SEVEN
IT WAS TIME to rouse Goth once more ... past time by twenty minutes or so. But let her sleep a little longer, the captain thought. This alternate‑watch arrangement would get to be a grind before the Chaladoor run was over! If he could only trust one of the others on board....
Well, he couldn't.
He sniffed. For a moment he'd fancied a delicate suggestion of perfume in the air. Imagination. Hulik do Eldel used perfume, but it was over twenty‑four hours since she'd been in the control room. Besides she didn't use this kind.
Something stirred in his memory. Who did use this kind of perfume? Wasn't it…?
"Do you have a few minutes to spare for me, Captain Aron?" somebody purred throatily behind him. He started, spun about in the chair.
Redheaded Sunnat leaned with lazy, leggy grace against the far wall of the control room, eyes half shut, smiling at him. Her costume was the one which most of all had set the captain's pulses leaping rapidly, when she'd slid off her cloak and revealed it to him, back in Zergandol.
He started again, but less violently.
"Not bad!" he remarked. He cleared his throat.
"You were off on the voice though, and pretty far off, I'd say, on the perfume."
Sunnat stared at him a moment, smile fading. "Hmm!" she said coldly. She turned, swayed into Goth's cabin. Goth came out a moment later, half frowning, half grinning.
"Thought I was her pretty good!" she started. "Voice, too!"
"You were, really!" the captain admitted. "And just what, may I ask, was the idea?"
Goth hitched herself up on the communicator table and dangled her legs. "Got to practice," she explained. "There's a lot to it. Not easy to hold the whole thing together either!"
"Light waves, sound waves, and scents, eh? No, I imagine it wouldn't be. That's all you do?"
"Right now it's all," nodded Goth.
The captain reflected. "Another thing, if you saw that costume of hers, you were doing some underhanded snooping‑around in Zergandol!"
"Looked like you might need help," Goth said darkly.
"Well, I didn't!"
"No." She grinned. "Couldn't know that, though. Want me to do Hulik? I got her down just right."
"Another time." The captain climbed out of the chair, adjusted the seat for her. "I'd better get some sleep. And you'd better forget about practicing and keep your eyes pinned to those screens! There've been a few flickers again."
"Don't worry!" She slipped down from the table, started over to him. Then they both froze.
There were short, screeching whistles, a flickering line of red on the console. An alarm…
"Strongbox!" hissed Goth.
They raced through the silent ship to the storage. The lounge was deserted, its lights dim. It had been ship’s night for two hours.
The big storage door was shut, seemed locked, but swung open at the captain's touch. The automatic lighting inside was on‑somebody there! Cargo packed the compartment to the ship's curved hull above. The captain brought out his gun as they went quickly down the one narrow aisle still open along the length of the storage, then came in sight of the vault at the far end to the left. The vault door, that massive, burglarproof slab, stood half open.
Vezzarn lay face down in the door opening, legs within the vault as if he had stumbled and fallen in the act of emerging from it. He didn't move as they scrambled past him. The interior of the vault, hummed like a hive of disturbed giant insects. The strongbox stood against one wall, its top section tilted up. A number of unfamiliar tools lay on the floor about it. The humming poured up out of the box.
It was like wading knee‑deep through thick, sucking mud to get to it! The captain's head reeled in waves of dizziness. The humming deepened savagely. He heard Goth shout something behind him. Then he was bending over the opened box. Gray light glared out of it; cold fire stabbed, he seemed to be dropping forward, headlong into cold, gray distances, as his hands groped frantically about, found the tough, flexible plastic wrapping which had been pulled away from the crystal's surface, wrenched, tugged it back into place.
In seconds they had it covered again, the plastic ends twisted tightly together; they stood gasping and staring at each other as the angry humming subsided. It was as something that had been coming awake had gone back to sleep.
“Just in time here maybe!" panted the captain, "Let's hurry!"
They couldn't get the strongbox closed all the way left it as it was, top pulled down, a gap showing beneath it. They hauled Vezzarn clear of the vault door, shove the door shut, spun its triple locks till they clicked back into position. The captain wrestled Vezzarn up to his shoulder. The old spacer might be dead or merely unconscious; in any case, he was a loose, floppy weight difficult to keep a grasp on.
They got the storage door locked. Then Goth was off darting back to the control section, the captain hurrying and stumbling after her with Vezzarn. There was still no sign of the two passengers but that didn't necessarily mean they were asleep in their staterooms.
He let Vezzarn slide to the control room floor and joined Goth at the instruments. The glittering dark of the Chaladoor swam about them but nothing of immediate importance was registering. Most particularly, nothing which suggested the far‑off Worm World knew that Olimy's crystal had been uncovered again on a ship thundering along its solitary course through space. They exchanged glances.
"Might have been lucky!" the captain said. "If there're no Nuris anywhere around here…." He drew a long breath, looked back at Vezzarn. "Let's try to get that character awake!"
Spluttering, swallowing, coughing, Vezzarn woke up a few minutes later. The captain pulled back the flask strong ship brandy he'd been holding to the little spacer's mouth, recapped it and set it on the floor." Can you hear me, Vezzarn?" he asked loudly.
"Aaa‑eee," sighed Vezzarn. He looked around and his face seemed to crumple. He blinked up at the captain, started to lift a hand to wipe his tear‑filled eyes, and discovered handcuffs on his wrists. "Uh?" he muttered, frightened, then tried to meet the captain's gaze again and failed. He cleared his throat. "Uh‑what's happened, skipper?"
"You're going to tell us," said the captain coldly. "Look over there, Vezzarn!"
Vezzarn turned his head in the indicated direction, saw the inner port of the control section lock yawning open, looked back apprehensively at the captain.
"Dani," said the captain, nodding at Goth who sat sideways to them at the communicator table, an instrument case with dials on it before her, "is playing around with a little lie detector of ours over there! The detector is focused on you now."
"I wouldn't he to you, skipper!" Vezzarn interrupted earnestly. "I just wouldn't! Anything you want to know...."
"We'll see. If the detector says you're lying…" the captain jerked his thumb at the lock. "You go out, Vezzarn! That way. I won't listen to explanations. Out into the Chaladoor, as you are!" He moved back a step, put his hands on his hips, and gave Vezzarn a glare for good measure. "Start talking!"
Vezzarn didn't wait to ask what he should talk about. Hurriedly he began spilling everything he could think of about what had been told him of Captain Aron's mystery drive, the voice who employed him, the change in assignment, his own plans, and events on the ship. "Now I've, uh, seen your drive, sir," he concluded, voice quivering reminiscently, "I wouldn't want the hellish thing! Not as a gift from you. I wouldn't want to come anywhere near it again. I'm playing it honest. I'm your man, sir, until we're through the Chaladoor and berthed safe on Emris. Believe me!"
The captain moved to the desk, turned down a switch. The lock sealed itself with a sharp snap. Vezzarn started, then exhaled in heavy relief.
"We seem to have a passenger on board who's interested in the same thing," the captain remarked. It wouldn't hurt if Vezzarn believed the crystalloid was the mystery drive. That he wasn't going near it again if he could help it was obvious. Apparently he'd fainted in sheer fright as he was trying to scramble out of the vault. "Which of them?"
"Both of them, I'd say," Vezzarn told him speaking a little more easily. "I couldn't prove it, but they've both been moving around where they shouldn't be."
The captain studied him a moment. "I was assured," he said then, "that short of a beam that could melt battlesteel, nobody would be able to force a way into that vault or to open that box until the time lock opened it…"
Vezzarn cleared his throat, produced a small, modest smile.
"Well, sir," he said, "it's possible you could find two men on Uldune who're better safecrackers than I am. I'm not saying you would. It's possible. But I'll guarantee you couldn't find three... I guess that explains it, sir!"
"I guess it does," the captain agreed. He considered. Hulik do Eldel and Laes Yango weren't at all likely to be in the same lofty safecracking class, but… "Could you fix the vault and the strongbox so you couldn't get in again?" he asked.
"Huh?" Vezzarn looked reflective for a moment. "Yeah," he said slowly, "that could be done...."
"Fine," said the captain. "Get up. We'll go do it light now."
Vezzarn paled. "Skipper," he stated uncomfortably, "I'd really rather not go anywhere near..."
"The forward lock over there," warned the captain, "can be opened awfully quick again!"
Vezzarn climbed awkwardly out of the chair. " I'll go, sir," he said.
Worm Weather appeared in the screens seven hours later...
It was very far away, but it was there, fuzzily rounded specks of yellowness drifting across the stars. They picked up five or six of the distant dots almost simultaneously, not grouped but scattered about the area. There seemed to be no pattern to their motion, either in relation to one another or to the Venture.
Within another half‑hour there might have been nearly fifty in the screens at a time, to all sides of the ship. It was difficult to keep count. They moved with seeming aimlessness, dwindled unnaturally, were gone in the distance. Others appeared.... Goth had set up the Drive, and came back to join the captain. The lounge screens had been cut off from the beginning. Laes Yango called on intercom to report the fact and was told of a malfunction that would presently be corrected.
And still the Nuri globes came no closer. The encounter might have been a coincidence, but the probability remained that Vezzarn's exposure of the crystal in the strongbox had drawn the swarms towards this area of space. They seemed to have no method of determining the Venture's moment‑to‑moment position more exactly. But sheer chance might bring one near enough to reveal the ship to them.
"You scared?" Goth inquired by and by in a subdued voice.
"Well, yes.... You?"
"Uh‑huh. Bit."
"The Drive will get us out of it if necessary," he said.
"Uh‑huh."
In another while there seemed fewer of the globes around. The captain waited some minutes to be sure, then commented on it. Goth had noticed it, too. Their number dwindled farther. At last one or two doubtful specks remained in space, now far behind the ship. But neither of them felt like leaving the screens.
"Being a witch," sighed the captain, "can get to be quite a job!"
"Sometimes," Goth agreed.
He reflected. "Well, maybe things will quiet down for a spell.... Almost everything that could happen on board has happened by now!" He considered again, chuckled. "Unless one of those, what did you call them, vatches joins the party!"
Goth cleared her throat carefully. "Well, about that, Captain‑"
He gave her a quick, startled look.
"Can't say there's one around," Goth said. "Can't say there isn't though, either."
"One around! I thought you'd know!"
"They come close enough, I do. This one doesn't. If it's a vatch. Just get a feeling there's been something watching." She waved a hand at the Chaladoor in the screens. "From a ways off…"
"It could be a vatch?"
"Could be," Goth acknowledged. "Wouldn't worry about it. If it's your vatch, he's probably just been curious about what you were doing. They get curious about people."
The captain grunted. "Since when have you had that feeling?"
"Off and on," Goth said. "On the ship ... once or twice in Zergandol."
He shook his head helplessly.
"Might fade off after a while," Goth concluded. "He starts making himself at home around here, I’ll let you know."
"You do that, Goth!" the captain said.
Two watches farther along, it became apparent that not everything that could happen on the Venture had happened so far. What occurred wasn't vatch work, though for a moment the captain wasn't so sure. In fact, it was something for which nobody on board had any satisfactory explanation to offer.
Hulik do Eldel gave the alarm. The captain was on duty when the intercom rang. He switched it on, said, "Yes?"
"Captain Aron," Hulik told him in an unnaturally composed voice, "I'm locked in my stateroom and need immediate assistance! Knock before you try to enter, and identify yourself, or I'll shoot through the door."
The captain pressed Goth's buzzer. "Why would you shoot through the door?" he asked.
"Because," Hulik said, "there's some beast loose on the ship."
"Beast?" he repeated, startled. Goth's face appeared in her screen, pop‑eyed, nodded at him, disappeared.
"Beast. Creature. Thing! Monster!" Hulik seemed to be speaking through hard‑clenched teeth. "I saw it. Just now. In a passage off the lounge. Be careful on your way here! It's large, probably dangerous. "
"I'll be there at once!" the captain promised.
"Bring your gun," Hulik told him, still in the flat, dead tone of choked‑down hysteria. "Several, if you have them. " She switched off as Goth came trotting out of her cabin, buttoning up her jacket.
"Vatch?" the captain asked hurriedly.
Goth shook her head. "Not a whiff of one around She couldn't see a vatch anyway if there was one around." She looked puzzled and interested.
"Could something else have got on the ship, out of space? Something material?"
"Don't know," Goth said hesitantly. "Of course you hear stories about the Chaladoor like that."
"The do Eldel's no doubt heard them, too!" commented the captain. He slid his gun into a pocket, felt his nerves tightening up again. "We'll hope it's her imagination! Come on."
They emerged from the control section, moved along the passage to the lounge, wary and listening. Nothing stirred. The lounge was dim, and the captain flipped the lights up to full strength as they entered. They we down a side passage, turned into another, stopped at closed stateroom door.
"Let's stand aside a bit," the captain whispered "The way she was talking, she might shoot through the door if she's startled!" He rapped cautiously on the panel, pressed the door speaker.
"Who's there?" Hulik's voice inquired sharply.
"Captain Aron," announced the captain. "Dani's with me."
There were two clicks. The door swung open a few inches and Hulik gazed out at them over a small but practical‑looking gun. Her delicate face was drawn and pale, and there was a nervous flickering to the dark eyes that made the captain very uneasy. She glanced along the passage, hissed, "Come in! Quickly!" and opened the door wider.
"I didn't get too good a look at it," she was telling them in the stateroom a few seconds later, still holding the gun. "It was in the passage leading back from the lounge, about thirty feet away and in a shadow. A dark shape, moving up the passage towards me." She shivered quickly. "It was an animal of some kind, quite large!"
"How large?" the captain asked.
She considered. "The body might have been as big as that of a horse. It seemed lumpy, rounded. It was close to the floor, I had the impression it was crouching! The head, big, round, something like tusks or fangs below it." Hulik's finger lifted, made five quick, stabbing motions in the air. "Eyes!" she said. "Five eyes in a row along the upper part of the head. Rather small, bright yellow."
Everyone, with the exception of Olimy, was gathered in the control section; and except for Goth, all of them carried a gun. Hulik's story couldn't simply be ignored. It was clear she believed she had seen what she'd described. Vezzarn evidently believed it, too. His face was as pale as the do Eldel's. Laes Yango was more skeptical.
"I've heard tales of ships being boarded by creatures from space in the Chaladoor," he observed. "I have never felt there was reason to give much credence to them. Overwrought nerves can…"
"My nerves are as good as yours, sir!" Hulik interrupted hotly. " If they weren't, I would hardly have looked for passage through the Chaladoor in the first place. I know what I saw!"
Yango shrugged, indicated the viewscreens. "We're all aware there are very realistic dangers out there," he said. "Of many kinds. No one can foretell when one or the other of them will be next encountered. Are you proposing that we perhaps leave this child on guard to warn us of whatever may occur, while the rest spend upward of an hour searching every nook and cranny of the ship to locate an apparition?"
Hulik said sharply, "Dani can't remain here by herself, of course! We must all stay together. And, yes, I say we should search the ship immediately, as a group. We must find that creature and either kill it or drive it back into space." She looked at the captain. "For all we know, that unfortunate paralyzed person is in imminent danger at this very moment!"
The captain hesitated. To leave the control room unguarded for a considerable length of time certainly was not desirable. On the other hand, the Chaladoor looked as open and placid at the moment as one could wish. No stars, dust clouds, planetary bodies, or asteroid flows which might provide ambush points lay along the immediate course stretch ahead; the detectors had remained immobile for hours...
It shouldn't, he pointed out to the others, take them an hour to conduct a search of the ship that would be adequate for the purpose. There were few hiding places for a creature of the size described by Miss do Eldel. Further, if the thing was aggressive, there was no reason to expect it would remain hidden. He'd turn on the ship's automatic alarm system now which would blast a warning over every intercom speaker on board if suspicious objects came within detector range. They'd keep together, move as a group through each compartment of the ship in turn. That could be done in less than twenty minutes. If they encountered nothing, they'd assume, there were no lurking monsters here to be feared.
"After all," he concluded, "this creature, whatever it was, may have come aboard, looked about, and simply left again shortly after Miss do Eldel saw it…"
Nobody appeared really satisfied with this solution, but they set off from the control section a few minutes later. The Venture's interior gradually came ablaze with lights as the search party went through the passenger area first, worked on to the back of the ship and the storage, finally checked out the lower deck. But no ungainly beast was flushed to view; nor could they find the slightest traces such a creature might have left, even in the passage where Hulik declared she had seen it. Hulik remained unconvinced.
"What the rest of you do is your own affair!" she stated. "But I intend to go on no‑sleep for the next several ship days and remain in my stateroom with the door locked. Vezzarn can bring me my meals. If nothing happens in that time, I shall be satisfied the thing is no longer on board. Meanwhile I advise all of you to take what precautions you can…"
The captain felt Hulik was not being too realistic about the situation. A creature capable of transferring itself through the hull of an armored trader into the interior of the ship presumably would also be capable of transferring itself into any stateroom it selected. Perhaps Hulik simply did not want to admit that to herself. At any rate, no one mentioned the possibility.
As he sat at the control desk near the end of his next watch, Goth whispered suddenly from behind his shoulder, "Captain!"
He started. These had been rather unsettling days in one way and another and he hadn't heard her come up. He half turned. "Yes?"
"Got any of the intercoms on?" her whisper inquired. She sounded excited about something.
"No. What do…" He checked abruptly. He'd swung all the way around in the chair to look at her.
And nobody was standing there.
"Goth!" he said loudly, startled.
"Huh?" inquired the voice. It seemed to come out of thin air not three feet from him. "Oh!" A giggle. "Forgot…hey, watch it!"
He'd reached out towards the voice without thinking, touched something. Then Goth suddenly stood there, two feet farther away, rubbing her forehead and frowning.
"Nearly put out my eye with your thumb!" she announced indignantly.
"But what ... since when…"
"Oh, no‑shape! Special kind of shape‑change, that's all. Just learned it this sleep period so I forgot to switch off when I came in. I was…” She put her hands on her hips. "Captain, I found out where that thing Hulik saw is hiding!"
"Huh?" The captain came out of the chair, hand darting to the desk drawer where he kept the gun. "It is on the ship?"
Goth nodded, eyes gleaming. "In Yango's cabin!"
"Great Patham! Was Yango…"
"Don't worry about him. He was in there with it just now. Talking to it. I was listening at the door." Goth glanced down at herself, patted her flanks. "No‑shape's pretty handy once you get used to not seeing you around anywhere!"
"Now wait," said the captain helplessly. "Did you just say Yango was talking to the creature?"
"And it to Yango," Goth nodded. "Snarly sort of thing! No kind of talk I know. Yango knows it, though. "
He stared at her. "Goth, you're sure he has that animal in his stateroom with him?"
"Well, sure I'm sure! He opened the door a crack once to look out. " Goth put her hands out on either side of her. "I was that far from him."
"That was dangerous! The creature might have caught your scent."
"No‑shape, no‑sound, no‑scent!" Goth said complacently. "Had them all going, Captain. I wasn't there. Got a look through the door at a bit of the thing. Big, and brown fur. Saw part of a leg, too. Odd sort of leg‑"
"Odd?"
"Kind of like a bug's leg. Got that shaggy fur all over it, though. Couldn't really see much." She looked at him. "What are we going to do?"
"If Laes Yango's talking to it, he's got some kind of control over it. We'd better handle this by ourselves and right now, while we know the thing's still in the stateroom."
"It won't go out by the door for a while," Goth said.
"Why not?"
"Doorlock won't turn till we get there. Pulled a bit of steel inside it. So it's stuck."
"Very good!" When Laes Yango's shipment of hyperelectronic equipment had been brought on board, he'd insisted on having...
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