Telzey Amberdon by James H. Schmitz

“Yes, I did,” Telzey said. “Then you’ve never tried to control one of them?”

Thrakell looked startled. “That would be most inadvisable!”

“It might be.” Telzey said, “By our standards, Korm isn’t really old, is he?”

“Not at all!” Thrakell Dees seemed amused. “Twenty-four Federation years, at most.”

“They don’t live any longer than that?” Telzey said.

“Few live even that long! One recurring satisfaction I’ve had here is to watch my enemies go lumbering down to death, one after the other, these past six years. Stiltik, at seventeen, is in her prime. Boragost, now twenty, is past his. And Korm exists only as an object lesson.”

Telzey had seen that part vividly in Korm’s jumbled recalls. Sattarams, male or female, weren’t expected to outlive their vigor. When they began to weaken noticeably, they challenged younger and stronger Sattarams and died fighting. Those who appeared hesitant about it were taken to see Korm. He’d held back too long on issuing his final challenge, and had been shut away, left to deteriorate, his condition a warning to others who risked falling into the same error.

She learned that the Elaigar changed from the Otessan form to the adult one in their fourteenth year. That sudden drastic metamorphosis was also a racial secret. Otessans approaching the point left the circuit; those who returned as Sattarams weren’t recognized by the serfs. Thrakell could add nothing to the information about the Alattas Telzey already had gathered. He knew Alatta spies had been captured in the circuit before this; they’d died by torture or in ritual combat with Sattaram leaders. There was a deadly enmity between the two obviously related strains.

On the subject of the location of the Elaigar home territories, he could offer only that they must be several months’ travel from the Hub clusters. And Korm evidently knew no more. Space navigation was serf work, its details below an Elaigar’s notice.

“Have they caught the three Alattas who got away from Stiltik yet?” Telzey asked.

* * *

There Thrakell was informed. He’d been listening around among his mental contacts before following Telzey to the hospital area. The three still had been at large at that time, and there seemed to be no immediate prospect of catching up with them. They’d proved to be expert portal technicians who’d sealed off sizable circuit areas by distorting portal patterns and substituting their own. Stiltik’s portal specialists hadn’t been able to handle the problem. The armed party sent after the three was equipped with copies of a key pack taken from Tscharen but had no better luck. The matter wasn’t being discussed, and Thrakell Dees suspected not all of the hunters had returned.

“Stiltik would very much like to be able to announce that she’s rounded up the infiltrators,” he said. “It would add to her prestige which is high at present.”

“Apparently Stiltik and Boragost—the Suan Uwin—don’t get along very well?” Telzey said.

He laughed. “One of them will kill the other! Stiltik doesn’t intend to wait much longer to become senior Suan Uwin, and she’s generally rated now as the deadliest fighter in the circuit. The Elaigar make few of our nice distinctions between the sexes.”

Boragost’s qualities as a leader, it appeared, were in question. Stiltik had been pushing for a unified drive to clear the Alattas out of the Federation. She’d gained a large following. Boragost blocked the move, on the grounds that a major operation of the kind couldn’t be carried out without alerting the Federation’s humans to the presence of aliens. And now Boragost had committed a blunder which might have accomplished just that. “You know what dagens are?” Thrakell asked.

“Yes. The mind hounds. I saw Stiltik’s when they caught me.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Horrible creatures! Fortunately, there’re only three in the circuit at present because few Elaigar are capable of controlling them. A short while ago, Boragost fumbled a dagen kill outside the circuit.”

Telzey nodded. “Four Phons in the Institute. That wasn’t planned then?”

“Far from it! Only one of the Phons was to die, and that neither in the Institute nor in the presence of witnesses. But Boragost failed to verify the victim’s exact whereabouts at the moment he released the mind hound, and the mind hound, of course, went where the Phon was. When it found him among others, it killed them, too. Stiltik’s followers claim that was what brought the Psychology Service to Tinokti.”

“It was,” Telzey said. “How will they settle it?”

“Almost certainly through Stiltik’s challenge to Boragost. The other high-ranking Sattarams in the Hub have been coming in with their staffs through the Vingarran Gate throughout the week. They’ll decide whether Boragost’s conduct under their codes entitles Stiltik to challenge. If it does, he must accept. If it doesn’t, she’ll be deprived of rank and returned to their home territories. The codes these creatures bind themselves by are iron rules. It’s the only way they have to avoid major butcheries among the factions.”

Telzey was silent a moment, blinking reflectively at him.

“Thrakell,” she said, “when we met, you told me you were the last human left alive in the circuit.”

His eyes went wary. “That’s right.”

“There’s been someone besides us with a human mind in this section for some little while now,” Telzey told him. “The name is Neto. Neto Nayne-Mel.”

Chapter 7

Thrakell Dees said quickly, “Have nothing to do with that creature! She’s dangerously unbalanced! I didn’t tell you about her because I was afraid you might think of letting her join us.”

“I am letting her join us,” Telzey said.

Thrakell shook his head violently. “I advise you strongly against it! Neto Nayne-Mel is unpredictable. I know that she has ambushed and killed two Elaigar. She could endanger us all with her hatreds!”

Telzey said, “I understand she was a servant of the Elaigar in the circuit for a couple of years before she managed to get away from them. I suppose that might leave someone a little unbalanced. She’s got something for me. I told her to bring it here to the gallery.”

Thrakell grimaced nervously. “Neto’s threatened to shoot me if she finds me within two hundred yards of her!”

“Well, Thrakell,” Telzey said, “she may have caught you trying to sneak up on her, like I did. But that won’t count now. We’re going to need one another’s help to get out. Neto understands that.”

Thrakell argued no further. He still looked badly upset, due in part perhaps to the fact that there’d been a mental exchange between Neto and Telzey of which he’d remained unaware.

A human being who was to stay alive and at large for any length of time in the Elaigar circuit would need either an unreasonable amount of luck or rather special qualities. Thrakell, along with the ability to project a negation of his physical presence, had mental camouflage, and xenotelepathy which enabled him to draw information from unsuspecting alien mentalities around him.

Neto was otherwise equipped. Her mind didn’t shield itself, but its patterns could be perceived only by a degree of psi sensitivity which Thrakell Dees lacked, and the Elaigar evidently also lacked. She’d devised a form of physical concealment almost as effective as Thrakell’s. Her other resources were quick physical reactions and a natural accuracy with a gun which she’d discovered after escaping from her masters. She’d killed four Elaigar since then, not two. Her experiences had, in fact, left her somewhat unbalanced, but not in a way Telzey felt at all concerned about.

A few minutes later, Neto stepped out suddenly on the gallery a hundred feet away and started toward them. The figure they saw was that of a Fossily mechanic, one of the serf people in the circuit—a body of slim human type enclosed by a fitted yellow coverall which left only the face exposed. The face was a mask of vivid black and yellow lines. Neto was almost within speaking distance before the human features concealed by the Fossily face pattern began to be discernible.

That was the disguise Neto had adopted for herself. Fossily mechanics, with their tool kits hung knapsack-wise behind their shoulders, were employed almost everywhere in the circuit and drew no attention in chance encounters. Moreover, they had a species odor profoundly offensive to Elaigar nostrils. Their coverall suits were chemically impregnated to hide it; and the resulting sour but tolerable smell also covered the human scent. A second yellow tool bag swung by its straps from Neto’s gloved left hand. In it was a Fossily suit for Telzey, and black and yellow face paint.

* * *

Essu returned not long afterwards. Telzey touched his mind as he appeared in the portal down in the great hall, and knew he’d carried out his assignment. A pack of circuit diagram maps was concealed under his uniform jacket. He hadn’t let himself be seen.

He joined them on the gallery, blandly accepting the presence of two wild humans and the fact that Telzey and Neto were disguised as Fossily mechanics. Telzey looked at Thrakell Dees.

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