Though I could not use my hands (and I would
have used them to some purpose, for my father had had me carefully
tutored in those forms of unarmed combat which are useful for a
space rover), I did use my head and body as a battering ram,
striking Hory hard just below his chest, driving him back against
the wall. His breath went out of him in a great gasp. But I could
not follow up the small advantage as I wanted; I could only strain
to hold him helpless with my weight against his body. And it was a
stalemate to which I could see no profitable conclusion.
Eet had played a leading role in the initiation of this fight,
but I did not expect any more from him. However, he was not to be
counted out, as I discovered. His slim body flew through the air,
to land on Hory’s bent head, his whip tail lashing my cheek
as he passed. He dug in his claws, and caught the Patrolman by the
ears as he had me when he steered us away from the cliffs.
Hory screamed and tried to raise his hands to his head, while I
wriggled the closer to keep him down and give Eet his chance to win
a small victory. Then, regaining some detachment, I backed away,
only to charge again, the full force of my shoulder aiming at the
base of Hory’s throat. Had I been able to deliver that blow
as intended, he might have died.
As it was, he made a crowing noise, and when I stood away, he
tried to bring his hands up to his throat. But his knees folded
under him and he bowed slowly forward. In fact he might have
slipped along the ladder and fallen had I not taken his weight,
bracing myself, against my thighs.
Eet loosed his hold, leaving bleeding gashes behind, and whipped
down Hory’s body, using his paws to tear open the
Patrolman’s tunic and bring forth the tangler. As if he had
used one many times before, he turned it on its owner. And in
moments Hory was again as neatly packaged as he had been back in
the tunnel.
The mutant panted heavily as he drew back on his haunches,
holding the tangler between his hand-paws, his attention on the
Patrolman. Hory gasped for breath, a dark tinge still in his face.
I wondered if my blow had broken some bone, and if I had done worse
damage than I had first thought. In spite of the fate he had meant
to deal to Eet, and his plans for me, when I had time to think
without the heat of rage blinding me, I did not want to kill him. I
have killed to defend myself, as I did on Tanth, but never
willingly—few men do. And to kill with one’s hands is also
another matter. Hory was following orders, with, as he believed,
law behind him—though sometimes right and law are not one and the
same thing. I respect the Patrol and have a healthy fear of them.
But that does not mean I tamely submit to a decree which may not
fit with justice. On the frontiers, of necessity, the law must be
more flexible than it is on long-settled worlds. And it seemed to
me, from what Hory had said, that I had been summarily judged and
sentenced without a chance to defend myself.
“Your hands—” Eet had frisked up the ladder and was
now at my shoulder level.
I held out my bound wrists and his sharp teeth made short work
of clipping through those strands. Freed, I knelt and settled Hory
back against the wall, pressing in and out on his rib carriage
until he was breathing less painfully and the dark shade had faded
from his face.
“You—can—not—Our—course—is locked—” he half
whispered. “Take us—to—base.”
His satisfaction at that was plain to read. And perhaps be was
right. If a course tape had been locked in the auto-pilot, there
was nothing we could do to alter it, and our freedom would last
just as long as it took us to reach our destination. It would seem
that Hory, bound and in our power as he was, still held the
victory.
He smiled, perhaps guessing from some change in my expression
that I knew that. After all, I was no pilot, and if there was any
way of confuting a course tape, I did not know it. Nor, I was sure,
did Eet.
“Bring him—” Eet indicated Hory and the ladder.
“I cannot help you,” Hory said. “Once the tape
is locked in—that is that.”
“So?” Eet swung his head, keeping his eyes on a
level with Hory’s as I boosted the Patrolman to his feet.
“We shall see.”
The mutant’s confidence did not appear to ruffle Hory.
However, he did not fight me as I urged him up the ladder. He could
have made it nearly impossible to climb; instead, he seemed to do
so willingly enough, allowing me to steady him where he could not
use his hands. The lesser gravity in the ship was an aid and I made
the most of that.
I think Hory was prepared to savor our dismay when we discovered
how right he was and that we could do nothing to halt or change the
flight of the ship.
To me the control board meant nothing. But Eet sped across the
cabin, leaped to Hory’s seat, and from that to the edge of
the panel, his head flicking from right to left and back again as
if he were searching. Whatever he sought he did not find. Instead
he drew back again to the seat, hunching up, his neck pulled in to
his body, his eyes staring. His mind was tightly closed, but I knew
he was thinking.
Hory laughed. “Your superbeast is baffled, Jern. I told
you—make your submission and—”
“Trust the Patrol?” I asked. Perhaps I had come to
depend too much on the near-miracles which Eet had achieved. It
certainly looked as if Hory was right and we were his prisoners,
instead of the situation being reversed.
“Full cooperation will mitigate your sentence,” he
returned.
“I have not been tried, or sentenced, yet,” I
parried. “And your charges, or those you stated, are very
vague. I inherited the ring from my father. I defended myself from
a quite unpleasant death on Tanth, and I paid my own passage off
that misformed planet. You yourself saw that I was not cooperating
with the Guild back there. So—of just what am I guilty? It seems
to me that I have in fact been cooperating with the Patrol, in your
person, right along—seeing as how Eet got us away from that
tunnel and my ring broke the traction beam—”
Hory still smiled and there was nothing friendly in that
stretching of lips. “When you were on Tanth, Jern, did you
ever hear the folk saying they have—‘He who does a demon a
service is thereby a demon’s servant’? What you have in
that ring, if it is what rumor claims it to be, is not for the
owning of any one man. We have our orders to destroy it and its
owner—if that seems necessary.”
“So going beyond the law?”
“There are times when the law must be broken if the race
or species is to survive—”
“Now that,” Eet’s voice rang in our heads,
“is a dangerous concept. Either the law exists, or it does
not. Murdoc believes that on some occasions the law can be bent, or
bypassed for the protection of what seems to be right. And you,
Hory, who are pledged to the upholding of the strict letter of the
law, now say that it can be broken because of expediency. It would
seem that the laws of your species are not held in high
respect.”
“What do you—” Hory turned on Eet a blast of hate
which even I could feel. I moved quickly between him and the furred
body now in the pilot’s seat.
“What do I, an animal, know about the affairs of
humans?” Eet finished for him. “Only what I learn from
your thoughts. You do not want to deem me more than beast, do you,
Hory? Now I wonder what there is within you that holds you to that
point of view, even though you know it is wrong. Or is it all a
part of not wishing to admit that you can be wrong in other ways
also? You seem to put”—Eet paused to survey the Patrolman
closely—“an extraordinary valuation of your own
actions.”
Hory’s face flushed; his lips were tight-set. I wished at
that moment I could read his thoughts as well as Eet did. If Eet
found them threatening, he did not comment on that, but now struck
off on another track.
“If my species is to survive, and I think that a
necessary thing, steps must be taken here and now. You are probably
right, Hory, in believing that this ship cannot be turned from its
present course. But are you so sure that that cannot be
reversed?”
I saw the startled expression on Hory’s face. His mind
must have been easy for Eet to read.
“Thank you.” Satisfaction was plain in Eet’s
reply. “So that is the way of it!” He leaped again to
the edge of the control board and flexed his hand-paws over its
surface as one might do preparatory to making some delicate and
demanding adjustments on a complicated piece of machinery.
“No!” Hory lunged for him, but he came up against me
and did not reach the board. I struck once with the edge of my
hand, one of the tricks of personal combat which I had been taught.
He went down and out an instant after the blow landed.
I dragged him to the passenger’s seat, heaved him up, and
buckled him in. Then I turned back to Eet, who was still studying
the board, his head darting from side to side, his paws above but
not yet touching any of the buttons or levers.
“A pretty problem,” he observed. “The result
will be complicated by the booster power of the stone. It can be
reversed, yes. I read that in his mind when I startled him by such
a suggestion. Such a shock will often uncover necessary
information. But at our present speed, we shall probably not land
near where we took off.”
“And what can we gain by returning? Oh,” I said,
answering my own question, “we cannot alter course until we
land again. But I am no pilot. I cannot lift this ship off planet
even if we are able to set a second course.”
“A fact to consider later, when the time comes to put it
to test,” was Eet’s comment. “But have you any
wish to continue this present voyage under the
circumstances?”
“What about the Guild ship? It could be on our trail again
if we return—”
“Consider the facts—will they be expecting our return? I
do not believe that anyone, even someone as shrewd as Captain
Nactitl, might foresee that. And if we can set down some distance
from their camp, we shall win time. Time is the weapon we need
most.”
Eet was right, as he always was: I did not want to finish out
the voyage on Hory’s tape. Even if I were not already under
charges, taking over this ship would place me so deeply in the ill
graces of the Patrol that I could have small defense.
“Thus and thus and thus—” Having completed his study
of the board, Eet made his choices with lightning rapidity. And I
was not shipwise enough to know if he had chosen successfully. I
watched lights change, fade, others take their places, and hoped
fervently that Eet knew what he was doing.
“Now what?” I asked as he scrambled from the edge of
the board back into the pilot’s seat.
“Since we have only waiting left, I would suggest food—drink—”
He was so right. Now that he mentioned it, the E-ration I had
consumed in the tunnel was long behind me and I had nothing but an
aching and empty void for a middle. I inspected Hory’s
lashings. He was still unconscious, but his breathing was regular.
Then I went below, accompanied by Eet, who could take the ladder
with far more speed than I could. We found a small galley with—to
me—a luxurious supply of rations, and had a feast. At that moment
it was equal to a Llalation banquet and I savored every mouthful
with relish.
Eet shared my food, even if it were not the end product of a
hunt. It was when we were both full that I turned again to consider
the future.
“I cannot pilot us off-world,” I said again.
“We may be planet-bound on a world which certainly would not
be my choice to colonize. If the Guild ship follows us in, they
will be able to mark our landing and will be after us. And I do not
know enough about this ship to use its weapons. Though I suppose,
if it is a matter of his destruction, we could trust Hory enough to
man the defenses, whatever they may be.”
“Especially, you are thinking, since I can keep reading
his mind and will be alert for the moment when he may try to turn
those same weapons against us.” Eet carefully washed each
finger with a dark-red tongue, holding it well out from its fellows
to be lapped around. “They will not be expecting us. As for
getting off-world again, that will come in due time. Do not seek
out shadows in the future; you will discover oftentimes that the
sun of tomorrow will dispatch them. I would suggest sleep now. That
eases the body, rests the brain, and one awakes better prepared to
face the inevitable.”
He jumped from the swing table and pattered to the door.
“This way—to a bunk—” Pointing with his nose, he
indicated a door directly across the level landing. “Do not
worry—there is an alarm which will rouse you when we do enter
atmosphere once more.”
I pushed the door aside. There was a bunk and I threw myself on
it, suddenly as tired as I had been hungry. I felt Eet leap to my
side and curl up with his head on my shoulder. But his mind was
sealed and his eyes closed. There was nothing to do but yield to
the demands of my overtired body and follow him into slumber.
I was jerked out of that blissful state by a strident buzzing
far too close to my ear. When I looked blearily around I saw Eet
sitting up, combing his whiskers between his fingers.
“Re-entry alarm,” he informed me.
“Are you sure?” I sat up on the bunk and ran my
hands through my hair, but not with the neat results of Eet’s
personal grooming. It had been far too long since I had had a
change of clothing, a bath, a chance to feel really clean. On my
hands and body, the pink patches of new skin were fading. It should
not be long before my piebald state was past and I would bear none
of the stigma of the disease which had taken me from the
Vestris.
“Back where we started from, yes.” Eet did sound
sure, though I could not share his complete confidence, and would
not until I was able to look outside.
“Might as well strap down right here,” he
continued.
“But the ship—”
“Is on full automatic. And what could you do if it were
not?”
Eet was right, but I would have felt less shaky had Hory been
riding in the pilot’s seat. It is very true that the
autopilots have been refined and refined until they probably are
more reliable than humans. But there is always the unusual
emergency when a human reflex may save what a machine cannot. And,
though the engines of a space ship practically run themselves, no
ship ever lifts without pilot, engineer, and those other crewmen
whose duties in the past once kept their hands ever hovering over
controls.
“You fear your machines, do you not?” As I buckled
down on the bunk Eet stretched out beside me. He seemed prepared to
carry on a conversation at a time when I was in no mood for light
talk.
“Why, I suppose some of us do. I am no techneer. Machines
are mysteries as far as I am concerned.” Too much of a
mystery. I wished I had had some instruction in spacing.
But my thoughts and Eet’s answer, if he made one, were
blanked out in the discomfort of orbiting before planet-fall. And I
found that to be twice as great as what I had experienced before.
My estimation of Hory arose. If he had constantly to take this sort
of thing he was indeed tough. My last stab of fear concerned our
actual touch-down. What if the automatic controls did not pick a
suitable spot on which to fin in and we were swallowed up in some
lake, or tipped over at set-down. Not that there was one thing I
could do to prevent either that or any other catastrophe which
might arise.
Then I opened my eyes, with the thumping pain of a sun-sized
headache behind them, felt the grip of planetside gravity, and knew
that we had made it. Since the floor of the cabin appeared to be
level, we had had a suitable landing, too.
Eet crawled out from beneath the strap which had gone across my
chest and his body. His quick recovery from the strains which
always held me in thrall was irritating. I had thought him dead
after that violent blow he had taken from the rod. But from the
time he had turned to bite the hand which held him, he had shown no
sign of nursing even a bruise.
“—see where we are—” He was already going out the
cabin door. And in the silent ship I could hear the scraping of his
claws as he climbed the ladder. I followed at a far more moderate
pace, stopping on the way to pick up a tube of restorative from the
rack in the gallery. Hory would need that and we would need him—at least until we learned more about where we were and what might
be ahead of us.
The Patrolman’s eyes were open, fixed on Eet in a stare
which suggested he did not in the least want to see the mutant. And
Eet was in Hory’s lawful place, the pilot’s seat. For
the first time since I had known him, my companion appeared truly
baffled.
As always the control board was rigged with an outside
visa-screen. But the button which activated that was now well above
Eet’s reach, meant to be close to the hand of a human pilot
reclining in that swing chair.
Eet had scrambled up as high as he could climb, his neck
stretched to an amazing length. But his nose was still not within
touching distance of that button. I crossed over to push it.
The screen produced a picture. We seemed to be facing a cliff—and it was too close to have reassured me had I seen it before we
landed. Insofar as I could compare it in memory, it was of the same
yellow-gray shade as that which had been tunneled by the long-ago
miners. But this had no breaks in its surface.
For the first time Hory spoke. “Put on the sweep—that
lever there.” Bound as he was, he had to indicate with his
chin, using it as a pointer. I dutifully pressed that second
button.
The cliff face now appeared to travel past us at a slow rate.
Then we saw what must lie to the left, open sky with only the tops
of greenery showing.
“Depress,” ordered Hory almost savagely.
“Depress the lever. We want ground level.”
There was almost a sensation of falling as our field of vision
descended rapidly. The tops of the growth became visible as the
crowns of large bushes. There was the usual smoke and fumes left by
the deter rockets, a strip of seared ground between the ship and
that shriveled wall of green. Nowhere did I see the giant trees
which had caught the LB in for the forest.
Neither were there any ruins, nor the wreckage of the ancient
ship, nor, what I had dreaded the most, the spire of the Guild
vessel. As the visa-screen continued to reveal the land about us,
it looked very much as if we were in a wilderness. And how far we
were from the mining camp was anyone’s guess.
“Not too far.” Eet climbed up on the webbing to
watch the sweep across the countryside. “There are ways of
locating a ship, especially on a planet where there is no
interference in the way of ordinary electronic broadcasting. He has
already thought of that—” The mutant indicated Hory.
I turned to the Patrolman. “What about it? We are back on
that planet, I know this vegetation. Can you discover the Guild
ship or camp for us?”
“Why should I?” He was not struggling against his
bonds, but lying at his ease, as if action was no concern of his.
“Why should I put myself into your friends’ hands? You
have a problem now, have you not, Jern? Take off on the tape set in
the autopilot and you will reach my base. Stay here—and sooner or
later your friends will come. Then you had better try to make a
deal. Perhaps you can use me as a bargaining point.”
“You have given me little reason to want to do anything
else,” I retorted. “But those are not my friends, and I
am not about to make any bargain with them.” Almost I was
tempted to let him believe that his supposition was the truth. But
why play murky games when I might well need his cooperation in the
future? The ship would take off on a tape, without the need for a
human pilot. But whether he had a supply of such tapes on board,
whether I could affix and use another, whether I could be sure my
choice would not merely take me to another Patrol post, that I must
find out. And time to learn might be running out—they might
already be tracing us.
I—we—needed Hory, yet we must not make too much of that need
lest he play upon it. So I had to convince him that we must
cooperate, if only for a short period of truce.
“Do you know what they hunt back there?” I tried a
different track.
“It is easy enough to guess. They try to find where those
stones were mined.”
“Which—” I said slowly, “Eet has discovered,
though they have not.”
I feared some denial from Eet, but he made no attempt at
communication. The mutant was still watching the screen as if the
picture on it was the most important thing in the world. I was
feeling my way, but it heartened me a little that he had not
promptly protested my assertion concerning his knowledge.
“Where is it then—?”
Hory must have known I would not answer that. The screen now
showed a wider break in the growth. Beyond the ground our descent
had scorched was a slope of yellow sand, of so bright and sharp a
color as I had not seen elsewhere on this dusky world. That
provided a beach for a lake. The water here was not slime-ringed,
murky, and suggestive of evil below its surface; it had not been
born of any dying flood. This was as brightly green as the sand was
yellow, so vividly colored both they might have been gems set in
dingy metal.
“It is the nature of these stones”—I made a
lecture of my explanation, supplying nuggets of truth in a vast
muffling of words—“that they seek their own kind. One can
actually draw you to another. If you will yield to the pull of the
one you have. Eet took the ring just before the Guild ship landed.
We had been following such a pull, and he continued to follow it.
He found the source of the attraction—”
Eet gave no sign he heard my words. He was still watching the
screen in complete absorption. Suddenly he made one of the few
vocal sounds I had ever heard from him. His lips parted to show his
teeth, cruelly sharp, and he was hissing. Startled, I looked at the
view on the visa-plate.
Though I could not use my hands (and I would
have used them to some purpose, for my father had had me carefully
tutored in those forms of unarmed combat which are useful for a
space rover), I did use my head and body as a battering ram,
striking Hory hard just below his chest, driving him back against
the wall. His breath went out of him in a great gasp. But I could
not follow up the small advantage as I wanted; I could only strain
to hold him helpless with my weight against his body. And it was a
stalemate to which I could see no profitable conclusion.
Eet had played a leading role in the initiation of this fight,
but I did not expect any more from him. However, he was not to be
counted out, as I discovered. His slim body flew through the air,
to land on Hory’s bent head, his whip tail lashing my cheek
as he passed. He dug in his claws, and caught the Patrolman by the
ears as he had me when he steered us away from the cliffs.
Hory screamed and tried to raise his hands to his head, while I
wriggled the closer to keep him down and give Eet his chance to win
a small victory. Then, regaining some detachment, I backed away,
only to charge again, the full force of my shoulder aiming at the
base of Hory’s throat. Had I been able to deliver that blow
as intended, he might have died.
As it was, he made a crowing noise, and when I stood away, he
tried to bring his hands up to his throat. But his knees folded
under him and he bowed slowly forward. In fact he might have
slipped along the ladder and fallen had I not taken his weight,
bracing myself, against my thighs.
Eet loosed his hold, leaving bleeding gashes behind, and whipped
down Hory’s body, using his paws to tear open the
Patrolman’s tunic and bring forth the tangler. As if he had
used one many times before, he turned it on its owner. And in
moments Hory was again as neatly packaged as he had been back in
the tunnel.
The mutant panted heavily as he drew back on his haunches,
holding the tangler between his hand-paws, his attention on the
Patrolman. Hory gasped for breath, a dark tinge still in his face.
I wondered if my blow had broken some bone, and if I had done worse
damage than I had first thought. In spite of the fate he had meant
to deal to Eet, and his plans for me, when I had time to think
without the heat of rage blinding me, I did not want to kill him. I
have killed to defend myself, as I did on Tanth, but never
willingly—few men do. And to kill with one’s hands is also
another matter. Hory was following orders, with, as he believed,
law behind him—though sometimes right and law are not one and the
same thing. I respect the Patrol and have a healthy fear of them.
But that does not mean I tamely submit to a decree which may not
fit with justice. On the frontiers, of necessity, the law must be
more flexible than it is on long-settled worlds. And it seemed to
me, from what Hory had said, that I had been summarily judged and
sentenced without a chance to defend myself.
“Your hands—” Eet had frisked up the ladder and was
now at my shoulder level.
I held out my bound wrists and his sharp teeth made short work
of clipping through those strands. Freed, I knelt and settled Hory
back against the wall, pressing in and out on his rib carriage
until he was breathing less painfully and the dark shade had faded
from his face.
“You—can—not—Our—course—is locked—” he half
whispered. “Take us—to—base.”
His satisfaction at that was plain to read. And perhaps be was
right. If a course tape had been locked in the auto-pilot, there
was nothing we could do to alter it, and our freedom would last
just as long as it took us to reach our destination. It would seem
that Hory, bound and in our power as he was, still held the
victory.
He smiled, perhaps guessing from some change in my expression
that I knew that. After all, I was no pilot, and if there was any
way of confuting a course tape, I did not know it. Nor, I was sure,
did Eet.
“Bring him—” Eet indicated Hory and the ladder.
“I cannot help you,” Hory said. “Once the tape
is locked in—that is that.”
“So?” Eet swung his head, keeping his eyes on a
level with Hory’s as I boosted the Patrolman to his feet.
“We shall see.”
The mutant’s confidence did not appear to ruffle Hory.
However, he did not fight me as I urged him up the ladder. He could
have made it nearly impossible to climb; instead, he seemed to do
so willingly enough, allowing me to steady him where he could not
use his hands. The lesser gravity in the ship was an aid and I made
the most of that.
I think Hory was prepared to savor our dismay when we discovered
how right he was and that we could do nothing to halt or change the
flight of the ship.
To me the control board meant nothing. But Eet sped across the
cabin, leaped to Hory’s seat, and from that to the edge of
the panel, his head flicking from right to left and back again as
if he were searching. Whatever he sought he did not find. Instead
he drew back again to the seat, hunching up, his neck pulled in to
his body, his eyes staring. His mind was tightly closed, but I knew
he was thinking.
Hory laughed. “Your superbeast is baffled, Jern. I told
you—make your submission and—”
“Trust the Patrol?” I asked. Perhaps I had come to
depend too much on the near-miracles which Eet had achieved. It
certainly looked as if Hory was right and we were his prisoners,
instead of the situation being reversed.
“Full cooperation will mitigate your sentence,” he
returned.
“I have not been tried, or sentenced, yet,” I
parried. “And your charges, or those you stated, are very
vague. I inherited the ring from my father. I defended myself from
a quite unpleasant death on Tanth, and I paid my own passage off
that misformed planet. You yourself saw that I was not cooperating
with the Guild back there. So—of just what am I guilty? It seems
to me that I have in fact been cooperating with the Patrol, in your
person, right along—seeing as how Eet got us away from that
tunnel and my ring broke the traction beam—”
Hory still smiled and there was nothing friendly in that
stretching of lips. “When you were on Tanth, Jern, did you
ever hear the folk saying they have—‘He who does a demon a
service is thereby a demon’s servant’? What you have in
that ring, if it is what rumor claims it to be, is not for the
owning of any one man. We have our orders to destroy it and its
owner—if that seems necessary.”
“So going beyond the law?”
“There are times when the law must be broken if the race
or species is to survive—”
“Now that,” Eet’s voice rang in our heads,
“is a dangerous concept. Either the law exists, or it does
not. Murdoc believes that on some occasions the law can be bent, or
bypassed for the protection of what seems to be right. And you,
Hory, who are pledged to the upholding of the strict letter of the
law, now say that it can be broken because of expediency. It would
seem that the laws of your species are not held in high
respect.”
“What do you—” Hory turned on Eet a blast of hate
which even I could feel. I moved quickly between him and the furred
body now in the pilot’s seat.
“What do I, an animal, know about the affairs of
humans?” Eet finished for him. “Only what I learn from
your thoughts. You do not want to deem me more than beast, do you,
Hory? Now I wonder what there is within you that holds you to that
point of view, even though you know it is wrong. Or is it all a
part of not wishing to admit that you can be wrong in other ways
also? You seem to put”—Eet paused to survey the Patrolman
closely—“an extraordinary valuation of your own
actions.”
Hory’s face flushed; his lips were tight-set. I wished at
that moment I could read his thoughts as well as Eet did. If Eet
found them threatening, he did not comment on that, but now struck
off on another track.
“If my species is to survive, and I think that a
necessary thing, steps must be taken here and now. You are probably
right, Hory, in believing that this ship cannot be turned from its
present course. But are you so sure that that cannot be
reversed?”
I saw the startled expression on Hory’s face. His mind
must have been easy for Eet to read.
“Thank you.” Satisfaction was plain in Eet’s
reply. “So that is the way of it!” He leaped again to
the edge of the control board and flexed his hand-paws over its
surface as one might do preparatory to making some delicate and
demanding adjustments on a complicated piece of machinery.
“No!” Hory lunged for him, but he came up against me
and did not reach the board. I struck once with the edge of my
hand, one of the tricks of personal combat which I had been taught.
He went down and out an instant after the blow landed.
I dragged him to the passenger’s seat, heaved him up, and
buckled him in. Then I turned back to Eet, who was still studying
the board, his head darting from side to side, his paws above but
not yet touching any of the buttons or levers.
“A pretty problem,” he observed. “The result
will be complicated by the booster power of the stone. It can be
reversed, yes. I read that in his mind when I startled him by such
a suggestion. Such a shock will often uncover necessary
information. But at our present speed, we shall probably not land
near where we took off.”
“And what can we gain by returning? Oh,” I said,
answering my own question, “we cannot alter course until we
land again. But I am no pilot. I cannot lift this ship off planet
even if we are able to set a second course.”
“A fact to consider later, when the time comes to put it
to test,” was Eet’s comment. “But have you any
wish to continue this present voyage under the
circumstances?”
“What about the Guild ship? It could be on our trail again
if we return—”
“Consider the facts—will they be expecting our return? I
do not believe that anyone, even someone as shrewd as Captain
Nactitl, might foresee that. And if we can set down some distance
from their camp, we shall win time. Time is the weapon we need
most.”
Eet was right, as he always was: I did not want to finish out
the voyage on Hory’s tape. Even if I were not already under
charges, taking over this ship would place me so deeply in the ill
graces of the Patrol that I could have small defense.
“Thus and thus and thus—” Having completed his study
of the board, Eet made his choices with lightning rapidity. And I
was not shipwise enough to know if he had chosen successfully. I
watched lights change, fade, others take their places, and hoped
fervently that Eet knew what he was doing.
“Now what?” I asked as he scrambled from the edge of
the board back into the pilot’s seat.
“Since we have only waiting left, I would suggest food—drink—”
He was so right. Now that he mentioned it, the E-ration I had
consumed in the tunnel was long behind me and I had nothing but an
aching and empty void for a middle. I inspected Hory’s
lashings. He was still unconscious, but his breathing was regular.
Then I went below, accompanied by Eet, who could take the ladder
with far more speed than I could. We found a small galley with—to
me—a luxurious supply of rations, and had a feast. At that moment
it was equal to a Llalation banquet and I savored every mouthful
with relish.
Eet shared my food, even if it were not the end product of a
hunt. It was when we were both full that I turned again to consider
the future.
“I cannot pilot us off-world,” I said again.
“We may be planet-bound on a world which certainly would not
be my choice to colonize. If the Guild ship follows us in, they
will be able to mark our landing and will be after us. And I do not
know enough about this ship to use its weapons. Though I suppose,
if it is a matter of his destruction, we could trust Hory enough to
man the defenses, whatever they may be.”
“Especially, you are thinking, since I can keep reading
his mind and will be alert for the moment when he may try to turn
those same weapons against us.” Eet carefully washed each
finger with a dark-red tongue, holding it well out from its fellows
to be lapped around. “They will not be expecting us. As for
getting off-world again, that will come in due time. Do not seek
out shadows in the future; you will discover oftentimes that the
sun of tomorrow will dispatch them. I would suggest sleep now. That
eases the body, rests the brain, and one awakes better prepared to
face the inevitable.”
He jumped from the swing table and pattered to the door.
“This way—to a bunk—” Pointing with his nose, he
indicated a door directly across the level landing. “Do not
worry—there is an alarm which will rouse you when we do enter
atmosphere once more.”
I pushed the door aside. There was a bunk and I threw myself on
it, suddenly as tired as I had been hungry. I felt Eet leap to my
side and curl up with his head on my shoulder. But his mind was
sealed and his eyes closed. There was nothing to do but yield to
the demands of my overtired body and follow him into slumber.
I was jerked out of that blissful state by a strident buzzing
far too close to my ear. When I looked blearily around I saw Eet
sitting up, combing his whiskers between his fingers.
“Re-entry alarm,” he informed me.
“Are you sure?” I sat up on the bunk and ran my
hands through my hair, but not with the neat results of Eet’s
personal grooming. It had been far too long since I had had a
change of clothing, a bath, a chance to feel really clean. On my
hands and body, the pink patches of new skin were fading. It should
not be long before my piebald state was past and I would bear none
of the stigma of the disease which had taken me from the
Vestris.
“Back where we started from, yes.” Eet did sound
sure, though I could not share his complete confidence, and would
not until I was able to look outside.
“Might as well strap down right here,” he
continued.
“But the ship—”
“Is on full automatic. And what could you do if it were
not?”
Eet was right, but I would have felt less shaky had Hory been
riding in the pilot’s seat. It is very true that the
autopilots have been refined and refined until they probably are
more reliable than humans. But there is always the unusual
emergency when a human reflex may save what a machine cannot. And,
though the engines of a space ship practically run themselves, no
ship ever lifts without pilot, engineer, and those other crewmen
whose duties in the past once kept their hands ever hovering over
controls.
“You fear your machines, do you not?” As I buckled
down on the bunk Eet stretched out beside me. He seemed prepared to
carry on a conversation at a time when I was in no mood for light
talk.
“Why, I suppose some of us do. I am no techneer. Machines
are mysteries as far as I am concerned.” Too much of a
mystery. I wished I had had some instruction in spacing.
But my thoughts and Eet’s answer, if he made one, were
blanked out in the discomfort of orbiting before planet-fall. And I
found that to be twice as great as what I had experienced before.
My estimation of Hory arose. If he had constantly to take this sort
of thing he was indeed tough. My last stab of fear concerned our
actual touch-down. What if the automatic controls did not pick a
suitable spot on which to fin in and we were swallowed up in some
lake, or tipped over at set-down. Not that there was one thing I
could do to prevent either that or any other catastrophe which
might arise.
Then I opened my eyes, with the thumping pain of a sun-sized
headache behind them, felt the grip of planetside gravity, and knew
that we had made it. Since the floor of the cabin appeared to be
level, we had had a suitable landing, too.
Eet crawled out from beneath the strap which had gone across my
chest and his body. His quick recovery from the strains which
always held me in thrall was irritating. I had thought him dead
after that violent blow he had taken from the rod. But from the
time he had turned to bite the hand which held him, he had shown no
sign of nursing even a bruise.
“—see where we are—” He was already going out the
cabin door. And in the silent ship I could hear the scraping of his
claws as he climbed the ladder. I followed at a far more moderate
pace, stopping on the way to pick up a tube of restorative from the
rack in the gallery. Hory would need that and we would need him—at least until we learned more about where we were and what might
be ahead of us.
The Patrolman’s eyes were open, fixed on Eet in a stare
which suggested he did not in the least want to see the mutant. And
Eet was in Hory’s lawful place, the pilot’s seat. For
the first time since I had known him, my companion appeared truly
baffled.
As always the control board was rigged with an outside
visa-screen. But the button which activated that was now well above
Eet’s reach, meant to be close to the hand of a human pilot
reclining in that swing chair.
Eet had scrambled up as high as he could climb, his neck
stretched to an amazing length. But his nose was still not within
touching distance of that button. I crossed over to push it.
The screen produced a picture. We seemed to be facing a cliff—and it was too close to have reassured me had I seen it before we
landed. Insofar as I could compare it in memory, it was of the same
yellow-gray shade as that which had been tunneled by the long-ago
miners. But this had no breaks in its surface.
For the first time Hory spoke. “Put on the sweep—that
lever there.” Bound as he was, he had to indicate with his
chin, using it as a pointer. I dutifully pressed that second
button.
The cliff face now appeared to travel past us at a slow rate.
Then we saw what must lie to the left, open sky with only the tops
of greenery showing.
“Depress,” ordered Hory almost savagely.
“Depress the lever. We want ground level.”
There was almost a sensation of falling as our field of vision
descended rapidly. The tops of the growth became visible as the
crowns of large bushes. There was the usual smoke and fumes left by
the deter rockets, a strip of seared ground between the ship and
that shriveled wall of green. Nowhere did I see the giant trees
which had caught the LB in for the forest.
Neither were there any ruins, nor the wreckage of the ancient
ship, nor, what I had dreaded the most, the spire of the Guild
vessel. As the visa-screen continued to reveal the land about us,
it looked very much as if we were in a wilderness. And how far we
were from the mining camp was anyone’s guess.
“Not too far.” Eet climbed up on the webbing to
watch the sweep across the countryside. “There are ways of
locating a ship, especially on a planet where there is no
interference in the way of ordinary electronic broadcasting. He has
already thought of that—” The mutant indicated Hory.
I turned to the Patrolman. “What about it? We are back on
that planet, I know this vegetation. Can you discover the Guild
ship or camp for us?”
“Why should I?” He was not struggling against his
bonds, but lying at his ease, as if action was no concern of his.
“Why should I put myself into your friends’ hands? You
have a problem now, have you not, Jern? Take off on the tape set in
the autopilot and you will reach my base. Stay here—and sooner or
later your friends will come. Then you had better try to make a
deal. Perhaps you can use me as a bargaining point.”
“You have given me little reason to want to do anything
else,” I retorted. “But those are not my friends, and I
am not about to make any bargain with them.” Almost I was
tempted to let him believe that his supposition was the truth. But
why play murky games when I might well need his cooperation in the
future? The ship would take off on a tape, without the need for a
human pilot. But whether he had a supply of such tapes on board,
whether I could affix and use another, whether I could be sure my
choice would not merely take me to another Patrol post, that I must
find out. And time to learn might be running out—they might
already be tracing us.
I—we—needed Hory, yet we must not make too much of that need
lest he play upon it. So I had to convince him that we must
cooperate, if only for a short period of truce.
“Do you know what they hunt back there?” I tried a
different track.
“It is easy enough to guess. They try to find where those
stones were mined.”
“Which—” I said slowly, “Eet has discovered,
though they have not.”
I feared some denial from Eet, but he made no attempt at
communication. The mutant was still watching the screen as if the
picture on it was the most important thing in the world. I was
feeling my way, but it heartened me a little that he had not
promptly protested my assertion concerning his knowledge.
“Where is it then—?”
Hory must have known I would not answer that. The screen now
showed a wider break in the growth. Beyond the ground our descent
had scorched was a slope of yellow sand, of so bright and sharp a
color as I had not seen elsewhere on this dusky world. That
provided a beach for a lake. The water here was not slime-ringed,
murky, and suggestive of evil below its surface; it had not been
born of any dying flood. This was as brightly green as the sand was
yellow, so vividly colored both they might have been gems set in
dingy metal.
“It is the nature of these stones”—I made a
lecture of my explanation, supplying nuggets of truth in a vast
muffling of words—“that they seek their own kind. One can
actually draw you to another. If you will yield to the pull of the
one you have. Eet took the ring just before the Guild ship landed.
We had been following such a pull, and he continued to follow it.
He found the source of the attraction—”
Eet gave no sign he heard my words. He was still watching the
screen in complete absorption. Suddenly he made one of the few
vocal sounds I had ever heard from him. His lips parted to show his
teeth, cruelly sharp, and he was hissing. Startled, I looked at the
view on the visa-plate.