The Quillian Sector

by E. C. Tubb

  "Everyone has to die."

  "That's what I mean. Why anticipate it?" The steward shrugged with strained bravado. His face was a little too tense, his eyes a little too bright, but he had a responsibility and recognized it. And some of the hope he disseminated among the passengers had stuck. Death was something which happened to others. Always it happened to others. "The generator?"

  "Nothing, as yet."

  "Maybe if I helped?"

  "You can't help." Dumarest, understanding, was patient. "It's all up to Dilys."

  She'd worked like a machine, drugs giving her a temporary reprieve from the need to sleep, other compounds robbing tissue and nerve to provide a chemical strength. Now, she took the steaming cup Dumarest handed to her and gulped at the protein-rich fluid, sickly sweet with glucose and laced with vitamins. A second cup of basic followed the first. She waved aside a third.

  "No more, Earl. You'll have me as fat as a pig."

  "You need the energy. It's been a long time."

  "Yes." She set down the container and glanced at the bulk of the generator. Dark rings of fatigue circled her eyes and her hands held a slight tremble. She looked at them, splaying the fingers, examining her cracked nails, the tips stained with acid, torn with abrasives. "How long, Earl? Five days?"

  "Seven." A week, during which time she hadn't slept and had rarely eaten. The food he had given her was the prelude to the exhausted sleep which would follow. "Here." Dumarest handed her a glass filled with a smoky amber fluid. "Brandy, and Allain tells me it's the best. From his own private stock." He added, "He has reserved another bottle-one with poison."

  The final drink, but one which she knew he wouldn't share. Death, when it came, would be met by Dumarest with open eyes. He would fight it as he had fought it all his life. Facing impossible odds because, no matter how high they were against him, there was always the chance that, somehow, he could win.

  Lifting the glass, she said, "You'll join me?"

  "In a toast, yes." Dumarest raised a second glass. "To success!"

  "I can't guarantee that. Let us drink to hope."

  "To success," he insisted. "Nothing else will do."

  A fact she knew too well, and she drank, slowly, feeling the warmth of the spirit sting her mouth and throat and trace a warm path to her stomach. Conscious, too, of the fatigue which dulled her mind and made every muscle an aching irritation. Had she done all that needed to be done? The cleaning? The coils? The connections? The adjustments? Had a tool been overlooked? A scrap of wire? A shred of metal, or a fragment of insulation? Work had slowed as the hours had passed and it was easy to overlook the obvious when tired.

  "Dilys?" She jerked, aware that she had been dozing, on the edge of sleep. Dumarest said, "If you've finished your drink, let's find out how good an engineer you are."

  The drink-the remains rested in her glass and she emptied it with a single swallow. A silent toast to the oblivion which could be waiting at the turn of a switch. A silent prayer to the gods of chance on whose laps they now all rested. Dumarest was right, they could use nothing less than success.

  Had she achieved it?

  There was only one way to find out.

  She took a step forward and swayed, and felt the edge of the workbench press hard against her spine as she moved back against it. She sagged, welcoming the support, shaking her head as Dumarest came toward her.

  "No, Earl, I can't. I'm beat You do it. Everything's set- just throw the switches."

  She watched as he obeyed, hearing the generator hum into life, feeling a success which blazed through her so powerfully that she straightened and smiled her triumph; a smile which died as the hum faltered, to steady, to falter again.

  "I've failed," she smiled dully. "I tried but I wasn't good enough. The damned generator isn't going to last."

  The place held the memory of summer flowers, of fields graced with blossoms harvested by smiling girls, to be taken and treated and condensed into vials of concentrated joy. Traces of perfume which held the stamp of the one who had worn it Dilys, lying now on her bed, her face flaccid, the curves of her figure like those of an erotic dream.

  Dumarest tightened the restraints, which held her in broad bands of yielding webbing to her cot. Extra thicknesses of mattresses lay beneath her and he had arranged further padding so as to cocoon her within the restraints. Her condition made his task easy; drugged, deep in exhausted unconsciousness, she had barely stirred as he'd worked.

  A woman who had burned herself out. Who had done her best and discovered it wasn't good enough. An added ingredient to Jumoke's revenge.

  Outside the cabin Dumarest paused, looking along the passage. Allain emerged from a door, curses following him fading as he closed the panel. The dancer spitting her venom.

  "She's drunk," the steward explained, "but not drunk enough. God, what a hag!"

  "You've put her in restraints?"

  "I tried, but she fought like a wildcat. Well, to hell with her."

  "Try again later," said Dumarest. "If she's drunk, she isn't responsible. The rest?"

  "Warned and as ready as they'll ever be. Now I'm going to look after myself." The steward hesitated. "Do you think we'll make it?"

  "If the generator holds out, yes."

  "And if it doesn't?" Allain answered his own question. "We burn, we drift, we starve. If we're lucky, we die quick."

  "Or we live," said Dumarest. "Luck comes in two kinds."

  "Sure, that's what I mean. With good luck we go out easy-with bad we linger. Well, to hell with it. I'm going to hit the bottle."

  He headed for his own cabin as Dumarest moved on. As he entered the control room, Egulus said, "Dilys?"

  "Still out. I wrapped her well."

  "The others?" The captain shrugged as he heard the report. "Passengers! At times they act as if they're crazy. Well, they've had their warning. My main concern now is with the Entil."

  A crippled ship, now heading towards an isolated world. Taking his place in the navigator's chair, Dumarest could see it in the screens, a mottled ball of green and ocher, patched with expanses of dingy white, streaked with smears of dusty black.

  "That's Hyrcanus, as far as I can make out." said Egulus. "But right or wrong, it's the only chance we have. We make it or burn." He glanced at the sun, which blazed with awesome splendor. "But if the generator holds, we've a chance."

  One which grew as the ball of the planet swelled larger, colors breaking into a blurred jumble, the instruments in the control room clicking as they relayed information.

  Closer, and the ship began to shudder a little as opposed gravities fought for supremacy. A slight shift told of a dying vortex, spewed from some flaring sun. A peculiar turning sensation as it passed through an area of intra-dimensional instability. The normal hazards to be expected within the Rift.

  Another which was not.

  Egulus swore as the ship died beneath his hands. "The generator! It's dead!"

  Strained beyond endurance by the impact of external forces, the interior now a mass of fused and molten rubbish, the Erhaft field gone, and this time never to be replaced.

  And the world was close.

  Close!

  Dumarest said, "The directional vents, are they working?"

  "Yes, thank God."

  "Then skip! Skip!"

  The only chance they had and one which the captain had already assessed. Now, as they fell towards the mass of the planet below, Egulus proved his skill. In order to kill their velocity and to prevent being burned by the atmosphere, he had to maintain height while remaining within orbit. To use the air-blanket as a boy would a pond. To send the ship skimming over it as if it were a flung stone, touching, bouncing, touching again.

  The hull turned red as air blasted over it with a thin, high scream, a scream echoed from somewhere within the vessel. Both screams died as Egulus operated the vents, lifting the ship a fraction, letting it hurtle on to drop again, to glow as it had before, to lift and pray and curse as dials showed re
d and alarm bells shrilled their warning.

  "Kill that damned noise!"

  Sweat dripped from Dumarest's face as he hit the switches. The hull screamed again as the bells fell silent, the shriek maintained as the air grew hotter, became stifled, became a searing torment.

  "Up! Up, damn you!"

  "I can't! I-" Egulus hit the controls, feeding extra power into the vents, praying ever as he worked, prayers which sounded like curses as, slowly, the screaming died and, velocity killed, the Entil fell towards the surface below.

  Dumarest watched as the ground streamed past on the screens. They needed a flat and even expanse, covered with soft dirt, sand, snow, stunted vegetation, even ice. A place on which to skid for miles until they came to a halt and, even then, such a landing would be close to a miracle.

  "Nothing." Egulus snarled his anger. "The damned place is a nightmare!"

  Hills, crevasses, chasms, stony wilderness with boulders like waiting teeth, trees resting on the edges of precipices, plains marked with undulating serrations like the teeth of saws.

  "Water," said Dumarest. "We need water."

  It showed ahead and a little to one side, a long narrow inlet which opened to the grayness of a sea. A strand, and it was below and before them, choppy waves bearing patches of kelp and whiteness caused by spume thrown from upthrust rocks. Then they were over it.

  "Down," yelled Dumarest. "Down, man, down!"

  They were going too fast, but ahead he had caught the loom of mountains standing etched against the sky. Pillars of stone too high for them to surmount and too widespread to avoid. The choice between hitting them and plunging into the sea was no choice at all.

  No choice, but a gamble, and one Egulus took as he had when entering the atmosphere. The Entil tilted a little, headed downwards, hit the water to bounce as it had when meeting the atmosphere. Steam rose, created by the impact of hot metal, the vapor forming a cushion between the water and the hull.

  Bouncing, skipping, as the mountains came closer. As the vessel creaked and shuddered and blood ran from ears and noses, as soft flesh suffered from the savage buffeting.

  To hit for the last time. To sink. To hit bottom, to lift a little, to settle again and come to a final rest.

  After an eternity, Varn Egulus said, "No water. The hull remained intact." He sounded as if he couldn't believe it.

  "Luck," said Dumarest.

  "For us, maybe." The captain wiped the back of his hand over his face and looked at the blood. "For the others?"

  Chapter Eight

  The historian was dead-torn from his restraints to be flung against the hull, to roast, to die screaming in his pain. The dancer was dead, lying wrapped in her cocoon, hands lifted, the ugly blotches of disintegration marring throat and torso. Craters made by the darts from the ring she had carelessly continued to wear, fired by the involuntary contractions of her finger. An irony she seemed to appreciate as she stared upwards with blind eyes, her mouth twisted in the rictus of a smile. The steward was dead, lying in a crumpled heap, a bottle miraculously unbroken in his hand. The special bottle, which was to have been saved to the very last. One he had taken by mistake, perhaps, but his lips bore no smile. Unlike the dancer, he failed to appreciate the jest.

  The rest were alive, bruised but otherwise unhurt aside from Charl Zeda. He sucked in his breath, sweat breaking out in globules on his seamed face, as Dumarest used leverage to ease the mercenary's badly dislocated shoulder back into position.

  "That's better." Gently he tested the joint. "I was a fool, moved at the wrong time and got caught by one of the decelerations. How's the ship?" He frowned at the answer. "Under the surface, no generator, no power to lift-how the hell are we to get out?"

  A question repeated by Gale Andrei when, later, they had gathered in the salon.

  "We can get out," said Dumarest. "All we need to do is to cycle through the airlock in the cargo hold. But there are other considerations."

  "Such as?"

  "What to do once we are on the surface," said Leo Bochner quickly. He sat at the girl's side, his hand touching her own. "We could be a long way from shore and, without navigation aids, may not be able to tell in which direction it lies. Can you swim?"

  "A little. Why?"

  "A little, you say. How far is that? A mile? Ten? A score? Fifty?" Bochner shook his head. "A little isn't enough. We could be more than a hundred miles from land. Captain?"

  "I don't know," admitted Egulus. "We came down fast and had other things to think about. Earl saw mountains ahead, but we were high at the time and they would be below the horizon now. In any case, they were far from close."

  "And we must have traveled after we hit the ocean." Fele Roster pursed his lips, his eyes thoughtful. "How deep are we?"

  "We hit bottom." Egulus shrugged at the other's expression. "I'm not sure how deep, the external gauge was burned, but from the time we took to descend, I'd say about four or five hundred feet."

  "Deep," said Bochner. "Too deep for us to rise to the surface without difficulty."

  "It would be impossible without protection," said Gale Andrei. "If we tried it we'd litter the surface with our bodies."

  "Or provide food for the fish." Shan Threnond looked at his hands, the rings he had replaced gleaming in the light. "The fish and other things. Are you sure this world is Hyrcanus, Captain?"

  "As near as I can figure, yes. You know it?"

  "I've heard rumors." The dealer in death sucked at his lips, splinters of light darting from his rings to be reflected in little gleams from his eyes. "If they are to be believed, a wise man would do well to avoid this place."

  "I've heard about it, too," rumbled Charl Zeda. He moved carefully in his chair, easing his sore shoulder. "A strange and savage world filled with unexpected perils. The mountains hold a peculiar form of life, and the seas are not as peaceful as they could be. The air, too-but every tavern is full of such whispers. If a man believed them all, he would never find the courage to travel."

  "But if we are on Hyrcanus," said Threnond, "we had better think twice before trusting ourselves to the water. Even with what protection we can arrange, we'd stand small chance against what it could contain."

  "If the rumors are true." Bochner shook his head. "Tales to frighten children. Stories spun by men while sitting half-drunk, in firelight. Yarns to interest women and to earn the price of another bottle. Stories about mythical worlds and beasts and treasures waiting to be found. You must have heard them, Earl?"

  "Yes," said Dumarest. "Often."

  "And never been tempted to investigate? To try and find Jackpot, say, with its fields of precious gems. Or Avalon with its scented breezes and singing flowers, with its food trees and wine streams and youth-restoring berries. Or Bonanza, with its veins of rich ores running like rainbows through the mountains. Never even tried to find Earth?"

  Earth-the only world he had mentioned which he hadn't given a tinsel shine. And had his voice changed a little as he spoke the name? A coincidence? Perhaps, but Dumarest mistrusted coincidences.

  "Earth," he said. "You know it?"

  "Only as a legend, my friend. A name. One among a dozen. Shall I tell you of others? Of-"

  "For God's sake!" Gale Andrei snapped her irritation. "To talk such rubbish at a time like this! What are we going to do? Are we to just sit here and wait? Will rescue come? Can it? Can we leave the ship? Can we reach land if we do?"

  "Steady," said Bochner. "Steady."

  "You-"

  Her hand lifted, swung at his face, halted as he blocked it, the sound of slapped flesh sounding loud as his own fingers left red welts on her cheek. As she recoiled, eyes wide with shocked disbelief, he said, "I suggest you control yourself, my dear. And never attempt to strike me again."

  "Was that necessary?" Dilys Edhessa glared her anger. "You spoke of terrors to be found on this world-must we add to them? Or do you consider it the height of courage to strike a defenseless woman?"

  "A reaction. I-"

&nb
sp; "Forgot yourself? Would you like to strike me?" She came toward him, overwhelming, eyes cold with her rage. "Try it," she invited. "Just try it-and I'll break your arm."

  "You think you could do that?" He rose to face her, body tense, poised, hands lifted as if to strike or parry as the need arose. The stance of a man accustomed to facing danger. That of the hunter he professed to be-or that of the fighter he had taken pains to hide.

  Dumarest said, "Haven't we enough trouble as it is? Sit down, man. Dilys, what have you to report?"

  For a moment she hesitated, then, as Bochner sat, she said, "The generator's out, as you know, and can't be repaired. We have power enough to run the life support systems until we starve. We can recycle air and get water enough, but food is limited. Why, Earl? You knew all this."

  "The others didn't, or may have forgotten."

  "So?" The last of her anger vanished with her shrug. "All right, I'm sorry. I should have managed to control myself. But I can't stand a man who hits women."

  "Or a woman who kills men?" Dumarest met her eyes. "She could have a poisoned needle attached to her finger," he explained. "Or a lethal paste set beneath a sharpened nail. Like Bochner, I, too would have taken precautions had she slapped at my face."

  "And slapped her back?"

  "It's one way to teach a lesson." He changed the subject. "Have you anything which could be adapted to give underwater protection? Masks, air tanks, suits?"

  "Tanks, yes," she said. "Masks could be made and we could use padding to protect bodies. And, of course, we have the emergency sacs."

  The last resort, should a vessel be destroyed while in space, but only the insanely optimistic would ever use them. Transparent membranes containing air and other supplies which could maintain life for awhile; bubbles drifting in the void with those inside them, hoping against hope that some nearby vessel would hear their radio beacon and come to the rescue. The wise chose to die with their ship.

  "The sacs!" The mercenary lifted his head like a dog smelling food. "The beacon-don't you have one fitted to the Entil?"