Free Ice and Shadow by Andre Norton Page A

and watching Roane. The off-world girl had no idea how this miracle had come about—unless a difference in planetary inheritance was responsible. She had never known one to recover so quickly from a stun beam. But she must take advantage of it before the others returned, give the Princess warning.
    “Listen!” Though there was no one in the shelter and she made sure the recorder was safely off, Roane leaned very close before she spoke. “They want to take away your memory, so you cannot remember us. And then—then they may give you to those hunting you.”
    She had expected some expression of disbelief from the Princess. But though the other’s eyes narrowed a little, she showed no surprise. Instead she asked: “And you believe that they can do this thing—take away my memory?”
    “I have seen it done to others.”
    “I believe you believe it, yes. But whether it can be done to one who has the right to a crown—” Ludorica frowned. “If I could get the Crown—I must get the Crown!”
    But Roane had a question of her own. “How long have you been awake? It is important for me to know.”
    “A memory which is useful, eh? Very well, this I remember clearly—a young man wearing clothes such as yours. Why is it with you, Roane, that men and women dress alike? Even our peasant girls delight in their bright skirts and would think your wear very ugly and drab. Yes, a young man. Then all is blackness as in a sleep without dreams. Until I lay here—wherever here may be—and you were taking from me those disgraceful rags to make me clean and warm. But I thought it well to learn what I could before those others knew I was awake.
    “So they wish to take away my memory and give me to those who would like me best in the far deeper sleep of death. Why would they do this to a stranger who has worked them no harm?”
    “They fear your knowing of their presence here.”
    “And what act of thievery, or worse, do they plan that they fear any knowledge of their presence may spoil?” There was a new sharpness in the Princess’s voice. “It is the Crown! You seek the Crown! But it is the truth that I told you—for one not of the Blood to take it means a wasting death. Which one of our neighbors sent you to destroy Reveny so? And are you so careless or dedicated that you will kill yourselves to achieve your ends?”
    It was no use. Roane could not explain without telling all. But with a conditioned mind—would Ludorica accept her explanation any quicker than she would believe in the installation she had not been able to see?
    “We came here to search for a treasure, but I will swear to you by any power you wish to name that that was not your crown! Until you told me of it, I did not know of its existence. Nor would it mean anything to me. What we seek is not of your time. Oh, I do not know if I can make you understand. Before Reveny was a nation, before your people came—at a time so distant we have never been able to reckon it—there were others. They may not even have been like us in form and they were gone before our form of life came to be.
    “But in some places they left things behind them, hidden things. And from these our wise men try to learn something of them. They had greater knowledge than we possess. They were able to do things which we can hardly believe are possible. Yet we know that they did them.
    “And every such find we can discover adds to our small store of knowledge, makes it more likely that someday we can learn more of their secrets. My uncle and my cousin, the young man you saw, are both trained to hunt down such treasures. And I have been schooled to help them, since I am of their family and supposed so to keep their secrets.” She was trying hard to set this within a framework of planetary custom. “By revealing myself to you I have broken a very strict law, and I shall have to pay for that. But you are not at fault—”
    “So you believe this is wrong, the taking of my memory?”
    “Yes.