Murdoc Jern #1 - The Zero Stone Page 8

  "I am Eet, myself, me-" If it understood my division of terms it was not interested. "I am Eet, returned-"

  "Returned-how? From where?"

  It settled back into the hammock, which swayed under its weight as light as it was, so that it must clutch at the webbing to keep its position.

  "Returned to a body," it replied matter-of-factly. "The animal made me a body—different, but usable. Though perhaps it needs some altering. But that can come when there is time and the necessary nutriments."

  "You mean you were a native, one of those we could not find? That because Valcyr ate that seed, you-" My thoughts jumped from one wild possibility to the next.

  "I was not native to that world!" There was a snap to that, as if Eet resented the suggestion. "They did not have that in them which could make Eet a body. It was necessary to wait until the proper door was opened, the right covering prepared. The beast from the ship had what I needed—thus she was attracted to the seed and took inside her the core from which Eet could be born again-"

  "Born again—from where?"

  "From the time of hibernation." There was impatience now. "But that is past—it need not be considered. What is of importance in this hour is survival-mine-yours-"

  "So I am important to you?" Why had it urged me out of the Vestris, saved me by removing my helmet in the LB? Did it need me in some way?

  "It is true that we have need of one another. Life forms in partnership sometimes make a great one out of a lesser," Eet observed. "I have obtained a body which has some advantages, but it lacks bulk and strength, which you can supply. On the other hand, I have skills I am able to lend to your fight for life."

  "And this partnership—it has some future goal?"

  "That has yet to be revealed. Now we think of continuing to live, a matter of major importance."

  "I agree to that. What are you hunting for?"

  "What you have already imagined might be here, the food and drink intended to sustain those escaping in this small ship."

  "If it is still here and has not dried to dust, or if it will feed us and not be poison." But I pulled myself up yet farther in the hammock and watched Eet claw open another locker.

  This contained two canisters set in shock-absorbing bands. And though Eet wrestled with them, he could not free either. At last I dragged my weak-legged self from my hammock to the next and managed to pry the nearest canister from its hooks.

  It had a nozzled tip. I gripped it between my knees and used one of the small tools from my harness to open it. Then I shook the can gently. There was the slosh of liquid inside. I sniffed, my mouth dry again as I thought of the wonderful chance that it might actually hold water. The semiliquid E-ration contained moisture but not really enough to allay thirst.

  Its smell was pungent, but not unpleasant. What I held could be drink, or fuel, or anything. Another chance among all those I—we—had taken since we had left the Vestris.

  "Drink or fuel, or what have you?" I stated the guesses to Eet, holding out the canister so that he, she, or it could sniff in turn.

  "Drink!" was the decided answer.

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "You think I say so just because I wish it? No. This much have I in this body: what is harmful to it, that I shall know. This is good—drink it and see."

  So authoritative was the command that I forgot it came from a small furred creature of unknown species. I put the nozzle to my lips and sucked. Then I almost spilled the container, for though the stuff which filled my mouth was liquid, it had a sour bite. Not wine as I knew it, but certainly not water either. Yet after I had swallowed inadvertently, my throat was cool and my mouth felt fresh, as if I had drunk my fill of some cool stream. I took another drink and then passed it to Eet, holding the container while it sucked. Thus we had our necessary moisture. But for food we were not so lucky. We found in another locker blocks of a pinkish stuff, dried and hard. Eet pronounced them dangerous, and if they were the E-rations of the LB, they were not for us.

  He found some queerly shaped tools and another set of weapons, but that was all—except for a box, in the last compartment, that had various dials and two rods which could be pulled out from a place of safekeeping on its back. These extended, and between them there was a thin tissue which expanded to form a film. I judged it a com device—doubtless meant to beep a distress signal once the party aboard the LB made their landing. But those it might have summoned were long since vanished from this portion of the galaxy.

  Since my species entered space we have known we were latecomers to the star lanes. There were other races who voyaged space, empires and confederations of many worlds which rose and fell, long before we knew the wheel and fire, and reached for metal to fashion sword and plow. We discover traces of them from time to time and there is a very brisk trade in antiques from such finds. The Zacathans, I believe, have archaeological records of at least three star empires, or alliances, all vanished before they pioneered space, and the Zacathans are the oldest people we have firsthand knowledge of, with a written history covering two million planet years! They are a long-lived race and prize knowledge above all else.

  Even this LB, could we possibly by some fluke land on an inhabited planet, would bring me enough from its sale to set me up as a gem buyer. But the chance of that happening was so small as to be infinitesimal. I would settle gladly for any sort of a landing where the air was breathable and there was enough food and water to sustain life.

  There was no reckoning time in the LB. I slept and so did Eet. We ate very sparingly, when we could no longer stand the demands of our bodies, and drank the liquid of the vanished voyagers. I tried to get more information out of Eet, but he stubbornly curled into a ball and would not answer. I say "he," for while he never stated his sex, if he had one, I came to think of him as male, and since he did not correct that assumption, I continued in it.

  We had but half a tube of nourishment left when that white light on the board, so steady that it had ceased to interest us, flashed into yellow and there was a warning buzz along the walls. I hoped (or did I fear?) that this meant a landing. And I huddled back in the hammock, Eet sprawled flat against me, wondering how well we would set down in a craft ages old and powered by energy close to extinction.

  SEVEN

  We must have blacked out in shock following our entrance into the atmosphere, for when I was again conscious of my surroundings, we lay in a ship which no longer vibrated with life—though it swayed under my half-aware movements as if we were caught in a giant net and there was no stable earth under us. I screwed the helmet of the suit back into place and saw that Eet had been prudent enough to return to the box. Then I crawled, inch by inch, to the hatch, the LB slipping and shuddering under me in the most alarming way.

  The inner catches on that were simple, devised for survivors who might have been injured and able to use only one hand. But when I tried to push it open there was resistance, and curls of white smoke trickled in. I had to fight the stubborn metal until I was able to wedge open a space wide enough to scramble through without tearing my precious suit.

  There I was met by more puffs of thick smoke. I looked around for a stable foothold. The LB seemed tobe sliding sideways and I had little time for choice. When it gave a convulsive tremble I jumped, into the smoke, and crashed through that veil into a mass of splintered and broken foliage, some of it afire.

  A branch as thick as my wrist, with a broken end like a spear point, nearly impaled me. I caught it with both hands and hung for a moment, thrashing wildly with my feet for some hold. But it bent under my weight and I slid inexorably down it in spite of my struggles. I crashed on, down through more branches, bringing up at last on a wider one where my harness caught on a stub of mossed wood and I found a precarious landing. There was a heavy tearing a little ways away. I thought that perhaps the LB had gone down. I clung to the stub which had hooked me and drew a deep breath as I looked around.

  The masses of leaves screening me in were a si
ckly yellowish-green, which here and there shaded to a brighter yellow, or a dull purplish-red. The branch under me was roughbarked, wide enough for two men to walk, and splotched with purple moss, in which grew spikes of scarlet crowned with cups which might be flowers, but which opened and shut as I watched with the rhythm of breathing or of a beating heart.

  There was a great ragged hole overhead which marked more than my own descent, probably the entrance of the LB. But elsewhere the canopy of growth was thick and unbroken.

  I drew the box containing Eet up beside me and saw that he was sitting on his haunches, looking about him with reptilian twists of his long neck, so that sometimes he appeared to turn his head completely around on his shoulders. There was a crashing which I did not really hear, but rather felt as a vibration through the shaking tree, and then a final thud which set my perch rocking under me. I judged that the LB had at last met the ground. The fact that so heavy a craft had taken so long to fall suggested two things—that this net of vegetation grew well above the ground, and that it was tough enough to catch the entering ship, cushion it for a space, delay its final landing.

  The smoke was thickening, coming from above. If there was a fire blazing there, then a withdrawal was certainly in order. To outrun a forest blaze in my unwieldy suit was nigh impossible.

  I got to my feet and edged along the limb, heading, I hoped, for the parent trunk. At least it grew wider and thicker ahead of me. There were other aerial growths besides the moss with the breathing cups. One barred my way very soon. The leaves were yellow, broad and fleshy, curving up so that those in the center formed a cup. And in that, water, or some colorless fluid, gathered. Above this leaf-enclosed pondlet was the first animate life I had seen.

  A flying thing perhaps as large as my hand unfolded gauzy wings to flutter away. It had been so much the color of the leaves that it was invisible until it moved. Another creature raised a dripping snout and bared teeth from where it crouched on the other side of the cup. Like the flying thing, it was camouflaged, for its waffled, warty covering was like the rough bark of the tree limbs, and of the same dark color. But the fangs it showed suggested that it was carnivorous, and it was about the size of Valcyr, with long legs which were clawed, clearly meant to grip and hold, perhaps not only the aerial trails it followed but also some prey.

  Nor did it have any fear of me, but stood its ground, fangs bared, its ugly head down, its shoulders hunched, as if it was about to spring.

  To advance I must cross the outer leaves of the pool plant. And while my challenger was small, I did not underrate it for that reason. There had been no laser with the suit—after ship custom all arms were locker-stored during the flight. Most Free Traders carried only the non-lethal stunners anyway. But I did not even have one of those.

  "Let it be." Eet's command rang in my head. "It will go-"

  And go it did, with a suddenness which left me believing it had vanished like some illusion wrought by a Hymandian sand wizard. I saw a flash across the bark beyond the pool plant, and that was all that marked its going.

  Cautiously I stepped onto the broad leaves. Their surfaces broke under my weight, and yellow stuff oozed up and about my boot soles, the leaves themselves turning dark, seeming to rot away at once, flaking in great shreds from the holes. More of the gauzy things took to the air, to splash back, as my passing put an end to their world.

  I slipped and slid, careful of every slime-coated step, until I reached the other side. My face was wet with sweat inside the helmet, and I was breathing slowly and with an effort. I had come to the end of my air supply, and whether it would mean death or no, I must open my helmet.

  Squatting down on the limb, I clicked open the latches and breathed, half expecting to have the lungs seared out of me by that experiment. But, though the air was laden with smells, and many of those noxious as far as I was concerned, I thought the air less bad than that I had encountered in the LB.

  I could hear now, and there were sounds in plenty. The buzzing of insects, sharp calls, and now and then a distant heavy thud, as if someone beat a huge drum and listened to its echoes dying gradually away. There was a rustling and crackling, too. I could smell a stench which was certainly born of burning, though I did not see any movement of tree-dwelling things which would suggest that the inhabitants of these leafed heights were fleeing a fire.

  Behind me the pool plant shriveled, its bruised leaves falling away in festering shreds. Now the inner petals or leaves which had cupped the water unclasped and a flood poured out, to cascade and then drip from the big limb into the mass of vegetation below, carrying with it wriggling, struggling things which had lived in it. The plant continued to die and rot until only a black blot remained on the limb, a most nauseating odor rising from it, making me move on.

  The limb road grew wider and thicker. Now it was a running place for vines, which crossed it and looped around it, forming traps for the feet of the unwary. I continued to sweat as the muggy heat held me. And the suit became more and more of a burden. Too, I was hungry, and I remembered the drinker at the pool, wondering if I could turn hunter with any success.

  "Out-!" Eet was economical with words now, but his meaning was plain. I put down his traveling box and opened it. He flashed out of its confines and stood poised on the limb, his head flicking from side to side.

  "We must have food-" I remembered what he had said about being able to tell what was edible and what was not. The fact that on an alien planet practically all food might mean death to off-worlders was to the fore of my mind. We might have made a safe landing here only to starve in the midst of what was luxurious plenty for the natives.

  "There-" He used his nose as a pointer, elongating his neck to emphasize his statement. What he had selected was an outgrowth on one of those serpentine vines. It rose like a stem, from which quivered some narrow pods, more flat than round. They shook and shivered as if they possessed some odd life of their own. And I could not see why Eet thought them possible food. They appeared less likely than the cluster of ovoid berries, bursting with ripe pulp and juice, which hung from another stem not too far away.

  I watched my companion harvest the pods with his forepaws. He stripped off their outer shells to uncover some small, far too small, purple seeds, which he ate, not with any appearance of relishing that diet, but as one would do a duty.

  He did not fall into convulsions, or drop in a fatal coma, but methodically finished all the buttons he could strip out of their pods. Then he turned to me.

  "These can be safely eaten, and without food you cannot go on."

  I was still dubious. What might be good for my admittedly half-alien companion might not nourish me. But it was the only chance I had. And there was another cluster of the trembling pods not too far beyond my hand.

  Slowly I drew the space stone from my gloved finger, stowed it away in a pocket on my harness, and then unsealed the gloves, allowing them to dangle from my wrists as I reached for the harvest.

  Once more I saw the healing scars of the blisters. My flesh was pink and new-looking in unseemly splotches against the general brown of my skin. Though I was not as space-tanned as a crewman might be, my roving life had darkened my skin more than was normal for a planet dweller. But I was now spotted in what I was sure must be a disfiguring manner, though I could not see my face to judge. Until the blotches faded, if they ever did, I would be marked as undesirable to any off-worlder. Perhaps it was just as well we had not made landing at a port; one look at me and I would have been sent into indefinite quarantine.

  Carefully I husked the pellets. They were larger than grains of hoswheat, hard and smooth to the touch. I raised them to my nose, but if they had any odor, it was slight enough to be overlaid by the general blast of smells all about us. Gingerly I mouthed several of them and chewed.

  They seemed to have no discernible taste, but became a floury meal between my teeth. I found them dry, hard to swallow, but swallow I did. Then, since I had taken the first step and might as well
go all the way, I harvested all within reach, chewing and swallowing, giving Eet another two clusters when he signified they would be acceptable.

  I allowed us some small sips from the canister of liquid out of the ship, which I had made fast to my harness. That cleared the dry-as-dust feeling from my mouth tissues.

  Eet had been moving impatiently back and forth along the branch as I ate, progressing in darting runs, pausing to peer and listen, then returning. Although it had been but a short time since his birth, he had all the assurance of an adult, as if he had achieved that status.

  "We are well above ground." He came back to settle down near me. "It would be well to get to a lower level."

  Perhaps as I had depended upon his instincts to find us food, so I should harken to him now. But the suit was clumsy to climb in, and I feared a false step where the vines were so entwined.

  I crawled on hands and knees, testing each small space in advance. Thus I came to the point from which those vines spread, the giant trunk of the tree. And that bole was giant indeed. I believe that had it been hollow, it would have furnished room for an average dwelling on Angkor, while its height was beyond my reckoning. I wondered just how far it was to the surface of this vegetation-choked world—if the whole planet was covered by such trees.

  Had it not been for the vines, I would have been marooned aloft, but their twists, slippery and unpromising as they looked, did afford a kind of looped stairway. I had two cords with hooked ends coiled in my harness—intended to anchor one during space repairs, though I had not discovered them in time to keep me on the Vestris. These I put to use now, hooking them to vines, lowering myself to the extent of the cord, loosing by tears to hook again. It was an exhausting form of progress, and I grew faint with the struggle. The muggy heat made it worse.

  Finally I came to the jut of another wide branch, even larger than the one I had left. I dragged myself out on that, thankful to have reached such a small link with safety. The thick foliage made this a gloomy place, as if I were in a cave. And I thought that if I ever did reach the surface of the forest floor, it would be to discover that day was night under the sky-hiding canopy. Perhaps it was the tear made by the LB which allowed even this much light to filter through.