“So you don’t take them inside.” A crook of thumb indicated the floor.
There were the smears from their boots, and in those smears tiny lumps were rising. One branched in three-waving arms? Branches? Tentacles? A quick-growing thing from smears. Nik shivered. That flying creature their guide had killed he could accept, but these were different. He took firm hold of Vandy and shoved the boy in before him so that they huddled together in the alcove, sniffing a bracing air that carried a spicy, aromatic odor, the very antithesis of the humid reek outside this chamber.
Beyond the entrance, they found themselves in a barracks-like series of corridors and rooms, all hollowed in rock, mostly empty of either people or furnishings. They passed only two other men, both wearing space uniforms, both as nondescript as their guide.
Nik sensed a growing restlessness in Vandy. None of this resembled the dream adventures he and Hacon had shared in the past. Nor, Nik realized, was his own passive part akin to the figure Vandy had built up in his imagination. Nik had promised him an adventure, and this was far from the boy’s conception of that.
“In here!” A jerk of the head sent the two of them past their guide into another room. This was manifestly designed as living quarters, with a bunk against the far wall, a fold-up table, and a couple of stools. The air current sighed overhead at intervals, coming through a slit no wider than the edge of Nik’s hand. When he turned quickly, the door had closed, and he did not have to be told that they were prisoners. He pressed against the slide panel just to make sure of that point, but the barrier held.
“Hacon!” Vandy stood in the middle of the room, his fists on his hips, his small face sober with a frown. “This – this is real!”
“It’s real.” Nik could understand the other’s momentary bewilderment. He had fashioned fantasies, too. And when he had fallen captive to Leeds’ weapon in the warehouse, been freed from the Dipple, and gained what he had wanted most – why, at times all of that had seemed just part of a dream. But there had been moments of awareness, of doubt – and those were more than fleeting moments now. If Leeds had been here, if Nik had been told more of what to expect – “Hacon, I want to go home!” That was a demand. Vandy’s scowl was dark. “If you don’t take me home, I’ll.”
Nik sat down on the nearest stool. “You’ll what?” he asked wearily.
“I’ll call Umar.” Vandy fumbled with the mid-seal fastening that covered a carry pocket in the breast of his tunic. He brought out a glistening object, which he held on the flat of his palm and studied with concentration. A moment later he looked up. “It doesn’t work!” The scowl of impatience was fading. “But Father will find me; he’ll bring the guard.” Hadn’t they told Vandy his father was dead? Nik’s fingers picked at the broad belt with its fringe of weapons and tools that Vandy had thought up for his created hero. There were plenty of those. It was a pity they didn’t have the powers Vandy had endowed them with – or would some one of them provide him with a weapon, a tool, so that he would not have to wait passively for trouble?
Why did he expect trouble, one part of Nik’s brain demanded even as he began to pull that collection of show armament out for examination? Because he had been set down on a world where he was blinded among sighted men? Because he was limited by lack of information and driven by a feeling that there was little time? ‘
“This is real, Vandy,” he said slowly. “But it’s an adventure, one we’ll take together.” If only Vandy hadn’t built Hacon up as invincible! How was he going to keep Vandy believing in him? And if Vandy learned the truth, then the chances of getting what Leeds wanted sank past the vanishing point. And if he, Nik, could not deliver –
He was holding a small rod in his hand, one that was tipped with a disk of shining metal. In Vandy’s imagination, it could generate a heat ray to cut through stone or metal. Now it served Nik as a mirror to reflect the smooth face he still did not dare to accept. If Nik Kolherne did not, and speedily, keep his part of the bargain, could he hope to keep that? He had to get Vandy’s knowledge, and he could do it only by preserving Vandy’s image of him – or rather of Hacon. Which meant that his own doubts must be stifled, that he must make a game of all this.
“Why are we here?” To Nik’s ears, that held a note of suspicion.
“They think that they have us.” Nik improvised hurriedly. “But really we came because your father is going to follow us – he can trace you, you know. And then at the right moment, we’ll get him in. Then the Miccs will be taken.”
“No!” Vandy’s shake of the head was decisive. “These aren’t Miccs – are they, Hacon? It’s Lik Iskhag’s doing! And how are we going to help anyone if they keep us shut up? If Umar tells Father and they come to get us – maybe it’s all a trap and Father and Umar will be taken, too! We have to get out of here! You get us out quick, Hacon!”
None of this was promising. Nik shoved the “heat ray” back in its belt loop. With Vandy in his present mood, Nik would never be able to talk him into telling what Leeds wanted. And Iskhag – that was the blue-skinned alien on Korwar. But Vandy wasn’t of the same race. How did Iskhag fit into the picture or into the story Leeds had detailed for Nik?
“Listen, Vandy. I can’t work blind, you know. Remember when we went hunting for the jewels of Caraska? We had to have information such as those map tapes we found in the derelict ship, and we had to learn the Seven Words of Sard.”
Feverishly, Nik delved into past Hacon adventures. “Now I have to know other things.”
“What things?” There was a note of hostility in that, Nik believed.
“You’re helping your father, aren’t you, Vandy? Keeping some information for him?”
When the boy shook his head, Nik was not too surprised. Whatever had been left in Vandy’s brain under the drastic safeguards Leeds had described was not going to be extracted easily.
“Why else would Iskhag want you?” He tried a slightly different approach.
“Bait – to get my father!” Vandy replied promptly. “Why? What does Iskhag have against your father?”
“Because Warlord Naudhin i’Akrama” – there was a vast pride in Vandy’s answer.”is going to hold Glamsgog until the end. And Lik Iskhag wants the Inner Places.”
The reply had no meaning for Nik at all. And why didn’t Vandy know his father was dead? Had that been kept a secret from him for pity or for policy?
“If Father comes here and Iskhag gets him,” Vandy continued, “then – then Glamsgog will be gone and every one of the Guardians will be killed! We have to get away before that happens – we have to!”
Vandy pushed past Nik and set his palms against the sliding surface of the door. His small shoulders grew stiff with the effort he was making to force it open. “We have to!” he panted, and his fear was plain to hear.
Chapter V
“VANDY!” Nik made that sharp enough to attract the boy’s attention. “When did pounding on walls ever open a door?” He was working by instinct now. Hypo-tapes had made him part of Vandy’s fantasy world; he knew that to the smallest detail. But with Vandy himself, beyond that imagination, rich and creative as it was, he trod unknown territory. How much dared he appeal to the boy’s good sense?
He did not even know Vandy’s real age. Various branches of once Terran stock had mutated and adapted so that a life span might vary from seventy to three hundred years. Vandy could be a boy of ten or twelve; also he might be twice that and still be a child. And Nik realized that the perilous gaps in his own information concerning his companion were dangerous. Surely Leeds could not have intended this companionship to endure for any length of time.
Vandy had come away from the door to face Nik. There was a shadow on his small face, but his jaw was set determinedly.
“We have to get out.”
“Yes.” Nik could echo that. “But not without a plan.” He grabbed at the one delaying suggestion that might not only give him time to think a little but might also produce information from Vandy. To his vast relief, the boy nodded and sat down on the other stool.