Barbalan remained silent, breathing only softly until she heard Paddelack and Pike give up their furious digging and enter their tent. She was glad that she would not have to listen to them any longer. If they couldn’t find Konndjlan now that it was right on top of them, they deserved their fate.
She started down the mountain with only her lantern, the cruel whistle of the wind, and her thoughts to keep her company. The way was easier alone without those two to look after but was still dangerous enough; a careless step or an unguarded moment could mean victory for the cold and wild and ice. But Barbalan did not stop to wonder if she would survive the downward climb or the fifty-kilometer trek she must make before she reached safety. Only one thing was certain: Death awaited her at Konndjlan. However, she had delivered Pike there, and there he would stay until the Patra was past. Now her job was to reach the Fringe, as Pike had proved so uncooperative at Daryephna. Would he even awaken? Had any impression been made on his mind at all? Barbalan did not know, and she did not know how to find out; she must search elsewhere.
Her Gostum feet, strong and agile, guided her safely until she found Number Two at the base of the mountain. She unlocked the hatch, briefly found some food to satisfy her crying stomach, and undressed. The hot water of the shower was soothing to her nearly paralyzed legs, and she massaged them for a long time before she went to sleep.
When she awoke, her legs were little more than immobile, the shower notwithstanding. But she had to go. A quick meal was all that she allowed herself before she readied to depart. Now she took off the necklace and knew that this was the right time to make use of it. She lined up the bezel with the westward-pointing needle and saw the arrow marking the direction to the stala. If she was off by more than a hair, she would wander in the night until she died. Dying had never bothered her much; on Patra-Bannk, to worry about dying when the possibility was always by your side was pointless. Except now she was bothered by the possibility, not by the thought of any unpleasant sensation at the end, but by the thought that something would be left unfinished. This was the first time in her life that Barbalan knew something had to be finished. So the thought of dying did bother her. If she died now, she would not be able to reach Pant and find the other Alien who had escaped there. And that was what was important.
She wished, as she bent low in her struggles across the wind-torn desert, that her mind would go blank and leave her. Memories of the building she had stumbled on at Daryephna attacked her unconscious mind just as the sand whipped up and attacked her parka. She had only a vague recollection of what had actually happened: she had gone into the room; the lights had been on and she became unconscious. When she awoke she was starving, but someone or something said that it understood what kind of food she needed, and could make it, and told her where to get it. She stayed in the room for a long time, beclads on end, eating and sleeping…she wasn’t sure what else. When she finally left, there was a message in her head. It was simple and final: you cannot do it alone. Get help from the Aliens you know. Bring them to Neberdjer. Exactly what she could not do along, she did not understand; the words were not even in her vocabulary. She assumed that whoever or whatever the demon was who talked with her, he had discovered her limitations while she was asleep. Had she talked with him in dream language? In her own? What or where Neberdjer was, she wasn’t sure, either, so she had brought Pike back to the same place. He had crumpled. Had nothing of the experience remained in his head? Or hadn’t there been enough time? Was he just not talking about it? If she had been he, Barbalan wouldn’t have wanted to talk about it, either. At first the experience had not been pleasant, although afterward it induced euphoria. Or at least the dreams were colorful.
So now the only thing left to do was to act on rumor. Rumors escaping from loose Fairtalian tongues after a loose time in bed. A third Alien, captured at Triesk, had been brought to Pant on his way to Konndjlan but had somehow managed to escape at the stopover. Barbalan wasn’t exactly sure where Pant was, which made her very unsure of anything at this point. She had been taken there once, blindfolded, so she knew it did exist. It was another Gostum outpost, newer than Konndjlan; only several belbannks had passed since it had been discovered by the Fairtalian and settled. In any case, no matter where Pant was, be it five thousand kilometers away or fifty thousand, that was where she was going, unless she died first.
Telclads later, she passed the shadowy form of a large, craggy monolith protruding from the desert floor. According to the map, it was the only landmark on the way to the stala. She stopped there, putting down her walking pole which kept her from being blown over, and rested. After a little while, not wanting to waste time, she readjusted the bezel as the instructions indicated and set off in a slightly different direction.
Finally, as unbelievable as the mountain climb, there it was. For once, Barbalan allowed herself a smile and was glad that she was a Gostum. How else would she have been able to pinpoint the stala in blinding sand and Patra? The compass? Perhaps that had helped, but being a Gostum helped even more. Her lantern revealed the stala to be a very large, circular structure, too smooth to be anything other than artificial. It sat on what seemed to be a large, raised plaza with walkways leading down it in all directions to—nowhere. She followed one of the walkways out, and it did, indeed, stop at nowhere. She returned by the same walkway to the circular building and found the entrance clearly marked. It took her a moment to realize she was actually reading one of the lines of lettering, even though it was in a completely unknown language. There were other letters, too, but those she still could not read, since they were in yet other languages. The sign was lit. It said: Enter, and she did.
Naturally, it was light inside. The Polkraitz must have been wonderful to make magic like this. Barbalan wondered why all the magic was here and at Daryephna and so little was left at Konndjlan. All the work of magic there was left to Effrulyn and his antagonists.
Barbalan at once recognized that the huge cylindrical map was virtually identical to the one she had seen at Daryephna. It towered over her head and was also so deftly constructed that the faraway points at the top seemed as close as the others. So this must be the way to get from one place to another. She turned her head and saw the lines crisscrossing the map. Somehow she knew how to work this thing. Both the necklace and Neberdjer had told her. It was now simply a matter of pushing the right buttons. But that didn’t tell her how to find Pant. From her pouch she fished out the card in the pendant and looked again at that curious table she had puzzled over at Daryephna. If its meaning was incomprehensible before, she could now at least make a good guess. Her eyes drifted down to the base of the illuminated world and halted at the rows of colored bars beneath it. Although no bar was labeled Pant in this new alphabet that suddenly seemed vaguely familiar, she guessed the correct bar from the pendant card. At her touch, a light on the map above her head went on. Pant could very well be there, who could tell? It wasn’t very far on this scale. To her left, underneath and beyond the huge raised cylinder, a door opened. Barbalan didn’t bother to hesitate; the only things behind her were the desert, the cold, and an unfriendly Konndjlan. The door slid shut behind her.
The floor was flat, but the room itself had curved walls that arched over her head. It was big enough to hold twenty or thirty people, and comfortable-looking furniture was scattered about. She walked over to a cabinet, opened it, and found spacesuits, some like the ones Pike had, others not. Barbalan sat down just as she felt a downward acceleration, then a slight bump, a push, then nothing at all. Just silence now. Remembering her blindfolded journey, she knew that the trip would take some time and began to massage her legs. She worked herself over unmercifully until her leg muscles had untensed and her arms slowed themselves to sleep.
Very nearly ten telclads later, although Barbalan didn’t know that at the time, a slight thud awakened her. A very short time after that, the door opened, and she thought she might never have left the other stala. But she guessed that she was now really at Pant. Pant of the north? North of Pant was the Fringe, hardly explored at all. Still farther north, so she had been told, was Triesk, even beyond the Fringe. Barbalan once again looked at the map to try to get an idea of how far one thing was from another; she saw that Pant lay about halfway between Konndjlan and another dot on the map. Was that one Triesk? She didn’t know. In fact, she didn’t really know how to tell which way was north or which was south.
She tightened her parka and boots, less cumbersome than the Gostum quazzats, this Alien clothing, and left stala-Pant. The subfreezing air stung a bit of carelessly exposed flesh and she wrapped herself up closer. The Patra had not been with them long, but the snow was already deep and the cold was deeper. Worst of all was the wind, which could toss one to the ground and make each step seem a trial that lasted forever. She swung her lantern around and saw buildings everywhere, deep in snow. Surely the Gostum would be underground now, and she had to find them or she would freeze to death very shortly. On the other hand, if word had by then been passed on to Pant that she was a traitor and she was recognized, she would be killed on sight. But freezing was a certainty, the other was not.
The wind howled and shrieked, but Barbalan continued the search—on her
knees at times—until she found what she was looking for: a gateway. It was
marked as such, as all gateways were. She rang the bell and soon the heavy
wooden door swung inward taking a heap of snow with it. She stepped in,
showing her necklace. Only Fairtalian could make the trip to Pant alone. I’m here with special orders to find the Alien who
escaped. Do you have him? Was he recaptured?
The short Gostum facing her shook his warted face and quickly closed the
door until it was open only a crack. No. I
know little enough about it. Do you expect to find him out there? I thought
you were a fugitive Trieskan, the way you were walking about. The cold is
only for unruly prisoners.
That I know. Then I will have to stay here for the
Patra until I can search for him at Bannk’s beginning.
Then come in before you freeze us all.
Barbalan smiled and accepted the invitation.