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Chapter 8

The Third Planetary Exit control room was quiet. Telzey was at the instrument stand, watching the viewscreen. Thrakell Dees sat on the floor off to her left, with his back to the wall. He was getting some of her attention. A Sattaram giant was near the door behind her. He needed no attention—he was lying on his back and very dead.

In a room on the level below them, Neto and Korm, one-time Suan Uwin of the Elaigar, waited behind a locked door. Some attention from Telzey was required there from moment to moment, mainly to make sure Korm kept his mind shield tight. He'd been out of practice too long in that matter. Otherwise, he seemed ready to go. Neto was completely ready to go.

The viewscreen showed the circuit exit area on the other side of the locked door. The portal which opened on Tinokti was within a shielded vault-like recess of a massive square structure a hundred yards across—mainly, it seemed, as a precaution against an Alatta attempt to invade the circuit at this point. The controls of the shielding and of the portal itself were on the instrument stand, and Telzey was ready to use them. She was also ready to unlock the door for Neto and Korm.

She couldn't do it at the moment. Something like a dozen Elaigar stood or moved around the exit structure. They were never all in sight at the same time, so she wasn't sure of the number. It was approximately a dozen. Most of them were Otessans; but at least three Sattarams were among them. Technically, they were on guard duty. Telzey had gathered from occasional washes of Elaigar thought that the duty was chiefly a disciplinary measure; these were members of visiting teams who'd got into trouble in the circuit. They weren't taking the assignment very seriously, but all wore guns. About half of them might be in view along the front of the structure at any one time. At present, only four were there.

Four were still too many. Essu would have been useful now, but Essu was dead. Korm had been leading them through a section like a giant greenhouse, long untended, when they spotted a Boragost patrol coming toward them and realized an encounter couldn't be avoided. The troops handled it well. Telzey and Thrakell didn't take part in the action, and weren't needed. The patrol—a Sattaram, an Otessan, six or seven Tolants—was ambushed in dense vegetation, wiped out in moments. Korm gained a Sattaram uniform in Boragost's black and silver, which was better cover for him than what he was wearing. And Telzey lost Essu.

She spared a momentary glance for Thrakell Dees. He was watching her, face expressionless.

When they'd taken the control room, looked at the situation in the exit area, she'd said to him, "You realize we can only get Neto through here. You and I'll have to get away and do something else."

Korm wouldn't accompany them—that was understood by everyone in the room but Korm.

Thrakell hadn't argued, and Telzey wasn't surprised. She'd been studying him as she'd studied Korm on the way, trying to draw in as much last-minute information on a number of matters as she could. It had seemed to her presently that Thrakell Dees didn't really intend to leave the Elaigar circuit. Why he'd approached her originally remained unclear. What he mainly wanted now was one of the portal omnipacks she carried, the one Essu had assembled for her, or the one she'd taken from Essu after he was killed.

Thrakell had mentioned it, as a practical matter, after Korm and Neto took up their stations on the lower level, and they were alone in the control room.

"Thrakell," she'd said, "I need you as a guide now. There's a place I want to go to next, and it seems to be about as far from this part of the circuit as one can get. I might find it by myself with the maps, but it'll be faster with you. We've already spent too much time. I want to be there before anyone starts hunting for me."

Thrakell blinked slowly.

"What's the significance of the place?"

"The Alattas switched me into the circuit by a portal," Telzey said. "It may still be there and operational. If it is, you can get back to Tinokti, if you like. Or you can have one of the omnipacks—after you've let me look into your mind. That's still a condition. We can split up at that point. Not yet."

Thrakell stared at her a moment.

"I had the curious impression," he remarked, "that you'd decided before we got here you wouldn't be using this exit yourself to leave the circuit. The degree of control you've been exercising over Korm and Neto Nayne-Mel shows you could have arranged to do it, of course. I'm wondering about your motivation."

She smiled. "That makes us even. I've wondered a bit about yours."

But it had startled her. So he'd been studying her, too. She'd tried to be careful, but tensions were heavy now and she'd been preoccupied. She wasn't sure how much she might have revealed.

It was true she couldn't afford to leave yet. There were possibilities in the overall situation no one could have suspected, and her information wasn't definite enough. A faulty or incomplete report might do more harm than none; she simply wasn't sure. Through Neto she could see to it that the Service would at least know everything she was able to guess at present. So Neto would be maneuvered safely out of the circuit here. If possible.

But Neto wouldn't report immediately. The planetary exit opened into an old unused Phon villa. Neto would find money and aircars there. She'd get out of her Fossily disguise, move on and lie low in one of Tinokti's cities for the next ten days. If Telzey hadn't showed up by that time, Neto would contact the Psychology Service.

Telzey leaned forward suddenly, hands shifting toward the controls she'd marked. Thrakell stirred in his corner.

"Stay where you are!" she told him, without taking her eyes from the screen. Essu's gun lay on the stand beside her. With neither Essu nor Neto to watch him, Thrakell was going to take careful handling.

She nudged Neto, Korm. Alert! Neto responded. Korm didn't. He hadn't felt the nudge consciously, but he was now aware that the action might be about to begin. He was eager for it. Telzey had spent forty minutes working on him before he led them out of the hospital area. It was a patchwork job, but it would hold up as long as it had to. Korm's fears and hesitancies had been blocked away; in his mind, he was the lordly Suan Uwin of a few years ago. Insult had been offered him, and there was a raging thirst for vengeance simmering just below the surface, ready to be triggered. His great knife hung from his belt along with two Elaigar guns.

Two of the four Otessans who'd been in view in the screen still stood near the shielded portal recess. The other pair had moved toward the corner of the structure, and a Sattaram now had appeared there and was speaking to them. Telzey's finger rested on the door's lock switch. She watched the three, biting her lip.

The Sattaram turned, went around the side of the structure. The two Otessans followed. As they vanished, she unlocked the door in the room below. Whisper of acknowledgment from Neto.

And now to keep Korm's shield tight—tight—

He came into view below. The two remaining Otessans turned to look at him. He strode toward them, the fake Fossily mechanic trotting nimbly at his heels, keeping Korm between herself and the Otessans. Korm was huge, even among Sattarams. He was in the uniform of an officer of Boragost's command, and his age-ravaged face was half hidden by black rank markings which identified him as one of Boragost's temporary deputies. The two might be curious about what special duty brought him here, but no more than that.

He came up to them. His knife was abruptly deep in an Otessan chest.

They had flash reactions. The other had leaped sideways and back, and his gun was in his hand. It wasn't Korm but the gun already waiting in Neto's hand which brought that one down. She darted past him as the recess shield opened and the exit portal woke into gleaming life behind it. Through recess and portal—gone! The recess shield closed.

Korm's guns and his fury erupted together. Turning from the screen, Telzey had a glimpse of Elaigar shapes appearing at the side of the structure, of two or three going down. Korm roared in savage triumph. He wouldn't last long, but she'd locked the door on the lower level again. Survivors couldn't get out until someone came to let them out. . . .

That, however, might happen at any time.

She was seen twice on the way to the brightly lit big room where she and Tscharen had been captured, but nobody paid the purposefully moving mechanic any attention; and, of course, nobody saw Thrakell Dees. Another time they spotted an approaching Fossily work party led by a pair of Otessans, and got out of sight. They had to stay out of sight a while then—the mechanics were busy not at all far from their hiding place. Telzey drifted mentally about the Otessans, presently was following much of their talk.

There were interesting rumors going around about the accident in the headquarters compound of Stiltik's command. The two had heard different versions. It was clear that the Suan Uwin's mind hound had slipped its controls and made a shambles of the place. Stiltik's carelessness . . . or could wily old Boragost have had a hand in that slipping? They argued the point. The mind hound was dead; so were an unspecified number of Stiltik's top officers. Neither fact would hurt Boragost! But how could he have gone about it?

Stiltik, unfortunately, wasn't among the casualties. She'd killed the dagen herself. Telzey thought it might at least keep her mind off the human psi for a while, though that wasn't certain. The ambushed Boragost patrol apparently hadn't been missed yet; nor was there mention of a maniac Sattaram who'd tried to wipe out the guards at Planetary Exit Three. The circuit should be simmering with rumors and speculations presently.

They reached the big room at last. Telzey motioned Thrakell to stand off to one side, then went toward the paneled wall through which she'd stepped with Tscharen, trying to remember the exact location of the portal. Not far from the centerline of the room. . . . She came to that point, and no dim portal outline appeared in the wall. She turned right, moved along the wall, left hand sliding across the panels. Eight steps on, her hand dipped into the wall. Now the portal was there in ghostly semivisibility.

She turned, beckoned to Thrakell Dees.

She'd memorized the route along which Tscharen had taken her, almost automatically, but thinking even then it wasn't impossible she'd be returning over it by herself. She found now she had very little searching to do. It helped that these were small circuit sections, a few rooms cut here and there out of Tinokti's buildings. It helped, too, that Thrakell remained on his best behavior. When they passed through the glimmering of a portal into another dim hall or room, he was closer to her than she liked, but that couldn't be avoided. Essu's gun was in a pocket on the side she kept turned away from him. Between portals he walked ahead of her without waiting to be told.

He knew they'd entered a sealed area and should know they were getting close to the place where she'd been brought into the circuit. Neither of them mentioned it. Telzey felt sure he didn't have the slightest intention of letting her look into his mind, couldn't afford to do it. What he did intend, beyond getting one of the key packs, remained obscure. Not a trickle of comprehensible thought had come through the blur of reproduced alien patterns, which now seemed to change from moment to moment as if Thrakell were mimicking first one species, then another. He might be trying to distract her. She had no further need of him as a guide; in fact, he soon could become a liability. The question was what to do with him.

She located the eight portals along the route in twice as many minutes. Then, at the end of a passage, there was a door. She motioned Thrakell aside again, tried the handle, drew the door back, and was looking down one side of the L-shaped room into which she'd been transported from the Luerral Circuit. The other door, the one by which the three Alattas had entered, stood open. The big wall closet they'd used for storage was also open. A stink of burned materials came from it. So Stiltik's searchers had been here.

She glanced at Thrakell. His intent little eyes met hers for an instant. She indicated the room. "Stand over there against the wall! I want to look around. And keep quiet—Stiltik had gadgets installed here. They just might still be operating."

He nodded, entered the room and stopped by the wall. Telzey went past him, to the corner of the ell. There were no signs of damage in the other part of the room. The portal which had brought her into the circuit might still be there, undetected, and one of the keys Tscharen had carried might activate it.

She'd wanted to find out about that. In an emergency, it could be the last remaining way of escape.

There was an abrupt crashing sound high above her, to her left. Startled, she spun around, looking up.

Something whipped about her ankles and drew her legs together in a sudden violent jerk, throwing her off balance.

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Framed