Telzey Amberdon by James H. Schmitz

Chapter 5

She decided presently that she hadn’t been unconscious very long, though she hurt a great deal less than she’d expected to be hurting when she woke up. She kept her eyes shut; she wasn’t alone. She was lying on her side, with something like a hard cot underneath. The area was psi-blocked, and evidently it was a large structure because she had no feeling of blocking fields close by. Her warning mechanisms indicated one or more minds of the Elaigar type around.

Something touched her lightly in an area which was still sufficiently painful. Around the touch pain began to diminish, as if a slow wave of coolness were spreading out and absorbing it. So she was being treated for the mauling she’d had from Stiltik—very effectively treated, to judge by the way she felt.

Now to determine who was in the vicinity.

Telzey canceled the alerting mechanisms, lightened her shielding, reached out cautiously. After a minute or two, vague thought configurations touched her awareness. Nonpsi and alien they were—she could develop that contact readily.

Next, sense of a psi shield. Whoever used it wasn’t far away. . . .

The device which had been draining pain from her withdrew, leaving a barely noticeable residual discomfort where it had been. It touched another sore spot, resumed its ministrations. A mingling of the alien thoughts accompanied the transfer. They were beginning to seem comprehensible—a language half understood. The xenotelepathic quality of her mind was at work.

Her screens abruptly drew tight. There’d been a momentary wash of Elaigar thought. Gone now. But—

Fury swirled about her, surging unshielded, nakedly open. An Elaigar mind. The rage, whatever caused it, had nothing to do with Telzey. The giant didn’t appear aware that she was in the area.

The impression faded again, didn’t return. Telzey waited a minute, slid a light probe toward the psi shield she’d touched. She picked up no indication of anything there. It was a good tight shield, and that was all. Psi shield installed over a nonpsi mind? It should be that.

She left a watch thought there, a trace of awareness. If the shield opened or softened, she’d know, be back for a further look. She returned to the alien nonpsi thought patterns. By now, it was obvious that they were being produced by two minds of the same species.

It was a gentle, unsuspicious species. Telzey moved easily into both minds. One was Stiltik’s green-bug interpreter, named Couse; a female. Couse’s race called themselves the Tanvens. Her companion was Sasar, male; a physician. Kind Bug-faces! They had problems enough of their own, no happy future ahead. But at the moment, they were feeling sorry for the human who had been mishandled by Stiltik and were doing what they could to help her.

They might help more than they realized. Telzey put taps on their memory banks which would feed general information to hers without further attention, began dropping specific questions into the nonresisting awarenesses.

Responses came automatically.

After she lost consciousness, she’d been brought here by Essu. Essu was Plum-face, the uniformed humanoid. He was a Tolant, chief of Stiltik’s company of Tolants. Stiltik had ordered Couse to summon Sasar, the most skilled physician in her command, to tend to the human’s injuries and revive her. She was a valuable captive who was to remain in Essu’s charge then, until Stiltik sent for her. The Tanvens didn’t know when that would be. But it might be a considerable while, because Stiltik was interrogating the other captive now.

Essu was waiting in the passage outside this room. So he was the wearer of the psi shield, though the Tanvens knew nothing of that. Stiltik presumably had equipped him with one to safeguard her secrets from other psi minds. Essu acted as her general assistant, frequently as her executioner and torturer. A cruel, cunning creature! The Tanvens feared him almost as much as they feared Stiltik.

They didn’t know there was an Elaigar in the vicinity. As far as they were aware, they were alone in this circuit section with Essu and Telzey. It had been a hospital facility once, but was now rarely used. The bad-tempered giant might be a good distance away from them.

* * *

Telzey shifted her line of questioning. The Elaigar had enslaved members of many races besides Tanvens and Tolants. Giants of Stiltik’s kind were called Sattarams and supplied almost all the leaders. The lesser Elaigar were Otessans. Tscharen belonged to a third variety called Alattas, who looked like Otessans and now and then were caught masquerading as them, as Tscharen had been. The Alattas were enemies of the Sattarams and Otessans, and Couse and Sasar had heard rumors that an Alatta force was at present trying to invade the circuit.

At that point, Telzey drew back from the Tanven minds, leaving only the memory taps in place. For immediate practical purposes, Couse and Sasar had a limited usefulness. They were unable to think about the Elaigar in any real detail. When she tried to pin them down, their thought simply blurred. They knew only as much about their masters as they needed to know to perform their duties.

Similarly, they had a frustratingly vague picture of the portal circuit the Elaigar had occupied on Tinokti. It appeared to be an extensive system. They were familiar with a limited part of it and had been supplied with key packs which permitted them to move about within that area. They had no curiosity about what lay beyond. In particular, they’d never wondered about the location of exits from the circuit to the world outside. Escape was something they didn’t think about; it was a meaningless concept. The Elaigar had done a thorough job of conditioning them.

She could control the Tanvens easily, but it wouldn’t gain her anything.

Plum-face was the logical one to get under control. He was in charge of her, and the fact that he was Stiltik’s assistant could make him the most useful sort of confederate. However, the psi shield presented a problem. Telzey thought she could work through it, given time enough. But Stiltik might show up and discover what she was doing. Stiltik would make very sure then that she didn’t get a chance to try other tricks.

She decided to wait a little with Essu. The shield might be less inflexible than it seemed at present. Meanwhile, there was a fourth mind around. The Elaigar mind.

* * *

She considered, not liking that notion too well. There’d been occasional impressions which indicated this particular Elaigar remained careless about his shielding. He didn’t seem to be aware of any of them here. But if he suspected he was being probed, he’d start hunting around the limited psi-blocked area for the prober.

She thought finally she should take the chance—he was preoccupied and angry.

She reached out gradually toward the Elaigar awareness. Her concern lessened then. There was a screen there but so loosely held it might as well have been nonexistent. The thought currents behind it shifted in fluctuating disorder over a quivering undercurrent of anger. Insane, she realized. A sick old male sunk deep in derangement, staring at problems for which there was no real solution, rousing himself periodically to futile fury.

Telzey eased in a memory tap, paused—

Stiltik! She slipped out of the Elaigar mind, flicked her watch thought away from Essu’s shield. Tight went her own shield then.

Stiltik was present, after a fashion. Somewhere in this psi-blocked structure, a portal had opened and she’d stepped through. A signal now touched Essu’s shield, and the shield went soft. Not many seconds later, it hardened again. Some instruction had been given the Tolant.

But Stiltik wasn’t yet gone. Telzey sensed a search thought about. She could hide from it by ceasing all psi activity, but that simply would tell Stiltik she was conscious. She allowed a normal trickle of psi energy to drift out, let Stiltik’s mind find her behind her shield.

Something touched the shield, tested it with a slow pressure probe, which got nowhere, withdrew. A hard, dizzying bolt slammed suddenly at her then; another. That sort of thing shouldn’t help an unconscious patient make a faster recovery, Telzey thought. Perhaps Stiltik had the same reflection; she let it go at that. When Telzey made a cautious scan of the area a minute or two later, there was no trace of the giantess in the structure.

* * *

Essu appeared in the entrance to the room and wanted to know how much longer it was going to take Sasar to get the human awake and in good enough shape so she could walk. Telzey followed the talk through Couse’s mind. Couse was acting as interpreter again. Essu didn’t understand the Tanven tongue, nor Sasar that of the Tolants or Elaigar. The physician was alarmed by Essu’s indications of impatience, but replied bravely enough. Couse had given him Stiltik’s instructions: he was to make sure the patient retained no dangerous injuries before he released her to Essu, and he couldn’t be sure of it yet. She appeared to be healing well and rapidly, but her continuing unconsciousness was not a good sign. Essu pronounced a few imprecations in his high sharp voice, resumed his post in the passage.

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