Warlock by Andre Norton

“She dead?” asked a third voice.

“Naw—just out on her feet. But where’n Dis did she spring from? Ain’t no settlement on this planet—”

“In here, captain. She just came runnin’ outta the brush. Then she sees Forg, gives a kinda yip, and falls on her face!”

The click-click of magnetic space-boot plates. A fourth man was coming in to where she lay.

“Off-worlder, all right”—the new voice—”What’s that rig she’s wearing? That’s no uniform, she couldn’t be from here.”

“From the post maybe, captain?”

“From the post? Wait a minute. That’s right. They did bring in a woman to try to contact the snake-hags. But no, we found her when we took over their ship.”

“No, there was two women, captain. First one blew up on ’em—went clean out of orbit in her head. So they got ’em another one. And she wasn’t there when we took over. What about the tape you found here—the one askin’ help from the base? She could be the one who sent it. Got outta the post and started runnin’—”

There was a twitch at her tunic as if one of those gathered about her was fingering the material.

“This is the stuff those snake-hags use. She’s been with them.”

“Prisoner, eh, captain?”

“Maybe—or something else. You, Nonnan, get the medic over here. He’ll bring her around and then we’ll have some answers. The rest of you, clear out. She might talk better if she doesn’t come to with all of you looking her over.”

Charis stirred. She did not care for the idea of a Company-squad medic. Such an expert might use the tongue-loosening drugs she had no guard against. It would be well to regain consciousness before his arrival. She opened her eyes.

She did not have to counterfeit her shriek. That came naturally as she faced—not the Company officer she had expected—but a creature seemingly out of a nightmare. Leaning toward her was one of the male Wyverns, his snout mouth slightly open to display the fang-teeth with which he was only too generously armed, his slit-pupiled eyes measuring her with no friendly intent.

Charis screamed a second time and jerked her legs up under as she sat bolt upright, squirming as far from the Wyvern as she could manage to move on the cot where they had laid her. The creature’s taloned paw swept out and down, wicked claws scraping the foam mattress only inches away from her body.

A very human fist connected at the side of that reptilian head, sending the Wyvern off balance, crashing back against the wall, and a human in uniform took his place. Charis screamed again and cowered away from the Wyvern who had righted himself and was now showing a lipless snarl of rage.

“Keep it off! Snake!” she cried, remembering Sheeha’s name for the Wyverns. “Don’t let it get me!”

The officer caught the native by his scaled shoulder and headed him out the door with a rough shove. Charis found herself crying, a reaction she did not attempt to control as she shrank against the wall of the room, drawing herself into as small a space as possible.

“Don’t let it get me!” she begged as she tried to appraise the man who now faced her.

He was very much of a type, a Company officer in the mercenary forces. Charis had seen his like before in space-port cities, and she thought she dared not depend upon his being less shrewd than any space officer. His very employment on a grab action would make him suspicious of her. But he was fairly young and his attack on the Wyvern made her think that he might be a little prejudiced in her favor.

“Who are you?” The demand was rapped out in a tone meant to force a quick and truthful answer. And up to a point she could supply the truth.

“Charis—Charis Nordholm. You—you are the Resident?” He would believe that she was ignorant of his uniform, that she thought him a government man.

“You might say so. I’m in charge at this base. So your name is Charis Nordholm? And how did you come here to Warlock, Charis Nordholm?”

Not too much coherence in her answer, Charis decided. She tried hard to remember Sheeha. “That was a snake,” she accused. “You have them here.” She eyed him with what she hoped would register the proper amount of suspicion and fear.

“I tell you the native won’t harm you—not if you’re what you seem,” he added the last with some emphasis.

“What I seem—” she said. “What I seem—I am Charis Nordholm.” She held her voice to a colorless recitation of facts as if she repeated some hard-learned lesson. “They—they brought me here to—to meet the snakes! I didn’t want to come—they made me!” Her voice lengthened into a wail.

“Who brought you?”

“Captain Jagan, the trader. I was at the trading post—”

“So—you were at the trading post. Then what happened?”

Again she could give him part truth. Charis shook her head. “I don’t know! The snakes—they gave me to the snakes—snakes all around—they got inside my head—in my head.” She set her hands above her ears, rocked back and forth. “In my head—they made me go with them—”

The captain was on to that in a flash. “Where?” His demand was purposely sharp to penetrate the haze that he supposed held her.

“To—to their place—in the sea—their place—”

“If you were with them, how did you get away?” Another man had come into the room and started toward her. The captain caught him back as he waited alertly for her answer. “How did you get away from them?” he repeated again with an emphasis designed to rivet her attention.

“I don’t know—I was there—then I was all alone—all alone in a woods. I ran—it was dark—very dark—”

The captain spoke to the newcomer, “Can you get her to make better sense?”

“How do I know?” the other retorted. “She needs food—water.”

The medic poured from a container and held out the cup. She had to steady it in both shaking hands to get it to her mouth. She let coolness roll over her dry tongue. Then she detected a taste. Some drug? She might already have lost the game because she had no defense against drugs and she had finished the draft. As a cover she kept the cup to her lips as long as possible.

“More—” she pushed the cup at the medic.

“Not now, later.”

“So—” the captain was eager to get her back to her story “—you just found yourself in a woods and then? How did you get here?”

“I walked,” Charis replied simply, keeping her eyes on the cup the medic was now holding as if that mattered far more than the officer’s questions. She had never tried to play such a role before and now she hoped that the picture she presented was a reasonably convincing one. “Please—more—” she appealed to the medic.

He filled the cup about a third and gave it to her. She gulped it down. Drug or not this was her proper action. Her thirst allayed, her hunger was worse.

“I’m hungry,” she told them. “Please, I’m hungry—”

“I’ll get her something,” the medic volunteered and left.

“You walked,” the captain persisted. “How did you know which way to walk—to come here?”

“Which way?” Charis returned to her trick of repetition. “I did not know the way—but it was easier—not so many bushes—so I went that way where it was open. Then I saw the building and I ran—”

The medic returned, to put into her hand a soft plasta-skin tube. Charis, sucking at its cone end, tasted the rich, satisfying paste it contained. She recognized it as the revive ration of a well-equipped base.

“What do you think?” the captain asked the medic. “Could she just head in the right direction that way? Sounds thin to me.”

The medic was thoughtful. “We don’t know how this Power works. They could have directed her, without her being aware of it.”

“Then she’s meant to be their key in!” The look the captain directed at Charis was now coldly hostile.

“No, any directive such as that would fail once she got within the Alpha-rim. If they gave her some such hypo-order, it won’t work now. You’ve seen how the warriors are freed from control here. If the hags did have some purpose and pointed her at us, it’s finished.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“You’ve seen it happen with the males. The control does not operate within the rim.”

“So—what do we do with her?”

“Maybe we can learn something. She has been with them—that is obvious.”

“Might be more your department than mine,” the captain observed. “You can take her on with the other one. He still out?”

“I told you, Lazgah, he’s not unconscious in the ordinary sense.” The medic was clearly irritated. “I don’t know what he is except still alive. So far he hasn’t responded to any restorative. Such a complete withdrawal—I’ve never seen its like before.”