The Wizard of Karres

'And we could get you to talk to them in Sirian, missy,' said Vezzarn, 'before you switch to Universum.'

'Let's try it,' said Pausert, decisively.

Hantis looked a little uncertain. 'It's going to put a lot of strain on you, Goth,' she pointed out.

The slim brown-haired witch shrugged. 'I think I can do it, and you're supposed to be there before another fifteen ship's-days pass, Hantis. We've got to do something.'

So they moved slowly forward, towards the globe of ships that the ISN seemed to have clustered around the spaceways to the inner worlds of the Empire.

'I don't see that the Nanites have very much left to take over,' grumbled Pausert, as they came within detector range of yet another flotilla of Imperial Space Navy ships.

'You're quite wrong,' said Hantis, coolly. 'All they've done is to infiltrate the ISS and probably taken over one or two admirals. That gives them leverage but not control—and certainly not ownership. If they had full control over the Empire, they wouldn't bother to try to stop us at all. In a queer, backhanded sort of way, Captain, this is hugely encouraging.'

Pausert decided she was probably right. However, if so . . .

'It also means,' he said, 'that we have to fight shy of actual shooting combat, even if we might win.'

Hantis looked thoughtfully at Captain Pausert, as if looking right into him. The Nartheby Sprite was supposed to be a truth-hearer.

At length, she said, 'Yes, Captain, I know you don't want to kill innocents. But the stakes here are very high.'

'We'll try to avoid it,' said Pausert, tersely. That issue had been worrying him for a while now.

A few minutes later he had other things to worry about.

The Leewit was giving the commodore of the Imperial Space ships some lip. In Sirian, fortunately, which they recognized but didn't understand. Then she switched to Universum. 'Syrian registered passenger liner, Pride of Vorvian. What ship?'

'Ah. Pride of Vorvian. This is the ISN Huntinglea. Slow your acceleration. Please give us more details on your registry and port of origin.'

'There are two ships peeling off into flanking position,' hissed Goth.

'We're out of Shebreith's World, of course, registered on Lepper,' said the Leewit, imitating perfectly the typical arrogance of Sirians. 'That's in the Regency of Sirius, if your knowledge of astrography is up to the usual Imperial standards. Why do you wish to know?'

The ISN commodore ignored the implied insult. Wisely, Pausert thought. The Regency of Sirius was powerful enough—and certainly belligerent enough—to give pause even to the Empire.

'Ah. Administrative details,' he said, his voice smooth as swanhawk grease. 'I'm afraid we still need some more information, Pride of Vorvian. This will only take a few minutes. Please continue to slow your thrust.'

'He's lying,' said Hantis abruptly, looking at the officer on the screen.

Captain Pausert grit his teeth. 'We're going to need the Sheewash Drive, then. We'll have to turn and run again. We can't possibly break through.'

He took the microphone from the Leewit, who hurried to join Goth at the tangle of wires. 'We've just discovered we have an outbreak of severe gaspartis on board. We are going to have to return to our last port.'

'Wait, Pride of Vorvian. We have medics on board . . .' The Imperial smoothness disappeared. 'Halt or be fired on! Pirate vessel Venture. Halt or be fired on!'

But the Venture was already heading away, back where she'd come from, before the two flanking cruisers could come within range.

* * *

'They must have our engine's signature keyed into their detectors, Captain,' said Vezzarn. 'I don't know how they managed that, though. These engines were installed on Uldune, and the Daal certainly didn't pass along the information to them. But I can't see any other explanation.'

Pausert sighed. 'If that's the case, short of hauling the Venture's engines out and putting new engines in—which we just don't have the time for—the Imperial Navy will spot us no matter what we do with the light-shift.'

'I guess it'll have to be the Egger Route, then,' said Goth, her face even more expressionless than usual.

The Leewit scowled, bit her thumb. 'Guess so. But—' She jerked a nod at the captain, the grik-dog and the Nartheby Sprite. 'Can they do it? Old Vezzarn can't, that's for sure.'

Hantis shook her head. 'Alas, no. It is not a klatha power that Sprites can harness.'

'Well, I suppose it doesn't matter then, that I can't do it either,' said Pausert. 'As the point is to get Hantis and Pul through to the Empress before the Winter Carnival, we'll have to try some other form of disguise. Maybe we can sneak past on the Sheewash Drive.'

'No good,' said the old spacer, who was still very uncomfortable about the Sheewash Drive he'd tried so hard to steal—until he found out what it actually was. 'At the speed the little Wisdoms can manage now, Captain, they're still going to detect us.'

'True,' agreed the captain, glumly. 'And now that we've tried the light-shift, I don't think that's going to fool them anywhere.'

This is not as much fun as the circus, Big Real Thing, tinkled a vatchy voice.

'Get that stinkin' little thing out of here!' said the Leewit, wrinkling her nose. You could hear the girl's tiredness and hunger in her peevish tones. Doing the Sheewash Drive had taken it out of the littlest witch. Besides, Pausert didn't doubt, she was missing the circus and the people there badly. She'd been rather spoiled by them.

The little vatch simply danced around the room, levitating things.

Captain Pausert raised his eyes to heaven. He could chase it with hooks of klatha force . . . and tickle it. Lately he'd found that the best answer was to humor it. Much the same way as he did with the Leewit, actually.

Where have you been for so long, little-bit?

Got sick. The dream-candy from the one the dog-thing bit was sour. Got to go, now. I'll find you again. G'bye.

It disappeared as quickly as it had come.

Dream-candy . . . from the Nanite-infected pirate? The universe as the vatches saw it was rather different from the universe as perceived by humans. Distance and time were fairly meaningless concepts to them. So what did they find in here that was 'candy' to them?

Pausert was sure that many of the words that the vatch put into his mind were not strict translations but merely the nearest human equivalent. Well, there'd be time enough to puzzle over what was candy to a vatch, once they'd solved their present problems. The captain turned his mind back to that. 'So just what is the Egger Route?'

'The way I came here, stupid,' said the Leewit crossly. 'Do you forget everything?'

Of course Pausert remembered the droning sound—in space, where there was nothing to transmit sound— and the abrupt and inexplicable arrival of the Leewit, and the way they'd had to wrap her in blankets because of the shaking.

He also remembered that she'd been . . . well, not breathing.

'Kind of hard to explain,' said Goth. 'I asked Threbus that question once, and he said that I'd have to get to understand n-dimensional math first. It's . . . well, there is a place outside this place, and times and distances aren't the same there. There's billions of Egger-spaces, and they relate to the person going into them. Even if the Leewit and I went home to Karres by the Egger Route, we wouldn't be in the same Egger Space.'

'You can take someone else through your Egger Space. Or even send them through it. But that takes big power,' scowled the Leewit. 'Toll and Maleen could do it. Maleen could make us swim. Her Egger Space was wet. Don't know about Goth.'

'Uh-huh,' said Goth. 'I do it pretty good, Maleen says. I can push quite a lot with me too. Or I could last time I tried. It's not something you try too often, although all Karres witches have to learn how.'

Inwardly, Pausert sighed. The trouble with the Karres witches was that just as soon as you thought you had