The Zero Stone Part 2

I heard words-"Well, so you are back with us-"

Back? Back where? Memory stirred sluggishly - back in the cell of the sanctuary? No! I tried to sit up and my head whirled so that I was sick. But as ungentle hands thrust me flat again, I felt something else which could never have vibrated through Koongan walls - I was not only aboard a s.h.i.+p, but we were in flight. And the vast flood of relief which followed that realization carried me back into a limbo which was half unconsciousness, half sleep.

So I found myself aboard the Vestris, though the first days in her were not the usual spent by a pa.s.senger. The Cargo Master had indeed knocked me out to carry me aboard as his drunken a.s.sistant. But it would seem I was of less hardy structure than those his fists had dealt with heretofore, and I continued semiconscious for a longer s.p.a.ce than the medico liked. When I was again fully aware of my surroundings, I lay in a cramped cubby off the medico's cabin, used by the seriously ill. It was some time before I had my interview with Captain Isuran. Like all Free Traders, he was s.h.i.+p-born, s.h.i.+pbred, of a type growing more and more apart from planetorientated men. All the Free Traders I had known before had been only casual acquaintances, and I found myself oddly ill at ease with these in such close quarters. I told him my story and he listened. And he asked who had wanted Vondar Ustle dead, but that I could not tell him. That there had been some tie in the past between my master and this Captain, I was sure. But Isuran did not explain and I dared not ask questions. It was enough that he would take me to another world, one on which I could contact sources who had known me as Vondar's a.s.sistant.

I had some time to meditate upon the future, for s.p.a.ce travel is sheer monotony once one is off world. The crewmen develop hobbies to occupy mind and hand. For me there was nothing but my thoughts. And they were not so pleasant I cared to dwell long upon them.

Ustle had had contacts on many worlds, and I thought one or two might be willing to give me a chance at a planetside job. But, though I knew gems as a buyer, I was no designer, nor did I want a settled existence. I had tasted too deeply of Vondar's way of life. My safe-belt was very light now. And I would have to reach a second-stage port to tap past resources for expense money. Also - my savings were limited. I could not keep on as we had done alone. And there were very few, if any, Vondar Ustles in search of apprentices.

Also - what had been behind Vondar's death? That it was planned and not by the Green Robes alone, I had come to accept. But, though I tried - sifting memories - I could not bring to mind a single happening which would plant so deep a reason for someone to wish him dead. And perhaps not only him, for the Green Robes had moved in on both of us.

This was the second time death had abruptly come so close to me. I thought again of my father, or of him I would always think of as my father, for he had treated me as of his own flesh and blood and had settled for me (knowing as he must have how matters would go after his death) a future he thought would be the best. Who had been his visitor that day? And the s.p.a.ce ring - my hand sought the last and deepest pocket of my safe-belt. I did not unseal it, only felt through it the shape of the band and that l.u.s.terless stone. Was I right that this was what my father's killer had sought? If so - could it also be-? I did not see how this could have followed us to Tanth. All the property on the bodies of their victims belonged to the Green Robes and were offered to their dead demon. No one but their order would have had the ring had I fallen prey to them.

I had a handful of facts and could go on endlessly building many surmises, without ever being sure that any were close to the truth. Although in the meanwhile I must seek some way of earning my living, I would, in time, have to learn what lay behind Vondar's killing. For I had such ties with him as would indeed demand the equivalent of the Free Traders' knife-oath.

But I was still far from the solution of my twin problems when the Vestris prepared for a landing, not on the planet at which I aimed, but on a lesser world. Cargo Master Ostrend briefed me as to their reasons for the landfall. It was a lushly overgrown land, overwarm, too, to our tastes, with a nonhuman, batrachian-evolved native race. What those had to barter was a substance strained and fermented from certain plants, medicinal in nature. What the Vestris gave in return was seed sh.e.l.lfish, to be loosed in beds, considered a great delicacy.

"You might be interested in these." Ostrend took from his lockbox three objects and set them out on the top of his swing desk.

They were a pinkish purple in shade, and each was a tiny figure. I brought out my jeweler's lens to study them closer. Figures they were, as weirdly grotesque as any of the demons dreamed up by the imaginations of the artists of Tanth. They seemed to be fas.h.i.+oned of nacre, though not carved. I had not seen their like before. They were oddities which might appeal to collectors of the curious.

"There is a planter of sh.e.l.lfish beds - Salmscar. He has been experimenting with some of the mutated crustaceans. That's what keeps our trade going here; the things mutate so quickly that they cannot be bred true past about the second year. He plants tiny metallic 'seeds' in the mutants and in about three or four years gets these. Just a hobby with him. But you might do a spot of trading if you are interested."

I knew the Free Traders and their jealously guarded sources of items. If the mutant pearls had any value, Ostrend would not have made that suggestion. Unless, of course, he was either testing me or setting a trap - now I saw dangers standing to right and left. It was almost as if he were urging me to break their s.h.i.+p law. But I would not tell him so. A very small third mystery to add to the others. I expressed interest, which I did not have to feign, and did wonder what I had that I could offer for some of the things - not that I could use my few a.s.sets on a gamble, nor would I attempt any trade without full consent of my present s.h.i.+pmates.

FOUR.

Since the ingrown community of the Free Traders was a closed clan and an outsider remained that, I was left very much to my own company, save for one member of the crew. The furry face which had hung so close to mine at my first awakening was one I was to see again and again. For Valcyr, the s.h.i.+p's cat, apparently decided that I was an object of interest second to none, and spent long periods of time crouched on bunk or floor of the cabin allotted to me, simply staring.

I was not used to companions.h.i.+p with animals and at first her attentions irked me, for I could not throw off the absurd feeling that behind those round, seldomblinking eyes was a mind which marked my every move, sifting and a.s.sessing me and all I did. Yet in time I came to tolerate her, and finally, when it became apparent that the crew were not inclined, beyond a distant civility, to friendliness, I found myself talking to her for want of other conversation. For among themselves the Traders spoke a language of their own, unintelligible to me so that any attempt to follow their speech was fruitless.

After my interview with Ostrend I returned to my cubby to discover Valcyr stretched on my berth taking her ease. She was a lithe and beautiful creature, her fur short and very thick, of a uniform silver-gray, save for her tail, where there were dark rings. She had moments when she displayed affection, and now she raised her head to rub against my hand, while from her throat rumbled a purr. Since such favors were rare, I was flattered enough to continue to stroke her while I considered the Cargo Master's suggestion.

We would planet on this world shortly, near a trading post where the men of the Vestris had been before. There were no cities, the natives being nomads by inclination, wandering in family-clan groups along the rivers from one marshy spot to the next. A few more civilized and enterprising clans had staked out semipermanent settlements near places where crustacean beds could be fostered. But these were no more than collections of flimsy reed-and-mud huts.

What I had brought to the Vestris had been carried on my person. Now I took inventory of my scanty possessions to see if I had anything at all which could serve as a trade item. The few small stones still in my safe-belt were not to be touched. Not that it was likely they would interest Salmscar. I regretted the packs abandoned at the inn on Tanth, the luggage gone with the freighter. But if one permitted regret for little, one might as well remember all the rest lost on Tanth. I had nothing to risk here. I said as much to Valcyr, and she yawned widely and set her teeth gently upon my hand to suggest she was no longer interested in being petted.

However, when we set down, I was ready enough to go planetside. The chance to get firm earth under one's feet is always acceptable to any traveler, unless he is as wedded to s.p.a.ce as a crewman - and even crewmen must earth now and then.

What greeted our noses as we went down the outflung landing ramp was more than the scorch of burning from our findown - it was a stink of chemicals, enough to make one hold one's nose. Ostrend said the natives favored this section of hot springs and volcanic action, and now we could see rocks, water- and steam-worn into strange shapes. At intervals steam and vile smells burst through holes in the ground.

Beyond this tormented land was the bluish foliage of the marshes, while the various overflows from the caldron lands lapped on to feed a yellow river. The heat from the steam was almost stifling, the more so when combined with the chemical stench. We coughed and sputtered as we picked our way along a path, to find, on the banks of the river, the village we sought.

Ostrend stood there, his trade board between arm and hip, looking about in open puzzlement. After his description I had not expected to see much in the way of buildings. But certainly we looked now on what was not even the most primitive attempt at providing shelter, but rather an area of ruin and decay.

Mounds of ill-smelling reed stuff, with dried mud flaking off in great chunks, humped here and there. Among this litter nothing moved until a thing which was more leather-winged lizard than bird arose with a squawk and flapped awkwardly across the river. None of the traders pressed past Ostrend, but their heads swung from left to right and back again as if they were men suddenly suspicious of a trap.

The Cargo Master took from his belt a slender metal rod. Under his fingers it expanded longer and longer until he had a pole of double his own height. To the tip end he affixed a small pennon of bright yellow before he planted it fast in the soft mud of the riverbank. From comments, I gathered that, the village being deserted for some time by the signs, we could do no more than wait for the return of the natives - always providing that they were able to return. But since the visits of the Vestris were regular this could be expected to occur, again always excepting the fact that some disaster had not put an end to the established custom.

Captain Isuran, philosophical as a Free Trader must learn to be, was not happy. While his s.h.i.+p did not run on a tight schedule, yet time did set some barriers on each planeting. We could not wait too long before taking off. However, a failure to trade here would upset all plans and make necessary rearrangements to cover the losses caused by such an abortive stop.

Ostrend was in conference with the Captain for the hours that followed, while the rest of the crew speculated as to what might have happened, taking turns at sentry duty by the pennon. Since I was excluded from that, I allowed my own curiosity rein and explored, though not outside the limit wherein I could sight the skypointing nose of the s.h.i.+p.

Save for the novelty of the hot springs, and those soon palled, their heat and smell being more than anyone could take for long, there were few sights worth seeing. The flying thing which had fled our entrance into the deserted village was the only living creature I had sighted. Even insect life here either was remarkably spa.r.s.e, or for some reason shunned the vicinity of the s.h.i.+p. At last I squatted down by the side of one of the small streams which issued out of the section of hot pots and gushers, inspecting it for gravel. The gem hunter's preoccupation could grip me even here. But I saw nothing in the mess I scooped out and washed which held any promise.

There were some bits of a curiously dull black, which had the look of no mineral or the like, but of a kind of fuzzy burr. Yet when I separated them from the sand and stones with a stick, I discovered them to be extremely hard. Even pounding with a stone did not crush them, or even mar their velvety-seeming surface. I did not believe them seeds, or vegetable refuse, and my interest in them grew, until I had about a dozen laid in a row in the sun, being cautious at first not to touch them with my fingers. Nature provides some nasty traps on many planets. They had no beauty, and I did not think any value. But the contrast between their suggestion of softness to the eye, and their real hardness of surface was odd enough to make me gather up three for future examination. There are gems which must be "peeled," worked down in layers from their unattractive outer coatings or sh.e.l.ls. One of little worth may so be turned into something of value. And I had some vague ideas that perhaps these might hide a surprise under that fuzzy surface, though I had neither the tools nor the skill needed for such a task.

As I knotted my choice into a square of seal-foam, Valcyr came walking, with that particular sure-footed daintiness of her species, along the bank of the small runlet. She progressed with nose to earth, almost as might a hound on a warm trail, and she was manifestly sniffing something which absorbed her attention.

Then she reached my line of rejected ovoids and nosed each avidly. To my limited human nostrils they had no scent, but it was plain they did for the cat. Squatting down, she began to lick the largest, having sniffed them all. Fearing for her, I tried to knock it out of reach, but a lightning swift slash from unsheathed claws, ears flattened to skull, and a low growl warned me off. Sucking my bloodied fingers, I withdrew. It was plain that Valcyr guarded what she considered a treasure of price and was not minded to have any interference.

Once I had withdrawn, she went back to her licking. Now and again she picked it up in her mouth to retreat a little way before she squatted down to return to her tongue-rasping exploration of the find.

"Any luck?" Ostrend's young a.s.sistant threw a long shadow past me as he came up.

"What are these? Have you seen them before?" I pointed to the fuzzy stones scattered about by Valcyr as she had made her examination and choice.

Chiswit sat on his heels to study them. "Never saw them before. In fact"-he looked up and about "this whole stream is new here. Maybe one of the big mudholes blew its top. Wait! Do you suppose that was what happened and there was gas? That could have driven out the Toads. They like the stink and the heat, but maybe they could not stand up to gas."

"Could be." But guesses about the disappearance of the natives, interesting as that might be, were not what I sought. I wanted information concerning the stones. If stones they were not, that was all I could term them. "You say you have never seen these. Was Valcyr with you when you planeted here last?"

"Yes. She has been s.h.i.+p's cat for a long time."

"And you never saw her do that before?" I pointed to where she now lay, the stone between her outstretched forepaws, her tongue working over and around it with absorbed concentration.

Chiswit stared. "No- what is she doing? Why, she's licking one of these things! Why did you let her-?" He scrambled to his feet and took two strides. Valcyr might not have seen him coming, but she seemed to sense a danger to her find. With it in her jaws, she was gone in a bound, heading away from the s.h.i.+p, weaving in and out among the twisted rocks.

We ran after her, but it was no use; she had disappeared - doubtless into some crevice where she could enjoy her find in peace. Chiswit turned on me with a demand as to why I had not earlier separated her from it. I showed him my bleeding hand and reported my failure. But the crewman was obviously upset and hunted through the rocky outcrops, calling and coaxing.

I did not believe that Valcyr was going to appear until she was ready, the independence of cats being their marked characteristic. But I trailed him, peering into each shallow, cavelike hole, rounding rocks in search.

We found her at last, lying on a small ledge under a deep overhang. Had it not been for the motion of her head as she swept the stone back and forth with her tongue, we might have missed her altogether, so close in color was her fur to the porous stone on which she lay. As Chiswit, speaking in a coaxing voice, went to his knees and held out his hand to her, she flattened her ears to her skull, hissed, and then gulped, and the stone vanished!

She could not have swallowed it! The one she had chosen had been the largest of those I had fished out of the stream, and it had been an ovoid far too big to descend her gullet. Only the fact remained that that was what had happened and we both had seen it. She crawled out of her crevice and sat licking her lips like a cat who has dined well. When Chiswit reached for her, she suffered him to pick her up, kneading paws on his arm as he carried her, purring loudly, her eyes half shut, with no signs that the swallowing of her find had done her harm, or choked her. Chiswit started at a swift trot for the s.h.i.+p, while I knelt to look at the ledge, still hoping that the stone might have rolled somewhere, unable to believe it was now inside Valcyr.

The gray rock of the ledge was bare. And had the stone rolled, it would lie now somewhere directly before me. But it did not. I even sifted the gravely sand through my fingers, to produce nothing. Then I ran a forefinger over the ledge. There was a faint dampness, perhaps from Valcyr's saliva. But, in addition, something else, a tingling, almost a shock as I touched one point. The second time I put tip of finger to the same spot there was nothing but the damp, and that was drying fast.

"We saw her, I tell you! She swallowed a stone, a queer black stone-" Chiswit's voice rang down the corridor as I came along to the medico's quarters.

"You saw the ray report - nothing in her throat. She cannot have swallowed it, man. It probably rolled away and-"

"It did not, I looked," I said quietly as I came to the doorway.

Valcyr was in the medico's arms, purring ecstatically, her claws working in and out. She had the appearance of a cat very well pleased with herself and the world.

"Then it was not a stone, but something able to dissolve," he answered me a.s.suredly.

I took out my impovrished bag. "What do you call these? They are the same things she swallowed. I picked them out of a stream bed."

He placed Valcyr gently on the bunk and motioned me to lay the bag on his small laboratory table. In the s.h.i.+p's light the fuzziness of the stones was even more marked. He picked up a small instrument and touched the surface of the largest, then tried to sc.r.a.pe away some of the velvet. But the point of the knife slipped across the stone.

"I want a look at these." He was staring as intently as Valcyr had done.

"Why not?" He might not have the tools of a gemologist, but at least he could give me some report on their substance. His interest was triggered and I thought he would work to get to the bottom of the mystery. Then I looked at Valcyr. The surface of the table on which the stones lay was very close to her. Would she be as attracted to another as she had to her first choice? Instead, she drowsily stretched out full length, her purring growing fainter, as if she were already half asleep.

Since the size of the medico's quarters did not allow for spectators, Chiswit and I left him to his tests. But in the corridor the a.s.sistant Cargo Master asked: "How big was that thing when she first picked it up?"

I measured off a s.p.a.ce between two fingers. "They are all oval. She took the biggest one."

"But she could not have swallowed it, not if it was that size!"

"Then what happened to it?" I asked, trying to remember those few instants when we had last seen the stone. Had it been as large as I thought? Perhaps she had only nosed the one I believed she had picked, and had taken another. But I did not distrust my eyes that much. I was trained to know stones and their sizes. An apprentice to such a master as Vondar could judge a stone's size without taking it into his hand at all. True, this was something new. I had tried to crush one of those things between two rocks with no results.

"She licked it smaller," Chiswit continued. "It is a seed or some hardened gum - and she just kept licking at it - so finally it melted."

A reasonable explanation, but one my own tests would not allow me to accept. So - I had a paradox - Valcyr had swallowed what seemed to me a gemhard stone, and one far too large to pa.s.s her gullet. Perhaps the medico would come up with an answer. I would have to wait for that.

On the second day the Captain broke out a small scout flitter, a one-man affair, but with range enough to explore the surrounding district. We could go on waiting here fruitlessly for months and he did not want to waste the time.

Ostrend took off in it and was gone two days. He returned with the disappointing news that not only had he not found the villagers, but that he had seen no natives at all. And that there appeared to be an unusual scarcity of all life along the river and its tributaries. A few of the flying things such as we had disturbed on the first day, and which were eaters of carrion, were all he sighted. For the rest, the planet, as far as his cruising range, was as bare as if any higher forms of life had never existed at all.

At that report the Free Traders held a conference, to which I was not a party, and it was decided that they would dump their now worthless cargo of crustaceans into the usual river pens, as a sign of good faith should the natives ever return. They would also leave their trade flag flying as a symbol of their visit. But they would have to vary their future route in order to make up for the loss of trade here.

Which meant, I was curtly informed by Ostrend, that I was to continue my voyage on the Vestris for longer than planned. My first possible exit port had been that for which their medicinal cargo had been destined, and it would not now be visited. By s.p.a.ce law I could not be summarily dumped on just any world, not when I had paid my pa.s.sage, but must be carried to at least a second-stage port from which there was regular service. Now I would have to wait in boredom and impatience until we touched at such a place. And when that would be depended upon Ostrend's luck in picking up a cargo. He was continually with the Captain, going over taped trade reports, trying to find a way to make up for this failure.

As far as could be observed, Valcyr was none the worse for her extraordinary meal - not at first. And the medico's efforts to solve the mystery of the stones continued, until at last he came to the mess cabin, fatigue's dark shadows under his eyes, wearing a bewildered expression. He drew a half cup of boiling water, added a caff pill, and watched it bubble and brown in an absent way that suggested he saw something very different from that ordinary s.h.i.+pboard drink.

"A break-through, medico?" I asked.

His eyes focused as if he saw me for the first time. "I do not know. But - that thing is alive!"

"But-"

He nodded. "Yes - but - The reading is very low - resembling hibernation level. Nothing I have can open its sh.e.l.l, or whatever holds that germ of life. I'll tell you something else-" He paused to drink the full contents of his cup in one intake of liquid. "Valcyr is going to have kittens - or something-"

"The stone? But how-"

He shrugged. "Do not ask me. I know it is against all nature as I know it. She ate that thing, you both say she did. And now she is going to have a kitten - or something-"

"I'll tell you something else," he added as he drew a second portion of water. "I have rayed those stones into ash. And maybe I ought to do the same to the cat-"

"Why?"

This time he dropped two pills into the steaming cup. "Because if what I think is true, it is no kitten she is carrying. In fact it may be nothing we want aboard. I will keep an eye on her from now on. When her time comes - well, I can do what is best then." He took the second cup in a couple of gulps. When he left the mess cabin I saw that he turned to climb to the Captain's quarters.

One of the dreads of a trading s.h.i.+p is an unnatural life form loose on board. There are all kinds of horror tales about what has happened to s.h.i.+ps unfortunate enough to pick up stowaways which later turned them into drifting charnel houses. That was the very reason Valcyr and her kind had their secure position on board s.h.i.+p. There were other safeguards, irradiation of suspect cargo by immunization rays and the like. But still, in spite of all precautions, sometimes the alien slipped in. If it was harmless it could prove a nuisance or even a new and amusing pet. But the chances were great that such uninvited guests would be inimical.

Traders are mainly immune to diseases of planets other than their native ones. Parallel but different roads of evolution performed this essential service. But they are not always immune to bites, stings, and attack from living creatures.

Now it seemed that Valcyr, meant to be the sentry at the gate, might well have unwittingly betrayed our fortress. She was kept in an improvised cage in the small sick bay. But the medico reported she did not protest imprisonment as she might have done normally. Instead she slept much of the time, rousing only to eat and drink. She did not resent his handling of her, but seemed happy and content. We all visited her, and speculation concerning the nature of what she was about to introduce among us was rife.

s.h.i.+p time differs from planet time; we reckon it only artificially in days and nights because for so many centuries our species did live by sunrise and sunset and the flow of days. We were perhaps four weeks of such arbitrary time off the marsh planet when the medico broke into the off-watch rest cabin with the news that Valcyr had disappeared. In spite of his initial uneasiness, she had been so lethargic since we had ups.h.i.+pped that he had come to believe she would not fight confinement. Nor had she. But the fact remained that when he had taken her food and water, he had found the door swinging free and the occupant gone.

A s.h.i.+p's interior is limited, and one would think that there would be few places where a cat, small as she was, could hide. But when we started a search from the control room down to the sealed cargo hatches and then, mentally accusing one another of having been careless, retraced the same way in pairs, even in threes, we found no trace of our quarry.

We were in the corridor outside the mess cabin when Chiswit and Stan, the junior engineer, both turned on the medico and accused him of doing away with Valcyr. Tempers were out of control by then and I had never realized how much the cat meant to these s.p.a.ce voyagers until I heard the hot flow of anger in their tones. The medico denied their accusation just as vehemently, saying that he was well prepared to take measure for anything she might deliver, but that Valcyr would be safe. It was he who turned them all on me, snarling that I had allowed her to eat the stone in the first place, had even brought more of them on board.

What might have happened I do not know. But the Captain swung down the ladder and snapped orders. I was sent to my cabin, to remove temptation from his men, I suppose. And at that moment I was willing enough to go. In fact, when I closed the door behind me I thumbed the lock. For I had discovered in the last few minutes that that wild night of flight through Koonga City had left its mark - and that when I heard that note in the voices of the crewmen, I had instinctively reached for a weapon I did not wear.

I turned toward my bunk and froze. By the medico's reckoning Valcyr was still some time from the moment when she was to solve the mystery. Yet she lay now on my bunk. Where had she been during the search? I had looked in here twice, the others at least once, yet now she lay there as if she had rested for hours. And she was licking again - a thing which lay limply by her side.

Though I was not familiar with kittens, I was sure that what Valcyr now cared for was not the normal young of her kind. It lay supine at its greatest length, head and tail outstretched. I could see the rise and fall of its side as it breathed with fast, fluttering breaths, so it was alive. But otherwise it looked dead. The body was covered with a black fuzz, close in appearance to the outward coating of the "stone." This was wiry and did not yield much to Valcyr's caressing tongue.

The neck was long, out of proportion, the head sharper of muzzle than seemed right, while the ears were only indicated by tiny upstanding tufts of hair. The legs were short, the tail again long, the underside and tip furless, rather as if it were covered with dark, tough skin. The paws, which it had drawn up and curled against its belly, were also furless, those in front resembling hands more than beast's paws.

No, I did not believe it was a kitten. But it looked very helpless as it lay there panting. And Valcyr's pride and concern for her strange child were very apparent. It was my duty to go and call the medico. But instead I sat down on the side of the bunk, leaving Valcyr good room, and watched her energetic was.h.i.+ng of the changeling. What she had given birth to I could not guess, but somehow I thought it worth saving. And that was my first meeting with Eet.

FIVE.

I found it increasingly hard to think of betraying Valcyr and her offspring to the crew. Because that was the feeling which I finally identified - that a disclosure of their presence would be a betrayal. And I who had never felt any strong emotion for an animal knew one now. I questioned myself, trying to discover why, and found no answer. But the fact remained that I could not call anyone, no more than if I were chained to the bunk, silenced by a gag.

The small creature stirred at last, raising its narrow head and turning it back and forth as if seeking something. But it did so blindly, for its eye slits were closed. Valcyr, purring, put out a foreleg and fondly drew it closer. But that head had swung around to face me, and I thought that, though the thing was so young, blind, and helpless, yet somehow it was aware of me, not in fear, but for a purpose. I tried to laugh at that.

Disturbed, I got up from the bunk and went to sit on a wall seat, my back half turned to those two. I strove to concentrate on my own difficulties. Since I could not hope now for an early release from the Vestris, or even be sure on which planet I would land, I must be prepared for a dubious future. Once more I ran my hand along my safe-belt, fingering each of the pitifully few bulges left in it. The last one of all - the s.p.a.ce ring- Hywel Jern had been killed for it; of that I was as certain as if I had witnessed the act. But- had our disaster on Tanth also stemmed from its possession? Why Vonder and not me, if that were true? Or was it necessary to make sure of us both, so that no awkward questions could later be raised by a survivor? Why-who-?

My father had had close ties with the Thieves' Guild, in spite of his retirement from their company. Any man in those ranks could and did make powerful enemies. But, I believed, his services had continued in part even after his settlement on Angkor.

I continued to rub the ring's shape through the stuff of the belt and my thoughts went round and round, presenting me with no solution. I do not know when it was that I had begun to notice an unusual degree of heat in the cabin. I had opened the sealing of my coverall, and felt the trickle of sweat drops down my cheek and chin. Now I raised my hand to swab those away and my eyes lit upon the skin across the back and fingers. Rising on that once-smooth surface were purplish blotches, swelling as might waterfilled blisters.

I tried to rise, only to discover that my body was no longer under my control. And I was s.h.i.+vering. The extreme heat of moments earlier was now an inner cold. I knew a tearing nausea, but I could not vomit. I clawed open my clothing and saw that the blisters were thick also across my chest and upper arms.

"Help-" Had I croaked that, or only thought I had? Somehow I lurched up and pushed around the wall of the cabin, using its support to make my way to the small com on the wall. There I shook and wavered as I tried to press the alert b.u.t.ton.

It was getting hard to see - in fact a thick fog curled up about me as if I were back in that world of geysers and steam. Had I been able to press the b.u.t.ton? I leaned my forehead against the wall so that my lips were not too far from the com as I croaked my plea: "Help- sick-"

I could no longer stay on my feet. Aiming myself at the bunk, I tottered forward, completely forgetting Valcyr. But as I crashed down I encountered no furry bodies. The bunk was empty and I lay on it shuddering.