Norton, Andre - Exiles of the Stars

We were masters now of the jack headquarters, though we put out sentries and did not accept our victory as total. There was too good a chance of others' still occupying the ship or the burrows. And the whole nature of this site was such as to make a man very wary of his surroundings, only too ready to hear strange noises, start at shadows, and the like.

We made use of the bubble in the cavern as a prison, stowing there our blacked-out prisoners. Borton used the jacks' com to summon the rest of his men from the outer valley. The energy which sustain pills, and E rations had given us was ebbing. This time we did not try to bolster it. Rather we took turns sleeping, eating rations we found in the camp.

There was evidence that the jacks had been here for some time. Signs, too, by deep flare burns left on the valley floor, that there had been more than one ship landing and takeoff over a period of perhaps a year, or longer, planet time. But after sleep-gas globes had made the ship ours, we discovered very little more of the setup which had been made to market the loot or otherwise do business off-world—there were only faint clues for the Patrol to follow up!

Our prisoners did not revive quickly and Thanel was loath to use medical means to induce consciousness. Too little was known of the stresses to which they had recently been subjected. In all there were some twenty jacks, and the men of our own party which had been taken—including Hunold. And our only safe control on the alien three was to make sure they could not use their esper powers.

Thanel ordered these three, plus their alien bodies, to be put in a separate division of the tent. There he spent most of his waking time keeping them under observation. They still breathed, all six of them. And the detect showed a life signal whenever he used it on them. Yet the vital processes were very slow, akin to the state of one in stass-freeze. And how this state could be broken, he admitted he did not know. After a certain time had passed he even experimented by taking off his protect cap (having first stationed a guard to watch him and move in at the first hint he might be taken over) and trying to reach them via esper means—with no result.

I had fallen asleep. And I did not know how long it was before I was shaken awake again. Foss was the one who had so abruptly roused me.

"Thanel wants you," he said tersely.

I crawled out of the pheno-bag I had found in the camp. Foss was already heading into the open where the darkness of night had largely concealed the standing ship.

But it was not the chill of the night wind probing now and then into the cavern which set me shivering as I watched him go. I have known loneliness in my life. Perhaps the worst was when I realized on Yiktor that I might never return to my human body, that it was possible I might be entrapped for years in animal form. Then I had literally gone mad, striking out into the wilderness, allowing the remnant of beast in me to take over from the human which had been transplanted. I had run, I had killed, I had skulked, I had— Today I cannot remember all that happened to me, nor do I wish to. That was loneliness.

And this—this was loneliness of another type. For in that moment when Captain Foss walked away I saw the wall which was between us. Had the building of that wall been of my doing? Perhaps, though looking back, I could not deny that given the same choices I would have done no differently. Yes, I was no longer of the Lydis . I could ship out on her, do my duty well, maybe better than I had a year ago. But for me she was no longer the sole home a Free Trader must have.

What had happened? I was as lost as I had been when running four-footed across the fields of Yiktor. If I was not Krip Vorlund, Free Trader born, who wanted nothing more than a berth on the Lydis , then who was I? Not Maquad—I felt no closer kinship with the Thassa than I did with the crew; even less.

I was alone! And I shuddered away from that realization, getting to my feet, hurrying to obey Thanel's summons, hoping to find forgetfulness in this task, if only for a short time.

The medic was waiting for me as I came into that inner section where the six bodies still lay on the floor, looking just as they had when I had helped to bring them in. But Thanel had the appearance of a man who had not had any rest. And to my surprise he was not alone.

Lukas, whom I had last seen lying in tangle cords, stood beside him. It was he who spoke first.

"Krip, you are the only one of us who has been through body switch. The Thassa do it regularly, do they not?"

"I don't know about doing it regularly. Anyone who wishes to train as a Moon Singer does it. But there are only a limited number of Moon Singers. And so it may not be well known to the others. They have their failures, too." My own present body was witness to that, if one was needed.

"The question is, how do they do it?" Thanel came directly to the point. "You have been through it and witnessed it done for that maelen of yours. Do they use some machine, drug, type of hypnotism—what?"

"They sing." I told him the truth.

" Sing !"

"That's what they call it. And they do it best when the moon there is three-ringed, a phenomenon which only occurs at long intervals. It can be done at other times, but then it needs the combined power of quite a few Singers. And the expenditure of their energy is such that it is only tried when there is great need. The rings were fading when Maelen was transferred to Vors's body—so there had to be more Singers—"

"Maelen was a Moon Singer, is one," Lukas said thoughtfully.

"Her powers were curtailed by the Old Ones when she was sent into exile," I reminded him.

"All of them? The fact remains that we have body transfer here and the only other cases known are on Yiktor. It might be possible to load these"—he indicated the sleepers—'Into a ship and take them there. But there is no guarantee that your Thassa would or could make the exchange. But Maelen is here—and if she knows what can be done—"

He must have seen my face then, understood to the full my reaction to what he was proposing.

"She is not an animal!" I seized upon the first argument he might be tempted to use. But how could I make him understand, he who had never seen Maelen the Moon Singer in her proper form, only as the small, furred creature who shared my cabin, whom he rated as lower than any wearing human guise—a thing expendable for the crew's good.

"Who said she was?" Thanel might be trying to soothe me, but I was wary. "We are merely pointing out that we do have on this planet, here and now, a being—a person who is familiar with our problem, who should be approached in the hope that we have a solution to it here, not half the galaxy away."

But the very reasonableness of his argument made it worse. I flung the truth at them.

"You take her out of stass-freeze and she dies! You"—I centered on Thanel—"saw her condition, worked to get her into stass. How long do you think she might have if you revived her?"

"There are new techniques." His low voice contrasted with the rising fury of my demands. "I can, I think, promise that I can retard any physical changes, even if her mind is freed."

"You 'think.'" I seized directly on that qualifying phrase. "But you cannot be sure, can you?" I pressed and he was frank enough to admit the truth with a shake of his head.

"Then I say 'no'! She must have her chance."

"And how are you going to give it to her? On Yiktor? What will they do for her there, even if you can get her so far? Do they have a reserve of bodies?"

Chapter Eighteen

MAELEN

It is true that sometimes we can remember (though that memory is as thin as the early-morning mist) a way of life which is larger than ours, into which dreams or the desire to escape may lead us. Where did I roam during that time I was apart from my broken body? For it was not the nothingness of deep sleep which had held me. No, I had done things and looked upon strange sights, and I came back to the pain which was life, carrying with me an urgency that would spur me to some action I did not yet understand.