Android at Arms (7 page)

“Not that fast.” It was Turpyn who answered. “And this isn't that kind of growth either.”

“You have been here before then?” Yolyos asked.

“I was taken from here—at least my last memory—”

That struck home like a blow. Andas had only one question: “What year—galactic?”

For a long moment Turpyn did not reply. Was he trying to reckon the time or change some planet accounting into galactic? Or had the question of time startled him into that silence? But at last he spoke.

“The year 2265.”

Thirty-five years after Andas's reckoning, forty-five after Yolyos's—and differing widely again from that of Elys and Tsiwon! Time—Andas's shadow fear was gathering substance—how much time lay behind him in that prison?

“You say 2265,” Yolyos commented. “And how long would you say that this port of yours has been abandoned?”

“I do not guess.” But Andas thought that sounded rather as if the Veep did not choose to. Also he knew that once implanted in Turpyn's mind, that fear would be as hard a companion for him as it was for the rest of them.

“Since we know now what Wenditkover once was and what you expected to find here, may we also believe that you fed its tape into the ship's pilot?” If the date bothered the Salariki, he did not show it, but had returned to the business of getting straight answers from Turpyn.

“I recognized the symbol on one of the other tapes. It was easy to palm and exchange.” He was impatient, as if they should have guessed the truth at once.

“But you still have the Inyanga tape?”

“Yes.”

“And I think that we can believe that Inyanga will not have disappeared into some waste of time as thoroughly as this has,” Yolyos continued. “So—”

He staggered back, the coverall on Turpyn's shoulders ripped, there were red furrows on the skin beneath, but the Veep had broken that hold. He burst from them, heading into the mass of growth where the ruins of the buildings offered so small a defense against the jungle.

Andas started after him when Yolyos's voice, having the snap of an order, brought him up short.

“Let him go. You cannot find him in that tangle. And once he sees that there is nothing there for him, he will come back.”

“Liar—cheat!” The rasping cry came from behind. Grasty, bent over, his hands clasping his belly, his face gray, tottered toward them, this time crying his abuse in Basic. Then he sputtered again in his own tongue. But he did not follow the Veep. Perhaps the folly of such a chase struck him as quickly as it had the Salariki.

“Liar—cheat?” repeated Yolyos. “You seem even more heated over this matter than the prince here, yet he had good reason to believe he was on the way home. Or, Councilor, did
you
have reason to think that
you
were headed in some other direction? I remember you were talking confidentially once to our late guide. Had you made a separate deal with him? Did you think we were coming to Thrisk?”

“But there were no tapes marked Thrisk.” However, Andas thought Yolyos had hit upon something. When the Salariki growled that question, Grasty had actually flinched. The attack on him must have shaken him as badly as the first sight of this deserted port had Turpyn. And while he was in this state, they had better get to the bottom of any private deal he had thought he had made.

“I am Chief Councilor of Thrisk.” Grasty might have been trying for dignity, but he could not stand straight. And he groaned and clutched at the belly so cruelly outlined by his clothing. “I have resources—”

“And you made an offer to Turpyn,” Yolyos supplied when the man seemed unable to continue. “Where did you think we were going?”

“He said Kuan-Ti. They have a strong tie with Thrisk.”

“And you believed him?” Yolyos was plainly amused.

“He was to get a million credits.” Grasty choked out the words as if each hurt.

A million—what kind of personal fortune did Grasty have to draw on? Or did he intend for that to come from the safekeeping of Thrisk? Or had he intended not to pay at all, having once achieved his purpose? Andas suspected the last as the truth. Two of them making a bargain neither intended to keep—well might Grasty curse.

“It would seem that your trust was not mutual,” commented Yolyos. “I do not think you are going to see Kuan-Ti, nor Thrisk for a while—”

“Help!”

The cry came from the ship, not the woods into which Turpyn had plunged. Tsiwon stood at the foot of the ramp beckoning wildly. And crumpled at his feet lay Elys. Andas reached them first and went down on his knees beside her.

She lay with her eyes closed, and those odd growths on her neck had an unhealthy look, shriveled, puckering up in scaled patches.

“She said,” Tsiwon cried out breathily in his thin voice, “that she must have water, that she smelled it and must reach it or she would die. She started to run—in that direction—” He pointed.

“Aquatic race.” Yolyos had gone down on one knee, too. “I wonder how she has managed so long. But she will have to have her water or die. There is undoubtedly a limit on the time she can remain dry.”

“But her prison cell seemed no different from mine—”

“We don't know what type of mind-lock we were in back there. The point is—she needs it now and in a hurry.” The Salariki scrambled to his feet. “Can you carry her? If so, I'll break trail.”

Andas got to his feet, glad she was so light of frame—unusually so. He had not been aware on the ship that she was so thin. Her bones seemed almost starting through her pale skin. Maybe that was caused by dehydration.

They headed to the spot Tsiwon had pointed out. There Yolyos went into action, beating down, breaking off branches and vines, clearing a rough path through which Andas could steer a way with Elys resting across his shoulder. He had not moved or made a sound since he had picked her up.

“She's right—water—” Yolyos was sniffing, as though water might have a scent—though at that it might, for the Salariki. For a race whose sense of smell was so acute that they habitually wore scent bags about their persons, the smelling of water might not be too great a feat.

What had Yolyos endured without his scents? It was customary that off-worlders coming to Sargol had to steep themselves in aromatic odors before having any dealings with the natives. What had Yolyos endured without his scents—pent in the ship? It must have been very hard on him, yet never once had he complained.

They broke through a last screen of brush and came out at the side of a pool.

“What do we do?” Andas was at a loss.

“No telling how deep this is. Do you swim?”

“Yes.” Andas laid the girl down and unsealed his coverall. The air was humid, warm enough so that he felt no chill. He lowered himself cautiously and found that the waters curled only slightly above his waist. Good enough—he could manage.

“Let me have her.”

Yolyos lowered the limp body into his grasp. The coverall dragged as he dipped her below the surface, save for her face. Her hair floated out, hardly differing in shade from the water weeds. Andas steadied her as best he could and hoped that the pool had no dwellers interested in meat meals. There were always unpleasant surprises on new worlds, and only a great emergency would drive a man to take such a chance as this.

Elys sighed and her eyes opened. Already those scaled patches on her throat were less shrunken, more the normal color of her skin. She wriggled in his hold.

“Let me go!” There was such force in her order that he did that. She pushed away, disappearing under the surface of the water before he could prevent it. He started to splash after her when she bobbed to the surface some distance away.

“This is my world. Let me be!”

Already she seemed to have regained her vigor. If that was the way she wanted it—but she had already gone under the water again. Andas climbed out of the pool and found the Salariki waiting with handfuls of dried grass. The prince toweled himself as dry as he could with those and dressed again, wishing he had fresh clothing to wear.

Yolyos had gone a little way along the pool side. From a bush there hung festoons of creamy flowers, and the Salariki buried his face deep among them, his wide chest rising and falling in deep breaths as he drew in all of their scent his lungs would hold.

5

It was a new Elys who finally emerged from the pool in answer to Andas's calls, though it was apparent that she came reluctantly. As a starving man might have reacted to some weeks of careful feeding, her too-thin body was normally rounded once again.

“I feel”—she flung her arms wide as she still stood with her feet awash—“like a priestess of Lo-Ange who has flung her name tablet into the sea and so is reborn again!”

Andas was impatiently pacing up and down. A thought pricked at him. What if Turpyn had made his way back to the ship? Neither Grasty nor Tsiwon would be prepared, or perhaps wish, to prevent the Veep's taking off to locate some other Guild lair. By lingering here they were offering him a chance to do just that. And to be marooned here—no!

He looked to the Salariki, but Yolyos had wandered on, like a man drunk with Formian wine, or else bemused with happy smoke, to sniff at some purple veined leaves, which, after smelling, he crushed between his hands, rubbing the resultant mass up and down his wide chest. Their aromatic scent was strong enough to reach even Andas's nostrils.

“We have to get back to the ship!” The prince said to Elys. “If Turpyn tries to take off—”

But she was too fascinated by her own form of refreshment, stooping to catch up palmfuls of water, splashing about like a child. He was thoroughly exasperated by both of them.

“Ahhhhhh—” A rumble of sound from Yolyos, who had now wandered out of sight, was startling enough to bring Andas on the run.

The screen of flowering and scented growth that had been planted about the pool was a thin one. And the prince pushed through it to see the alien facing a small glade.

For a moment of surprise and awe, Andas was misled enough to think he might indeed be fronting the owners of this overgrown garden. Then he saw the truth. Tree trunks had been rough-hewn into those figures, gathered in a half circle about a spring bubbling from a stand of rocks. Bleached, perhaps by some rotting process of the jungle from which they had been hacked, they had an aura of life. Their bodies were humanoid, if gross and clumsy, but their faces were pitiless and alien. Some jungle vines had rooted on their bulbous heads, perhaps by accident, perhaps by long ago design, presenting them with tendrils of hair. And these vines produced purple blooms around which buzzed a multitude of insects. But there was also a sickly scent that made Andas give an exclamation of disgust and retreat a step or two.

Perhaps the aromatic leaves with which he had rubbed himself prevented Yolyos from catching that odor strongly, for he had drawn near to one of those figures and was peering into its blind-eyed face. Then he shook his head and came back to Andas.

“I have not seen their like before.”

“And I have seen enough! The sooner we get back to the ship, the better. If Turpyn gets there first, he could try to take off.”

“A possibility,” Yolyos agreed.

“Come on then!” Andas did not move until he was sure that the Salariki was coming.

But as they went, the other still dallied, snatching a handful of leaves there, one or two blooms here, until he carried in the crook of his arm a mass of highly scented growth.

Elys still lingered ankle-deep in the pool. Her thoroughly soaked overall clung to her. But she seemed to relish that instead of finding damp clothing a discomfort.

“The ship! If we ever want to get away from here, we must make sure of the ship!” Andas tried to make his fear plain.

The other two acted as if they were drugged, each by his own form of pleasure. Finally Andas urged them on before him as a Yakkan herd hound might round up a flighty flock to keep it moving.

They retraced the route Yolyos had opened and so came to the field. The ship's ramp was still firmly planted out. Seeing that, Andas gave a sigh of relief. At least the ship was not sealed against them. Of any of the others there was no sign at all. Still that passage across the open made them targets either for an enemy in the ship or one in hiding, and it was one of the longest walks Andas felt he had ever taken. Neither of his companions was in the least hurry. Short of pushing or dragging, Andas could not make them alter their pace. Elys was singing, a low, contented hum, drawing strands of her wet hair through her webbed fingers, while Yolyos did nothing but bend his head to take long sniffs of the mingled scents of his huge bouquet. A less alert company, Andas fumed, he had yet to see. Show Elys water, Yolyos some flowers, and they would be out of a fight from the start.

There was no sign of Grasty or Tsiwon near the ramp either. They climbed that, Andas crabwise so he could keep watch on the edge of the jungle, expecting trouble and Turpyn to erupt from there. He did not accept the fact that the Veep would give up so easily.

They found Grasty standing over the bunk on which lay the Arch Chief of Naul, his eyes closed, his age-pinched face more sunken and skull-like than ever. The councilor looked up as they came in.

“About time,” he wheezed as if he had not yet recovered from the blow Turpyn had dealt. “He”—he nodded to Tsiwon—“has it bad—some kind of seizure. Went down as if he were blasted.”

The Arch Chief looked dead, but when Andas examined him, he found a faint slow beat of pulse. Again panic touched him. A trained medic might be able to bring the old man back to consciousness, even save that spark of life. But they had no medic. To his surprise, it was Elys, steaming with damp, who moved up to push him impatiently away.

Her hands were sure, as if she knew exactly what she was doing, the fingers of the right just touching Tsiwon's forehead, those of the left his breast above the faltering heart. Her eyes were closed as if she concentrated or listened to what the others could not hear.