Jack of Swords

Chapter Ten

The first shock came ten days later, a jerk as if the vessel had been struck by a giant hand, and as the alarms shrilled Dumarest ran to the control room. The girl was already at her station, sitting in a chair behind the one occupied by Rae Acilus.

The captain was curt. "There is no place for you here, Earl."

"I want him to stay." Embira reached out and took his hand, groping until he placed his fingers within her own. "Earl, you stay with me?"

"I'll stay."

"Then don't interfere." Acilus's voice was the rap of a martinet. "I've enough to think about as it is. Jarv?"

The navigator was at his post, Sufan Noyoka at his side. On all sides massed instruments hummed and flashed in quiet efficiency; electronic probes and sensors scanning the void, a computer correlating the assembled information, mechanical brains, eyes and fingers which alone could guide the vessel on its path from star to star.

Again the ship jerked, warning bells ringing, the alarms dying as the captain hit a switch. An impatient gesture born of necessity-within the Cloud the alarms would be constant.

Dumarest stared at the picture depicted on the screens.

He had been in dust clouds before, riding traders risking destruction for the sake of profit, and had no illusions as to the dangers they faced. The space ahead, filled with broken atoms and minute particles of matter was an electronic maelstrom. Opposed charges, building, wrenched the very fabric of the continuum and altered the normal laws of space and time. Only by delicate questing and following relatively safe paths could a vessel hope to survive and always was the danger of shifting nodes of elemental force, which could turn a ship into molten ruin, rip it, turn it inside out, crush it so as to leave the crew little more than crimson smears.

And the Mayna was going too fast. Sufan had placed too much faith in the girl's ability.

"Up!" she said. "Quickly!"

Ahead space looked normal, the instruments registering nothing but a dense magnetic field, but the forces which affected the registers could affect human brains so eyes saw other than reality.

"Obey!" snapped Sufan as the captain hesitated. "Follow Embira's instructions at all times without hesitation."

The ship sang as, too late, the captain moved his controls. A thin, high-pitched ringing which climbed to the upper limit of audibility and beyond. Dumarest felt the pain at his ears, saw ruby glitters sparkle from the telltales, then it was over as they brushed the edge of the danger.

Opposing currents which had vibrated the hull as if it had been a membrane shaken by a wind. Yet, around them, space seemed clear.

"Left," she said and then quickly, "and down!"

This time Acilus obeyed without delay.

Dumarest said, "What route are we following?"

As yet Sufan had been mysterious, conferring with Jarv Nonach and Marek Cognez alone, making computations and avoiding questions. Hugging the secret of his discovery as if it were a precious gem. But now Dumarest wanted answers.

"Tell me, Sufan. How do we find Balhadorha?"

"We must reach the heart of the Cloud," said the man reluctantly. "There are three suns in close proximity and the Ghost World should be at the common point between them."

"Should be?"

"Will be?" Sufan blazed his impatience. "For years I have devoted my life to this matter. Trust me, Earl. I know what I'm doing." He stared at the paper in his hand, muttering to the navigator, then said, "Captain, you are off course. The correct path lies fifteen degrees to the left and three upward. There will be a star. Approach it to within fifteen units then take course…"

Dumarest glanced at the girl as the man rattled a stream of figures. She was sitting, tense, her blind eyes gleaming in the subdued lighting. Her fingers, gripping his own, were tight.

"Earl?"

"I'm here, Embira. You know that. You can feel my hand."

"Your hand!" She lifted it to her cheek and held it hard against the warm velvet of her skin. "It's hard to krang you, Earl. The auras are so bright and there are so many of them. Hold me! Never let me go!"

A woman afraid and with good reason. For her normal matter did not exist, it was an obstruction, unseen, known only by touch. Instead there was a mass of lambent glows and, perhaps, shifting colors. Now she sat naked among them, conscious of lethal forces all around, denied even the comfort of the solid appearance of the protective hull. The metal, to her, would be a haze shot with streamers of probing energy, startling, hurting, the cause of fear and terror.

"The left!" she said abruptly. "No, the right, quickly. Quickly. Now up! Up!"

Her voice held confusion, one which grew as the hours dragged past and, beneath his hand, Dumarest could feel her mounting tension.

He said, "The girl must have rest."

Acilus turned, snarling, "Earl, damn you, I warned you not to interfere!"

"This is madness. The instruments are confused and we're practically traveling blind."

"The girl-"

"Is only human and can think only at human speed. She's tired and has no chance to assess what she discovers. We're deep in the Cloud now. Slow down and give her a chance to rest."

"And if I don't?"

"It's my life as well as yours, Captain." Dumarest met the hooded eyes, saw the hands clench into fists as they left the controls. "Maintain control!" he rapped. "Acilus, you fool!"

Embira screamed. "Turn! Turn to the right! Turn!"

Again no danger was visible or registered in the massed instruments but as the ship obeyed the delayed action of the captain, telltales blazed in a ruby glow, the vessel itself seeming to change, to become a profusion of crystalline facets, familiar objects distorted by the energies affecting the sensory apparatus of the brain. A time in which they had only the guide of the girl's voice calling directions.

One in which the air shook to the sudden screaming roar from the engine room, Timus's voice yelling over the intercom.

"The generator! It's going!"

"Cut it!" shouted Dumarest. "Cut it!"

The ship jarred as the order was obeyed, the normal appearance returning as the field died. Slumped in her chair the girl shuddered, her free hand groping, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"The pain," she whispered. "Earl, the pain!"

"It's all right," he soothed. "It's over."

"Earl!"

He pressed her hands, soothing with his presence, his face grim as he looked at the screens. The field was down, they were drifting in the Cloud and, if the generator was ruined, they were as good as dead.

Marek sat in the salon, outwardly calm, only the slight tremor of his hands as he toyed with a deck of cards revealing his inner tension.

"So we gamble, Earl, hoping that we escape danger while we drift." He turned a card and pursed his lips. "The captain is not happy."

"To hell with him."

"You abrogated his command. He would not have cut the generator."

"He forgot what he was doing. He let anger overcome him."

"True, but Rae Acilus is a hard man, Earl, and he will not forget the slight. You shamed him before others. If the opportunity rises I suggest that you kill him before he kills you." He added meaningfully, "There are others who can run the ship."

"Such as?"

"You, perhaps, my friend. And Nonach has some ability." He turned another card. "And I am not without talent."

A possibility and Dumarest considered it. One successful flight would be enough-and no captain was immortal. Others had taken over command before, need replacing trained skill. As long as they could land and walk away from the wreck it would be enough.

But first, the ship had to be repaired.

Pacula looked up from where she sat at the side of the cot as Dumarest looked into Embira's cabin. The girl was asleep, twitching restlessly, one hand clenched, the other groping. He touched it and immediately she quieted.

"She's overstrained," said Pacula accusingly. "What did you do to her in the control room?"

"Nothing."

"But-"

"She was performing her part," he interrupted curtly. "This isn't a picnic, Pacula. And she isn't made of glass to be protected. We need her talent if we hope to survive. How is Usan?"

The woman had suffered another attack and lay now on her cot. Like the girl she was asleep, but her rest was due to drugs and exhaustion. Dumarest stooped over her, touched the prominent veins in her throat, felt the clammy texture of her skin.

Pacula said, "Is she dying?"

"We are all dying."

"Don't play with words, Earl." She was irritable, annoyed at having been taken from her charge. "Will she recover?"

Already she was living on borrowed time, but her will to live dominated the weakness of her body.

Dumarest said, "Drug her. Keep her unconscious. Worry will increase the strain she is under and-"

"If we're all to die she needn't know it." Pacula was blunt. "Is that it, Earl? Your brand of mercy?"

"You have a better?"

She looked into his eyes and saw what they held, the acceptance of the harsh universe in which he lived, one against which she had been protected all her life. Who was she to condemn or judge?

"You think a lot of Usan, Earl. Why? Does she remind you of your grandmother? Your mother?"

"I remember neither."

"She saved your life with her lies. Is that it?" And then, as he made no answer, she said bleakly, "Well, now it's up to you to save hers."

"Not me," he said. "Timus Omilcar."

The engineer was hard at work. Stripped to the waist he had head and shoulders plunged into the exposed interior of the generator. As Dumarest entered the engine room he straightened, rubbing a hand over his face, his fingers leaving thick, black smears.

"Well?"

"It could be worse." Timus stretched, easing his back. "You gave the order just in time. A few more seconds and the entire generator would be rubbish. As it is we're lucky. Two units gone but we saved the rest."

Good news, but the main question had yet to be answered. Dumarest stepped to where wine rested in a rack on the bench, poured a glass, handed it to the engineer. As the man drank he said, "Can it be repaired?"

"Given time, yes. We carry spares. Have we time?"

"We're drifting, but you know that. The girl's asleep, so there could be danger we know nothing about and could do nothing to avoid if we did. As it is space seems clear and we're safe."

"For how long?"

Dumarest shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. An hour. A day. Who can tell?"

Timus finished his wine and reached for the bottle. Dumarest made no objection, the man was fatigued, he would burn the alcohol for fuel.

"A hell of a way to end, Earl. Waiting for something to smash you to a pulp or smear you like a bug on a wall. At least that would be fast. I saw a man once, in a hospital on Jamhar. The sole survivor of a ship which had been caught in a space storm. Their field had collapsed and the vessel wrecked, but he'd been in the hold and was found." He drank half the wine. "He wasn't human, Earl. One arm was like a claw and his head looked like a rotten melon. They kept him alive with machines and ran endless tests. Wild tissue and degenerate cells, they said. The basic protoplasmic pattern distorted by radiation. They should have let him die."

"So?"

"It could already have happened to us, Earl. We could end as monsters."

"Maybe, but we aren't dead yet so why worry about it?" Dumarest filled an empty glass and lifted it in a toast. "To life, Timus. Don't give it up before you have to."

"No." The engineer drew a deep breath. "I guess I'm just tired. Well, to hell with it. I knew the risks when I joined up with this expedition."

The man had relaxed long enough. Dumarest said, "How long will it take to repair the generator?"

"Days, Earl. A week at least. It isn't enough just to replace the units. The generator has to be cleaned, checked, the new parts tuned-say six days not counting sleep."

"And if I help?"

"Six days, Earl. I assumed you would be." Timus added bleakly, "It's too long. We can't push our luck that far. It's a bust, Earl. We haven't the time."

But they could get it. Drugs would delay the need for sleep and slow-time would stretch minutes into hours. Timus blinked as Dumarest mentioned it.

"Now why the hell didn't I think of that? Slow-time. You have it?"

"Sufan has. You've used it before? No? Well just remember to be careful. You'll be touching things at forty times the normal speed and what you imagine to be a tap will be a blow which could shatter your hand. And keep eating. I'll lay on a supply of basic and Marek can deliver more. Get things ready-and no more wine."

"No wine." The engineer swallowed what was left in his glass then said meaningfully, "How long, Earl?"

"For what?"

"You know what I'm getting at. How long are we going to look for Balhadorha? Sufan's crazy and will keep us at it until we rot I'm willing to take a chance but there has to be a limit. If it hadn't been for you we'd be as good as dead now. A thing like that alters a man's thinking. Money's fine, yes, but what good is a fortune to a dead man?"

If a fortune was to be found at all. If the Ghost World existed. If the whole adventure was something more than a crazed dream born and nurtured over the years, fed by a feverish imagination.

"We've come too far to turn back now," said Dumarest. "We'll keep looking. Well go to where Sufan swears the Ghost World is to be found."

"And if it isn't?"

"Then we'll keep going."

To the far side of the Hichen Cloud, to a new world where he wouldn't be expected, to lose himself before the Cyclan could again pick up his trail.

"Up!" said Embira. "Up!" And then, almost immediately, "To the left! The left!"

She sat like a coiled spring, muscles rigid beneath the soft velvet of her skin, hands clenched, blind eyes wide so that they seemed about to start from their sockets. Thin lines of fatigue marred the smooth contours of her features and her hair, in disarray, hung like a tarnished skein of gold.

Standing beside her Dumarest felt the ache and burn of overstrained muscles, the dull protest of nerve and sinew. Days had passed since the repair and he had slept little since the period of concentrated effort. Timus was in little better condition, but he had rested while Dumarest had attended the girl. She had refused to work without him at her side.

"Left!" she said again. "Left!"

Ahead space blazed with a sudden release of energy, a sear of expanding forces which caused the instruments to chatter and the telltales to burn red. Another danger averted by her quick recognition, but always there were more and how long could they continue to escape?

Without turning Rae Acilus said, "We're almost at the heart of the Cloud. There are five suns-which are the three?"

Crouched beside the navigator Sufan Noyoka studied his paper and conferred with Jarv Nonach. Their voices were low, dull in the confines of the control room. The air held a heavy taint compounded of sweat and fear, their faces, in the dull lighting, peaked and drawn.

"Those set closest, Captain. They are in a triangle set on an even plane. Head for the common point."

An instruction repeated, more for the sake of self-conviction than anything else. And yet the captain wasn't to be blamed. During the nightmare journey all sense of orientation had been lost as the ship, like a questing mote, had weaved its way on a tortuous path.

"Right!" said Embira. "Down! Up again!"

Directions sharpened by her fear, but for how long would she be able to retain the fine edge of judgment without which they had no chance? Dumarest dropped his hand to her shoulder, pressed gently on the warm flesh. Beneath his fingers she relaxed a little.

"Can you krang the planet, Embira? Is there anything there?"

"No. I-yes. Earl! I can't be sure!"

Another problem to add to the rest. A planet had mass and should have stood out like a beacon to her talent, but the suns were close and could have distorted her judgment.

"There could be nothing," said the captain. "If there isn't-"

"There is! There has to be!" Sufan would admit of no possibility of failure. "Search, Captain! Get to the common point and look!"

The suns were monstrous, tremendous solar furnaces glowing with radiated energy, one somberly red, one a vibrant orange, the other burning with an eye-searing violet. Acilus guided the vessel between them, his hands deft on the controls, sensing more by instinct than anything else the path of greatest safety.

"Jarv?"

"Nothing." The navigator checked his instruments. "No register."

"There has to be! Balhadorha is there, I know it! Look again!" Sufan's voice rose even higher, to tremble on the edge of hysteria. "I can't be wrong! Years of study-look again!"

A moment as the navigator adjusted his scanners and then, "Yes! Something there!" His voice fell. "No. It's gone again."

The Ghost World living up to its reputation, sometimes spotted, more often not. But instruments could be unreliable and forces other than the gravity of a planet could have affected the sensors.

Dumarest said quietly, "Embira, we're relying on you. Be calm now. Try to eliminate all auras other than those in the common point."

"Earl-I can't!"

"Try, girl! Try!"

For a moment she sat, strained and silent, then said, "Down a little. Down and to the right. No, too far. Up. Up-now straight ahead."

The screens showed nothing, but that was to be expected, the world was too distant-if what she saw was a world. And the scanners reported nothing.

"Only empty space," said Jarv bleakly. "Some radiation flux and an intense magnetic field, but that's all."

"Ahead," she said. "Up a little. Be careful! Careful!"

And then, suddenly, it was there.

The instruments blazed with warning light, the air shrilling to the sound of the emergency alarm, overriding the cut-off in its desperate urgency. Acilus swore, strained at the controls, swore again as the Mayna creaked, opposed forces tearing at the structure.

Large in the screens loomed the bulk of a world, small, featureless, devoid of seas and mountains, bearing a scab of vegetation, an atmosphere, a city.