The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

where he had chanced upon the library of tapes, one of which had eventually landed Travis and his people here on Topaz.
    Even if he did find racks of such tapes in one of those towers, there would be no way of using them—with the ship wrecked on the mountain side. Only—Travis’ fingers itched where they lay quiet on his knees—there might be other things waiting. If he were only free to explore!
    He reached out to touch Menlik’s shoulder. The shaman half turned, opening his eyes with the languid effort of a sleepy cat. But the spark of intelligence awoke in them quickly.
    “What is it?”
    For a moment Travis hesitated, already regretting his impulse. He did not know how much Menlik remembered of the present. Remember of the present—one part of the Apache’s mind was wryly amused at that snarled estimate of their situation. Men who had been dropped into their racial and ancestral pasts until the present time was less real than the dreams conditioning them had a difficult job evaluating any situation. But since Menlik had clung to his knowledge of English, he must be less far down that stairway.
    “When we met you, Kaydessa and I, it was outside that valley.” Travis was still of two minds about this questioning, but the Tatar camp had been close to the towers and there was a good chance the Mongols had explored them. “And inside were buildings…very old.…”
    Menlik was fully alert now. He took his wand, played with it as he spoke:
    “That is, or was, a place of much power, Fox. Oh, I know that you question my kinship with the spirits and the powers they give. But one learns not to dispute what one feels here—and here—” His long, somewhat grimy fingers went to his forehead and then to the bare brown chest where his shirt fell open. “I have walked the stone path in that valley, and there have been the whispers—”
    “Whispers?”
    Menlik twirled the wand. “Whispers which are too low for many ears to distinguish. You can hear them as one hears the buzzing of an insect, but never the words—no, never the words! But that is a place of great power!”
    “A place to explore!”
    But Menlik watched only his wand. “That I wonder, Fox, truly do I wonder. This is not our world. And here there may be that which does not welcome us.”
    Tricks-in-trade of a shaman? Or was it true recognition of something beyond human description? Travis could not be sure, but he knew that he must return to the valley and see for himself.
    “Listen,” Menlik said, leaning closer, “I have heard your tale, that you were on that first ship, the one which brought you unwilling along the old star paths. Have you ever seen such a thing as this?”
    He smoothed a space of soft earth and with the narrow tip of his wand began to draw. Whatever role Menlik had played in the present before he had been reconditioned into a shaman of the Horde, he had had the ability of an artist, for with a minimum of lines he created a figure in that sketch.
    It was a man or at least a figure with general human outlines. But the round, slightly oversized skull was bare, the clothing skintight to reveal unnaturally thin limbs. There were large eyes, small nose and mouth, rather crowded into the lower third of the head, giving an impression of an over-expanded brain case above. And it was familiar.
    Not the flying men of the other world, certainly not the nocturnal ape-things. Yet for all its alien quality Travis was sure he had seen its like before. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize it apart from lines in the soil.
    Such a head, white, almost like the bone of a skull laid bare, such a head lying face down on a bone-thin arm clad in a blue-purple skintight sleeve. Where had he seen it?
    The Apache gave a sharp exclamation as he remembered fully. The derelict spaceship as he had first found it—the dead alien officer had still been seated at its controls! The alien who had set the tape which took them out into that forgotten empire—he was the subject of Menlik’s drawing!
    “Where? When did you see such a one?” The Apache bent down over the Tatar.
    Menlik looked troubled. “He came into my mind when I walked the valley. I thought I could almost see such a face in one of the tower windows, but of that I am not sure. Who is it?”
    “Someone from the old days—those who once ruled the stars,” Travis answered. But were they still here then, the remnant of a civilization which had flourished ten thousand years ago? Were