The Forerunner Factor (20 page)

This space was no rough underground cavern. They were separated from the central cathedral and dangerous part by a series of pillars placed in regular order at the edge of the overhang. Each of these was carved in the form of either a standing figure, or a thick stemmed growth, half vine, half tree. All loomed well above even the off-worlder’s head. Simsa felt a beginning of curiosity, a desire to inspect them more closely, but her companion did not linger, and urged her on by the grip he still held on her arm.

There were no more openings nor doors in the wall which formed the left side of this covered way. On that space were deep carvings, but no faces leered at her, rather these ran in lines as might some gigantic record left to puzzle those with whom the builders shared no blood tie nor memory.

She could not guess how far they had gone in their half trot along that wall when suddenly there was a flare of light directly ahead—darting upward, then spreading out to catch them both in its beam. There had been no more crashes of stone from above, yet the sound of the storm echoed hollowly here. Thus Simsa caught only a faint sound from her companion.

He dropped his hold on both her and the carrier, whirled to catch up that weapon rod awkwardly in his cuffless left hand. A leap carried him before her with one end of the rod clapped tightly to his side by his bent arm, his fingers hooked about a projection a third of the way down its length.

That flare ahead did not fade or fail, remaining near as bright as the sun. Simsa had involuntarily shaded her eyes at first, now as her sight adjusted, she first peered between her fingers, and then dropped her hand entirely.

This was not a fire, rather it burned steadily, as might a lamp. A camp? Of whom? No guild force or traders she knew of had such day-clear illumination to serve them.

Then—could the dead have left this on guard for some lost reason?

The girl, recalling only too well Thorn’s tales of a slaying fire, reached out to sweep the other two zorsals to her. They had hunched their heads between their shoulders, half raised their wings as shields against the glare. She caught their honks of fear and misery. With Zass still in her usual place on one shoulder, the other two now crowded onto her arm (so heavy a weight together that she had to steady them against her body). Simsa backed against the wall, wondering if she dared to turn and run, believing she was too well revealed to try. She had no doubt that any weapons off-worlders might carry would have a range of least as far as a bow and she was well within arrow length of the light’s source.

Thorn stood, his feet slightly apart, facing that beacon directly. Now he called out, waited, and called again—three times in all. His voice sounded differently. Simsa half guessed that he was speaking other tongues.

There came no answer save the continued flare of the light. From here she could not even see the source from which that sprung. Thorn raised his other hand so she caught the shine of the cuff, waved her to stay where she was. Then he began to walk steadily, with obvious purpose, toward the glare.

Simsa’s breath came raggedly as if she had run some race. She waited for fire, for some other strange and horrible fate, to cut him down. There was no belief in her that there could be any friends here.

But no war arrows, cut to whistle alarmingly as they took the air, no spouting of off-world fire, followed. Thorn was merely walking as if back in the desert and that light was the cruel heat of the sun.

She could see him so clearly, though only his back now. Still he waited for death to claim him. Then he turned a little from the column of the light, passed to one side to hide—consumed?

The zorsals still cried and clung to her, showing no desire to take flight. Was it the light which kept them so? Or did they sense some greater danger? Their antennae were all closely rolled to their small skulls, and their big eyes squeezed shut.

Then, a dark blot which could only be Thorn—she was sure it was—showed once more between her and that light. While the light itself was reduced in both length of beam and harshness of glare, so she could see he stood there waving her forward. Because she must trust him, if she trusted anyone beyond herself in this place, the girl picked up the rope of the carrier, set herself to the forward pull of its weight and obeyed his signal.

By the time she had reached the source of the light, it had been softened to hardly more than that which a fire might give on a chill night of the wet-season’s ending. Now she could see a space in which there had been set up what seemed to be a kind of fortified camp—if all those lumps of stone had been dragged there for walls of protection.

Piled against these blocks were containers and boxes—some of the type which she had seen unloaded many times from traders’ rafts on the river. The others were of metal—surely off-world.

While the light itself came from a cylinder placed on a plate of metal in the middle of the camp, Simsa looked hurriedly around. Where were those who had set the light? She half expected to see, marching towards her, suited bodies—living bodies—of off-worlders. Dead men, she told herself firmly, do not make camps—they do not!

Only there was no one there save Thorn. He, however, had no longer any attention for her. Instead he was on his knees by one of the off-world containers, this one thin in width and slightly curved. Simsa thought it might just have been shaped to fit upon a man’s back, for straps dangled down the inner side. Thorn had flung up the lid of that and was delving inside. Two small boxes, neither much larger than his own hand, had been set out. Then there was a larger one which flapped open as he pulled it free. Inside were blocks which fell out—one bouncing across to Simsa.

She had set the zorsals on one of the barricade rocks. Now she stooped to pick up that wandering square—and froze before her fingers quite touched it. She jerked her hand back, old half-forgotten stories shifted into her mind.

Caught—a man’s, a woman’s innermost spirit caught—fastened, made so a possession of another that such a thing could be used to summon, to torment, to—kill! Ferwar had laughed at such tales. But Ferwar—not even the Old One had seen such as this. For what she looked upon must indeed be the root of such stories. She was looking down—at herself. Imprisoned in the transparent cube was a figure so much alive that Simsa could not look aside.

That was how she must have appeared when she had drawn herself up on the silver sand of the pool, before she had pulled on again that dirty and confining clothing. The black skin of the prisoner was rounded, or spare—just as she was so shaped. If she could put finger within that transparent cover, surely she would touch flesh. That silver hair curled, as if just tossed in a loosening rain-wind. The ends lay soft across the shoulders, one strand half concealing a small, proud jutting breast. There was no coarse clothing, rather around the trim hips rested a chain as silver bright as the hair. From this, hung a kilt fringe of gems strung in patterns made by the use of silver balls between stones—just such gems as those of the necklace.

The small head was proud-high. There was that about this other Simsa—in the block—so great a pride. The living girl drew a deep breath. Through the hair on that high-held head was threaded another chain of gems, so that on the forehead rested a circle of them, pale and green, centered by another stone, opaque, the twin to the ring’s jewel.

One of the image’s hands held a small rod, appearing to have been wrought from some huge single white-grey gem. It was topped by a symbol Simsa had seen—one repeated several times over in some fragments the Old One had pored over, two curved horns turned upward, supporting between them a ball.

This was she. Yet never had she worn such gems, stood so tall, so unafraid, triumphantly proud. Was this that other her which some said dwelt within the body and went forth—no one could guess where—when life was spilled out forever? How could that be? She was alive here—Simsa as she had always been, had known herself, and yet—there was this other who was also her!

Though she did not realize it, she had knelt, was leaning forward now, one hand planted palm flat on either side of that amazing thing, staring at it, still in shock.

The girl was not even aware the off-worlder had come until his shadow fell across the other Simsa, half veiling her. She had raised her hand to brush that away. Then she looked up, met his eyes. For a moment, they rested on her—then on the other one.

He stared so long at the prisoner in the block that she began to feel cold. He knew—without her asking. Without answering, she also understood that he knew the truth of this thing, of what it might mean—and what it might do. She wanted so much to catch up that block, hide it away from his eyes, hiding this other self from his knowing—But it was too late for that.

Now he knelt, too, but he made no effort to take it from her. Could it be that there was a chance that he would let her keep it—make sure that she alone held safe this other self?

“It is—me—me!” She could no longer hold back the words. “Why is it me?”

She raised her eyes, hardly daring to look away from her find, lest he did take it. He had the strength to make it his, past all her defenses, even if she called upon the zorsals. Also, he knew what it was and how. . .

Simsa could not read his expression. She had seen him surprised, she had seen him angry, she had seen him push himself to the edge of endurance. This was another Thorn—one she must now fear?

“This—” he spoke very slowly and softly, almost as if he did not want to frighten her. “This is a visa-picture. It was made by my brother.”

“Picture.” she repeated. His brother—where? She looked around wildly.

“Like the bits on the walls, the heads,” he continued just as slowly and carefully. “Somewhere my brother saw this—and copied it so.”

“Me!” she insisted.

Thorn shook his head. “Not you, no. But plainly someone of your race, your own people, someone whose blood line might still have had a part in your own making. See—I would say she is a little older
. . . and look there, do you have such on your body?” He did not touch the block which held the other Simsa, simply pointed with fingertip to the smooth skin just a little above that fringe of gems which fell between the slim, long legs.

Simsa stared. Yes, there was something there—a scar, hardly showing, except that it must stand out in a ridge above the rest of the skin. It was the same symbol as crowned the rod this strange Simsa carried—two horns guarding a ball.

“That—” he told her now, “is X-Arth indeed. Though this woman who wears it—wore it—is of no Arth race I have seen accounts of. Perhaps she was Forerunner—one of those who vanished from all worlds and space before our own kind came into being. That is a very old sign even on Arth, for it combines two forces, the sun and the moon.”

“You say she is gone!” Simsa caught him up quickly. “But I am here. If she is not me, then she is kin, as you have admitted. Your brother—he can tell me—we can find—!”

The words poured out, she had not realized that she had reached forward and caught him by both shoulders, was even trying to shake him as if so she could better batter into him her need.

Now the expression on his face was changed indeed. It was not one of that strange softness which he had shown before, rather his features again set, his eyes narrowed and shut against her.

“My brother is—” for a long moment his lips did not move. Then he twisted free from her hold and stood up. “I can only believe that he is dead.”

She stared up at him gape-mouthed. Then the full force of what he meant made her snatch at what he called a visa-picture, which she knew she must have. Almost in the same instant, she scrambled back against one of the rocks which made up that pocket of the camp. With that stone at her back firm, so comforting, she looked around again.

“How do you know?”

He nodded to the container he had been unpacking. “He would not have left that here, as he did the pilot—” Now he gestured to the lamp which still gave a day’s light to them. “Those are intended as guides. They are—it is difficult to explain to one who does not understand our ways—but they are used in times of trouble to bring help. In them is an element which is set to answer to another whom those who may help always carry.” Once more, he fingered one of those things on his belt of so many wonders. “When I came within the right distance—that blazed—to draw me. Just as it would have drawn any one of our service who came here. Had it not been for the fury of the storm, we might even have heard a call, for they are set also to broadcast sound as well as light.

“My brother would have had no reason to set this pilot light unless he believed he was in grave danger. Nor would he have left what he did in that,” he pointed to the container, “unless he hoped that it would be found by someone searching for him.”

“A message—” she had assimilated what he meant, “did he tell you somehow then what that danger was?”

“He may have.” Now he went back and picked up one of the smaller boxes which he had taken from the container. “If he did, the message is taped here.”

“But this—” she still had the block, holding it with great care. “Would he tell you where this came from? You talk of Arth, X-Arth—of Forerunners—of wild things no one has heard of—you know so much, you of the stars—tell me what you can of this one who looks like me! Tell me!” Her voice arose, she cried out with all the longing of those years in which she had been so much a stranger that she must hide her strangeness from her world. In a mixture of races, she had been the most notable that she knew. She remembered only too well again how Ferwar had cautioned her from her earliest childhood to conceal what she could of her strangeness. How many times had the Old One warned of the Guild Lords who might have taken her just for her difference? She accepted the danger and had always done as the Old One said. She had been so long childish of body, she was near twice as many seasons as the rest of the Burrower girls when they were sought to pleasure some man. Partly, she had been safe because she so long remained a scrawny child. It was only when she had come out of that pool really that she had known pride in her body as well as in her wits.