by Bill Baldwin
Using his last vestiges of strength, he willed himself to the bunk. There! The man's pipe of TimeWeed lay in a bulkhead alcove, thick smoke writhing heavily from its bowl. He lifted it in weak hands, then somehow found himself at the metal washstand. He mashed open the water valve, shoved the pipe into the trickling stream. The fragile bowl hissed, shattered with a snap, but the smoke stopped. Senses reeling, Brim next pulled himself up to the basin, reached above the top of the wash fixture itself, and dialed the atmosphere controls to “ALL FILTERED.” A sudden hissing filled the room as he slithered again to his knees, gasping desperately. Why? How could anyone do such things to himself? He felt himself falling, hit his chin on the basin, almost blacked out from the pain. Then a rush of cool air hit his lungs like a runaway starship, and his head began to clear. Some cycles later — he never remembered how many — he was on the deck, grinning stupidly, huffing like some sort of animal. He'd made it!
Suddenly, a persistent buzzing overhead brought him jumping again to his feet. What now? His watering eyes searched the room. An alarm? Finally, there, over the door, an old-fashioned summons hooter, like the ones on ore carriers. Heart beating with fresh apprehension, he stepped over the sprawling corpse, reached above the door, and flipped the device from “MONITOR” to “RECEIVE.” Then he waited in sudden and terrifying silence. Whatever new fate awaited his eleven comrades outside in the K tube, it was evidently now decided.
In due time, the hooter answered his summons with the tinny imitation of a woman's voice: “Officient Zotreb?”
Brim eyed the body at his feet. So that was the name of the man he killed. He shuddered. “Yes?” he responded in Vertrucht, muffling his voice through a fist.
“Officient?”
“Yes. “
“You do not sound yourself, Officient Zotreb.”
Heart in his mouth for the hundredth time since he left Truculent, Brim searched the bare walls for an answer — deciding attack was his best defense. “And just what is it you expect?” he snapped angrily, still muffling his voice.
“N-Nothing, Officient,” the voice responded placatingly.
“You will concentrate on your own concerns in the future,” Brim growled. “Now, what message disturbs my contemplation of the Weed?” he demanded.
“S-Sorry, Officient,” the voice said. “The call was placed at your personal request.”
“Well, get on with it, damn your worthless hide!”
“Y-Yes sir. You are due on the bridge in twenty cycles, Officient. “
“And that is all?”
“Yes, Officient.”
“Acknowledged,” Brim spat, then turned the device back to “MONITOR.” He frowned, concentrating. Twenty cycles of relative safety before they started looking for Zotreb. After that, it was just a matter of time until… He snorted. He couldn't very well just sit in the cabin. Ursis hadn't set up his escape so he could run away to hide. And now that he found himself with a few options again, it was necessary he make the most of his time and do something about the disaster their mission had become. Soon! Every cycle brought the little crew closer to an enemy spaceport and slavery or death — eventually the latter, in any case.
Brim suddenly grimaced. Of course. That was the answer. Whatever else he might accomplish, it was necessary first to stop the corvette. That meant getting himself to the engineer's flat in the aftmost module and somehow disabling the starship's single gravity generator. Its uneven rumble irritated him almost as much as the Controllers. But how could he get all the way back there? His answer came from the corpse.
The late Officient Zotreb had no further use for his uniforms now, but Wilf Brim did. In less than five cycles, the Carescrian was dressed in one of the dead man's hated black uniforms, too big overall, but a lot less noticeable than his own bright blue Imperial battle suit. He consulted his timepiece. About fifteen cycles remained, perhaps forty until they started looking and found the body. After that, Universe knew. But one step at a time.
Wiping clotted blood from Zotreb's big blast pike, he carefully opened the door, peered both ways along the empty K tube, then started aft toward the propulsion module at what he hoped was a casual rate of speed.
Footsteps echoing in the smooth-walled tube, Brim didn't get far at all before his disguise was put to the test. A gray-clad rating, arm around a bundle of logic assemblies, appeared suddenly from a companionway, turned on his heel, and passed at a fast walk. He saluted but never lifted his eyes. Brim breathed a deep sigh of relief as he entered the ship's central module, carefully memorizing everything he saw. One never knew....
Unlike similar modules built around a K tube, this corvette's central globe was part of the tube itself: A place where the long, cannular structure swelled to a spherical chamber before shrinking again at the point opposite his present position. The walkway cantilevered across twenty irals of open space to meet its counterpart on the other side.
Centered in the chamber, a glowing vertical tube divided the catwalk and extended through wide, circular openings at the top and bottom of the room, beyond which would be control rooms located just inboard of the ship's 99—mmi disruptor turrets. Brim easily picked out the firing consoles (triggering gear all looked pretty much the same everywhere) in the harsh light that streamed from the rooms and provided most of the illumination around him. Elsewhere in the chamber, great power conduits sprang from the aft opening to the K tube and disappeared within the brilliance of the rooms. Numerous ledges jutting from the curved inner walls contained consoles — some manned, most not — many of which Brim could not identify. These oddly placed displays cast random, moving patterns of colored lights throughout the strange spherical chamber and everything it contained. Clearly, a great deal of the activity that took place on the bridge of an Imperial warship was decentralized throughout this ship. A nice point of design, he allowed, for a warship. It would make her much harder to knock out with one well-placed hit. But it also denied the close team atmosphere that resulted from concentrating decision-making power. He filed it away in his mind as he strode (more confident looking, he hoped, then he felt) across the catwalk, gripping Zotreb's blast pike and trying to act as if he belonged where he was. If he ever got back to his own side of the war, the information he memorized could prove handy in many ways. He snorted to himself. If he ever got back.
As he moved into the aft continuation of the K tube, more and more gray-clad crew members passed, all avoiding his eyes — most, in fact, cringed while they hurried by as if they were relieved to be out of his way. He smiled to himself: No more relieved than he! Then, passing an open door in the next-to-last module, he heard voices, glanced inside, and was rewarded with a view of five Controllers seated at a circular table, clearly pursuing serious matters among themselves. Putting his haste aside for the moment, he stepped to a position outside the door where he could hear what was gong on but still remain unseen by the conferees. He rested the butt of his blast pike on the deck beside his right boot, then assumed the Universal position of a bored guard. So far as he could remember, he himself seldom questioned armed guards — especially commissioned armed guards — and guessed it was a pretty typical reaction. This was verified only moments later when he was passed by three gray-suited ratings (who saluted) and two Controllers (who did not). Not one of them so much as met his eyes.
“The Bear incident is now under control?” a smooth, perfectly modulated voice demanded in Vertrucht from inside.
“It is, Praefect Valentin,” a younger voice declared, fear just below its surface.
Brim felt his eyebrows raise. Praefects were the equivalent of Imperial lieutenant commanders. The corvette was too small for more than one of these, so it was a good bet this Valentin was the ship's commanding officer.
“And the count of prisoners, Placeman Naddock — how many prisoners were there?” Valentin’s mellifluous voice demanded.
“Ah,” Naddock’s younger voice began. “Ah, I…” A chair scraped the deck.
“We
ll, Placeman?
“We have all eleven of them locked up, Prefect,” a self-assured female voice interrupted impatiently. Brim recognized it as belonging to the scarred Overmann Controller from the K tube. “Gray Overmann Mocht counted the prisoners just after the Bear experienced his fit.”
Brim smiled: Eleven, eh? Ursis' distraction had come just in time. They didn’t know he was loose — yet.
“You had better hope the Gray fool's count is accurate, my scarred beauty,” Valentin said with an audible sneer. “Or I shall make certain you both spend the remainder of the war on the ground — armed only with blast pike and sword. I am certain you will enjoy brawling with the Wild Ones on the Sodeskayan front!”
This was followed by a sharp intake of breath and then silence.
In the hall, Brim returned the melancholic salute of a fat, gray-suited rating with a painful-looking, very swollen, black eye, who limped slowly along the corridor. Souvenir of Ursis' free-for-all in the K tube, he guessed, hard put to stifle a smile.
“Well, what then have you planned for our visitors from the Empire, Placeman Zodekk?” the Prefect's voice demanded from inside. “I haven't all day. We dock in only a few metacycles.”
“Oh, we are keeping the prisoners busy, sir,” another female voice answered, this one with just the hint of a lisp. “They are being questioned one-by-one, even as we speak.”
“Well, go on, pretty fool. What follows that?”
“Wh-When we finish, we shall s-simply shoot them, I suppose… push them out into space.”
“You’ll what,” the scarred woman’s voice interrupted. “Use your head, fool. Sentient laborers are scarce on Altnag'gin. Our captives might well serve there as slaves. All appear to be well fed and could survive a long time on next to nothing; am I not correct, Praefect?”
“Hmm,” Valentin’s modulated voice intoned. “Indeed a point. Of course, I have heard of your — shall we say — predilection for the slower forms of death, my dear. So I cannot grant full credit for your suggestion.” Then he laughed. “But what of the Bear? What should we do with this most troublesome Bear?”
“Ah, the Bear receives special treatment, my Provost,” the lisping voice interrupted gleefully. “Bearskin coats and carpets are in much demand among Emperor Triannic's royal court in Tarrott this season. It has been quite cold, as you might have heard.”
“The Bear’s skin is mine, Placeman,” the Prefect's voice said with an ill-concealed irritation.
“Without question, my Praefect,” a number of voices chimed in. “Without question.”
“That’s better,” Valentin said. “Now, as to the recent trouble in the vestibule module: The next time we take prisoners, you will be extra vigilant at all times; otherwise...”
Heart pounding, Brim left the doorway and started aft again along the K tube. It was imperative that he prolong the corvette's trip in space — once it reached its destination, they all were good as dead. Especially Ursis.
Free passage along the tube ended abruptly in a solid-looking bulkhead and dogged-down hatch at the entrance to the ship's aftmost module. Illuminated warnings mounted on either side of the hatch read “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY” and “SIGN IN/OUT REQUIRED BY THE PREFECT.” Below these, a tabulator board hung from a hook, complete with logic scriber, the same kind of portable writing device carried by everyone in the Universe who ever took an inventory or made a survey. It was all Brim needed.
Checking behind himself for activity, he suddenly ripped the tabulator free from its hook — only one person had signed inside. He scrolled the sign-in form from its display, then touched a glowing panel on the hatch before him and waited.
“Yes?” a voice asked from a speaker.
“Radiation-level survey,” Brim answered briskly, pointing to the blank tabulator board as if it were his own.
“Name and rank” the voice demanded.
Brim grimaced, heart pounding. “I have already signed that information in the tabulator board you have hanging from your hatch, fool!” he blustered, pointing to the empty hook as if it were visible from the other side of the hatch. “Now you open up before I have you fire-flogged. Do you hear?”
“Aye, sir. Aye, sir! I h-hear,” the voice stammered as a series of clanks and chatterings announced the opening of the hatch. Brim was almost knocked to the deck as it swung open toward him.
“Th- This way, please, Overmann, sir,” a frightened rating stammered, face white with fear. He was short, wiry, and middle-aged with narrow-set eyes and a sharp-looking chin covered by uneven gray stubble. His hands bore the blue stains of a sometime kupp'gh cleaner.
Brim pushed his way past and into an antechamber, which ended in a second hatch. This one looked even more secure than its outside counterpart. Keeping his nerve under control, he slammed the first hatch shut and whirled on the rating with the best imitation of haughty anger he could summon. “You will also open this immediately,” he demanded through tight lips.
“Oh, ah, aye, Overmann,” the cowed guard said, taking a key from around his neck and unlocking the inner hatch. “And will you need assistance, sir?” he asked.
“You dare question my ability?” Brim hissed through his teeth.
The rating shrank back away from the hatch. “S-Sorry, sir,” he whispered. “Don't have me whipped, Overmann. I mean no harm askin' ye.”
Brim looked down his nose at the wretched rating, hating himself and what he had to do. He knew what it was like to be on the receiving end. “Perhaps I may overlook the lapse this time,” he said. “But I shall brook no interruption of my work. Do you understand? No interruption.”
“I understand, sir,” the rating said, taking his seat with a wan face. “No interruptions. I'll make sure.”
“See that you do,” Brim growled, then stepped into the bright, humming module and closed the door after himself. He had just dogged it down tight from the inside when he heard alarms go off everywhere. He glanced at his watch — time was up by almost ten cycles.
“Warning!” the speakers brayed. “Warning. An Imperial murderer is loose within the ship. He is armed and dangerous. Shoot on sight and shoot to kill. Repeat: shoot on sight and shoot to kill.”
Brim shrugged as he threw the tabulator in a corner. It probably wouldn't fool anyone else now.
One eye out for his lone companion in the module, Brim jog-trotted from cabin to compartment, desperately seeking entrance to the generator chamber. No time to waste now. He soon found himself deep within the module, but unable to exit from the deck on which he entered — and from the intensity of sound and vibration corning from below, he knew the mechanism he sought was located somewhere deeper in the hull. Frowning, he had just returned to the K tube from another fruitless search of a parts storeroom when a dazzling explosion seared the wall beside his head and nearly knocked him from his feet. He whirled around, firing the pike by instinct as a second explosion ruptured the space he had occupied only clicks before. The shadow of a black-suited Controller disappeared inside a nearby hatchway only clicks before Brim’s bucking weapon blasted the hatch panel from its hinges in a wild tattoo of destruction. He rushed for the blackened, dented opening and flattened himself outside.
Panting, he readied the pike again, then blew out a whole section of overhead lights. This resulted in almost total darkness — except the bright glow streaming from the hatchway into which this new adversary had disappeared. He dropped to a crouch, the pike ready at his hip. Gathering himself, he flexed his shoulders, took a last deep breath, and leaped through the doorway, spraying the room with deadly bursts of energy and radiation. As his feet hit the floor, a figure armed with what must have been a RocketDart pistol ran screaming toward him, launching a flurry of deadly sparkling missiles. Two hit with a searing — unbelievable — agony in his left shoulder. He heard himself scream, sank to his knees, and fired the heavy weapon point-blank into the man's stomach.
With a horrible scream of anguish, the Controller doubled over, sprayed a stinki
ng froth of blood and vomit over Brim's blouse, then collapsed nearby in a heap on the floor, his still-smoking torso blown nearly in half.
Gritting his teeth from the burning pain in his shoulder, Brim felt blood running inside his tunic and realized he had no more than a few cycles to disarm the ship's generator before he lost consciousness. He struggled awkwardly to his feet, stuffed the dart pistol in his belt, and dragged the blast pike by its scorched barrel to a large open hatch set in the deck. Light and noise streaming through from below assured him he had finally reached the generator chamber. And not a moment too soon. Far down the K tube, he could already hear thumps and clangs as the ship's crew — almost certainly alerted by the sight of their dead comrade in the crew section — attempted to force the inner hatch.
Balancing himself precariously on the narrow rungs, he found the howling bass of the machinery nearly as painful to his unprotected ears as the throbbing darts in his charred shoulder. Somehow, he managed to descend with his good hand while he doggedly clutched the heavy pike in his left, but at the bottom he couldn't remember navigating the last two rungs at all.
Mounted overhead directly to the underside of the K tube, the generator itself looked much like the rest of the antigravity generators he had seen. It was big, taking up the major volume of the round-bottomed chamber; the deck on which he presently stood was no more than a small platform mounted over the stout longerons and curved hullmetal plates that formed the underside of the module itself. Brim estimated the machinery stretched nearly twenty irals in length from its forward cooling vanes to the gleaming, pressure-regulating sphere, where it connected to the ship's primary power supply by means of two finned wave guides arching down from the flat ceiling, then up and around to a radiation-blackened collar.
Thrusting aside the torment in his shoulder, Brim considered his options. There were only two. He could blast the regulator globe; either of the weapons he carried could do that easily. Or he could shoot out the machine's all-important phase latch — if he could find it. The second choice was much more attractive from a personal standpoint: rupturing the regulator globe would release all the generator's output directly into the chamber. The burst of raw energy would last only a gigaclick at most before logic fuses sensed the runaway flow and choked it off at the source. But that was ample time to fry him (and any other organic compounds in the generator chamber) to fused carbon atoms. Grimly, he studied the big machine. Familiar as it looked overall, individual parts made little sense by themselves. He shook his head with frustration as he eyed the pulsing regulator. He grimaced. Death held no particular terror for him, especially after what he'd already been through. But he hated to give in. He concentrated again, trying desperately to discover some thread of functionality amid the complex network of conduits, insulators, logics, and odd-shaped housings. Then, almost by accident, his eye was caught by a big synchronous compensator, calibrated in the League's crazy ROGEN scale. No wonder he hadn’t found it the first time! Directly below was its logic shunt; to the right of that, a beam multiplier, no doubt about it! And a Fort'lier tube — they'd call it a “multigrid-A” here. He was getting close now. A good thing, too: The pain in his shoulder was almost stopped, but he had become very drowsy now — and dizzy. He steadied himself with the hot barrel of the blast pike, forcing his eyes to focus. A distant clanging and hammering commenced on the hatch above him. Not much time left now. He compelled his tired mind to function. The Fort'lier tube. It controlled a radiation modulator somewhere. Therefore...