The Wizard of Karres

got the Leewit to call the guard.'

'They took mine, too.' Pausert worried a little that he might have misestimated the time. 'Did Hulik come to see you?'

'Yeah. With that creep of a local ISS officer friend of hers. She'd better hope we never catch up with her,' said the Leewit nastily.

'It's not as simple as all that,' said the captain. 'I'm not too sure what game she's playing. She was supposed to come and let us out at midnight. The ISS have sent their agents from the capital of this mudball to come and fetch us. They should be here around about three in the morning.'

'We'd better get out of here then, Captain,' said Goth decisively. 'It's got to be well after midnight by now.'

'I suppose so. I'm inclined to trust her, myself, but . . . there are so many things that could have gone wrong. I reckon we should head for the old Venture. They're planning to use her as a target hulk. Leaky airlock, low fuel or not, I think we'd better run. Are you two rested enough to do the Sheewash Drive again?'

'Yep. Count on us. It's a pity you can't help, Captain. You're a hot witch.'

'Believe me,' said Pausert, 'you can't want me to do it any more than I do. I feel as if I'm almost getting it.'

'You can try too hard with klatha stuff,' said Goth sternly. 'Sometimes it comes when you need it, rather than when you want it.'

That sounded like her mother Toll's pattern talking, rather than Goth herself. The young Karres-born witches had a guiding 'pattern,' a nonmaterial partial replica of the personality of an adult similar in nature to help and steer them. The instructor resident in their minds took a hand when they were ready to learn new klatha skills. Captain Pausert wished that he also had one. But he simply had to muddle along on his own. And some of the klatha manipulation was dangerous, if you got it wrong. It could dismind you or burn you up. Make you burst into flames and combust yourself.

'Do you have any idea what happened to Vezzarn?' asked the captain, changing the subject back to their immediate problem. 'I think Hulik meant to bring him along with her. He could know more about what is going on.'

'He got a twelve year sentence for aiding and abetting dangerous criminals,' said the Leewit, seeming to relish the words. 'That's us, you know. He was put into a cell about three down.'

But when they got there, the cell was empty, the door just ajar. There was a pillow and a rolled-up blanket under the covers, roughly shaped like a man. But of the little old spacer there was no sign.

'Well, I guess we'd better get going without him,' said Goth. 'Who knows. He might be back on the Venture already.'

'Or trying to spring us,' said Pausert.

'Nope. He knew where we were, just as well as we knew where he was,' said the Leewit. 'I guess he decided to rat.'

Pausert couldn't help thinking that when the Agandar and his Sheem war-robot had been hunting them, Vezzarn had decided to betray them. The little man had seemed genuinely remorseful and reformed afterwards, but it did indicate the potential for that kind of behavior. 'Maybe he did. Either way, we haven't got the time to go and look for him. Let's see if we can find our way out before the ISS agents arrive to find us gone.'

Moving quietly through the corridors, they tried to find their way out, without awakening any warders. After a while they came to double metal swing-doors. In the dim light of various indicator globes, Pausert surveyed what could only be the prison kitchens—a gloomy hall of square-edged shadows and great cauldrons—smelling of grease and old boiled greens . . . and full of things that skittered and chittered from the dark corners. He began regretting that he hadn't stuck to just eating Hulik's piece of paper. 'I suppose there might be a back door,' he whispered. He could just make out Goth's nod.

The first door proved merely to be a coldroom. But the next door they came to was invitingly ajar. A cool night breeze licked into the smelly kitchen. Pausert peeped around the door. It opened into a shadowy little courtyard full of garbage cans. That the air from out there could smell sweet, spoke ill of the prison kitchen. True, the courtyard would probably be locked. But with the girls' klatha powers they should manage to get through them. Hopefully.

They crept out, the captain waiting for a powerful searchlight and the howl of sirens with each wary step. It never came.

And the heavily chained gate was . . . open. Someone had sheered the links of the chain. The cut links gleamed in the wan moonlight. Hulik must have prepared this. . . .

He swung the gate open just wide enough for them to slip out.

Too late, Pausert smelled a huge rat, even above the garbage stench. But as he realized that something was wrong, the waiting men had already dropped a paralyzer web over them. Someone was also standing by with a hypodermic darter.

The captain was just aware of being hastily loaded into a groundcar, like a sack of meal, before oblivion took him.

* * *

Hulik do Eldel fumed. Her cover as a loyal ISS agent was blown now, and all for the want of a few minutes. She looked at the unconscious body of the ISS district officer. Well, she had had to do it. He'd have raised the alarm for certain. She'd better get down there, find Captain Pausert and get him, Vezzarn, Goth and the Leewit into the ISS van she planned to take them to the spaceport in.

She glanced up at the monitors from the spy-eyes . . . and realized that it wasn't going to be quite that simple. The infrared showed the girls trying to unlock their cell. Hastily she turned the sound gain on that spy circuit back up. The Leewit's shrieks had persuaded Officer Jayelo to turn the sound off, and stopped him noticing the captain's breakout until it was too late. She was just in time to hear Captain Pausert say: 'I'm not too sure what game she's playing. She was supposed to come and let us out at midnight . . .'

Hulik took a deep breath. It was still ten minutes short of that. She listened further. Well, she'd just have to find them at Vezzarn's cell. Opening that would hold them up a bit.

But when she got there, they'd already left. Hulik was left to play a silent kind of hide and go seek with them, trying to guess where they might have gone.

She was dismayed to find the prison warders at the central desk . . .

Dead.

For a moment she was horrified that Pausert could have been so brutally efficient. It wasn't as if the warders of this sleepy little prison, in this sleepy little town, on this sleepy little planet, had posed any real threat. Then she realized that someone had blasted the far door. The remains of it showed unmistakable blaster burns. A Mark 20 cannon, to judge by the damage.

Where would the captain have got a military-grade blaster cannon from? Was this Karres witchcraft?

Or was this something else? Or maybe . . . someone else. Not bothering about quietness now, Hulik ran down the passage, her own issue blaster in her hand.

As she went into the kitchen she heard a strangled yell from outside. That was Goth's voice . . .

She was just in time to see a black groundcar speed away from the forced gates. She took aim, bracing her arm.

'Don't shoot!' hissed Vezzarn from the wall-top.

She nearly shot him instead.

He dropped down onto the dustbins, and into the courtyard. 'Phew. That was close!'

'I'd have stopped the vehicle at least, if you hadn't interfered!' snapped Hulik. 'How are we going to track them now? Great Patham! I had it all organized and then the captain broke out ten minutes early.'

Vezzarn pointed. 'There was a second vehicle in the alley. If you had fired, they'd have got you. This was very professional, Hulik. They've been monitoring the cells with a spy ray.'

Hulik shook her head. 'That was us, Vezzarn. The local ISS man and myself.'

Vezzarn gave her a crooked little grin. 'I took my tools in with me, Hulik. Imperial Security on these backwater planets is pretty sloppy. There was more than one spy ray being worked. I mirrored it out of my cell, before I went to work on the lock, and then I was just doing a little pathfinding snoop when the guys with the heavy