The Zero Stone Read online

  Perhaps Hywel Jern, who could have had wealth and yet had settled prudently for comfort, and might have finished out his life in peace had he not been a curious man, had molded me. Or perhaps the need to be free which had kept Vondar Ustle on the move had rubbed off on his assistant.

  “You can buy freedom.” Eet’s thought followed mine easily. “What have you now with Vondar dead? Nothing. Bargain well, as he taught you, when the time comes. You will know what you want most in that hour.”

  “What you want,” I countered.

  Now his head turned so that he could eye me. “What I want - just so. But our trails run together. I have told you that before. Apart we are weak, together we are strong, a combination to accomplish much if you have the courage-“

  “Eet - what are you?”

  “A living being,” he replied, “with certain gifts which I have placed at your disposal from time to time, and certainly not to your disadvantage.” Again he read my thoughts and added, “Of course, I have used you, but also you have used me. You would have been dead long since had we not. And to your species, death of the body is an end - do you not believe it so?”

  “Not all of us do.”

  “That is as it may be,” he replied ambiguously. “But at any rate, we are together in this life and it is to our mutual advantage to have this pact continue.”

  I could not deny his logic, though still the suspicion stayed deep in my mind that Eet had plans of his own and would eventually maneuver me into serving them.

  “He is waking.” Eet looked at Hory. “Tell him to check his speed.”

  I was no pilot. But I could see there was a red light flashing on the board. That had about it a suggestion of alarm. Hory made a snorting sound and straightened in his web seat, setting it to swinging. He rubbed his hands across his eyes and then leaned forward to look at the board, his attitude that of one alerted to trouble.

  “Eet says - look to the speed-“ I said.

  His hand shot out to thumb a red button under that red flash. The red spark vanished, a yellow one flashed in its place, held steady for a short space, then became red again. Once more Hory tried the button. But this time there was no change in the light. His fingers played a swift pattern over the other buttons and levers, but the signal remained stubbornly red.

  “What is the matter?” I asked.

  “Traction beam.” Hory spit out that explanation as if it were a curse. “They have lifted behind us and slapped a traction on. But a ship of that size, how could they be so equipped?” Still he continued to try his keys. Once the light paled, but only momentarily.

  “They can pull us back?”

  “They are trying. But they cannot down us - not yet. They can only keep us out of hyper. And they may think they can board - if so they are going to be surprised. But they can keep us tied near that planet.”

  “Waiting for reinforcements? Why cannot you do the same - call for help?”

  “They have a com blanket over us. If they expect reinforcements they were already sure of their coming. I have heard of Guild superships; this must be one of them.”

  “What do we do then - just wait-?”

  “Not if we are wise,” Eet cut in. “They do expect aid and it will be of such nature as to take this ship easily. What you stumbled on here, Hory, is a Guild operation of such magnitude that they are willing to throw many of their undercover reserves in - or did you arrive here with a suspicion that that was so?”

  “I suppose you have a suggestion?” Hory asked bitingly. “I can maintain my shield but not break their hold - to do that is to lose my own escape force. They could reel us in before I could fire effectively.”

  Eet did have an answer. “The ring stone, Murdoc-“

  “How?” I had felt the action of the ring on my own body, its drawing power across the wastes of space, and on the planet below. But in what way could it be used on this ship to break a traction beam which held so powerful a vessel in bonds?

  “Take it down, to the engine room,” Eet ordered.

  His knowledge was certainly greater than mine, and I continued to wonder where he had gained it. Reading minds seemed easy enough for him, but how he knew uses for the baffling gem I could not understand. Was it all part of Eet’s mysterious past, before he had, as he put it, obtained a body to serve him in the present? Was - could Eet have a link with those who had once used the stones for motive power? How long had Eet been a seed, or stone, or that thing Valcyr had swallowed?

  Even as I speculated I was unbuckling, preparing to leave my seat. I had learned my confidence well; if Eet thought there was a chance the ring might save us, I was willing to try it.

  “What will you do?” Hory asked sharply.

  Eet answered. “Try to augment your power, Patrolman. We are not sure, we can only try.”

  It was thoughtful of him to say “we,” since, as always, I was merely the one to carry out plans hatched in that narrow head of his.

  We descended the ladder to the lowest level and made our way to the reactor room. Eet made the same questing movements of nose and head as he had used to steer us through the forest. Then with a quick stretch of his neck, he pointed his nose at a sealed box.

  “There, but you must make it fast. Use a weld torch-“

  With the air of one humoring madmen, Hory opened a small compartment on the wall and took out the tool Eet had asked for. I brought out the ring slowly. In spite of Eet’s suggestion that we needed its aid, I could not be sure of that. And I had the greatest reluctance to release it to Hory. I had come to trust no one in relation to the stone, which had already left a trail of blood, and blood belonging to those who meant the most to me, across several solar systems.

  For a moment I thought Eet was wrong. The stone displayed no signs of life; it was as dead as it had been the first time I saw it. Very much against my will I laid it on top of the box as Eet had ordered.

  Then slowly, almost protestingly, it did show life. It did not blaze as it had in space, or even as it had in the underground room, when it had rested near its fellows, bringing them in turn to a glow. That blaze had been blue-white; this was duller, yellow. Hory stared at it, his astonishment so great that he made no attempt to use the welder.

  “Affix it - quick!” Eet cried. His whip of tail lashed back and forth on my back as if he would so beat me to the task. I reached for the welder, but Hory roused and touched its tip to the ring metal against the box, joining them firmly.

  “Look-“ But Eet was not to finish that warning. Hory struck out with a follow through of the weld rod. By the good grace of whatever power might rule space, the lighted end of that improvised weapon did not hit Eet. But the rod swept him from my shoulder and hurled him to the floor with such force that he lay limp and unmoving.

  I was so astounded by the attack that I wasted a precious moment in sheer amazement. When I started for Hory that rod swept up again so that the glowing point menaced my eyes. There was such determination to be read on his face I did not doubt he meant to use it were I to jump him.

  So I retreated as he advanced, unable to reach for Eet, for Hory thrust at me when I attempted that. Since the compartment in which we stood was small, my back was swiftly at the wall.

  “Why?” I asked. He had me spread there, my hands at shoulder height, palms empty and out, the glowing point of the rod weaving a pattern of threat directly before my eyes.

  Hory, the rod in one hand, searched in the front of his tunic. What he produced was a more refined example of the tangler the Guild men had used on him. It flicked out from the tube, not to weave my whole body into a helpless cocoon, but to loop about my wrists, bringing them tightly together.

  “Why?” he echoed. “Because I now know who you are. You gave yourself away, or that beast of yours did, when he had you bring out the ring. What happened back there? Could you not agree on the Guild’s terms? We have been tracing you for months, Murdoc Jern.”

  “Why? I am no Guildman-“

  “Then
you are playing a lone hand, which is enough to label you fool. Or do you reckon your beast high enough to support you? You are rather useless without him, are you not?” Hory kicked out and Eet rolled over. I tried desperately to reach him through mind touch, but met nothing. Once before I had believed him dead; now the evidence of my eyes assured me that was true.

  “You accuse me of playing some game.” I strove to control my rage; anger can betray a man into foolish error. Perhaps I had not learned the proper submergence of emotions my father had believed necessary to make the superior man, but I had had excellent tutoring and put that to the test now. “What do you mean?”

  “You are Murdoc Jern and your father was a notorious Guildman.” Hory used the blazing rod as if I were a child and he were an instructor about to indicate some pertinent point on a wall projection from a reading tape. “If you are not a full member of the Guild, you have access to his connections. Your father was killed for information he had, probably about” - with the rod Hory indicated the ring - that. You were on Angkor when it happened. Then you shipped out, having broken with your family. You were on Tanth when your master Vondar Ustle was killed under circumstances which suggest his death had been arranged. What caused that Jern? Did he discover what you were carrying and plan to inform the authorities? Whatever happened, matters did not go as you expected, did they? You did not walk out free with your master’s private gem stock to back you. But you did get off world.

  “The ship you lifted in is suspect as a part-time Guild transport. They dropped you here, didn’t they? And later you fell out with your bosses. You ought to have known you could not stand up to the Guild. Or did you believe that with that beast of yours you could do it? We will get the truth out of you with a reader-helm-“

  “When and if you get me to a Patrol base!”

  “Oh I think that now there will be no chance of your escaping. You, yourself, obligingly arranged that. But I am forgetting, you are not shipwise, are you? You do not have the ‘feel.’ We have broken free of the traction and are back on course. Now-“ Still facing me with the ready rod, Hory stooped and picked up Eet, a long string of furred body, by the hind legs. “This goes into cold storage. The lab will want to see it. And you shall go into another kind of storage, until you are needed.”

  He drove me with his heated rod out of the engine compartment, toward the ladder which led to the upper levels. I backed slowly, trying to see any small chance which might work for me. But even though I might be reckless enough to charge him, he need only with pressure of one finger bring that rod to top heat and lay it across my face to discipline me into obedience.

  Eet swung, a pitiful pendulum, from Hory’s hand. I looked at his body and my hate was no longer hot but cold, clear and deadly in me. And because I did look at Eet at that moment I saw my chance. For Eet came to life, twisting up and around to bury needle-sharp teeth in the hand which held him. And as Hory yelled in pain and surprise I charged.

  FIFTEEN

  Though I could not use my hands (and I would have used them to some purpose, for my father had had me carefully tutored in those forms of unarmed combat which are useful for a space rover), I did use my head and body as a battering ram, striking Hory hard just below his chest, driving him back against the wall. His breath went out of him in a great gasp. But I could not follow up the small advantage as I wanted; I could only strain to hold him helpless with my weight against his body. And it was a stalemate to which I could see no profitable conclusion.

  Eet had played a leading role in the initiation of this fight, but I did not expect any more from him. However, he was not to be counted out, as I discovered. His slim body flew through the air, to land on Hory’s bent head, his whip tail lashing my cheek as he passed. He dug in his claws, and caught the Patrolman by the ears as he had me when he steered us away from the cliffs.

  Hory screamed and tried to raise his hands to his head, while I wriggled the closer to keep him down and give Eet his chance to win a small victory. Then, regaining some detachment, I backed away, only to charge again, the full force of my shoulder aiming at the base of Hory’s throat. Had I been able to deliver that blow as intended, he might have died.

  As it was, he made a crowing noise, and when I stood away, he tried to bring his hands up to his throat. But his knees folded under him and he bowed slowly forward. In fact he might have slipped along the ladder and fallen had I not taken his weight, bracing myself, against my thighs.

  Eet loosed his hold, leaving bleeding gashes behind, and whipped down Hory’s body, using his paws to tear open the Patrolman’s tunic and bring forth the tangler. As if he had used one many times before, he turned it on its owner. And in moments Hory was again as neatly packaged as he had been back in the tunnel.

  The mutant panted heavily as he drew back on his haunches, holding the tangler between his hand-paws, his attention on the Patrolman. Hory gasped for breath, a dark tinge still in his face. I wondered if my blow had broken some bone, and if I had done worse damage than I had first thought. In spite of the fate he had meant to deal to Eet, and his plans for me, when I had time to think without the heat of rage blinding me, I did not want to kill him. I have killed to defend myself, as I did on Tanth, but never willingly - few men do. And to kill with one’s hands is also another matter. Hory was following orders, with, as he believed, law behind him - though sometimes right and law are not one and the same thing. I respect the Patrol and have a healthy fear of them. But that does not mean I tamely submit to a decree which may not fit with justice. On the frontiers, of necessity, the law must be more flexible than it is on long-settled worlds. And it seemed to me, from what Hory had said, that I had been summarily judged and sentenced without a chance to defend myself.

  “Your hands-“ Eet had frisked up the ladder and was now at my shoulder level.

  I held out my bound wrists and his sharp teeth made short work of clipping through those strands. Freed, I knelt and settled Hory back against the wall, pressing in and out on his rib carriage until he was breathing less painfully and the dark shade had faded from his face.

  “You- can- not- Our- course- is locked-“ he half whispered. “Take us- to- base.”

  His satisfaction at that was plain to read. And perhaps be was right. If a course tape had been locked in the auto-pilot, there was nothing we could do to alter it, and our freedom would last just as long as it took us to reach our destination. It would seem that Hory, bound and in our power as he was, still held the victory.

  He smiled, perhaps guessing from some change in my expression that I knew that. After all, I was no pilot, and if there was any way of confuting a course tape, I did not know it. Nor, I was sure, did Eet.

  “Bring him-“ Eet indicated Hory and the ladder.

  “I cannot help you,” Hory said. “Once the tape is locked in - that is that.”

  “So?” Eet swung his head, keeping his eyes on a level with Hory’s as I boosted the Patrolman to his feet. “We shall see.”

  The mutant’s confidence did not appear to ruffle Hory. However, he did not fight me as I urged him up the ladder. He could have made it nearly impossible to climb; instead, he seemed to do so willingly enough, allowing me to steady him where he could not use his hands. The lesser gravity in the ship was an aid and I made the most of that.

  I think Hory was prepared to savor our dismay when we discovered how right he was and that we could do nothing to halt or change the flight of the ship.

  To me the control board meant nothing. But Eet sped across the cabin, leaped to Hory’s seat, and from that to the edge of the panel, his head flicking from right to left and back again as if he were searching. Whatever he sought he did not find. Instead he drew back again to the seat, hunching up, his neck pulled in to his body, his eyes staring. His mind was tightly closed, but I knew he was thinking.

  Hory laughed. “Your superbeast is baffled, Jern. I told you - make your submission and-“

  “Trust the Patrol?” I asked. Perhaps I had come
to depend too much on the near-miracles which Eet had achieved. It certainly looked as if Hory was right and we were his prisoners, instead of the situation being reversed.

  “Full cooperation will mitigate your sentence,” he returned.

  “I have not been tried, or sentenced, yet,” I parried. “And your charges, or those you stated, are very vague. I inherited the ring from my father. I defended myself from a quite unpleasant death on Tanth, and I paid my own passage off that misformed planet. You yourself saw that I was not cooperating with the Guild back there. So - of just what am I guilty? It seems to me that I have in fact been cooperating with the Patrol, in your person, right along - seeing as how Eet got us away from that tunnel and my ring broke the traction beam-“

  Hory still smiled and there was nothing friendly in that stretching of lips. “When you were on Tanth, Jern, did you ever hear the folksaying they have -‘He who does a demon a service is thereby a demon’s servant’? What you have in that ring, if it is what rumor claims it to be, is not for the owning of any one man. We have our orders to destroy it and its owner - if that seems necessary.

  “So going beyond the law?”

  “There are times when the law must be broken if the race or species is to survive-“

  “Now that,” Eet’s voice rang in our heads, “is a dangerous concept. Either the law exists, or it does not. Murdoc believes that on some occasions the law can be bent, or bypassed for the protection of what seems to be right. And you, Hory, who are pledged to the upholding of the strict letter of the law, now say that it can be broken because of expediency. It would seem that the laws of your species are not held in high respect.”

  “What do you-“ Hory turned on Eet a blast of hate which even I could feel. I moved quickly between him and the furred body now in the pilot’s seat.

  “What do I, an animal, know about the affairs of humans?” Eet finished for him. “Only what I learn from your thoughts. You do not want to deem me more than beast, do you, Hory? Now I wonder what there is within you that holds you to that point of view, even though you know it is wrong. Or is it all a part of not wishing to admit that you can be wrong in other ways also? You seem to put”- Eet paused to survey the Patrolman closely - “an extraordinary valuation of your own actions.”