Джеффри Лорд - Return To Kaldak

«Commander Voros! You asked for whoever's in charge, I am he. Put down your pistols; and I give you my word of honor as a Seeker that no harm will come to you.»

«Tell those guards to move to the end of the terrace first,» shouted Blade. «I don't trust them.» He didn't trust the voice coming from the lifters either, but there was nothing he could do about that. And Blue Boy doesn't get hurt, either.» Cheeky yeeeped in agreement.

«All right. Move, you idiots!»

The guards jumped at the voice as if Blade had finally shot them. Then they scurried to the far end of the terrace, as the small lifter swept in. A laser jutted from its nose, and a pilot and a passenger sat in the cockpit. Ten feet above the terrace the passenger opened the door, and five feet up he jumped out without waiting for the machine to land.

He came down on his feet with catlike grace, not even going to his knees. He'd called himself a Seeker but to Blade he looked more like a rather sinister sort of soldier. He wore a black coverall, black boots, and a close-fitting black helmet. The only color on him anywhere was the dark red plastic butt of a heavy laser pistol in a black leather shoulder holster. His hair and eyes were also black.

He stepped up to Blade. He was about the same height but slimmer. «I am Detcharn, First Seeker and Du-Shro of Doimar.» That meant he was not only chief of scientific research but something like chief of staff of the armed forces. A man in charge indeed, thought Blade.

«I am honored,» he said.

«That remains to be seen,» replied Detcharn. «Tell me your story.»

Blade did so, emphasizing the bond between him and Cheeky/Blue Boy and how all efforts to learn anything about the feather-monkey would now be useless without his cooperation. He did not try to find out how Cheeky had wound up in Doimar. He badly wanted to know, but there would be better times to ask. . if he lived long enough!

When Blade was finished, Detcharn raised his bushy black eyebrows. «What makes you think we want to learn anything about this little beast worth letting you go free?»

«Don't try bluffing me, Detcharn. You know he's a telepath. Otherwise why would you have spent all this time and effort studying him?» Blade remembered how the scientist's assistant had started to say that Blade could tell them something. What it was exactly they needed to know was unclear, but Blade decided against quoting the girl. She would be in enough trouble without her slip being passed on to Detcharn, who did not look like a forgiving man.

«Indeed, you may be right. To be sure, we might need a telepath to examine you.»

Blade didn't hesitate. «Then get one. I don't have anywhere to go for a while, and neither do you.»

«It's hardly tactful to hold me hostage,» said Detcharn. Then he smiled, which gave him a sort of wolfish charm. «But in your position I wouldn't be tactful either. Very well.» He spoke briefly into a small radio on his wrist, and the lifter darted away.

Again Blade settled down to wait. It was a gamble, that a Doimari telepath could prove the link between him and Cheeky without revealing his identity. But he hardly had anything to lose. The alternative was tamely accepting certain and probably unpleasant death; this way he could at least hope to take one of Doimar's most valuable leaders with him.

The telepath couldn't have been far away. The lifter was back in less than twenty minutes, although they were a long twenty minutes for Blade. The guards were too far away to be dangerous, even if they'd wanted to defy their leader. Detcharn himself was another matter. From the way he moved, Blade knew he was in perfect condition and might be an unarmed-combat expert.

This time the lifter landed on the terrace. The new passenger was a slim brown-haired woman, with enormous gray eyes in a pale face, dressed in a long flowing blue gown. There was something virginal and even slightly otherworldly about her.

«Read him,» ordered Detcharn. The lifter took off, and the blast from its propeller made the woman's hair fly out behind her like a flag. She patted it into position, came up to Blade, put one hand on his chest and another on his forehead, and screwed her own face up into a look of total concentration.

Blade' had just time to form a mental picture of himself and Cheeky in Kaldak and hold it. He didn't have time to make a convincing picture of him and the feather-monkey doing anything. It was a static image, and he was more than slightly worried that the telepathic woman would be able to detect the image for what it was-an effort to deceive her and block her from learning the truth.

Blade suppressed the worry vigorously. Any unusual emotion might give the woman a clue. Cheeky was at least that sensitive to Blade's emotions; why shouldn't a human telepath be even more so?

At least he wouldn't have to warn Cheeky not to cooperate with anyone in Doimar. After the treatment he'd received and the vengeance he'd taken, Cheeky would let himself be plucked naked rather than help the Doimari or betray the friend he'd found again after so long.

The mental pulses Blade felt were so faint and fumbling that at times he wasn't sure if they were there at all. They lasted for quite a while, though, and he saw sweat on the woman's forehead. He hoped she wouldn't collapse. Detcharn would simply bring in another telepath, who might be more powerful or at least forewarned. He also might try other, more physical methods of interrogation.

At last the woman started to vibrate all over like a plucked harpstring. She closed her eyes and stepped away from Blade, then caught at the railing with both hands. Blade gripped her shoulders to make sure she didn't lose balance and fall. She twisted out of his grasp, went to her knees, and vomited.

At last she rose, wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her robe, and turned back to Detcharn. «He is telling the truth about himself and the-he calls it Cheeky. To Voros, Cheeky is not an animal. And they do speak mind to mind, in a way I have never met before.»

«A way worth studying?»

«Certainly, if any form of mind-to-mind speech is worth studying. I thought we had decided that long ago.» She met Detcharn's sharp look fearlessly. «Also, we will study it much better when Cheeky recovers from what he has suffered in there.» If her eyes had been lasers, the look she threw at the laboratory door would have melted it.

Detcharn shrugged. «Well, Eshorn has paid already.» The telepath shuddered and Cheeky yeeeped as they both seemed to pick up ugly thoughts from Detcharn. «As for these fools …» He turned toward the three guards, drew his laser, and shot one in the belly. The other two stood as if paralyzed until their comrade started to scream.

One of them backed away, as if he wanted to melt into the cliff and get away. The other charged Detcharn. The black-clad man put his laser down and waited for the guard in unarmed-combat stance. His face showed something horribly like lust. Blade found his own hands itching to pick up Detcharn and pitch him over the balcony.

It wasn't a fight, any more than it's a fight when a cat kills a mouse. Detcharn toyed with the man for a couple of minutes, even letting him land one or two harmless blows. Then swiftly he broke the man's left arm, chopping him across the throat, and levered him over the railing. The man screamed all the way down the cliff to his landing in a puff of dust.

The last guard didn't wait to find out what Detcharn had in mind for him. He went over the railing by himself, and fell silently down the three hundred feet to the plain.

Detcharn wiped his hands on the clothing of the still-living first guard. Blade, the telepath, and Cheeky watched in silence. Cheeky's tail was curled tightly under his body. Blade scratched his head to relax the feather-monkey, although he himself felt anything but relaxed.