Dread Companion - Andre Norton, ebook, CALIBRE SFF 1970s, Temp 1
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Dread Companion
by Andre Norton
Copyright ©, 1970, by Andre
Norton
An Ace Book, by arrangement with The Viking Press, Inc.
1
But A few days ago (I shall never trust the divisions of time again and say with any certainty, "This is a
day; that is a week; we face a year!") I was shown some very ancient tapes, copied, I was assured, from
ones that had been made originally on fabled Terra. And some aspects of the information they stored
were so like my own experiences that I could only believe that those who had first recorded them, back
in a mist of time so great that I could not count the planet years - any more than one can truly give sum to
the number of stars - had followed a trail like that which chance and my own stubbornness set me.
Had I not invincible proof of what had happened to me and several others, I might be judged now to be
spinning some comet-hair tale for the astonishment of the credulous. But this much is true, and records
prove it. I was born on Chalox in the planet and space-time year of 2405 After Flight. I was between
sixteen and seventeen years old, planet age, when I left Chalox to land on Dylan. I am still no more than a
year older - yet the year is now 2483!
Time! Sometimes, when I look squarely at those dates and think how those years fled for me, it brings
back such fears that I must busy myself feverishly about some task, putting all my strength and thoughts
into it, until the surge of panic that chokes me lessens. Were it not for Jorth, whom I can reach out and
touch, who shares my burden, I might- But of that I shall not think at all - now or ever!
- As I say, I was born on Chalox. My father was Rhyn Halcrow, a Survey scout. He was of Talgrinnian
stock, which means Second Wave, Terran outspread. My mother was a Forsmanian, of a trading family.
They were human, too, but of the First Wave outspread, and had mutated from what is believed to be
the original Terran.
Their marriage was a planet one as is usual for a man in the services, and it lasted three Chalox years.
After the ceremonial break-bond, my father was assigned to a new outwave exploratory pattern. He left
my mother with the excellent life pension of a planet wife and her freedom to contact another tie if she
wished - or if her father wished, for the Forsmanians are strictly family oriented, with the eldest male
making the major decisions for the clan.
Within a matter of months, my mother did take another husband, one of her cousins, thus keeping her
first grant-for-marriage dowry strictly within the clan, in what her people considered a very practical and
equitable arrangement.
As for me, I was already established in the creche for Service children at Lattmah. The break was
complete. I never saw either of my parents again. That I was a girl presented a minor problem, since the
majority of such cross-births are male and the offspring trained from childhood for government service.
Unfortunately, I inherited my mother's sex but my father's spirit and interests. I would have been
supremely happy as a scout, a seeker-out of far places and strange sights. My favored reading among the
tapes were the accounts of exploration, trading on primitive planets, and the like. Perhaps I might have
fitted in with the free traders. But among them women are so few and those so guarded and cherished
that I might have been even more straitly prisoned on one of their spaceports, seeing my mate only at
long intervals, bound by their law to remarry again if his ship was reported missing for more than a stated
time.
As it was, I did what I could to prepare myself for a possible escape from Chalox. I became a keeper of
records, adept in several techniques, including that of implanted recall. And I had my name down - Kilda
c' Rhyn - on every possible off-planet listing as soon as the authorities allowed me to register.
That no opportunity presented itself began to worry me. I was less than a year from the time when I
could no longer stay at the creche but would arbitrarily be fitted into any niche those in charge might
select. They might even return me to my mother's clan, and such was not for me. So, in desperation, I
appealed, at last, to the one among my teachers whom I thought the most sympathetic.
Lazk Volk was a mutant crossbreed. The mixing of races in his case had resulted in certain deformities
of body that even the most advanced plasta-surgery could not correct. But his mind showed such a
potential for learning and teaching that he had never left the creche. Through his vast tape library and the
visits of scouts and other far travelers to his quarters, he had gained knowledge far outstripping any local
memory bank except the government one.
Because in some small ways we were alike, each yearning for what was denied us, Lazk Volk and I
became friends. I had served for four years as recorder and librarian for him when I voiced my fear of
being without a future, save one not of my choosing. I was hoping that he might answer with an offer of
steady employment. Though that would be no true solution to my desire to travel, I would have, in his
wealth of knowledge, the second best.
He stretched out his thin double arms in a gesture habitual to him, wiggling his boneless fingers above the
keyboard that produced anything he might wish - from the complete history of the planet Firedrake to a
dinner-of-first-ceremony. With most of his misshapen figure muffled in a robe of Bora rainbow cloth,
rippling rich color at his slightest movement, he was like a thick bolster perched on one end. Only his four
arms and his conical head showed he was a living being.
For the second time he flicked his wiggling fingers back and forth. Then his slit of a mouth opened.
"No."
"No? Why?" I was startled enough to use a demanding tone that I would never have tried with him
ordinarily.
"No - I do not take you into my service. That is the easy way, Kilda. And you are not meant to walk
easy roads." He pressed one of those many buttons now, and my chair spun about so that I no longer
faced him, but rather the wall on which was a projection screen, now like a huge mirror.
"What do you see?" he asked.
"Myself."
"Describe!" His tone was such that we might be in one of the training booths where he had begun to
shape my mind for the retention and collection of knowledge.
"I am a woman. My hair - it is - " I hesitated. Those living in the creche were so varied from
crossbreeding that we had no norm of either good looks or downright ugliness. I knew that certain kinds
of faces, coloring, forms gave me pleasure to look upon. But I had no vanity, nor any idea as to whether
I could be deemed even passable in appearance. "My hair," I began again resolutely, "is of the color dark
brown. I have two eyes - which are blue-green - one nose, a mouth. My skin is also brown, but lighter in
shade than my hair. For the rest - my body is humanoid, and it is healthy. What is it that you wish me to
see - other than this?"
"You have youth. And though you list your attributes so baldly, Kilda, you will discover, once you walk
beyond these walls, that you will be considered above the ordinary in the sight of most. And, as you note,
you have an adequate and healthy body. Therefore, you shall not waste this by crawling into shadows
and turning your back upon the world."
"It is better," I protested, "to stay where I am happy than to be returned to a Forsmanian clan house or
to be a clerk in some government hive until I become as dull-witted as the walls about me."
"Perhaps so." He nodded. I was surprised at winning my point so easily. Then he went on. "But you cite
only two of the possibilities now before you. There are others - "
"Trade marriage?" I ventured the third I had considered.
"As a means of escape? I think not. The traders are too careful of their women, having so few of them.
You might find such an alliance even more stultifying than your first two suggestions. There is this - "
He must have pressed another of his buttons, for there flashed on the screen, obliterating my own image,
a government announcement. It was one of those general offers to emigrants, a fulsome and probably
much overstated listing of all the glowing opportunities awaiting the properly qualified on a frontier planet.
"You forget"-though I did not see how he could-"that I am not hand-promised, nor am I medically
trained, nor - "
"You are in a very negative mood." But he did not sound impatient. "This is the official listing. There are
other possible ways of joining such a company, namely as a house aide for someone with children of a
teachable age. You have given assistance in the classes here. And certainly your training is above that of
such aides. The position would be temporary, of course, but it gives you a chance for emigration. And on
a new world there will be more opportunities. There is a tendency - unless the emigration group is that of
some close-knit religious sect-to be less rule-bound on a frontier world. You might well have such a
position there as is barred to your sex on these inner planets."
What he said made good sense. There was only one flaw.
"They may think me too young."
"Your recommendations will be of the highest." He said that with such confidence that I had to believe he
had thought the whole matter over and only my consent was needed.
"Then-then-I'll do it!" I had always imagined that if I were offered any chance to leave Chalox and lift
into the unknown of the far stars, I would do it without a moment's hesitation. Yet now that I said I would
go, I found an uneasy stirring within me. It was as if, now that the door stood open, I was far more
conscious of the safety of the room it guarded.
"Well done!" He brought my chair around to face him again. "But remember, Kilda, I only provide the
means for your first steps; the march beyond is up to you. This much will I do for you. I shall appoint you
one of my off-world reporters. You shall keep your skill sharp by taping for me anything that you think
may add to this library."
I felt some easing of that tension within me. Now a spark of excitement lit in my mind. There was
probably little enough I could add to the great wealth of material from a thousand - a hundred thousand -
worlds that Lazk Volk stored. But were even a few sentences of mine thought fit to be included, I would
be honored indeed.
"So it is decided." He spoke briskly. "The rest you will leave to me. Now - 1 want a run-through of the
Ruh-karv report in comparison with the tridees from Xcothal."
I busied myself in producing the two tapes of archaeological mysteries for his viewing. With one thing
and another, three days went by filled with work. In fact, I was so busy tracing down buried facts -
which had not been called for for years - that on the third night, as I returned to my room to kick off my
toe slippers with a sigh, I had the suspicion that Lazk Volk was keeping me running from one end of the
archives to the other for some purpose of his own.
On the fourth morning when I reported for work, I found him not barricaded by rows of tape containers,
but sipping a cup of caff and staring at his projection screen as if it bore lines of formulae. He looked at
me sharply as I came in and "then used his lower right hand to indicate a box of, some size and on the
comer of his desk.
"Take that and put on its contents. You have an interview at the tenth hour with Gentlefem Guska
Zobak. She is staying at the Double Star."
"Put what on-"
"Clothing - proper clothing, girl! You go out in the city in that" - he nodded to my creche dress, a
one-piece garment planned for service and for neither fit nor show - "and you will be the center of
attention, which, I assume, you would not care for."
To that I agreed and took the box into the storeroom beyond. But I was a little surprised at the contents.
I did have one utilitarian robe, which I wore into the city on the few errands that took me there. It was as
plain as the uniform and, like it, shouted that it was institutional wear. But these brilliant lengths of silky
material were very different. I had seen such worn - but only by the daughters of landed families.
There was a pair of loose trousers of a darkly rich plum shade. Over those went a tunic of the same
color, but a different material, for it was thick and had a texture like fur. This had long sleeves coming to
the knuckles, and it was latched from belt to throat with a series of silver buckles. A belt of the same
metal drew in the waist tightly.
My hair was much shorter than that of any woman outside the creche. But there was a long veil of silvery
net, with the eyeholes ringed with glitter, to cover my head, dropping to my hips in the back, to the waist
in front. In such clothing I was disguised, and certainly none of my fellow students would know me.
When I went back to Lazk Volk and caught sight of my reflection on the mirror screen, I was so
astounded as to let out a small gasp. He nodded, and at the same time he pushed a transportation plaque
to me.
Very good." He approved my masquerade, for such I felt this clothing to be. "Gentlefem Zobak is bound
for the planet of Dylan. She has two children, a son and a daughter, both quite young. Not being in
robust health, she has applied for a house aide. Her husband is only temporarily stationed on Dylan - for
about two years planet-time, I believe. I do not think the Zobaks will stay longer. But they have the
power to ask for extra service, and if you please them, they might open other doors for you. Now, you
had better go. It would never do to keep the Gentlefem waiting."
It might not do for me to keep my prospective employer waiting, but it was plain when I reached the
Double Star that the situation was not the same for her. I was shown into an outer reception room, where
I found others before me. There were two women seated there, with the look of those having waited
perhaps already too long. Since we all followed the custom of keeping our veils down with strangers, all I
saw of them was their clothes, much like those I wore, but differing in color and material. I spent some of
the tedious time in trying to place my fellow employment seekers.
One wore rusty brown. I noted two mended slits in her veil. And the hands that showed (her sleeves
were significantly shorter than mine) were red and roughened as if she had done hard work with them. I
gained an impression of harassed middle age. The other, sitting across from me, wore blue, but there was
something cheap about the too extreme cut of the tunic (with sleeves that touched the fingertips in an
arrogant boast of the gentility of a wearer who did not have to worry, about using her hands). And not
only were the eyeholes in her veil edged in glitter (those of her neighbor being bound in plain material),
but they were also of a width to bedazzle the viewer.
The work-worn woman was summoned first and did not reappear; then my companion of the
over-glitter, who did not return either. I guessed there must be another door for leaving. Finally, the servo
robot jerked a beckoning prong in my direction.
The room I entered was a standard luxury one of a caravansary. But its present occupant had
introduced other elements. She lay in the bed, its back elevated to give her support, the surface before
her strewn with a variety of objects either dedicated to amusement or to the care of her person.
I politely threw back my veil to meet her eyes. She was small and very delicate in appearance. Her hair
had been fashionably bleached and retinted to a very brilliant green, striking against the pallor of her skin.
She represented the height of fashion as I had seen it on telcasts.
Though there were two easirests waiting to comfort occupants, she waved me to a backless
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