The Zero Stone Part 4

I had not felt hunger before; now it was a pain devouring me. I brought the tube I had found up to eye level. It was more than I could manage to sit up or even raise my head higher, but the familiar markings on the tube were heartening. One moment to insert the end between my teeth, bite through, and then the semiliquid contents flooded my mouth and I swallowed greedily. I was close to the end of that bounty when I felt movement against my bared throat and remembered I was not alone.

It took a great deal of resolution to pinch tight that tube and hold it to the muzzle of the furred one. Its pointed teeth seized upon the container with the same avidity I must have shown, and I squeezed the tube slowly while it sucked with a vigor I could feel through the touching of its small body to mine.

There were three more tubes in my belt pouch. Each one, I knew, was intended to provide a day's rations, perhaps two if a man were hard pushed. Four days - maybe, we could stretch that to eight. But the gamble was such as no sane man would have taken by choice.

I lay quietly until my strength began to return. The leaden weight of my right arm tingled a little, not from the action of the stone, but as if circulation returned. With that came a painful cramping. I forced myself to flex my fingers inside the glove, to raise and lower my forearm, setting my teeth against the hurt those exercises caused me.

In time my arm obeyed me as well as it had before the stone had taken over. I pulled myself up into a sitting position and gazed about the LB. There were six of the hammock slings, three on each wall, and I lay in the last to the right. None of them had been placed close enough to the control board for the occupant to reach it. This was true also of the regulation escape boats I knew. Their course tapes were set, so that if a badly injured man managed to reach one of them, it would serve without need for human manipulation.

Like the bunks I had seen in the ship, these hammocks, gauging by their size, were not intended for the human frame. And certainly the air still rasping my nose and lungs was not normal. I wondered briefly if it held some poisonous element which would in time finish me. But if that were true there was nothing I could do about it.

On the wall I traced outlines which I thought marked storage compartments. Whether E-rations lay behind those still- The dreamy state continued to hold me. Though my strength returned to my body; it was as if I watched all this from a distance and nothing really mattered. Once I raised my hand to look at it. Those dark patches which had been the purple, swollen blisters, and then scaling scabs, had rubbed off their rough surfaces inside the glove. The skin beneath was shiny pink and new.

Again the furred body moved and I felt the wiry hair rasp against my neck. Then my companion moved out, crawling down my body, reaching out a hand-paw to catch at the webbing of the next hammock. It was a long s.p.a.ce to span, and at last the creature dug the claws of its hind legs into the stuff of my suit, lunged forward, and so was just able to grasp the edge of the web. With sinuous dexterity it took firm hold and swung over to its new position.

The hammock served it as a ladder and it climbed agilely to one of the outlined lockers. Holding with a left forepaw and both hind legs to its swaying anchorage, it ran the other set of small gray fingers over the surface. When it pressed or released, I could not tell, but a panel swung open with such speed that the creature had to duck to escape.

Behind were two tubes secured in a rack. Each had something vaguely resembling a laser grip, and I thought they might be weapons - or perhaps survival tools. Leaving that door aswing, the creature went methodically to the next. I was a little troubled as I watched it.

Even after our communication I had continued to think of my companion as an animal. It was clearly the offspring of Valcyr, strange though its begetting had been. I had heard of mutant animals able to communicate with man. But now it was brought home to me that whatever this creature was, it had intelligence above the level I had a.s.signed it. And now I asked, my voice overloud in the small cabin: "Who are you?"

Perhaps it would have been better to ask, "What are you?"

It paused, its forepaw still outstretched, its long neck twisting so that it could look straight at me. And for the first time I remembered I had awakened without my helmet, with the air reviving me. Surely I had not taken it off while unconscious - so - "Eet. "

A single word with a queer sound - if a word in one's mind may also register as a sound.

"Eet," I repeated aloud. "Do you mean you are Eet as I am Murdoc Jern, or Eet as I am a man?"

"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 pa.s.sed 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 s.p.a.ce we have known we were latecomers to the star lanes. There were other races who voyaged s.p.a.ce, 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 s.e.x, if he had one, I came to think of him as male, and since he did not correct that a.s.sumption, 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 s.p.a.ce 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 ma.s.s 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 ma.s.ses of leaves screening me in were a sickly 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 pa.s.sing 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 ma.s.s 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 cl.u.s.ter 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 b.u.t.tons 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 cl.u.s.ter of the trembling pods not too far beyond my hand.

Slowly I drew the s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce-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 cl.u.s.ters 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 a.s.surance 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce 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.

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 phosph.o.r.escence, 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 att.i.tude 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 phosph.o.r.escent 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sed 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 coa.r.s.e-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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.sume 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 b.u.t.ton. Perhaps a sudden flash of light would dazzle a bold hunter and give us a chance of escape, were we cornered.