Uncharted Stars (28 page)

I could not move, nor did Zilwrich, nor Ryzk. The beamer had fallen from my hand, but lay so that its ray, if only by chance, held full on Eet, or what had been Eet, and the bowl.

Darker, thicker, and more solid grew the column of that shuddering thing. Eet had been as large as his foster mother, the ship's cat. This was almost as tall as I. At last it stopped growing, and its frenzied circling about the bowl became slower and slower, then finally halted.

I was still held in frozen astonishment.

I had seen Eet take three shapes by hallucinatory disguise: the pookha, the reptilian thing at Lylestane, and the hairy subhuman who had entered Waystar with me. But that he had willed this last change I was certain was not true.

He was humanoid and—

A slender body, yet curved, with long shapely legs, a small waist, and above that—

He—no—SHE—stood very still, staring at her outstretched hands, their skin soft with a pearly sheen to their golden hue. She bent her head as if to view that body, ran her hands up and down it, perhaps to reassure herself that this
was
what she now saw.

While from Zilwrich broke a single word: “Luar!”

Eet's head turned, she looked at us with large eyes, a deeper and richer golden than her skin, drew her long dark-red hair about her as a cloak. Then she stooped and picked up the bowl. Balancing it on the palm of one hand, she walked to us along the beam of the torch, as if to impress upon us her altered appearance.

“Luar?” Her lips shaped the word. “No—Thalan!”

She hesitated, her eyes not on us for a moment but looking beyond us, as if they saw what we never could. “Luar we knew, yes, and dwelt there for a space, Honorable One, so that we left traces of our passage there. But it was not our home. We are the Searchers, the Born-again ones. Thalan, yes. And before that, others, many others.”

She held out the bowl, reversed it so we could see the map. But the wink of the zero stone on it was dead, and that other stone it had held had vanished. “The treasure we sought here—it is now gone. Unless your wise ones, Honorable Elder, can read very forgotten riddles.”

“Thanks to you, Jern!”

I staggered as a sudden blow against my arm threw me hard against one of the pieces of equipment based on the floor. I clung to it so as not to go down.

Eet, in one of those lightning movements which had been his—hers—as a feline mutant, snatched up the beamer from the floor. She swung the full light on Ryzk as the pilot was setting another bolt to his crossbow. And from her lips came a clear whistle.

Ryzk twisted as if his body had been caught in the shriveling discharge of a laser. His mouth opened on a scream which remained soundless. And from his now powerless hands dropped his weapon.

“Enough!” Zilwrich, moving with the dignity of his race, picked up the bow. The whistle stopped in mid-note and Ryzk stood, turning his head from side to side, as if he fought against some mind daze and tried thus to shake it away.

Gingerly I investigated my hurt by touch, since what light there was Eet had focused on Ryzk, now weaving back and forth as if his will alone kept him on his feet. I could find no cut, but the flesh was very tender, and I guessed it had been so close a miss that the shaft of the bolt had bruised me sorely.

“Enough!” the Zacathan repeated. He dropped his hand on the pilot's shoulder, steadied him as if they had been comrades-in-arms. “The treasure—the best treasure—still lies about us. Or”—he looked to Eet measuringly—“is now a part of us. You have what you have long wished, One Out of Time. Do not begrudge lesser prizes to others.”

She spun the bowl on her hand and her lips curved in a smile. “Of a surety, Honorable Elder, at this hour I wish no hurt to any, having, as you have pointed out, achieved a certain purpose of my own. And knowledge is treasure—”

“No more stones,” I said aloud, not really knowing why. “No more trouble. We are luckier without them—”

Ryzk raised his head, blinking in the light. He looked to where I leaned against my support but I think he did not really see me.

“Well enough!” Eet said almost briskly then. “The Honorable Elder is right. We have found a treasure world, which he and his kind are best fitted to exploit. Is this not so?”

“Yes.” I had no doubts of that.

Ryzk shook his head once more, but not in denial. It was rather to try and clear his mind.

“The stones—” he said hoarsely.

“Were bait for too many traps,” I answered. “Do you want the Guild, those of Waystar, the Patrol, always at your heels?”

He raised his hand, wiped it back and forth across his face. Then he looked to Zilwrich, keeping his eyes carefully from Eet, as if from the Zacathan alone he might expect an answer he could accept as the truth.

“Still treasure?” There was something curiously childlike in that question, as if Eet's strange attack had wiped from the pilot years of suspicion and wariness.

“More than can be reckoned.” Zilwrich spoke soothingly.

But treasure no longer interested me. I watched rather Eet. As mutant and trader we had been companions. But what would follow now?

Mind-touch instead of words, amusement in part but delicately so, came swiftly in answer to my chaotic thoughts. “I told you once, Murdoc Jern, we each have in us that which must depend upon the other. I needed your body in the beginning, you needed certain attributes which I possessed in the woefully limited one I acquired. We are not now independent of each other—unless you wish it, just because I have found a body better for my purposes. In fact, one which, as I remember, served my race very well thousands of years ago. But I do not declare our partnership at an end because of that. Do you?”

She came forward then, tossing from her the bowl, the torch, as if both were no longer of service to her. Then her touch was on my body, light, soothing above my bruised hurt.

I had chaffed against Eet's superiority many times, sought to break his—her (I still could not quite accept the change) hold on me, that tie which fate, or Eet, had somehow spun between us since he—she—had been born on my bunk in the Free Trader.

It seemed that her touch now drew away the pain in my arm and side. And I knew that for better or worse, for ill times and good, there was no casting away of what that fate had given me. When I accepted that, all else fell into place.

“Do you—?” Her mind-touch was the faintest of whispers.

“No!” My reply was strong, clear, and I meant it with all of me.

About the Author

For well over a half century, Andre Norton was one of the most popular science fiction and fantasy authors in the world. With series such as Time Traders, Solar Queen, Forerunner, Beast Master, Crosstime, and Janus, as well as many standalone novels, her tales of adventure have drawn countless readers to science fiction. Her fantasy novels, including the bestselling Witch World series, her Magic series, and many other unrelated novels, have been popular with readers for decades. Lauded as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, she is the recipient of a Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention. An Ohio native, Norton lived for many years in Winter Park, Florida, and died in March 2005 at her home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1969 by Andre Norton

Cover design by Barbara Brown

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2548-5

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

EARLY BIRD BOOKS

FRESH EBOOK DEALS, DELIVERED DAILY

BE THE FIRST TO KNOW—

NEW DEALS HATCH EVERY DAY!

EBOOKS BY ANDRE NORTON

FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA