The Wizard of Karres

There were four of them and they all looked the same—less than an inch of blackness and a pair of slitty silver eyes. They all seemed to have the Leewit's picture, too. That was confusing. But vatches did odd things to time and space in human dimensions. He'd just try each one in turn.

He did. To no avail.

'It's doing a light-shift, Captain.' That observation came from the Leewit's older sister, Goth, from where she lounged in a formfit chair on the far side of the room. 'Splitting its image. Neat trick. Hadn't thought of that,' she said, rubbing her sharp chin.

Pausert stared at the four. 'So where is it actually?' Light-shifts were one of Goth's klatha skills.

'Got to be somewhere between them, Captain.'

Pausert 'felt' with the klatha hooks . . . encountered nonmaterial resistance. Suddenly there was only one tiny speck of whirling midnight, and the Leewit's artwork fluttered towards the floor. The little blond witch snatched it out of the air.

Pausert was a vatch-handler. He'd taken on Big Windy, the giant vatch. He could pull them inside out and make them jump through hoops, if he had to. Only . . .

There was one kind of these nonmaterial klatha creatures that was supposed to be unmanageable—and, unfortunately, you couldn't tell which kind of vatch you had until you had it. Then it could be too late. Klatha was powerful, but also dangerous.

Tickles, giggled the vatchlet.

Pausert tried to make the little creature move. It was like pushing smoke. With a sinking feeling, he realized that the silvery-eyed mischief must be one of the kind of vatch that none of the witches of Karres could make do anything.

I like this place. It's fun! The vatchlet whizzed around his head, then—into his chest.

Pausert's heart stopped for a moment. But nothing else happened, and it restarted again.

Well, at least it hadn't turned on him. And it sounded and acted awfully young. He'd—

Suddenly, the ship-detector alarms sounded through the intercom system. Pausert had set them up to do so when the Venture had made her run through the Chaladoor, that region of dangerous space between Emris and Uldune. He'd never gotten around to undoing it.

The baby vatch and the Leewit would just have to sort out their own problems. This could be something far worse. The captain left at a run, with Goth hard at his heels. They nearly collided with Vezzarn, the old spacer- cum-spy who was one half of their crew. The other half, Hulik do Eldel, former Imperial agent and citizen of the pirate planet Uldune, was barely moments behind.

The captain focused the viewscreens on the object—no, objects—the detectors had picked up. They were still almost at maximum range, but were coming in fast.

'Imperial cruisers, Captain,' said Goth, looking at the heavily armed spacecraft.

Pausert's heart began doing complicated calisthenics. Pirates would have been preferable. Infinitely preferable.

'There is another one up there coming in the upper quadrant,' said Hulik, pointing.

'And another one, dead ahead,' added Vezzarn. 'I think they've got us boxed in, Captain.'

They did indeed. Pausert realized that this meant that someone back at the governor's palace in Green Galaine on Emris must have passed on details of their plans, including their exact trajectory. This was not good, and he had the feeling it was going to get a great deal worse.

'Do you want me to unseal the nova guns, Captain?' asked Vezzarn nervously.

'Not sure it'll do much good,' replied Pausert grimly. The guns were very effective when they worked, but they were also old and erratic—and sometimes downright dangerous to use.

Nevertheless, he nodded his head. 'May as well, though. In the meantime, Hulik, try the communicator.'

The slim, elegant Miss do Eldel set it to the Empire's general beam length.

A young man in the neatly pressed uniform of an Imperial lieutenant stared out at them from under his regulation cap. ' . . . instructed to stop firing your thrust generators and allow us to match velocity and trajectory, and board for inspection.'

The man paused, obviously about to repeat. Pausert leaned over and hit the send button. 'This is Captain Pausert of the Venture. What are you looking for?'

The officer looked faintly startled, as if he hadn't expected them to reply. 'Ah. Captain Pausert. Can you give us visuals, please?'

'Our visuals are on,' said Pausert smoothly. 'Sorry. We might be having a malfunction with the screens. Or perhaps you are. But what seems to be the problem, Lieutenant? What are you looking for? We're a civilian spacecraft, on a course from the Empire planet of Emris to the provincial capital of the Regency of Hailie. We're not a pirate vessel, I assure you. In fact, we have a letter of safe conduct with the seal of the Empress Hailie herself.'

The lieutenant was definitely looking more respectful now, but Pausert was not going to drop his guard. A good half of the people aboard the Venture were persona non grata so far as the Empire was concerned. The last thing he wanted was to have any Imperials aboard.

The Imperial lieutenant hesitated for a moment. Then said: 'I'll give you to Commodore Fleser, sir. If you'll just wait a moment. He'll answer your questions.'

Pausert flicked the toggle. 'What do you think, Goth? Hulik?'

'Better play along, Captain. Me and the Leewit will get the Sheewash Drive ready.' Goth headed for the hatch leading out of the control room. 'We can outrun them if we have to, but Threbus said to keep a low profile.'

Hulik nodded. 'We can outrun them, but they do outgun us. Let's see what they want first.'

The captain decided their advice was good and toggled on the buzzing communicator. The screen now showed a jowl-faced gray-haired man with commodore's insignia.

' . . . Fleser of the Imperial cruiser, ISN Malorn. Reduce thrust or be fired on.'

Pausert realized that the Imperials weren't going to pussyfoot around. He reached out and began cutting the thrust. 'This is Captain Pausert of the Venture. Why are you interfering with a vessel in the legitimate pursuit of business?'

'We have orders to investigate the possibility that you may be carrying a dangerous criminal, as well as one of the infamous witches of Karres,' said the commodore grimly. 'Cut thrust further, Captain. You're within range of our guns now and they're locked onto your ship. Any attempt at escape and you will be fired on. Out.' He cut the communicator-link.

Pausert shook his head at the blank screen. 'Great Uncle Threbus was dead wrong about one thing. That commodore knew who we were, and he was still prepared to fire on us. Looks to me like the Empire doesn't plan to leave us alone after all.' He stood up. 'They're looking for our passengers. I'm going to have a word with Goth.'

* * *

'Ought to be all right,' said Goth. 'I can hide myself in no-shape. You got that safe-conduct signed by the Empress Hailie for the passengers. And they won't be looking for the Leewit at all.'

'I don't think letting them find Hantis and Pul is a good idea, safe-conduct or not. You know smuggling them past any Imperial security agents is what we're supposed to do.'

'Guess you're right, Captain. I can try a shape-change on them, except . . . I'm still not really good enough at that to use any shape except one I already know well. Not and keep it up for more than maybe a minute. Like I did when I made myself and Leewit look like Hantis and Pul on the Worm World. But any shape like that might also be in Imperial records.'

'What about no-shape?' Goth could bend light around herself so she was invisible.

'Got to do that to yourself.' Goth shook her head regretfully. 'It's too bad I can't do an age-shift yet, like Toll and Threbus can.'

Pausert scratched his chin, dubiously. A younger—or older—Hantis and Pul would still look like a Nartheby Sprite and a grik-dog. That was too close for comfort. Still . . .

'What about this: could you do a shape-change that imitates an age-shift? You'd still be working with shapes you know well, just changing their age. That might be enough to fool the Imperials, if