ship instruments come in?" Gefty asked.
"I can determine the nature of the problem from them. When I was ...stranded ... the unit was seriously damaged. My recent repairs werenecessarily hasty. I--"
"What caused the crack-up?"
Maulbow said, tone taut with impatience, "Certain sections of the GreatCurrent are infested with dangerous forces. I shall not attempt todescribe them ..."
"I wouldn't get it?"
"I don't pretend to understand them very well myself, Rammer. They arenot life but show characteristics of life--even of intelligent life. Ifyou can imagine radiant energy being capable of conscious hostility...."
There was a chill at the back of Gefty's neck. "A big, fast-movinglight?"
"Yes!" Sharp concern showed suddenly in the voice from the passage. "You... when did you see that?"
Gefty glanced at the screens. "Twice since you've been talking. Andonce before--immediately after we got tumbled around."
"Then we can waste no more time, Rammer. Those forces are sensitive tothe fluctuations of the control unit. If they were close enough to beseen, they're aware the ship is here. They were attempting to locateit."
"What could they do?"
Maulbow said, "A single attack was enough to put the control unit out ofoperation in my sailer. The Great Current then rejected us instantly. Aship of this size might afford more protection, which is the reason Ichose it. But if the control unit is not adjusted immediately to enableit to take us out of this section, the attacks will continue until theship--and we--have been destroyed."
Gefty drew a deep breath. "There's another solution to that problem,Maulbow. Miss Ruse and I prefer it. And if you meant what you said--thatyou'd see to it we got back eventually--you shouldn't object either."
The voice asked sharply, "What do you mean?"
Gefty said, "Shut the control unit off. From what you were saying, thatthrows us automatically back into normspace, while we're still closeenough to the Hub. You'll find plenty of people there who'll stake youto a trip to the future if they can go along and are convinced they'llreturn. Miss Ruse and I don't happen to be that adventurous."
There was silence from the passage. Gefty added, "Take your time to makeup your mind about it, if you want to. I don't like the idea of thoselights hitting us, but neither do you. And I think I can wait this outas well as you can...."
The silence stretched out. Presently Gefty said, "If you do accept,slide that fire-shooting device of yours into the room before you showup. We don't want accidents."
He paused again. Kerim was chewing her lips, hands clenched into smallfists in her lap. Then Maulbow answered, voice flat and expressionlessnow.
"The worst thing we can do at present," he said, "is to prolong adispute about possible courses of action. If I disarm, will you layaside your gun?"
"Yes."
"Then I accept your conditions, disappointing as they are."
He was silent. After a moment, Gefty heard the white rod clatter lightlyalong the floor of the passage. It struck the passage wall, spun off it,and rolled into the instrument room, coming to rest a few feet away fromhim. Gefty hesitated, picked it up and laid it on the wall table. Heplaced his own gun beside it, moved a dozen steps away. Kerim's eyesfollowed him anxiously.
"Gefty," she whispered, "he might ..."
Gefty looked at her, formed the words "It's all right" with his mouthand called, "Guns have been put aside, Maulbow. Come on in, and let'skeep it peaceable."
He waited, arms hanging loosely at his side, heart beating heavily, asquick footsteps came up the passage. Maulbow appeared in the entrance,glanced at Gefty and Kerim, then about the room. His gaze rested for amoment on the wall table, shifted back to Gefty. Maulbow came on intothe room, turning towards Gefty, mouth twisting.
He said softly, "It is not our practice, Rammer, to share the secrets ofthe Great Current with other races. I hadn't foreseen that you mightbecome a dangerous nuisance. But now--"
His right hand began to lift, half closed about some small goldeninstrument. Gefty's left arm moved back and quickly forwards.
The service knife slid out of its sheath and up from his palm as anarrow of smoky blackness burst from the thing in Maulbow's hand. Theblackness came racing with a thin, snarling noise across the floortowards Gefty's feet. The knife flashed above it, turning, and stoodhilt-deep in Maulbow's chest.
* * * * *
Gefty returned a few minutes later from the forward cabin which servedas the _Queen's_ sick bay, and said to Kerim, "He's still alive, thoughI don't know why. He may even recover. He's full of anesthetic, and thatshould keep him quiet till we're back in normspace. Then I'll see whatwe can do for him."
Kerim had lost some of her white, shocked look while he was gone. "Youknew he would try to kill you?" she asked shakily.
"Suspected he had it in mind--he gave in too quick. But I thought I'dhave a chance to take any gadget he was hiding away from him first. Iwas wrong about that. Now we'd better move fast ..."
He switched the emergency check panel back on, glanced over the familiarpatterns of lights and numbers. A few minor damage spots were indicated,but the ship was still fully operational. One minor damage spot whichdid not appear on the panel was now to be found in the instrument roomitself, in the corner on which the door of the map room opened. Thedoor, the adjoining bulkheads and section of flooring were scarred,blackened, and as assortedly malodorous as burned things tend to become.That was where Gefty had stood when Maulbow entered the room, and if hehad remained there an instant after letting go of the knife, he wouldhave been in very much worse condition than the essentially fireprooffurnishings.
Both Maulbow's weapons--the white rod lying innocently on the wall tableand the round, golden device which had dropped from his hand spittingdarts of smoking blackness--had blasted unnervingly away into that areafor almost thirty seconds after Maulbow was down and twisting about onthe floor. Then he went limp and the firing instantly stopped.Apparently, Maulbow's control of them had ended as he lostconsciousness.
It seemed fortunate that the sick bay cabin's emergency treatmentaccessories, gentle as their action was, might have been designed forthe specific purpose of keeping the most violent of prisonersimmobilized--let alone one with a terrible knife wound in him. At theangle along which the knife had driven in and up below the ribs, anordinary man would have been dead in seconds. But it was very evidentnow that Maulbow was no ordinary man, and even after the eerie weaponshad been pitched out of the ship through the instrument room's disposaltube, Gefty couldn't rid himself of an uncomfortable suspicion that hewasn't done with Maulbow yet--wouldn't be done with him, in fact, untilone or the other of them was dead.
He said to Kerim, "I thought the machine Maulbow set up in the storagevault would turn out to be some drive engine, but apparently it has anentirely different function. He connected it with the instruments he hadmade in the Hub, and together they form what he calls a control unit.The emergency panel would show if the unit were drawing juice from theship. It isn't, and I don't know what powers it. But we do know now thatthe control unit is holding us in the time current, and it will go onholding us there as long as it's in operation.
"If we could shut it off, the _Queen_ would be 'rejected' by thecurrent, like Maulbow's sailer was. In other words, we'd get knockedback into normspace--which is what we want. And we want it to happen assoon as possible because, if Maulbow was telling the truth on thatpoint, every minute that passes here is taking us farther away from theHub, and farther from our own time towards his."
Kerim nodded, eyes intent on his face.
"Now I can't just go down there and start slapping switches around onthe thing," Gefty went on. "He said it wasn't working right, and even ifit were, I couldn't tell what would happen. But it doesn't seem toconnect up with any ship systems--it just seems to be holding us in afield of its own. So I should be able to move the whole unit into thecargo lock and eject it from there. If we shift the _Queen_ ou
tside itsfield, that should have the same effect as shutting the control unitoff. It should throw us back into normspace."
Kerim nodded again. "What about Mr. Maulbow's janandra animal?"
Gefty shrugged. "Depends on the mood I find it in. He said it wasn'tusually aggressive. Maybe it isn't. I'll get into a spacesuit forprotection and break out some of the mining equipment to move it alongwith. If I can maneuver it into an empty compartment where it will beout of the ..."
* * *
He broke off, expression changing, eyes
The Winds of Time Page 4