Free The Forerunner Factor by Andre Norton Page B

against her with the other, and descended the shallow steps waiting there. The off-worlder swung down behind her. She did not turn her head as she said:
    “There is a hold on the stone, fit your hand to it, close this way after us.” She descended as rapidly as she could to give him the room he need to obey her orders. Then she stood in a very narrow runway which was thick dust underfoot, but which had air with a distinct smell of the river. This was a way out she believed that even Burrowers might take a lengthy time discovering. They could reach the riverside among the refuse dumps—beyond that she would not try yet to plan.
     
     
     
     
     
     

5
     
     
     
    A smell of the sea tainted with the stench from the refuse dumps met Simsa as she wriggled through the last opening, Zass hopped ahead, grumbled gutturally to herself, the off-worlder kept to more laborious passage behind. Then they were out in the night—though Simsa believed that dawn could not be far distant. She sidled forward with no hope of avoiding all the pitfalls of water-washed trash, the pools of putrid matter, holding one hand across her mouth and nose to screen out what was possible, and regretting that so soon her hard-earned new clothing was thus being reduced to less than the rags she had discarded them for.
    Once away from the worst of the heaps, on the part of sand the incoming tide washed clear by dripping rush, she turned quickly to her companion.
    “Your ship lies there—” she kept her voice low. However, she had caught his arm in the dark, dragged him about to face the distant glow of light marking the landing field. “You can reach it from seaward.”
    “I have no ship to reach,” he returned.
    “You are off-world—” Simsa had yet to understand just what part the Guild Lords could play in the future of any starman. Certainly, they could not touch nor hold him.
    They cared too much for the star trade to anger the off-worlders who manned those ships by making any move against a member of their company. All in Kuxortal knew only too well what might follow any interference with the ship people.
    “I am on my own here,” he answered.
    “You said that Lord Arfellen has given word that when the ship lifts you are not to remain—” she pointed out hotly.
    “I have certain duties which no ship’s captain can question. I came here to hunt for a man. Nor shall I leave until I find him, or else have certain knowledge of what has happened to him—more than a general word that he has vanished in a territory which no one seems to know anything about and that no search has made for him thereafter.”
    “And how do you get to the Hard Hills then to do that hunting?” Simsa wanted to know. “You will not gain any aid from the men of Kuxortal, not if Lord Arfellen has declared it to be thus.”
    She could not see him clearly, he was only a darker blot in the night. When he answered, it was calmly and with a note in his voice which made her uneasy.
    “There are always ways one can get anything one truly sets all his energy and desire upon gaining. Yes, I shall see the Hard Hills. However, what happens now to you?”
    “So at last your mind turns to that?” she snapped. “Kuxortal is no place for me if Gathar is in trouble. All who had dealings with him shall suffer—for the Guildmen can nose out a trail half a year cold if they wish. Also, the Burrowers will not shield me. I was the Old One’s eyes, feet, and ears—while she lived. Now I am fair game.”
    “Why did they fear her?”
    Simsa did not know why she lingered here arguing with this alien. She owed him no explanations. Only—where might she go now? Gathar, who had been her one contact with the upper town, could no longer be depended upon. She had a bag heavy with broken bits weighing down one sleeve. But bought men and women stayed bought only so long as they were not offered more—either in silver or in freedom from danger—by another.
    “They thought she had a