The Zero Stone Read online

  The ring was no longer affixed to the top of the box. There was a spot of raw metal where it had been. Eet stood at the wall on the other side of the cabin, his forefeet braced against that surface, staring up at a spot too far above his head for him to reach.

  There clung the ring as tightly as if welded. But it was not a cementing of the band which held it so. Instead the stone was tight to the metal. And when I tried to loosen it, I had to exert all my strength to pull it free of the surface. All the while it blazed.

  “That platform in the inlet-“ I spoke my thought aloud.

  “Just so.” Eet climbed up me. “And let us now see where and why.”

  I stopped by the arms rack inside the hatch, the ring, in my palm, jerking my left arm across my body at a painful angle. A laser in my hand would give me more confidence than I had felt earlier.

  The ramp cranked out and down and we exited into bright sunlight, my hand pulled away from me. The charred ground was hot under my lightly-covered feet, so that I leaped across it. At the foot of the cliff I turned toward the inlet, allowing the ring to pull me.

  “Not a cliff mine.” I still wondered about that.

  “The stone is not from this world.” Eet was positive. “But - there is that out there” - he indicated the platform - “which has more draw than the cache in the ruins. Look at the ring!”

  Even in the sunlight its fire blazed. And the heat from it was enough to burn my hand, growing ever more uncomfortable, though I dared not loose my hold on it lest it indeed fly through the air, not to be found again.

  I plowed through sand which engulfed my feet above the ankles. It was a thin, powdery stuff into which I sank in a way I did not like. Then I came to the water’s edge. In spite of its brilliant color, it was not transparent, but opaque, and I had no idea of its depth. The ring actually jerked me forward and I had to fight against wading in. Nor could I see any way of climbing up to the platform, since it would be well above the head of one in the water and there was no break in its wall.

  Had I followed the pull instead of fighting it until I wavered back and forth on the bank, I might have fallen straight into one of the traps of this planet. Only the trap became impatient and reached for me. The emerald surface broke in a great shower of water, and a head which was three-quarters mouth gaped in a hideous display of fangs and avid hunger.

  I thumbed the laser as I stumbled back into the thick sand. The beam shot straight into that exposed maw, and the creature turned and twisted frenziedly though it uttered no cry. It was armored in thick scales and, I believed, by chance alone, I had struck its most vulnerable point. Around it the water was beaten into green froth by its struggles and it was still writhing as it sank. Then it arose partly to the surface, drifting from between me and the platform.

  Moments later the body began to jerk from side to side and I caught dim glimpses of things which tore at it, devouring the eater in turn. But I was duly warned against trying to cross that strip of inlet, narrow as it was.

  “The sniffers-“ I remembered Eet’s report. “If they use this as a temple, how do they reach it?” Of course they could be immune to the water lurkers, but that I did not accept too readily.

  “We have not seen the other side,” Eet returned. “We might do well to explore in that direction.”

  The pull of the ring was a force against which I had continually to fight as I walked along the beach, first paralleling the platform and then away from it. When we reached the end of the water and I could see the other side, Eet was proven right as he had been so many times before.

  Lying on the sand was a collection of saplings and poles, tied and woven together with twisted ropes. Properly moved into place, it could span between beach and platform, though it would then be at a sharp slope.

  The ring pulled me on, and it seemed to me that its tug was stronger, as if it grew impatient, redoubling its demand on me. I found myself running, or trying to run, through the sand, though it was hard to keep my feet, my left hand, holding the ring so tightly my fingers cramped, straight out, across my body, pointing to the platform.

  When I reached the bridge I was caught in a dilemma. To let go of the ring, to holster the laser, both actions might mean disaster. Yet I was not sure I could shift the bridge without using both hands and all my strength. The wood lengths from which it had been made were bleached white and might be lighter than they looked - but-

  Carefully, fighting until I was sweating as if I had been in another brawl with Hory, I forced the ring back to my chest, unsealed a slip of the coverall, and clapped the band inside. Within my clothing it pushed out the fabric, but that was tough and would hold.

  The laser went into my belt, and I hurried to deal with the bridge. It was unwieldy, but my hopes that it was light were realized. I got it up and swung it around, so that the other end dropped on the top of the wall. And I had no sooner done that than the seal on the breast of my coverall burst open. Not the fabric, but the fastener had yielded to the struggling of the ring.

  My grab missed the band. With the stone flashing in triumph, it flew out toward the platform. Now I must follow.

  I made that trip on my hands and knees, Eet running as a dark streak ahead. And I felt particularly vulnerable as I climbed. For the span swung alarmingly under my weight and I thought that at any moment it would slide from its hold on the upper wall and hurl me into the water.

  There was also the possibility that the sniffers might return. And I had no wish to conduct a running battle up or down this very precarious passage. But at last I was able to put out a hand and rest it on solid and unyielding stone, pull myself to the dubious safety of the wall, and then jump to the platform.

  The smoke from the nearest head trailed about me, and I sneezed at its odor. Then I thought, for a second or two, that there was a fifth fire lit in the center of the platform, though this did not smoke. Eet was warily circling that blaze - which was no fire after all, but the stone, in such furious display of energy as I had never seen.

  “Keep off!” Eet’s warning stopped me. “It is too hot to handle. It is trying to reach what calls it so strongly. And it will either destroy itself now, or reach that which it seeks. But it is beyond our control.”

  I knelt to see the better. Beyond our control? It had always been that. We had set it to our service in the ship, but how easily it had broken free. And all other times we - or I - had obeyed it and not it me.

  Eet was right. The warmth that came from it was now a seething furnace heat. There was a raw radiance which hurt my eyes, a thrust of heat that drove me back and back, until I crouched against the wall beneath one of the smoking heads.

  The mutant was probably right in believing that this unendurable burst of energy fought to destroy the stone, burn it to one of those cinders. But if it sought death, it was going in a blaze of glory.

  I had to shield not only my eyes but my face against the fury. Eet was not with me. I hoped he was safe on the other side of that inferno.

  “Just so,” he let me know. “It is still trying to cut through.”

  I did not try to witness the struggle. The bursting light would have blinded me. Even though I shut my eyes, held my hands tightly across them, and turned my face to the wall, I could feel the effects of the holocaust. Could I bear it much longer? If the heat increased I might be seriously burned, or forced into the lake. Between one fate and the other there was little choice. Then - that lashing heat was gone! The stone had died-

  Pushing around, I got to my feet. I did not take my hands from my face and open my eyes until I stood upright. Then I looked away, dreading to face what must lie in front of me.

  When I did, I fully expected to see a charred cinder. But what was there was an opening in the platform, a perfect square, as if some door had been burned away. And the light from below was not exactly faded, but was pulsating in a less strident and eye-destroying way.

  Eet had already reached the hole. I saw his head shoot out and down as he stretche
d his neck to its greatest extent to view what lay there. But I went more cautiously, testing each block I stepped upon. That hole bore a likeness to a trap door and I had no wish to be caught in such.

  The surface seemed solid enough, and with a couple of hesitant strides I joined my companion to look into the interior. The glowing stone lay on a coffer such as the one we had seen in the derelict ship. But the stones in this were very much alive, more so even than those in the cache of the ruins. And their light, coming through a slit, gave us an excellent view of the vault.

  It would seem that the platform was only the outer shell of a room, perhaps a storeroom like that of the ruins. There were many boxes in orderly piles along its walls, and none of them had been affected by time. All were tightly sealed, showing not even hair-thin marks of an opening.

  Only after I had studied them for a long moment did their general size and shape make me uneasy. There was something about them - long, narrow, not too deep. What was it-?

  “Can you not see?” asked Eet. “These did not give their dead to the fire; they hid them away in boxes, as if they could lock them from the earth and the changes of time!” His contempt was cold.

  “But those stones - if this is a tomb, why leave the stones here?”

  “Do not many races bury treasures with their dead, that those no longer with them may carry into the Final Dark what they esteemed most in the days of their strength?”

  “Primitive peoples, yes,” I conceded. But that a race which had achieved space flight would do so - no. And now I noted something else. While many of those boxes did bear too close a resemblence to coffins to dismiss Eet’s explanation as fantasy, there were others of different dimensions.

  Eet interrupted my thoughts. “Look about you!” His head shot up and turned from side to side, the nose pointing at those rows of heads. “Different species, perhaps different shapes for bodies. This was a composite tomb, made to hold more than one people-“

  “Yet all following a single burial ceremony?” I countered. For even among the same species there are different modes of paying honor and bidding farewell to the dead. And to find one vault holding so many burials, seemingly united-

  “It might be so,” Eet answered. “Let us assume that a composite garrison, even a single ship’s company, were marooned here. That there was no chance for their eventual return home. Yet, they would hope that in the future there might come those to seek out their final resting place.”

  My mind took an imaginative leap. “And the stones were then left as payment for their return to their proper worlds, or for the type of funeral they desired?”

  “Just so. Those would do as burial fees.”

  How long had they waited? Did the worlds which had given them birth still exist? Or did these planets now lie barren under dying suns half the galaxy away? Why had the builders of this place remained here? Had their empire broken apart in some vast and sudden war? Had the relief ships never come? Had the ship fallen at the ruins been their last hope, destroyed before their eyes in some mechanical or natural catastrophe? And the derelict we had found drifting - had that been a relief ship they had awaited? When it did not arrive had they surrendered to the fact of no escape and built this vault to tell their story to the future?

  I glanced from wall to wall of that tomb. There was no message left there for our reading. Then I looked once more at the heads of the parapet. These, seen close up, were eroded to some extent, but they had not been as badly aged as the ruins by the cliff. Were they the actual portraits of those resting below, or did they only represent types of races?

  Six were definitely nonhuman. Of those, one, I believed, was insectile, at least two vaguely reptilian, one batrachian. The rest were humanoid enough to pass as kin to my own species. Two were as manlike as the space rovers of my own day. There were twelve of them - but what had brought such a mixture to this planet?

  I turned to Eet. “This must be the source of the stones - and these came to mine them.”

  “Leaving the galleries picked so clean? That ring did not lead to them. I do not believe that could be true. This may have been a way station for such a shipment. Or it may have had a purpose we cannot conceive of now. But - the fact remains that we do have here a cache of live stones. Enough, as that Patrolman would point out, probably to disrupt the economy of any government. The man or men who take that box and are able to hold it will rule space - for as long as they can keep the stones.”

  I came back to the vault opening. “The light- it is beginning to die. Perhaps the stones are also-“ It was decidedly less light in the crypt.

  Eet crossed the platform in a couple of his bounds, leaping now to the parapet. Only for a second did he so face the ship, his whole stance suggesting he was alert to what I could neither see nor hear. Then he was back at the same speed.

  “Down!” He dashed against me, his impetus striking me almost waist-high. “Down!”

  I did drop, my feet going over the edge of the opening. Then I swung by my hands and landed with a jar on the floor, scraping against the side of the box which held the stones. Though the light they emitted was now no more than a small and flickering fire, it was enough to show me safe footing.

  I glanced up just in time to see a spear of light flash across the opening, hardly above the level of the parapet. Laser - but not a hand one! That was from the barrel of a cutter, and it must have been fired from the ship!

  Eet climbed a pile of those boxes. He was crouched now well away from the hole, yet near the wall facing the ship, his head laid to the stone blocks as if through them he could still hear something.

  I put my hand on the ring. There was warmth in it, and a gleam to the stone, but as far as I could see, it no longer threatened any would-be wearer. And, to my surprise, it did not adhere to the box, but came away easily. For safekeeping I put it into the front of my coverall, making sure the seam was tightly sealed.

  Again I looked to Eet. The glow was further reduced, but not entirely gone. I could see him well enough.

  “Hory?” I asked.

  “Just so. It would seem he had resources we did not know about. Somehow he loosed himself. He has now tried to kill us and failed, so he will search for another and more effective form of attack.”

  “Go off world-bring in the Patrol?”

  “Not yet. We have hurt his pride sorely by what we have done to him. There was more to his being here, I believe, than we - or I - first read in his mind. He may have had an inner shield. Also, he believes if we are left here we shall of necessity join forces with the Guild and perhaps be beyond reach before he can return. No, he wants the ring - and our deaths - before he goes.”

  “Well, we may not be dead - but how will we get out of here?” To try to climb again to the platform would expose us to Hory’s beam. He need only wait; time was now on his side.

  “Not altogether,” Eet informed me. “If the Guild left men here, and we can safely conclude that they did, they will have monitored our planeting. And they will send to see who landed. Remember, they picked up Hory the first time. Almost too easily. Now I wonder why.”

  I brushed aside Eet’s speculations about the past. “We may be half a continent away from their camp.”

  “But they must have some form of small aircraft. It would be necessary for their explorations. Yes, they will come - and I do not think we are as far from their base as you suggest. The ruins were once part of a settlement of some size. This tomb would not be located too distant from that.”

  “Always supposing it is a tomb. So we have to sit here and wait for the Guild to come after Hory. But how will we be any better off then?”

  “We shall not, if we do so wait,” Eet answered calmly.

  “Then how do we get out - just by wishing?” I asked. “If we top that hole, he burns me - though you might be able to make it”

  Eet still held his listening position against the wall. “Just so. An interesting problem, is it not?”

  “Interesting!” I
curbed my temper. I could think of several things to call the present situation, all of them more forceful than “interesting.”

  SEVENTEEN

  My hand kept returning to the ring beneath my coverall. It had led us on a wild chase, probably to our deaths - where we would lie in company. I glanced around the vault. The light was low, and shadows crept toward us from the rows of ominous boxes. Behind those was only the heavy masonry of the walls. Even if we were able to cut through on the opposite side from the ship so that Hory might not sight our going, we would still have the water to cross.

  The ring. It had saved me and Eet before, though perhaps that was only incidental to its seeking for its kind. Could it do anything to get us out of here? Hory wanted it - wanted it badly

  I glanced at Eet, who was now a barely discernible blot against the wall.

  “Could you reach Hory’s mind from this distance?”

  “If there was a reason - I think so. His has - at least on the surface - a relatively simple pattern - like yours.”

  “How much influence could you bring to bear on him under contact?”

  “Very little. Such a tie needs cooperation to be successful. The Patrolman does not trust me, nor would he open his mind to me now. It would be necessary to break down active resistance. I coud not hold him in any thrall.”

  “But - you could me?” I did not know just what I fished for. I was one feeling his way through the dark by touch alone. If I chose rightly it meant life; if I failed - well - we might not be worse off than at present.

  “If you surrendered your full will. But that is not in you. There is a stubborn core in your species which would resist any take-over. Whether you wished to cooperate or not, I would have a struggle on my hands.”

  “But Hory does not know that. All he knows is that you communicate mentally. He knows, though he will not admit it, that you are not an animal. Suppose he were led to believe that you have been controlling me all along, that I am only hands and feet to serve you. Suppose I acted that part now, got out there saying you were dead, I was free and wanted nothing more than to get back with him - bringing the ring?”