“I know you are there! I am waiting-“
To burn my head off, I deduced. And then Eet broke in, but he was not addressing me.
“It is no use, you cannot kill him.”
“You- you-“ Hory’s voice arose in an eerie shriek. “I’ll burn you!”
I heard the crackle of a laser beam and cringed against the ladder. Then I found myself climbing without my mind ordering my hands and feet into action. There was ozone in the air and I saw, shooting across the mouth of the well, flashes of light.
Eet once more: “Your fear is self-defeating, as I have shown you.” He seemed very calm. “Why not be sensible? You are not unintelligent. Do you not see that a temporary alliance is going to be the only solution? Look up at that screen-look!”
I heard an inarticulate exclamation from Hory. And then Eet spoke to me.
“UP!”
I took the last two steps with a rush, remained half crouched, my laser ready. But I did not need that. Hory stood, his back to me, a laser in his hand, but that hand had fallen to his side. He was staring at the visa-screen and I saw over his shoulder what held him oblivious.
Across the inlet, facing the platform of the vault, a square of gleaming metal pushed out of the brush, advancing onto the sand at a crawl. I do not know what type of machinery it hid, but there was a small port open at its top. And I thought that whatever lurked behind it was certainly a deadly promise.
How well protected this ship might be I could not tell, but there are some weapons which it might not be able to withstand. A quick lift could be our only hope. But – the bar I had left in the hatch – an anchor keeping us grounded.
“Eet-“ I paid no attention to Hory. “I have to unstopper a hatch – so we can lift-“
I half threw myself into the well, skidding down the ladder in a progress which was a series of falls I delayed from level to level by grabs at the rails. Then I slammed along the corridor at the bottom, wedged past the flitter once more. I had done my work of locking the hatch open almost too well. Though I jerked at the bar, I finally had to use the butt of the laser to pound it loose. At last it fell with a clang. I pulled at the far too slowly moving door, brought it shut, dogged it down as fast as I could.
Panting, I started back up the ladder. Would Hory’s solution be the same? If so, I would have to reach a shock cushion before we lifted. Also – what was going on in the control cabin?
My ascent was not as speedy as the descent had been, but I wasted no time in making it. And I half expected to be greeted by a laser blast; or at least threatened into submission.
But Hory stood with both hands on controls, not those of the pilot, but another set to one side. A beam flashed out from the ship. The visa-screen allowed us to follow its track as it struck across the platform. But it was mounted on a higher course now, to hit directly on that wall of metal moving slowly out of the brush.
There was no resulting glow of the sort that would have followed such an impact on any surface I knew. It was almost as if the shield simply absorbed the ray Hory hurled at it.
I glanced from the screen to look for Eet. There was a burned-out, melted-down mass of wiring to one side of the passenger webbing. But if that had caged the mutant, it had not done so for long. Now he clung to the pilot’s seat, swinging back and forth, as intent upon the screen as Hory.
A second or two later, and the ship rocked as if a giant fist had beat upon it. Not from the direction of that advancing shield, but from behind. We had been intent upon one enemy and lowered our guard to another. There was no time to assess the nature of that second, only to feel what attack it launched. I kept my feet by grabbing at the back of the seat. Hory crashed against the bank of buttons he tended, caromed off to the floor. Lights flickered and ran wild across both boards.
Eet sprang from his hold to the edge of the board. We were slightly aslant, enough to make it noticeable that we had been rocked from a straight three-fin stand. Another such blow would send us over, to lie as helpless as a sea dweller stranded ashore.
“Cushions!” Eet’s warning rang in my head. “Blast off-!”
I caught at Hory, pulled him over against the pilot’s chair so that we both lay half across the webbing. The quiver of the ship’s awaking was about us. I saw Eet’s paws playing across the board, his long body seemingly plastered to that. Then we did indeed blast off – into a nothingness of mind.
EIGHTEEN
There was the sickly taste of blood in my mouth, a lack of clarity in my mind-
“Murdoc!”
I tried to raise my head. Under me, for I lay on a smooth surface, a vibration reached into my body, bringing into life every ache and pain I had. I rolled, brought up against a wall, clawed above me for support, and at last got to my feet.
Fighting against dizziness, I stared slowly about. Eet still clung to the edge of the control board. And drawing himself aloft, even as I had done, was Hory, blood trickling from a gash along his jaw, his movements discordant and fumbling.
I turned to Eet. “We upped ship?”
“After a fashion.” Seemingly he was not so affected by the force of the take-off.
“Back on the sealed course again-“ I could remember better now.
Hory shook his head as if trying to clear it from some bewildering fog. He looked at me, but in an unfocused way, as if he did not really see me. Or, if he did, my presence had no meaning for him. He put out a hand to catch at the pilot’s seat, pulled himself laboriously into that, and relaxed in its embrace.
“We are on course.” His voice was drained and weak. “Back where we were. Next set down will be at the Patrol base – or do you want to reverse again?”
He did not turn his head to look at me as he spoke. If the active combativeness had gone out of him, there was still a core of determination to be read in his tone as his voice grew stronger and steadied.
“The Guild are in control down there.” I did not know what I wanted, save to keep from sudden and painful death, a fate which had dogged me far too long. Perhaps some men savor such spice in their lives, but it was not to my taste. I was so tired I wanted nothing but peace. And a way out – with neither the Guild nor the Patrol snapping at my heels. The only obstacle to that was that neither organization was one to relinquish easily what it desired. In that moment I damned the day I had first laid eyes on the zero stone. Yet when I looked to Eet and saw he wore the ring about his forelimb, something about it drew and held my eyes. And I do not think I could have hurled it from me had it lain within my grasp. I was as tied to it now as if I were bound by a tangle cord.
“To no purpose-“ That was Eet. For a moment I did not understand him, so far had my thoughts ranged.
“Look-“
His paws moved and on the visa-screen appeared a picture.
“This registered as we took off,” he explained. “It remained.”
I saw the platform of the heads approaching sharply, as if we had crossed above it. And I remembered the ship had been slightly aslant.
“The tail flames of the rockets” – Eet used his instructor’s voice – must have swept across it”
He did not enlarge on that but I understood. The flames – could they have resealed, or cleaned out the crypt? If sealed, then the cache of the best stones was once more hidden. And we were the only ones who knew of their existence! A bargaining point? The stones we had seen in the room of the ruins had been close to exhaustion, those in the vault fresh. They were probably the cream of those owned by the ones who had established the tomb. If the Guild depended upon those from the ruins, they could still be defeated by whoever had the others.
I knew that Eet was reading my mind. But he remained silent, so that Hory could not share my realization of that small superiority. The mutant continued to watch the visa-screen until it went blank.