Warlock by Andre Norton

“That’s impossible!” the medic cut in. “You’ve had the complete reading from sensatator since she’s been here. There’s no indication that anything registered. Gathgar knows that she’s been with the females and he built up all this on that fact alone.”

“What do we know about this Power anyway?” Lazgah asked. “Sure, there’s only been negative register since she’s been here. But she might have some way of blanketing reception on that. A scanner could give us the truth.”

“You put a scanner on her now and you’ll get nothing but a complete burn-out. She’ll be another like that fellow in there. What good will that do?”

“Turn the bulls loose on her and we could learn something.”

“What can you learn from the dead? They’re worked up now to a killing rage. Don’t hurry and maybe—”

“Don’t hurry!” The captain made a noise not far removed from one of Taggi’s snarls. “We don’t have much time left. This one knows where those hags have their base. I say—get her under questioning and find that out. Then we move and move fast. We have our orders to cut all corners on this deal.”

“Destroy what you want and what good will it do? Sure, you can probably blast your way in and burn out the opposition, but you know what we’ve learned so far. The Power doesn’t work unless you have had the training. It may not operate for males at all. You have a woman here who’s already been sensitized to it. Why not use her just as Jagan intended—to pick up the information you need? You won’t get that by force—either against her or maybe against the Wyvern females.”

Lazgah relaxed his grip on Charis. But he still stood over the girl, staring at her as if he could reach inside her skull by his will and bring her under control.

“I don’t like it,” he stated, but he did not protest further. “All right—but you keep an eye on her.”

The captain tramped out. But the medic did not follow. It was his turn to favor Charis with a measuring survey.

“I wish I knew whether you are playing a game,” he said, surprising Charis with his frankness. “Those hags can’t possibly control you past the Rim. But—” He shook his head, more at his own thoughts than at her, and did not finish his sentence. Going out abruptly, he closed the seal again.

Charis continued to sit on the cot. The Wyvern male Gathgar had accused her of working with the Power, but she had not. At least not with the aid of the patterns, Wyvern-fashion. Could it be, Charis’s hand went to the plasta-board under her tunic, that she did not need such an aid anymore? Was what she had been doing here—her contact with Tsstu, the reach-for Lantee—an easier method of using the same force?

But if that were true, there was a way of using the Power which could not be affected by the nullifier. Charis blinked. That surmise opened up a whole new field of speculations. She could reach Tsstu, and Tsstu could link in turn with the wolverines. Suppose that Tsstu, the wolverines, Charis and Lantee could form a chain to break open the Alpha-rim of the enemy?

Lantee— Somehow her thoughts always returned to Lantee, as if the pattern which was not a pattern needed the element for which he stood—just like the time she could not remember the right design until Tsstu supplied the indentations in her drawing. Charis could not have explained why she was certain of this, but she was.

She lay back on the cot and closed her eyes. Lantee must be summoned out of hiding, be one with them again. Charis released a questing thought, spun it out and away from her as a fisherman might cast a line or as a com beam might search for another installation to activate. A Wyvern witch working under the Power would have been accurate in such a hunt. She herself, using the pattern, could have centered on Tsstu and been reasonably certain of a quick contact, but this blind seeking was a fumbling process.

Touch! Charis tensed. Tsstu! Now she must hold that contact, signal along it her need for energy reserves for the job to be done. But Tsstu was unwilling. It was as if she was in Charis’s hand and wriggling for her freedom. But Charis kept the line taut, sent her determined demand along it. There—Taggi came in. The girl braced herself against the impact of the far more savage mind of the wolverine. Through to Taggi went her call for strength and a mutual pointing of their combined wills. Lantee—Charis made that call into form—Lantee. Now a fourth will joined—Togi, the female linked with her mate. The thrusting leap of that striking back to Charis was like a blow.

The girl held that linkage intact for a long moment, as a climber might examine knotted ropes to be sure of his support before facing a dangerous mountainside. Now! The wills were a spear which Charis not only aimed for the throwing but followed in flight.

Into the black of the nothing-place, surely the strangest of those Otherwheres into which the Power of the Wyverns led, she was the point of a fiery arrow shooting on and on, seeking the spark of light there. Now it was before her, very low, an ember close to extinction. But the arrow which was Charis, Tsstu, Taggi, and Togi struck into its heart.

Around them whirled a wild dance of figures. From all the doorways they had come into the corridor to crowd about her. She could not flee from them lest the lifeline break. This was worse than the first time she had walked this forbidden way, for the thoughts and memories of Shann Lantee now gathered more substance in their shadows. Charis knew a terror which balanced her on the thin edge of sanity.

However, the chain held true and pulled her back until she lay again on the cot, aware of its support under her. The contacts broke, the wolverines were gone; Tsstu, gone.

“I am here.”

Charis opened her eyes, but no one in a green-brown uniform stood beside her. She turned her head to face the wall which was still between them.

“I am—back.”

Again that assurance, clear-cut as audible words but, in her mind, coming with the same ease as the Wyvern witches communicated.

“Why—” Her lips shaped that soundlessly to match the inquiry in her mind.

“It was that or face the scanner,” he answered swiftly.

“And now?”

“Who knows? Did they take you too?”

“No.” Charis outlined what had happened.

“Thorvald here?” Lantee’s thoughts dropped away and she did not try to follow deeper. Then he was back to communication level. “The installation we’re after is in the main dome. They have it guarded by Wyvern males who are sensitive to any telepathic waves. And they will fight to the death to keep it in action and themselves free.”

“Can we reach it?” Charis asked.

“Little chance. At least, I’ve seen none so far,” was his disappointing answer.

“You mean it’s impossible for us to do anything?” Charis protested.

“No, but we have to know more. They’ve stopped trying to rouse me. Perhaps that will give me a chance to make some move.”

“The Wyvern male told them I am using the Power. But I haven’t tried it with the pattern and it didn’t register on some machine of theirs, so they didn’t quite believe him.”

“You did this—without a pattern?”

“With Tsstu and the wolverines, yes. Does it mean we don’t really need a pattern? That the Wyverns don’t need them? But why wouldn’t it show up on their machine?”

“May hit another wave length,” Lantee returned. “But if the Wyvern males pick it up, they may be more sensitive on other bands than their mistresses credit. I wonder if they could have some Power of their own but don’t know how to use it. If they picked you up before—”

“Then this last call for you—they could—”

“Be really alerted now? Yes. Which shaves our time to act. I don’t even know how many there are here at the base.”

“The witches have promised their help.”

“How can they? Any sending of theirs will fail at the Rim.”

“Shann, the Wyverns control their males with the Power. And the male I saw here believes that I can use it here. Suppose we all link again. Could we control them inside the Rim?”

There was a moment of pause in the flow of thought and then he answered.

“How do we know what will work and what won’t until we put it to the test? But I want to be ready to get out of here on my own two feet. And from here I can see a guard with a blaster at the outer door. We might be able to link against the Wyvern males, but I wouldn’t swear we could link to take out an off-worlder who has never been sensitized to mental control.”