Moon of Three Rings

All men who travel the star lanes must develop the ability to accept weird things beyond the normal edge of belief. But I think that the consul of Yrjar found my story more bizarre than any he had heard before, except that, Thassa though I looked, I was able to supply so many off-world details that he had to admit only one who had served on a Trader could have given them. And when I had done he looked from me to Maelen and then back again.

'I saw Krip Vorlund when he was brought in— what was left of him. Now you arrive and tell me this. What do you want?'

'Get in touch with theLydis , let me send a message. I can provide details which will prove the truth.'

He smiled then, and it was the type of smile to dry up any flow of speech.

'You have my permission to signal off-world anything you wish, Vorlund, if you can.'

'If lean?'

'I am, as you might have guessed from your welcome, no longer a free agent on Yiktor. There is a blanket satellite operating on short orbit up there—' He pointed to the ceiling over our heads.

'Blanket satellite! But—'

'Yes, but—and but—and but! A hundred planet years ago this might have been a reasonably normal situation. Now—it comes as somewhat of a shock, does it not? The Korburg Combine, or at least some agents stating they represent that Combine, have landed and believe they have the situation well in hand. I tried to get off a courier last night and was warned there was a stop-circuit set up. Because I have seen other evidences of their ruthlessness in operation here, I did not take the chance.'

'But what do they want?' I demanded. As he had said, a hundred years ago such piracy would have been usual, but now! The appetites of the big Combines and Companies had long been curbed by the Patrol; there were drastic answers to such action.

'Something,' Alcey returned. 'Just what has not been made entirely clear. So your problem'—he shook his head—'now becomes a relatively minor one, except of course for you. There is this—' he hesitated. 'I may not be doing right to tell you this, but you should be prepared. I saw your body when it was returned here. Your medico, he was not sure you could make it, but theLydis had been warned out privately by one of their local merchant contacts.

They agreed to carry a message from me to the nearest Patrol post. We had only hints and rumors then, but enough to know they must lift ahead of time. And you—or your body—could well not have survived that lift. The medico protested it on your behalf.'

I glanced down from meeting his eyes to the hands resting before me on the table top. Long thin fingers, ivory skin, strange hands—but they did my will, moved at my command. What if—if he was right in his foreboding that the Krip Vorlund taken away in theLydis was dead, now perhaps spaced in a coffin suit after the manner of my people, so to lie among the stars for all eternity?

Beside me Maelen stirred. 'I must be going,' she said, and her voice was faint, very weary. So she recalled my thoughts—the change between her and her sister could not last much longer. With every passing moment their danger grew.

'But you do not know what Korburg wants here?'

'This much. There have been recent changes in the Council, especially as it touches the government of some inner planets. This world might provide a refuge or way station—temporary, of course, but perhaps necessary for some Veep when a coup on his home world has failed, a place from which he could come back with an army trained here.'

It sounded unlikely, but his preparation for guessing right was better than mine. It remained clear that there was no hope at present of reaching theLydis . If Captain Foss had made it to the nearest Patrol post—

Then it would only be a matter of time before they would visit Yiktor. On the other hand Maelen had very little time left. And we would be safer to return to her people to wait out the struggle. I asked for a recorder, and with both of them listening taped a message which I thought would identify me to all on board theLydis . Then I told Alcey what I would do and he agreed.

The consul furnished us with fresh mounts, though they were not as wiry and mountain-trained as the two who had carried us to Yrjar. At nightfall we rode from the port. This time we were not so lucky in escaping notice, for we were trailed and only Maelen's power acting on the mounts of the pursuers let us pull ahead. The singing left her further drained and she urged us to greater speed, lest she fail before we found the camp.

Toward the end of that nightmare journey I carried her before me in my arms, since she could no longer sit on her animal. We put on a last burst to come to the secluded ravine between two steep hills where we had left the others. The tent was there, rent and crumpled on the ground. And half entangled in the folds lay one of the Thassa.

'Monstans!' Maelen broke from my hold and stumbled toward him, falling to the ground by his side, yet struggling up to look into his still, white face. She caught his head between her hands, bent to set her lips to his, sharing her breath with him.

I saw the tremor of his eyelids. The whole front of his tunic was stained scarlet, but somehow he had held on to the last dregs of his life force until our coming.

'Merlay'—it was a whisper in our minds, not any words shaped by those pallid lips— 'they have taken her— think she—is—you—'

'Where?' Our demand was as if in one voice.

'East—' So much had he done in our service, but no more. The life he had held to swept out of him in one small sigh.

Maelen looked to me. 'They seek my life. If they believe that they now have me—'

'We can follow.' I had to promise that. And, for good or ill, I knew I would keep my word.