Norton, Andre - The Zero stone

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THE ZERO STONE

An Ace Book, by arrangement with The Viking Press, Inc.

Cover art by Jeff Jones.

For A. M. LIGHTNER,

who was the "Godmother" for EET

Printed in U.S.A.

ONE

The dark was so thick in this stinking alley that a man might well put out his hand and

catch shadows, pull them here or there, as if they were curtain stuff. Yet I could not quarrel

with the fact that this world had no moon and that only its stars spotted the nightlit sky, nor

that the men of Koonga City did not set torchlights on any but the main ways of that den of

disaster.

Here the acrid smells were almost as thick and strong as the dark, and under my boots the

slime coating the uneven stone pavement was a further risk. While my fear urged me to run,

prudence argued that I take only careful step after step, pausing to feel out the way before me.

My only guide was an uncertain memory of a city I had known for only ten days, and those not

dedicated to the study of geography. Somewhere ahead, if I was lucky, very, very lucky, there was

a door. And on that door was set the head of a godling known to the men of this planet. In the

night the eyes of that head would blaze with welcoming light, because behind the door were

torches, carefully tended to burn the night through. And if a man being hunted through these

streets and lanes for any reason, even fresh blood spilt before half the city for witness, could

lay hand upon the latch below those blazing eyes, lift it, to enter the hall beyond, he had

sanctuary from all hunters.

My outstretched fingers to the left slid along sweating stone, picking up a foul burden of

stickiness as they passed. I had the laser in my right hand. It might buy me moments, a few of

them, if I were cornered here, but only a few. And I was panting with the effort that had brought

me so far, bewildered by the beginning of this nightmare which had certainly not been of my

making, nor of Vondar's.

Vondar - resolutely I squeezed him from my thoughts. There had been no chance for him, not

from the moment the four Green Robes had walked so quietly into the taproom, set up their spin

wheel (all men there going white or gray of face as they watched those quiet, assured movements),

and touched the wheel into life. The deadly arrow which tipped it whirled fatefully to point out,

when it came to rest, he who would be an acceptable sacrifice to the demon they so propitated.

We had sat there as if bound-which indeed we had been, in a sense, by the customs of this

damnable world. Any man striving to withdraw after that arrow moved would have died, quickly, at

the hands of his nearest neighbor. For there was no escape from this lottery. So we had sat there,

but not in any fear, as it was not usual that an off-worlder be chosen by the Green Robes. They

were not minded to have difficulty thereafter from the Patrol, or from powers beyond their own

skies, being shrewd enough to know that a god may be great on his own world, and nothing under the

weight of an unbeliever's iron fist, when that fist swung down from the stars.

Vondar had even leaned forward a little, studying the faces of those about us with that

curiosity of his. He was as satisfied as he ever was, having done good business that day, filled

himself with as fine a dinner as these barbarians knew how to prepare, and having gained a lead to

a new source of lalor crystals.

Also, had he not unmasked the tricks of Hamzar, who had tried to foist on us a lalor of

six carats weight but with a heart flaw? Vondar had triangulated the gem neatly and then pointed

that such damage could not be polished out, and that the crystal which might have made Hamzar's

fortune with a less expert buyer was an inferior stone in truth, worth only the price of an extra

laser charge.

A laser charge- My fingers crooked tighter about my weapon. I would willingly exchange now

a whole bag of lalors for another charge waiting at my belt. A man's life is ever worth, at least

to him, more than the fabled Treasure of Jaccard.

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So Vondar had watched the natives in the tavern, and they had watched the spinning arrow

of death. Then that arrow had wavered to a halt-pointing at no man directly, but to the narrow

space which existed between Vondar's shoulder and mine as we sat side by side. And Vondar had

smiled then, saying:

"It would seem that their demon is somewhat undecided this night, Murdoc." He spoke in

Basic, but there were probably those there who understood his words. Even then he did not fear, or

reach for a weapon - though I had never known Vondar to be less than alert. No man can follow the

life of a gem buyer from planet to planet without having eyes all around his head, a ready laser,

and a nose ever sniffing for the taint of danger.

If the demon had been undecided, his followers were not. They came for us. From the long

sleeves of their robes suddenly appeared the bind cords used on prisoners they dragged to their

lord's lair. I took the first of those Green Robes, beaming across the table top, which left the

wood scorched and smoking. Vondar moved, but a fraction too late. As the Free Traders say, his

luck spaced, for the man to his left sprang at him, slamming him back against the wall, pinning

his hand out of reach of his weapon. They were all yammering at us now, the Green Robes halting,

content to let others take the risk in pulling us down.

I caught a second man reaching for Vondar. But the one already struggling with him I dared

not ray, lest I get my master too. Then I heard Vondar cry out, the sound speedily smothered in a

rush of blood from his lips. We had been forced apart in the struggle and now, as I slipped along

the wall, trying to get beam sight on the Green Robes, my shoulders met no solid surface. I

stumbled back and out, through a side door into the street.

It was then that I ran, heedlessly at first, then dodging into a deep doorway for a

moment. I could hear the hunt behind me. From such hunting there was little hope of escape, for

they were between me and the space port. For a long moment I huddled in that doorway, seeing no

possible future beyond a fight to the end.

What fleeting scrap of memory was triggered then, I did not know. But I thought of the

sanctuary past which Hamzar had taken us, three-four-days earlier. His story concerning it flashed

into my mind, though at that instant I could not be sure in which direction that very thin hope of

safety might lie.

I tried to push panic to the back of my mind, picture instead the street before me and how

it ran in relation to the city. Training has saved many a man in such straits, and training came

to my aid now. For memory had been fostered in me by stiff schooling. I was not the son and pupil

of Hywel Jern for naught.

Thus and thus-I recalled the running of the streets, and thought I had some faint chance

of following them. There was this, also- those who hunted me would deem they had all the

advantages, that they need only keep between me and the space port and I would be easy prey,

caught deep in the maze of their unfamiliar city.

I slipped from the shadow of the door and began a weaving which took me, not in the

direction they would believe I would be desperately seeking, but veering from it north and west.

And so I had come into this alley, slipping and scraping through its noisome muck.

My only guides were two, and to see one I had to look back to the tower of the port. Its

light was strong and clear across this dark-skyed world. Keeping it ever at my right, I took it

for a reverse signal. The other I could only catch glimpses of now and again as I scuttled from

one shadowed space to the next. It was the watchtower of Koonga, standing tall to give warning

against the sudden attacks of the barbarian sea rovers who raided down from the north in the lean

seasons of the Great Cold.

The alley ended in a wall. I leaped to catch its crest, my laser held between my teeth. On

the top I perched, looking about me, until I decided that the wall would now form my path. It

continued to run along behind the buildings, offering none too wide a footing, but keeping me well

above ground level. There were dim lights in the back windows of these upper stories, and from one

to the next, they served me as beacons.

When I paused now and then to listen, I could hear the murmur of the hunters. They were

spreading set from the main streets, into some of the alleys. But they did so cautiously, and I

believed they did not face too happily a quarry who might be ready to loose a laser beam from the

dark. Time was on their side, for with the coming of dawn, were I still away from the sanctuary, I

could be readily picked out of any native gathering by my clothing alone. I wore a modified form

of crew dress, suited to the seasoned space traveler, designed for ease on many different worlds,

though not keeping to the uniform coloring of a crewman.

Vondar had favored a dull olive-green for our overtunics, the breast of his worked with

the device of a master gemologist. Mine had the same, modified by an apprentice's two bars. Our

boots were magnet-plated for ship wear, and our under garment was of one piece, like a working

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crewman's. In this world of long, fringed overrobes and twisted, colored headdresses, I would be

very noticeable indeed. There was one small change I could make; I did so now, balancing

precariously on my wall perch, once more holding the laser between my teeth as I loosed the seam

seal and pulled off my overtunic with its bold blazoning. I rammed it into as small a ball as I

could and teetered dangerously over a scrap of garden to push it into a fork of branches on a

thorn bush. Then I crept along the wall top for the distance of four more houses until I came to

the end at the rise of another building. From there I had a choice of leaps - down to a garden, or

into the maw of another alley. I would have chosen the alley had I not frozen tight against the

house wall at a sound from its depths. Something moved there, but certainly no number of men.

There was the sucking sound of a foot, or feet, lifted out of the slime, and I even

thought I could hear the hiss of breathing. Whoever crept there was not moving with the openness

of those who quested on my trail.

My hands had been braced against the house wall and now my fingers fell into holes there.

I explored by touch and knew that I had come upon one of those geometric patterns which decorated

the walls of more important buildings, some parts being intaglio and others projecting. As I felt

above me, higher and higher, I began to believe that the pattern might extend clear to the roof

and offer me a third way out.

Once more I crouched and this time I unsealed my boots, fastening them to the back of my

belt. Then I climbed, after pausing for a long moment to listen to sounds below. They were farther

away now, near the mouth of the alley.

Again my schooling came to my aid and I pulled myself up those sharply etched hand and toe

holds until I swung over an ornamental parapet, past bold encrustations of demon faces set to

frighten off the evil powers of natural forces.

The roof onto which I dropped sloped inward to a middle opening which gave down three

floors to a center court with a core pool, into which rain water would feed during the spring

storms. It was purposely smoothed to aid in that transfer of rain to reservoir, so I crept beside

the parapet, my hands anchoring me from one spike of the wall to the next. But I did so with

speed, for even in the dark I could see that now I was only a little away from my goal.

From this height I could see also the space port.

There were two ships there, one a passenger-cum-trader, on which that very morning Vondar

had taken passage for us. It was as far from me now as if half the Dark Dragon curled between.

They would know that we had bought passage on it and would keep it cordoned. The other, farther

away, was a Free Trader. And, while no one normally interfered with one of those or its crew, I

could make no claim on it for protection. Even if I reached sanctuary, what further hope would I

have? I pushed aside that fear and turned to examine the immediate prospect of getting to the

doorway. Now I would have to descend the outer face of the building into a lighted street. There

were more bands of decoration and I had little doubt they would make me a ladder, if I could go

unsighted. However, torches flamed in brackets along that way, and compared with the back streets

through which I had fled, this was as light as a concourse on one of the inner planets.

Few men were abroad so late with legal reason. And I heard no sounds to suggest that the

hunt had spread this far. They must rather be patrolling near the field. I had come this far;

there was no retreat now. Giving a last searching glance below, I slipped between two of the

ornaments and began the descent.

From hold to hold, feeling for those below, trusting to the strength in my fingers and

wrists, I worked my way down. I had passed the top story when I came upon a window, my feet

thudding home on its jutting sill. I balanced there, my hands on either side, my face to the dark

interior. And then I was near startled into letting go my grasp by a shrill scream from within.

I was not conscious of making the first few drops of my continued flight down the wall.

There was a second scream and a third. How soon would the household be aroused, or attention

raised in the street? Finally I let go, fell in a roll. Then, not even stopping to put on my

boots, I ran as I had not run before, without looking back to see what fury I had roused.

Along the house walls, sprinting from one patch of shadow to the next, I dashed. Now I

could hear cries behind. At the least, the screamer had aroused members of her own household. But

there came a street corner and- memory had served me right! I could sight the bright eyes of the

godling on the door. I ran with open mouth, sucking in quick breaths, my boots still fastened to

my belt and knocking against my hips, the laser in my hand. On and on - and always I feared to see

someone step into the open between me and the face with the blazing eyes. But there was no halting

and with a last burst of speed I hit against the portal, my fingers scrabbling for the ring below

the head. With a jerk I pulled it. For a second or two the door, contrary to promise, seemed to

resist my efforts. Then it gave, and I stumbled into a hall where stood the torches which gave

light to the beacon eyes.

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I had forgotten the door as I wavered on, intent only on getting inside, away from the

rising clamor in the street. Then I tripped and fell forward on my knees. Somehow I squirmed

around, the laser ready. Already the door was swinging shut, shutting off a scene of running men,

light gleaming on the bared blades they held.

Breathing hard, I watched the door shut by itself, and then was content to sit there for a

space. I had not realized how great the strain of my flight had been until this island of safety

held me. It was good simply to sit on the floor of that passage and know I need not run.

Finally I roused enough to draw my boots on and look about me. Hamzar's tale of sanctuary

had not gone beyond the few facts of the face on the door and the guarantee that no malefactor

could be taken from within. I had expected some type of temple to lie behind such a story. But I

was not in the court of any fane now, only in a narrow hall with no doors. Very close to me stood

a stone rack in which were set two oilsoaked torches, blazing steadily to form the beacon of the

door eyes.

I got to my, feet and rounded that barrier, waiting for a challenge from whoever tended

those night lights. With my back to their flames I saw only more corridor, unbroken, shadows at

its far end which could veil anything. With some caution I advanced.

Unlike the glimpses I had had into the various other temples of Koonga, these walls were

unpainted, being only the native yellow stone such as cobbled the wider streets. The same stone

formed the wide blocks of the floor, and as far as I could see, the ceiling as well.

They were worn in places underfoot, as if from centuries of use. Also here and there on

the floor were dark splotches following no pattern, which suggested unpleasantly that some of

those who had come this way earlier might have suffered hurts during their flight, and that there

had been no effort to clean away such traces.

I reached the end of the corridor and discovered it made a sharp turn to the right, one

which was not visible until one reached it. To the left was only wall. That new way, being out of

the path of the torches, was almost as dark as the alleys. I tried to pierce its dusk, wishing I

had a beamer. Finally I turned the laser on lowest energy, sending a white pencil which scored the

stained blocks of the flooring, but gave me light.

The new passage was only about four paces long. Then I was in a square box of a room and

the laser beam touched upon an unlighted torch in the wall bracket. That blazed and I switched off

the weapon, blinking. I might have been in a room furnished by one of the cheaper inns. Against

the far wall was a basin of stone, into which trickled a small runnel of water, the overflow

channeled back into the surface of the wall again.

There was a bedframe fitted with a netting of cords, a matting of dried and faintly

aromatic leaves laid over it. Not a comfortable bed, but enough to keep one's bones from aching

too much. There were two stools, a small guesting table set between them. They bore none of the

customary carving, but were plain, however smoothed by long use.

In the wall opposite the bed was a niche in which sat a flagon of dull metal, a small

basket, and a bell. But there were no doors to the room. And I could see no other exit save the

corridor along which I had come. It began to impress me that this vaunted sanctuary was close to a

prison, if the trapped dare not venture forth again.

I forced the torch out of its wall hold and carried it about, searching the walls, the

ceiling, the floor, to find no break. At last I wedged it back into place. The bell by the flagon

next held my attention and I picked it up. A bell suggested signaling. Perhaps it would bring me

an explainer- or an explanation. I rang it with as much force as I could get into a snap of the

wrist. For so large a bell, it gave forth a very muted tinkle, though I tried it several times,

waiting between each for an answer that did not come, until at last I slammed it back into the

niche and went to sit on the bed.

When the delayed answer to my impatient summons came, it was startling enough to bring me

to my feet, laser drawn. For a voice spoke out of the air seemingly only a few feet away.

"To Noskald you have come, in His Shadow abide for the waning of four torches."

It was a moment before I realized that that voice had not used the lisping speech of

Koonga, but Basic. Then they must know me for an off-worlder!

"Who are you?" My own words echoed hollowly as that voice had not. "Let me see you!"

Silence only. I spoke again, first promising awards if my plight was told at the port, or

if they would give me help in reaching it. Then I threatened, speaking of ill which came when off-

worlders were harmed - though I guessed that perhaps they were shrewd enough to know how hollow

those threats were. There was no answer - no sign I was even heard. It could have been a recording

which addressed me. And who the guardians here were I did not know either - a priesthood? Then

they might be akin to the Green Robes and so would do me no favors, save those forced upon them by

custom.

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At last I curled into the bed and slept - and dreamed very vivid dreams which were not

fancies spun by the unconscious mind, but memories out of the past. So, as it is said a dying man

sometimes does, I relived much of my life, which had not been so long in years.

My beginnings were overshadowed by another - Hywel Jern who, in his time, had had a name

to be reckoned with on more than one planet - and who could speak with authority in places where

even the Patrol must walk with cat-soft feet, fearing to start what would take death and blood to

finish.

My father had a past as murky as the shallow inlets of Hawaki after autumn storms. I do

not think that any man save himself knew the whole of it; certainly we did not. For years after

his death I still came across hints, bits and pieces, which each time opened another door, to show

me yet another Hywel Jern. Even when I was young, at times when a coup of more than ordinary

cleverness warmed whatever organ served him as a heart, he launched into a tale which was perhaps

born out of his own adventuring, though he spoke always of some other man as the actor in it.

Always this story was a lesson aimed at impressing upon his listeners some point of bargaining, or

of action in crisis. And all his tales made more of things than of people, who were only

incidental, being the owners or obtainers of objects of beauty or rarity.

Until he was close to fifty planet years old, he was prime assessor to the Veep Estampha,

a sector boss of the Thieves' Guild. My father never tried to hide this association; in fact it

was a matter of pride to him. Since he seemed to have an inborn talent, which he fostered by

constant study, for the valuing of unusual loot, he was a valuable man, ranking well above the

general core of that illegal combine. However, he appeared to have lacked ambition to climb

higher, or else he simply had an astute desire to remain alive and not a target of the ambition of

others.

Then Estampha met a rootless Borer plant, which someone with ambition secreted in his

private collection of exotic blooms, and came to an abrupt finish. My father withdrew prudently

and at once from the resulting scramble for power. Instead he bought out of the Guild and migrated

to Angkor.

For a while, I believe, he lived very quietly. But during that period he was studying both

the planet and the openings for a lucrative business. It was a sparsely settled world on the

pioneer level, not one which at that time attracted the attention of those with wealth, nor of the

Guild. But perhaps my father had already heard rumors of what was to come.

Within a space of time he paid court to a native woman whose father operated a small hock-

lock for pawning, as well as a trading post, near the only space port. Shortly after his marriage

the father-in-law died of an off-world fever, a plague ship having made a crash landing before it

could be warned off. The fever also decimated most of the port authorities. But Hywel Jern and his

wife proved immune and carried on some of the official duties at this time, which entrenched them

firmly when the plague had run its course and the government was restored.

Then, some five years later, the Vultorian star cluster was brought into cross-stellar

trade by the Fortuna Combine, and Angkor suddenly came to life as a shipping port of exchange. My

father's business prospered, though he did not expand the original hock-lock.

With his many off-world contacts, both legal and illegal, he did well, but to outward

appearances, only in a modest way. All spacers sooner or later lay hands on portable treasures or

curiosities. To have a buyer who asked no questions and paid promptly was all they wanted at any

port where the gaming tables and other planetside amusements separated them too fast from flight

pay.

This quiet prosperity lasted for years, and appeared to be all my father wanted.

TWO

If Hywel Jern had contracted his marriage for reasons of convenience, it was a stable one.

There were children, myself, Faskel, and Darina. My father took little interest in his daughter,

but he early bent more than a little energy to the training of Faskel and me; not that Faskel

showed any great promise along the lines Hywel Jern thought important.

It was the custom for us to assemble at a large table in an inner room (we lived over and

behind the shop) for the evening meal. And at that time my father would bring out and pass around

some item from his stock, first asking an opinion of it - its value, age, nature. Gems were a

passion with him and we were forced to learn them as other children might scan book tapes for

general knowledge. To my father's satisfaction I proved an apt pupil. In time he centered most of

his instruction on me, since Faskel, either because he could not, or because he stubbornly would

not learn, again and again made some mistake which sent our father into one of his cold and silent

withdrawals.

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I never saw Hywel Jern lose his temper, but his cold displeasure was not to be courted. It

was not so much that I feared such censure as that I was really fascinated and interested in what

he had to teach. Before I was out of childhood I was allowed to judge the pledges in the shop. And

whenever one of the gem merchants who visited my father from time to time came, I was displayed as

a star pupil.

So through the years our house became one divided, my mother, Faskel, and Darina on one

side, my father and I on the other. And our contact - or mine - with other children of the port

was limited, my father drawing me more and more into the shop to learn his old trade of valuing.

Some strange and beautiful things passed through our hands in those days. Part were sold openly,

others remained in his lockboxes, to be offered in private transactions, and of those I did not

see all.

There were things from alien ruins and tombs, made before the time that our species burst

into space; there were pieces looted from empires which had vanished into the dust of history so

long past that even their planets had been buried. And there were others new from the workshops of

the inner systems, where all the creative art of a jeweler is unleashed to catch the eye of a Veep

with a bottomless purse.

My father liked the old pieces the most. Sometimes he would hold a necklet, or a bracelet

(which by its form had never been meant to encircle a human wrist) and speculate about who had

worn it and the civilization from which it had come. And he demanded of those who brought him such

trinkets as clear a history of their discovery as he could obtain, putting on tapes all he could

learn.

I think that these tapes in themselves might have proven a rich treasure house for seekers

of strange knowledge, and I have wondered since if Faskel ever suspected their worth and used them

so. Perhaps he did, for in some ways he proved to be more shrewd than my father.

In one of our round-table meetings after an evening meal my father produced such an alien

curiosity. He did not pass it from hand to hand as was his wont, but laid it on the wellpolished

board of dead-black creel wood and sat staring at it as if he were one of the fakirs from the dry

lands seeking to read a housewife's future in a polished seed pod.

It was a ring, or at least it followed that form. But the band must have been made for a

finger close to the size of two of ours laid together. The metal was dull, pitted, as if from

great age.

Its claw setting held a stone bigger than my thumbnail, in proper proportion to the band.

And it was as dull and unappealing as the metal, colorless, no sparkle or hint of life in it.

Also, the longer one studied it, the more the idea grew in mind that this was the corpse of

something which might have once had life and beauty but was long since dead. I had, at that first

viewing, a disinclination to touch it, though I was always avid to examine these bits and pieces

my father used for our instruction.

"Out of another tomb? I wish you would not bring these corpse ornaments to the table!" My

mother spoke more sharply than was usual. At that time it struck me odd that she, whom I thought

immune to imaginative fancies, had also so quickly associated the ring with death.

My father did not raise his eyes from the ring. Rather he spoke to Faskel in the voice he

used when he would be answered, and at once.

"What make you of this?"

My brother put out his hand as if to touch the ring and then jerked it back again. "A ring

- too large to wear. Maybe a temple offering."

To that my father made no comment. Instead he said to Darina:

"And you see what?"

"It is cold- so cold-' My sister's thin voice trailed off, and then she pushed away from

the table. "I do not like it."

"And you?" My father turned to me at last.

Temple offering it might have been, fashioned larger than life to fit on the finger of

some god or goddess. I had seen such things pass through my father's hands before. And some of

them had had that about them which gave one a queasy feeling upon touching. But if any god had

worn this- No, I did not believe it had been made for such a purpose. Darina was also right. It

evoked a sensation of cold, as well as of death. However, the more I studied it, the more it

fascinated me. I wanted to touch, yet I feared. And it seemed to me that my feeling reflected

something about the ring which made it more than any other gem I had seen, though it was now but

age-pitted metal set with a lifeless stone.

"I do not know - save that it is - or was - a thing of power!" And my certainty of that

fact was such that I spoke more loudly than I had meant to, so my final word rang through the

room.

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"Where did it come from?" Faskel asked quickly, hunching forward again and putting out his

hand as if to lay it over ring and stone, though his fingers only hovered above it. In that moment

I had the thought that he who did take it firmly would be following the custom of gem dealers: to

close hand about a jewel was to accept an offered bargain. But if that were so, Faskel did not

quite dare to accept such 'a challenge, for he drew back his hand a second time.

"From space," my father returned.

There are gems out of space - primitive peoples pay high sums to own them. What forms them

we are not quite sure even yet. The accepted theory is that they are produced when bits of meteor

of the proper metallic composition pass through the blaze of a planet's atmosphere. It was the fad

for a while to make space Captains' rings out of these tektites. I have seen several such,

centuries old, which must have been worn by the first space venturers. But this gem, if gem it

really was, bore no resemblance to those, for it was not dark green, black, or brown, but a

colorless crystal, dulled as if sand had pitted the surface deeply.

"It does not look like a tektite- I ventured.

My father shook his head. "It was not formed in space, not that I know of - it was found

there." He leaned back in his chair and took up his cup of folgar tea, sipping absent-mindedly as

he continued to stare at the ring. "A curious tale-"

"We expect Councilor Sands and his lady-" my mother interrupted abruptly, as if she knew

the tale and wanted not to hear it again. "The hour grows late." She started to gather our cups,

then raised her hands to clap for Staffla, our serving maid.

"A curious tale," my father repeated as if he had not heard her at all. And such was his

hold over his household that she did not summon Staffla, but sat, moving a little uneasily,

plainly unhappy.

"But a true one - of that I am sure," my father continued. "This was brought in today by

the first officer of the Astra. They had a grid failure in mid-passage and had to come out of

hyper for repairs. Their luck continued bad, for they had a holing from a meteor pebble. It was

necessary then to patch the hull as well." He was telling this badly, not as he usually spun such

stories, but more as one who would keep strictly to facts, and those were meager. "Kjor was doing

the patch job when he saw it- a floater - He beamed out on his stay line and brought it in - a

body in a suit. Not"- my father hesitated- "of any species he knew. And it had been there a long

time. It wore this over its suit glove." He pointed to the ring.

Over the glove of a space suit-the strangeness of that indeed made one wonder. The gloves

are supple enough; they have to be if a man wears them in outer space for ship repair, or while

exploring a planet deadly to his species. But why would anyone want to wear an ornament over

such a glove? I must have asked that aloud for my father answered:

"Why indeed? Certainly not for any reason of show. Therefore - this had importance, vast

importance to him who wore it. Enough that I would like to know it better."

"There are tests," Faskel observed.

"This is a gem stone, unknown to me, and twelve on the Mobs scale-"

"A diamond is ten-"

"And a Javsite eleven," my father returned. "Heretofore that was the measuring rod. This

is something beyond our present knowledge."

"The Institute-" began my mother, but my father put out his hand and cupped the ring in

it, hiding it from sight. So hidden, he restored it to a small bag and slipped that into his inner

tunic pocket.

"This is not to be spoken of!" he ordered sharply. And from that moment on we would not

speak of it as he well knew. He had trained us very well. But neither did he send it to the

Institute, nor, I was sure, did he seek any other official information concerning it. But that he

studied and tested it by all methods known, and they were not a few, that I also learned.

I became used to seeing him in his small laboratory, at his desk, the ring on a square of

black cloth before him, staring down at it as if by the very strength of his will he would extract

its secret. If it had ever had any beauty, time and the drift through space had destroyed that,

and what was left was an enigma but no blazing treasure.

The mystery haunted me also, and from time to time my father would speak of various

theories he had formed concerning it. He was firmly convinced that it was not meant to be an

ornament, but that it had served its wearer in some manner. And he kept its possession a secret.

From the day my father had taken over the shop, he had set into its walls various hiding

places. And later, upon enlarging the rooms, he had built in more such pockets. The majority of

these were known to the whole family, and would answer to hand pressure from any of us. But there

were a few he showed only to me. And one of these, in the laboratory, held the ring. My father

altered the seal there to answer only to our two thumbs, and he had me seal and unseal it several

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times before he was satisfied.

Then he waved me to sit down opposite him.

"Vondar Ustle arrives tomorrow," he began abruptly. "He will bring an apprentice warrant

with him. When he leaves, you go with him-"

I could not believe my hearing. As eldest son, apprenticeship, save to my father, was not

for me. If anyone went to serve another master it would be Faskel. But before I could raise a

question, my father went on with as much explanation as I was ever to get from him.

"Vondar is a master gemologist, though he chooses to travel rather than set up an

establishment on any one planet. There is no better teacher in the galaxy. I have good reason to

be sure of that. Listen well, Murdoc - this shop is not for you. You have a talent, and a man who

does not develop his talent is a man who ever eats dry oat-cake while before him sits a rich meat

dish, a man who chooses a zircon when he need only reach out his hand to pick up a diamond. Leave

this shop to Faskel-"

"But he-"

My father smiled thinly. "No, he is not one who has a great eye for what is to be seen,

beyond a fat purse and the value in credits. A shopkeeper is a shopkeeper, and you are not meant

for such. I have waited a long time for a man such as Ustle, one on whom I can depend to be the

teacher you must have. In my day I was known as a master at valuing, but I served in murky ways.

You must walk free of such ties, and you can gain such freedom only by cutting loose now from the

very name you carry on Angkor. Also- you must see more than one world, walk other planets, if you

are to be all that you can be. It is known that planetary magnetic fields can influence human

behavior, some ebb and flow in them producing changes in the brain. Alertness and sensibility are

stimulated by these changes; memory can be fostered the brighter, ideas incited. I want what you

can learn from Ustle during the next five planet years."

"Something to do with the space stone-?"

He nodded. "I can no longer go seeking knowledge, but you who have a mind like unto mine

are not rooted. Before I die I want to know what that ring holds, and what it did or can do for

the man who wears it!"

Once more he got up and brought out the ring bag, removed the band with its dull stone,

and turned it about in his fingers.

There was an old superstition once believed in by our species," he said slowly, "that we

left impressions of ourselves on material things we had owned, providing those objects were

closely tied into our destinies. Here-" Of a sudden he tossed the ring at me. I was unprepared,

but I caught it, almost on reflex, out of the air. For all the months we had had it under this

roof, that was the first time I had held it.

The metal was cold, with a gritty surface. And it seemed to me, as it rested in my palm,

the cold grew stronger, so that my skin tingled with it. But I lifted it to eye level and peered

at the stone. The clouded surface was as gritty as the band. If it had ever held fire in its

heart, that was long since quenched or clouded over. I wondered briefly if it could be detached

from that rough setting and recut, to regain the life it had lost. But knew also that my father

would never attempt to do that. Nor, I decided, could I. As it was, the mystery was all. It was

not the ring itself but what lay behind it that was of importance. And now my father's plans for

me also made sense - I would be the seeker for a solution to our mystery.

So I became Ustle's apprentice. And my father proved right; such an instructor is seldom

found. My master might have made several fortunes had he wished to root on one of the luxury

worlds, set up as a designer and merchant. But to him the quest for the perfect stone was far more

meaningful than selling it. He did design - usually during our voyages his mind and his fingers

were busy, turning out patterns which other, less talented men were eager to buy when he wanted to

offer them. But his passion was exploration of the secrets of new-found worlds, doing his own

bargaining with natives for uncut stones not far from where they were first unearthed.

He laughed at the frauds he uncovered - the lesser stones soaked in herbs or chemicals to

make them more resemble the precious, the gems treated by heat to change their color. He taught me

odd ways to impress native sellers so that they respected one's wisdom and brought out the better

rather than the worse. Such things as that a human hair stretched across real jade will not burn,

even though you set match to it.

Planet time is reckoned in years, space time less easily. A man who makes many voyages

does not age as quickly as the earthbound. I do not know how old Vondar was, but if he were judged

by his store of knowledge, he must have outstripped my father. We went far from Angkor, but in

time we returned to it. Only I had no crumb, not even infinitesimally small, to offer my father on

the history of the space ring.

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I had not been more than a day under our own roof when I knew that all was not well there.

Faskel was older. When I looked upon him and then upon my own face in my mother's well-polished

mirror, I would have said he was the elder by birth. Also he was more assertive, taking over the

role of my father's assistant, making decisions even within my father's hearing. And Hywel Jern

did not lift even an eyebrow in correction of his presumption.

My sister was married. Her dowry had been enough to bring her the son of a Councilor, to

my mother's great content. Though she had vanished from the house as if she had never lived, "my

daughter, the Councilor's son's lady" was so ever on my mother's lips as to make of my sister a

haunting ghost.

Of this household I was no longer a well-fitting part. Though Faskel masked for the most

part his displeasure at my return, he became more and more officious in conducting the business

when I was present though I did nothing to confirm his suspicions that I had returned to supersede

him. Once I had thought the shop all important, but off world so many doors had opened to me that

now it seemed a very dull way to spend one's days, and I wondered that my father could have chosen

it.

He roused himself to ask questions about my journeying, so I spent most of my time in his

inner office retailing, not without some satisfaction, all I had learned. Though now and then a

crisp comment reduced my self-esteem and sent me into confusion, for he made it clear that much of

this he already knew.

However, after my first burst of enthusiasm, it became increasingly clear that if my

father listened, he heard, or strove to hear, more than my spate of words. Behind his interest -

and it was interest; in that I was not deceived - lurked some preoccupation which was not

concerned with me or my discoveries. Nor did he mention the space ring, and I too had a strange

reluctance to introduce the subject. Not once did he bring out that treasure to brood over it as

he had in the past.

It was not until I had been four days home that the shadow which I sensed on the household

drew closer. Like all shops, we would remain closed during the festival. It was customary for

families to entertain kinfolk and friends, making up parties to go from home to home. My mother

spoke pridefully at the table that night of our going to Darina's and being included with them in

the Councilor's own group for a pleasure cruise on the river in his own barge.

But when she had done, my father shook his head. He would, he announced, stay home. I had

never seen my mother, though of late years she might have grown more assertive, stand against my

father's pronouncements. But this time her anger exploded, and she stated that that choice might

be his, but that the rest of us should go. To this he nodded and so I found that indeed I was

absorbed in what seemed to me a very boring party. My mother beamed and nursed another dream, for

Faskel was ever by the side of the Councilor's niece - though it appeared to me that that lady

shared her smiles with several young men and that the portion of them which fell to my brother

were not particularly warm. As for me, I escorted my mother, and perhaps pleasured her a little by

the fact that I was traveled and that once or twice the Councilor singled me out to ask of off-

world matters.

As the barge slipped down the river, there grew a kind of impatience in me, and I kept

thinking of my father and who he might be seeing in the locked shop. For he had hinted to me that

he stayed there, not only because of boredom, but because be had a definite reason for wishing the

house to be empty that day so that he might meet with someone.

There had always been visitors whom my father had not made known to his family, some of

them using darkness for a cloak, entering and leaving without their faces being seen. That he

trafficked in things of uncertain history must have been known to the authorities. But no man ever

spoke out against him. For the Thieves' Guild has a long arm and they move to protect one who is

of service to them. My father may have outwardly retired from their Veep councils, but did a man

ever retire from the Guild? Rumor said no.

Only there had been something in my father's attitude this time which made me uneasy, as

if he both wished for and feared whatever meeting was to take place. And the more I thought on his

manner, the more I decided that fear - if one could term it fear - had been uppermost. Perhaps, as

my father had suggested, my travel had heightened in me a sensitivity which the rest of the family

did not share.

At any rate I excused myself before sunset with the lame explanation that I must meet with

Vondar, though my mother did not believe me. And I summoned one of the small boats for hire,

ordering the oarsman to make good time back to port. Only so thronged were the waterways that our

speed was no more than a weary crawl, and I discovered myself sitting tensely, willing us forward,

my hands gripped tightly together.

Again, on landing, I found the streets crowded, and worked my way with impatient

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thrusting, which earned me some harsh words, splashes of scented water. The shop front was closed

even as we had left it, and I went through the narrow garden at the back.

As my hand fell upon the door lock, the thumb against the print which would release it, I

felt, as a blow, the full force of all the unease which had plagued me. It was dark and cool in

the family rooms. I stopped by the door which gave upon the shop to listen, thinking that if my

father still entertained his mysterious caller, he would not thank me to burst in upon them. But

there was no sound, and when I rapped upon the door to the office, it echoed hollowly.

When I pushed, the door gave only a little, and I was forced to exert pressure of shoulder

to force my way in. Then I heard the rasp of wood against stone, and saw that my fathers desk,

overturned, blocked my entrance. I thrust desperately and was in a wildly upset room.

In his chair sat my father, the ropes which held him upright stained with his blood. His

eyes glared at me fiercely in denial of what had come to him. But that denial was the glare of a

dead man. All else was overturned, some boxes smashed to bits as if the searcher, not finding what

he sought, had wrecked the inanimate in his temper.

There are many beliefs in many worlds concerning the end of life and what may lie

thereafter. How can any man deny that some of them may be true? We have no proof one way or

another. My father was dead when I came to him, and dead by violence. But perhaps it was his will,

his need for revenge, or to communicate, which hung on in that room. For I knew, as if he had

indeed spoken, what lay at the roots of this.

So I passed him and found that inconspicuous bit of carving on the wall. To that I set my

thumb as he had taught me. The small space opened, but not easily; it might have been some time

since it was last bared. I took out the bag, feeling through it the form of the ring. That I drew

forth and held before my father as if he could still see and know that I had it. And I promised

him that what he had sought, I would seek too, and that perhaps so I would find those who had

slain him. For this I was sure of, that the ring held the key to his death.

But this was not the last of the shocks and losses which were to come to me on Angkor. For

after the authorities had come and the family had gathered and been questioned, she whom I had

always called mother turned on me and said, in a high, fast voice, as if she dared not be

interrupted:

"Faskel is master here. For he is blood and bone of me, heir to my father who was lord

here before Hywel Jern came. And so will I swear before the Council."

That she favored Faskel I had always known but there was a chill in her words now that I

did not understand. She continued, making the reason plain.

"You are only a duty child, Murdoc. Though mark me true, I have never made the less of you

in this house because of that. And no one can say that I have!"

A duty child - one of those embryos shipped from a populous world to a frontier planet in

order to vary the stock, by law assigned to some family to be raised and nurtured as their own.

There were many such in the early settlement of any world. But I had never thought much about

them. It did not greatly matter to me that I was not of her blood. But that I was not the son of

Hywel - that I hated! I think she read this in my eyes, for she shrank from me. But she need not

have feared any trouble, for I turned and went from that room, and that house, and later from

Angkor. All I took with me was my heritage - the ring out of space.

THREE

The torch which had been in the room of the sanctuary when first I entered was sputtering

to the end as I woke. What had the voice said? For the space of four torches I could shelter

there. I looked at the floor. There were three more torches lying ready. Now I got up to force the

dying one from its hold, light another in its place.

But after four torches- what? Would I be thrust-out into the streets of Koonga again? At

intervals I questioned the walls of the room, but no answer came. Twice I searched again, seeking

some cunningly hidden exit. There was a building frustration within me. I had passed part of a

night here, by my timekeeper, and some of the day thereafter. The four torches, I calculated

roughly, would cover perhaps three days. But long before that the ship on which Vondar and I had

passage would lift. Nor would its Captain worry if we did not claim those passages. Once

planetside, passengers were strictly on their own. A Captain would take steps to rescue a member

of his closely knit crew, for the ship unit became as tightly welded as a family or clan, but

strangers he would not aid.

What chance had I left? Was I under observation? How would the keepers of this place know

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file:///F|/rah/Andre%20Norton/Norton,%20Andre%20-%20The%20Zero%20Stone.txtTHEZEROSTONECopyright©,1968,byAndreNortonAnAceBook,byarrangementwithTheVikingPress,Inc.AllRightsReserved.CoverartbyJeffJones.ForA.M.LIGHTNER,whowasthe"Godmother"forEETPrintedinU.S.A.ONEThedarkwassothickinthisstinkingalleythatamanmightwellputouthishandandcatchshadows,pullthemhereorthere,asiftheywerecurtainstuff.YetIcouldnotquarrelwiththefactthatthisworldhadnomoonandthatonlyitsstarsspottedthenightlitsky,northatthemenofKo...

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Norton, Andre - The Zero stone

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