The Zero Stone

by Andre Norton

  I glanced from the screen to look for Eet. There was a burned-out, melted-down mass of wiring to one side of the passenger webbing. But if that had caged the mutant, it had not done so for long. Now he clung to the pilot’s seat, swinging back and forth, as intent upon the screen as Hory.

  A second or two later, and the ship rocked as if a giant fist had beat upon it. Not from the direction of that advancing shield, but from behind. We had been intent upon one enemy and lowered our guard to another. There was no time to assess the nature of that second, only to feel what attack it launched. I kept my feet by grabbing at the back of the seat. Hory crashed against the bank of buttons he tended, caromed off to the floor. Lights flickered and ran wild across both boards.

  Eet sprang from his hold to the edge of the board. We were slightly aslant, enough to make it noticeable that we had been rocked from a straight three-fin stand. Another such blow would send us over, to lie as helpless as a sea dweller stranded ashore.

  “Cushions!” Eet’s warning rang in my head. “Blast off-!”

  I caught at Hory, pulled him over against the pilot’s chair so that we both lay half across the webbing. The quiver of the ship’s awaking was about us. I saw Eet’s paws playing across the board, his long body seemingly plastered to that. Then we did indeed blast off - into a nothingness of mind.

  EIGHTEEN

  There was the sickly taste of blood in my mouth, a lack of clarity in my mind-

  “Murdoc!”

  I tried to raise my head. Under me, for I lay on a smooth surface, a vibration reached into my body, bringing into life every ache and pain I had. I rolled, brought up against a wall, clawed above me for support, and at last got to my feet.

  Fighting against dizziness, I stared slowly about. Eet still clung to the edge of the control board. And drawing himself aloft, even as I had done, was Hory, blood trickling from a gash along his jaw, his movements discordant and fumbling.

  I turned to Eet. “We upped ship?”

  “After a fashion.” Seemingly he was not so affected by the force of the take-off.

  “Back on the sealed course again-“ I could remember better now.

  Hory shook his head as if trying to clear it from some bewildering fog. He looked at me, but in an unfocused way, as if he did not really see me. Or, if he did, my presence had no meaning for him. He put out a hand to catch at the pilot’s seat, pulled himself laboriously into that, and relaxed in its embrace.

  “We are on course.” His voice was drained and weak. “Back where we were. Next set down will be at the Patrol base - or do you want to reverse again?”

  He did not turn his head to look at me as he spoke. If the active combativeness had gone out of him, there was still a core of determination to be read in his tone as his voice grew stronger and steadied.

  “The Guild are in control down there.” I did not know what I wanted, save to keep from sudden and painful death, a fate which had dogged me far too long. Perhaps some men savor such spice in their lives, but it was not to my taste. I was so tired I wanted nothing but peace. And a way out - with neither the Guild nor the Patrol snapping at my heels. The only obstacle to that was that neither organization was one to relinquish easily what it desired. In that moment I damned the day I had first laid eyes on the zero stone. Yet when I looked to Eet and saw he wore the ring about his forelimb, something about it drew and held my eyes. And I do not think I could have hurled it from me had it lain within my grasp. I was as tied to it now as if I were bound by a tangle cord.

  “To no purpose-“ That was Eet. For a moment I did not understand him, so far had my thoughts ranged.

  “Look-“

  His paws moved and on the visa-screen appeared a picture.

  “This registered as we took off,” he explained. “It remained.”

  I saw the platform of the heads approaching sharply, as if we had crossed above it. And I remembered the ship had been slightly aslant.

  “The tail flames of the rockets” - Eet used his instructor’s voice - must have swept across it”

  He did not enlarge on that but I understood. The flames - could they have resealed, or cleaned out the crypt? If sealed, then the cache of the best stones was once more hidden. And we were the only ones who knew of their existence! A bargaining point? The stones we had seen in the room of the ruins had been close to exhaustion, those in the vault fresh. They were probably the cream of those owned by the ones who had established the tomb. If the Guild depended upon those from the ruins, they could still be defeated by whoever had the others.

  I knew that Eet was reading my mind. But he remained silent, so that Hory could not share my realization of that small superiority. The mutant continued to watch the visa-screen until it went blank.

  “They are not going to find what they want,” he said to Hory.

  The Patrolman lay in the webbing as one exhausted. The blood on his cheek was clotting. His eyes were half closed.

  “You have not won either,” he said, his words slurred.

  “We never wanted to win anything,” I responded, “except our own freedom.”

  Then I felt a sudden strange sensation, a sharpening of contact- Eet’s thoughts? NO! For the first time I touched, not Eet, in such communication, but another human brain directly.

  I tried to break away. It had been hard at first to accept that Eet could so invade my mind at will. But somehow I had been able to stand it because he was alien. This was far different. I was being pushed against my will into a raging torrent which whirled me on and on. And even to this day I can find no proper words to express what happened. I learned what - who - Hory really was - as no man should ever know one of his fellows. It is too harsh a stripping, that. And he must have learned the same of me. I knew that he meant to bring me to his form of justice, that he looked upon me with scorn because of my association with Eet. I could see - and see - and see- And that enforced sharing went on forever and ever. I saw Hory not only as he was now, but as he had been back and back down a trail of years - all of which had formed him into the man he now was - just as he must also see me-

  I fought vainly against the power which made me see so, for I feared I would be utterly lost in that other mind, that Hory was becoming me, and I Hory. And we would be so firmly welded together in the end that there would be no Hory and Jern, but some unnatural whirling mass fighting itself - trapped so-

  Then I was released and flew out of the mind stream as if some whirlpool had thrust me off and out. I lay retching on the floor, aware again that I had a body, an identity of my own. I heard noises from the pilot’s chair which suggested my sickness was shared, even as we had shared other things - too many of them.

  Somehow I got to my hands and knees and crawled to the wall again, once more pulled myself up by holding to the equipment here. I faced around slowly to stare at Hory, while he looked back at me, dully, with a kind of shrinking.

  Beyond him, on the. floor, lay a small flaccid body-

  Eet!

  Keeping hold on the wall, for without that support I was now helpless to move, I edged along until I passed Hory to stand above the mutant. Then I let go, fell to the floor rather than knelt, to gather up Eet’s body and hold it tight against me. That same emotion which had moved me when Hory had tried to kill Eet in the engine room flooded through me once more. It strengthened me, shaking me completely out of my daze.

  Eet had done that - had made us free of one another’s minds. And he had done it for a purpose. I cradled Eet’s too-limp body, smoothing his wiry fur, trying to discover some indication he still lived.

  “You know,” I said to Hory, “why-“

  “I know-“ His words came with long pauses between them. “Is - he - dead?”

  I stroked and smoothed, tried to feel some light breathing, the pound of a heartbeat, but to no purpose. Even so, I could not allow myself to believe the worst.

  However, I did not try to reach Eet’s mind. Now I shrank painfully from such contact. I had wounds which
must heal, the strangest wounds any of my species may ever have borne.

  “The- aid- kit-“ Hory’s right hand rose, shaking badly. Yet he managed to point to a compartment in the far wall. “A stimulant-“

  Perhaps. But how well medication intended for our breed would serve Eet I did not know. I worked up to my feet again, holding the mutant tightly to me, and began that long journey around the cabin. One-handed, I fumbled with the latch, snapped open the cubby. There was a box - in it a capsule. And that was slippery between my fingers, so I had to use care to bring it forth. One-handed, I could not crush it.

  Holding it and Eet, I retraced my steps, bracing myself erect by one shoulder against the wall, back to Hory. I held out the capsule. He took it from me with trembling fingers while I steadied Eet’s body. Hory broke the capsule under that pointed nose, released the fumes of the volatile gas. His hands fell back into his lap, as if even that small exertion had completely exhausted him.

  Eet sneezed, gasped. His eyes opened and his head moved feebly as it turned so he could see who held him. He did not try to leave my hands.

  Once more I gathered him close to me, so that the head, raised a little as if to welcome such contact, now rested on my shoulder close to my chin.

  “He is alive,” Hory whispered. “But he- did- that-“

  “Yes.”

  “Because we must know - and knowing-“ The Patrolman hesitated until I prompted:

  “And knowing - what? You are wedded to your purposes. But you must know now that mine were not as you believed.”

  “Yes. But - I have my duty.”

  He gazed at me, but again as if he did not see me for what I was, but rather beyond, into some future.

  “We are not meant-“ He continued after a pause, “to know our own kind in that way. I do not want to see you now, it makes me - sick-“ His mouth worked as if he were about to be physically ill.

  My stomach churned in sympathy. He was right. To look at him and remember- Man is not vile - most men - nor depraved, nor monstrous. But neither is he meant to violate another as we had done. Having Eet as a conductor between our minds was one thing; to be directly joined - never again!

  “It was meant that we might understand. Words can be screens - we needed free minds,” I said. Were he to retreat now into a denial, an attempt to be as we were before, he would negate all Eet had done to save us. That I dared not allow.

  “Yes. You - are - not as we thought.” He appeared to make that concession against his will. “But - I have my orders-“

  “We can bargain.” I repeated Eet’s earlier suggestion. “I have something to offer - a cache, untouched, of the stones. Did you read that also?” That was my one fear. That when my thoughts had been laid bare to him, he had uncovered all I needed, for the sake of the future, to hide.

  “Not that.” He turned his head away. Looking at me bothered him. “But the Guild-“

  “Does not know of this one. Nor shall they find it.” I could not be sure of that, I could only hope. However, I thought I had a right to argue.

  “What do you want in return?”

  I made my first offer as I did because there is no reason why one should not begin at the highest point, as every trader knows. “Freedom - to begin with. After that - well, I am a masterless man with Vondar Ustle gone - in a way he died for this. I want a ship-“

  “Ship?” Hory repeated the word as if it were new to him. “You - a ship-?”

  “Because I am no pilot?” I chose thus to interpret his surprise. “True, but pilots can be hired. I want payment - our freedom and credits enough to buy a ship. In return - the position of the cache. It seems to me the price is low-“

  “I am not authorized to make any such bargains-“

  “No?” And then I repeated two words, drawing them out of the time when we had been one.

  He turned his head laboriously to look at me again, his face very cold and set.

  “True - you know that also. So-“ He added nothing, but closed his eyes.

  I felt a soft bump against my chin as Eet moved his head, almost as if he nodded approval. Eet had been suspicious of Hory. He had reported a shield - had he suspected what might lie below that? Known that this was no simple scout but a Double Star Commander, sent on a special mission? Or had only suspicion been his before he hurled us mind to mind?

  A Double Star, one of those whose word could be accepted at once in an agreement. If Hory did now so agree, we were safe.

  “We get all the stones,” he said. “That ring also.”

  My fingers had found the ring on Eet’s limb; now they closed about it tightly. Not that! But Eet’s head once more bumped my chin. He dared not use mind reach intelligible to Hory, but he was trying in this way to communicate. Without the ring - I could not-

  I saw Hory’s eyes glitter in rising triumph, and knew that he believed he had found my weak point and would thus regain control of the situation and us. In that moment I had the strength for our last battle of wills.

  “The ring also - after an agreement is taped.”

  Hory hitched himself up, reached to the control board. He used his forefinger to release a print seal, bring out a treaty com. There was no mistaking its white and gold casing. And its very presence here told me of his importance among his command.

  Now he held it to his lips. But he wet those with the tip of his tongue and hesitated a long moment before he began to dictate:

  “In the name of the Council, the Four Confederacies, the Twelve Systems, the Inner and Outer Planets,” he recited formally, as he must have done many times before, it came so easily to him, “this agreement shall hold by planet law and star law.” He added figures which held no meaning for me but must have been an identification code. Once more he switched to words:

  “Murdoc Jern, status, assistant, gem buyer, late apprentice to Vondar Ustle, deceased, is hereby declared free of all charges made against him-“

  “Erroneously,” I prompted as he paused for breath.

  “Erroneously,” he agreed, not looking at me, but at the com in his hand. “In addition, free of all charges is one Eet, an alien mutant, now in association with Jern.”

  So now it was officially recognized that Eet was no animal but an intelligent entity coming under the protection of laws made for the defense of such.

  “In return, Murdoc Jern agrees to release to the custody of the Patrol certain information, classified” - once more he rattled off a series of code numbers - “which is his. Accepted, sealed, coded by-“ and he unemotionally gave that name which was not Hory, and certainly not on a roster of scouts.

  “You have forgotten,” I broke in sharply. “The bargain is also for compensation-“

  For a moment I thought he would refuse even now. His eyes caught mine and I read in them a cold enmity which I knew would exist on his side for all time. He had been humbled here as he thought I had not, or rather he felt a humbling, though I had not in any way triumphed over him. For our embroilment had been mutual and if he felt invaded, was I any the less violated? Now I added:

  “Was it any worse for you than for me?”

  “Yes!” He made of that an oath. “I am who I am.”

  I supposed he meant his Double Star, his training, the fact that in the service he was above and beyond some regulations. But if he was a man who had climbed to that post, and the Patrol was as incorruptible as it claimed to be, then also he must be a man of some breadth of mind. I hoped that was true.

  Yes, he had said, but now his eyes changed. There was still hatred for me in them, but perhaps he was a bigger man than he had been only moments earlier.

  “No - perhaps it was not-“ He was just.

  “And there was to be compensation.” I pressed my point. “After all whether you accept it or not, we have been battle comrades-“

  “To save yourselves!” was his quick retort.

  “No more than yourself.”

  “Very well.” Once more he raised the treaty com. “Murdoc Jern
is to receive compensation in connection with his information, this to be set by a star court, not to fall below ten thousand credits, nor rise above fifteen.”

  Ten thousand credits - enough for a small ship of the older type. Again Eet’s head moved. My comrade found that acceptable.

  “Agreed to by Murdoc Jern.” He held out the com and I bent my head to speak into it.

  “I, Murdoc Jern, accept and agree-“

  “The alien, Eet- “ For the first time during this ceremony Hory was at a loss. How could a creature without vocal communication agree on an oral recording?

  Eet moved. He swung his head toward the tom and from his lips issued a weird sound, part the mew of a cat, yet holding some of the Basic “yes.”

  “So be it recorded.” Hory’s tone had the solemnity of a thumb seal pressed by some planet ruler before his court.

  “Now” - he reached for another taper, taken from the same recess as the treaty com- “to your part.”

  I held it before my lips. “I, Murdoc Jern, do hereby surrender” - might as well get the worst done first “into the hands of a duly registered member of the Patrol a ring set with an unknown stone, the gem having unusual and as yet unexplored possibilities. In addition I do hereby state that there are two caches of similar stones on a planet unknown to me by name. These can be found as follows-“ And I launched into descriptions of the cache in the ruins and that of the vault.

  The knowledge that he had been so close to both and had not realized it must have been bitter to Hory. But he did not reveal his feelings. Now that his true identity was known he was a different man, one lacking the more emotional reactions of Hory the scout. When I had described both caches and their locations to the best of my ability, I handed the tape mike back. He took it from me as if he feared to touch my fingers, as if I were unclean.

  “There is a passenger cabin to the left of the galley,” he said remotely, not ordering me to it, but making his desire plain. And I wanted his company no more than he wanted mine.

  I descended the ladder wearily, Eet riding in his old place on my shoulders. But before we had gone the mutant had shaken the ring loose, to leave it lying on the edge of the control board. I did not want to look at it again. Perhaps Hory locked it away with the tapes - I did not want to know.