The Winds of Time

by James H. Schmitz

fastened on the emergency panel.Then he turned hurriedly, reached across the side of the console for theintership airseal controls. Kerim asked apprehensively, "What's thematter, Gefty?"

  "Wish I knew ... exactly." Gefty indicated the emergency panel. "Littlered light there, on the storage deck section--it wasn't showing a minuteago. It means that the vault doors have been opened since then."

  He saw the same half-superstitious fear appear in her face that hadtouched him. "You think _he_ did it?"

  "I don't know." Maulbow's control of the guns had seemed uncanny enough.But that was a different matter. The guns were a product of his own timeand science. But the vault door mechanisms? There might have beensufficient opportunity for Maulbow to study them and alter them, forsome purpose of his own, since he'd come aboard....

  "I've got the ship compartments and decks sealed off from each othernow," Gefty said slowly. "The only connecting points from one to theother are personnel hatches--they're small air locks. So the janandra'sconfined to the storage deck. If it's come out of the vault, it might bea nuisance until I can get equipment to handle it. But that isn't tooserious. The spacesuits are on the second deck, and I'll get into onebefore I go on to the storage. You wait here a moment, I'll look in onMaulbow again before I start."

  If Maulbow wasn't still unconscious, he was doing a good job of feigningit. Gefty looked at the pale, lax face, the half-shut eyes, shook hishead and left the cabin, locking it behind him. It mightn't be Maulbow'sdoing, but having the big snake loose in the storage could, in fact,make things extremely awkward now. He didn't think his gun would makemuch impression on anything of that size, and while several of theship's mining tools could be employed as very effective close-rangeweapons, they happened, unfortunately, to be stored away on the samedeck.

  He found Kerim standing in the center of the instrument room, waitingfor him.

  "Gefty," she said, "do you notice anything? An odd sort of smell...."

  Then the odor was in Gefty's nostrils, too, and the back of his neckturned to ice as he recognized it. He glanced up at the ventilationoutlet, looked back at Kerim.

  He took her arm, said softly, "Come this way. Keep very quiet! I don'tknow how it happened, but the janandra's on the main deck now. That'swhat it smells like. The smell's coming through the ventilation system,so the thing's moving around in the port section. We'll go the otherway."

  Kerim whispered, "What will we do?"

  "Get ourselves into spacesuits first, and then get Maulbow's controlunit out of the ship. The janandra may be looking around for him. If itis, it won't bother us."

  * * * * *

  He hadn't wanted to remind Kerim that, from what Maulbow said, theremight be more than one reason for getting rid of the control unit asquickly as possible. But it had been constantly in the back of his mind;and twice, in the few minutes that passed after Maulbow's strangeweapons were silenced, he had seen a momentary pale glare appear in theunquiet flow of darkness reflecting in the viewscreens. Gefty had saidnothing, because if it was true that hostile forces were alert andsearching for them here, it added to their immediate danger but not atall to the absolute need to free themselves from the inexorable rush ofthe Great Current before they were carried beyond hope of return totheir civilization.

  But those brief glimpses did add to the sense of urgency throbbing inGefty's nerves, while events, and the equally hard necessity to avoid afatally mistaken move in this welter of unknown factors, kept blockinghim. Now the mysterious manner in which Maulbow's unpleasant travelingcompanion had appeared on the main deck made it impossible to doanything but keep Kerim at his side. If Maulbow was still capable oftaking a hand in matters, there was no reasonably safe place to leaveher aboard the _Queen_.

  And Maulbow might be capable of it. Twice as they hurried up the narrow,angled passages along the _Queen's_ curving hull towards an airsealleading to the next compartment, Gefty caught a trace of theammonia-like animal odor coming over the ventilating system. Theyreached the lock without incident; but then, as they came along thesecond deck hall to the ship's magazine, there was a sharp click in thestillness behind them. Its meaning was disconcertingly apparent. Geftyhesitated, turned Kerim into a side passage, guided her along it.

  She looked up at his face. "It's following us?"

  "Seems to be." No time for the spacesuits in the magazine now--somethinghad just emerged from the air lock through which they had entered thesecond deck not many moments before. He helped the girl quickly down asection of ladderlike stairs to the airseal connecting the second deckwith the storage, punched a wall button there. As the lock door opened,there was another noise from the passage they had just left, as ifsomething had thudded briefly and heavily against one of the bulkheads.Kerim uttered a little gasp. Then they were in the lock, and Geftyslapped down two other buttons, stood watching the door behind them snapshut and, a few seconds later, the one on the far side open on the darkstorage deck.

  They scrambled down another twelve feet of ladder to the floor of a sidepassage, hearing the lock snap shut behind them. As it closed, they werein complete darkness. Gefty seized Kerim's arm, ran with her up thepassage to the left, guiding himself with his fingertips on the leftbulkhead. When they came to a corner, he turned her to the left again. Afew seconds later, he pulled open a small door, bundled the girlthrough, came in himself, and shut the door to a narrow slit behindthem.

  Kerim whispered shakily, "What will we do now, Gefty?"

  "Stay here for the moment. It'll look for us in the vault first."

  And it should go to the storage vault first where it had been guardingMaulbow's machine, to hunt for them there. But it might not. Gefty easedthe gun from his pocket on the far side of Kerim. Across the darkcompartment was another door. They could retreat a little farther hereif it became necessary--but not very much farther.

  They waited in a silence that was complete except for their unsteadybreathing and the distant, deep pulse of the _Queen's_ throttled-downdrives. He felt Kerim trembling against him. How did Maulbow's creaturemove through the airseal locks? The operating mechanisms were simple--adog might have been taught to use them. But a dog had paws....

  There came the soft hiss of the opening lock, the faintest shimmer oflight to the right of the passage mouth he was watching through thedoor. A heavy thump on the floor below the locks followed, then a hardclick as the lock closed and complete darkness returned.

  The silence resumed. Seconds dragged on. Gefty's imagination picturedthe thing waiting, its great, wedge-shaped head raised as its sensesprobed the dark about it for a sign of the two human beings. Then avague rushing noise began, growing louder as it approached the passagemouth, crossing it, receding rapidly again to the left.

  Gefty let his breath out slowly, eased the door open and stood listeningagain. Abruptly, there was reflected light in the lock passage, comingnow from the left. He said in a whisper, "It's moving around in the mainhall, Kerim. We can go on the other way now, but we'll have to be fastand keep quiet. I've thought of how we can get rid of that thing."

  * * *

  The cargo lock on the storage deck had two inner doors. The one whichopened into the side of the vault hall was built to allow passage of thelargest chunks of freight the _Queen_ was likely to be burdened with; itwas almost thirty feet wide and twenty high. The second door was justlarge enough to let a man in a spacesuit climb in and out of the side ofthe lock without using the freight door. It opened on a tiny controlcubicle from which the lock's mechanisms were operated during loadingprocesses.

  Gefty let Kerim and himself into the cubicle from one of the passages,steered the girl through the pitch blackness of the little room to thechair before the control panel and told her to sit down. He groped for amoment at the side of the panel, found a knob and twisted it. There wasa faint click. A scattering of pale lights appeared suddenly on thepanel, a dark viewscreen, set at a tilt above them, reflecting theirgleam.

  Gefty explained in a
low voice, "Left side of that screen covers thelock. Right one covers the big hall outside. No lights in either at themoment, so you don't see anything. Only way the cargo door to the hallcan be opened or closed is with these switches right here. What I wantto do is get the janandra into the lock, slam the door on it and lockdown the control switches. Then we've got it trapped."

  "But how are you going to get it to go in there?"

  "No real problem--I'll be three jumps ahead of it. Then I duck back upinto this cubicle, and lock both doors. And it'll be inside the lock.You have the picture now?"

  Kerim said unsteadily, "I do. But it sounds awfully risky, Gefty."

  "Well, I don't like it either," Gefty admitted. "So I'll start right nowbefore I lose my nerve. As soon as I move out into the vault hall, thelighting will go on. That's automatic. You watch the right side of thescreen. If you see the janandra coming before I do, yell as loud as youcan."

  He shifted the two inner door switches to the right. A red sparkappeared in the dark viewscreen, high up near the center. A second redlight showed on the cubicle bulkhead beside Gefty. Beneath it an oblongsection of the bulkhead turned silently away on heavy hinges, became adoor two feet in thickness, which stood jutting out at a right angleinto the darkness of the cargo lock. A wave of cold air moved through itinto the control cubicle.

  On the screen, another red spark appeared beside the first one.

  "Both doors are open now," Gefty murmured to the girl. "The janandraisn't in the vault hall or the lighting would have turned on, but it mayhave heard the door open and be on its way. So keep watching thescreen."

  "I certainly will!" she whispered shakily.

  Gefty took an oversized wrench from the wall, climbed quickly andquietly down the three ladder steps to the floor of the lock, and walkedacross it to the sill of the giant freight door, which now had swung outand down into the vault hall, fitting itself into a depression of theflooring. He hesitated an instant on the sill, then stepped out into thebig dark hall. Light filled it immediately in both directions.

  He stood quiet, intent on the storage vault entrance far up the hall tohis left. He could see the vault was open. The janandra might still beinside it. But the seconds passed, and the dark entrance remained silentand there was no suggestion of motion beyond it. Gefty glanced to theright, moved a dozen steps farther out into the hall, hefted the wrenchand spun it through the air towards the ventilator frame on the oppositebulkhead.

  The heavy tool clanged loudly against the frame, bounced off and thuddedto the floor. Gefty started slowly over to it, heart pounding, with thevault entrance still at the edge of his vision.

  Kerim's voice screamed, "_Gefty, it's_--"

  He spun around, sprinted back to the cargo lock. The janandra had comesilently out of the nearest side passage behind him, was approachingwith the remembered oiling swiftness of motion, its great head lifted ayard from the floor. Gefty plunged through the lock, jumped for the topof the cubicle door steps, came stumbling into the cubicle. Kerim was onher feet, staring. He swung the cubicle door switch to the left,slapping it flat to the panel. The door snapped back into the wallbehind him with a force that shook the floor.

  On the screen, the janandra's thick, dark worm-shape was swinging aroundin the dim lock to regain the open hall. It had seen the trap. But thefreight door switch went flat beside the other, and the freight doorrose with massive swiftness. The heavy body smashed against it, wentsliding back to the floor as the door slammed shut and the screensection showing the cargo lock turned dark.

  "Got it--got it--got it!" Gefty heard himself whispering exultantly. Heswitched on the lock's interior lights.

  Then he swore softly, and, beside him, Kerim sucked in her breath.

  * * * * *

  The screen showed the janandra in violent but apparently purposefulmotion inside the lock ... and it was also apparent now that it was amore complexly constructed creature than the long worm-body and heavyhead had indicated. The skin, to a distance of some eight feet back ofthe head, had spread out into a wide, flexible frill. From beneath thefrill extended half a dozen jointed, bone-white arms, along with waving,ribbonlike appendages less easy to define. The thing was reared half upalong the hall door, inspecting its surface with these members; thensuddenly it flung itself around and flashed over to the outer lock door.Three arms shot out; wiry fingers caught the three spin-lockssimultaneously, began to whirl them.

  Gefty said, staring, "Kerim, it's going to ..."

  The janandra didn't. The motion checked suddenly, was reversed. Thelocks drew tight again. The janandra swung back from the door, liftinghalf its length upwards, big head weaving about as it inspected the toolracks overhead. An arm reached suddenly, snatched something from one ofthe racks. Then the thing turned again; and in the next instant its headfilled the viewscreen. Kerim made a choked sound of fright, jerking backagainst Gefty. The bulging, metal-green eyes seemed to stare directly athim. And the screen went black.

  Kerim whispered, "Wha ... what happened, Gefty?"

  Gefty swallowed, said, "It smashed the view pickup. Must have guessed wewere watching and didn't like it...." He added, "I was beginning tothink Maulbow must be some kind of superman. But it wasn't anyremote-control magic of his that let the janandra out of the vault, andopened the intership locks when it came up to the main deck and followedus down again. It was doing all that for itself. It's Maulbow's partner,not his pet. And it's probably got at least as good a brain as anyoneelse on board behind that ugly face."

  Kerim moistened her lips. "Can it ... could it get out again?"

  "Into the ship?" Gefty shook his head decidedly. "Uh-uh. It could dumpitself out on the other side--and it almost did before it realized whereit was and what it was about to do. But the inner lock doors won't openuntil someone opens them right on this panel. No, the thing's safelytrapped. On the other hand ..."

  On the other hand, Gefty realized that he wouldn't now be able to bringhimself to eject the janandra out of the cargo lock and into the GreatCurrent. Its intentions obviously hadn't been friendly, but its level ofintelligence was as good as his own, and perhaps somewhat better; and atpresent it was helpless. To dispose of it as he'd had in mind wouldtherefore be the cold-blooded murder of an equal. But so long as thatugly and formidable shipmate of Maulbow's stayed in the cargo lock, thelock couldn't be used to get rid of the control unit in the vault.

  A new solution presented itself while Gefty was making a rapid andrather desperate mental review of various heavy-duty tools which mightbe employed as weapons to force the janandra into submission and haul itoff for confinement elsewhere in the ship. Not impossible, but a highlyprecarious and time-consuming operation at best. Then another thoughtoccurred: the storage vault lay directly against the hull of the_Queen_--

  How long to cut through the hull? The ship's mining equipment was onboard, and the tools were self-powered. Climb into a spacesuit, emptythe air from the entire storage deck, leaving the janandra imprisoned inthe cargo lock ... with Maulbow incapacitated in sick bay, and Kerimback in the control compartment and also in a suit, for additionalprotection. Then cut ship's power to this deck to avoid complicationswith the _Queen's_ involved circuitry and work under spaceconditions--half an hour if he hurried.

  * * *

  "Shouldn't take more than another ten minutes," he informed Kerimpresently over the suit's intercom.

  "I'm very glad to hear it, Gefty." She sounded shaky.

  "Anything going on in the screens?" he asked.

  She hesitated a little, said, "No. Not at the moment."

  Gefty grunted, blinked sweat from his eyes, and took hold of thehandgrips of the heavy mining cutter again, turning it nose down towardsthe vault floor. The guide light found the point he was working on, andthe slice beam stabbed out, began nibbling delicately away to extend thecurving line it had eaten through the _Queen's_ thick skin. He had drawna twenty-five foot circle around Maulbow's battered control unit and t
heinstruments attached to it, well outside the fragile-looking safetyfield. The circle was broken at four points where he would plantexplosives. The explosives, going off together, should shatter theconnecting links with the hull and throw the machine clear. If thatdidn't release them immediately from its influence, he would see whatputting the _Queen's_ drives into action would do.

  "Gefty?" Kerim's voice asked.

  "Uh-huh?"

  He could hear her swallow over the intercom. "Those lights are backnow."

  "How many?"

  "Two," Kerim said. "I _think_ they're only two. They keep crossing backand forth in front of us." She laughed nervously. "It's idiotic, ofcourse, but I do get the feeling they're looking at us."

  Gefty said hesitantly, "Everything's set but I need another minute ortwo to get this last connection whittled down a little more. If I blowthe charge too soon, it mightn't take the gadget clean out of the ship."

  Kerim said, "I know. I'll just watch ... they just disappeared again."Her voice changed. "Now there's something else."

  "What's that?"

  "You know you said to watch the cargo lock lights on the emergencypanel."

  "Yes."

  "The outer lock door has just been opened."

  "What!"

  "It must have