"Not yet—" As the Zacanthan had used his voice in whisper so did she use her mind speech in a similarly low key. "There is a cover here!"
Farree stopped. He could beam in on Togger right enough and now he sharpened his contact. The Zacanthan, with the usual silent steps of his kind, was already on the stairs, Vorlund only a little behind. Farree tried a trace of touch. There was nothing—none from his companions and curiously deadened for those beyond. This was not the first time he had faced a mind shield in action, though such would certainly be of great value to any of the dwellers in this filthy tangle of rotting buildings and swampy streets.
Instantly he clamped down on his own thought. Did they have some warning—and he suspected that they might well have—so any who would follow them must be thought proof? Had they picked up the smux's broadcast and were the four of them indeed now entering a trap?
The stairway led the four to an upper hall where there seemed more substantial walls and some pretense of cleanliness. Two doors opened on one side and one on the opposite– all closed. However, the murmur of voices reached them. Zoror noiselessly passed to the farthest room and there stretched out his hand, planting it palm down against the surface, but not before Farree caught a quick glance of what was a small disc. Having pushed that against the door, he reached back his other hand and took firm grasp of Vorlund's; the spacer in turn caught Maelen's in a similar grip with Farree ending the chain.
He could hear! By now he should not be surprised by anything which could happen. Instead he strained hard so as to not miss a single word uttered within the room.
"It is so." The voice so brought to them lacked any expression of feeling—it might have been a tape left to run. "He was in the Painted Street tonight. I tell you, the information Varis gave was right."
There was still only a murmur from a second voice, a deep-sounding one which seemed easier to hear yet could not as well be understood: it uttered words which were disguised against Zoror's spy disc.
"Three of them with him—"
Murmur.
"A Zacanthan! You would not say go up against that one? He was carefully watched I tell you—it was the scarf which brought him—near pushed into an act where we could have taken him easily. But not with a Zacanthan there. Also those others—there has been a lot said about them—powers they have."
Murmur.
"Yes, he seemed to know—there was a killing anger in him then. They have said these would never go off-world– well, whoever swore that would take oath to Zambut and then go and spit in his god's fat face!"
Murmur.
"Certain—yes, I am certain. He might still be shaking the dust-smoke from the Red Dunes off his shoulders. He wore a cloak—and underneath were wings! Wings, I tell you! You heard the report, saw the spin record. He is one of a kind and he is of his own world—he can play no tricks here. Take him and you'll find your backwards-running River and Old Saptal's treasure all laid right to your hand. They all have the secret—if that is the secret you wish to uncover."
A murmur which interrupted.
"We have tried that before—you have seen the reports. They will die rather than talk—and they will their own minds to crack rather than answer with the truth. Get him and—"
Maelen turned her head a fraction toward the stairs and then she alerted Vorlund with a small pull which he, in turn, passed as a. warning on to Zoror. The Zacanthan moved away from the door, but he did not loose his hand tie with Vorlund. He retreated back down the hall and, holding the disc between two fingers, he gave a push to a second door. It swung open upon a small room. Another of the luminous insect globes showed a bed, narrow and stripped of all bedding, a small table and two stools. There was nothing else and the air within seemed stale. Zoror let go Vorlund's hand long enough to shut the door behind them and make a sweeping gesture which took in most of that side of the room. Then he crossed to the wall which separated this chamber from the one which now held the speakers. When Maelen briefly dropped her hand, Farree used the free moment to knot the second wing strip over the first around his wrist.
Their hands linked once more, again they could hear. "Speak it, then! If such action is correct, can you do it?"
Murmur.
"Try then!"
There was the sound of footsteps outside. Someone who had no reason to fear those in the far room had just walked past the hall door towards that same room.
"Guide here." A third voice. And then it came again, undoubtedly from inside the room itself.
Murmur.
"I have promises, High Ones. Three pieces for covering your capture—"
Once more the murmur interrupted.
"It is not my failure, High One. What I was to do, I did.
That others could not carry through the plan was no fault of mine. You, High One—what is THAT!"
"Bad—bad—" The smux was broadcasting in a calling frenzy which Farree had not heard him use since he had been freed from the cage and the torture of Russtif on that day when a better life had come for both him and Farree.
"Catch it, fool with a head of feathers! Why did you bring that here?" The murmur had become speech, unscrambled by any device.
"I bring it?" That must be the trader. "I never saw it—this rotten wall hive may have many stranger things hiding out. Who can swear the Great Oath that ships landing here do not sometimes carry more than is on their cargo listing? It is nothing but a—a thing. Crush it—"
"It is a key," the growling voice began and then sank once again into the murmur. "The thing thinks." That much arose from out of the low notes.
"High One, it is then a way to spy upon us. Let me crush it—" The magician sounded shaky.
Murmur.
"Bait, High One? But is it possible that this is of their company—rather than a creature from a ship?"
Murmur. Then from Togger a mind cry as terrible and hideous as the ones the smux used to make when Russtif used the prod to send it into battle.
Togger! Farree pulled loose from their chain of communication and started for the door. Just as rage had taken him over earlier that day so did it rise again to drive him past all thoughts of safety, leaving only the need to rescue the smux.
There was a second cry from Togger. Vorlund had stepped between Farree and the door. He reached out and caught both of Farree's hands in what could be a merciless grip. There was no chance of evading that. But—Togger!
While Farree struggled fruitlessly against the hold the spacer used, he jerked, his body bending backwards, the cape falling to the floor. His face was a mask of pain.
Through the door, or the walls of the whole of this warren of a house there sounded a shrill, ear-shattering call. Farree was frozen into the position in which he was held, filled with a torturing pain which spread from his head down the length of his spare body. His wings, now that he could no longer hold command of his body—or his mind—swelled up, to open.
He could hear and he could see, but all else was sealed in some fearsome case even as his wings had been. He rocked on his feet as Vorlund changed grip upon him. Maelen had taken a step toward him, he could see her only from the corner of one eye. The Zacanthan swung closer to the wall. He had broken all contact with the others and stood pressed against the stained surface, only the palm of his hand between his head and the disc. He fanned his other hand—a gesture which could only mean for them to remain in silence where they now were. Farree's panic was drying his mouth and throat. Even if the Zacanthan had not signaled silence he could not have broken through that which encased him now. Vorlund drew him closer, supporting Farree against a fall.