The Game of Stars and Comets

by Andre Norton

  "The end, little one, is when and where we find it." Zimgrald answered her with a tired slur to his words. She must have noted that at once, for she caught at the Zacathan's hand, held it in both of hers.

  "High One, you tire! We must rest, eat, see to you!"

  Diskan half expected the Zacathan to deny that, and he was disturbed when the alien nodded agreement. Was the other beginning to fail?

  "As always, little one, you speak with good sense. Yes, let us rest, for a short space only. And eat. Those are good thoughts to put into action."

  They sat down in one of the spaces free from the slime, and the girl opened her pack, taking out ration tubes of a like brand to those Diskan had found in the cache. But she made the Zacathan swallow a tablet before he sucked at what was a mixture of food and drink in the container.

  Diskan hesitated and then twisted in half the tube he held, the material of it coming apart under his strength, hardened by those years of physical labor. Keeping the oozing top section, he held out the other to the furred one.

  The animal arose and limped to his side. Erect on its haunches, it held the tube to its mouth and squeezed out the contents with the claws of its forepaws. Now Diskan saw why something about those claws had puzzled him at the time he had first sighted one of this species. Claws and paws, yes, but the dexterity was that of a hand, not human perhaps, but still a hand.

  He glanced around to find Zimgrald watching him. "They are not animals." The Zacathan might have been speaking Diskan's own thoughts aloud. "What are they? That is a very important question—what are they?"

  And another important question, Diskan wanted to add but did not, is what do they want with us?

  Chapter 13

  The warmth of the underground world was lulling. Perhaps the exhalation of the swamp carried a drugging quality. Diskan had no desire to go on. Neither did either of his companions appear eager to take to their feet again. Julha was watching the Zacathan carefully.

  "High One"—she broke the silence first—"is it well with you?"

  The edge of his neck frill stirred. "Do not fret, little one. This old creeper will be able to creep yet farther, if for no other reason than curiosity, which will not let me rest until I see what lies at the end of the trail. It is in my mind that this was once a place of water. They loved water—those who have gone, long gone, before us. But why it must wash the deep foundations of their walls and towers, that is only to be guessed at—"

  "An amphibian, water-born race?" Diskan hazarded.

  "Perhaps. There are such—or were such—just as there are races who fly or creep. Yet our friend here"—he nodded to the Mimiran animal—"is not of the water."

  Greatly daring, Diskan risked a question of his own. "What do the legends say of Xcothal?"

  Zimgrald smiled. "Very little. A hint—such an old hint—of treasure to be found in a city of the sea—"

  "Treasure!"

  The Zacathan's frill was rising to frame his lizard, shadowed face. "Ah, that is a word that makes the blood run faster, does it not? But I believe that Xcothal's treasure is not that which one can hold in his two hands, count into boxes, feast the eyes upon. Oh, all races have their wealth, sometimes gathered into piles and stores. But if there was wealth such as that here once, I believe the years have seen to its scattering, and those Jacks will not find what they seek, not even if they dismantle Xcothal stone by stone—the which they are certainly not prepared to do."

  "Treasure—knowledge?" Diskan speculated.

  "Just so—knowledge. Always remember this, youth. Beneath the wildest tale from a people's past lies a crumb of truth. Sometimes that crumb may be very small and much distorted by rumor and legend, but it is there. And if it can be sifted free from all the accumulation of the years, then it is worth more than all the precious metal and gems a man may heap up to feast his eyes upon, for the feasting of the mind is the richer experience and lasts the longer. The hunters behind us pursue their 'treasure,' which may long since have ceased to be, but I do not believe it is the same I seek here."

  "But royal tombs, storehouses—"

  Zimgrald nodded. "Those can be found—and looted. And I may be wrong also. I have never claimed infallibility, my children. Look, our guide is growing impatient. I would say it is time we were once more on the tramp."

  Diskan aided the Zacathan to his feet. For all his brave words to Julha earlier, it was plain that Zimgrald was failing. Their rest and food might have given the alien a return of strength, but how much longer he could keep going was a question. And as far as Diskan could see, there was no end to their present road.

  The Mimiran animal, having seen them rise, turned and moved on, its head carried well up, as if it sought some airborne scent. But the odors from the waste below, Diskan thought, were enough to make anyone breathe less heavily. He kept a back watch for the enemy, but if the Jacks had passed the booby trap, they seemed in no hurry to catch up with the fugitives. Only the thought of the hunt made Diskan speed his pace until he was treading close on the heels of the other two.

  "There is no need for pushing. The High One can go no faster," Julha snapped.

  "I am afraid reason supports the thought that there is," Zimgrald told her. "We would present excellent targets for an attack, and I do not wish to leave this roadway unless there is no other choice."

  With that, Diskan was in hearty agreement. He had the stunner with a close-to-exhausted charge and the blaster he had taken from Julha. But to stand up against a determined Jack rush with no more defense than that was sheer suicide.

  A man did not turn Jack, preying on traders and colonists on frontier worlds, unless he was already an outlaw to the point of no return. And to get what they wanted, these looters would have no scruples at all. They might keep the Zacathan alive—until they had what they wanted from him. And Julha, as a woman, would be an extra bonus. Him they would burn down without a thought, and he would be the lucky one. But how could the Jacks be so sure as to center a major grab operation on Mimir? Was it just Zimgrald's reputation that had brought the pirates here—the fact that the Hist Techneer had made two outstanding archaeological finds in the past? That was a gamble nearly to the point of being stupid—and stupid the Jacks were not. Those who were died early and were not equipped for a planned raid the way these were. All they had done here bore the marks of a carefully thought out operation.

  On the other hand, the Zacathan had been telling the truth a few minutes ago when he had said that the treasure he was after was not material. So, what did that mean? What secret from the past was so rich a find as to bring on a grab?

  "What do they want here?" Diskan demanded out of his thoughts.

  "Loot!" Julha said scornfully.

  "But our young friend means what kind," Zimgrald said. "Yes, that has been a small puzzle among the larger for me also. They are very well prepared, these Jacks, and they have had detailed briefing on our plans. They are very sure that they are in quest of something worth such a major effort, as if they have had success promised to them. Yet I do not know what could be worth the risk and expenditure of this grab."

  "You?" Diskan asked. Could it be that—a highly successful Hist Techneer to be kidnapped and kept on ice? But that would be pure speculation of the kind that was too great a gamble for Jacks with their need for a quick profit and an even more speedy getaway.

  "Flattering." A chuckle warmed Zimgrald's voice. "But, except for how I may aid them here, I think not. The law of averages would dictate that no man can continue to make big finds year after year. No, what they seek is here, unfortunately for us. They believe that we have the secret, and that makes us important. Otherwise, they would write us off and go treasure hunting—to leave us wandering about this pile, marooned and helpless."

  "Rrrrrrrugggg!"

  Julha cried out. The Zacathan's frill shot up and fanned. Diskan's hand went to the butt of the blaster. The furred one, who had been silent during their whole journey through this stinking pit, had uttered
that nerve-rasping cry. It stopped short and reared on its haunches, its clawed forefeet advancing a little, its muzzle gaping to show fangs. There was no mistaking that stance—it was facing danger.

  Diskan shouldered past the Zacathan and Julha, shucking his pack as he went.

  "Get down!" he ordered with a thought of blaster fire sweeping the ramp road. He was in a half crouch, trying to pierce the gloom ahead, to distinguish the menace there.

  After that first battle cry, the Mimiran animal was silent, but Diskan could hear the faint hissing of its breath.

  "Zimgrald," he cried, "use the lamp!"

  The broad beam might betray them, but it would also reveal what lurked there. That was better than supine waiting for danger to come to them, perhaps in a fashion for which there was no defense.

  Yellow-white was the glare behind him, making his shadow and that of the furred one great black fingers across the stone. And it also showed, only too clearly to off-world eyes, that which squatted in the middle of their path. Diskan shrank back a step before he steadied. That thing was far worse than the monster he had faced in the pass. With all its alienness, that had been akin to beasts he had known on other planets.

  But this repulsive thing was akin to nothing outside of an insane nightmare. The front portion had reared up above the main bulk and was weaving to and fro, an obscene pillar, tapering, having no features Diskan could discern, save a puckered opening, which moved with the swaying, opening and closing.

  Glistening trails of slime oozed down the gray hide and puddled about the fat center portion of the thing. This or its kind must have left the tracks he had found in the outer city.

  Diskan's revulsion was tinged with fear. The thing was huge, twice, maybe three times, his own not inconsiderable bulk. And for all its lack of visible eyes or other sense organs, he believed it was not only aware of them but also able to spot them exactly. Every indication was that it greeted them with hostile intentions.

  He brought up the blaster, leveled it at that swaying head, and then judiciously moved the sights down to the fat roundness of the mid-body. After all, there was a good chance that the thing could be better hit in that more stationary part.

  "Wait!" Zimgrald's order came just as Diskan was about to press the firing button, and such was the authority in it that Diskan obeyed.

  The furred one had made one of its quick darts—not ahead at the slug thing but sidewise, against Diskan, carrying him to the right. Now the opening in the weaving pillar puckered into an outward pout and from that spouted a dark stream of liquid—too short, for it splashed against the stone merciful inches away.

  Diskan fired, but his aim was poor, and the ray only clipped the pointed "head" of the creature. It writhed, looping the upheld pillar of its body in a fantastic whip of coiling and uncoiling skin and muscle. Sometimes it twisted back on its bulk in a way to suggest than any bony framework existing under those unwholesome rolls of flesh was not rigid.

  "Wait!" For the second time Zimgrald rapped out that order.

  But this time, Diskan was in no mind to obey. He strove to center the blaster on the middle of the bulk, only the movements of the creature were more frenzied, convulsive in their rapidity and force. Had that slight burn really done all the harm the thing's writhing now suggested?

  There was a sound, as if someone had torn a length of fabric. Across the middle of the frantically threshing bulk, skin and flesh parted in a break that grew wider and wider as the motions of the creature sloughed it apart. The pillar gave a last titanic upthrust and then fell forward limply, to lie full length on the stone, revealing fully what was rising from the bag its actions had broken open, for it was as if the whole slug had been an encasing bag and the prisoner in it was now emerging. What it was was difficult, even in the light, to make out clearly, for it moved jerkily, pressed together, as if trying to hide from the lamp. Legs, yes—for one was flung suddenly aloft. A jointed leg as long as Diskan was tall, covered with a thin red skin that gleamed with shell sleekness. Then, like the slug before it, the creature gave a convulsive wriggle and straightened up.

  Diskan heard a choked cry from Julha, a hiss out of Zimgrald. The thing was fully and fearfully clear, its elongated body poised several feet above the surface of the stone, supported on eight legs, the middle joints of which were taller than its back. There was a head, a round ball with eyes, or at least patches that resembled eyes, and a long tube it kept extending and then snapping back in a roll.

  The slug had been repulsive and had stirred fear in Diskan, but looking at the thing now kicking its feet free of the shriveling skin, he knew this was a deadlier enemy. He fired.

  The tube had snapped forward, a stream of liquid issuing from it. Then the searing blast caught the creature head on, and Diskan might have rayed directly into a cache of explosives, for the thing literally blew up. Scarlet flames scorched out of the midst of a sharp bark of air displacement.

  Diskan staggered, blinded by the glare. He was unconscious of the pressure of a furred body against his own, shepherding him away from the edge of the drop. And the horrible smell set him gagging and choking.

  "Zimgrald!" he managed to get out between gasps. "Do you see it?"

  It must be dead, it had to be. But Diskan could not put aside so easily his fear that that horrible, insectival head might be still pointed at them. Why the impression of danger had been so intense he could not tell, but that they had escaped something far worse than any other danger on Mimir, Diskan was certain.

  "Nothing—there is nothing—" Even the Zacathan sounded badly shaken.

  Diskan rubbed his smarting eyes; he could see a little now. But to believe what his eyes reported—that was something else. Where that menace had been, entangled in the wrinkled folds of slit slug skin, there was, as Zimgrald had reported, nothing. Both slug and what had come out of it might never have been! The stone was bare.

  "Did—did we just imagine it?" Diskan stammered.

  The lamp beam moved. Now a slick smear caught in it, glossy in the light. Where the slug had spat at them, the trace of that remained. No, they had not dreamed it. But the bewildering effect of that last shot dazed Diskan.

  "We did not imagine that—or that!"

  Far back along the road they had come was a short cry.

  The fireworks must have put the Jacks on their trail. The Mimiran animal was already padding on, over the battleground so strangely vacated. Diskan took the rear guard again. Zimgrald switched off the lamp and with Julha trotted after the furred one.

  Diskan shouldered his pack and held the butt of his weapon close to his eyes, striving to read the amount of blaster charge remaining. Zero! He tapped it with an anxious finger, trying to make the indicator shift, but it remained the same. He restored the now useless weapon to his belt and brought out the stunner, though what use that might be against another transforming slug he did not know.

  The knowledge that the hunt was now behind kept them going along that endless ridge of stone. Then the Zacathan called softly, "We are descending!"

  That was true, and they had to watch their footing carefully as the thick patches of slime again splotched their way. But at last they were down, to be fronted by a wall with swamp water and growths all about it. The furred one turned to the right again, leading them to what Diskan could see only as a blank barrier. Then—it disappeared! He did not slack speed as he saw Zimgrald and the girl do likewise. In turn, he reached the slit giving into a passage running between an inner wall and an outer one. Here was no light at all, and he blundered on, knowing their full trust rested on the furred one.

  It was very narrow, that passage. Diskan's shoulders brushed the chill wall on either side, and sometimes did more than brush, so he must turn sidewise to edge through. The warmth of the marsh was gone; the cold he had known outside on Mimir was biting.

  "Another turn here, to the right—" Zimgrald warned him from ahead.

  Diskan's outthrust hand saved him from coming up against a dead end
, and he wriggled into that second runway. But there was a faint patch of light ahead, and the outlines of the rest of the party showed against it.

  On they went until that gray brightened into a hint of sunlight, and at last they came out in the open with the crisp air about them. Zimgrald leaned against a block of stone. Both his hands were pressed to his bandaged body, and he breathed in heavy gasps. There was no doubting that the Zacathan was close to the end of his ability to keep going. What they needed now was a hiding place, and surely somewhere in the ruins of the city they could find that!

  But, were they in the city? Diskan looked around, striving to find some landmark. The black bulk of the ruins was there, but now about them—between that and their present perch—was a stretch of blue mud-spotted marsh. Before them a kind of causeway, rough and broken, ran to a ridge. The same ridge that had brought them to Xcothal? Diskan could not be sure of that. They might have gone clear through the city and come out on the other side for all he knew. But the ridge, if they could reach it, promised some form of shelter. And the square of stone on which they stood under the whip of the wind was not a place to linger.