Flight In Yiktor Part 2

The moon, returned Lord-One Krip shortly.

Now it was Lady Maelen's turn to frown. We have allowed time; surely we have allowed enough time.

True enough, but time runs fast. We must lift s.h.i.+p in the next seven days if we are to make it.

Kem-fu - Farree did not understand all this about moons and treasure, but he did know much of what went on in the Limits. He loses much at the tables in the Go-far. It is known that he is in debt to Gerog L'k.u.mb.

Lord-One Krip looked down, startled. What else do you know, Farree? This is of importance. Great importance.

Though Farree had half, or maybe more, of the lore of the Limits collected mindwise, he had to do some sorting before he answered.

It is said . . . He stopped. He wanted to be very careful to separate rumor and what he knew from observation and actual overhearing of news. Such a one as he was so much a part of the general trash of the Limits that few watched their tongues when he crouched or shuffled nearby.

It is said, he began slowly once again, that Gerog L'k.u.mb has as much power in the Limits as the Lawspeakers of the Great City. Yet he is seldom seen or heard to use it. For one to speak his name is enough to make a desire an act. He has his own eyes and ears everywhere. And, Lord-One - Krip, the other corrected him mechanically.

K-Krip. Farree stumbled over the saying of that name without any honorifics. If it be his wish to delay the work upon your s.h.i.+p, then it will - be delayed. It is said that oftentimes he does such until he is paid more, and then out of the ground come the needed men and straightaway all is done as was first ordered.

Extortion. The Lord-One's mouth became a thin line. The Lady Maelen nodded. And we are fit victims for such a game. Perhaps that he also knows.

Farree drew as deep a breath as his constricted lungs would allow. Let this one, he said then, put on rags and go back to the Limits. To no one he matters, and that he has been gone for days - that would not have been noted. While he was sheltered by you, few here knew it, either. Is that not so?

And if it has been noted and reported to the Lord of the Limits, and you appeared again, what excuse - Farree lifted his head as far as he could. There are Lords in the upper town who keep twisted ones such as I for as long as we afford them a certain amus.e.m.e.nt. When we are no longer of interest we return to the Limits-if we are lucky.

And if you are not lucky? asked Lady Maelen. Farree s.h.i.+vered and doubled his fists. There are other ways of amus.e.m.e.nt. Lady. To them such mistakes of birth are to be used and discarded at will.

I do not think that I like the customs here, she declared. So, little one, you could return to the Limits as one who has served your purpose with us?

As long as 1 stay well away from Russtif, yes, that I could do. And men talk before beasts - though you have shown me that perhaps the beasts might also undo plans if they met such great ones as you thereafter. In the Limits I am such a one as is not worth as much as Toggor would win in a battle match.

I do not like it, she returned promptly. To put you into such danger as that- Lady, I have had ten seasons in the Limits and still I live. Farree held himself as erect as possible. I am not lacking in a game of peering and prying. If time is what you fear, then it is best for you to use any tool to hand - such as Dung. For the first time in days he used his old name, the one he had hoped to forget.

Lord-One Krip looked to the woman over Farree's upward-straining head. If this is meant to hold us planet down as he thinks, the Guild may be behind it. They would not have taken kindly to our interference with their looting on Sehkmet. And if we are bucking the Guild-the sooner we know it the better. What do you know of the Thieves Guild, Farree? And are you still as willing to venture in, if it is a matter of theirs this L'k.u.mb busies himself with now?

The Thieves Guild! Farree's pointed tongue caressed his lower lip. To go up against the all-powerful Guild - yes, that was a different matter. Yet he believed that he could sink once more into the Limits and pa.s.s from sight of anyone save perhaps some grotesque scavenger such as he had been.

You will take me, Lord-One, to the gate. Perhaps you should drive me forth with kicks and curses, having discovered that I stole from you. That would be as they expect. He put a hand out to the door of the bartle's hut. It is moon dark for three nights, and the shadows are my old home. I can listen very well.

A small body thudded against his own, and, as limited as that force was, he near lost his balance. Toggor had crawled out of Lady Maelen's belt pouch to spring at Farree. He scuttled up to that unsightly hump and squatted in the narrow hollow between head and shoulder. When the Lady reached for him, he hissed sharply, warning her off.

Farree strove also to dislodge the smux, but the mental contact came sharper and clearer than he had ever received it before, as if the days spent with the off-worlders had honed a weapon to an edge fit to shave a hair.

Go with. Hide, but go with!

The Lady drew back and nodded as if the smux was suddenly one of her own kind with whom she was in full communication. Perhaps contact with the creature for some days had given her that power. But Farree was afraid.

Russtif - He made a mental picture of the beast seller.

No see - hide. With that the smux burrowed under the edge of Farree's robe, his claw tips tickling as he made his way from hump to breast and there settled himself, the stiff bristles of his hair rasping Parree's skin as he clung to the inside of the garment.

So be it, the Lord-One said. Two days we shall wait, while I also shall try to discover why our work goes so slowly. Then you will return, whether you have learned anything or not. He slipped one of his long-fingered hands under Farree's pointed chin and stared down into the hunchback's wide eyes with such command that Farree was forced to agree, knowing well that he could not deny that order. These two were not like any others he had known, and he could not guess what form their control might take - even an unrecognized molding of his own mind to obey.

He stood as soon as the Lord-One released him and scooped up some of the dust and straw by the door, smearing it with a careful hand down the fore of his robe.

You shall shout evil after me, kick me forth - he told the Lord-One. Do this with no lightness. Any who watch - as you may be watched - must be deceived.

Well enough! The Lord-One reached down to grab his knotted shoulder and hurled him out of the hut. As Farree sprawled forward on the ground, one hand curved over the hidden smux to protect it from harm, he felt the pain of a well-placed kick. Loud in his ears were curses noted in the trade lingo and others which must be in the Lord-One's own tongue.

A booted toe sc.r.a.ped along the side of his tousled head, and he uttered a cry of fear as he scuttled, first on hands and knees, and then on his feet, away from the hut across the field toward the gate. Behind him came the Lord-One, yelling curses and accusations that this was a thief no honest man would want around, and when Farree slowed by the gate the boot caught him again, this time in his side and with enough force to leave a bruised hurt. The two guards on duty only laughed, and one of them swung the stock of his gas rod, thudding it home with such vigor above the hump that Farree nearly lost his balance again.

He ran as he had run many times in the past, heading for the nearest straggle of buildings marking the Limits. Out of somewhere* a clod of hard earth struck his ear and brought another cry out of him.

He scuttled between buildings, twice slipping in the noi- some sc.u.m that marked all but the main ways of the Limits, and kept on running until a sharp pain under his ribs brought him up to hold a tent rope, gasping.

Though his robe was not tattered, it was bespattered with dirt and foulness, and he believed that his appearance was little better than when the lordly ones had led him forth from this place of ever-abiding terror and despair.

However, his wits had not been dimmed along with the cleanliness of his robe. Now, even as he breathed in gasps, he looked about him, trying to fathom where to lurk to learn what he had come to pick up. To keep well away from Russtif's section of the Limits was also necessary.

This was a section of drinking booths ready to catch the lower ranks from any s.h.i.+p which finned down on the landing field. Though it was not alive with custom as it would be later on, there were enough men in the shacks to make a din that Farree found loud after his days in the upper town. He dodged a staggering, singing couple who wavered out of the nearest den and slunk along behind the crude buildings.

Toggor was riding right under his chin now, eyestalks were extending over the collar of the robe. The smux seemed to be watching their surroundings with a purpose, Farree thought, equal to his own.

He approached L'k.u.mb's gambling establishment and squatted down near its door. There was an old superst.i.tion which he loathed - that to rub the hump of such as he would increase a man's luck. He had never willingly allowed it before, but now he had a purpose in which he could accept debas.e.m.e.nt. Thus, he squatted with his thin knees poked up, both hands resting in the dust of the ground, his head turned up as far as he could. His back was to the wall of the shack. He tried to tune in the voices inside, but he found them too m.u.f.fled to follow - save for the cries brought about by success or failure.

A man wearing the worn leather of a s.p.a.ce officer - lighter spots on the breast from which insignia had been ripped away - trod purposefully forward. Farree recognized the type: a planeted junior officer who had been fired from or missed his s.h.i.+p and was on the downward road into the floating trash of the Limits. He was darkly browned as became an off-worlder - even his scalp, for it had either been shaved or he was naturally hairless.

In spite of the evidence of his worn clothing, he did not look like one of the lost. There were no dribbles of Graz from the comers of his wide mouth and he walked with the alert stride of one who had purpose in life. As he came, Farree saw that he shot sharp glances about him, even over his shoulders, as if he thought he might be under surveillance. From one of the Limits guards who wanted a larger bribe than could be gotten out of that shabby belt pouch? The pouch was not flat, Farree saw, and he noted that the s.p.a.cer's hand was never far from it. Therefore he must be in funds - and so would be welcome in L'k.u.mb's establishment.

Then those keen eyes, which seemed to belie the role the other was playing, caught and held on Farree, and the s.p.a.cer swung a little out of his way, his hand dropping to thump the hunchback sharply between his bowed shoulders.

Wish me luck. Dung, He fumbled inside the vest he wore and from an inner pocket produced a bit, a section split from a well-worn stellar, snapping it to the ground before Farree's bare toes.

Luck. Farree mouthed the word obediently but absently for he was surprised. To his memory this off-worlder was a stranger. How could he use the noisome name known to the Limits? How many strangers might then have heard of Dung and would mark his coming and going?

The man had already turned away and was pa.s.sing through the doorless entrance of the shack. Farree's hand closed over the fragment of metal he had been thrown. Though he wanted to hurl it from him, that gesture would be foolish. He needed to eat if he stayed for any time in the Limits, and this would provide him with a bowl of stew at Hangstna's tent, as long as he was content to enter the kitchen half and bestow it on Mug the waiter-bartender.

Toggor moved and wriggled out of the neck of Farree's tunic, swinging down onto the hunchback's knee where he squatted, retracting three of his eyestalks and whirling the others about in a way which could make a viewer a little dizzy to watch.

What? What see?

Perhaps his a.s.sociation with the two s.p.a.cers and their communication from mind to mind had strengthened Farree's own powers. The swing of touch in and out that had always been a part of his contact with Toggor was less, and he had caught what was surely a question much more easily than he ever had before. A thought of his own struck Farree, and he touched the smux on his bristled back just below the head. Could he use the small creature to go where he could not venture without risking an end to his mission?

Toggor see? He shaped the message so that it was a question, and promptly enough came the answer.

Toggor see-what?

In. Farree jerked a claw thumb at the shed. Hide - see? But it was not going to be easy. The smux drew together into a ball as always when threatened by something greater than himself. The sense of refusal struck without words to center it. It had been only a pa.s.sing thought. Farree resigned himself regretfully. All kinds of parasites and vermin roamed the Limits - some of them deadly. He had fought twice for his own life against the slas.h.i.+ng-toothed vir that hunted in packs and, when forced by hunger, were known to have set upon sleeping drunks and left nothing but well-stripped bones behind.

For the first time Farree was startled himself. The smux apparently had followed his chain of thought, though it had not been deliberately aimed at him. For Toggor curled up three eyestalks, turning one lidless appendage to watch the door of the shack and the other two on Farree. The message followed the direction of the pair of eyes.

See-in-what?

Yes, what? He was sure that he could not implant in the smux's very alien mind the purpose of spying. But he could try something as a test - a watch on the s.p.a.cer who had just entered, perhaps.

See - him. He pictured as best he could the man who had just thumped him for luck. What he - do.

Toggor be caught.

Toggor small. Hide, watch. Farree scooped up a handful of the evil-smelling dust of this path between shacks and poured it on the lifted edge of his already much befouled robe, mounding it there with busy fingers. Toggor covered with this. All of the eyestalks had arisen again, and more than half of them watched that dust sifting through the hunchback's fingers.

Farree did not add anything more. He was no Russtif to command obedience from the smux. He had asked; now it was up to Toggor whether the other would agree or not.

The smux reached out a foreclaw and dabbled it in the dust that Farree had mounded on the edge of his robe. The claw scooped up a fraction and let it slide again through its hold. Then brought up a second lot to toss it over the bristles on the back.

Farree needed no other reply. Delicately, so as not to drop any motes to irritate the outstanding eyes, he took up pinches and spread them on the smux. The creature hopped from his knee hold, landing out in the dust, and proceeded to draw in his eyes and then roll across the ground. Moments later the smux looked like a clod of earth.

Farree picked up the small creature carefully and set him by the open doorway. Putting out foreclaws, Toggor pulled himself in and out of sight.

Parree was suddenly rocked back by a wave of mixed fear and rage. He would not have believed that so small a creature could have projected that to him. There was a frazzled mind picture a part of it, something dark and ugly and - There was only one thing, he believed, that could have brought that response out of the smux: Russtif!

Instant agreement sped thought - swift. The beast seller was there - with a wavery figure that Farree thought might have been the man he saw enter moments before. There was a third bulk, but Farree could pick up no more than the fact someone else was present.

Farree drew himself tight against the rotting timbers of the shaky wall. When he put out a hand and sc.r.a.ped his nails along it splinters loosened. If he could just - Near you? he asked Toggor. He was sure that the smux had not gone far into the room inside. And if those three were in good sight then they must be not too far from the part.i.tion against which he now huddled.

Here, Toggor beamed in reply - though where here could be Farree could not be sure.

He put an ear to the boards where he had scratched. But he must also keep an eye for any pa.s.sing by who might sight him. There were voices right enough and words - but not the words of gamblers. He treasured what he might catch.

- no pilot.

See that remains so.

Stellars, stellars like bits. That was Russtif; Farree could never forget that growl.

Tell - Why share? Russtif again.

L'k.u.mb knows. Never get away with - His plan - why always his? That voice was raised a little. There followed a thought which broke through Farree's concentration.

This one comes. Trouble moves - And come the smux did, slipping through the hole in the board and leaping for the folds of Farree's robe. Then he scrambled within at the neck.

Bad one. Look. See.

Fear froze Farree in turn. He jerked back from the wall and scrambled on hands and knees around to the back of the shack. There he forced himself to halt and watch around the comer he had put between himself and the alley. If the beast seller had indeed sighted the smux, he might be issuing forth to get him.

Russtif did come out, but he did not glance down the alley. Tramping heavily across its mouth, he was gone. Farree's heart ceased its leaping beat and settled down to steady rhythm again. The animal dealer was followed by another man - not the s.p.a.cer Farree had wished luck but a tall fellow wearing the uniform of a guard, one who stood for a heart-stopping moment at the mouth of the alley. But he, too, failed to glance down it. Rather, he looked after Russtif and then shrugged at some thought and turned in the opposite direction.

Farree settled down to wait for the s.p.a.ceman. Somehow he believed that this' off-worlder had importance to his own mission. He had to wait for quite a while - perhaps the man was trying his luck after all.

When he came out he strode across the alley mouth in two steps, but Farree had already planned ahead how he could follow. There was a back way he had spied out and, though his pace was not a run, he had learned to be fast in his own way. Stones and blows had taught him much about the need for speed.

He was always the length of a tent or a shack behind the s.p.a.cer, keeping to the shadow which had risen fast as the sun had gone down. There was more activity on the street, and that would grow with the night. As long as it was not more than now, Farree could follow.

The man turned, heading along one of the crooked ways that led through the Limits to, at length, give upon the respectable streets of the upper town. If he crossed into that Farree dared not follow. There he would be as visible to the first pa.s.serby as a scarlet lurpa among dudan lilies. He was growing breathless and tired also, for he was not used to long stretches at his highest speed. And he had to pick always a shadowed way which often led him off the right path.

To his relief the s.p.a.cer did not cross over into the upper town, rather turned in at the door of one of the more respectable buildings of the Limits - one which offered lodging to such travelers as could still pay half a stellar each morn. Rubbing his ribs where a sharp pain bit at him, Farree hunched down in the nearest pool of shadow, unsure of his next move. Why he had chosen to follow this stranger he was still unsure, but the man was an off-worlder, a s.p.a.cer plainly down on his luck, for no s.p.a.cer would stay planetside for long if he could help it. Farree had heard the Lord-One Krip say that their own s.h.i.+p needed a minimum of crew or it could not raise. He had hired one crewman, a s.p.a.cer who had been planeted when the captain of a prospecting s.h.i.+p could not afford a needed rebuild. The crewman had been willing to sign on for his own need to get to a more traffic-filled field on another and richer world. Was this man Farree had followed such a one?

Would he play the role of a beggar at the back of the rest place? It was well known that the trash did this from time to time. However, should the s.p.a.cer sight him, the man might think it was too much of a coincidence that he had seen Farree by the gambling tent and saw him also here, more than halfway across the Limits. What had he learned? Little enough - that there was a reason why someone would have difficulty in finding an off-world crew. There was only one trying to hire such now - the Lord-One Krip.

Farree hesitated, trying to plan his next foray for knowledge when he saw another come down the street, walking boldly and swinging a silencing club. The guards had tanglers and stunners, but most of them relied on their clubs to keep order, preferring to leave a half-dead, beaten victim in the street rather than take the time and trouble to bind and deliver a prisoner to their general headquarters.

Farree squeezed backwards as far as he could go, careful not to catch the eye of one trained to sight just such a disturber of the uncertain peace as the hunchback was deemed to be. He breathed slowly and shallowly, with as long a pause between each breath as he could manage. There was the wreckage of a crate of more than usual substance pulled into this s.p.a.ce between two structures, and Farree made the best use of that that he could.

The guard did not hesitate, turning directly into the rest house as the s.p.a.cer had earlier. Farree tried to think clearly. Perhaps this one carried some message - one that would mean much if he could report it to those who waited for him near the port. But how might he worm his way into the building, see those he must spy upon? Though it was now heavy twilight and only the few and far between street lanterns gave any glow, he knew better than to try and win past that doorway yonder.

Bristles sc.r.a.ped against his chest. The smux - could Toggor give him partial sight, a fraction of hearing, as he had at the drinking hole? Farree put his hand gently into the front of his befouled robe and felt the claws grip so that he could draw the smux out.

Farree's night sight had been trained to the peak of what his species could achieve during the years in the Limits. There was coming and going in the crooked street now. And at least four of the pa.s.sersby turned into the rest house. He watched for his chance and crossed to shelter once more against a slimed wall, bringing out Toggor as soon as he settled himself in the best shadow concealment he could find. The smux's eyes were all up and out, fanning about his head at their farthest extent.

What-do?

Toggor seemed free of any fear. Farree studied the wall against which he crouched. The lowest story of the building was stone, very old and fitted block upon block with crumbling mortar in between. It might once have been an important building like those of the upper town. The second story was squared timbers, also rough. Farree thought that his own thin fingers could find openings there to draw himself up.

But the weight on his back was not meant for a climber, and would hinder any such attempt.

Instead, the hunchback held the smux closer to his own head as if the proximity would better broadcast the thought he labored to send.

Man. Laboriously he pictured as best he could the s.p.a.cer, not sure that the alien mind of the small creature could pick up the identification. Find in - He patted the stone of the wall with his other hand.

A little to his surprise the smux seemed almost eager to go, climbing over his fingers to latch foreclaws into one of the mortarless divisions between the blocks. Farree leaned as far as he could backward to watch the creature climb easily aloft. He reached the narrow sill of one of the slitlike windows. But apparently there was no entrance there for him. Instead he scrambled around to the wood and pulled up claw over claw. Then he was gone!

Farree looked around wildly. Had Toggor lost grip and fallen? No - there was a beam, not of thought, but emotion. Hunger, hunt - the smux had come into the runway of a vynate. Farree felt the bitterness of defeat. Once on the trail of one of those pests he could not hope to turn Toggor aside.

But neither would he loose the thin thread of mind touch that tied them together. The smux's hunger became strong enough to make Farree's own belly rumble, and he thought of a meat cake, rich, dripping with gravy, such as he had eaten only that morning. Hunger - then the attack - He s.h.i.+vered, still making himself share the frenzy of Toggor as the smux tore into flesh, was spattered by blood, and then feasted to the full. Never before had Farree shared minds with a hunter, and he found his body trembling, his own hands clawing out as if he were faced with good food. Now the smux was satisfied. He must either summon it back somehow or - Would Toggor now wish to sleep after his kill? If so, how could Farree retain any control over him?

He clasped and unclasped his fingers, drew a deep breath, and probed.

Perhaps his very uneasiness added strength to that call, for he reached the twittering mind of the small creature on the first try.

Eat. Good. Eat!

Farree began to despair of getting below that satisfaction of the successful hunt. He held on and kept trying though he felt that the smux was finding him an irritation but apparently not one Toggor could throw off. Deliberately Farree made his demand.

Find. Find the man. Into that order he tried to pour the full extent of his mind hold.

Eat! The ecstasy of the hunt still held, and Farree could have beaten the wall beside him in his frustration.

Find! There were beads of sweat on his narrow forehead, matting the heavy thatch of his hair. Find.

His mind touch wavered in and out more and more. The smux was caught up in his own world, triumphant, free to be himself perhaps for the first time since he was captured. What power could Farree raise which would bring Toggor again under his control, light as that control was?