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 space 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 assigned 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 passed 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 pronounced 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.