"You are tired, little one. Rest safe and know that you sleep within such a setting of sentries as those without have never met before."
It was a dismissal, and he went willingly enough but certainly not with a quiet mind. After his venture with the smoke he could believe that there were unusual weapons possible but that they might in the end triumph. He had lived too many years in the Limits under the ever-abiding shadow of the Guild where the indwellers spoke with awe and dread of what that organization could do and had done in the past. He still believed that the Thassa leaders were too confident.
But he went willingly with the Lord-One Krip to another of the cave rooms and there ate of dried fruit and strips of something which might be meat but which he believed was not, drank his fill of a sparkling fluid which was more than water but not a wine. Then he curled on a pile of mats with Toggor still beside him and waited for the sleep he craved. It was late in coming.
The Guild had wanted him for bait, yes. Almost the trap might have sprung. He realized suddenly that he had never really believed that the Lady Maelen and the Lord-One Krip would come searching for him. Perhaps it was a matter of duty for them, the same feeling of responsibility as he had for Toggor – that they could not leave him in enemy hands. That was the only reason he could accept. Had he been anything else to the Guild? Though he had closed his eyes for sleep, what he saw again was out of his vivid dream: Lanti sprawled across the table and that other shaking him by the shoulder, drawing back in frustration and disgust when he realized the former spacer was dead. That scrap of stuff which the other had held – Farree tried to fasten his memory on that, sift it for its value.
Only what he saw now in the wink of an eye, the draught of a breath, was not the filthy hut of the Limits but somewhere else —
It was as if he were aloft again, swinging on the ladder, only there was no fear in this essay into open space, flight was something right and brought no fear. He looked down as if he rode on the back of a bird, not in any flitter, for the free air was all about him and he knew that he was here by his will and not because he had no choice.
He was looking down upon a rippling land of brilliant green: groves of trees whose leaves were clasped lightly about gems of eye-pleasing color which he knew were flowers or fruit. For the first time Farree could remember, he was truly alive, feeling no telling weight upon his shoulders, able to move his head freely. He was straight of body; without touching his shoulders he knew this. This again must be a dream, but one he clung to fiercely. If he never awakened from it, then he was repaid for all the ills of the past.
He descended through the air, lightly, easily, depending now he knew upon nothing but his own will and body. Grass rose shoulder high about him and there was the sweet smell – of —
It was the scent which broke the dream, pulled him back into the grim reality of his own world. Yet it was a pleasant scent, one which he knew. He opened his eyes and the Lady Maelen was kneeling beside him. There was a small furred creature on her shoulder, bobbing its small head against her throat. Behind her Yazz stood, tasseled tail aswing.
"Farree . . . who is Lanti?"
Before he had time to truly align his thoughts, he answered. "I was with him. I think he brought me from another world to the Limits – me and something else that was worth more."
"Tell me," she urged.
He felt himself scowling. To have been awakened out of that dream in order to recall bitter memories was – hurtful.
"How did you know of Lanti?" he demanded.
"I saw him."
Farree hunched his body together as he felt a flow of anger beginning far inside him. "You were in my dream!" he accused her. He had met them mind to mind, yes, but he had never given them the right to monitor him without his knowledge. What more had she read from him that he knew nothing of? He felt as defenseless as he had in the hands of the Commander. At least then they had used a machine and had given him reason to know that he was about to be invaded.
"You cried out," the Lady Maelen said slowly. "It was a cry of hurt. I would have given you peace – that is all."
Perhaps she was right and had meant him only good, that he would again feel at ease.
"No!" There was deep concern in her voice, and she put out her hand as if she would gentle him as she might an animal that had been ruthlessly abused.
Only he was no animal! He was as much a man as a Thassa, even if he only held relationship by human standards to the eighth point! Perhaps the Thassa themselves, for all their humanoid appearance, were farther apart from the off-worlders who used that scale than he knew.
"Please." He was not aware that he had shrunk from her touch but maybe he had, for her band fell to her knee. "Please." She spoke the trade speech aloud; perhaps she knew that to mind touch now was more than he would allow. "Bad memories can lighten if they are shared."
"I have nothing to share." He pulled up and faced her almost as if she had been sent by the Commander to win out of him some last scrap of truth. "You know it all. I was with Lanti in the Limits – beyond that there is no memory."
"You were erased?" She was studying him so intently that he longed to be able to enter the wall of the stone chamber to hide. There was a new alertness in her eyes.
"I do not know. I do not care." He said that with all the fierce firmness he could summon. He saw that she would accept it.
"It can be reversed, you know. If you should want – "
"I do not!"
She raised both hands so her fingertips touched her forehead in the way of an oddly formal salute.
"Your pardon, Farree. Know that all will respect your barriers until you give them permission to do otherwise."
"It – is – well . . ." He stumbled a little over that. And remained sitting until she was gone out of the chamber. There was a small cluttering noise and he saw that Toggor was climbing upon his knee. He drew one finger down the back of the bristly shell which was the outer plating of the smux. Did Toggor also know resentment at times when Farree strove to catch his thoughts? What did the animals which the Lady Maelen loved and companioned with – what did they think of that companionship? He knew that Yazz and Bojor welcomed her effusively after they had been separated for a space – that they perhaps companioned with her by choice. Perhaps they welcomed the fact that another life form could communicate with them and that they were not frustrated by a lack of touch. He was no trainer nor owner of animals. Only Toggor.
Now he put out his cupped hands and the smux climbed into the hollow. He raised them so that he could meet him stalked eye to skull-enclosed one on a level.
"How is it, Toggor?" Tentatively Farree tried the mind touch. "How is this for you? Do you feel that I am forcing that on you which you would find freedom from? I am not Russtif to hold you captive, either body or mind."
He received no thought no matter how hazy, only a feeling of peace and contentment as the smux rocked a little from one set of claws to another in his hands.
Chapter 13.
Farree ate, he drank, he slept deeply and dreamlessly. If those of the Guild made any foray into the country of the Thassa, he knew nothing of it. When he at last awoke it was to see a band of clear and clean moonlight across his short legs, feel about him an ingathering of spirit. Had it been the latter which had drawn him out of that deep sleep?