The Forerunner Factor by Andre Norton Page A

off-worlder was far enough ahead now that he certainly could not hear her for she had determined from the first that he would have no complaint from her.
    There was another indentation of the coast beyond the rocks where she had slipped, a much wider beach in the shape of a triangle, its point running landwards between the walls of the cliff. Thorn was just disappearing into that point and, even as she squatted, nursing her smarting hand against her breast, he disappeared entirely. There must be some break or cave—
    The thought of a cave and what it might mean as a refuge from the sun drew her on with a return of strength she could not have believed earlier she could summon. Thus she stumbled and wavered across the sand where Thorn’s prints were formless depressions.
    Only, this was not the cave she had longed for—rather a cleft leading inwards, a break in the desert floor which might, in some very long time ago, have furnished a bed for a river. If this thrice-cursed land had ever held any water at all.
    There was the same sand and gravel for footing, but the rock walls on either side where sheer here, offering no holds, Simsa thought, that one might use to reach the surface of the land above. While out of the cut came a breath of fire worse than any the sun had dealt already, as if the cleft was a furnace meant to draw the worst of the heat and hold it.
    Even Thorn must have found it too much, for he was returning, having gone only a short distance inland. To her surprise, he was smiling and there was a spring in his step as if he had come upon a well all ringed about with greenery, water gushing forth to run headlong. Simsa wondered for a moment or two if the off-worlder had indeed been driven mad by the heat and the barrenness of this part of the world. She had heard tales of the desert madness and how travelers were led astray there by images of that which had never existed.
    “We have our road!” he told her.
    “There?” He was mad. She edged away from him crab fashion, refusing to take her eyes from him lest his insanity take a murderous turn and he savage her.
    “There!” he agreed, to her continued horror. Then he must have read the thought behind her expression for he added quickly:
    “Not by day, no. But at night—then it will be different. I did not come here without knowledge of such travel. There is coolness at night in such a land as this. The sea wind carries moisture with it and that condenses against the rocks. We can go this way—taking water and food with us—you shall see. I have done this on other worlds.”
    Simsa shut her mouth. There was no use in raising any argument. If he said they could sprout wings and fly inland, then she must agree with him for this moment. He believed he spoke the truth and she wanted no part of any struggle with him. It was enough for now that he was willing to return to the boat, come into the poor shade they could find there, though he did not stretch out to lie panting, only half-conscious, as she was forced to do; her efforts had brought an end to even that wiry strength she had developed over the years of her Burrow life.
    During the latter part of the day, she either slept or else lost consciousness, she was never sure just which. Only that, for a while, she had watched him ripping loose part of the ship’s planking and, using ropes he wet in the sea and then knotted about these boards, pushing that knotted portion out into the sun to dry hard and stiff.
    Once or twice, she wavered into enough wakefulness to want to protest his so battering a ship she fully intended to use for her own escape. Only, before she could summon either the strength or the words to do so, she lapsed once more into that daze of misery.
    There came an end to the day at last. The sun crawled down the cloudless sky and a broad banner of color touched the waves far out, sending a last glare into her smarting eyes as she drew herself over to give water to the zorsals whose plaintive