"Our Farree here says so with his very presence," Maelen answered. "How did he come into the Limits? He is mind blocked, and with such an unknown power that even the Ancient Ones of the Thassa could not search far into his memory. Perhaps one of your stolen Guild devices did that. He is here and we—what do we know?"
"Only the bits of legends which are deemed more tale than fact," the Zacanthan said.
"The wings!" Farree burst out. What if the Guild had as many devices as the stars sprinkled in the night heavens? There were those lengths of beauty which he had held. That dream, or vision, also—the dancers with the wind who were like himself.
"The wings," Zoror repeated. "And a measure of what we overheard this night. So—" His words carried more of a hissing as he spoke faster and with emphasis. "We have a chart, we have the edge of a mystery wherein the Guild may be at odds with all comers. We have a ship." Now he pointed with his taloned forefinger to Krip. "We have a Moonsinger whose talents perhaps even the burrowing, spying Guild do not understand. We have one from an unknown world and his valiant companion." Now he indicated first Farree, and then Togger. "We have an old one who wishes to learn a little for himself and no longer, for a space, pore over the reports of others—" Now the finger pointed to his own chest. "Do we mix the lot of these and what do we do with the sum of it?"
Maelen laughed. "I look to you, High One, and I look to my comrade in adventure, as to our younger brother here. To your questions there is only one answer. Let us go and see!"
Chapter Six
Farree hung suspended in the webbing which protected him during take-off and transition into shift. With his wings he could not lie on one of the bunks. As usual he was giddy, with a sickish taste in his mouth, and was for the moment content to remain within the restraints. Around him the walls of the ship vibrated with the force which was its life. It was Krip's ship, Maelen's ship, the one which they had thought to travel the star lanes with those in fur and feathers who would go, to prove to the other worlds they might visit that there was a brotherhood between life forms which must be recognized. They had begun on the world of the Limits with a bartle and Yazz, both of whom had played a part when the Guild threatened them on Yiktor. Nor had those two chosen to remain behind now although Maelen, mind touching, had explained what must be done.
This time, they need not depend upon an unknown pilot, one who might even be a traitor to them as had been so before, for Zoror was himself a pilot and had carefully studied the tape he and Krip had patched together from the data of the searcher. They had lifted off-world recording a goal which was far enough from what they sought that their actual destination might remain their own secret.
Zoror was sure that no spy set by the Guild could penetrate his own library-cum-laboratory. That building was manned largely by robots carefully constructed to obey his voice alone. Though the Zacanthans spoke trade talk, their own language demanded a voice range no other species could project.
However, Maelen had detected a mind search seeking vainly to enter their stronghold several times during the counts of twenty days while they were making their preparations. There had been no difficulty with the authorities. The sector Patrol Commander had stamped his own private seal on their permission papers. A Zacanthan was never questioned when he or she voyaged.
With Zoror's own equipment tuned to a new use, they had inspected—and Farree had been able to join in handling that—every shipment of supplies before it was sealed into the ship. There would be no stowaway surprises to attack them.
Farree himself had lapsed now and then into meditation. To his continued disappointment there were no more visions. He might have been concentrating upon Zoror's own home. On their last night a-planet he at last ventured to speak of this—for if there was no truth in his vision they might even now be acting at a long range motivation induced by the Guild.
He had stood among them, his own wings folded as tightly as possible, and voiced his fears.
Maelen shook her head. "Not so, little brother! Had your vision been a trick its falseness could be speedily read. We who did not see with you might well have seen instead a lashing of the web in which that was bait."
Zoror agreed with her. "There is this too: an object which carries a message may be set to carry such only once. Having made contact with you the charge was exhausted. That one did indeed leave its mark." He gently touched the brand on Farree's wrist. "But only we know of this."
Though he had a great deal of awe and respect for both the Moonsinger and the Zacanthan, and their similar though different ranges of mind send and thought examination, Farree was not convinced. However, he did not mention his fears again. At least on his wrist he did carry proof that there had been power a-plenty in those remnants they had found.
To his shock and disappointment his memory of the dancers and the sky chart did fade even though he strove to hold it in detail. Zoror's story of unknown devices which the Guild could control was part of a private distress. He had been helpless prisoner for a time to one such when they had made their foray into the Field edge town. Could he then have also been marked, even by the scar on his wrist, so that he could prove a guide for others without his knowledge?
They made the change into warp drive easily enough. Farree had to move carefully through the ship, with his wings tight folded, as the passages were narrow, His sleep periods were uncomfortable as he must also accommodate those pinions within another cramped space. Some of the time he spent down on the lower deck with Bojor and Yazz. The huge shaggy bartle that had come from the world of the Limits passed easily into slumber, content to spend most of the voyage in a kind of hibernation. However, Yazz sought mind contact and asked questions Farree could not adequately answer.
Yes, there was a world awaiting them which had open spaces where a fisual could run to her pleasure. Though he himself could not remember too much of the world of his vision, the bright green of the land below the mist clad mountains remained with him. He was sure such a world existed elsewhere—he could only hope that the tape Krip had spliced together would lead them there.
Since the ship was running on a locked voyage tape, with all the alarms for any emergency set, Zoror did not occupy the pilot's seat any longer than it took for him to check at certain intervals that all was well. When hunched back again into the long seat at the end of the bridge, he triggered a small scanner and set a procession of pictures, interspersed with more lines of the intricate script of his own species. Maelen shared his seat and his interest in the records of finds which had been made—Forerunners' long lost works. Rightly she might search such, for the body she now wore was that of a Forerunner—some queen, goddess or ruler of a people totally forgotten until their hiding place of treasure and long sleepers was uncovered in a secret mountain hold where the Guild had come to meddle with that which they might not have been any longer able to command had they gone some steps farther in their investigations.
Dying, Maelen had taken on the body of another long sealed into a chamber to await a waking which had not come in the millenniums between the time when the last barrier had closed and that hour when spoilers had broken through. There she had fought a battle with the remnants of an evil will which still clung to the body, banishing that other after a hard fought engagement. Now she asked Zoror if her present like existed in Zacanthan records, only to be told that she who was gone might have been one of half a hundred races who had sought the stars in years now so far in the past that the numbering of them could not even be tallied.