The Dragon Never Sleeps

— 33 —

Alarms wailed like newly orphaned children. A computer voice droned, "There has been an explosion on B Deck. Passengers please remain in your cabins. There is no danger. Hull integrity has been maintained. Damage control parties are at work." Over and over.

Cold air stirred a wisp of hair lying on Jo's cheek. She cracked an eyelid, thought, I'm still alive. That seemed absurd.

What a mess! Metal and plastic torn, warped, melted, hammered into grotesque sculpture by blast and heat. But she saw no structural damage. House Majhellain built their spaceframes to endure the ages.

The air was shivering cold and fresh. That contaminated by the explosion had been evacuated. But she still smelled singed hair.

Her skin looked broiled. Felt like it, too. Flash burn.

"Oh!" she groaned, touching her scalp. What hair she had left was hair that had been shielded by her arms. She must look like hell.

"You all right, Jo?"

Haget had gotten himself into a lotus position, sort of. He looked ridiculous. She laughed weakly. "Yeah. Underdone."

She got her knees under her, started a painful crawl toward Vadja, three meters away, sprawled in a pool of blood. "Commander, we got a problem. Something cut the artery in his left arm. His color is bad. Pulse and breathing, too."

"Where the hell are those damned civilians? Where's that damage control party?"

"That's just to keep the passengers from panicking. Go get somebody. I'll get a tourniquet on him."

Haget crept down the passageway, grunting, cursing softly.

Jo could not resist. "Dignity, Third WatchMaster. Everything with proper dignity."

He by damned got up on his hind legs and tottered, one hand on the bulkhead.

For nothing. A pressure hatch opened. A man in a protective suit stepped through. Another followed. They expected a worse disaster than they found. They gawked at Haget. One ducked back. The ship's doctor popped in, a fussy little fat man who sized up the situation on the fly and went directly to Vadja. He looked at Jo's work, harrumphed, got busy. Vadja was on a stretcher, taking plasma, and headed for the Traveler's infirmary in the time it took Jo to get to her feet and gingerly approach the opening to Messenger's cabin.

Pieces of alien were splattered on bulkheads, deck, and overhead. That brought back memories of a bunker taken during the Enherrenraat mess. Stubborn bastards had ended up plastered all over the place.

Haget arrived as she backed away, trying to keep her lunch down. "I thought you were used to this."

"Stick your head in there. Take a whiff."

He did. His lunch did come up.

Jo said, "Whatever those suckers eat, it must have to be dead a month before they start. We'll need suits if we're going to poke around in there."

The atmosphere system was trying. Its best was not enough.

Timmerbach appeared, oh-mying, looking like he'd shove them through the nearest lock cheerfully if only he dared. Haget said, "We're building a real credit obligation here, aren't we? Though I don't think we had much to do with the thing going berserk."

Timmerbach grunted. His look said anybody who had to deal with Guardship people would go berserk. "Fifty-six hours till we get to the off strand, Commander. Then on to S. Marselica Freeheld, where House Majhellain has facilities. Hopefully we can part company friends."

Haget smiled thinly. "We won't be leaving you, Chief."

"I didn't think so. But I thought I'd suggest it."

Jo was trying to contact AnyKaat and having no luck. "This damned comm got bruised."

"Try Vadja's." The doctor had dispossessed Vadja of his gear before moving him. "S. Marselica wasn't on the itinerary, Chief."

"Neither was the Presence, a killer Guardship, a suicidal Outsider, or this gallivant across starspace. But here we are. With who knows what damage from the explosion and the beating on the Web. We have to get Glorious Spent in for a hundred percenter."

Jo tried Vadja's comm. It would not crackle. But that did not matter now. Degas and AnyKaat had arrived.

Haget said, "You're probably right, Chief."

AnyKaat asked Jo, "You all right?"

"Overdone around the edges. Otherwise, fine."

"You look awful."

"Thanks. You're one of nature's rare beauties yourself."

Haget asked Timmerbach for the loan of suits so they could invade the alien's quarters.

AnyKaat asked, "How's Era?"

Jo explained. "Unless that Doc is a butcher, he'll be all right. Just shock and loss of blood."

Haget joined them. "Timmerbach will provide the suits, Sergeant. In the interim, I suggest we visit the infirmary. See about Vadja and if maybe the doctor hasn't got something that'll stop the stinging of these burns. What's Seeker doing?"

"Sleeping it off," Degas said. "Sir, what are we going to do now? I got the impression Seeker was tailing Messenger, maybe keeping it from doing whatever it was trying to do. Now it doesn't have a mission. And it wants to go back."

"I don't follow."

"We're supposed to stick and see what they do. But we haven't charged this one. It can do whatever it wants. Suppose next station it bails out and takes another ship?"

Jo grinned. "What he's saying is, how do you and me walk up to some other Traveler's Chief and bluff him into hauling us around? We'd be stuck. We don't have documentation. Him and AnyKaat have documentation but no credit. Timmerbach knows we're off VII Gemina, but if he gets pissed he could dump us and we wouldn't be able to prove a thing."

Haget scowled. "Don't give the little bastard any ideas. Hell. WarAvocat should have given us the necessaries. We'll work on the alien. It's out for sure? After the doctor we'll get cleaned up. Did you get any wind of the krekelen, Degas?"

Degas and AnyKaat shook their heads.

"Better work on that, too."

Jo came out of her quarters, found Haget ready before she was. She said, "That stuff does take the sting out. But it makes the red even redder. I look like some kind of artifact."

Haget grunted. He looked uncomfortable. He blurted, "Tell me something, Sergeant." But then he lost momentum.

"Sir?"

"Uh... what's wrong with me?"

"Wrong with you? Are you asking for an opinion of your personality?" She knew damned well he was, but if she pretended density maybe he would back off.

No such luck. He insisted. "Yes."

Shit. "You're probably a good officer. You wouldn't be a full Commander and a WatchMaster if you weren't. But you never go off duty. You probably sleep at attention."

He opened his mouth to snap, bit on his rejoinder. "I asked, didn't I? Qualities that are prosurvival in Hall of the Watchers but less important out here, eh?"

"You've adapted some, sir."

"I've tried." He did not know what else to say. So he fell back on the support system that had served him in the past: getting after the job. "Let's go visit Seeker and see if we can't communicate. Do you have a functional comm?"

"Yes, sir."

He strapped on a sidearm. "Tell Degas and AnyKaat we're coming."

Jo's eyes were vacant when she walked out of Seeker's cabin. Haget stepped into her path. She mumbled and tried to slide around him, headed for the bridge. He blocked her. "AnyKaat."

AnyKaat slapped her.

She shook her head, rubbed her cheek. "It got to me this time, didn't it?" It had been her fourth attempt and fourth failure. The alien was not interested in communicating, it was interested in getting Glorious Spent to carry it where it wanted to go.

"All right," Haget said. "We tried it one rational species to another. Now we do it my way." He drew his handgun, stepped inside, let the alien have it. ‘Two hours till it wakes up. Let's get the equipment installed."

His way amounted to crude operant conditioning. They would take turns trying to communicate. If Seeker tried to control instead of communicate, zap! Someone would sit monitor in Jo and Haget's suite, ready to administer the zap.

"There's no positive reinforcement in the cycle!" Jo protested.

Haget snapped, "The hell there isn't. The absence of pain. The opportunity to argue its case."

More than an hour passed before Jo realized that was what Haget considered a joke.

"You think we could try this on him, too?" AnyKaat whispered. "Zap him till he gets human?"

"He's basically all right. He just never learned how."

AnyKaat gave her a wonderstruck look.

"Shit," Degas said from outside. "Here comes the angel of gloom."

Jo leaned out. Sure enough, Timmerbach was headed their way. He did not look like he had a social visit in mind.

"What you got, Chief?" Degas asked. "We falling into a black hole? Somebody undo the golden zipper of the universe? You find the krekelen holed up in the wardroom?"

Timmerbach was taken aback.

Jo said, "You never come around with good news. What's wrong now?"

"Where's the Commander?"

"Asleep," Jo lied. Haget had gone off to test the monitor. "And he said don't wake him up."

"You'll have to do. I don't have time to run after him. We're not going to be able to get onto the strand we wanted. It's the one the Presence and the Guardship used. It's too feeble to get hold of."

"I knew it," Degas said. "What did I tell you?"

"We're headed for another one?" Jo asked.

Timmerbach nodded. "It means another four days in star-space."

"Any problems with that? Stores shortages or anything?"

"No. I just don't like to be alone in starspace so far from help. Anything could happen. If we have a breakdown, we're dead."

Degas said, "Chief, the law of averages is due to catch up. Your luck is going to change."

Timmerbach"s look said that while his Traveler was occupied territory, the only shift he expected was for the worse. That this was not worth whatever VII Gemina might do for House Cholot.

That things might have gone worse without them was irrelevant.

"I'll inform the Commander," Jo said. I'll tell him you looked like a fat little boy with naughty thoughts who maybe ought to have his butt spanked just in case.

She watched Timmerbach out of sight. "From now on we watch Timmerbach and Cholot. No need to be discreet about it, either."