Illusion? Farree wondered and was instantly answered.
"Illusion and not from one of us. Sadi projected what would frighten her, and she did it on a mental length which apparently their shields are not set to handle. See!"
The last of the men had barely reached the ground with a flying leap from the ramp when there appeared behind them, filling the full of the hatch door, a beast such as Farree had never seen before. It was larger, leaner in bulk than the bartle. Its head was split halfway along with a mouth which sprouted two rows of fangs, spittle dripping from them as if in anticipation of sinking home in frail flesh. The forefeet which projected now onto the ramp were taloned with great claws that looked as if they might rend apart the very envelope of the ship's hull.
All three of the men were firing lasers, but the shaggy coat of the apparition absorbed the worst of that attack easily and took no hurt from one of the most formidable weapons known to the space ways. One of the men broke and ran faster, quickly followed by he who had stood beside him. Only the third retreated in good order, still firing uselessly as he went.
The huge menacing form at the head of the ramp pulled back so that only the head with that murderous threat of fangs still protruded. There was a wait which Farree ticked off to himself – twenty-five in whispered counting. Then the flitter arose and began circling the pillar of the ship once again as if Seeking another way in. Parree almost believed that they might, should there be some opening, drop a man even as he had been hoisted up from the top of the tower in the ruins.
But it would seem that there was no other way of penetrating the ship, and the flitter was not armed with anything other than the weapons that had already been used to no purpose.
Finally it winged away eastward. The massive head winked out of being. Then the small furred creature Maelen had earlier held and caressed came racing down the ramp and across the land toward the Lady's rock.
"Well done!" Lord-One Krip called that aloud as if the small beast could hear and understand. The Lady Maelen stooped and caught the guard up in her arms for a second holding and caressing.
She set the animal down on the rock before her, stroking its upraised head.
"Sadi will watch with Yazz," she said, "and with the old one here." She reached over to scratch behind Bojor's ears. The big animal stretched his neck to the farthest so that she could reach behind his jaw also. "I think that we had better take thought to what lies northward – to that which has drawn the interest of those others so much that they have already made three trips in search of it." Her hand swung to point in the direction where the jam had first appeared. "Nor do we know what brought the Guild here in the first place. That we ourselves have returned to Yiktor could not have been foreseen when they settled in. For that was done at a much earlier time than our coming. Thassa memory is long – but is it long enough when there was also a will to do away with something that was future danger? The Elders of another day may have even memory-wiped our stock lest some be tempted to return and use something which was not right for us."
That they considered the animals guard enough for the ship seemed strange to Farree, but nothing or very little which the Thassa did could he compare with the actions of those he knew from the Limits days. He trudged back through the canyon to where the temporary settlement of the rest of these aliens was – Aliens? He was the alien here, even more divided from the rest than he had been from most of the Limits dwellers.
Yet he discovered, though he could not see that he contributed anything to their aid or defense, both the Lord-One Krip and the Lady Maelen took it as a matter of course that he was to be one of the party pointed north. They began the journey at moonrise, with the glow of the third ring making the plain almost day bright.
With them went a third Thassa, one Maskay, who, Farree gathered, had roamed much in that direction and had contact with the wildlife hereabouts. It was difficult to tell age with these people, but Farree thought him perhaps a generation older than his other two companions. And the Lady Maelen appeared to look to him to set the direction and the pace.
They halted before the rings were quite faded by the coming of the grayish predawn light to encamp on the top of a small rise where a trio of wind-twisted trees gave shelter. There was a seep of water at the bottom of that knoll, though it quickly funneled away in this arid land. This seemed to be one of the landmarks Maskay knew well.
He stood under the downswing of one of the wide branches and pointed on northward.
"It is another night's journey if we take to plains pace, and then come the hills. That is a dry land and the spring at Two Prong is of bitter water. Only the jam can live in those heights."
"Yet you have been there. Kinsman," the Lady Maelen said.
"When I was young and foolish, I went many places that were strange. And little or nothing did I learn from such wayfaring," he returned with a smile.
"Yet the jam live there and like all living things they must have food and water – and —"
"Hush! And under cover. Down with you!" Lord-One Krip swung out his arm and caught Maelen's waist, pulling her down, while Maskay jerked back under the tree.
It was very plain to hear now—the thrum of the flitter. Through the last haze of the third ring it bore across the sky. Farree waited for it to hover above them, to sense by some off-worlder equipment that they were here. But it passed overhead well up in the sky and kept on to the north, exactly as if the pilot had a definite goal in view.
"Guild!"
"Are you sure?" demanded Lady Maelen of Lord-One Krip.
"There is a difference in the beat. That craft is not made for short patrols but is a long-range flitter – for exploration."
"It flies" – Maskay put into words Farree's thought – "as if those aboard it know where they would land and also as if they must be there in a hurry."
"True. I wonder if they have found what they seek. If so it is best we make the same discovery and as soon as possible."
Farree tried to stretch his head a little and then stopped, warned by the pain in his back. His whole body ached from the pace they had kept and he was not sure he could go on – not without more rest. Yet he was also sure he was not going to be left behind.
Chapter 15.
Once more Farree lay in hiding above a machine that was not of Yiktor: a flitter at rest on a ledge thrust forward from a mountainside like a great shelf. He could see the shadow of a head within the bubble of the top cover, but the door was also open, and he knew others had gone forth.
Through the ring-lighted air above dived and soared at least two of the jarn, providing eyes for the Lady Maelen, who lay full length on the lip of a second ledge across the narrow valley. So aptly balanced were those two outcroppings that one could well believe them the work of some intelligence, taming the mountain ways by a bridge that had long since vanished.
There was a noticeable trail upward on the opposite side, beginning not far away from the flitter, angling along the side of the cliff toward its high summit. They had sighted nothing moving up that path, but the jarns had reported that earlier those from the flitter had taken that way.
There was a similar trail on this side of the gulf also, and they had explored it via the jarns – to pace it themselves would have been to offer the flitter a clear sight of them. It did not reach clear to the full heights on this side but ended abruptly in a straight cliff wall that had no sign of any opening. And Maskay had set out a half day ago to hunt farther to the westward, setting the length of a night for his explorations.