your will?'
'I would return to Wayright and carry out those plans of mine,' returned the Zacathan. 'My guard goes with me and this gentlefem also, if it is her will.'
'It is,' Taynad agreed. She added nothing to that and Jofre wondered what thoughts clustered now in her head. Since he who had oathed her was dead by what the issha-sworn would consider chance, she was free from employment. Would she, once more on Wayright, seek to return to Asborgan?
'Also,' she was speaking again, 'there is the matter of the Jat.'
'That can be easily attended to.' The Patrol officer must have been glad he had a clear and definite answer to that. 'It will be returned to its home planet.'
'In the condition in which it now exists?' she queried.
The officer looked to the port commander for an answer.
'Unfortunately, the creature has gone catatonic and cannot be roused,' he reported. 'The bond between it and the Holder was so harshly broken as to send it into a coma. The medic reports that nothing he has been able to do will restore it.'
'It might be well to let me try.' To Jofre's surprise the Jewelbright spoke. 'A broken bond might indeed break a mind, but a transferred bond—'
'Can this be done?' the commander questioned.
She hesitated for only a second. 'My kind have certain powers, Gentlehomos. I have developed a liking for the creature and I saw more of it when it was with its bond master than any of you. Let me try to transfer the bond.'
'But it still must be returned—'
'Let that be decided after we see how this will work,' said the commander. 'Yes, Gentlefem, I shall give orders that you are to try this—and may you be successful.'
To Jofre's complete astonishment she turned her head and surveyed him. 'This is one of my world,' she indicated him. 'The training he has been given grants him a certain rapport with other species. I will need him to give me aid.'
Jofre had no chance to talk to her alone. She had admitted obliquely that she knew him for what he was. But that that would constitute any tie between them was chancy. The commander escorted them over to the medic quarters and there they looked down upon the small body which had balled itself almost into a knot on one of the bunks.
'It still lives,' the medic reported, 'but it has had no food nor drink, and the heartbeat is very slow. It is close to death.'
'Yan searches for he who is gone, that one who became his other half.' Taynad seated herself on the edge of the bunk and leaned over, to gather the Jat into her arms as if it were a hurt child.
'Medic, on our world we have certain training which can unite us with other living creatures beside those of our own species. It may be that we can reach Yan and bring him back. We can only try.'
The medic shook his head. 'Gentlefem, I fear it is hopeless. But if there is anything you can do—'
He went to seat himself on a stool at the other side of the room, watching them intently.
Taynad, the Jat still held against her, moved carefully around on the bunk, so that as much of her back was now presented to Jofre as possible. He could guess the next step. Though he had never been a part of such linkage, yet he was well aware there were cases in which it would and had worked.
Now he seated himself behind Taynad's back and dropped his hands on her shoulders. The inner commands he knew and gave one by one, each taking him further to the Center. As yet he was aware of nothing but his own search for full control.
With one hand Taynad stroked the small body which she cradled so close to her. She began a soft crooning in which there were no words to be distinguished, only soothing sounds.
Jofre within himself found and fastened upon that strength he sought. Now he drew—launched—as he might a dart—what he shaped. He could feel the feed of it from his center, along his arms, into her body— Then—!
Touch, immediate linkage, being borne along by another's demanding will. A wall against which that will struck, and then began to beat in a heavy pattern, seeking a weakness, a way of entrance—
Swifter grew those blows, steady and unrelenting the draw upon Jofre. He summoned up more and more to feed, to strengthen—
The resistance lessened reluctantly, as if a bit crumbled, and then another. Before him now was a whirling chaos of terror, alien and therefore threatening. Jofre braced himself and held. What they shaped together now was not the battering ram which had found them a way into this place of rolling terror and loss, but rather a thread to be caught up by the churning of what abode there, twisted, tangled. And they were content to have it so for now— though the payment was heavy as there was feedback of that terror, those waves of negative force. They must not only hold their small contact, but protect themselves into the bargain.
Now! She had not spoken, but the order reached Jofre as if it had been shouted like a battle cry. He sent forth a surge of power, the thread tightened as she spun. It was well enmeshed now in the chaos, it held. Yet it formed a path for them. Dark, cold, nothingness slipped along towards those two who dared to touch.
The room was gone, Jofre was aware only of a battle which he could not see, only sense. This—this— Frantically he hunted a shield, a weapon, something to stop that dark counterflow.
As if it lay heavy in his hand he knew now what he must have. The stone out of Qaw-en-itter. Asshi—if it were assha—force—if it could bring him that force. Though he continued to hold to the thread the Jewelbright had spun, yet he groped within him until he in turn touched! Yet this was no chaos—rather ordered energy. His inner self buckled as he strove to harness it. Too much—he was like one filled with fire which ate outward until all which he was might be consumed.
Ruthlessly Jofre fought to turn that wave, that fire, to harness it to the thread. And so it did—whether by his
