The Game of Stars and Comets

  The Veep's first bemusement was wearing off. He ran the belt back and forth through his hands, but now he studied it critically, as if he knew some fault existed, that it merely remained for him to find it. Then he raised his eyes to Diskan.

  "Where did this come from? Our scouts did not find it here earlier!"

  "Look about you," Diskan replied. "This is not the same city that they visited." He expected the Veep to demand an explanation of that.

  Instead, still holding the belt, the man walked back to the entrance of the wedge room. He stood outlined in the door, gazing into the open of the hub. His guard stepped back a little to give him room but still kept a position from which he could cover any advance on either the treasure or his employer. Then the Veep returned.

  "You are right," he agreed in his usual controlled tone. "This is no longer a ruin. So what has happened, a time twist? Or are we now mind-controlled?"

  "The smoke!" The medic broke in. "Back there—that smoke!"

  The Veep shook his head impatiently. "I am drug blocked, so are you, Sherod. What is it, Fentress?"

  "I don't know. But this is the real city—" He did not know why he added that.

  The guard moved, edging back, his stunner still and ready, while he worked his way crab-fashion to the door as the Veep had done before him. Once there, he pressed his shoulders against the wall, giving a lightning survey outside. When he turned again, there was a shade of expression on his face for the first time.

  "What is this?" he asked of the Veep, and his tone was sharp, with none of the usual diffidence.

  "I have not the slightest idea. This"—the Veep waved the belt in his hand so it was a glittering whip—"feels real, looks real—and I'm blocked against any ordinary hallucination. But how much we dare depend upon our senses here and now—What about it, Sherod?"

  The medic shook his head. "I did not think it could be done—such illusion fostered. They must be illusions—"

  Murgah laughed, a harsh crackle. The blue skin about his mouth showed deep brackets. "One way to find out. We take this with us, and we leave—fast!"

  "I'm inclined to agree with you, captain." The Veep nodded. "And, as an additional precaution, the harvesting will be done by our non-friends." He gestured to Drustans, the Survey man, and Diskan. "You—gather it in!"

  The Survey man was closest, and he went down on one knee to pick up the red and gold diadem. Drustans moved to the right and leaned over. Diskan's inner tension sparked. He threw himself to the floor as a crackling ray burned across the space near where he had stood. It caught the Veep's guard, and he had only an instant in which to scream.

  Diskan, still rolling, was brought up against stiff legs, and Drustans fell upon him. The Vaan's arms flailed out awkwardly, and another weight came down on the two of them. Diskan, his face ground painfully against the stone, was helpless for a space to struggle free. He heard other cries of pain and smelled the overpowering odor of rayed flesh.

  Grasping for a handhold to draw him free of the struggle over him, Diskan closed his hand on a sharp object and dragged it to him. Then he gave a last mighty heave and rolled the weight off him, sliding forward to the wall.

  By the time he pulled around, the battle had become a hunt. Stabbing lances of fire from the door, two other rays answering from the chamber. Men ran, dodging into the open. Diskan sat up. In his hand he held a gemmed knife, which he regarded with dull surprise.

  The stunned crewman was now dead. One of the rays had caught him during the melee. And not too far from him lay the Survey man, also burned. By the door huddled the Veep's guard. And two figures rolled over and over, still struggling, within arm's reach of Diskan. To all appearances, they fought in a kind of slow motion, which was almost amusing.

  Of the rest who had been in that chamber, the Veep, Captain Murgah, and one of the Jacks were gone. Who hunted whom, Diskan did not know. What mattered was he was free. He got to his feet.

  The fighters rolled apart. One lay on his back, his hands and feet moving as if he were still engaged in that struggle. Diskan bent over him. Drustans! How the Vaan could have put up a fight at all when stass-controlled, Diskan had no idea. Sherod lay beyond, around his neck a gem-set necklace pulled tight.

  "Get—away—" There was the light of reason in Drustans' eyes now as they met Diskan's.

  Diskan did not answer, but he pulled the Vaan to his feet and steadied that lighter, slender body against his own.

  "Get away—out of the city!" the other insisted. He wobbled to the door and would have fallen had not Diskan caught him.

  Out of the city—Diskan had left this city once before. And then, too, he had aided a wounded man—Zimgrald. Zimgrald and Julha! From faint, far-ago memories planted in a misty past, they snapped into urgent life in Diskan's mind. Zimgrald, Julha up in the rocks, with death drawing in as a dark cold—

  "All right." He swung an arm about Drustans' waist and pulled the Vaan along. But it was like wading through water-washed sand in which there was no stable footing. Diskan had to fight that within him which cried, "No! No!"

  And he fought, though his breath came in painful sobs and he dared not look around him at the Xcothal that had been—that was now for him.

  Chapter 18

  "Let me go—for now let me go!" Diskan did not know whether he was crying that aloud or through that other way of communication. "This is what I must do!" Abruptly, as if some decision he had not shared in had been made, that backward drag on him ceased. He was down the curved steps into the hub, Drustans staggering beside him. And the city was strange, for it wavered, as though one mist-edged picture fitted over another not quite exactly. Sometimes they stumbled between lines of dark ruins. Sometimes the water washed their feet, banners lined the walls, and the shadow folk came and went on their own mysterious business.

  Would they win out of here? Diskan had tried this before and found all streets led to the same pond, but this time he went with a kind of inner certainty. Only what about the Jacks and the Veep? And those others who had been here earlier, in the ways beneath the tower? All might now be prowling these dark streets.

  "Where are we going?" Drustans asked, breaking Diskan's concentration of listening, staring, seeking out what might lie hid in any darkened doorway, any side lane.

  "To the ridge—if we can make it."

  "You think that the natives might help?"

  "They have helped—"

  "You mean—the illusions?"

  Illusions? No, Xcothal was no illusion, but Diskan was not going to argue that now. He was eaten by the need for speed—he must reach the fugitives hidden on the high land and then—then what? Diskan did not know what would happen after that, but that he was following a necessary sequence of action he was sure.

  This time there was no befogging of the trail. Even the haze that always hung to confuse the eyes when one looked out over the ruins lifted. No more half matching of a city with its bones. Xcothal's rubble was clear in the light of the moons, that pallid light so bright that Diskan could see the many tracks breaking the white surface of the snow, tracks all leading into the city—boots and paws. The furred ones had been numerous, and they still gave him escort now, though he could not see them.

  He is going from us!

  In this he is right. It is what he must do—a shaping of his own kind, which is needed, a road he must walk for himself.

  Brothers! For the first time Diskan tried to join in that communication which was not for voice or ear but which nonetheless existed.

  For a long moment, there was no reply. Then an upsurge of clamor as if many thoughts shouted all together.

  Brother! And the joy in that was a fire to warm frozen heart and long-chilled body.

  "How many are there—of these Jacks?" Diskan asked Drustans.

  "I do not know. They kept us prisoner on the ship. We saw only the guard and those with whom we have just been. Diskan"—his voice slowed—"do you not wonder how I came here?"

  "As a prisoner, o
f course. Did you think I believed you one of them?"

  A shadow of an expression Diskan could not read crossed the Vaan's face.

  "I was stupid." Drustans' voice was sharp, almost as if he resented Diskan's faith in him. "I believed a story concerning a need for verifying factors on a journey tape. So I took it, but it was not the one they wanted—"

  "No. Because I had already stolen that," Diskan returned. He wanted to laugh, to shout, to run. What did it matter, all that which had happened on another world, in another time, to another person? The bubbling in him was something such as he had never known in all his drab days of life. This, this was freedom! It no longer mattered that he was big, clumsy, slow-witted—all those other inferiorities he had hugged to him. Yes, he had treasured his faults, using them to wall off a world he feared. He had no envy of Drustans now. He simply did not care about the Vaan or the life he represented any more.

  "They tricked you, but I did it on my own," he said now. "I stole a tape, and a ship—which is now at the bottom of a bog hole. I'm probably certified 'unreliable'—"

  "But we can question any such judgment!" Drustans broke in. "You will have a hearing, a chance for defense. Present circumstances will be in your favor—"

  "A hearing if and when we get off this world," Diskan pointed out dryly.

  "Help is coming; they knew that." Drustans spoke with his old confidence. "That's why Cincred was pushing so fast. The Patrol is hunting him. He had to scoop up any treasure and get off Mimir as quickly as he could. Once he spaced, he believed they could not trace him. Or, if by some chance they did, the authorities could not really prove anything. He could unload the loot with contacts not too far away. There would be plenty of suspicion, yes, but no illegal act could be brought home to him."

  "They can get him now—they'll have witnesses."

  "And when we get back to the spacer, I can set a beam call to bring in the Patrol cruiser!" Drustans began to trot.

  It sounded very simple and quite easy. But surely this Veep Cincred would not have left the ship without a guard, and Diskan mentioned that.

  "True. But still we have a better chance now than we had even one time-unit ago. And perhaps—"

  "Perhaps the Veep and the Jacks are still sniping at each other, yes. Only there are others to consider—"

  "The natives?"

  "No. Two survivors of the archaeological expedition."

  They had reached the space below the steps. Diskan leaped, caught hold of the platform edge, and scrambled up and over. Drustans, the stiffness of the stass hold gone, pulled up beside him.

  Brother, the hunt begins behind you.

  Diskan was on his feet to look back. Nothing stirred down the city streets, but he did not doubt the truth of that warning. Either the Jacks or the Veep were there, if not in sight.

  "We're being trailed now—"

  Drustans spun around, intent upon the ruins. "I do not see them!"

  But before the words were fairly out of his mouth, they did see a flash of blaster fire, cutting along a wall, leaving a glowing track on the aged stone. Not aimed at them but still on the trail they had just traversed.

  Diskan made a decision. He caught the Vaan's upper arm.

  "There's a badly wounded Zacathan here, and a girl. I haven't the training to operate a ship's com and you have. Will you try for the ship while I attempt to aid those others? If there is going to be any ray battle up this slope, they can well be caught in it!"

  "What if we all go together?"

  "No. You can move faster alone, and you know the ship. Wait—Julha has the stunner. That isn't much defense against a blaster, but it is a weapon and you won't have to go up against any ship guard barehanded."

  Diskan was already on the way, taking the steps in great strides, searching ahead for the point at which he must cut off to find the crevice. The moonlight was so clear that he could almost have been walking in the brilliance of midday. Here—this was it!

  "Julha!" He dared to call, not wanting to walk into a stunner beam. There—that was the opening to the crevice. A hiss from the shadows, then a whine—the furred one! It knew him, was welcoming—

  Diskan and the Vaan crowded into that pocket so well protected by rock walls. Julha stood before the bundle that was Zimgrald. She looked at Diskan and then, beyond him, to Drustans, and her expression was one of vast relief.

  "You have found help—" She swayed forward, but Diskan caught at her wrist, twisted the weapon from her loosening grasp, and thrust it at Drustans.

  "Get going!" he ordered the Vaan. "And—"

  Can you protect this one, see that he safely reaches the ship? He asked it of those others.

  This is asking what is not of our concern, this meddling in the affairs of those who are not brothers. It was a silent protest.

  It cannot then be done? Diskan's disappointment was acute.

  Silence; then the faint impression of a conference he did not share in.

  This is a thing that must be done for the good of that which lives in Xcothal?

  This is a thing as right as thal patterns! Shall I swear it to you?

  No need. Send this one who has no ears to hear the truth, no eyes to see. We shall take a part in this game, but you know the price.

  Does one talk of price when one reaches for one's heart's desire? was Diskan's swift reply. Then he spoke aloud:

  "You are going to have company, Drustans. How much they can or will do for you, I don't know. But they will aid as much as they are able."

  Both the Vaan and Julha were eying him strangely. Drustans spoke first:

  "The natives?"

  Diskan nodded and dropped one hand to rest it for a moment on the head near his thigh. "The brothers-in-fur. Now go!"

  Julha protested, but the Vaan was already on his way, the stunner in his hand, the furred one streaking to pass him.

  "Where is he going? What do you do now?" She caught at Diskan and tried to draw him away as he stooped over the Zacathan.

  "In a very little while," Diskan told her, "they are going to come out of Xcothal fighting. And I don't fancy being caught in any blaster crossfire. We move, back toward the ship, and Drustans is already on his way to get help—"

  "Our people have returned? But they would come at once for Zimgrald! Didn't you tell them he is here? No, you can't move him!"

  "I can and will. The only ship now planeted is a Jack one. There is a chance, a slim one, that Drustans can get on board that and signal in a Patrol cruiser he believes is trailing these Jacks. Now, don't ask any more questions—get going!"

  Diskan spoke harshly with a purpose. She snatched some things from their packs while he picked up the Zacathan, grunting as he stood under the alien's weight. With the girl before him, Diskan came out of the crevice and started the climb to the old road.

  Shadows flowed about the rocks, but he had no fear of those, saying quickly to the girl:

  "Don't be frightened. The furred ones are with us. They will give any alarm." The limp body he carried was heavy, but this night he felt as if he could do anything, that he now possessed all the strength and energy in the world!

  They wound among the rocks to the crest of the ridge.

  "Back in the city," Julha cried out. "That was a blaster. Who are they fighting? Our people—Mik?"

  "Each other," Diskan replied briefly.

  "Why?"

  "Because they discovered what they were hunting—"

  "The treasure! Oh, no!" She was distressed. "The High One, the finding should have been his—"

  "They found their treasure," Diskan corrected. "It was what they wanted of Xcothal. I believe that Zimgrald sought something else here. Xcothal has more than one treasure to offer—"

  It had—it had! He held that knowledge to him to warm, to strengthen, to arm him against anything that might come out of the night to try him now.

  And he was not really aware of the passing of time until the girl stumbled and fell, and he was alerted to that by the furred o
nes.

  "I cannot go on," Julha told him in a small voice. "Do you, and I shall catch up."

  "There is no need. For the time, we are safe. Here—"

  It was another rock pocket, but it did not face the marsh and the city; rather it faced that distant valley where the ship stood. The watchers were all about them in a protecting screen. Julha knelt by the Zacathan, her hands touching the beak-nosed face of the tranced man tenderly.

  "He still lives and sleeps," she said.

  "And while he lives, there is hope." Diskan repeated her own earlier words.