The Return

Chapter Nine

Lief Chapman was as hard as a rock, his body angular, his mouth like a trap. A laser had burned out his left eye and half his face during an old raid. Though surgery had replaced the eye and repaired the ravaged cheek and temple a certain oddness remained which gave the impression he stared at things others could not see.

To Dumarest he said, "Have you any idea where these coordinates will take us?"

"To Earth."

"Almost to the edge of the galaxy." Gampu Niall scowled at the almanacs which littered the surface of his desk. The navigator was younger than the captain, but matched him in physical hardness. "It's a long way."

"So?" Dumarest looked from one to the other. "Are you saying you can't handle it?"

"I can guide a ship to anywhere in the universe," snapped Niall. "I'm saying it won't be easy. Stars are thin so far out and so are planets. If anything should go wrong we'll have nothing to rely on but ourselves. I'll have to plot a safe course and it'll have to be done in stages. One mistake could be our last."

The ship burned, seared, twisted by invisible forces created by the death and disintegration of suns. Falling into the maw of a vortex, a warp, a black hole. Caught in local regions of intense strain which could crush a hull or turn a vessel into a ball of incandescent vapour. To freeze it in an eternal stasis or to rotate it into an alien dimension.

Dangers of which Dumarest was aware and he watched as the others frowned over a cluster of charts.

"Once we leave the Drift we'll head to the Solloso," said the captain. "Then to Quegan and the Myrm Cluster."

Niall disagreed. "Not the Myrm. We can avoid it by first going to Sabela then on to Stark. That area is pretty safe. A longer flight, but in the right direction."

Dumarest left them to it, moving through the ship on a routine inspection. The vessel was different to others he had known. One built for a specific purpose now adapted for another. The holds had been partitioned into sections holding tiered bunks to accommodate the enlarged compliment. All personal weapons had been locked away. Life would be cramped, restrained, far from comfortable. Only the officers had the privacy of their own cabins.

Zehava was in the communications shack. She turned as Dumarest entered.

"Earl?"

"We'll be off soon. Check the compliment is settled."

"Nadine — "

"Has her duties. Get on with yours."

As she left Dumarest looked at the operator busy with his equipment. Sending final messages back to Kaldar and among them would be the coordinates he had given the captain. Figures which would take them into the area he wanted to reach, but not those giving the true position of Earth. An elementary precaution against probable betrayal. Later it wouldn't matter. For all he cared the entire galaxy could know where Earth was to be found. But only after he had reached it. Only when he was home.

The firing control was unique to vessels designed for combat.

"Hi!" The officer in charge lifted a hand in greeting. Isin Badwasi had retained the exuberance of youth though his cropped hair held traces of silver. His face was mobile, eyes dark and holding a gleam of amusement. Gold shone in rich profusion against the rich blackness of his skin. "Come to look at my toys, commander?"

"They're safe?"

"As a virgin locked behind fifty feet of stone." He sobered at Dumarest's expression. "Sorry, I just like to joke. All locks are in place. Firing mechanisms inactive. Heads unarmed. The way things are we couldn't hurt a fly."

"How long before we could?"

"Too long," admitted Badwasi. "If we were attacked now we'd be dead before we knew what hit us. A precaution," he explained. "Against a ship failing to clear the gravity well or a generator failing at a critical time. It happened to Domhar three years ago. His vessel didn't make it. Luckily it hit well away from town but it still made a nasty mess."

"Does that happen often?"

"Once was enough. So we don't arm the missiles until we're in the clear. But the electronics are functioning."

"Show me." Dumarest watched as the man sent his hands dancing over his instruments. Screens lit to show the vista of space, the great ball of Kaldar looming close as they circled it in orbit. Lines crossed circles to form impact points, computers maintaining alignment. "Have you automatic locking?"

"You name it, we have it. Toibin never spared expense when it came to equipment. We can lock on a target, hold, fire by time or remote. This ship can hold its own against anything in space."

Creatures of the imagination born from the dreams of a violent childhood when the unknown held terrors and to be armed was to be safe. A sense of insecurity carried into adult life. Ships could not fight in space as Badwasi well knew; the Erhaft field made such conflict impossible. The instruments and armament housed in the vessel were for use against helpless towns and the people in them.

Dumarest studied a panel, the board marked as to various rooms and levels. "Slave gas?"

"The system doesn't work."

"You've carried slaves?"

"Often. But not for some time now. Toibin didn't like it. He claimed the profit was too small and the trouble too great. I guess he had a point."

"I guess he had," said Dumarest. "Were you a friend of his?"

"We got along."

"Do you know where he got that knife he used?"

"Against you in the fight?" Badwasi shook his head. "No. I can't remember seeing it before. He must have picked it up somewhere."

"Or received it as a gift?"

"It's possible. Toibin had a lot of friends. He was popular. People liked to do things for him. Give him gifts. Do what he wanted. He said people liked him. I guess he was right."

"Yes," said Dumarest. "Dead right."

"Meaning?"

"Toibin's gone. What he wanted or didn't want no longer matters. It's what I want that matters now. Get this system working. I want everything on this ship to be fully operational. Is that understood?"

"Sure, but the captain-"

"Gives the orders. I know. Do you want to make an issue of it?" Dumarest met the other's eyes, waited until they lowered. Quietly he said, "Were you on Arpagus?"

"I was."

"In charge of the armament?"

"That's right." Badwasi straightened, his eyes wary. "I aimed and fired the missiles — but I didn't call the shots."

"Remember that," said Dumarest. "From now on no one calls the shots but me."

"Understood, commander." Badwasi turned to his panels as the lights flickered their warning. "Good. At last we're on our way."

In the caverns the temperature was constant and it was only imagination which caused Ryon to feel the semblance of a chill. Yet was it wholly imagination? He could feel the tension beneath the scarlet robe as his body adopted a protective stance against the loss of heat. An association, he decided, one born of the learning of failure and almost psychosomatic in its end result. One alien to all previous experience — never had he known fear. Yet now, scanning the report, he could sense what such an emotion could be.

But if fear was alien to his experience so was regret. The past was over and unchangeable. To blame the phenomenal luck which attended Dumarest was to follow an illogical path. A proof of inefficiency which he would never tolerate. The challenge remained and must be met. The means were to hand.

Machines had smoothed the floors so that the stone held a soft sheen over which he glided with an assured tread. An aide hovered discretely to one side. Another led the way through passages, rooms, compartments to an area in which the air pulsed with the murmur of assembled apparatus. Against a wall a screen showed a nacreous surface. Those present wore sterile white touched with the insignia of their crafts. Among them Ryon and his aides resembled living flames.

"Master." Sing Candhar, seamed with years of study and service, bowed to the Cyber Prime. A gesture of respect for achievement and not an admission of servitude. "The experiment is prepared and waiting."

"Continue."

The screen glowed to vibrant color. It showed a sterile chamber in which apparatus was assembled on a bench and, to one side, a construction of rods, cranks, and levers.

"A mechanical analogue of the human body," explained Candhar. "The major problem we have as yet encountered is the difficulty of the recorded mind-imprint to adjust itself to the unfamiliar host in which it finds itself. The brains have been divested of their bodies for many years and old habits have died or been forgotten. It is basically a matter of re-education."

The next step to total domination. The recorded impression of a brain impressed on the sensitive metal node to be given life in a new form. The stumbling block had been unexpected but was totally understandable. If a brain, transplanted from one skull to another, hoped to control its new body, it had to establish synaptic links in order to unite mind and flesh. The expectation had been that such a union would be automatic. The facts were otherwise.

"Now," said Candhar.

A lever jerked on the construction.

"The mind-imprint has been impressed on the analogue and is now learning what impulse results in what effect. The command is to lift and wave both arms."

"Would moving one arm not be easier for it to master?"

"The arms, to be effective, must learn to work in unison. It is best to impress that from the outset."

Again the analogue jerked in apparently random movements. A child, blind, deaf, without sensation, fumbling with gloved hands at buttons to find which did what, remembering the gained results, correlating them, uniting them with others to achieve control.

Learning to move, to crawl, to stand, to walk. To touch and see and discover the world around. A baby did it and so could a man.

"Are there signs of deterioration?"

"None as yet, master. There is some disorientation as we expected and, of necessity, a realignment of mental attitude. In effect we are witnessing a rebirth."

A man wedding himself to metal. Ryon watched as the jerking movements of the analogue grew more frantic, rods shifting, clashing against levers, cranks jerking in a wild abandon. A metal spider threshing in an extreme of agony. A machine which had run berserk.

The threshing died as Candhar touched a control.

"What happened?"

"A failure, master."

Another to add to the rest — this was not the first experiment. Another brain lost — the mind-imprint was not a copy but a transfer of the entire energy-pattern which made an individual. How must it have felt locked in an alien housing, afflicted by alien sensations?

An academic question, the intelligence had found refuge first in madness and then in the extinction attending the volatilization of the node.

Ryon said, "Investigate the possibility that the analogue was too alien for the intelligence to accept. A more familiar host must be found. One with which the imprint can sense an affinity."

"A clone?"

"Perhaps. One from the actual brain tissue itself would have the highest chance of success."

"Marie, the late Cyber Prime, instigated an experiment which could be of value," suggested Candhar. "It was placed in abeyance when circumstances dictated a change of effort. It might be possible to utilize the progress which had been made."

"That decision has already been taken. Proceed as instructed."

Ryon swept from the room attended by his silent aides. Down more passages, into other rooms, ending in one which held medical scents and a real, not imagined chill. Like Candhar the medical technician was no longer young. His bow was as perfunctorily.

"Master. I have done as you asked."

"The situation?"

"The experiment can be completed without too much expenditure of effort or loss of time."

The required answer. Ryon stepped to a transparent wall and studied what lay beyond. Marie had planned well and the logic of the Cyclan had done the rest. While to maintain a lapsed experiment was wasteful yet to discard accomplished achievement was inefficient. The change of effort Candhar had mentioned, induced when Marie had demonstrated his inefficiency and had paid the price of failure, had given him the key to ultimate success.

The dream had died, killed by endless days, vanishing to trail behind her like torn and dusty cobwebs mocking in their memories of what might have happened. She'd hoped for so much. To be free, unrestrained, untrammeled, yet all she had accomplished was to have moved from one prison to another and that of the ship was more confining than she had thought possible. A closed world in which she felt she was being moulded into a figure of madness.

"Nadine, here are the figures for the lower decks." Nigel Myer handed her a slip of paper, not meeting her eyes, too eager to rejoin his comrades to be more than barely polite. "Is there anything else?"

He moved away as she shook her head, released from duties invented to make him feel important and give him a sense of purpose. She knew too well the compliment of the ship. Knew the cliques and cabals which were building and changing, the associations and groups. But, while the compliment found pleasure in the company of others and could talk and make plans she could only walk from one compartment to another, to the salon, the hold, her cabin where, thank God, she could be alone.

"Just a minute!" A woman came towards her, bright touches of paint accentuating her lips and eyes, the bones of her face. Tazima Osborn, arrogant, fuming with anger. "I'm changing one of my cabin-partners. Ellen Beram. I can't stand the bitch. Lisa is willing to take her place. See to it."

"No," snapped Nadine. "You see to it. Why tell me?"

"You put us together. I've never liked the woman since the Escum raid. Move her or there'll be blood — and it won't be mine!"

Another threat and more trouble to add to the rest. The threat meant little; a part of the general atmosphere of violence she had known all her life, but trouble was something she was supposed to avoid, to negate before it grew unto ugly dimensions. A job she'd been good at but that had been on a different world. In the regimented constriction of the ship small things took on a new importance and could lead to quarrels and bloody violence.

Zehava didn't help.

"Let them sort it out between themselves. If they want action put them in a ring with clubs. Naked," she added. "And spike the clubs with nails. They'll cool down when it comes to risking their beauty."

She sat with others at a table in the salon playing dice, the cubes landing hard against the baffle.

"Seventeen!" Zehava picked up one of the four cubes. "Now sixteen. Watch me hit twenty-one!" She threw and cursed as the die came to rest showing a six. "Over! I' in busted and out!" She glared at Nadine. "You brought me bad luck! Take your stupid problems somewhere else!"

An insult, one she could take up, but Zehava wouldn't shrink from combat and she lacked the other's skill. A gust of laughter followed her from the salon and she halted to lean against the bulkhead feeling the endless vibration of the drive against her forehead and cheek. She had known those at the table all her life, but now they were strangers. As were too many others. In the entire ship she had only one friend.

Dumarest was in his cabin. He opened the door to her knock and stepped aside to allow her entrance. He had been resting, the imprint of his body clear on the bunk. The cubicle was dimly lit but bright enough for her to see the scars which marred his naked torso and read his welcome and, thankfully, his concern.

It gave her courage. She said, "I have to talk to you. The others don't take me seriously. The officers look on me as a nuisance. I've no experience of raiding. I don't belong. Even the work I do is a joke."

"You're wrong." He gestured, inviting her to sit on the bunk. "Would you like a drink? Some wine? Here, try some of this."

It was peedham and he served it in a small glass engraved with erotic figures. Zehava's gift, she guessed, and felt a sharp jealousy.

"You must think me a fool."

"No."

"A coward then."

Something of both but she was not to blame for either. Only a fool attempted the impossible and a coward was merely a human who feared the unknown. He sat beside her, smiling comfort over his glass, letting the magic of its contents warm his stomach as he hoped it was dissolving her terror. A paranoid, suspicious of everyone and everything, convinced she was surrounded by enemies. Able to read their secret thoughts, their amusement, scorn, contempt. On Kaldar the boaster, the braggart and swaggerer were held in esteem and then only as long as they lived up to their image. A harsh society in which to be gentle was to be weak and to be weak was to be despised.

Nadine had been born on the wrong world.

He said, gently, "You're not a fool and you certainly aren't a coward. You're just someone who is learning a hard lesson. You are discovering there is no escape. No matter how far or how fast we run the bars we carry with us will always cage us in. You, me, everyone. We are all prisoners of our mind."

"Not you, Earl!"

"Everyone." He sipped at his glass. She saw the light reflected from his eyes, the strong lines of his mouth and jaw. "Don't try to find happiness, Nadine. Be satisfied with contentment."

Good advice but he would never take it. For him there could be alternative to the path he had chosen and she wondered how a world could hold such allure. What had he lost that he should miss it so much?

"Drink," he urged. "You need to relax. What have you to report?"

Nothing but a host of small details, but she sensed his interest was deeper than it seemed. What, to her, were trivial scraps of information was, to him, items which could threaten the success of his enterprise.

Watching him, reading him, she felt a disturbing flood of emotion. One stemming from the safety of the cabin, his strength, the protection he could give. A partner who could offer happiness. One who could give her love.

"Earl!" The peedham had dissolved her reticence. The light held a new softness and his closeness created an urgent demand. "Tell me," she whispered, her hand rising to caress his cheek. "Tell me — " but even as she framed the question she knew it would be futile. What he had lost would be a secret he would keep. Instead she said, fighting for control, "How much longer will the journey last?"

"Does it matter?"

"It could. There are too many disputes, threats, actual fights. The compliment is restless. They resent discipline and are bored. Some even talk of breaking the journey to make a raid."

"No!" He was emphatic. "They mustn't be allowed to do that. We have to keep going. Talk to them. Remind them of what they stand to gain. The treasure, gems, precious metals, all the other things. The entire wealth of a world. The planet itself. Play on their greed. If they insist on arguing threaten to evict them."

"And when they object? Am I supposed to fight?"

"If you have to, yes." He strove to be patient. "I'm not talking about physical combat. Fight with your brains and talent. Read them. Use lies, gossip, rumor, anything which works. You've done it before."

"On Kaldar. This is a new world."

"It's still a world. The same rules apply. Another drink?" He set aside the bottle when she shook her head. "Then get some rest. Stay here if you want. I'll make sure no one bothers you."

She wanted more than the security of his cabin.

"Earl!"

She reached for him, yielding to the thrust of emotion, her demanding need. Within the circle of her arms she felt the firm strength of his body, responding to its warm impact, feeling the burning heat of desire, knowing it was shared. Then, abruptly, he pushed her away.

"Earl'."She felt the pain of rejection. "What's wrong?"

His hand was pressed against the bulkhead and she read the answer. Her own hand confirmed it. The metal was free of vibration. The Erhaft field had collapsed.

Dumarest ran through a ship filled with apparent corpses. An illusion created by the drug which had neutralized the quicktime in his blood and restored his normal metabolism. In the engine room others, also on normal time, wrestled with the bulk of the generator.

Zoll Mauger snarled his impatience at a stubborn panel.

"Give me a hand, here! Move!"

Simi Kent, the second engineer, ran forward with an oddly shaped lever. One he slipped into an orifice, heaved, grunted as the casing remained intact.

"What's the problem?" Dumarest rested a hand on the metal. "Warped?"

"Maybe fused. I hope to hell it isn't. Cutting it free could do damage." Simi heaved again on the lever, Dumarest adding his strength. Together they forced it free. "Zoll!"

The engineer pushed them aside as he crouched to examine the exposed interior of the generator. When he straightened black smears streaked the contours of his face.

Simi was impatient. "Bad?"

"Bad enough. The governor blew. The safety fuses took the brunt, but they went in turn and the coils are grimed." Irritably he shook his head. "I don't understand it. There was no reason for the damn thing to blow. We were running even, no surges, no drain, nothing to cause damage. It just happened."

Dumarest said, "How long to repair it?"

"As long as it takes." Mauger was curt. "The governor will have to be replaced. We carry a spare so that's no problem. But the generator need to be cleaned, the safeties renewed and the coils needs to be polished and realigned."

"For the text-book repair," agreed Dumarest. "I'm talking about something good enough to establish the field and get us to a planet."

"You an engineer?"

"I've handled machines and seen damaged generators." Dumarest stared at the other man. "From what you say most of what needs doing is basic. Maybe I can help. It's my neck too," he reminded. "Don't blame me for taking care of it."

"I don't." Mauger looked at Nadine. She had entered the engine room as they had talked. "What is it?"

"The captain wants a full report." She looked at the dismantled generator and added, "I heard what you said about replacing the governor. I suggest you check the spare before you do."

"Why?" Mauger scowled when she told him. "Some worker on Kaldar committing sabotage? Are you serious?"

"Vargas was complaining about sloppy work. There could be a connection. How often do governors blow?"

"Rarely," admitted the engineer. "What's your point?"

Dumarest said, before Nadine could answer, "It could be simple chance or it could be sabotage. If it happens again we could lose the generator. Are you willing to take that kind of chance?"

"Not if I can help it," said Mauger. "I'll check it out. You can report to the captain when I've finished."

Cradled by his chair in the control room Lief Chapman was a part of his domain. A meld of machine and mind, of science and art; apparent magic which had given Mankind the universe to rove in. All useless now. The vessel had turned into a coffin.

With the Erhaft field down it was traveling below the speed of light and long before it could reach a habitable world everyone aboard would be dead. Starvation would see to it, and thirst, and inevitable madness. Not even the magic of drugs would stave off the inevitable. But that would not happen to his command. The vagaries of chance had seen to that.

"Captain?" Niall was at his side, eyes on the main screen. "You've checked it out?"

Chapman nodded, eyes drifting over the panels, the ranked instruments. Space was far from empty and nothing in it was safe.

"As yet we're lucky," said the navigator. "This area is relatively clear. It all depends on how long it takes to affect repairs."

Dumarest provided the answer. Chapman scowled as he finished his report.

"How long?"

"A day, maybe less." Dumarest noticed the captain's expression. "I'm quoting the engineer. The original governor is useless. If it hadn't been for Mauger I'd be saying the same about the generator, but we had luck and he was quick to act. He needs to calibrate the spare governor, replace the safeties and do what he can to clean the coils."

"Why waste time messing with the spare?"

"It can't be relied on."

"We can't use it?"

"I didn't say that. The tolerances are way out. It has to be stripped and recalibrated to accepted standard. If that isn't done it will blow. When it does it could take the generator with it. We don't carry a spare generator. We won't have a spare governor either." Dumarest added, grimly, "It's a gamble I'd rather not take."

Chapman was equally grim. "We have no choice."

He pointed at the screen before him, the stars it portrayed. Cross-hairs quartered a glowing point. As they watched the star moved to one side. An illusion; it was the ship which had moved.

"We're caught in a Blakstaad vortex," explained the navigator. "Spiraling into the center. There's a black hole there. When we get too close we'll be sucked in."

Dumarest said, "How long do we have?"

"An hour. Seventy five minutes at the most. The speed of approach increases the closer we get." Chapman reached for his panel, punched a button. "Mauger?"

"With you, captain."

"Make an immediate start on the repairs. Use all the help you need."

The engineer snapped, "Haven't you been told what happened? The situation we're in?"

"It makes no difference. Just do as I order. You've an hour to get this ship out of trouble. Understood?"

"It can't be done."

"Do it!"

Mauger snarled his anger. "To hell with that. We haven't the time and no stupid order is going to change things. Get that into your skull. We haven't the time!"

"Damn you! We're heading into a black hole!"

"You want me to put things back together again?" snapped the engineer. "Just put them back? Right, I'll do it, but it'll make no difference. Unless it's done right it'll be a waste of time. The generator won't work or, if it does, it'll blow in seconds and leave only scrap. You know that."

Dumarest said, quickly, "There's a way out. We can use slowtime."

Speeding their metabolism so that minutes turned into hours. But using it was dangerous. The mere act of living burning energy, created hunger, searing thirst and numbing fatigue. Water became a thick, cloying syrup. Food was inedible. Objects gained apparent weight because of massive inertia. Muscles were strained, sinews torn, any normal impact resulting in pulped flesh and shattered bone.

"You've used it?" Chapman sighed his relief as Dumarest nodded. 'Teach the others how to adapt. I'll have Chagal deliver it to the engine room. He'll stay to help."

"With booster shots, ice, cold water and glucose," said Dumarest. To the navigator he added, "Find us a world to run to. Pick one which is close."