The Zero Stone Read online

  Hory’s face flushed; his lips were tight-set. I wished at that moment I could read his thoughts as well as Eet did. If Eet found them threatening, he did not comment on that, but now struck off on another track.

  “If my species is to survive, and I think that a necessary thing, steps must be taken here and now. You are probably right, Hory, in believing that this ship cannot be turned from its present course. But are you so sure that that cannot be reversed?”

  I saw the startled expression on Hory’s face. His mind must have been easy for Eet to read.

  “Thank you.” Satisfaction was plain in Eet’s reply. “So that is the way of it!” He leaped again to the edge of the control board and flexed his hand-paws over its surface as one might do preparatory to making some delicate and demanding adjustments on a complicated piece of machinery.

  “No!” Hory lunged for him, but he came up against me and did not reach the board. I struck once with the edge of my hand, one of the tricks of personal combat which I had been taught. He went down and out an instant after the blow landed.

  I dragged him to the passenger’s seat, heaved him up, and buckled him in. Then I turned back to Eet, who was still studying the board, his head darting from side to side, his paws above but not yet touching any of the buttons or levers.

  “A pretty problem,” he observed. “The result will be complicated by the booster power of the stone. It can be reversed, yes. I read that in his mind when I startled him by such a suggestion. Such a shock will often uncover necessary information. But at our present speed, we shall probably not land near where we took off.”

  “And what can we gain by returning? Oh,” I said, answering my own question, “we cannot alter course until we land again. But I am no pilot. I cannot lift this ship off planet even if we are able to set a second course.”

  “A fact to consider later, when the time comes to put it to test,” was Eet’s comment. “But have you any wish to continue this present voyage under the circumstances?”

  “What about the Guild ship? It could be on our trail again if we return-“

  “Consider the facts - will they be expecting our return? I do not believe that anyone, even someone as shrewd as Captain Nactitl, might foresee that. And if we can set down some distance from their camp, we shall win time. Time is the weapon we need most.”

  Eet was right, as he always was: I did not want to finish out the voyage on Hory’s tape. Even if I were not already under charges, taking over this ship would place me so deeply in the ill graces of the Patrol that I could have small defense.

  “Thus and thus and thus-“ Having completed his study of the board, Eet made his choices with lightning rapidity. And I was not shipwise enough to know if he had chosen successfully. I watched lights change, fade, others take their places, and hoped fervently that Eet knew what he was doing.

  “Now what?” I asked as he scrambled from the edge of the board back into the pilot’s seat.

  “Since we have only waiting left, I would suggest food - drink-“

  He was so right. Now that he mentioned it, the E-ration I had consumed in the tunnel was long behind me and I had nothing but an aching and empty void for a middle. I inspected Hory’s lashings. He was still unconscious, but his breathing was regular. Then I went below, accompanied by Eet, who could take the ladder with far more speed than I could. We found a small galley with - to me - a luxurious supply of rations, and had a feast. At that moment it was equal to a Llalation banquet and I savored every mouthful with relish.

  Eet shared my food, even if it were not the end product of a hunt. It was when we were both full that I turned again to consider the future.

  “I cannot pilot us off world,” I said again. “We may be planet-bound on a world which certainly would not be my choice to colonize. If the Guild ship follows us in, they will be able to mark our landing and will be after us. And I do not know enough about this ship to use its weapons. Though I suppose, if it is a matter of his destruction, we could trust Hory enough to man the defenses, whatever they may be.”

  “Especially, you are thinking, since I can keep reading his mind and will be alert for the moment when he may try to turn those same weapons against us.” Eet carefully washed each finger with a dark-red tongue, holding it well out from its fellows to be lapped around. “They will not be expecting us. As for getting off world again, that will come in due time. Do not seek out shadows in the future; you will discover oftentimes that the sun of tomorrow will dispatch them. I would suggest sleep now. That eases the body, rests the brain, and one awakes better prepared to face the inevitable.”

  He jumped from the swing table and pattered to the door.

  “This way - to a bunk-“ Pointing with his nose, he indicated a door directly across the level landing. “Do not worry - there is an alarm which will rouse you when we do enter atmosphere once more.”

  I pushed the door aside. There was a bunk and I threw myself on it, suddenly as tired as I had been hungry. I felt Eet leap to my side and curl up with his head on my shoulder. But his mind was sealed and his eyes closed. There was nothing to do but yield to the demands of my overtired body and follow him into slumber.

  I was jerked out of that blissful state by a strident buzzing far too close to my ear. When I looked blearily around I saw Eet sitting up, combing his whiskers between his fingers.

  “Re-entry alarm,” he informed me.

  “Are you sure?” I sat up on the bunk and ran my hands through my hair, but not with the neat results of Eet’s personal grooming. It had been far too long since I had had a change of clothing, a bath, a chance to feel really clean. On my hands and body, the pink patches of new skin were fading. It should not be long before my piebald state was past and I would bear none of the stigma of the disease which had taken me from the Vestris.

  “Back where we started from, yes.” Eet did sound sure, though I could not share his complete confidence, and would not until I was able to look outside.

  “Might as well strap down right here,” he continued.

  “But the ship-“

  “Is on full automatic. And what could you do if it were not?”

  Eet was right, but I would have felt less shaky had Hory been riding in the pilot’s seat. It is very true that the autopilots have been refined and refined until they probably are more reliable than humans. But there is always the unusual emergency when a human reflex may save what a machine cannot. And, though the engines of a space ship practically run themselves, no ship ever lifts without pilot, engineer, and those other crewmen whose duties in the past once kept their hands ever hovering over controls.

  “You fear your machines, do you not?” As I buckled down on the bunk Eet stretched out beside me. He seemed prepared to carry on a conversation at a time when I was in no mood for light talk.

  “Why, I suppose some of us do. I am no techneer. Machines are mysteries as far as I am concerned.” Too much of a mystery. I wished I had had some instruction in spacing.

  But my thoughts and Eet’s answer, if he made one, were blanked out in the discomfort of orbiting before planet-fall. And I found that to be twice as great as what I had experienced before. My estimation of Hory arose. If he had constantly to take this sort of thing he was indeed tough. My last stab of fear concerned our actual touch-down. What if the automatic controls did not pick a suitable spot on which to fin in and we were swallowed up in some lake, or tipped over at set-down. Not that there was one thing I could do to prevent either that or any other catastrophe which might arise.

  Then I opened my eyes, with the thumping pain of a sun-sized headache behind them, felt the grip of planetside gravity, and knew that we had made it. Since the floor of the cabin appeared to be level, we had had a suitable landing, too.

  Eet crawled out from beneath the strap which had gone across my chest and his body. His quick recovery from the strains which always held me in thrall was irritating. I had thought him dead after that violent blow he had taken from the rod. But from
the time he had turned to bite the hand which held him, he had shown no sign of nursing even a bruise.

  “-see where we are-“ He was already going out the cabin door. And in the silent ship I could hear the scraping of his claws as he climbed the ladder. I followed at a far more moderate pace, stopping on the way to pick up a tube of restorative from the rack in the gallery. Hory would need that and we would need him - at least until we learned more about where we were and what might be ahead of us.

  The Patrolman’s eyes were open, fixed on Eet in a stare which suggested he did not in the least want to see the mutant. And Eet was in Hory’s lawful place, the pilot’s seat. For the first time since I had known him, my companion appeared truly baffled.

  As always the control board was rigged with an outside visa-screen. But the button which activated that was now well above Eet’s reach, meant to be close to the hand of a human pilot reclining in that swing chair.

  Eet had scrambled up as high as he could climb, his neck stretched to an amazing length. But his nose was still not within touching distance of that button. I crossed over to push it.

  The screen produced a picture. We seemed to be facing a cliff - and it was too close to have reassured me had I seen it before we landed. Insofar as I could compare it in memory, it was of the same yellow-gray shade as that which had been tunneled by the long-ago miners. But this had no breaks in its surface.

  For the first time Hory spoke. “Put on the sweep - that lever there.” Bound as he was, he had to indicate with his chin, using it as a pointer. I dutifully pressed that second button.

  The cliff face now appeared to travel past us at a slow rate. Then we saw what must lie to the left, open sky with only the tops of greenery showing.

  “Depress,” ordered Hory almost savagely. “Depress the lever. We want ground level.”

  There was almost a sensation of falling as our field of vision descended rapidly. The tops of the growth became visible as the crowns of large bushes. There was the usual smoke and fumes left by the deter rockets, a strip of seared ground between the ship and that shriveled wall of green. Nowhere did I see the giant trees which had caught the LB in for the forest.

  Neither were there any ruins, nor the wreckage of the ancient ship, nor, what I had dreaded the most, the spire of the Guild vessel. As the visa-screen continued to reveal the land about us, it looked very much as if we were in a wilderness. And how far we were from the mining camp was anyone’s guess.

  “Not too far.” Eet climbed up on the webbing to watch the sweep across the countryside. “There are ways of locating a ship, especially on a planet where there is no interference in the way of ordinary electronic broadcasting. He has already thought of that-“ The mutant indicated Hory.

  I turned to the Patrolman. “What about it? We are back on that planet, I know this vegetation. Can you discover the Guild ship or camp for us?”

  “Why should I?” He was not struggling against his bonds, but lying at his ease, as if action was no concern of his. “Why should I put myself into your friends’ hands? You have a problem now, have you not, Jern? Take off on the tape set in the autopilot and you will reach my base. Stay here - and sooner or later your friends will come. Then you had better try to make a deal. Perhaps you can use me as a bargaining point.”

  “You have given me little reason to want to do anything else,” I retorted. “But those are not my friends, and I am not about to make any bargain with them.” Almost I was tempted to let him believe that his supposition was the truth. But why play murky games when I might well need his cooperation in the future? The ship would take off on a tape, without the need for a human pilot. But whether he had a supply of such tapes on board, whether I could affix and use another, whether I could be sure my choice would not merely take me to another Patrol post, that I must find out. And time to learn might be running out - they might already be tracing us.

  I - we - needed Hory, yet we must not make too much of that need lest he play upon it. So I had to convince him that we must cooperate, if only for a short period of truce.

  “Do you know what they hunt back there?” I tried a different track.

  “It is easy enough to guess. They try to find where those stones were mined.”

  “Which-“ I said slowly, “Eet has discovered, though they have not.”

  I feared some denial from Eet, but he made no attempt at communication. The mutant was still watching the screen as if the picture on it was the most important thing in the world. I was feeling my way, but it heartened me a little that he had not promptly protested my assertion concerning his knowledge.

  “Where is it then-?”

  Hory must have known I would not answer that. The screen now showed a wider break in the growth. Beyond the ground our descent had scorched was a slope of yellow sand, of so bright and sharp a color as I had not seen elsewhere on this dusky world. That provided a beach for a lake. The water here was not slime-ringed, murky, and suggestive of evil below its surface; it had not been born of any dying flood. This was as brightly green as the sand was yellow, so vividly colored both they might have been gems set in dingy metal.

  “It is the nature of these stones” - I made a lecture of my explanation, supplying nuggets of truth in a vast muffling of words - “that they seek their own kind. One can actually draw you to another. If you will yield to the pull of the one you have. Eet took the ring just before the Guild ship landed. We had been following such a pull, and he continued to follow it. He found the source of the attraction-“

  Eet gave no sign he heard my words. He was still watching the screen in complete absorption. Suddenly he made one of the few vocal sounds I had ever heard from him. His lips parted to show his teeth, cruelly sharp, and he was hissing. Startled, I looked at the view on the visa-plate.

  SIXTEEN

  The viewer swept on. What we now saw must be on the other side of the ship. And if the rest of the landscape had been free of any signs that intelligence had ever been there, that was now changed.

  An arm of the lake made a narrow inlet. Set in the middle of that was a platform of stone blocks. It was ringed by a low parapet, on which stood stone pillars in the form of heads. Each differed from its fellows so much as to suggest that if they did not resemble imagined gods, they had been fashioned to portray very unlike species. But the oddest thing was not their general appearance, but that from those set at the four corners there curled trails of greenish smoke, almost the shade of the water washing below. It would seem that those heads were hollow and housed fires.

  Yet, save for that smoke, there was no sign of any life on the stone surface of the platform. We could see most of it, and unless someone crawled belly-flat below that low parapet, the place was deserted. Eet continued to hiss, his back fur rising in a ridge from nape to root of tail.

  I studied those heads, trying to discover in any one of them some small resemblance to something I had seen before on any of the worlds I had visited. And, in the fourth from the nearest smoking one, I thought that I did.

  “Deenal!” I must have spoken that word aloud as I recalled the museum on Iona where Vondar had been invited to a private showing of a treasure from remote space. There had been a massive armlet, too large to fit any human arm, and it had borne such a face in high relief. Old, from one of the prehuman space civilizations, named for a legend retold by the Zacathans - that was Deenal. And about it we knew very little indeed.

  Yet that was the only one - I counted the heads - out of twelve that I had any clue to. And each undoubtedly represented a different race. Was this a monument to some long-vanished confederation or empire in which many species and races had been united?

  We have nonhuman (as we reckon “human”) allies and partners, too. There are the reptilian Zacathans, the avian-evolved Trystians, the strange Wyverns, others - a score of them. One or two are deadly strangers with whom our kind has only wary contact. And among those aliens who are seemingly humanoid, there are many divisions and mutations. A man
in a lifetime of roving may not even see or hear of them all.

  But Eet’s reaction to this place was so astounding (his hissing signs of hostility continued), that I asked:

  “What is it? That smoke - is there someone there?”

  Eet voiced a last hiss. Then he shook his head, almost as if he were coming out of a state of deep preoccupation.

  “Storrff-“

  It was no sound, nor any word I recognized. Then he corrected himself hurriedly, as if afraid he might have been revealing too much in shock.

  “It does not matter. This is an old dead place, of no value-“ He could have been reassuring himself more than us.

  “The smoke.” I brought him back to the important point.

  “The sniffers - they take what they do not understand to make of it a new god cult.” He appeared sure of that. “They must have fled when we landed.”

  “Storrff-“ Hory voiced that word which Eet had planted in our minds. “Who or what is Storrff?”

  But Eet had himself under complete control. “Nothing which has mattered for some thousands of your planet years. This is a place long dead and forgotten.”

  But not to you, I thought. Since he did not answer that, I knew it was another of those subjects which he refused to discuss. And the mystery of Eet deepened by a fraction more. Whether the Storrff were represented by one of those heads, or whether this place itself was Storrff, he was not going to explain. But I knew that he recognized it or some part of it, and not pleasantly.

  Already the screen was sliding past, returning to our first view of the cliff wall. Eet climbed down the webbing.

  “The ring-“ He was making for the ladder.

  “Why?”

  But it seemed that was another subject on which he was not going to be too informative. I turned back to Hory with the restorative. I broke off its cap and held it to his mouth while he sucked deeply at its contents. Must we keep him prisoner? Perhaps for the time being. When he had finished I left him tied in the seat to follow Eet.