The Forerunner Factor Read Free Page B

and as unseen as she could hope to be in daytime. Though she could not be sure that she would have no followers, the zorsal would warn her if any tried to overtake her.
    One could not approach the landing field of the starships too closely. All the town Guild officials would be there to greet the newcomer, their guards quick to drive off any save the representatives of those who had paid trader’s tax and so wore their proper badges about their necks. Simsa could not go there as yet, but she could visit the warehouse which was her regular place of call each fifth day. No one watching her so far might guess she was planning to leave the Burrows for good.
    Already, her mind was busy with what she might do if she were able to part with the contents of the bag in the manner she wished. She would do the best bargaining possible, then go straight to the Thieves’ market to dicker for clothing which did not stamp her as a Burrower. She had three bits of broken silver in her pouch, turned up on a last rake through of a side tunnel where she had been engaged in delving earlier. Those were worth something even though they were but shapeless knobs of metal, that metal was not base.
    Gathar was striding down the wide aisle of his main warehouse as she flitted in, keeping prudently to shadows as she always did. She had no need to call the zorsals. Through the dusk of the large building they came planing down to encircle her and their crippled mother, uttering sharp cries, their voices so high the girl could hardly distinguish them, though she had learned long ago that her hearing was keener than that of most of the Burrow people.
    Their dam lifted her undamaged wing and fanned it, the leathery surface whispering through the air. At some signal from her which Simsa, for all her familiarity with the creatures, had never been able to catch, they went silent. The girl did not try her throat talk with them, rather padded on in a noiseless, barefooted tread until she rounded a mountain of crates to confront the waremaster himself.
    He was in a good mood, showing teeth in a grin which suggested more a desire to devour than to please, but Simsa knew that of old. Now she made a single slight gesture with one hand—his eyes narrowed, were instantly drawn to the bag she shouldered. He pointed up the ramp which led to the quarters from which he could watch all the activity below. As Simsa ran lightly ahead of him, she heard his voice bellow an order or two before he followed. She was frowning, wondering just how much it would be worth to share a little of the truth with him. Their relationship had never developed any difficulties, but then she had always been the one with a necessary commodity to offer. Truth came very high in Kuxortal, sometimes beyond the power of any to buy.
    As the bag thudded from her shoulder to the top of a table littered with sheets of tough grif-reed paper, all scrawled upon with untidy lines of crooked script, Simsa had her story fully in order.
    “What’s to do, Shadow?” Gathar asked. She saw, with satisfaction, that he closed the door behind him. So he thought that she might have something to offer worth serious notice.
    “The Old One died. Some things she had worth selling to learned ones in the high towers. I have heard there are such who pore over such bits and pieces, just as mad about them as was the Old One. Look!” The girl opened her bag and dragged out several slabs of the inscribed stone.
    “I don’t deal in such.” However, he came nearer, leaned over to peer at the markings.
    “As we both know. But there is a profit in such, I have heard.”
    He was grinning again.
    “Go to Lord Arfellen. He has taken a fancy these past two seasons to having men grub for such since that mad starman talked with him so long and then went off hunting a treasure which he never found. At least he never returned here with it.”
    Simsa shrugged. “Treasures are never lying easily about for one to pick up. The gateman