?”
His expression did not change beyond that of a polite merchant’s attention. “By the favor of Three-horned Math, it is ready to pour into your hand, gentle fem, rare as it is. But not here, as you well know. Such a delicate fragrance is easily tainted in the open.” He clapped his hands sharply, and a small boy wearing his livery overalls arose from the ground behind the stall.
Kackig snapped his fingers. “Take the gentle fem to Laros—“
Ziantha nodded her thanks and hurried to keep up with the boy, who slipped far more easily than she among the narrow and well-crowded ways of the mart. They came at last to where the delivery flitters parked in a dusty row.
“The fourth.” Her guide underlined his information by pointing with a grubby finger. He surveyed what lay about them. “Now!” She crossed the short open space to enter the flitter.
There was a Salariki at the controls who glanced around as if to assure himself she was not an intruder. From the interior also came the subtle fragrance of the Sickle-lily, which the dried petals of the Tenth Day Bloom could retain for years. Yasa’s favorite scent was about to be delivered to the villa.
For the first time since Harath’s warning, the girl dared use mind-touch with her downy companion.
“We are free?”
“Now.” If thought could convey a feeling of irritation, then Harath’s curt reply was shadowed by that emotion. He did not add to that, which was not usual, but Ziantha did not press. Now that she was reasonably safe, the fact that she carried with her that which she had no business to have taken began to weigh on her spirits.
It all depended upon how important the apport was. If it had no more meaning for Jucundus than any other of the exotic curiosities which had been with it, then it might not even be missed for some time. And, surely if it did have importance, it would not have been left lying in full sight on the table. It would have been sealed in the safe.
She rested her hand over the bulge in her purse, haunted by the same ambivalence of desires that had ridden her ever since this spell had fallen on her. She wanted to use the lump as a focus for exploration, yet she feared it. But she believed now that her desire for knowledge was greater than her fear. It must be, or it would not have pushed her to risk so much in order to get the lump into her possession.
That she intended to keep it a secret—yes. Not that she could for long, because of Harath. He would share information with Ogan. And to suggest that he not do so would be to make sure that he would. One could not credit Harath with human motives. He was programmed to work by an alien set of impulses—which meant—
Harath snapped his beak peevishly, avoiding mind-touch. She set him on the ground as she left the flitter at the villa in-park, and he disappeared with a flash of speed surprising for his small body. Ziantha took warning from that flight and hurried to her own room. If she were to have any use at all from what she had found, it must be here and now.
Dropping among her cushions, she took out the lump, this time without precautions against touching it. Cupping it in her hands she brought it to her forehead, as if at any moment Ogan and Yasa might break in to wrest it away from her.
She swayed, almost crumpled. That thrust of instant reply was as strong as a harsh blow in the face. And yet—she could sort nothing out of the whirl of impressions that rushed so upon her. The worst was a freezing fear, the like of which she had never known before in her life. Perhaps she screamed as it closed about her; she did not know.
But that overpowering force was gone. Ziantha crouched, staring stupidly at her hands, which lay limply on her knees. The lump—the thing—where was it? She shrank from it when she saw it among the cushions as she might from a sudden attack by an alien creature.
Nor could she bring herself to touch it again, though that fear had ebbed, and once more she could feel the faint stirrings of the obsession which had made her covet it. Ziantha dragged herself up, tottered into the fresher, needing to feel the cleansing of water, heat, life, the knowledge that she was herself—Ziantha and not—
“Not who?” She cried that aloud this time, her hands to her head. As she ran she shed wig, clothing, to stand in as hot a mist vapor as her body could tolerate. The warmth that enfolded her skin slowly penetrated to reach that part of her which seemed to remain frozen.
Wrapped in a loose robe, she reluctantly returned to her room. Could she bundle the lump up in a covering—perhaps then bury it in the garden? Still she was drawn to it against her will, though at least she could control herself to the point of not touching it.
Ziantha went on her knees by the cushions, studying the artifact with attention she had not given it when she made that first impulsive attempt to unriddle its secret. Though its appearance was very rough, it was, she was sure, not merely some unworked lump of hard-baked clay or stone. It bore the rude semblance of a crouching figure, so rude one could not rightly say that it was meant to resemble either a monster or a man. There appeared to be four limbs of sorts attached to a barrel body. But the head, if it had even been given one, had vanished. Somehow she believed it had been conceived as it now was.
That it was old past her judging she knew. This extreme age could well have caused that nauseating whirl of impressions from her “reading,” for the longer any object wrought by intelligence was in existence, the more impressions it could pick up and store, letting those forth as a chaotic mingling of pictures. It would require many sessions, much careful researching, to untangle even a small fraction of what might be packed into this grotesque object.
For a long time it had been a proved fact that any object wrought by intelligence (or even a natural stone or similar object that had been used for a definite purpose by intelligence) could record. From the fumbling beginnings of untrained sensitives, who had largely developed their own powers, much had been learned. It had been “magic” then; yet the talent was too “wild,” because all men did not share it, and because it could not be controlled or used at will but came and went for reasons unknown to the possessors. So that at one instance there had been amazing and clear results that could not be questioned by witnesses, and on a second try, nothing at all.
There had been frauds when those who had reputations of wonder workers could not produce the results called for, and in desperation had turned to trickery. But always there had been a percentage that was unexplained. When man learned to study instead of to scoff, when the talented ones were neither scorned nor feared, progress began. Mind-touch was as well accepted as speech now, and with it all those other “unexplainables” which had been denied for generations. Then when mankind of Ziantha’s own species—that first mankind which had neither mutated nor altered as a result of living on planets alien to their home world—when her own species headed into space they found others to whom the “wild talents” were a normal way of life.
There were the Wyverns of Warlock, whose females were age-long mistresses of thought over matter. The Thassa of Yiktor—Ziantha did not need to list them all. Part of her past training had been to study what each newly discovered world could add to the sum total of learning. What she had been able to absorb she had practiced to the height of her powers under Ogan’s careful fostering. But this—
Old—old—old!
“How old?” At first Ziantha was so intent upon the problem she did not realize that question had been asked not by her own mind but by — She looked over her shoulder.
Yasa stood in the doorway, her lily scent creeping in to fill the room. At her feet Harath bobbed up and down, hopping on his clawed feet, as if so greatly excited by something that he could not remain still. His beak opened and shut in a harsh clicking.