"This is a type four planet. C-2 double 3 – landing is allowed at the control port only. What is your difficulty?" That encircling approach the flitter had made was very much closer to the ship now. The smaller craft was preparing to set down. Farree saw movement ahead, a small body flitting from one tangled growth of grass or standing stone to the next, working its way purposefully toward the silent ship and the newcomer. Too small for Yazz – and besides, that prancing champion could not have made such a stealthy advance. It must be some other one of the animals the Lady Maelen could and did command. It squatted finally not far from the ramp of the spaceship, and when it was still it melted so into the background that Farree could not distinguish it at all.
The flitter set down and a figure got out, a stunner, plain by the length of its barrel, in hand.
"We are coming in. This is control from Central Port."
The voice rang loudly. Farree thought that it came from the flitter rather than the man who had landed, and was magnified to a shout by some instrument on board.
There were two aground now. They did not advance toward the ramp together but separated, weapons in full sight. One remained at the foot of the entrance ramp while the other climbed inside. There was a wait – the intruder must be investigating the ship with caution. In time he returned and gestured with an outflung arm so that his companion started back to the flitter.
He did not make a straight track but swung in and out across his first path, apparently in search of some track that might have been left on the ground. Though it would take an expert tracker, Farree was sure, to find any such.
The searcher halted and beckoned. His fellow ran down the ramp to join him. Farree felt that as long as the control men were present there was to be no attempt to attack the Thassa. The Guild would lie low. Oddly enough, he felt no confidence from this belief. Part of him wanted to front the Guild again, to have done with the suspense.
The strangers inspected the ground thoroughly, one of them even getting down on hands and knees as if he possessed Yazz's sense of smell and would hunt along their last trail – day old as it was. Finally the two gave up and returned to the flitter, which took off – but not soon enough to miss the return of the flying creature Maelen had sent out earlier. The thing saw them and shied to the north, sailing to a greater height, apparently making for cover.
It need not have feared. The flitter arose easily and turned to go back the way it had come. Farree realized the gravity of the craft's visit. Any ship that did not planet at the port probably was, in their eyes, outside the law. They might continue to fly patrols in this direction, waiting for the crew of the deserted spaceship to return. Thus the Guild would not move, nor could the Thassa show outside their valley for fear of questioning. And all knew that the Thassa had nothing to do with off-world ships. Not all the Thassa —
Farree wondered. Who knew about Lord-One Krip, who had been a Free Trader? And what of the Lady Maelen? Surely their story had caused talk on this portion of Yiktor. But just as surely they had nothing to fear from the laws of this or any other world. It was the Guild who must go underground.
"Perhaps – " Lord-One Krip's mind touch came almost as clearly as had the voice from the flitter. "Yes, my story is known – probably to far too many here. Also what happened on Sehkmet. The Guild have their own ties with the law. We are better without allies."
As the flitter disappeared in the distance the Lady Maelen straightened in her hiding place and Bojor moved back to give her room. She leaned against the rock that sheltered her, both palms against its rough surface, her head turned to the north where the creature of the skies had disappeared.
Scrambling over the smaller rock came the furred one Farree had only glimpsed when it had gone forward to scout the landed flitter. It leaped for the Lady Maelen and she caught it in her arms, cradling it against her breast as if it were the child whose size it matched. Again Farree caught only broken words of whatever message it delivered, as its sending range was far above his own thread of mind exchange.
"It is true – " Now came her own send verifying. "Ista 'read' them. Those were not Guild, nor do they even know that this is the heart of Thassa territory."
"What do they know?" Lord-One Krip broke out sharply.
"What they shall learn by their path of return flight." She was smoothing the dark fur gently. "Ista put it in their minds to swing northwest a little."
"The ruins – the Guild." Farree voiced what Lord-One Krip must also be thinking. "They will see – "
"All which is open," Lady Maelen agreed.
"Which may be nothing," he returned. "The Guild will have their own precautions and hidey-holes."
"Perhaps. I would like to know how swiftly they can take to cover and whether they now have their flitters in hiding. There is little place there to conceal those. This may well bring another player into the game."
It would seem, however, that the visit and retreat of the guard flitter was not to end their own attending to the empty ship, for neither the Lady nor Lord-One Krip moved to withdraw. And waiting without any prospect of someone coming was a tedious thing, Farree discovered.
Toggor crawled out of his shirt and made raids where he could crook a claw under a stone and turn it over, scooping up grubs and insects so exposed. Farree ate his own rations and drank sparingly from his water flask.
It was the coming of the winged one for the second time that broke the dullness of the afternoon. Circling down, it perched on a rock which brought it eye-to-eye in height with the woman. This time Farree was not even able to catch the faintest wave of whatever message passed between them. The creature bobbed its head twice and a moment later took to the air again.
Then came the Lady Maelen's send: "There has not been grok here for as long as the memories of the jam exist – which means during at least one of our generations. But there is a height in the north where they had a second nesting place. Near that are caves. Also" – now she spoke slowly, almost as if she were thinking her way through a problem – "those in the ruins have been seen twice scouting in that direction, and what they must so seek is – "
"A storage place!" Lord-One Krip was quick to answer.
"There are none – or so I would have sworn. The Thassa destroyed all that existed when they turned their backs on the old knowledge and took to the roads and open places."
"A man would have said that Sehkmet was an empty world also – until raiders and the Guild proved that untrue," Lord-One Krip replied. "They have access to machines which can give them readings. They may even have a sensitive among them."
"A sensitive?" Farree broke in.
"One who can release energy in such a way as to spot, either on a map or on the ground itself, objects which are foreign to the land – things that have been handled and used by some intelligent creature."
"Would not such a one have found the box?" Farree ventured.
"Of a certainty he or she would – had they been searching. But the ruins were of the plains people, and they depended only on steel in their own two hands. Thus one of their old holds would not have been explored. These – to them the Thassa are a puzzle, a puzzle and a threat because they have never been able to understand us. Thus they would go nosing as closely as they could about the edges of our home place, breaking the peace as they will discover."
The furred one the Lady Maelen had been nursing in her arms suddenly came to life again, and she sat it down on the rock where recently the jam had perched. It leaped once more into the nearest clump of spike-armed bush and began working its way back to the ship. Bojor sniffed and moved a fraction from where he had been crouched upon his haunches.