That a report of all he had said would be referenced to the Veep in charge of this sector he was sure. Then maybe they would come for him again. They might have a way of breaking a mind seal – though that could also mean his death. What had he done, save make the truth perhaps more dangerous than he imagined?

Never had he felt, even in the worst times in the Limits, so helpless. Then he had had some chance at mobility, been able to run, to hide. Now he was trapped, and even though Toggor had come to him through the aid of the Thassa, that meant little or nothing. Dared he try to touch minds now with the smux, or did the Commander and Sulve have a blanket over this place which would pick up any telepathic activity? Since they were all shielded against that themselves, it would seem that they were prepared to face such.

They could be reading him now as one would read some message in a viewer, using a machine which he himself could not detect. If so, they would expect – what?

Thassa first surely. Since they had reft him away from those mind controllers, they would believe that he would try to reach his late companions for aid. So – not Toggor! Rather the Thassa in particular – build up a series of thoughts about some imaginary feat being planned by those under their three-ringed moon!

He had never tried such a thing before – that of false thinking, of imagining that which was not so in such a way that it could be taken for the truth. If it were possible about the Thassa, why, so it could be with Lanti.

First, the Thassa. Yes. Some order to his thinking. Slowly and tentatively he began to build up a mind picture of Lady Maelen – of her commanding a body of beasts – and into that he pushed all he knew of beasts, not only of Bojor who had served them so well on board the ship but also others – some such as he had seen in Russtif's cages and some which were entirely imaginary but as monstrous as he could make them. He thought of the Lady taking council with both Thassa and the beasts.

So – Maelen was taking council with her furred and feathered – and scaled – troops. They would come with the night – surely with the night. He had been squatting with eyes closed and putting all his effort into that mental picture of what he was supposed to expect. But a sound cut through his absorption, and he looked up to see a waving claw reach within the window above and hook onto the inner stone.

Fiercely he strove to keep all thought of Toggor away – of the Toggor that was – but suppose that Toggor was twenty, a hundred times his present size; such with huge envisioned claws would make an opponent worth reckoning with. Thus Toggor might be used to menace this whole Guild operation – as long as the subterfuge remained unbroken.

Now he opened his mind to Toggor and the usual hazy in-and-out messages passed between them. The smux had explored the lower reaches of the tower as well as what lay above: a flat roof surrounded by a parapet, which had seemed gigantic to Toggor but which Farree thought might be perhaps only as high as a man's waist. If he had some way of reaching the window, of climbing aloft, he might find himself a hiding place which would defeat them all – if he could sink his thoughts into nothingness. But there was the distance between him and that window. Could he only defeat that, he was certain he could squeeze his body, in spite of the hump, through.

Thinking carefully of a smux as large as Bojor on the march to rescue him, Farree arose to run his thin fingers across the surface of the wall. There were no holds between the old stones. In this part of the ruins there was nothing that he might climb to raise him to that door on the outer world.

He flexed his hands vainly and stared upward, defeated. The door, barred and probably guarded, was the only way out of here. He wheeled to face that and projected a picture of the giant smux without, ready to break him free even as the bartle had dealt with such a problem on the ship.

Toggor leaped from the wall to Farree's shoulder, bringing an answering pain from his tender hump. The eyestalks of the smux were all extended and he was staring at the door as if expecting something from that direction.

There was! Farree heard the grate of the bar being drawn. Then he moved. Gathering Toggor in both hands, he tossed the smux through the air, and he landed, even as Farree had planned, on the niched stone which formed the top of the door opening.

The smux reversed himself quickly and hung by two claws at the very edge of that shallow shelf, eyestalks retracted, ready to drop. Farree hunkered down again like one without hope, but he twisted his head around so he could see the smux in action. There was already a greenish bead forming on the foremost claw; the venom was coming.

A man slammed into the room, weapon in hand, and swung that toward Farree just as Toggor loosed his hold on the stone above and leaped for the back of the guard. There was a flash of claws at the man's throat, almost too fast for Farree to catch.

With a sharp cry only half uttered, the man staggered, dropped his stunner to reach for his neck with both hands as he wove back and forth on his feet, his face a grimace of pain and fear. It was Farree's turn to jump, and he caught up the stunner as the guard staggered on past, to bring up against the far wall and fall to his knees, his hand still clutching at the back of his neck. Toggor was already off that struggling body. Farree swung the stunner around and pressed the button. The writhing man straightened with another muffled cry and lay still, while Farree stumbled out of the door, the smux clinging to him, and slammed that shut, thick and heavy though it was.

He thrust the stunner through his belt and reached down for the bar which was almost too much for him to manage. However, at this time he could have accomplished miracles he was sure, as he thrust it home in the slots awaiting it.

Now —

He crouched at the head of the stair looking down. Without knowing how many Guild men were here and where they were stationed, to descend that stair, even armed, was more than he dare try. Down? If there only was a way up!

A dim picture cut into his mind: a section of vaguely outlined wall and on it —

Farree swung around. The smux had left him, was at the foot of that stretch of wall, reaching with its claws for something. Spikes – there were spikes in the wall itself. Not stairs but surely a way to mount the wall. As shadowed as that was Farree thought he could sight the outline of an opening, closed by a trapdoor, perhaps, but if barred it could only be from this side.

The smux was already halfway up the wall, swinging from one clawhold to the next. Farree set about following. He tested each of the rust-covered holds before he put his weight upon it, and, though the rust flaked off on his hands, there was enough solid metal within to support his weight.

Then he was clinging with one hand and both feet as he set his palm against the closed trapdoor in a push. The old wood resisted. Farree, gritting his teeth, tried a second time and felt a fraction of give. That was enough to encourage him. Now he held on with his hands, arching his body so that it pressed against the door. His hump was instantly aflame with pain, but he refused to slack his attack, and at last the barrier lifted enough for him to get one arm and shoulder through the slit. It took but a moment or two then for him to crawl forward and lie in the open air, the smux pulling gently at the long locks of his hair and uttering cheeping noises. His back was bound by a band of agony so that he had to use every fraction of determination to move again and allow the door to fall into place behind him. The top of the tower was covered by a mass of brush and dried grass, and he saw huge bird droppings. It was a nest which might have been well used for more than one season. There were bones too, cracked and splintered, some quite large, which made him wonder about the size of the nest builders if they used such animals as their prey.