the jetty cast into the sea objects Ross could not define. The Terran's
body jerked, his mask smothered a cry of pain. About his legs and
middle, immersed in the waves, there was cold so intense that it seared.
Fear goaded him to pull up on one of the under beams of the pier. He
reached that refuge and rubbed his icy legs with what vigor he could
summon.
Moments later he crept along toward the shore. The energy ray had found
another target. Ross paused to watch a second cutter sliced. If the
counter stroke of the Foanna would rout the invaders, it had not yet
begun to work.
The net holding the extra gear brought along in hopes of Ashe's escape
weighed the Terran down, but he would not abandon it as he felt his way
from one foot- and hand-hold to the next. The waves below gave off an
icy exudation which made him shiver uncontrollably. And he knew that as
long as that effect lasted he dared not venture into the sea again.
Light ... along with the cold, there was a phosphorescence on the
water--white patches floating, dipping, riding the waves. Some of them
gathered under the pier, clustering about the pilings. And the fog
thinned with their coming, as if those irregular blotches absorbed and
fed upon the mist. The Terran could see now he had reached the land end
of the jetty. He wedged his flippers into his belt, pulled on over his
feet the covers of salkar-hide Torgul had provided.
Save for his belt, his trunks, and the gill-pack, Ross's body was bare
and the cold caught at him. But, slinging the carry net over his
shoulder, he dropped to the damp sand and stood listening.
The clamor of the attack which had carried all the way offshore to the
Rover cruisers had died away. And there were no more claps of thunder.
Instead, there was now a thick wash of rain.
No more fire rays as he faced seaward. And the fog was lifting, so Ross
could distinguish the settling cutters, their bows still moored to the
jetty. There was no movement there. Had those on the pier fled?
Dot ... dash ... dot ...
Ross did not drop the net. But he crouched back in the half protection
of the piling. For a moment which stretched beyond Terran time measure
he froze so, waiting.
Dot ... dash ... dot ...
Not the prickle induced by the enemy installations, it was a real coded
call picked up by his sonic, and one he knew.
Don't rush, he told himself sharply--play it safe. By rights only two
people in this time and place would know that call. And one would have
no reason to use it. But--a trap? This could be a trap. Awe of the
Foanna powers had touched him a little in spite of his off-world
skepticism. He could be lured now by someone using Ashe's call.
Ross stripped for action after a fashion, bundling the net and its
contents into a hollow he scooped behind a pile well above water level.
The alien hand weapon he had left with Karara, not trusting it to the
sea. But he had his diver's knife and his two hands which, by training,
could be, and had been, deadly weapons.
With the sonic against the bare skin of his middle where it would
register strongest, knife in hand, Ross moved into the open. The
floating patches did not supply much light, but he was certain the call
had come from the jetty.
There was movement there--a flash or two. And the sonic? Ross had to be
sure, very sure. The broadcast was certainly stronger when he faced in
that direction. Dared he come into the open? Perhaps in the dark he
could cut Ashe away from his captors so they could swim for it together.
Ross clicked a code reply. Dot ... dot ... dot ...
The answer was quick, imperative: "Where?"
Surely no one but Ashe could have sent that! Ross did not hesitate.
"Be ready--escape."
"No!" Even more imperative. "Friends here...."
Had he guessed rightly? Had Ashe established friendly relations with the
Foanna? But Ross kept to the caution which had been his defense and
armor so long. There was one question he thought only Ashe could answer,
something out of the past they had shared when they had made their first
journey into time disguised as Beaker traders of the Bronze Age.
Deliberately he tapped that question.
"What did we kill in Britain?"
Tensely he waited. But when the reply came it did not pulse from the
sonic under his fingers; instead, a well-remembered voice called out of
the night.
"A white wolf." And the words were Terran English.
"Ashe!" Ross leaped forward, climbed toward the figure he could only
dimly see.
14
The Foanna
"Ross!" Ashe's hands gripped his shoulders as if never intending to free
him again. "Then you did come through--"
Ross understood. Gordon Ashe must have feared that he was the only one
swept through the time door by that freak chance.
"And Karara and the dolphins!"
"Here--now?" In this black bowl of the citadel bay Ashe was only a
shadow with voice and hands.
"No, out with the Rover cruisers. Ashe, do you know the Baldies are on
Hawaika? They've organized this whole thing--the attack here--trouble
all over. Right now they have one of their subs out there. That's what
cut those cutters to pieces. Five days ago five of them wiped out a
whole Rover fairing, just five of them!"
"Gordoon." Unlike the hissing speech of the Hawaikans, this new voice
made a singing, lilting call of Ashe's name. "This is your swordsman in
truth?" Another shadow drew near them, and Ross saw the flutter of cloak
edge.
"This is my friend." There was a tone of correction in Ashe's reply.
"Ross, this is the Guardian of the sea gate."
"And you come," the Foanna continued, "with those who gather to feast at
the Shadow's table. But your Rovers will find little loot to their
liking--"
"No." Ross hesitated. How did one address the Foanna? He had claimed
equality with Torgul. But that approach was not the proper one here;
instinct told him that. He fell back on the complete truth uttered
simply. "We took three of the Baldy killers. From them we learned they
move to wipe out the Foanna first. For you," he addressed himself to the
cloaked shape, "they believe to be a threat. We heard that they urged
the Wreckers to this attack and so--"
"And so the Rovers come, but not to loot? Then they are something new
among their kind." The Foanna's reply was as chill as the sea bay's
water.
"Loot does not summon men who want a blood price for their dead kin!"
Ross retorted.
"No, and the Rovers are believers in the balance of hurt against hurt,"
the Foanna conceded. "Do they also believe in the balance of aid against
aid? Now that is a thought upon which depends much. Gordoon, it would
seem that we may not take to our ships. So let us return to council."
Ashe's hand was on Ross's arm guiding him through the murk. Though the
fog which had choked the bay had vanished, thick darkness remained and
Ross noted that even the fires and flares were dimmed and fewer. Then
they were in a passage where a very faint light clung to the walls.
Robed Foanna, three of them, moved ahead with that particular gliding
progress. Then Ashe and Ross, and bringing up the rear, a dozen of the
mailed guards. The passageway became a ramp. Ross glanced at Ashe. Like
the Foanna, the Terran Agent wore a cloak of gray, but his did not shift
color from time to time as did those of the Hawaikan enigmas. And now
Gordon shoved back its folds, revealing supple body armor.
Questions gathered in Ross. He wanted to know--needed desperately to
know--Ashe's standing with the Foanna. What had happened to raise Gordon
from the status of captive in Zahur's hold to familiar companionship
with the most dreaded race on this planet?
The ramp's head faced blank wall with a sharp-angled turn to the right
of a narrower passage. One of the Foanna made a slight sign to the
guards, who turned with drilled precision to march off along the
passage. Now the other Foanna held out their wands.
What a moment earlier had been unbroken surface showed an opening. The
change had been so instantaneous that Ross had not seen any movement at
all.
Beyond that door they passed from one world to another. Ross's senses,
already acutely alert to his surroundings, could not supply him with any
reason by sight, sound, or smell for his firm conviction that this hold
was alien as neither the Wrecker castle nor the Rover ships had been.
Surely the Foanna were not the same race, perhaps not even the same
species as the other native Hawaikans.
Those robes which he had seen both silver gray and dark blue, now faded,
pearled, thinned, until each of the three still gliding before him were
opalescent columns without definite form.
Ashe's grasp fell on Ross's arm once more, and his whisper reached the
younger man thinly. "They are mistresses of illusion. Be prepared not to
believe all that you see."
Mistresses--Ross caught that first. Women, or at least female then.
Illusion, yes, already he was convinced that here his eyes could play
tricks on him. He could hardly determine what was robe, what was wall,
or if more than shades of shades swept before him.
Another blank wall, then an opening, and flowing through it to touch him
such a wave of alienness that Ross felt he was buffeted by a storm wind.
Yet as he hesitated before it, reluctant in spite of Ashe's hold to go
ahead, he also knew that this did not carry with it the cold hostility
he had known while facing the Baldies. Alien--yes. Inimical to his
kind--no.
"You are right, younger brother."
Spoken those words--or forming in his mind?
Ross was in a place which was sheer wonder. Under his feet dark
blue--the blue of a Terran sky at dusk--caught up in it twinkling points
of light as if he strode, not equal with stars, but above them!
Walls--were there any walls here? Or shifting, swaying blue curtains on
which silvery lines ran to form symbols and words which some bemused
part of his brain almost understood, but not quite.
Constant motion, no quiet, until he came to a place where those swaying
curtains were stilled, where he no longer strode above the sky but on
soft surface, a mat of gray living sod where his steps released a spicy
fragrance. And there he really saw the Foanna for the first time.
Where had their cloaks gone? Had they tossed them away during that walk
or drift across this amazing room, or had the substance which had formed
those coverings flowed away by itself? As Ross looked at the three in
wonder he knew that he was seeing them as not even their servants and
guards ever viewed them. And yet was he seeing them as they really were
or as they wished him to see them?
"As we are, younger brother, as we are!" Again an answer which Ross was
not sure was thought or speech.
In form they were humanoid, and they were undoubtedly women. The
muffling cloaks gone, they wore sleeveless garments of silver which were
girded at the waist with belts of blue gems. Only in their hair and
their eyes did they betray alien blood. For the hair which flowed and
wove about them, cascading down shoulders, rippling about their arms,
was silver, too, and it swirled, moved as if it had a separate life of
its own. While their eyes.... Ross looked into those golden eyes and was
lost for seconds until panic awoke in him, forcing him after sharp
struggle to look away.
Laughter? No, he had not heard laughter. But a sense of amusement tinged
with respect came to him.
"You are very right, Gordoon. This one is also of your kind. He is not
witches' meat." Ross caught the distaste, the kind of haunting
unhappiness which colored those words, remnants of an old hurt.
"These are the Foanna," Ashe's voice broke more of the spell. "The Lady
Ynlan, The Lady Yngram, the Lady Ynvalda."
The Foanna--these three only?
She whom Ashe had named Ynlan, whose eyes had entrapped and almost held
what was Ross Murdock, made a small gesture with her ivory hand. And in
that gesture as well as in the words witches' meat the Terran read the
unhappiness which was as much a part of this room as the rest of its
mystery.
"The Foanna are now but three. They have been only three for many weary
years, oh man from another world and time. And soon, if these enemies
have their way, they will not be three--but none!"
"But--" Ross was still startled. He knew from Loketh that the Wreckers
had deemed the Foanna few in number, an old and dying race. But that
there were only three women left was hard to believe.
The response to his unspoken wonder came clear and determined. "We may
be but three; however, our power remains. And sometimes power distilled
by time becomes the stronger. Now it would seem that time is no longer
our servant but perhaps among our enemies. So tell us this tale of yours
as to why the Rovers would make one with the Foanna--tell us all,
younger brother!"
Ross reported what he had seen, what Tino-rau and Taua had learned from
the prisoners taken at Kyn Add. And when he had finished, the three
Foanna stood very still, their hands clasped one to the other. Though
they were only an arm's distance from him, Ross had the feeling they had
withdrawn from his time and world.
So complete was their withdrawal that he dared to ask Ashe one of the
many questions which had been boiling inside him.
"Who are they?" But Ross knew he really meant: What are they?
Gordon Ashe shook his head. "I don't really know--the last of a very old
race which possesses powers and knowledge different from any we have
believed in for centuries. We have heard of witches. In the modern day
we discount the legends about them. The Foanna bring those legends
alive. And I promise you this--if they turn those powers loose"--he
paused--"it will be such a war as this world, perhaps any world has
never seen!"
"That is so." The Foanna had returned from the place to which they had
withdrawn. "And this is also the truth or one face of the truth. The
Rovers are right in their belief that we have kept some measure of
balance between one form of change and another on this world. If we were
as many as we once were, then against us these invaders could not move
at all. But we are three only and also--do we have the right to evoke
disaster which will strike not only the enemy but perhaps recoil upon
the innocent? There has been enough death here already. And those who
are our servants shall no longer be asked to face battle to keep an
empty shell inviolate. We would see with our own eyes these invaders,
probe what they would do. There is ever change in life, and if a pattern
grows too set, then the race caught in it may wither and die. Maybe our
pattern has been too long in its old design. We shall make no decision
until we see in whose hands the future may rest."
Against such finality of argument there was no appeal. These could not
be influenced by words.
"Gordoon, there is much to be done. Do you take with you this younger
brother and see to his needs. When all is in readiness we shall come."
One minute Ross had been standing on the carpet of living moss.
Then ... he was in a more normal room with four walls, a floor, a
ceiling, and light which came from rods set in the corners. He gasped.
"Stunned me, too, the first time they put me through it," he heard Ashe
say. "Here, get some of this inside you, it'll steady your head."
There was a cup in his hand, a beautifully carved, rose-red container
shaped in the form of a flower. Somehow Ross brought it to his lips with
shaking hands, gulped down a good third of its contents. The liquid was
a mixture of tart and sweet, cooling his mouth and throat, but warming
as it went down, and that glow spread through him.
"What--how did they do that?" he demanded.
Ashe shrugged. "How do they do the hundred and one things I have seen
happen here? We've been teleported. How it's done I don't know any more
than I did the first time it happened. Simply a part of Foanna 'magic'
as far as spectators are concerned." He sat down on a stool, his long
legs stretched out before him. "Other worlds, other ways--even if they
are confounded queer ones. As far as I know, there's no reason for their
power to work, but it does. Now, have you seen the time gate? Is it in
working order?"
Ross put down the now empty cup and sat down opposite Ashe. As concisely
as he could, he outlined the situation with a quick résumé of all that
had happened to him, Karara, and the dolphins since they had been sucked
through the gate. Ashe asked no questions, but his expression was that
of the Agent Ross had known, evaluating and listing all the younger man
had to report. When the other was through he said only two words:
"No return."
So much had happened in so short a time that Ross's initial shock at the
destruction of the gate had faded, been well overlaid by all the demands
made upon his resources, skill, and strength. Even now, the fact Ashe
voiced seemed of little consequence balanced against the struggle in
progress.
"Ashe--" Ross rubbed his hands up and down his arms, brushing away
grains of sand, "remember those pylons with the empty seacoast behind
them? Does that mean the Baldies are going to win?"
"I don't know. No one has ever tried to change the course of history.
Maybe it is impossible even if we dared to try." Ashe was on his feet
again, pacing back and forth.
"Try what, Gordoon?"
Ross jerked around, Ashe halted. One of the Foanna stood there, her hair
playing about her shoulders as if some breeze felt only by her stirred
those long strands.
"Dare to try and change the course of the future," Ashe explained,
accepting her materialization with the calm of one who had witnessed it
before.
"Ah, yes, your traveling in time. And now you think that perhaps this
poor world of ours has a choice as to which overlords it will welcome? I
do not know either, Gordoon, whether the future may be altered nor if it
be wise to try. But also ... well, perhaps we should see our enemy
before we are set in any path. Now, it is time that we go. Younger
brother, how did you plan to leave this place when you accomplished your
mission?"
"By the sea gate. I have extra swimming equipment cached under the
jetty."
"And the Rover ships await you at sea?"
"Yes."
"Then we shall take your way, since the cutters are sunk."
"There is only one extra gill-pack--and that Baldy sub is out there,
too!"
"So? Then we shall try another road, though it will sap our power
temporarily." Her head inclined slightly to the left as if she listened.
"Good! Our people are now in the passage which will take them to safety.
What those outside will find here when they break in will be of little
aid to their plans. Secrets of the Foanna remain secrets past others'
prying. Though they shall try, oh, how they shall try to solve them!
There is knowledge that only certain types of minds can hold and use,
and to others it remains for all time unlearnable. Now--"
Her hand reached out, flattened against Ross's forehead.
"Think of your Rover ship, younger brother, see it in your mind! And see
well and clearly for me."
Torgul's cruiser was there; he could picture with details he had not
thought he knew or remembered. The deck in the dark of the night with
only a shaded light at the mast. The deck ...
Ross gave a choked cry. He did not see this in his mind; he saw it with
his eyes! His hand swung out in an involuntary gesture of repudiation
and struck painfully against wood. He was on the cruiser!
A startled exclamation from behind him--then a shout. Ashe was here and
beyond him three cloaked figures, the Foanna. They had their own road
indeed and had taken it.
"You ... Rosss--" Vistur fronted them, his face a mixture of
bewilderment and awe. "The Foanna--" said in a half whisper, echoed by
crewmen gathering around, but not too close.
"Gordon!" Karara elbowed her way between two of the Hawaikans and ran
across the deck. She caught the Agent's both hands as if to assure
herself that he was alive and there before her. Then she turned to the
three Foanna.
There was an odd expression on the Polynesian girl's face, first of
measurement with some fear, and then of dawning wonder. From beneath the
cloak of the middle Foanna came the rod of office with its sparking
knob. Karara dropped Ashe's hands, took a tentative step forward and
then another. The knob was directly before her, breast high. She brought
up both hands, cupping them about the knob, but not touching it
directly. The sparks it emitted could have been flashing against her
flesh, but Karara displayed no awareness of that. Instead, she lifted
both hands farther, palm up and cupped, as if she carried some invisible
bounty, then flattened them, loosing what she held.
There was a sigh from the crewmen; Karara's gesture had been confident,
as if she knew just what she was doing and why. And Ross heard Ashe draw
a deep breath also as the Terran girl turned, allying herself with the
Foanna.
"These Great Ones stand in peace," she said. "It is their will that no
harm comes to this ship and those who sail in her."
"What do the Great Ones want of us?" Torgul advanced but not too near.
"To speak concerning those who are your prisoners."
"So be it." The Captain bowed. "The Great Ones' will is our will; let it
be as they wish."
15
Return to the Battle
Ross lay listening to the even breathing from across the cabin. He had
awakened in that quick transference from sleep to consciousness which
was always his when on duty, but he made no attempt to move. Ashe was
still sleeping.
Ashe, whom he thought or had thought he knew as well as one man could
ever know another, who had taken the place of family for Ross Murdock
the loner. Years--two ... four of them now since he had made half of
that partnership.
His head turned, though he could not see that lean body, that quiet,
controlled face. Ashe still looked the same, but ... Ross's sense of
loss was hurt and anger mingled. What had they done to Gordon, those
three? Bewitched? Tales Terrans had accepted as purest fantasy for
centuries came into his mind. Could it be that his own world once had
its Foanna?
Ross scowled. You couldn't refute their "magic," call it by what
scientific name you wished--hypnotism ... teleporting. They got results,
and the results were impressive. Now he remembered the warning the
Foanna themselves had delivered hours earlier to the Rovers. There were
limits to their abilities; because they were forced to draw on mental
and physical energy, they could be exhausted. Thus, they had barriers,
too.
Again Ross considered the subject of barriers. Karara had been able to
meet the aliens, if not mind-to-mind, then in a closer way even than
Ashe. The talent which tied her to the dolphins had in turn been a bond
with the Foanna. Ashe and Karara could enter that circle, but not Ross
Murdock. Along with his new separation from Ashe came that feeling of
inferiority to bite on, and the taste was sour.
"This isn't going to be easy."
So Ashe was awake.
"What can they do?" Ross asked in return.
"I don't know. I don't believe that they can teleport an army into Baldy
headquarters the way Torgul expects. And it wouldn't do such an army
much good to get there and then be outclassed by the weapons the Baldies
might have," Ashe said.
Ross had a moment of warmth and comfort; he knew that tone of old. Ashe
was studying the problem, willing to talk out difficulties as he always
had before.
"No, outright assault isn't the answer. We'll have to know more about
the enemy. One thing puzzles me: Why have the Baldies suddenly stepped
up their timing?"
"What makes you think they have?"
"Well, according to the accounts I've heard, it's been about three or
four planet years here since some off-world devices have been
infiltrating the native civilization--"
"You mean such things as those attractors set up on the reef at Zahur's
castle?" Ross remembered Loketh's story.
"Those, and other things. The refinements added to the engine power on
these ships.... Torgul said they spread from Rover fleet to fleet; no
one's sure where they started. The Baldies began slowly, but they are
speeding up now--those fairing attacks have all been recent. And this
assault on the Foanna citadel blew up almost overnight on a flimsy
excuse. Why the quick push after the slow beginning?"
"Maybe they decided the natives are easy pushovers and they no longer
have to worry about any real opposition," Ross suggested.
"Could be. Self-confidence becoming arrogance when they didn't uncover
any opponent strong enough to matter. Or else, they may be spurred by
some need with a time limit. If we knew the reason for those pylons, we
might guess their motives."
"Are you going to try to change the future?"
"That sounds arrogant, too. Can we if we wish to? We never dared to try
it on Terra. And the risk may be worse than all our fears. Also, the
choice is not ours."