The Gifts of Asti | Page 6

paws over it
carefully, now and then throwing his weight against the smooth
surface.
"There is no door--" she pointed out doubtfully.
"No door--ah--here--" Lur unsheathed formidable fighting claws to
their full length for perhaps the first time in his temple-sheltered life,
and endeavored to work them into a small crevice. The muscles of his
forelegs and quarters stood out in sharp relief under his scales, his fangs
were bare as his lips snapped back with effort.
Something gave, a thin black line appeared to mark the edges of a door.
Then time, or Lur's strength, broke the ancient locking mechanism. The
door gave so suddenly that they were both sent hurtling backward and
Lur's breath burst from him in a huge bubble.
The sealed compartment was hardly more than a cupboard but it was
full. Spread-eagled against the wall was a four-limbed creature whose

form was so smothered in a bulky suit that Varta could only guess that
it was akin in shape to her own. Hoops of metal locked it firmly to the
wall, but the head had fallen forward so that the face plate in the helmet
was hidden.
Slowly the girl breasted the water which filled the cabin and reached
her hands toward the bowed helmet of the prisoner. Gingerly, her
blunted talons scraping across metal, she pulled it up to her eye-level.
The eyes of that which stood within the suit were closed, as if in sleep,
but there was a warm, healthy tint to the bronze skin, so different in
shade to her own pallid coloring. For the rest, the prisoner had the two
eyes, the centered nose, the properly shaped mouth which were
common to the men of Erb. Hair grew on his head, black and thick and
there was a faint shadow of beard on his jaw line.
"This is a man--" her thought reached Lur.
"Why not? Did you expect a serpent? It is a pity he is dead--"
Varta felt a rich warm tide rising in her throat to answer that teasing
half question. There were times when Lur's thought reading was
annoying, He had risen to his hind legs so that he too could look into
the shell which held their find.
"Yes, a pity," he repeated. "But--"
A vision of the turbi flowers swept through her mind. Had Lur
suggested it, or had that wild thought been hers alone? Only this ship
was so old--so very old!
Lur's red tongue flicked. "It can do no harm to try--" he suggested slyly
and set his claws into the hoop holding the captive's right wrist, testing
its strength.
"But the metal on the shore, it crumpled into powder at my touch--" she
protested. "What if we carry him out only to have--to have--" Her mind
shuddered away from the picture which followed.

"Did the turbi blossom fade when pulled out?" countered Lur. "There is
a secret to these fastenings--" He pulled and pried impatiently.
Varta tried to help but even their united strength was useless against the
force which held the loops in place. Breathless the girl slumped back
against the wall of the cabin while Lur settled down on his haunches.
One of the odd patches of color drifted by, its vivid scarlet like a jewel
spiraling lazily upward. Varta's eyes followed its drift and so were
guided to what she had forgotten, the worlds of Asti.
"Asti!"
Lur was looking up too.
"The power of Asti!"
Varta's hand went up, rested for a long moment under the sun and then
drew it down, carefully, slowly, as she had in Memphir's temple. Then
she stepped towards the captive. Within her hood a beaded line of
moisture outlined her lips, a pulse thundered on her temple. This was a
fearsome thing to try.
She held the sun on a line with one of the wrist bonds, She must avoid
the flesh it imprisoned, for Asti's power could kill.
From the sun there shot an orange-red beam to strike full upon the
metal. A thin line of red crept across the smooth hoop, crept and
widened. Varta raised her hand, sending the sun spinning up and Lur's
claws pulled on the metal. It broke like rotten wood in his grasp.
The girl gave a little gasp of half-terrified delight. Then the old legends
were true! As Asti's priestess she controlled powers too great to guess.
Swiftly she loosed the other hoops and restored the sun and worlds to
their place over her head as the captive slumped across the threshold of
his cell.
Tugging and straining they brought him out of the broken ship into the
sunlight of Erb. Varta threw back her hood and breathed deeply of the

air which was not manufactured by the wizardry of the lizard skin and
Lur sat