Thrakell could be a valuable confederate. Could be. She wasn’t sure what else he might be. Neto suspected he was a murderer, that he’d done away with other circuit survivors. There was no proof of it, but Telzey hadn’t taken her attention off him since she’d caught him stalking her in his uncanny manner on the gallery, and there’d been an occasional shimmer of human thought through the cover pattern, which he’d changed meanwhile to that of a Fossily mechanic. She’d made out nothing clearly, but what she seemed to sense at those moments hadn’t reduced her uneasiness about Thrakell.
“Thrakell,” she said, “before we get down to business, I’m giving you a choice.”
He frowned. “A choice?”
“Yes. What I’d like you to do is to give up that Fossily cover and open your screens for a minute, so I can see what you’re thinking. That would be simplest.”
Thrakell shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
Neto chuckled softly.
“Oh, you understand,” Telzey said. “You wanted to come along when I try to get out of the circuit, so you are coming along. But we didn’t get off to a good start, and I don’t feel I can take you on trust now. You could prove I can by letting me look at your mind. Just the surface stuff—I want to know what made you decide to contact me, that’s all.”
Thrakell’s small eyes glittered with angry apprehension. But his voice was even. “What if I refuse?”
“Then Essu will take your weapons and circuit key pack.”
Thrakell looked shocked. “That’s completely unfair! If we became separated, I’d be confined to whatever section I happened to be in. I’d be helpless!”
“Well, that will make you see to it we don’t get separated,” Telzey said. “I don’t think we should now. Which will it be?”
Thrakell jerked his head sullenly at Neto. “What about her?”
“She’s sure of me,” Neto told him. “Quite, quite sure! She’s already been all through my mind, that’s why!” She laughed.
Essu, round white eyes fixed on Thrakell, reached for a gun on his belt, and Thrakell said hastily, “Let the Tolant have the articles then! I rarely use a weapon, in any case. I detest violence.”
Essu began going over him with his search devices. Telzey and Neto looked on.
Telzey could, in fact, be very sure of Neto. Neto had known no hope of escape from the circuit. She’d lived by careful planning and constant alertness for the past two years, a vengeful, desperate ghost slipping about the fringe areas which would open to the portal keys she’d obtained, as wary of the few wild humans who’d still been around at first as of the Elaigar and their alien servants. There were periods when she no longer believed there was a world outside the circuit and seemed unable to remember what she had done before she met the Elaigar. At other times, she was aware of what was happening to her and knew there could be only one end to that.
Then, once more trailing the murderer who could slip up on you invisibly if you weren’t careful, trying to determine what sort of mischief he was involved in, she’d touched a new mind.
In moments, Neto knew something like adoration. She’d found a protector, and gave herself over willingly and completely. Let this other one decide what should happen now, let her take control, as she began doing at once.
Neto’s stresses dissolved in blind trust. Telzey saw to it that they did.
“Two problems,” Telzey remarked presently. “The diagrams don’t show exits to Tinokti, and they seem to add up to an incomplete map anyway. Then the keys we have between us apparently won’t let us into more than about a fourth of the areas that look worth checking out. We could be one portal step away from an exit, know it’s there, and still not be able to reach it.”
Thrakell said sourly, “I see no way to remedy that! Many sections have a specialized or secret use, and only certain Elaigar leaders have access to them. That might well be the case with sections containing planetary exits. Then there’s the fact that the Alatta intruders have altered the portal patterns of large complexes. I’m beginning to suspect you’ll find yourself no more able to leave the circuit than we’ve been!” He glanced briefly over at Neto.
“Well,” Telzey said, “let’s try to get the second problem worked out first. Essu knows where he can get pretty complete sets of portal packs. But he will need help.”
“What place is that?” asked Thrakell suspiciously. “As far as I know, only the Suan Uwin possess omnipacks.”
“That’s what Essu thinks. These are in a safe in one of Stiltik’s offices. He can open the safe.”
Thrakell shook his head.
“Impossible! Suicidal! The headquarters of the Suan Uwin are closely guarded against moves by political enemies. Even if we could get into Stiltik’s compound, we’d never get out again alive!”
Neto said boredly to Telzey, “Why don’t you lock this thing up somewhere? We can pick him up afterwards, if you feel like taking him along.”
That ended Thrakell’s protests. It wasn’t, in fact, an impossible undertaking. Stiltik used Essu regularly to carry out special assignments which she preferred not to entrust even to close followers. There was a portal, unmarked and unguarded, to which only she and the Tolant had a key. If they were careful, they could get into the headquarters compound.
They did presently. They were then in a small room behind a locked door. To that door again only Stiltik and Essu had keys. Unless Stiltik happened to come in while they were there, they should be safe from detection.
* * *
Telzey scanned while her companions remained behind cover. It took time because she went about it very carefully, touching minds here and there with gossamer lightness. Details gradually developed. At last she thought she’d gathered a sufficiently complete picture.
Elaigar minds were about—some two dozen. There was no trace of Stiltik. The Suan Uwin appeared to be in an interrogation complex with the captured Alatta; and that understandably was a psi-blocked unit. There were Tolant minds and two unfamiliar alien mind types here. The serfs didn’t count, and the only Elaigar in the central offices were two bored Otessan females, keeping an eye on the working staff. They might notice Essu going into Stiltik’s offices presently, but there was nothing unusual about that. They weren’t likely to be aware he was supposed to be somewhere else.
Another of the minds around here might count for a great deal. It was that of Stiltik’s dagen.
The work she’d put in improving her psi techniques with Sams Larking and by herself was making all the difference now, Telzey thought. When Bozo was tracking her, she’d felt and been nearly helpless. She’d better remain very wary around this psi beast, but she wasn’t in the least helpless, and knew it. Her screens hid her mind from it, and she’d learned how to reach through the screens with delicately sensing probes.
A probe reached toward the dagen mind—the barest touch. There was no reaction. Cautiously then, Telzey began to trace out what she could discern.
The creature was in an enclosure without physical exits. It needed none, of course. On Stiltik’s order, it could flick itself into the enclosure and out again.
It could do very little that wasn’t done on Stiltik’s mental orders. Stiltik had clamped heavy and rigid controls on her monster. A human mind placed under similar controls would have been effectively paralyzed. The dagen’s rugged psyche was in no sense paralyzed. It simply was unable to act except as its handler permitted it to act.
It wasn’t very intelligent, but it knew who kept it chained.
Telzey studied the controls until she was satisfied she understood them. Then she told Essu to go after the omnipacks in Stiltik’s office. She accompanied him mentally, alert for developing problems. Essu encountered none and was back with the packs five minutes later. He’d been seen but disregarded. Nothing seemed to have changed in the headquarters compound.
They left by the secret portal, and Essu handed Telzey its key. She said to the others, “Wait for me here! When I come out, we’ll go back along the route we came—and for the first few sections we’ll be running.”
Thrakell Dees whispered agitatedly, “What are—”
She stepped through the portal into the room. Her mind returned gently to the dagen mind. The beast seemed half asleep now.
Psi sheared abruptly through Stiltik’s control patterns. As abruptly, the dagen came awake. Telzey slipped out through the portal.
“Now run!”
* * *
Essu’s haul of portal key packs had been eminently satisfactory. One of them had been taken from Tscharen after his capture. Essu interlocked it with an omnipack, gave the combination to Telzey. She slipped it into a pocket of the Fossily suit. It was small, weighed half as much as Essu’s gun which was in another pocket of the suit. But it would open most of the significant sections of the circuit to her. Essu assembled a duplicate for himself with a copy of Tscharen’s pack, clamped the other keys together at random, and pocketed both sets. Thrakell Dees looked bitter, but said nothing. The arrangement was that he would stay close enough to Essu to pass through any portal they came to with the Tolant. Neto would stay similarly close to Telzey.