Tabak rotated her shoulder, and the yellow furred boj rippled like
liquid light. "Through the door."
"But it was locked."
"It operates by telepathic control."
"Of course."
Jupiter scratched his beard. He'd known it all along. Nor was that all.
If he would only concentrate, he could manipulate the lock himself!
To his growing amazement, he realized that he knew the city by the _Dra
Dur_ as well as his home town of Venusport.
While he slept, his subconscious had integrated Tabak's fund of
knowledge, made it a part of his own. He was changed. He didn't look
at things quite the same. His own hard ruthless personality had become
tinctured with something of Tabak's soft deviousness.
He didn't like it.
His fingers closed on the girl's shoulders, bit into the flesh. "What
have you done to me?"
"I? I've done nothing. I've come to help you, Wanderer-from-Beyond."
"How?"
"Please," she said; "don't you believe me?"
"Why should I?"
She lifted her arms, touched his temples with her fingertips. "Come
in," she said simply. "Come into my mind so that you can have no more
doubts."
Almost against his will, he peered into her eyes, experiencing an odd
frightening sensation of sinking into their wide, violet-blue depths.
Down. Down. His very being seemed to merge with the girl's.
All at once, the room swam back into his vision, but from a different
angle. Everything looked a little strange. Then he saw himself!
Literally!
Saw himself through Tabak's eyes!
With a peculiar sense of detachment, he observed his own lean,
muscular, sun-reddened frame, his wiry red beard, tangled hair,
half-closed green eyes. And all the time he was aware of Tabak's flow
of thought--her emotions, sensations, the bubbling fluid well of her
subconscious.
"Now do you trust me?"
Jupiter was acutely embarrassed. Their conjoining was more intimate
than any physical relation could have been. Tabak's very soul lay naked
before his mind's eye.
"Trust you. Yes. For Pete's sake, let me go!"
He staggered, blinked, realized that she'd thrust him out of her mind.
He wiped the sweat off his forehead, stared at the girl curiously.
Her cheeks were pink with confusion, and she wouldn't meet his eyes.
"I--I've never done that with a man before," she said. "You believe me,
don't you?"
"Yes. But how did you do it?"
"By means of the Anolyn that are attached to our necks. See." She
turned her back, lifted her wheat-blonde locks with one hand.
Jupiter could see the tiny plum-colored lump. Tabak's neck was slender,
delicately formed. He was struck anew by the contrast between her and
Lete, the wiry, pagan-souled cave girl.
Lete was rawhide, tough, pliable, resilient. But this Caligan girl was
a steel rapier. In that moment of intimacy he had glimpsed something of
the truth.
For all her apparent softness, Tabak could be infinitely more dangerous!
* * * * *
The door opened instantly at Tabak's mental command. Jupiter followed
her into the corridor, saw that it was empty.
"Where are the Anolyn?"
"They--they are occupied. Those here in the temple." Tabak shivered.
"Come, it's on our way. I'll show you."
"On our way where? Show me what?"
She said, "I'd rather let you see for yourself," and started up the
passage, her bare feet soundless on the hard composition floor.
Jupiter padded at her elbow. This was all familiar. He couldn't
overcome the feeling that he'd been here before. It was Tabak's memory
patterns playing tricks on him, he knew. The girl's experience had
actually been implanted in his brain.
When they reached the ramp angling downward into the gloom, a vague
alarm got hold of him, but he followed her onto it without protest.
The way led down and down. The air was dank. Moisture dripped from the
walls. It grew slippery underfoot.
Abruptly, the ramp came to an end. He could see the glint of water
ahead.
Subconsciously, he knew it was a canal running beneath the streets to
the _Dra Dur_. He knew it just as he knew that there was a network of
these canals like fingers reaching into every part of the city. Just as
he knew of the ledge a scant foot above the water, even as Tabak crept
onto it.
The living boj fur glowed with a pale phosphorescent light as she
sidled into the vaulted aquaduct. It lent her a wraith-like appearance
to Jupiter, a few paces behind.
"Shhh!" she cautioned him, coming to a stop. "Don't make a sound here!"
Jupiter's mouth felt dry. He could see nothing but the girl's vague
luminous outline, hear nothing but the lap of water against the shelf
at their feet.
Then Tabak clutched his hand, pulled him forward and into a bisecting
passage running at right angles to the aquaduct. He could see the glow
of light ahead.
The passage curved, the light bursting on his eyes, half blinding him.
Together they crawled to the very end of the tunnel and peered out.
It was a courtyard that Jupiter found himself looking into. The orange
sun beat down warmly on the flagstone pavement, on the large shallow
pool in the center of the court.
There were Anolyn in the pool, fifty or sixty of them, floating like
purple jellyfish. Humans, too. Pink-skinned Caligans, wild Kagans,
fighting men and the stolid green porters. Even the tailed, ape-like
Begans were represented. They moved with a dreamy apathy like
sleepwalkers.
"Their minds are under the control of the Anolyn in the pool," Tabak
breathed into his ear. "The Anolyn have entered into them. They feel
and see and hear exactly what their human vehicles do."
Jupiter's face was drawn. He could hear music. The scale was all wrong,
it registered discordantly in his ears. It was coming from one of the
balconies that rose in tiers above the courtyard. Food and drink had
been spread on cloths.
"They'll be here for days," Tabak whispered.
Hardened as Jupiter was, nevertheless he was sickened at the deeds
being enacted under his eyes. They were unthinkable. His fists clenched.
He could bring himself to watch no longer. He turned his head away,
said hoarsely: "Let's clear out of here."
Tabak was silent as she led him back down the tunnel to the vaulted
canal.
"Can you swim?" she asked as they reached the water's edge.
"Yes."
The girl stripped off the boj, laid it on the ledge, dived into the
canal like a slim, naked, sea nymph. Her head broke water a dozen feet
out creating phosphorescent ripples.
Jupiter plunged after her. The water was black, cold, salty. He kept up
with the girl easily using strong breast strokes.
At length she paused again, treading water near the opposite wall of
the aquaduct.
"There's a tunnel here, a man's height below the surface. It leads into
another chamber. Are you willing to try it?"
"Go ahead."
Tabak up-ended in a surface dive, the black water closing over her
feet. Jupiter followed her down. He found the hole with his hand, swam
into it. On and on--ten--twenty--thirty yards. His lungs felt as if
they must burst.
Air began to dribble out his nose. He kicked furiously, driving himself
ahead. Suddenly he realized he was out of the tunnel. He shot up to the
surface, broke water, gasping air into his scalded lungs.
That had been close, too close. He floated on his back breathing deeply.
After a minute he rolled over and stared about him.
* * * * *
He was in a vast echoing chamber. Orange sunshine streamed in from open
skylights. Steps led down into the water. Tabak, he saw, was already
standing on the edge of the floor looking down at him.
He swam to the steps, climbed out. There was a faint odor of
putrefaction in the air.
Tabak said: "These rooms are the laboratories. There are other
entrances; but they're all guarded by Nehogans."