No! My appearance has not changed, and in my heart I am as much a human being as ever, but… how can I explain it?… raised to a power. I tried to persuade you to turn back, but having failed I can reveal that I long to escape from this cold, rainy world and live among my own kind again.
“You’re still my wife?”
Yes, Bartan, but it is futile to dream of such things. I am a prisoner here, and it would be suicidal for you and your companions to try to alter that fact.
Bartan gave a tremulous laugh. “Your words have given me the strength of a thousand, Sondy—and I’m coming to take you home.”
The odds against you are too great.
“There are things we must know,” Toller put in, driven to speak in spite of the awareness that he was intruding. “If you are not allied to these… symbonites—why have you joined them in Farland? And how was it done?”
Once the spore had entered my system I was destined to become a symbonite, but the more advanced the host is in evolutionary terms the longer the process takes. I spent more than a year in a semi-comatose condition while the inner metamorphosis was taking place, and during that time my telepathic ability was not under control. At a certain stage the symbonites of Farland became aware of me, and they understood at once what was happening.
They are not a belligerent or acquisitive race—violent conquest is not their way—but they divined enough about human nature to fear the rise of human-based symbonites on Overland. They built a spaceship—one which operates on principles I could never explain to you—and flew to Overland.
They spirited me away from the midst of my people, anxious to do so before I could bear children. The action was necessary in their eyes because my children’s children would also have been symbonites, and in time there would have been an entire planet populated with them. Springing from a higher evolutionary base, they would have been much superior to the symbonites of Farland. Although transmogrified, it is almost certain that they would have retained the human taste for exploration and expansion—and inevitably they would have set foot on Farland. So, here I am, and here they are determined I will stay.
“It would have been less trouble to kill you,” Zavotle said, expressing a thought which had occurred to more than one of the Kolcorron’s crew.
Yes, and that is precisely the kind of thinking which prompted the symbonites to abduct me. They are not a murderous race, so they were content to isolate me from my kind and wait for me to die of natural causes. However, they made the mistake of underestimating my telepathic potency. They did not allow for my being able to contact Bartan in an effort to assuage his grief.
And I in turn did not expect this terrible outcome—otherwise I would have remained silent. Sondeweere’s indefinable face, simultaneously close and remote, expressed regret. I must bear the responsibility for whatever befalls you.
“But why should we come to any harm?” Berise Narrinder said, speaking to Sondeweere for the first time. “If your captors are as timorous as you say, they will be unable to stand in our way.”
Readiness to kill is no yardstick of courage. Although the symbonites abhor the taking of life, they will do so if they adjudge it necessary—but they are not the ones with whom you will have to contend. The native Farlanders are the instruments of the symbonites… and they are numerous… and they are untroubled by any scruples over the shedding of blood.
“Nor are we when the cause is just,” Toller said. “Will the symbonites become aware of us before we land?”
Probably not. No mind—telepathic or otherwise—can continue to function unless it protects itself from the spherical bombardment of information. I became aware of you mainly because of the special relationship with Bartan.
“Are you permitted freedom of movement?”
Yes —I roam the planet at will.
“In that case,” Toller said, still dully astonished at his ability to commune with a mental apparition, “surely it is within your power to guide our skyship to some remote and lonely spot—at night, if need be—where we could meet you and take you on board our craft. A few seconds should suffice—it is not even necessary for the ship to touch down—and then we could be on our way back to Overland.”
The extent of your presumption amazes me, Toller Maraquine. Do you dare to imagine that your analysis of the possibilities, carried out on the spur of the moment, is superior to mine?
“All I’m…”
Do not trouble yourself to answer. Instead, let me put another question to you—for the last time, is it totally inconceivable that you can be persuaded to turn back?
“We go on.”
If that is the way of it, Sondeweere’s image was retreating as she spoke, we will meet under your terms. But I guarantee that all of you will come to rue the day you left Overland.
Chapter 16
The Kolcorron completed two orbits of the planet at a height of more than three thousand miles, hurtling through the tenuous outer fringes of the atmosphere. And then, after Sondeweere was satisfied that she had taken all variables into account, she gave instructions for a series of firings of the main engine, the effect of which was to kill the ship’s orbital speed.
The Kolcorron began to drop vertically towards the surface of Farland.
At first the rate of fall was negligible, but as the hours went by the speed built up and those on board began to hear a burbling rush of air against the planking of the hull. Tipp Gotlon was at the controls. Under Sondeweere’s seemingly omniscient guidance, he brought the ship into a vertical attitude, tail down, and fired a long blast on the engine which not only checked the descent but produced a small upward velocity. At that stage the ship was surrounded by air which, although still rarefied, was capable of supporting human life for a reasonable period. The ship’s upward movement would soon be halted and reversed by Farland’s gravity, but for the time being the exterior working conditions resembled those of Overland’s weightless zone—and the task of deploying the skyship began.
Before going outside, Toller went to the top deck for a final word with Gotlon, ascending the ladder with some difficulty because of his skysuit and the added encumbrances of the parachute and personal propulsion unit. A single ray of sunlight from a porthole was slanting across the compartment, casting a lemon-coloured glow over the pilot’s face, upon which was an expression of moody discontent.
“Sir,” he said on seeing Toller, “how is Zavotle coping with the outside work?”
“Zavotle is coping very well,” Toller replied, aware of what was in Gotlon’s mind. He had been disappointed on being told that he was to remain with the ship, and had argued that only the able-bodied members of the crew should take part in what promised to be an arduous and dangerous rescue mission. Toller had countered by saying that the role of the Kolcorron was of paramount importance to the whole project, therefore logic demanded that the best pilot should be left in control of the vessel. The tribute to his flying skills had mollified Gotlon only a little.
“The work I am given could as easily be done by a sick man,” he said, returning to his original argument.
Toller shook his head. “Son, liven Zavotle is not merely a sick man. He would not thank me for telling you this, but there is little time remaining to him, and I think it is in his heart to be buried on Farland.”