The Zero Stone

by Andre Norton

  Those patches of moss with the breathing cups were not to be seen on this level. Instead there was a rough, spiky excrescence from which hung long drooping, thread-thin stems or tentacles. These exuded drops of sap or a similar substance. And the drops glowed faintly. They were, I believed, lures, attracting prey either by that phosphorescence, or by their scent. For I saw insects stuck to them, sometimes thrashing so hard to be free that the threadstems whipped back and forth.

  Eet halted beside me, but I could sense his impatience at the slowness of my descent. Unburdened by a suit, he could have already reached the ground. Now he kept urging me to go on. But if he had some special fear of this arboreal world, he did not share it with me. His attitude had grown more and more like that of an adult dealing with a child who must be cared for, and whose presence hinders and makes more difficult some demanding task.

  Groaning, I began the descent again. Eet flashed by me and was gone with an ease I envied bitterly as I took up my crawl, hook, hold, free, hook, crawl. As the gloom increased I began to worry more about my handholds, about being able to see anchors for the hooks.

  It was as if I had started at midday and were now well into evening. The only aid was that more and more of the vegetation appeared to have phosphorescent qualities and that the spike growths with lures became larger and larger, giving a wan light. This glow grew brighter as darkness advanced. Perhaps the dusk really was due to the passage of time, and planet night was nearly upon me.

  The thought of that led me to greater efforts. I had no wish to be trapped, in the dark, climbing down this endless vine staircase. So I passed without halting two other limbs which offered tempting resting places and kept doggedly on.

  Since that creature which had drunk from the pool plant had vanished I had seen no life except insects. But there were those in plenty and they varied from crawlers on vine and bark to a myriad of flying things. Some of the largest of those were equipped with spectral light patches too. Their antennae, their wings, and other parts of their bodies glowed with color instead of the ghostly grayish illumination of the plants. I saw sparks of red, of blue, of a clear and brilliant green - almost as if small gems had taken wing and whirled about me.

  I was sure it was night when I slipped over the last great loops of vine which arched out and away from the tree, and which carried me, as I clung to their now coarse-textured surfaces, down to the floor of the forest. I landed feet first on a soft sponge of decay, into which I sank almost knee-deep. And it was as dark as a moonless and starless night.

  “Here!” Eet signaled. I was floundering, trying to get better footing in the muck. Now I faced around to the point from which that hail had come.

  The roots of the vines stretched out about the monster bole of the tree, so that between them and the trunk was a space of utter dark, where none of the light plants grew. It seemed to me that my companion had taken refuge in there. Painfully I pulled loose from the sucking grip of the mold, using the vine stems as a lever, and then I edged between two of them into that hollow.

  Save that we lacked light, and weapons, we had won to a half-safe refuge. I could not guess as to the types of creatures roaming the floor of the forest. But it is always better to assume the worst than to try for a safety which does not exist. And on most worlds the lesser life is tree borne, the greater to be found on the ground.

  I half sat, half collapsed in that hollow, the spread of a tree root giving support to my back. I faced outward so that I could see anything moving beyond that screen of vine roots. And the longer I sat there, the more I was able to pick out, even in the dark.

  In my harness was the beamer, yet I hesitated to flash it unless the need was great. For such a light might well attract attention we would desire most to avoid. I could sight some of the sparks of light marking flying creatures. And now there were others which did not wing through the air, but crawled the ground.

  There were sounds in abundance. A dull intermittent piping began once I was settled. And later a snuffling drew near and then faded away again. I craved sleep, but fought it, my imagination only too ready to paint what might happen if I closed my eyes to a danger creeping or padding toward our flimsy refuge.

  The beamer was in my hand, my finger on its button. Perhaps a sudden flash of light would dazzle a bold hunter and give us a chance of escape, were we cornered.

  Eet climbed to what appeared to be his favorite resting place, my shoulders. His weight was more than I had remembered; he must be growing, and faster than I had known any animal cub or kitten to do so. I felt the rasp of his wire-harsh hair against my skin. Certainly Eet was no pet to be smoothed.

  “Where do we go now?” I asked, not because I thought he could give me a good answer, but just for the comfort of communication with another who was not as alien as this place in which I crouched.

  “At night - no place. This is as good as any to hide in.” Again I read impatience in his reply.

  “And with the morning?”

  “In any direction. One is as good as another. This is, I think, a large forest.”

  “The LB crashed not too far away. Some of its survival tools - the weapons - if they still work-“

  “Commendable. You are beginning to think again. Yes, the ship should be our first goal. But not our final one. I do not think any help will come seeking us here.”

  I found it harder and harder to fight sleep, and felt the tickle of Eet’s fur as he settled himself more heavily across my shoulders and chest.

  “Sleep if you wish,” his thought snapped at me. “Treat your body ill and it will not obey you. We shall need obedient bodies and clear minds to face tomorrow-“

  “And if some night prowler decides to scoop us out of this hole? I do not think it is any safer than a tark shell.”

  “That we shall face if it happens. I believe my warning senses are more acute than yours. There are some advantages, as I have said, to this particular body I now wear.

  “Body you now wear- Tell me, Eet, what kind of a body is really yours?”

  I had no answer, unless the solid wall which I sensed snapping down between our minds could be considered an answer. It left me with the feeling of one who has inadvertently insulted a companion. Apparently the last thing Eet wanted to disclose was the life he might or might not have had before Valcyr swallowed the stone on the swamp world.

  But his arguments made sense; I could not go without sleep forever. And if he had those warnings which animals possess and which have long been blunted in my species, then he would be alerted long before I could hear or sense trouble on the way.

  So I surrendered to sleep, leaning back against the tree root with the night of the strange world dark and heavy about me. And I did not dream - or if I did, I did not remember. But I was startled out of that slumber by Eet.

  “-to the right-“ A half-thought as sharp as a spear point striking into my brain roused me. I blinked, trying, to come fully awake.

  Then I could see it, a glimmering. I thought that the dusk in which I had fallen asleep was not nearly as thick now.

  It stood, not on four feet, but as a biped on two, though hunched forward, either as if that stance were not entirely natural, or as if it were listening and peering suspiciously. Perhaps it could scent our alien odor. Yet the head was not turned in our direction.

  Like the colored insects and the plants, it had a phosphorescence of its own. And the effect was startling, for the grayish areas of light did not cover it as a whole but made a pattern along its body. There was a large round one on the top of the skull, and then below that, where the eyebrows of a human might be located, two oval ones. The rest of the face was dark, but ridges of light ran along the outsides of the upper and lower limbs, and three large circles such as that which crowned the head ran in a line down the center of the body. For the rest I could see that the four limbs were much thicker than those lines of light, and that the body was roughly ovoid, the wider portion forming the shoulders.

  It moved a
little away from the vines where it had stood and now I perceived that it carried a club weapon. This it swung up and down in one quick blow, and I heard an ugly hollow sound, which marked the striking of a victim. The attacker reached down a long arm and gathered up a limp body. With its kill in one hand and the club in the other it turned and was gone, bursting through the vines at a speed which almost matched that of the drinker from the pond plant.

  It was certainly more than an animal, I decided. But how far up the ladder from primitive beginnings I could not guess. And it had been as big as a tall man, or even larger.

  “We have company,” I observed, and felt Eet move restlessly.

  “It would be wisest to seek the LB,” he returned. “If that is not too badly damaged- The day is coming now.’

  As I got to my knees to crawl out of our temporary shelter I wondered in which direction we should go. I certainly could not tell. And if Eet did no better we could pass within feet of the wrecked ship and perhaps never sight it. I had heard of men who wandered lost in circles in unfamiliar territory when they had no guides or compasses.

  EIGHT

  “Any suggestions as to how we do find the ship?” I asked Eet.

  Without inquiring if I cared to be his mode of transportation, he had climbed to my shoulders. In this dank heat and with the weight of the suit pressing me down, his presence was a drag.

  Eet’s head waved back and forth, almost as if he could sniff out our path. There was a constant patter of drops from above. It might have been raining forever in the dusk of the forest - or rather, dripping from the condensation of moisture above.

  No underbrush existed here, save for the parasitic plants, which apparently did not need sunlight and were rooted on tree or vine trunks. Most of these gleamed ghostlily.

  But there was no clear vista in any direction. The trunks of the tree giants stood well separated one from the other because of their size, the large and strong forcing their way to the light and sun, the weaker dying. However, every one bore a lacy coating of vines, those twined and twirled from their own rootings to make a chocked maze.

  Under the tree where we had seen the clubber make his kill we came upon a kind of path, maybe a game trail. It was tempting to turn into that easier way - tempting, but dangerous.

  “Right!” Eet’s head swung in that direction.

  “How-?”

  “Smell!” he rapped out. “Burning-hot metal- At least this body has some good points. Try right and walk softly.”

  “As I can,” I snapped in return. Slogging through the soft muck of long-dead vegetation was not easy. The plated boots I wore sunk in at each step and I had to pull my way wearily through either sifting sand or glutinous mud. Yet I clung to the suit, unwieldy as it was for such travel, because it gave me a sense of security.

  As usual Eet proved to be right. Light pierced the gloom ahead after we rounded two more of the giant tree boles and their attendant festoons of vine stems. In this dusk the brilliant, eye-dazzling shafts of sunlight made me stop short, blinking.

  There was a mass of splintered limbs, torn and mangled vines. Smoke still arose in languid trails, the stench of burned vegetation as thick as gas. But so full of sap or moisture was that growth that the fire set by the crash of the LB had not spread, but been quickly smothered. The ship had rammed down on nose and side and was buried deep in the muck, the metal shell crumpled and rent in some places.

  Across the forest hole its fall had torn, brilliantly hued insects darted or drifted, lighting to crawl over the still-oozing sap. I saw a scurry as some four-footed explorer crossed the burst hull. And, surveying that wreck, I was shaken by the closeness of our escape. What if we had not been able to scramble out before the LB had plunged from its first landing in the treetops?

  Fighting my way over the mass of splintered, entangled, and half-burned debris about the ship was a slow and painful business. Eet had jumped from my shoulder and reached our goal with a couple of bounds, then raced along the sloping side.

  “The hatch is buried,” he reported. “But there is a break here - not large enough for you-“

  “But all right for you.” I snapped apart a nasty trap of spiky, splintered limbs, pulled it away, then stepped out on a charred crust, my tread raising smoke and a bad smell.

  I was just in time to see Eet vanish into the rent. From here the wreck looked even worse, and I believed that the inside of the cabin must be folded and pleated until there could be room there for no explorer larger than the mutant.

  “A line-“ came my companion’s thought command. “Drop me a line-“

  I clumped through the smoldering debris and wriggled close to the break, dropping one of the hooked lines I had used in my tree descent. A weight swung upon it and I hauled in slowly, the line jerking as if Eet steadied whatever it raised.

  One of those things I had thought might be a weapon appeared, butt first. I grasped it eagerly. To have some arm available gave one a feeling of security. It did not fit comfortably in my palm and I guessed it had not been wrought for use by a human hand. There was no firing button such as one saw on laser or stunner, only a small lever difficult to finger. I pointed it at a ragged stub of limb projecting not too far away and drew back on that lever.

  There was a weak flash, hardly more than a blink of light, but nothing else. Whatever charge this weapon had once operated upon had been exhausted. It was of no more use to us now than an awkwardly shaped club. And I said so to Eet.

  He expressed no disappointment, but dived once more into the ship, while I dropped the line. In the end we assembled a motley collection of survival equipment. There was another canister of liquid, a sharp-bladed, foot-long tool which at least was still effective, for my practice swings at spikes cut those neatly through. Lastly there was a roll of fabric which could be folded into a small packet, or shaken out into a wide square, and which appeared to be moisture-resistant.

  I had found among the shredded debris some more of those pods; and had shelled their seeds into the canister we had already drained. We ate and drank before we decided in which direction to go.

  There was no use in lingering by the wrecked ship. Had it been an LB of my own people, we could have set up a call signal and stayed hopefully nearby - though even then eventual rescue would have depended upon so many chance factors that we might never have been found. But we now had not even that slender tie with any predictable future.

  “Where?” I asked as I made the fabric into a pack to lash to my harness. “Where-“ And I added to myself, “Why?”

  Eet scrambled up on the elevated end of the wreckage once again. His head turned and his nostrils expanded, as if he cast about for some scent as a guide. But as for me I could see no goal in this wilderness. We could continue to wander through the dusk under the trees until we died, and find no way out.

  “Water-“ His thought reached me. “A river- lake If we can find such-“

  A river meant an open highway of sorts - but leading where? And how were we going to find a river?

  I had a sudden inspiration. “The game trail!”

  Surely any animals large enough to beat that slot in the forest muck would need water. And a well-marked trail could lead to it.

  Eet ran back along the battered tail of the wreck.

  “An apt suggestion.” He jumped to land heavily on my shoulder, nearly rocking me off balance. “To the left, no, more that way-“ He used his forepaw to point. The path he indicated was not that which had been made by my blundering feet, but led off at a sharper angle to the left.

  As we left the torn clearing, I glanced back. Eet’s body somewhat masked it from view, but I saw that my dragging progress left very visible tracks. Anything with eyes could tail us. And what of the hunter with the club? Drawn to this break in the forest ceiling through curiosity, a native might well hunt us down.

  “A contingency we cannot help. Therefore we can only be alert,” Eet returned.

  Alert he certainly was, and not to my com
fort, he constantly changed his position. Too, since his weight was not inconsiderable, I was afraid of stumbling. The long knife from the LB allowed me to cut a path through the rim of debris beyond the burned space; then we were back in the dusky forest.

  I would have been entirely lost as soon as the clearing was left behind, for we had to weave in and out to avoid the latticework of the vine roots. But Eet appeared to know just where we were going, sniffing at intervals and then directing me, until I almost fell into a sharp slot which marked the game trail. It had been so well used that it was cut more than a hand’s breath below the surrounding surface soil. On it were prints of what might have been hoofs and paws, and even odder marks, overlaid one upon another.

  We came in time to another opening, where one of the giant trees had crashed to its death, perhaps seasons earlier, taking with it the lesser growth, giving living room to bushes and shrubs. So riotously had these grown that they made a vast matted plug in the opening. There were things which might be flowers, wide of petal, with deep throats. But I saw a green tentacle whip from one of those gaping throats, seize upon a small, winged thing which had lit on a petal, and carry the victim, still struggling, back into the cavity. The petals were brilliant yellow, striped with a strident green, and the whole thing gave off a sickly odor which made me turn away my head.

  The trail did not cut across this space, but skirted around the perimeter, almost three quarters of the circle, so that we reentered the forest not far from where we had come out. And it was just before we went back into that gloom that I paused in slashing at a looping vine to examine a sign beside the trail which proved to me that we were not alone in walking it.

  There was a clump of tall stalks, lacking leaves to their very tips. On each of these tips was a cluster of tiny, feathery darkred fronds. Two of the stalks had been so recently severed that a watery substance still oozed from the clean cuts across their hollow stems. I leaned to see them the closer and there was no doubt. They had not been broken, but cut. I sliced another to prove it. In my hand the smooth stalk was supple, whipping, but from the cut lower portion the liquid welled.