Only stories, he answered. No one believes them true.

Yet once such things were, she answered slowly. Once the Tha.s.sas knew such. But also I do not understand why they would send us a well-shielded one.

They may think that it is only with each other and with the animal ones we can communicate, Lord-One Krip said slowly. Yet the Guild have the reputation of taking nothing and no one on trust. There are many races and species in s.p.a.ce. The Zacanthans in their rolls of history have only a partial listing of such and their attributes both physical and mental. They did not even know of the Tha.s.sa until we met on Yiktor. There may be many others - even a race born with a natural mind shield. Still, it argues planning on their part. This is a warning, for it goes with all we know of the Guild.

The Thieves Guild had spread and entwined world after world - where star rovers went, sooner or later the Guild followed. They were reputed to be masters of strange knowledge and devices which they stole or bought before the Patrol realized that such existed.

Farree ran his tongue across his lips and then asked in a small voice: Could it be known that time is of importance to your plans, Lord-One, and that you would chance taking whoever offered because of that?

Yes, Lord-One Krip replied, that makes sense. However, these two may have defenses or weapons of which we know nothing. And to blast off with such aboard - Toggor moved. His eyestalks were all extended to the farthest limit and swung so that they pointed after the man who had just left.

A fuzzy picture in Farree's mind. One which the Lady Maelen must have picked up as quickly as the hunchback.

He is not a machine-that one, she said. The smux finds true life there and danger.

Yazz, Bojor. The Lord-One looked to the two other animals.

Live. Like Yazz. Live, answered that one at once. The bartle growled, sitting up on his broad and weighty haunches, making gestures of holding something in his front paws.

I think, Lady Maelen said slowly, that we may have our own warning alerts from directions which our new shipmates will not guess. They can accept animals performing because of threats or promises, but not little ones who share with us that true life of all that is equal in Molester's scales of being. We shall mount our safeguards. You have made your own lock installments on the cages? She turned to Lord-One Krip.

Yes; we shall test them this night. It will serve that our little ones are firmly housed and yet - he smiled a little grimly - that will be only a cover.

Farree had been in the ship before, but that had been a hurried visit and only to that section meant to house those the Lady Maelen called her little ones. Though she used the same term for Farree himself, there was a difference which was subtle but which he had caught. He was perhaps as ignorant of worlds beyond this planet as the animals, or even more so, for those had roved the wilds far beyond the Limits. Yet to these two off-worlders he was common kin.

Now he lay in the bunk which had been a.s.signed to him. For the off-worlders and their live companions had chosen to go within the ship though it was still fin down. However, what he was thinking had nothing to do with the events of the past two days. Rather he was caught up in what he had never experienced before: a waking dream of wonder. That was centered upon something he had seen in the Lady Maelen's quarters.

A cube which seemed transparent and clear of any content - one which was only slightly larger than what he could hold comfortably in his two hands. When the Lady touched it, there had come a swirl of color within as he watched in astonishment. He might have been poised in the air above another land - one so far different from the Limits that dream was all he could find to call it.

There were wide plains - small within the limits of the cube's s.p.a.ce, yet the longer one looked at the scene the wider those spread, as if one became smaller than a sand jumper and had been pulled into the picture. There was green - great stretches of green growing things, starred here and there with brilliant splashes of color, some widely separated, some ma.s.sed together. Growing things also, but the like of which Farree had never seen before.

Far down in his cramped memory something stirred even as it had when they had asked his true name. Color, growing things - There were none such in the Limits, yet he recognized them for what they were instantly: a mantling of rich, tall-growing gra.s.s and - flowers. Faltering memory produced a name for him.

His nostrils expanded. Yet there was nothing save the air of the ship to fill them. He had expected something else: clean, strong, unlike the sour stench of the Limits. Why did he think of that?

Yiktor. The Lady Maelen's word had cut through his searching of memory. The Tha.s.sa wander wide over these plains, though their own private place is near desert. She was, he saw by an upward glance, concentrating on the cube with an intent stare. We shall be in Yiktor! In the circling of the rings.

The scene within the cube swirled again from clarity into a fog of mingled color. Farree gave a small exclamation of protest. But the cube did not clear entirely. Now there hung a ball of light within it, and around that three distinct rings of radiance grew and held.

He felt a greater wonder than even the flower-studded land had given him. This was a thing out of the sky - a miracle of light unlike any he could have imagined. The sight brought no faint recognition with it; it was totally alien to anything he even had heard described. The Lady reached out long fingers and caressed the cube as she had done at times the bartle and Yazz, as if she needed the rea.s.surance that they did exist. Farree felt a strong wave which was both of sadness and of joy - though, before this moment, he could not have believed two such diverse emotions could be interwoven.

Then she lifted the cube and instantly the picture was gone. She took a soft piece of spider silk and wrapped what was now only a clear and colorless artifact, then placed it in one of the wall compartments.

Farree longed to see again that flowery land, to feel that he had been drawn into the dream and become a part of the whole, accepted and at - at home - You saw, the Lady spoke slowly as she turned from the compartment she had locked with her thumb seal. Yiktor, which I ... Now her voice failed for an instant before she added, which I long for and to which we go.

She clasped her hands together, rubbing one over the other as if some substance had escaped the cube to moisten her fingers. Yiktor, she breathed for the third time. Then her glance wavered from the compartment door, and she looked directly at Farree.

You saw. But there was something else-you remembered.

Oddly enough he felt suddenly threatened by her words. It was as if her probe could pierce easily into an inner part of him - a far inner part which cowered away from light and knowledge. There was a growing pain within him, which he found hard to handle.

I did not remember, he countered quickly. There was always the Limits - just the Limits.

Your kin - your father - your mother? She was not going to let him escape. But she need only keep mind touch with him to know the answer to that. The Limits, always the Limits - but then the man - For the first time in years Farree was remembering the man. He was only a shape, faceless, to be feared, yet all-powerful. He had died drunken and Farree had fled. He himself had been even smaller then, a misshapen lump of flesh which no one could look upon except with distaste or fear. Like Toggor, he had been alone. His kin? Who would claim kin with such as he? He had never seen his like even among the beggars, some self-mutilated to arouse pity. From them he had kept apart, moved by the queer feeling that were he to seek a place in their stinking, shambling guild he would be, in a strange way, lost.

He was stronger than he looked, and there was a core of determination within him to keep him going on his own. How long had it been? The refuse of the Limits did not reckon years, only seasons - hot and cold. And he did not add those up.

Before he realized what she was about to do, Farree felt the Lady's hands at the neck fastening of his robe. She pulled at the cloth, bringing it down to bare his hump.

He flared with a thrust of sick anger. Then her mind speech touched him quickly. At least she had not put hand to that monstrous roll of flesh which he bore always with him.

This is no hurt, yet it looks as if it were old scarring. She shook her head. A healer I once was - a Moon Singer who could bring good out of ill. And much have I seen of bad wounds and injuries. The Tha.s.sa have their own dangers, which do not equal those of other species. This looks more like a sh.e.l.l - Farree jerked the cloth of his robe, fastened it tightly once again. No Singer can make me straight, he answered sullenly.

But she did not let him go. Though she did not touch him again, yet he realized that he must answer her. For the first time he resented with more and more bitterness this mind tie between them. What had once seemed to him to be an opening gate to understanding now took on the bars of a cage.

No, I think not. But for everything there is a reason. Do you suffer pain?

He had to answer with the truth. No - except the pain of its weight. It grows heavier with the pa.s.sing of time. Against his will truth came out of his mind. He had suffered the pain of kicks and cuffs aplenty, but the weight on his shoulders which curved him forward had never hurt. There was an itching which came at times, more often recently. He had been driven once or twice by the force of that to rub his back against the stone walls of the inn within the Limits.

If you suffer pain, Farree, she addressed him now as she might the Lord-One Krip, come to me. Though I am an exile from the Tha.s.sa, yet I still hold some power in these. She held up her hands and flexed her fingers.

Now, as Farree lay circled on his side in his own place (for he had been given a small cabin of his own, to his unvoiced wonder), every bit of that came back to him. She had meant it, and he knew also that it was an offer he could not take. Or at least he thought at this moment that he could not. The burden was his own, and none but death might lift it from him.

Yet he kept remembering the pictures in the cube and his inner excitement grew. It was necessary for these two he held in unbreakable awe and reverence to go to that world of flowered plains and three-ringed moon, and they were taking him with them.

That they took off a day later with two on board who must be watched did not alarm Farree. He knew too well how to keep wary eyes and those thoughts which tied the rest of that company into a force none without mind touch might even deduce existed.

He who had the mind shield could be seen, and the other, though they were careful not to probe below his surface thoughts, could well be open to search if it became necessary. There had been a flare of protests from the astrogator when he discovered that they were traveling by a sealed tape. But on a privately owned ship that was not too uncommon, and his arguments had been few enough.

It was Toggor who provided their first sentry. Though they were in free-fall for a goodly s.p.a.ce of time and Farree was miserably sick and fought to conceal that fact, the smux loosed its legs and swam in the air, catching at fittings for anchorage from time to time.

The Lady Maelen stayed with Bojor, who suffered the most for lack of proper weight and had to be constantly rea.s.sured that this was not something that would last forever.

Once in hypers.p.a.ce the weak gravity of the ship gave them at least a chance for footing. Farree, out of some inner uneasiness, made it a point to learn how to get about without help - wishing that he had the smux's confidence.

There was no time except that rigidly marked by the ship's instruments. They kept to a series of watches wherein either Lord-One Krip or the Lady Maelen was on duty with one of their hastily a.s.sembled crew. For Farree there were no stated duties, but he would lie on his bunk for unknown periods of time, linked with Toggor, learning more and more how to channel the smux's foggy sight so that he so went exploring through the ship by that remote means.

Separated by division into watches which the off-worlders had devised, there seemed to be no reason for the two crewmen to get together. Nor did they.

It was during the tenth sleeping time that Farree awoke out of a troubled doze. He did not know what had haunted him so that he had not rested as deeply as he usually did. Then he looked out into the middle of the small cabin and saw, scuttling across the floor, Toggor, who had just pulled himself through the crack of the door. The smux's claws reached up and Farree put his hand down for the creature to climb.

Just as Toggor had once registered pain and cold, so now he registered again fear. Whipping up the hunchback's body, he sought a hiding place at the neck of his robe.

Farree sat up and dangled his thin, stunted legs over the side of the bunk, both hands over the smux's lump on his breast.

What - ? He began and then realized again that the direct mind touch was not clear. Instead then he strove to disentangle emotions. He got what startled him first and then led to a flare of anger.

Toggor's picture was very fuzzy and it had been at floor level. There was something which was clearly part of a pilot's seat and then - then a boot, metal plated as were all in s.p.a.ce, swung out and over the questing eyestalks, aimed to crush the smux. There was a quick flurry of movement, which Farree could not untangle, but it was plain that one of the crew had attempted, or had chanced, to nearly crush the smux, who had fled in a burst of fear.

Which of the crewmen - and why?

Patiently Farree struggled to subdue that fear, to get through the icy curtain of it for an answer. Crewman - he could get no clearer answer than that. To Toggor perhaps both men looked alike. The fuzzy figure bent over, trying to claw at the wall of the command cabin. At least Toggor saw it so.

Farree had no idea of the duties aboard ship. The man might have been busied at some regulation task. But he was shaken enough by Toggor's report to try to raise Lord-One Krip whose watch should be ending about now.

What he found with the mind touch - nothing!

That nothingness was as strong as it had been for Quanhi. It was as if the off-worlder had ceased to exist.

The answer brought a fear as deep as Toggor's had been. Farree swung off the bunk, reached in to one of the compartments below. He brought out something which he had discovered in his earlier exploration of the ship: a stunner. The weapon was not made for hands as small and weak as his. But he could carry it. Though his inability to take hold with both hands would slow him on his travel through the weak gravity, weapon held b.u.t.t to his chest near the lump that was Toggor, he left the cabin. Mentally he sought Bojor and Yazz as he went. Both of them reported no trouble.

Lady Maelen - dare he try to reach her or would that betray him in turn to the one with the mind lock?

Farree scented it first in the central core, which held the ladder rising from one level of the ship to the next. It came as only a trace of a cloying sweetish odor which reminded him instantly of the noisome stews of the Limits and had no place in the sterile air of a s.p.a.ce vessel. It wafted through the air from ducts on the next level, and Farree felt dizzy as if he floated out in some vast s.p.a.ce with no ship to enclose or support him.

The Lady Maelen! Her cabin was here. He reached the door port and was stopped short. Across the surface, wedged well into the frame, was a bar making a prison for one inside. He put down the stunner. Then he swung his full weight on that bar. It was immobile as if it had been welded into place.

Panting, he huddled there, daring to use mind touch. Though he was sure that she whom he sought was inside, he touched - nothing! Just as the same answer came to his search for Lord-One Krip. Yet he could not believe that either of the off-worlders was dead.

Not up to the pilot's central cabin - not yet. Taking up the stunner, he pulled his distorted body down instead, seeking the special quarters which had been installed for Bojor and Yazz on the lower level. His eyes smarted and he felt a burdening need for rest that he was sure was a part of the drugged vapor which had been fed through the air duct. However, as he went lower, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible, the traces of that sickly sweetness vanished. By the time he had reached the lower level all he could smell was the odor of the bartle, the acrid scent of its s.h.a.ggy fur.

What happens? Yazz's quick demand caught Farree as he swung from the final hold on the ladder and approached the cage of the larger animal. Pressed tightly to the wall between them was Yazz, bright eyes ashine in the gloom of this level, lips drawn back to show fangs near as formidable as those of Bojor.

Farree came quickly forward.

Trouble. He could only advance his own fears but that was enough to alert both animals instantly.

There came a single yap of reply from Yazz, a deepchested growl from Bojor. Both of them now planted themselves, ready to issue forth were their doors opened. Outside the ship, planetside, both would have been formidable opponents. Within the confines here, it was another matter. Farree crouched down before the two animals and mind cast as well as he could what he had discovered, intensifying his fear of the pollutant in the air supply. Both of these were quicker to touch than the smux, and the channel between them and the hunchback was clearer.

No food, came from Bojor. Since last sleep no food. Farree could guess the reason for that. To the crewmen there would be no reason to feed either the bartle or Yazz, the two animals having no value. The hunchback dragged himself across to the far wall. There were the levers he had seen tested and retested by the Lord-One Krip before they had lifted from-Grant's World. He swung his weight on the nearest and it gave, allowing to fall into both cage-cabins the flat cakes of nutrient which were the voyage supplies.

Both animals wolfed down the food while Farree examined the fastenings of the cages. Those had also been carefully installed, and, though the builders had not realized it, pressure on one side would allow those within to use a paw for escape. Though Bojor had been cautioned against far roaming in the ship.

Farree applied that pressure. Now the cages might look intact but their occupants were free as they wished or needed to be. There was a skittering sound and the hunchback swung around, groping for the heavy weight of the stunner.

It was Toggor who came sliding down, one set of claws hooked loosely about the woven metal rope which formed the bannister for the ladder. All the smux's eyes were up and open. From the small creature flooded excitement and fear, but excitement was the stronger of those two emotions.

What happens - Farree beamed the question which Yazz had earlier used to greet him.

Once more he was greeted with a fuzzy picture of the crewman in the control cabin. Now that hazy figure was pounding on one section of the wall, and from him, through the smux, there flooded a raging anger and frustration.

Whatever he had tried to do in that place, he had not been able to accomplish it, and he was in a murderous mood.

The Lord-One? Farree asked then, picturing for himself the best replica of the off-worlder he could hold in mind.

What returned to him was a door with a bar as firmly across it as the one he had found sealing in the Lady Maelen. Perhaps overcome by the narcotic in the airstream, Krip had been downed and then imprisoned.

There had been only one of the crewmen in the smux's sight. Where then was the other?

The rumble of the bartle's growl and a click-clack of fangs from Yazz suggested they, too, had picked up Toggor's report. But if both the other-worlders had been sealed within their cabins after being overcome, why and how had Farree escaped?

Unless, Farree guessed, he seemed so negligible an opponent to the crewmen that they saw no reason to fear him and he had been cla.s.sed with the other of Maelen's little ones. Well. He breathed deeply, inching forward to the ladder. No, there was no taint of the gas here. He was free, as were Toggor and the other two when they needed to make a move.

He had gone through the ship with Toggor and he knew it. Each cabin, storage place, walkway, was impressed firmly on his mind. Now, the stunner lying across his knees, he turned once more to the smux who was surely the one of them best suited to moving about unseen.

Other man - He spoke that aloud in a low voice as well as mind beamed. Other one - A bit of the frustration of that one in the control cabin remained with Farree now, even though his contact with the smux was so limited. It would seem that the creature gained something from his demand, for he returned to the ladder rope down which he had come and began to climb.

There was another point which Farree must keep in mind: undoubtedly both of the crewmen were armed, and probably with far more potent weapons than the one he handled so awkwardly. A force blade or a laser could end any confrontation before he began.

He - With all the directness of a blow, touch came to his mind then - the Lord-One Krip!

Maelen? A questing call sounded through his head as if it had come to his ears as a great, rousing shout.

There was no answer. But Farree cut in: Her cabin - it is barred. Is yours also? Toggor reports it so.

Farree!

Yes. I am free and with Yazz and Bojor. Toggor goes aloft. One of the men has been trying to do something in the control cabin but has failed. I do not know where the other is - Sleep gas. And you?

Must be too far beneath their notice, the hunchback answered wryly.

A force bar, came back quickly. It must be detached. Can you - Farree interrupted with what he saw as the truth. I cannot move while I do not know where they are - Wait!

He felt that also - the searching thought - though it was not beamed at him. Once more Bojor growled and this time raked his claws down the inner side of the door. Farree held up a hand in a signal which apparently the large animal understood.

They are both shielded now, the Lord-One Krip aimed at Farree again. I cannot find them - There is Toggor. He has gone to search above - Instantly the prisoner seized upon that. Seek him. I will feed you - seek him!

Parree's whole twisted body quivered at what happened. There flowed into his mind such power as he would not have believed he could hold - nor did he try to contain it. Instead he thought of the smux, picturing him tightly and allowing that additional force to sc.r.a.pe along the path of his own thought.

For the first time the picture he received in return was far less fuzzed. At an odd angle, for the smux must be at floor level and the others towered far over him, Toggor was again surveying the control cabin. One of the men knelt on the floor, and there were tools laid out. He was working on a panel, which seemed to resist any attempt to loosen it.

That is persona locked! There was relief in Lord-One Krip's thought. They can never open it without wrecking the tape there so that it cannot be used.

What do they want? Farree dared to ask. His head hurt so that he was rubbing his forehead with one hand. To provide a mind path for the Lord-One was like trying to contain a burning river.

Abruptly, as if the other sensed his pain, that flood ceased and he lost contact with the smux as quickly as if someone had snapped a barrier between them.

The voyage tape, came the answer. They wish to switch tapes. It can't be done. The lock answers only to - to Maelen!

There was anxiety to be felt, as if the Lord-One Krip had seized upon a perilous answer. The Lady was a prisoner: they might be able to force her to do what they had not been able to accomplish. Farree wondered briefly why they had not already tried that method.

Perhaps they fear - Lord-One Krip beamed. There are many tales of the powers of the Tha.s.sa, and she is a Moon Singer. Since her duel with evil on Sehkmet there are even more tales. Yet we cannot hope that rumor alone will keep them from her.

Yazz has fangs, elder brother. For the first time one of the others interrupted.

Echoing that was another hot, half-formed thought - the hazy rendering of an attack by the bartle on a barely realized human figure.

Not yet, Lord-One Krip answered with a direct order through mind probe.