Warlock by Andre Norton

That Harath had changed sides did not surprise her now. He was an alien, and as such he was not to be subjected to erasure or any of the penalties the Patrol would inflict on her. Undoubtedly he would aid them as he had Ogan in the past.

Ziantha made no effort to use mind-touch. Why should she? Harath had seemed so much in accord with the stranger she did not believe she could win him back. He had been too frantic when he had begged her aid to redeem the other’s lost personality. What a fool she had been to answer his call!

She no longer wanted to look at Harath, wedged her head around so she could see only sunlit rock. This was not the same hollow in which she had been struck down. They were in a more open space. And now she could view the stranger also.

He lay some distance away, belly down, on what might be the edge of a drop, his head at an angle to watch below. Then she heard the crackle of weapon fire. Somewhere on a lower level a struggle was in progress.

Ziantha heard the sharp click of Harath’s bill, apparently he was trying to gain her attention. Stubbornly she kept her eyes turned from him, her mind-barrier up. Harath had betrayed her; she wanted no more contact with him. Then came a sharp and painful pull of her hair. By force her head was dragged around, Harath had her in tentacle grip. And, though she closed her eyes instantly against his compelling gaze, Ziantha could feel the force of his mind-probe seeking to reach her. There was no use wasting power she might need later in such a small struggle. She allow mind-touch.

“Why do you fear?”

She could not believe that Harath would ask that. Surely he well knew what they would do to her.

“You—you gave me to the Patrol. They will—kill my talent, that which is me!” she hurled back.

“Not so! This one, he seeks to understand. Without him you might be dead.”

She thought of her escape from D’Eyree’s tomb. Better she had died there. What would come out of erasure would no longer be Ziantha!

“Better I had died,” she replied.

She was looking straight up into Harath’s eyes. Suddenly he loosed his hold on her hair, dropped mind-touch. She watched him cross the rock, his beak clicking as if he chewed so on her words, joining the man who still lay watching the battle below.

Harath uncoiled a tentacle, reached out to touch the stranger’s hand. Ziantha saw the other’s head turn, though she could catch only a very foreshadowed view of his brown face. She was sure that Harath and he were in communication, but she did not try to probe for any passage of thought between them.

Then the stranger rolled over to look at her. When she stared back, hostile and defiant, he shrugged, as if this was of no matter, returning to his view below.

There was a sound. Under them the rock vibrated. Up over the cliff rose the nose of a ship, pointing outward, the flames of her thrusters heating the air. On she climbed and was gone, with a roar, leaving them temporarily deaf.

Surely not Ogan’s L-B. Such a craft was far too small to have made such a spectacular take-off. That must have been the Jack ship! The girl lost all hope now; she had been left in Patrol hands. Ziantha could have wailed aloud. But pride was stubborn enough to keep her lips locked on any weakling whimper.

Who had driven the Jack ship off? The Patrol? Ogan? If the latter, he must have been reinforced. If so, feverishly her mind fastened on that, Ogan was still here—she could reach him—

The stranger walked back toward her, standing now as if he feared no danger of detection. She could see him clearly. Turan she had learned to know, even when she realized that his body was only a garment worn by another. But now more than the uniform this one wore was a barrier between them. There was not only the fear of the Patrol but a kind of shyness.

In the past, on Korwar, she had lived a most retired life. Those forays Yasa had sent her on were tasks upon which it was necessary to concentrate deeply, so that during them she observed only those things that applied directly to the failure or success of her mission. Yasa’s inner household had been largely female, Ziantha’s life therein strictly ordered as if she were some dedicated priestess—which in a way, she had been.

Ogan had never seemed a man, but rather a master of the craft which exercised her talents—impersonal, remote, a source of awe and sometimes of fear. And the various male underlings of the household had been servants, hardly more lifelike to her than a more efficient metal robo.

But this was a man with a talent akin to hers, equal, she believed. And she could not forget the actions on Turan’s time level that had endangered them both, that they had shared as comrades, though he was now the enemy. He made her feel self-conscious, wary in a way she had not experienced before.

Yet he was not in any way imposing; only a fraction perhaps over middle height, and so slender it made him seem less. She had been right about the hue of his skin: that was a warm dark brown, which she was sure was natural, and not induced by long exposure to space. And his hair, in the sun, shown in tight black curls. Of Terran descent she was sure, but he could be a mutation, as so many of the First Wave colonists now were, tens and hundreds of generations later.

He settled down beside her, watching her thoughtfully as if she presented some type of equation he must solve. And because she found that silence between them frightening, she asked a question:

“What ship lifted then?”

“The Jacks’. They tangled with some of their own, at least it looked so. Beat the attackers off, then lifted. But there was not much left of the opposition. I think a couple, three at the most, made it out of range when the ship blasted.”

“Ogan! He will be after—” she said eagerly and then could have bitten her tongue in anger at that self-betrayal.

“After you? No—he cannot trace us even if he wants to. We have a shield up no one can break.”

“So what are you going to do now?” Ziantha came directly to the point, unwillingly conceding that he might be truthful. No one should underrate the Patrol.

“For a time we wait. And while we do so, this is a good time to make you understand that I do not want to hold you like this.” He pointed to the tangle cords which restrained her so completely.

“Do you expect me to promise no attempts to escape, with erasure awaiting me?”

“What would you escape to? This is not exactly a welcoming world.” There was a reasonableness in his words that awoke irritation in her. “Food, water—and those others”—now he waved to the cliff—”wandering around. You are far safer here. Safer than you might be in Singakok that was.” For the first time he gave indication that he remembered their shared past. “At least the High Consort is not setting her hounds to our trail.”

He took a packet of smoke sticks from a seal pocket, snapped the end of one alight, and inhaled thoughtfully the sweet scent. By all appearances he was as much at ease as he would be in some pleasure palace on Korwar, and his placidity fed her irritation.

“What are we waiting for?” Ziantha demanded, determined to know the worst as soon as possible.

“For a chance to get back to my ship. I do not intend to carry you all the way there. In fact, since I may have to fight for the privilege of seeing it again, I could not if I would. There is an alarm broadcast going out; the Patrol ship in this region must already have picked it up. We can expect company, and we can wait for it here. Unless you are reasonable and agree to make no trouble. Then we shall make for the scout and be, I assure you, far more comfortable.”

“Comfortable for you—not for me. When I know what is before me!”

He sighed. “I wish you would listen and not believe that you already know all the answers.”

“With the Patrol I do—as far as I am concerned!” she flared.

“And who said,” he returned calmly, “that I represent the Patrol?”

17

For a moment Ziantha did not understand. When she did she smiled derisively. What a fool he must believe her to think she would accept that. When he sat before her wearing a Patrol uniform. When—