“Weapons ready. We’re going to—”
The IFF transponder chirped, bringing a spontaneous and general gasp of relief from the crew, or at least from four of its five ED human members.
The captain was the only one whose manner betrayed no relief; if anything he sounded exasperated. “It’s the Space Force.”
“Well, damn it all anyway.” Iskander’s intercom tone managed to make his annoyance almost convincing. “If we’d been trying to find them, we never could have done it.”
Domingo was quick to open communications with the approaching ships. The Space Force responded, sending clipped jargon with their usual tightbeamed caution. The pulses of transmitted talk came through only blurrily at first. Then as the distance lessened, with the Pearland the Space Force fleet speeding through the nebula on gradually converging courses, a real conversation could get started.
Soon the image of Gennadius, seated on the bridge of his combat ship, had come into being on the several small individual holostages the crew members of the Pearlwere watching.
Even padded and armored as he was, obviously on red alert for combat, the commander looked more haggard, more cadaverously thin than ever. His voice was suspicious, almost hostile. “What the hell are you doing out here, Domingo?”
“I think you know what I’m doing. I just hope you’re doing the same thing, and suddenly I find I have a new reason to hope so. Is this really where your big computer says Old Blue ought to be?”
“Nothing my computer says has been doing me much good lately. So I’m trying some guessing, as I suppose you are. All right, I admit I’m after Leviathan.”
Domingo stared for a moment at the commander’s little image. Then, in a sharply changed voice, the captain of the Pearldemanded: “He’s hit another colony, hasn’t he? Which one is it this time?”
”’He?’” The commander sounded mystified. Then he gave up quibbling. “All right. It’s hit another colony.” Gennadius named the latest victim. Simeon tried to place its location on his mental map. Yes, it was presumably the same world whose suffering, detected by the Carmpan, had brought the Pearlmoving in this direction.
“And you guessed his route of departure might lead him along this way.”
“Something like that.” Gennadius appeared to take counsel with himself and came to a decision. “Look, Domingo. My theory is that some berserkers, the one you call Leviathan probably among them, have a repair and refitting base somewhere around here in the nebula, maybe in a dark-star system. I’m looking for it now, but my chance of finding it would be better if I were able to call in more ships.”
“Then call them in.”
“It’s not that simple. If I call ships here, I have to take them away from somewhere else. Most probably from guard duty near some colony, and I don’t want to do that. I’ll make you a deal. Take the Pearland stand guard duty at da Gama, and I’ll call two of my ships in from that area to help out here with the search. It would give us a considerably better chance of finding what we’re looking for. If I can catch Leviathan with my battle group, I’ll bring you back a blue light. Or any other part of its anatomy you want.”
“No deal,” said Domingo instantly.
“I didn’t think so.” Gennadius was angry, though not surprised. “All right, then, let me repeat my first question. What the hell are you doing out here? If you know something, I want to know it, too. What have you seen? Or found out?”
“I’ve seen nothing out of the ordinary. I’ve been extrapolating Leviathan’s earlier movements—as you must have been doing also.”
The commander snorted. “With your little shipboard computer? You’ve been damned lucky, then.”
The captain nodded, smiling lightly. “You might say that a certain amount of luck has come my way.”
Gennadius had his fleet deployed in a far-flung formation for maximum sweep, Simeon observed. He supposed that for that reason it was not amazingly odd that the encounter with the Pearlhad occurred, given that the two commanders were following the same basic plan of search.
The Space Force commander once more demanded to know what other sightings the Pearlhad recently made.
“None at all,” Domingo repeated at once. “What about yourself?”
“We picked up something about two hours ago—movement of some kind at spacecraft speeds. At extreme range, and we weren’t able to close on it. I’m still not sure if it was berserker movement or not—but out here, nothing else is likely to … what in all the hells is that?”
Checking his indicators, Simeon realized that Fourth Adventurer had just turned his intercom station on two-way as if intending to join in the radio conversation. Now for the first time Gennadius was able to get a good look at all of the six crew members on Domingo’s ship—including the one whose presence represented a unique event in the history of Earth-descended spacefaring.
“Just one of my crew.” Domingo sounded distracted; his thoughts as usual were still on berserkers.
“One of your crew. Just one of your bloody crew. Iskander, what’s going on over there?” For a moment the Carmpan’s presence appeared to outrage Gennadius more than anything else that had happened yet.
“Things are just as you see them, sir.” Baza sounded sweetly reasonable. “If I may, I would suggest a more diplomatic attitude toward our ally of the Carmpan theme.”
“I … should have known better than to ask,” Gennadius muttered, almost inaudibly. Then he roused himself, or tried to rouse himself, to his diplomatic duty. “Absolutely.” He started to address himself to the Carmpan. “Let me assure you, sir, or—” He was getting nowhere. “Domingo. Domingo, I warn you, if you’re doing anything to get us in trouble with—with—”
Fourth Adventurer spoke at last. He introduced himself calmly and assured the commander that there were no difficulties in prospect involving intertheme diplomacy. He, Fourth Adventurer, was present on this mission by his own free choice as an individual, and his presence would be more likely to alleviate diplomatic trouble than to cause it.
Gennadius briefly tried to grapple with that but gave up. He had too much else to think about. “I, I don’t understand that, sir.”
“You need not worry about it now, Commander.”
There was a pause. “You do claim diplomatic status, then?” Gennadius at last inquired. The image of his face was growing clearer as the hurtling ships approached each other.
“I have made no such claim as yet, and at present I do not intend to do so. But I would be within my rights, and I reserve the right to do so in the future. Matters of vast importance are almost certainly at stake here, Commander, more important than getting rid of a berserker.”
Suddenly Fourth Adventurer’s shipmates were staring at him too, as if they had never seen him before this moment.
“Ah.” Gennadius obviously couldn’t make any sense at all out of what he had just heard. Everyone was waiting for him to try. “Ah—Fourth Adventurer—matters of vast importance?”
“Yes, Commander.”
“Such as what?”
“I said ‘almost certainly at stake,’ Commander. If and when the proper word is ‘certainly,’ you will be informed.”
“Ah. Good. Well, in the meantime I have a job to perform. We all do.”
The commander and the captain talked a little longer.
Gennadius pragmatically welcomed the presence of Domingo’s ship as adding to the total strength available in the region; but at the same time the commander was fearful that Domingo’s fanaticism was going to raise more problems. Certainly it was keeping Domingo and his ship from being as useful as the commander would have liked.
In the privacy of his own mind, Gennadius decided that he was going to try not to think about the presence of the Carmpan and what it might mean.
“Captain, I don’t suppose it would do any good to order you to take your ship and stand Home Guard duty near da Gama. Or to go home.”
“I don’t suppose it would. I’ve told you again
and again what I’m doing. My plans haven’t changed.”
The commander heaved a long sigh. “All right.” In an easier voice he added: “Looks like we’ve got some dirty weather coming up ahead. Going to run for it?”
“I’m not that much worried about a squall.”
CHAPTER 17
The detectors on all the ships now showed a nebular storm ahead and coming on. The storms arose from a combination of magnetic and gravitational forces; in them the matter composing the eternal clouds was compressed beyond any density it normally attained. The masses of it were ringed and shot through like Earthly thunderstorms with electrical discharges—though each storm was considerably bigger than the Earth itself—and glistened with iridescent rainbows. The onrushing disturbances were now only minutes away.
If a colony lay in a storm’s path, the inhabitants took shelter in shielded underground rooms or perhaps in reliable ships that could outrun electronic weather. Sleets of atomic and subatomic particles, knotting and lashing fields of magnetic and other forces, would disrupt human movement and communications, wipe out food crops in the nebula and on planetary surfaces and almost certainly inflict some human casualties. It was fortunate that storms of great size were rare.
This was not one of the larger ones. The squall, as Domingo had called it, struck the ships.
Screens and holostages went blank as the nuclear-magnetic lash tore up communications between ships and impeded forward progress. The energies of the miniature tempest extended outside normal space, confusing astrogation systems and temporarily negating drives, robbing them of their normal hold in the mathematical reality of flightspace.
The people on Domingo’s ship had a glimpse of the Space Force ships scattering before their own instruments roared with white noise, cutting off the world. And then the Pearlwas swept away.
The intercom was still working perfectly, but the Carmpan’s unit remained blank even after repeated efforts to call him. When Branwen and Iskander went to Fourth Adventurer’s berth to investigate, they found him tossing in his acceleration couch as if he were spacesick or feverish.
Bending over the supine, blocky figure, Branwen shook him gently by a corner of his gray garment. But Fourth Adventurer was unable or unwilling to respond to that stimulus or to the first anxious questions from his visitors.
The woman turned uncertainly to Baza. “Can a Carmpan have a fever?” she asked. “He feels warm.”
“I don’t know.” For once not amused, Iskander flicked the intercom. “Anyone on board claim to be an expert in Carmpan biology?”
No one did, apparently. Nor did anyone want to suggest what sort of first aid or medical treatment, if any, to attempt. The decision fell to Domingo by default, and by his orders a policy of watchful waiting was adopted.
Hardly had this been decided when to everyone’s relief Fourth Adventurer roused himself enough to announce that he had not really been taken ill. He was, he said, only suffering from the strain of having made telepathic contact with strange forms of life in the raw, seething nebula outside. The native life forms here were also endangered by the storm when it engulfed them and suffered pain, and their distress communicated itself to the Carmpan’s mind.
Simeon didn’t understand. “I thought you were able to tune things out.”
“Ordinarily. But just now I dare not.”
There was silence on the intercom, but Simeon thought most of the crew were probably listening. He asked the Carmpan: “You knew all along there was life out there in the nebula, didn’t you? Of course, everyone knows that.”
The feeble answer was more a gesture than a sound. It conveyed no meaning to Simeon.
“I’d say it would be a good idea to keep your mind away from it if it makes you sick.”
Fourth Adventurer managed to get out intelligible words. “I repeat, that is not possible at present. Matters are not that easy.”
Branwen took up a point in which everyone was interested. “You said you could, ah, keep your mind away from ours.”
“And I have done so, be assured. But in the case of the life outside, my duty is to probe.”
“The ‘matters of vast importance’ you mentioned to Gennadius?”
“That is it.”
Beyond that it was hard to get the Carmpan to say anything on the subject at all.
After some hours the storm began to weaken. It no longer represented any threat at all to the survival of the ship, but the weather was still too nasty to allow much headway or any determination of position.
With the ship no longer endangered, Domingo relieved three of his people from duty and sent them to rest. They were all tired, but none of them rested easily.
Spence Benkovic didn’t try to rest at all. Instead he came looking for Branwen Galway, wanting to talk to her, wanting to do more than that; it was almost the first time since this attractive woman had come aboard that he allowed himself to show an open interest in her.
When Spence appeared at her door, trying to get himself invited in, Branwen had somewhat mixed feelings about his renewed attentions. Mainly she was repelled by them. Branwen found Benkovic acceptable as a casual acquaintance, even—so far, at least—as a shipmate. But as soon as she tried to think of him as a potential lover, something about him changed. Or something in the way she saw him changed, which amounted to the same thing. Well, naturally, the altered role would make a difference in how you thought of anyone, but …
It was hard to explain, even to herself. But she was more certain than ever that Benkovic was not a potential lover, not for her.
Galway did have to give Spence credit for being good-looking. He could be entertaining, too, she had discovered, when he made the effort. Maybe, after all … but no.
He wasn’t inclined to take no for an answer. And so she closed the door of her berth on him, after first politely and then not so politely declining to let him in.
To Branwen’s surprise, he was still there, in the short corridor, when she came out a few minutes later. She had to maneuver past him in the narrow crew tunnel. There was momentary physical contact, which he tried to turn to some advantage. When he was again rejected, he passed it off lightly as a joke.
Benkovic’s eyes glowed after her when she had passed him; she could feel them without looking back. They were attractive eyes, she had to admit, and he knew how to use them. She thought he would have liked to try a more determined grab at her, but knew better than to try that kind of thing with her, and on this ship.
She was now the only female available. Well, the possibility of having to adjust his sex life should have occurred to him before he signed on for a long mission.
One ED female on the crew, four ED males. She wondered if the Carmpan ever worried about his sex life, or lack thereof. That aspect of things didn’t matter to his theme much, if all the stories one heard were true. Maybe she would ask Fourth Adventurer sometime.
Meanwhile she had a much less theoretical problem to contend with: what to do about Spence Benkovic. Experience suggested strongly that in this situation she would be better off being a sexless crew member, just one of the fellows, as long as that role was playable. Unfortunately that no longer seemed to be a possibility. The trouble, one of the troubles, was that no one knew how long this voyage was likely to go on before Domingo was willing to call, if not a halt, at least a pause somewhere for some R and R.
One way to keep Spence at a distance, possibly a good one, would be to take up with someone else. Domingo might well have been her first choice, but she understood by now that he just wasn’t available, even if she did not yet understand exactly why. Because he was captain for one thing, probably. But she had the feeling there was more to it than that.
Iskander … no. She’d rather not. Though from the way Baza looked at her sometimes, Branwen thought that he too might be interested.
That left Simeon. Who had been, she thought, in some way her first choice all along.
Branwen went knocking at Chakuchin’s door.
Conveniently, Simeon too was off watch at the moment. He was pleasantly surprised to see her.
She got the conversation off to an easy start by asking Sim whether he had anything to drink available.
Simeon, having asked her in, started to explain that the only stimulant he needed now was Leviathan. But the words sounded so ridiculous now that he never finished saying them.
Instead he came out with: “I hate to be alone in weather like this.”
Inside, she let the door of the tiny space sigh closed behind her. “You don’t have to be alone, Sim. Not all the time, anyway.”
Soon the two of them were sitting close together—there was no other way to sit in one of these berth-cabins—with privacy dialed on both the door and the intercom. Only genuine emergency messages ought to be able to get through. Branwen had left her own berth closed up in the same way; supposedly the curious wouldn’t know if she were in there or somewhere else aboard.
For the time being, berserkers were forgotten and so was the captain. And so, for Branwen, were her worries about Spence Benkovic.
A little later, Simeon was saying, rather sleepily: “We never did find anything to drink.”
Galway murmured something and stretched lazily against the cushions of Simeon’s berth. Her standard shipboard coverall had been totally discarded, and his was currently being worn in a decidedly informal configuration. Drink was not really prominent in her thoughts at the moment. She muttered a few words to that effect.
“I know, I don’t need one either, but I thought …” Then Simeon’s words trailed off in astonishment at the expression on his companion’s face.
Branwen was gazing past his shoulder. Her eyes were wide, and her lips made a sound, something totally different from any that he had heard her utter yet.
He twisted his head around just in time to see it, too. Somethinghad just come into the little cylindrical room where they were lying as if to look at them, and in the second or two that Simeon was frozen, looking at it, it appeared to go out through the solid wall and come back in again. The intruder was not ED, or Carmpan, or berserker; it hardly looked like a solid physical body at all. More like a heatwave in the air, or a curl of smoke, but there was too much purpose in the way it moved.
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