Andre Norton - Forerunner 02 - Ordeal In Otherwhere

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ORDEAL IN OTHERWHERE

By Andre Norton

Charis crouched behind the stump, her thin hands pressed tight to the pain in her side. Her breath came in

tearing gasps which jerked her whole body, and her hearing was dimmed by the pounding blood in her

ears. It was still too early in the morning to distinguish more than light and dark, shadow and open. Even

the blood-red of the spargo stump was gray-black in this predawn. But it was not too dark for her to

pick out the markers on the mountain trail.

Though her will and mind were already straining ahead for that climb, her weak body remained here on

the edge of the settlement clearing, well within reach—within reach. Charis fought back the panic which

she still had wit enough to realize was an enemy. She forced her trembling body to remain in the shadow

of the stump, to be governed by her mind and not by the fear which was a fire eating her. Now she could

not quite remember when that fear had been born. It had ridden her for days, coming to its full blaze

yesterday.

Yesterday! Charis strove to throw off the memory of yesterday, but that, too, she forced herself to face

now. Blind panic and running; she dared not give in to either or she was lost. She knew the enemy and

she had to fight, but since a trial of physical strength was out of the question, this meant a test of wits.

As she crouched there, striving to rest, she drew upon memory for any scraps of information which might

mean weapons. The trouble had begun far back; Charis knew a certain dull wonder at why she had not

realized before how far back it had begun. Of course, she and her father had expected to be greeted by

some suspicion—or at least some wariness when they had joined the colonists just before takeoff on

Varn.

Ander Nordholm had been a government man. He and his daughter were classed as outsiders and

strangers by the colony group, much as were the other representatives of law from off-world—the

Ranger Franklyn, Post Officer Kaus and his two guards, the medical officer and his wife. But every

colony had to have an education officer. In the past too many frontier-world settlements had split away

from the Confederation, following sometimes weird and dangerous paths of development when fanatics

took control, warped education, and cut off communications with other worlds.

Yes, the Nordholms had expected a period of adjustment, of even semi-ostracization since this was a

Believer colony. But her father had been winning them over—he had! Charis could not have deceived

herself about that. Why, she had been invited to one of the women’s “mend” parties. Or had it been a

blind even then?

But this—this would never have happened if it had not been for the white death! Charis’s breath came

now in a real sob. There were so many shadows of fear on a newly opened planet. No safeguard could

keep them all from striking at the fragile life of a newly planted colony. And here had been waiting a

death no one could see, could meet with blaster or hunting knife or even the medical knowledge her

species had been able to amass during centuries of space travel, experimentation, and information

acquired across the galaxy.

And in its striking, the disease had favored the fanatical prejudices of the colonists. For it struck first the

resented government men. The ranger, the port captain and his men, her father—Charis’s fist was at her

mouth, and she bit hard upon her knuckles. Then it struck the medic—always the men. Later the

colonists—oddly enough, those who had been most friendly with the government party—and only the

men and boys in those families.

The ugly things the survivors had said—that the government was behind the plague. They had yelled that

when they burned the small hospital. Charis leaned her forehead against the rough stump and tried not to

remember that. She had been with Aldith Lasser, the two of them trying to find some meaning in a world

which in two weeks had taken husband and father from them and turned their kind into mad people. She

would not think of Aldith now; she would not! nor of Visma Unskar screaming horrors when Aldith had

saved her baby for her—

Charis’s whole body was shaking with spasms she could not control. Demeter had been such a fair

world. In the early days after their landing, Charis had gone on two expeditions with the ranger, taking

the notes for his reports. That was what they had held against her in the colony—her education, her

equality with the government men. So—Charis put her hands against the stump and pulled herself up—so

now she had three choices left.

She could return; or she could remain here until the hunt found her—to take her as a slave down to the

foul nest they were fast making of the first human settlement on Demeter; or somehow she could reach

the mountains and hide out like a wild thing until sooner or later some native peril would finish her. That

seemed much the cleaner way to end. Still steadying herself with one hand on the stump, Charis stooped

to pick up the small bundle of pitiful remnants she had grubbed out of the ruins of the government domes.

A hunting knife, blackened by fire, was her only weapon. And there were formidable beasts in the

mountains. Her tongue moved across dry lips, and there was a dull ache in her middle. She had eaten last

when? Last night? A portion of bread, hard and with the mustiness of mold on it, was in the bag. There

would be berries in the heights. She could actually see them—yellow, burstingly plump—hanging so

heavy on willowy branches that they pulled the boughs groundward. Charis swallowed again, pushed

away from the stump, and stumbled on.

Her safety depended upon what the settlers would decide. She had no means of concealing her back

trail. In the morning it would be found. But whether their temper would be to follow her, or if they would

shruggingly write her off to be finished by the wild, Charis could not guess. She was the one remaining

symbol of all Tolskegg preached against—the liberal off-world mind, the “un-female,” as he called it. The

wild, with every beast Ranger Franklyn had catalogued lined up ready to tear her, was far better than

facing again the collection of cabins where Tolskegg now spouted his particular brand of poison, that

poison, bred of closed minds, which her father had taught her early to fear. And Visma and her ilk had

lapped that poison to grow fat and vigorous on it. Charis weaved on along the trail.

There was no sign of a rising sun, she realized some time later. Instead, clouds were thicker overhead.

Charis watched them in dull resignation, awaiting a day of chill, soaking rain. The thickets higher up might

give her some protection from the full force of a steady pour, but they would not keep out the cold.

Some cave or hole into which she could crawl before full exposure weakened her to the point that she

could go no farther—

She tried to remember all the features of this trail. Twice she had been along it—the first time when they

had cut the trace, the second time when she had taken the little ones to the spring to show them the

wonderful sheaths of red flowers and the small, jeweled, flying lizards that lived among those loops of

blossoming vines.

The little ones . . . Charis’s cracked lips shaped a grimace. Jonan had thrown the stone which had made

the black bruise on her arm. Yet, on that other day, Jonan had stood drinking in the beauty of the

flowers.

Little ones and not so little ones. Charis began to reckon how many boys had survived the white death.

All the little ones, she realized with some wonder, were still alive—that is, all under twelve years. Of

those in their teens, five remained, all representing families who had had least contact with the government

group, been the most fanatical in their severance. And of adult men . . . Charis forced herself to recall

every distorted face in the mob bent on destruction, every group she had spied upon while hiding out.

Twenty adult men out of a hundred! The women would go into the fields, but they could not carry on the

heavy work of clearing. How long would it take Leader Tolskegg to realize that, in deliberately leading

the mob to destroy the off-world equipment, he might also have sentenced all of the remaining colonists

to slow death?

Of course, sooner or later, Central Control would investigate. But not for months was any government

ship scheduled to set down on Demeter. And by that time the whole colony could be finished. The

excuse of an epidemic would cover the activities of any survivors. Tolskegg, if he were still alive then,

could tell a plausible tale. Charis was sure that the colony leader now believed he and his people were

free from the government and that no ship would come, that the Power of their particular belief had

planned this so for them.

Charis pushed between branches. The rain began, plastering her hair to her head, streaming in chill

trickles down her face, soaking into the torn coat on her shoulders. She stooped under its force, still

shivering. If she could only reach the spring. Above that was broken rock where she might find a hole.

But it was harder and harder for her to pull herself up the rising slope. Several times she went down to

hands and knees, crawling until she could use a bush or a boulder to pull upright once more. All the

world was gray and wet, a sea to swallow one. Charis shook her head with a jerk. It would be so easy

to drift into the depths of that sea, to let herself go.

This was real—here and now. She could clutch the bushes, pull herself along. Above was safety; at least,

freedom of a sort still undefiled by the settlers. And here was the spring. The curtain of blossoms was

gone, seed pods hung in their place. No lizards, but something squat and hairy drank at the pool, a thing

with a long muzzle that looked at her from a double set of eyes, coldly, without fear. Charis paused to

stare back.

A purple tongue flicked from the snout, lapped at the water in a farewell lick. The creature reared on

stumpy hind feet, standing about three feet tall; and Charis recognized it, in this normal pose, as one of

the tree-dwelling fruit eaters that depended upon overdeveloped arms and shoulders for a method of

progress overhead. She had never seen one on the ground before, but she thought it harmless.

It turned with more speed than its clumsy build suggested and used the vines for a ladder to take it up out

of her sight. There was a shrill cry from where it vanished and the sound of more than one body moving

away.

Charis squatted by the pool side and drank from her cupped hands. The water was cold enough to numb

her palms, and she rubbed them back and forth across the front of her jacket when she was finished, not

in any hopes of drying them but to restore circulation. Then Charis struck off to the left where the

vegetation gave way to bare rock.

How long it was, that struggle to gain the broken country, Charis could not have told. The effort stripped

her of her few remaining rags of energy, and sheer, stubborn will alone kept her crawling to the foot of an

outcrop, where a second pillar of stone leaned to touch the larger and so formed a small cup of shelter.

She drew her aching body into that and huddled, sobbing with weakness.

The pain which had started under her ribs spread now through her whole body. She drew her knees up

to her chest and wrapped her arms about them, resting her chin on one kneecap. For a long moment she

was as still as her shaking body would allow her to rest. And it was some time later that she realized

chance had provided her with a better hideout than her conscious mind had directed.

From this niche and out of the full drive of the rain, Charis had a relatively unobstructed view of the

down-slope straight to the field on which their colony ship had first set down. The scars of its braking

thrusters were still visible there even after all these months. Beyond, to her right, was the straggle of

colony cabins. The dim gray of the storm lessened the range of visibility, but Charis thought she could see

a trail or two of smoke rising there.

If Tolskegg was following the usual pattern, he had already herded the majority of the adults into the

fields in that race for planting. With the equipment destroyed, it would be a struggle to get the mutated

seed in the ground in time for an early harvest. Charis did not move her head. From here the fields were

masked by the rounded slope; she could not witness the backbreaking toil in progress there. But if the

new ruler of the colony was holding to schedule, she need not fear the trailers would be early on her

track—if they came at all.

Her head was heavy on her knee; the need for sleep was almost as great as the ache of hunger. She

roused herself to open her bundle and take out the dry bread to gnaw. The taste almost made her choke.

If she had only had warning enough to hide some of the trail rations the explorers had used! But by the

time she had nursed her father to the end, the main stores had largely been raided or destroyed because

of their “evil” sources.

As she chewed the noisome mouthful, Charis watched downtrail. Nothing moved in the portion of the

settlement she could see. Whether or not she wanted to, whether or not it was safe, she must rest. And

this was the best hole she could find. Perhaps the steady rain would wash away the traces she had left. It

was a small hope but all she had left to cling to.

Charis thrust the rest of the bread back into her bundle. Then she strove to wriggle deeper into her

half-cave. Spray from the rain striking the rocks reached her in spite of her efforts. But finally she lapsed

into quiet, her forehead down on her knees, her only movements the shivers she could not control.

Was it sleep or unconsciousness which held her, and for how long? Charis rose out of a nightmare with a

cry, but any sound she made was swallowed up by a roar from outside.

She blinked dazedly at what seemed to be a column of fire reaching from earth to gray, weeping sky.

Only for a moment did that last, and then the fire was at ground level, boiling up the very substance of the

soil. Charis scrambled forward on hands and knees, shouting but still blanketed by that other sound.

There was a spacer, a slim, scoured shape, pointing nose to sky, the heat of its braking fire making a

steam mist about it. But this was no vision—it was real! A spacer had set down by the village!

Charis tottered forward. Tears added to the rain, wet on her cheeks. There was a ship—help—down

there. And it had come too soon for Tolskegg to hide the evidence of what had happened. The burned

bubble domes, all the rest—they would be seen; questions would be asked. And she would be there to

answer them!

She lost her footing on a patch of sleek clay, and before she could regain her balance, Charis was

skidding down, unable to stop her fall. The sick horror lasted for an endless second or two. Then came a

sudden shock, bringing pain and blackness.

Rain on her face roused Charis again. She lay with her feet higher than her head, a mass of rubble about

her. Panic hit her, the fear that she was trapped or that broken bones would immobilize her, away from

the wonderful safety and help of the ship. She must get there—now!

In spite of the pain, she wriggled and struggled out of the debris of the slide, crawled away from it.

Somehow she got to her feet. There was no way of telling how long she had lain there and the thought of

the ship waiting drove her on to make an effort she could not have faced earlier.

No time to go back to the spring trail—if she could reach it from this point. Better straight down, with the

incline of the slope to keep her going in the right direction. She had been almost directly above and

behind the landing point when she had sheltered among the rocks. She must have slid in the right

direction, so she only had to keep on going that way.

Was it a Patrol ship, Charis wondered as she stumbled on. She tried to remember its outline. It was

certainly not a colony transport—it was not rotund enough; nor was it a regulation freighter. So it could

only be a Patrol or a government scout landing off-schedule. And its crew would know how to deal with

the situation here. Tolskegg might already be under arrest.

Charis forced herself to cut down her first headlong pace. She knew she must not risk another fall, the

chance of knocking herself out just when help was so near. No, she wanted to walk in on her own two

feet, to be able to tell her story and tell it clearly. Take it slowly: the ship would not lift now.

She could smell the stench of the thruster-burn, see the steam as a murky fog through the trees and brush.

Better circle here; it no longer mattered if Tolskegg or his henchmen sighted her. They would be afraid to

make any move against her.

Charis wavered out of the brush into the open and started for the village without fear. She would show

up on the vistaplates in the ship, and none of the colonists would risk a hostile move under that

circumstance.

So—she would stay right here. There was no sign of anyone’s coming out of the village. Of course not!

They would be trying to work out some plausible story, whining to Tolskegg. Charis faced around

toward the ship and waved vigorously, looking for the insignia which would make it Patrol or Scout.

There was none! It took a moment for that fact to make a conscious impression on her mind. Charis had

been so sure that the proper markings would be there that she had almost deceived herself into believing

that she sighted them. But the spacer bore no device at all. Her arm dropped to her side suddenly as she

saw the ship as it really was.

This was not the clean-lined, well-kept spacer of any government service. The sides were space-dust

cut, the general proportions somewhere between scout and freighter, with its condition decidedly less

than carefully tended. It must be a Free Trader of the second class, maybe even a tramp—one of those

plying a none-too-clean trade on the frontier worlds. And the chances were very poor that the

commander or crew of such would be lawfully engaged here or would care at all about what happened

to the representatives of government they were already aligned against in practice. Charis could hope for

no help from such as these.

A port opened and the landing ramp snaked out and down. Somehow Charis pulled herself together, she

turned to run. But out of the air spun a rope, jerking tight about her arms and lower chest, pulling her

back and off her feet to roll, helplessly entangled, a prisoner. While behind she heard the high-pitched,

shrill laughter of Tolskegg’s son, one of the five boys who had survived the epidemic.

She must keep her wits, she must! Charis sat on the backless bench, her shoulders braced against the log

wall, and thought furiously. Tolskegg was there and Bagroof, Sidders, Mazz. She surveyed what now

must be the ruling court of the colony. And then, the trader. Her attention kept going back to the man at

the end of the table who sat there, nursing a mug of quaffa, eyeing the assembly with a spark of

amusement behind the drooping lids of his very bright and wary eyes.

Charis had known some Free Traders. In fact, among that class of explorer-adventurer-merchant her

father had had some good friends, men who carried with them a strong desire for knowledge, who had

added immeasurably to the information concerning unknown worlds. But those were the aristocrats of

their calling. There were others who were scavengers, pirates on occasion, raiders who took instead of

bargained when the native traders of an alien race were too weak to stand against superior off-world

weapons.

“It is simple, my friend.” The trader’s insolent tone to Tolskegg must have cut the colonist raw, yet he

took it because he must. “You need labor. Your fields are not going to plow, plant, and reap themselves.

All right, in freeze I have labor—good hands all of them. I had my pick; not one can’t pull his weight, I

promise you. There was a flare on Gonwall’s sun, they had to evacuate to Sallam, and Sallam couldn’t

absorb the excess population. So we were allowed to recruit in the refugee camp. My cargo’s prime

males—sturdy, young, and all under indefinite contracts. The only trouble is, friend, what do you have to

offer in return? Oh—“ his hand went up to silence the beginning rumble from Tolskegg. “I beg of you, do

not let us have again this talk of furs. Yes, I have seen them, enough to pay for perhaps three of my

cargo. Your wood does not interest me in the least. I want small things, of less bulk, a money cargo for a

fast turnover elsewhere. Your furs for three laborers—unless you have something else to offer.”

So that was it! Charis drew a deep breath and knew there was no use in appealing to this captain. If he

had shipped desperate men on indefinite labor contracts, he was no better than a slaver, even though

there was a small shadow of legality to his business. And his present offer was sheer torment to

Tolskegg.

“No native treasures—gems or such?” the captain continued. “Sad that your new world has so few

resources to aid you now, friend.”

Mazz was pulling at his leader’s grimed sleeve, hissing into Tolskegg’s ear. The frown on the other’s face

lightened a little.

“Give us a moment to do some reckoning, captain. We may have something else.”

The trader nodded. “All the time you wish, friend. I thought that might move your memories.”

Charis tried to think what Mazz had in mind. There was nothing of immediate value to trade, she was

sure, save the bundle of pelts the ranger had gathered as specimens. Those had been cured to send

off-world as scientific material.

The buzz of whispers among the colonists came to an end and Tolskegg faced about. “You trade in

labor. What if we offer you labor in return?”

For the first time, the captain displayed a faint trace of surprise—deliberately, Charis decided. He was

too old a hand at any bargaining to show any emotion unless for a purpose.

“Labor? But you are poor in labor. Do you wish to strip yourselves of what few assets you possess?”

“You deal in labor,” Tolskegg growled. “And there is more than one kind of labor. Is that not so? We

need strong backs, men for our fields. But there are other worlds where they may need women.”

Charis stiffened. For the first time she saw more than one reason for her having been dumped here. She

had thought it was merely to impress upon her the folly of hoping for any rescue. But this—

“Women?” The captain’s surprise grew more open. “You would trade your women?”

Mazz was grinning, a twisted and vicious grin centered on Charis. Mazz still smarted from Ander

Nordholm’s interference when he had wanted to beat his wife and daughter into the fields.

“Some women,” Mazz said. “Her—“

Charis had been aware that the trader had pointedly ignored her from his entrance into the cabin. To

interfere in the internal affairs of any colony was against trading policy. To the captain, a girl with her arms

tied behind her back, her feet pinioned, was a matter involving the settlement and not his concern. But

now he accepted Mazz’s statement as an excuse for giving her a measuring stare. Then he laughed.

“And of what possible value is this one? A child, a reed to break if you set her to any useful labor.”

“She is older than she looks and has the learning of books,” Tolskegg retorted. “She was a teacher of

useless knowledge, and speaks more than one tongue. On some worlds such are useful or deemed so by

the fools that live there.”

“Who are you, then?” The captain spoke to her directly.

Was this a chance? Could she persuade him to take her, hoping to contact authority off-world and so

obtain her freedom?

“Charis Nordholm. My father was education officer here.”

“So? Oh, daughter of a learned one, what has chanced in this place?” He had slipped from Basic into the

sibilant Zacathan tongue. She answered him readily in the same language.

“First, winged one, a sickness, and then the blight of ignorance.”

Tolskegg’s great fist struck the table with a drum thud. “Speak words we can understand!”

The captain smiled. “You have claimed for this child knowledge. I have the right to decide whether that

knowledge makes her worth my buying. In the water of the north there are splinters of ice.” Again he

used one of the Five Tongues—that of Danther.

“But the winds of the south melt them swiftly.” Charis replied to that code address almost mechanically.

“I say—speak what a man can understand. She has learning, this one. She is useless to us here. But to

you she is worth at least another laborer!”

“How say you, Gentle Fem?” The trader addressed Charis. “Do you deem yourself worth a man?”

For the first time the girl allowed herself a thrust in return. “I am worth several of some!”

The captain laughed. “Well said. And if I take you, will you sign an indefinite contract?”

For a long moment Charis stared at him, her small spark of hope crushed before it had time to warm her.

As her eyes met his, she knew the truth—he was not really an escape at all. This man would not take her

from Demeter to someone in authority. Any bargain would be made on his terms, and those terms would

bind her on almost every planet he would visit. With a labor cargo he would set down only on those

worlds where such a shipment would be welcome and legal. With an indefinite contract to bind her, she

could not appeal for freedom.

“That is slavery,” she said.

“Not so.” But his smile held almost as much malice as Mazz’s grin. “To every contract there comes an

end in time. Of course, you need not sign, Gentle Fem. You may remain here—if that is your wish.”

“We trade her!” Tolskegg had followed this exchange with growing exasperation. “She is not one of us,

nor our kind. We trade her!”

The captain’s smile grew broader. “It would seem, Gentle Fem, that you have little choice. I do not think

that this world will be very kind to you under the circumstances if you remain.”

Charis knew he was right. Left to Tolskegg and the rest, their hatred of her the hotter for losing out on

what they thought was a bargain, she would be truly lost. She drew a ragged breath; the choice was

already made.

“I’ll sign,” she said dully.

The captain nodded. “I thought you would. You are in full possession of your senses. You—“ he pointed

to Mazz, “loose the Gentle Fem!”

“Already once she has run to the woods,” Tolskegg objected. “Let her remain bound if you wish to

control her. She is a demon’s daughter and full of sin.”

“I do not think she will run. And since she is about to become marketable property, I have a voice in this

matter. Loose her now!”

Charis sat rubbing her wrists after the cords were cut. The captain was right—her strength and energy

were gone; she could not make a break for freedom now. Since the trader had tested her education to a

small degree, it was possible that learning was a marketable commodity for which he already foresaw

profit. And to be off-world, away from Demeter, would be a small measure of freedom in itself.

“You present a problem.” The captain spoke to her again. “There is no processing station here, and we

cannot ship you out in freeze—“

Charis shivered. Most labor ships stacked their cargo in the freeze of suspended animation, thus saving

room, supplies, all the needs of regular passengers. Space on board a trader ship was strictly limited.

“Since we lift without much cargo,” he continued, “you’ll bunk in the strong room. And now—what’s the

matter—are you sick?”

She had striven to rise, only to have the room whirl about her with a sickening lurch of floor and ceiling.

“Hungry.” Charis clutched at the nearest hold, the arm the captain had put out involuntarily when she

swayed.

“Well, that can be remedied easily enough.”

Charis remembered little of how she got to the spacer. She was most aware of a cup pushed into her

hands, warm to her cold palms, and the odor which rose from it. Somehow she managed to get the

container to her lips and drink. It was a thick soup, savory, though she could not identify any of its

contents. When she had finished, she settled back on the bunk and looked about the room.

Each Free Trader had a cabin with extra security devices intended to house particularly rich, small cargo.

The series of cupboards and drawers about her were plainly marked with thumbprint locks which only

the captain and his most trusted officers could open. And the bunk on which she sat was for a port-side

guard when such were needed.

So she, Charis Nordholm, was no longer a person but valuable cargo. But she was tired, too tired to

worry, to even think, about the future. She was tired—

The vibration of the walls, the bunk under her, were a part of her body, too. She tried to move and could

not; panic caught at her until she saw that the webbing of the take-off belts laced her in. Thankful, Charis

touched the release button and sat up. They were off-planet, headed toward what new port of call? She

almost did not want to know.

Since there was no recording of time in the treasure cabin, Charis could portion hours, days, only by the

clicking of the tray which brought her food through a hatch at intervals—long intervals, for the food was

mostly the low-bulk, high-energy tablets of emergency rations. She saw no one and the door did not

open. She might have been imprisoned in an empty ship.

At first Charis welcomed the privacy, feeling secure in it. She slept a lot, slowly regaining the strength

which had been drained from her during those last weeks on Demeter. Then she became bored and

restless. The drawers and cupboards attracted her, but those she could open were empty. At the fifth

meal-period there was a small packet beside her rations, and Charis opened it eagerly to find a reader

with a tape threaded through it.

Surprisingly enough, the tape proved to be one of the long epic poems of the sea world of Kraken. She

read it often enough to commit long passages to heart, but it spurred her imagination to spin fantasies of

her own which broke up the dull apathy induced by her surroundings. And always she could speculate

about the future and what it might hold.

The captain—odd that she had never heard his name—had hers now, along with her thumbprint, on his

contract. She was signed and sealed to a future someone else would direct. But always she could hope

that chance would take her where she could appeal for aid and freedom. And Charis was very sure now

that a future off-world would be better than any on Demeter.

She was reciting aloud her favorite passage from the saga when a loud clang, resounding from the walls

of the cabin, sent her flat on the bunk, snapping the webbing in place. The spacer was setting down. Was

this the end of the trip for her or just a way stop? She endured the pressure of planeting and lay waiting

for the answer.

Though the ship must be in port, no one came to free her, and as the moments passed she grew

impatient, pacing back and forth in the cabin, listening for any sound. But, save that the vibration had

ceased, they could as well have been in space.

Charis wanted to pound the door, scream her desire to be out of what was now not a place of security

but a cage. By stern effort she controlled that impulse. Where were they now? What was happening?

How long would this continue—this being sealed away? Lacing her fingers tightly together, she went

back to the bunk, willed herself to sit there with an outward semblance of patience. She might be able to

communicate through the ration hatch if this went on.

She was still sitting when the door opened. The captain stood there with a bundle under his arm which he

tossed to the bunk beside her.

“Get into this.” He nodded curtly at the bundle. “Then come!”

Charis pulled at the fastening of the bundle to unroll a coverall uniform, the kind worn by spacemen off

duty. It was clean and close enough to her size to fit if she rolled up the sleeves and pants legs. She

changed in the pocket-sized refresher of the cabin, glad to discard her soiled and torn Demeter clothing.

But she had to keep her scuffed and worn boots. Her hair was shoulder-length now, its light brown

strands fair against her tanned skin, curling up a little at the ends. Charis drew it back to tie with a strip of

cloth, forming a bobbing tail at the back of her head. There was no need to consult any mirror; she was

no beauty by the standards of her race and never had been. Her mouth was too wide, her cheekbones

too clearly defined, and her eyes—a pale gray—too colorless. She was of Terran stock, of middle height

which made her taller than some of the mutated males, and altogether undistinguished.

But she was feminine enough to devote several seconds making sure the coverall fitted as well as she

could manage and that she made the best appearance possible under the circumstances. Then, a little

warily, she tried the door, found it open, and stepped out onto the level landing.

The captain was already on the ladder; only his head and shoulders were in sight. He beckoned

impatiently to her. She followed him down for three levels until they came to the open hatch from which

sprang the door ramp.

Outside was a glare of sunlight which made Charis blink and raise her hands to shield her eyes. The

captain caught her elbow and steered her ahead into a harsh warmth, desert-like in its baking heat. And

as her eyes adjusted she saw that they had indeed set down in a wasteland.

Sand, which was a uniform red outside the glassy slag left by the thruster blast, lapped out to the foot of a

range of small hills, the outline of which shimmered in heat waves. There was no sign of any building, no

look of a port, save for the countless slag scars which pecked and pitted the surface of the desert sand,

evidence of many landings and take-offs.

There were ships—two, three, a fourth farther away. And all of them, Charis saw, were of the same type

as the one she had just left, second- and third-class traders. This seemed to be a rendezvous for fringe

merchants.

The captain’s hold on her arm left Charis no time to examine her surroundings more closely; he was

pulling rather than guiding her to the next ship, a twin to his own. And a man, with an officer’s winged cap

but no uniform except nondescript coveralls, stood waiting for them at the foot of the ramp.

He stared at Charis intently as she and the captain approached. But the stare was impersonal, as if she

were not a woman or even a human being at all, but a new tool of which the stranger was not quite sure.

“Here she is.” The captain brought Charis to a stop before the strange officer.

His stare held for a moment and then he nodded and turned to go up the ramp. The other two followed.

Once inside the ship, Charis, sandwiched between the two men, climbed the core ladder up to the level

of the commander’s cabin. There he signaled for her to sit at a swing-down desk, pushed a reader before

her.

What followed was, Charis discovered, an examination into her ability to keep accounts, her knowledge

of X-tee contact procedures, and the like. In some fields she was very ignorant, but in others she

appeared to satisfy her questioner.

“She’ll do.” The stranger was very sparing of words.

Do for what? The question was on the tip of Charis’s tongue when the stranger saw fit to enlighten her.

“I’m Jagan, Free Trader, and I’ve a temporary permit for a world named Warlock. Heard of it?”

Charis shook her head. There were too many worlds; one could never keep up with their listing.

“Probably not—back of beyond,” Jagan had already added. “Well, the natives have an unusual system.

Their females rule, make all off-world contacts; and they don’t like to deal with males, even strangers like

us. So we have to have a woman to palaver with them. You know some X-tee stuff and you’ve enough

education to keep the books. We’ll put you at the post, and then they’ll trade. I’m buying your contract,

and that’s that. Got it, girl?”

He did not wait for her to answer, but waved her away from the desk. She backed against the cabin wall

and watched him thumbprint the document which transferred her future into his keeping.

Warlock—another world—unsettled by human beings except at a trading post. Charis considered the

situation. Such trading posts were visited at intervals by officials. She might have a chance to plead her

case before such an inspector.

Warlock -- She began to wonder about that planet and what might await her there.

III

“It’s simple. You discover what they want and give it to them for as near your price as you can get.”

Jagan sat at the wall desk, Charis on a second pull-seat by the wall. But the captain was not looking at

her; he was staring at the cabin wall as if the answer to some dilemma was scratched there as deeply as a

blaster ray could burn it. “They have what we want. Look here—“ He pulled out a strip of material as

long as Charis’s forearm and as wide as her palm.

It was fabric of some type, a pleasant green color with an odd shimmer to its surface. And it slipped

through her fingers with a caressing softness. Also, she discovered, it could be creased and folded into an

amazingly small compass, yet would shake out completely unwrinkled.

“That’s waterproof,” Jagan said. “They make it. Of what we don’t know.”

“For their clothing?” Charis was entranced. This had the soft beauty of the fabulously expensive Askra

spider silk.

“No, this fabric is used commonly to package things—bags and such. The Warlockians don’t wear

clothing. They live in the sea as far as we know. And that’s the only thing we’ve been able to trade out of

them so far. We can’t get to them—“ He scowled, flipping record tapes about the top of the desk. “This

is our chance, the big one, the one every trader dreams of having someday—a permit on a newly opened

world. Make this spin right and it means—“ His voice trailed off, but Charis understood him.

Trading empires, fortunes, were made from just such chances. To get at the first trade of a new world

was a dream of good luck. But she was still puzzled as to how Jagan had achieved the permit for

Warlock. Surely one of the big Companies would have made contact with Survey and bid in the rights to

establish the first post. Such plums were not for the fringe men. But it was hardly tactful under the

circumstances to ask Jagan how he had accomplished the nigh to impossible.

She had been spending a certain period of each ship’s day with Jagan, going over the tapes he

considered necessary for her briefing. And Charis had, after her first instruction hour, realized that to

Jagan she was not a person at all, but a key with which he might unlock the mysteriously shut door of

Warlockian trade. Oddly enough, while the captain supplied her with a wealth of information about his

goods, the need for certain prices and profits, the mechanics of trading with aliens, he seemed to have

very little to say about the natives themselves, save that they were strongly matriarchal in their beliefs,

holding males in contempt. And they had been wary of the post after a first curious interest in it.

Jagan was singularly evasive over why the first contact had failed so thoroughly. And Charis, treading

warily, dared not ask too many questions. This was like forsaking a well-worn road for a wilderness. She

still had a little knowledge to guide her, but she had to pick a new path, using all her intuition.

“They have something else.” Jagan came out of the thoughtful silence into which he had retreated. “It’s a

tool, a power. They travel by it.” He rubbed one hand across his square chin and looked at Charis oddly

as if daring her to take his words lightly. “They can vanish!”

“Vanish?” She tried to be encouraging. Every bit of information she could gain she must have.

“I saw it.” His voice sank to a mumble. “She was right there—“ one finger stabbed at the corner of the

cabin, “and then—“ He shook his head. “Just—just gone! They work it some way. Get us the secret of

how they do that and we won’t need anything else.”

Charis knew that Jagan believed in the truth of what he had seen. And aliens had secrets. She was

beginning to look forward to Warlock more than for just a chance of being free of this spacer.

But when they did planet, she was not so certain once again. The sky of mid-afternoon was amber, pure

gold in places. The ship had set down among rough cliffs of red and black which shelved or broke

abruptly to the green sea. Except for that sea and the sky, Warlock appeared a somber world of dark

earth, a world which, to Charis, repelled rather than invited the coming of her species.

On Demeter the foliage had been a light, bright green, with hints of yellow along stem or leaf edge. Here

it held a purple overcast, as if it were eternally night-shadowed even in the full sun of day.

Charis had welcomed and fiercely longed for the fresh air of the open, untainted by spacer use. But after

her first tasting of that pleasure, she was more aware of a chill, a certain repulsion. Yet the breeze from

the sea was no more than fresh; the few odors it bore, while perhaps strange, were not offensive in any

way.

There was no settlement, no indication except for slag scars, that any spacer had set down here before.

She followed Jagan down the ramp, away from the thruster steam, to the edge of a cliff drop, for they

had landed on a plateau well above sea level. Below was an inlet running like a sharp sword thrust of sea

into the land. And at its innermost tip bubbled the dome of the post, a gray dome of quickly hardened

plasta-skin—the usual temporary structure on a frontier planet.

“There she is.” Jagan nodded. But it seemed to Charis that he was in no hurry to approach his gate to

fortune. She stood there, the breeze tugging at her hair and the coveralls they had given her. Demeter had

been a frontier world, alien, but until after the white death had struck it had seemed open, willing to

welcome her kind. Was that because it had had no native race? Or because its very combination of

natural features, of sights, sounds, smells, had been more attuned to Terran stock? Charis had only begun

to assess what made that difference, trying to explore the emotions this first meeting with Warlock

aroused in her, when Jagan moved.

He lifted a hand to summon her on and led the way down a switchback trail cut into the native rock by

blaster fire. Behind she could hear the voices of his crew as they formed a line of men to descend.

The foliage had been thinned about the post, leaving a wide space of bare, blue soil and gray sand ringing

the bubble, an elementary defense precaution. Charis caught the scent of perfume, looked into a bush

where small lavender-pink balls bobbed and swung with the wind’s touch. That was the first light and

delicate thing she had seen in this rugged landscape.

Now that she was on a level with the post, she saw that the dome was larger than it looked from above.

Its surface was unbroken by any windows; visa-screens within would be set to pick up what registered

on sensitive patches of the walls. But at the seaward end there was the outline of a door. Jagan fronted

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ORDEALINOTHERWHEREByAndreNortonIChariscrouchedbehindthestump,herthinhandspressedtighttothepaininherside.Herbreathcameintearinggaspswhichjerkedherwholebody,andherhearingwasdimmedbythepoundingbloodinherears.Itwasstilltooearlyinthemorningtodistinguishmorethanlightanddark,shadowandopen.Eventheblood-redo...

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Andre Norton - Forerunner 02 - Ordeal In Otherwhere

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