Andas switched the light from his own face to that of the Salariki, who was holding his head, giving low growls of pain. There was a dark smear of blood just above that aggressive bristle of coarse mustache, and Yolyos's ears were flattened to his skull, his eyes narrowed to warning slits.
Then Andas noticed something else. The fur-hair on one of the alien's broad shoulders was crisped and singed, a red mark rising under the blackened stubs of hair. He had had a very narrow escape from the blaster.
"Ssss—" the sound was close to a hiss. "Sssooo I have found you, or you me, Prince. And by your welcome, you expected others." The Salariki's voice had begun with that angry hiss but became more articulate.
"The others—where are they?" Andas listened intently but could pick up no other sound.
"You might well ask. But for the fact I proved faster than he expected, I might well be cooked now."
"Who expected? How did youcome here?"
"It is something of a tale. But do we sit here while I tell it? I think by your manner of greeting you have reason to fear other life in these wall roads."
Andas was recalled to the peril at hand. "Yes!"
He arose, the Salariki with him. But Andas had to know what had happened. If it was unwise to continue back to where he had left the others, then he must revise plans.
"You were discovered? I must be sure, for if we cannot go back to the Court of the Seven Draks—"
"The idea when I left seemed to be that you would. They have a reception party waiting. No, I should advise hastening in the other direction, any other direction!"
"Elys—Grasty?"
He heard a snarling sound from Yolyos.
"Yes, our delicate little Elys, she deliberately brought this about. I think we misjudged her as badly as if we were cubs to be netted by the first pair of eyes turned in our direction. Elys who would die without water, who was to be protected, who—"
"You might tell me what happened, or do I play a guessing game?" interrupted Andas.
"I am not quite sure myself—that is the trouble. One moment I was trying out the secret fastening that controlled the door through which you had gone. I thought it well to know how to do that quickly. The next, something struck me on the side of the head, and I was on the floor. I saw more stars for a second or two then than can be sighted in the heavens of any planet I know.
"While I was still seeing double and triple, Grasty landed his big belly on my back, and he had a force knife to my throat before I could get my wits to working—"
"A force knife! But where did he—"
"You can well ask. Perhaps Turpyn supplied it. How can we be sure how deeply that one was concerned with our kidnaping? Or maybe that she-wyvern conjured it out of midair. Grasty was only her claw man in the matter. She made that clear.
"And what she was going to do—well, she was prepared to bargain with the guard. Had it all worked out, she was sure she could appear before them, an unarmed woman, and they would not flame first and ask questions afterward. When they gave her a chance to talk, she would tell them all about you—buy their favor so. She was very sure that you were not going to achieve anything with your own actions here, and she would gain credit with the powers in control by her play of being more or less your prisoner, ready to tell all about your invasion of their palace. If you remember, she had plenty of time on board ship alone with Grasty to work out a plan to be put into action at the first chance. And Grasty's playing injured was a part of that.
"They were both sure that whoever had put up the fortune it must have cost to get you out of circulation would be most grateful to anyone who would push you back under his claws once more. Practical and logical, that is Elys. You really have to admire her straight thinking, always accepting that her ultimate goal is the preservation and aid of her own plans."
"But you got away—"
"Yes. We heard the arrival of a guard unit. I think they were wearing anti-grav belts and had come across the roofs. So Elys ran out into the middle of the court to meet them. She raised some very pitiful screams for help. I would have believed her—you would have too, Prince.
"Grasty is no fighting man—was, I should say. He was distracted by the action in the court. Elys was doing some splendid acting, running to throw herself at the first man to set foot down. She took a chance there. He might have turned her into a cinder, but she gauged his reaction correctly.
"By that time I had my wits back in my skull, and I took action, too. Grasty, I am sure, never tangled with a Salariki before. We have our own little tricks. At any rate, I got to my feet, his wrist in my teeth, and there was no using the force blade then. He squealed, and I was trying to knock him out when a blaster flamed us. One could see the entire beauty of Elys's plan then. She wanted to get us both burned to a crisp. Then it would be her word against yours—if you lived long enough to say anything. And who would be believed?
"However, the First Ancestress was with me. Grasty took that blast. I continued to hold him as a shield and backed into your doorway, pushed him out and slammed it, hoping they did not know the trick of its opening. I went along, I can't tell you now in which direction. But I found a box with some things in it, a large torch, which was burned out, this one, a container or two, supplies, I think. They were dusty—must have been there a long time."
"One of my father's caches. He left them so when exploring sections new to him." Andas answered. He was still bewildered by Yolyos's story. That Elys would so turn on them—he could hardly believe it. Yet, as the Salariki had pointed out, her actions had a cruel logic. And, after all, what had he known of the alien girl? Also no one could judge an alien, or even a man of another world, by one's own standards of conduct. What was accepted, a matter of established custom and moral right, on one world might be high crime on another. Elys was undoubtedly acting according to her own ethics. Not that that made it any more acceptable— But what of the ring in his own possession?
What that represented was evil according to his beliefs. Yet it had been worn and used by a woman of his own blood. So how could he sit in judgment on Elys? It only remained that their party had been cut to two. And inwardly he was glad that it was the Salariki out of their number who was left to accompany him now.
"What about you?" Yolyos asked. "I would judge you have not been too successful if you are expecting hunters to sniff along your trail here."
Andas hesitated. The accusation made by both Abena and the false emperor (though there was good reason to discount them both) gnawed at him. But he could not be the substitute! He was alive, he felt pain, he had to eat, sleep—he was real!
"You have learned something that has clouded your mind."
Andas was startled at those words. How had the other guessed? Esper? But never before had the other given hint of esper powers. And if he had concealed such a talent, could he otherwise be trusted? Again Andas halted and turned to flash the lamp directly at the bloodstained face.
"You—you are esper!" He made the accusation boldly, bluntly, hoping to shock the other into the truth. But how could you surprise an esper, his common sense demanded a second later. It was impossible.
"No. We do not read minds," Yolyos told him. "We read scents—"
"Scents?" What could the alien mean?
"You know how we are addicted to our scent bags? Well, those are worn not only for the purpose of enjoyment, but they are also protective. We can scent fear, danger, anger, unease of spirit—emotions. And think you what that would mean to have always in your nostrils! You would find it hard to concentrate. So we set up our own scent screens."
"But you did not scent Elys's coming betrayal."
"No, because she was alien, more so than she looked physically. To me she was always—fish!" He brought out that last word as if he were in some way at fault for not being able to penetrate the natural defenses of the girl. "Now Grasty was so filled with fear that that overlaid everything, so with him I had no warning either.
"But you I can read, for in ways your species is not too far removed from mine. We are both mammals, though our distant ancestors were dissimilar. I have seen a creature called 'cat' on one of your trading ships and have been told that such is a more primitive example of my own line. We had a creature on Sargol—now extinct—which might have been your far-off ancestor. Your emotions are not too far different from ours, save that at times they can be overwhelmingly strong. Any of us leaving Sargol for other worlds, even on short visits, must undergo conditioning—just as a mind-reading esper must build up his defenses against crowds, when the burden of their mingled thoughts could well drive them mad.
"So, yes, I can scent that you are highly disturbed, that it is more than just the fact you are hunted by those who have no reason to wish you well. But if you will not share your fear"—the Salariki made a gesture akin to a human shrug—"that is entirely your choice."
What if they were right—but they could not be! But should he warn Yolyos? In his own world the Salariki might face the same accusation. If he were prepared, he could perhaps be able to prove he was not android as Andas would use the key as proof.
So he told the alien just what happened, that a false emperor was Andas in this place and that his only chance of proving the truth was to reach the temple.
"Android." Yolyos repeated the word thoughtfully.
"But it is false! I am human! I eat, I feel pain, I need sleep—"
"What do you know of androids?" The Salariki cut in. "It is not a science that has ever been used on Sargol, but I am under the impression that they were not like robots—which we also have no liking for. Is that not true?"
"Yes. That's why they were prohibited on most worlds long ago. It is even against all laws to make a robot the least bit human in construction. The first androids were destroyed by mobs whenever they were found. Men fear anything that can resemble them and yet be unhuman—deathless—"
"Deathless? Yet this emperor has seemed to age in the normal fashion, has had your life-prolonging injections."
"So he says. With absolute power a man can claim many things, and there are none who can prove it is not so."
"But such a deception would have to have partners, your medics—and surely at least one woman of his inner courts, perhaps more, if he has been thought to have had children. A secret is only a secret when no one shares it. I do not think that your human households are so far removed from ours. And I know that in my clan house what is known to one woman in that respect is, less than a day later, known to most others, and within two days by their mates. Do you think that a score of people could, or would, keep such secrets here?"
Andas found himself shaking his head. No, rumor and gossip had always spread, sometimes as a dark, almost destroying wave, throughout the Triple Towers. There were wild tales told of his father (he had heard some of them whispered) merely because he lived apart. And if they could so embroider invention and get it accepted as truth, what could they do in turn with explosive facts?
There could be a cold-blooded answer—that those who did know might have sudden accidents or fatal illnesses. But only a certain number of those might ensue without raising the very rumors the Emperor was trying to avoid. Andas had to accept, whether he could believe it or not, that this Andas could not cover up a medical report.
"If"—Yolyos proceeded relentlessly—"he could not cover these matters with a lie or by his will, then they must be true. Again I ask you, what do you know of androids? You have said that among your kind they have been regarded with aversion, that they are forbidden. So, we have a form of scientific research that is under restraint. But in the past has that ever worked successfully? Can men be kept from research, their minds turned off by orders? The Mengians Turpyn spoke of—the records that we found in that prison—would that not be the very type of forsaken, hidden place where such researches could be furthered—to higher points unknown before? Suppose that the end result of such experimentation was an android that could not be told from a normal human being?
Logic—devastating logic that he could, had to, agree to at every word! The Mengians were the heirs of the Psychocrats, and the Psychocrats were men (or emotionless superendowed likenesses of men) who admittedly knew more about the human mind and body than any scientists before or since. The remains of their autocratic experiments were so widely scattered that now, two generations after men had rebelled against their yoke in the Ninth and Tenth sectors, discoveries were constantly being made of some new facet of their planning. Yes, given the Psychocrats' resources and knowledge, and unlimited chances for research, there could have been androids that were beyond the boundaries known to history.
"If we are such—" he blurted out.
"Will we ever know?" countered Yolyos. "After hearing your tale, I do not doubt my counterpart is in action somewhere, either on Sargol or engaged on some mission off-planet even as I was at the time I can still remember. You say that you have that which will prove your case if you can reach the place to put it to the test. This I want to see, for it may also affect my future plans. But are you sure you can reach the temple? Have you any idea where we now are?"
Andas was not surprised to have Yolyos make that challenge. They had been plodding on, the dim light of the torch picking out side passages at intervals. And how long he had been in the maze he could not have told.
He was hungry, and more than that he was thirsty. Even to think of water made him draw a dry tongue tip over drier lips. They would have to find sanctuary and both food and drink soon. And all he knew was the general direction in which he had been heading since they left the vent. Not, of course, back toward the Court of Seven Draks, but into a series of ways that, if followed to the end, would bring him to the only place he recognized as home, the pavilion that had been his father's.
"I know enough to get us—" He was beginning and then paused, for the danger in his plan was suddenly clear. They knew who he was, and knowing that—if indeed the false emperor did share all his memories—what better place to lay their trap than there? No, he could not go that way. But where then?
"To get us where?" demanded the Salariki.
Andas sighed. "I am afraid not where we have been heading. They could well be waiting for us there. There is just one place—"
He had tried to push that out of mind, but he could not. Only a very desperate and reckless man would choose that path. But certainly he was desperate enough. And when all roads but one are closed, one either fought like a hopelessly cornered beast, or one took that open road. He knew what would happen if he tried to fight. They could cook him in blaster fire, pick the key from his charred body, and no one would know who he really was. But that other way—
"You are afraid, greatly afraid now."
Andas grimaced. So he smelled of fear, did he? Well, perhaps this furred alien would also if he knew as much as Andas did. But it was the only way, and unless Inyanga had changed radically since he had last walked these ways, the false emperor was going to have a very difficult time sending anyone in there after them.
"There is a place we can go," Andas said slowly, and then decided to tell the whole of it, whether the other would believe him or not. To one who did not know history, it might sound like the most primitive superstition.
"It is the Place of No Return."
"A cheerful name, that."
"Not always does it work that way. But from the earliest records of the building of the Triple Towers, there have been notations of disappearances at that place. Sometimes—in the early years—there would be four or five in a year, or less, and then a longer time when one could go and come there without harm. It was a matter of concern, for the guards' second barracks was at one side, and there were many men there on duty. The old north gate was situated near that point.
"It made no difference who the man was—sometimes a common soldier, twice officers of high rank, and then the Prince Akos. And he was seen to go! Five men, one his bodyguard and two generals, watched him dismount and start to walk across the inner court. They saw him—then he was gone!"
"There was a search, I presume?"
Again Andas ran his tongue tip across his lips. "One that turned the Triple Towers inside out. They explored more than had been done for years. On the third night they heard the calling—"
"Calling?"
"Yes, near the place where Prince Akos had vanished. Very faint and far away, as if it came from a great distance. They brought the Emperor to hear, and the Princess Amika, Akos's wife. Both swore before the altar of Akmedu later, when the final record was made, that it was truly the prince's voice they heard. For the space of two hours he called, his voice growing fainter. And he called names that all heard—first those of the men who had been with him when he had disappeared, and then, later, that of his wife. And at last his voice faded, and they never heard him again, though the Emperor stationed a constant sentry post there for two years thereafter."
"When did this happen?"
"About two hundred years ago. The Emperor had the old records searched then and counted all such disappearances. There were almost fifty—which surprised everyone as no one had completely reckoned them all before. And when, after two years, they heard nothing, found nothing more, he had that section put under ban. They closed that north gate and erected a new one. You cannot even reach that part of the palace now except by ways such as these. And I do not think guards will follow us in."
"But you have been there?"
"Once, with my father. There is a passage that reaches the inner corner of the old barracks—running to the commander's quarters. We stood in a window there and looked down on the courtyard where the prince vanished. A storm must have struck part of the enclosing wall, for stones were scattered inward, and we could see little of the pavement."
"And what explanation did they have, these people who watched your prince disappear and heard him call?"
"The ignorant spoke of night demons and sorcery. The Emperor had all the scientists called in. There was only one explanation my father thought made sense—that perhaps there was another world, one on another plane of existence, and that at intervals there was a break between that world and this, so a man might be caught. Since then I have listened to off-world travelers, and I have heard of such. Alternate time streams are spoken of, layers of worlds in which history has taken some different turn. These, they say, may exist in bands side by side, so a man knowing how to go from one to another may travel, not backward in time, nor forward, but across it."
"A most intriguing suggestion. But since that emperor closed it off, no one has gone exploring there?"
"No. That is why we will be safe there. If we do not reappear for a while, they may even think we are caught in that invisible trap."
"Always supposing we are not! But it is within the court itself that this tricky piece of ground exists. And if we stay away from that we are safe?"
"Yes." Good common sense. Andas's spirits began to rise. It was true that they might shelter on the edge of danger and yet avoid it. He remembered how the empty rooms of the barracks had spread before him on that other visit. And there was even a small garden beyond, which had been attached to the commander's quarters. There was a spring-fed pool there. Water—they would have water—and there could even be fruit growing wild—
He quickened pace, but there was still a difficult journey ahead. In the first place, they must pass a dangerous portion of the ways running near to his old living quarters, for only from there could he take direction to the Place of No Return. Time dragged as they made that careful circuit. When he reached a stone-walled cell into which fed four passages, Yolyos suddenly tapped him on the shoulder. The Salariki's lips were very close to Andas's ear as he whispered in a hiss.
"Someone is here. There is a stink—" His broad head swung back and forth, his nostrils wide, sucking in the dank air. "There!" With a foreclaw he indicated the passage to his left.
"Can you tell how far away?" Andas murmured. That passage soon became a flight of steps leading to a garden house where his father had enjoyed the night blooms of the qixita.
"It is not too strong."
They could hope then, Andas believed, that the ambush had not been set within the passage, but rather where an unsuspecting fugitive might emerge into the room above. But he did not have to brave such a meeting. He was oriented enough now to find his way. He pointed to the opening directly ahead.
Not that this way was easy. The passage dropped deeper, at such a sharp angle that they soon had to clutch at small stones set in the walls to provide steadying handholds. When they reached the foot of that incline, they were walking again underwater, as the thick trickles on the walls told them. The passage narrowed, running now beside a conduit from which the lake above drained in rainy season. And there was a slime deposit where things that had never seen the light of day crawled and bred, while from it arose a vile odor.
Andas heard a coughing grunt from his companion and thought how much worse must be the torment for the sensitive nose of the alien. But at least their way led them along above that ooze and did not run beside it for long.
Three steps up and they were in another corridor surprisingly dry. This had one wall that was a series of bars chiseled out of the stone, with narrow slits between.
"What is that place beyond?"
"A wine cellar, or used to be—when the Crystal Pavilion was the home of the Empress dowagers. We are lucky, for all this section lies close to the old north gate."
"A wine cellar. A pity that we cannot sample some of what is stored there. I am carrying a dry throat."
"There is a garden with a spring at the old barracks," Andas promised, though he spoke with more assurance than he felt. There could be many changes with the years, and he still flinched from thinking how many years had passed since he last walked this way, though, by his own reckoning, it was not more than ten. Yet Abena had told him it was forty-five. Could she have spoken the truth?
They climbed again, Andas counting steps. Once more they were in runways with peepholes, so there might once have been reason to spy on the inhabitants here.
"Where are we going?" demanded Yolyos as they began a second climb.
"To the roof. We must reach the upper ways now. The tunnel underground is closed."
That was the one danger spot if they had guards with anti-grav belts on duty aloft. But there was no other way the fugitives would go.