The Zero Stone

by Andre Norton

  “And just how are you going to make that clear to him?” Eet inquired. He left the wall, flowed over the boxes to hunch before me, his eyes level with mine. “If you emerge on the platform he will burn you instantly.”

  “Can you die spectacularly in a way he can see?” I countered.

  There was amusement rather than any direct answer. “Clutching my throat and flopping about?” he asked after a moment. “But with a laser you cannot perform so. I would be scorched fur and a dead body instantly. However, always supposing we could convince Hory I had made my exit permanently - what then?”

  “I would emerge, dazed, cowed, ready to be taken prisoner-“

  “While I would later come to your rescue? Do you remember that we played somewhat similar roles before? No, I do not believe Hory is so gullible. Do not underestimate him. He may be more than he seems.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I believe he has a mind shield - that I have read only surface thoughts - perhaps what he was programed to reveal. Did not you yourself once say ‘Do not underrate your opponents’? However, your suggestion has some points worth considering. Suppose you were the one to meet his laser beam?”

  “But - he hates you. Would be treat with you?”

  “Just so - a question. However, there is an implanted feeling in your race that size and superior muscularity count much. Hory hates me as a freak, a thing which belies his superiority. Therefore, he must deal with me - for his own emotional satisfaction - not by a flash of fire, but rather by delivering me to his superiors in triumph. So far we have bested him and that rankles. I wish we knew more.” Eet hesitated. “He is a puzzle. And he is also intelligent enough to know that time is his enemy. Do you think he has not already figured out a Guild detachment may be on its way here?

  “But they could not shake him out of his ship. Only - he needs the ring as a booster to take off. He wants the ring, and he would like me - you are merely incidental.”

  “Thank you!” But Eet’s dissection of the problem was not irritating - it was true. “So I die-“

  “As conspicuously as possible. I will then endeavor to take over the noble mind of Hory, promising him the sun, any vagrant moon, and, of course, the stars, all via the help of the ring. I think he will use a stun beam on me-“

  “But-“

  “Oh, I do not think that weapon will be as effective as he thinks it is. I shall be transported to the ship, doubtless installed in a cage, and Hory will see his way clear to departing.”

  “Leaving me here? How-“

  Again amusement from Eet. “I said I could not control Hory without his assistance. But there is one time when that assistance, unconsciously, may be mine for a short period. When he thinks I am totally in his power, he will then, by our hope, relax his guard. I do not need to advise you that period will be short. I am his shocked and docile prisoner, you are dead. He has full control-“

  “And if the stunner really works on you?”

  “Do you want to await death here?” Eet countered. “What one can say this or that sore stroke will not fall on his shoulders, aimed by the strong arm of fortune? Do you wish to sit here waiting for the Guild, or perhaps for Hory to switch on whatever heavy armament his ship affords and burn us to the bare rocks, setting even those to bubbling around our roasted ears? What I have learned of your minds suggests I have a good chance for what I propose to do. Esper powers are not used much and to mechanical devices such as cages there are always keys.”

  Perhaps my partnership with Eet had made me particularly susceptible to his self-confidence, or perhaps I merely wanted to believe that his plan could work because I could not turn up a better. But I made tacit agreement when I asked:

  “And how do I die by laser beam without being crisped in the process? That is a weapon one does not dodge, or survive. And Hory will not be aiming over my head, or any place except where it will do him the most good and me the least!”

  It was now twilight in the vault and I could see Eet but not too clearly. If he had a plausible answer I was willing to agree that in this partnership he was the senior.

  “I can give you five, perhaps ten heartbeats-“ he answered slowly.

  “To do what? Act as if I were going to jump in the lake? And how-“

  “I can expend a little power over Hory, confusing his sight. He will aim at what he thinks is his target. But that will not be you.”

  “Are you sure?” My skin crawled. Death by fire is something no one of my kind faces with equanimity.

  “I am sure.”

  “What if he comes to view the remains?”

  “I can again confuse his sight - for a short period.” After a long moment’s pause he spoke more briskly: “Now - we make sure of a future bargaining point-“

  “Bargaining point?” My imagination was still occupied with several unpleasant possible future happenings.

  “The cache of stones here. I do not think that without the ring they will be visible.”

  “The ring.” I took it out. “You will take the ring, and leave the stones here as bait to draw him back?”

  Eet appeared to consider that. “If he had more time perhaps. But I think not now. Give me the ring. These - we do not want them in sight, if and when he comes to pick me up.”

  It was my muscle which dragged the box from below the opening and concealed it back behind one of the rows of coffins.

  “Now!” Eet sat on a box. “He will not fire until you are out in the open, making a dash for the parapet. The laser may beam close enough so that you will feel its heat. The rest is up to you.”

  My good sense belabored me as I climbed up, reached out to grasp the edges of the opening. If- if- and if again-

  Eet popped out, running, heading for the parapet. I had only an instant and then I fell, a searing, biting pain along my side - a pain so intense that I was aware of nothing else for a second. I could smell my clothes smoldering. Then Eet was back with me, pulling at my coverall as if to urge me up and on, though in reality putting out those lickings of fire.

  His mind was closed to me, and I knew he was on the defensive, waiting for a second attack from our common enemy. Suddenly he stiffened, fell over, and lay still, though his eyes were open and I could see the fluttering of his breathing along his side. Hory had used a stunner even as Eet had foreseen, but how effectively? And I could not query Eet as to that.

  Around one of his forelegs was the ring. Perhaps his pawing at my smoldering clothing might have been translated by the watcher into a hunt for that. Now we lay still, I belly down, my head turned toward Eet, he flattened out, his legs stiff. Where was Hory?

  It seemed to me that we lay there for hours. Since we must be under observation from the ship, there was no chance to move. I had gone down at the touch of that searing beam, not in a planned fall, and my right leg, half doubled under my body, began to cramp. I would be in ho shape to carry on battle should Hory decide I was not safely dead. In fact he would be a fool not to crisp us now as we lay.

  Except that Eet was sure the Patrolman wanted him. And he had contrived to collapse so close to me that now a sweeping beam aimed from the ship could not remove one of us without killing the other into the bargain.

  I could not raise my head to watch the shore line or the span, both hidden by the parapet. Winged things came out of nowhere to buzz about us, crawl across my flesh. And I had to lie and take their attention with no show of life. In that period it was driven home to me again that a man’s hardest ordeal is waiting.

  Then I heard a crackling. Someone, or something, was climbing the span from the shore, the frail structure creaking and crackling under the weight. A many-legged thing crawled across my cheek and I shrank from its touch, so that it seemed my very skin must shrivel

  My field of vision was so limited! I was not even facing the direction where booted feet would be visible as they crossed the parapet. I heard the metallic click of the sole plates of space footgear on the stone.

  Now -
would Hory finish the job by simply turning a hand laser on me? Or would the illusion Eet promised hold long enough to deceive him? Perhaps Eet was truly stunned, unable to provide such cover.

  Those few moments were the longest of my life. I think had I come out of them with the touch of old age upon me I would not have been surprised.

  The boots came into my restricted line of vision. The crawling thing on my face now rested across my nose. A hand reached down and I saw the sleeve of a uniform. Fingers closed on Eet, swung him aloft out of my sight. I waited for a burning flash.

  But (and for an instant I could not believe it) the boots turned, were gone. I was not yet safe; he could pause before he climbed the parapet and fire at me again.

  I heard the scrape of his boot plates die away and listened once more to the creak of the span. He had only to pull that down or burn it to make me a prisoner.

  How long before I dared move? The need to do that became a growing agony in me. I lay and endured as best I could. What came at last was enough to fill me with despair - the clatter of a ship’s ramp being rolled in. Hory was back in his fortress and he had activated the sealing of the ship. Preparing to take off?

  I waited no longer, struggling against the stiffness and pain in my body, rolling into the shadow of the parapet. Then I pulled along to reach the span. It was still in place; Hory had not stopped to destroy it. Perhaps he intended to return and investigate what lay here after he had made sure of Eet and the ring.

  Half sliding, at a speed which left splinters in my hands, for I lay almost flat on that fragile link with land and allowed its slope to carry me to the beach, I reached the sand. Once ashore, I sprinted for the underbrush, expecting at any instant to be enveloped by fire.

  The very uncertainty of what might be happening, or Hory’s next move, was as hard to take as if I were under physical attack. I must rely entirely on Eet. And whether at this moment he was a helpless captive I did not know. But I could not expect more than the worst.

  There was one fairly safe place if I could reach it - directly under the fins of the ship. Always supposing Hory did not choose that particular moment to press the off button and crisp my cowering body by rocket blast. Throwing all caution to the winds, I dashed straight for the ship and somehow reached that hiding place. My side was ablaze with pain. The laser had not really caught me - I would have been dead if it had - but it had passed close enough to burn away the fabric and leave a red brand on my ribs.

  So far I had managed to keep alive. But now what? The ship was sealed, Eet imprisoned in it, and Hory the master of the situation. Would he lift off world? Or could his curiosity be so aroused by the vault that he would make another visit to it? The ring! What if he used the ring even as we had done and followed its guide? But would he be so incautious-

  “Murdoc!”

  Eet’s summons was as demanding as a shout from an aroused sentry.

  “Here!”

  “He is now under my control - for how long-“ Eet’s thread of communication broke. I waited, tense. Dare I beam to him where I was and how helplessly outside the sealed ship? If his control had slipped, then perhaps Hory would be able to pick that up too. I knew too little about his own powers.

  Then I saw the loops set in the fin, surely meant to be hand- and footholds, leading up to the body of the ship. But would they bring me to any hatch? They might be for the convenience of workmen only. That they might - a thin chance - be indeed a way in, made me move.

  My seared side hurt so badly as I racked it by my struggles that only will power kept me going. I reached the top of the fin. My ladder did not end there as I feared it would. The holds were now smaller, less easy to negotiate, but beyond them was the outline of a hatch.

  I took a chance- “Eet!” I am sure my summons was as strident as the one he had roused me with, because I knew this to be my last chance. “A hatch - lower - can you activate the opening?”

  I knew that I was asking the impossible. But still I made my way toward it, clung to the side of the ship as sweat poured down my face and arms, threatening my hold on those slippery loops.

  But the crack around the sealing was more pronounced. It was giving. I loosed one hand and beat upon it with all my strength. Whether that small expenditure of effort did hasten the process, or whether the controls suddenly loosened, I had no way of knowing, but the whole plate fell away.

  What I crawled into was a much larger space than the upper hatch into which the ramp led. And it was occupied, almost to the full extent of the area, by a one-man flitter - a scout intended for exploration use.

  I had found not only a door in but a possible escape out. Before I crawled over and around the machine to the inner hatch, I got out of the flitter one of its store of emergency tools, a bar for testing the composition of ground, and wedged it with all the strength I could to hold the hatch open. Now, even if Hory tried to take off, the ship would not rise. That hatch would have to be closed and he must do it by hand. The protection alarms of the ship would see to that.

  The inner hatch had no latch, and it gave easily. I was out in a corridor. I had a laser, and I had also taken an aid kit from the flitter. Now I leaned back against the wall to open that. I brought out a tube of plasta-heal and plastered its contents liberally over my ribs. That almost instantly-hardening crust banished pain and began the healing, giving me renewed strength and mobility.

  Then, feeling far more able to tackle what might await me above, I slipped along the ladder. Had I had more than a passenger’s knowledge of the ship I might have found a more secretive way from level to, level, but I did not. So I had to go openly, up to the control cabin, where I was sure I would find both Eet and Hory.

  I did not attempt to touch minds with Eet again. If my last appeal to him had alerted the Patrolman, then Hory would guess I was in the ship and would be readying traps for me.

  One small advantage I had. My feet had nearly worn through those coverings which had been the linings of the space boots. The material was tough but it had become very thin. The lack of boots now gave me silence as I took the core ladder one hesitant step at a time, listening ever for either a betraying noise from above, or the sound of engines.

  I had advanced to the level which held the galley. As yet I had heard nothing, nor had I had any message from Eet. The silence which covered my advance now seemed ominous to me. Perfect confidence on Hory’s part could keep him waiting for me. And since I would emerge from a well in the floor there, he would have me at his mercy when I reached my goal.

  Now I had only those last few steps. I flattened myself against the ladder, tried to make of my body one giant ear, listening, listening.

  “I know you are down there-“ Hory’s voice. But it sounded thin, strained, almost desperate, as if its owner was in such a vice of tension as to be on the raw edge of breaking. What could have reduced him to such a state?

  “I know you are there! I am waiting-“

  To burn my head off, I deduced. And then Eet broke in, but he was not addressing me.

  “It is no use, you cannot kill him.”

  “You- you-“ Hory’s voice arose in an eerie shriek. “I’ll burn you!”

  I heard the crackle of a laser beam and cringed against the ladder. Then I found myself climbing without my mind ordering my hands and feet into action. There was ozone in the air and I saw, shooting across the mouth of the well, flashes of light.

  Eet once more: “Your fear is self-defeating, as I have shown you.” He seemed very calm. “Why not be sensible? You are not unintelligent. Do you not see that a temporary alliance is going to be the only solution? Look up at that screen-look!”

  I heard an inarticulate exclamation from Hory. And then Eet spoke to me.

  “UP!”

  I took the last two steps with a rush, remained half crouched, my laser ready. But I did not need that. Hory stood, his back to me, a laser in his hand, but that hand had fallen to his side. He was staring at the visa-screen and I saw over his shou
lder what held him oblivious.

  Across the inlet, facing the platform of the vault, a square of gleaming metal pushed out of the brush, advancing onto the sand at a crawl. I do not know what type of machinery it hid, but there was a small port open at its top. And I thought that whatever lurked behind it was certainly a deadly promise.

  How well protected this ship might be I could not tell, but there are some weapons which it might not be able to withstand. A quick lift could be our only hope. But - the bar I had left in the hatch - an anchor keeping us grounded.

  “Eet-“ I paid no attention to Hory. “I have to unstopper a hatch - so we can lift-“

  I half threw myself into the well, skidding down the ladder in a progress which was a series of falls I delayed from level to level by grabs at the rails. Then I slammed along the corridor at the bottom, wedged past the flitter once more. I had done my work of locking the hatch open almost too well. Though I jerked at the bar, I finally had to use the butt of the laser to pound it loose. At last it fell with a clang. I pulled at the far too slowly moving door, brought it shut, dogged it down as fast as I could.

  Panting, I started back up the ladder. Would Hory’s solution be the same? If so, I would have to reach a shock cushion before we lifted. Also - what was going on in the control cabin?

  My ascent was not as speedy as the descent had been, but I wasted no time in making it. And I half expected to be greeted by a laser blast; or at least threatened into submission.

  But Hory stood with both hands on controls, not those of the pilot, but another set to one side. A beam flashed out from the ship. The visa-screen allowed us to follow its track as it struck across the platform. But it was mounted on a higher course now, to hit directly on that wall of metal moving slowly out of the brush.

  There was no resulting glow of the sort that would have followed such an impact on any surface I knew. It was almost as if the shield simply absorbed the ray Hory hurled at it.