The Wizard of Karres

grumpy, as she usually did when things went wrong. Just a little scared.

'What I do finally know,' said Goth, 'is what caused that swimming-though-jelly feeling, Captain. It went away just as soon as you joined us. But the power you poured into that pattern and the changes—it was like riding a runaway bollem. I got no idea what happened or even where we are.'

Embarrassment flooded the captain. The other Karres witches had grown up with witch magic. They had instructor patterns in their minds to guide their development. Pausert, a one time citizen of the stuffy and conservative little Republic of Nikkeldepain, had no such special advantages. He just had to muddle along with klatha. He did achieve some spectacular results, some time to time, though they were rarely the results trained operatives would achieve. But his uncontrolled klatha pooling had disturbed all the adult witches when he'd been on Karres, and even the adolescents.

'You mean I might have been causing the problems with the Sheewash Drive?'

'Pretty sure, Captain. The feeling was the same.'

Hantis spoke from the darkness. 'Have you been concentrating on the patterns for the drive, all this time?' she asked.

'Er. Yes. I felt I nearly had them . . .' Pausert heard his own voice trail off.

'Foolish churl,' growled Pul. 'Haven't you been told that klatha powers come in their own time?'

If the darkness had been mere absence of light, then Pausert was sure the others could have seen the dull red glow he was sure that his face was putting out. 'Yes. But, well . . . I thought I could help. And I felt I nearly had it.'

'Instead you were dragging like a dead weight at those who did have it,' said Hantis. 'At least we understand what was wrong, then.'

'Yeah,' said the Leewit. 'Now all we need to know is what went wrong with the Egger Route. And where we are.'

'This isn't the Egger Route, then?' asked Pausert.

'Nope,' said the Leewit. 'Not like it at all.' In a small voice: 'Can you get us out of here, Captain?'

'Well,' said the captain. 'I'd like to. But how? Like I did with those shields? Tracing it backwards?'

'If that worked at all, we'd be right back under fire from Imperial cruisers,' pointed out Goth.

'Anyway, I don't know if I can,' admitted Pausert. 'The pattern. Well. I sort of changed things as I went along, because it was hurting, and I'm not sure I can visualize it.'

Then suddenly he relled vatch.

So there you went! said a cross little voice. How did you get here, Big Real Thing? And why did you run away from me? Did you think I wouldn't find you? There was a trace of plaintiveness in the voice.

For the first time ever, Captain Pausert was truly glad to see those tiny, slitty silver eyes peering at him. One of the reasons he was so glad about it was that they could be seen at all. There appeared to be no other form of light, and his attempts at moving hadn't succeeded. He wasn't really sure if they were actually talking with sound and words. It didn't feel as if his lips were moving. Actually it didn't feel at all.

'I never thought I'd be glad to see a vatch,' said the Leewit. 'Hey! Leggo, you little beast!'

Where are we, little vatch? asked Pausert.

You mean you don't know?

Tell us. Please?

Might. If I feel like it. What are you going to do now, Big Real Thing?

Pausert didn't tell it that what he really wanted to do right now was wring the little silvery-eyed vatch's neck, if it had a neck and if he could have come to grips with it. Nothing interesting, he said. Sit here and be boring.

The vatch made a rude noise. Can't do that. The wave of everything is coming.

Wave of everything? Pausert wondered if it was worth fashioning klatha hooks. Of course he could only tickle this one, but maybe he could tickle it into telling them. Tickling was not that far removed from torture, after all.

Yes. You're outside of everything. The only thing that's here is your ship. Even time hasn't got here yet. It's a strange place to come. 

Well, can you get us out of here? Or tell us how to get out of here?

I don't think I will, said the vatchlet petulantly. Last time I did something for you I got sick. And then when I went to play in all the other ships so they'd leave you alone, you ran away.

Inwardly, Pausert groaned. If there had been any doubts in the minds of the captains of Imperial Space Navy ships that the Venture was indeed chock full of the notorious witches of Karres and should definitely be destroyed on sight, he was sure it wasn't there anymore.

But here, outside of everything, that seemed a minor problem. Oh, well. I suppose you can't do anything, anyway.

Can too! snapped the little vatch, and vanished.

Sitting in the darkness, Captain Pausert had time to wonder if he'd handled it right. And time to try to reconstruct the pattern he had used, inside his head. He was sure if he could just get up and redraw it, he'd have it.

'I've been thinking, Captain,' said Goth.

'Careful! You know what happened last time you did that,' said the Leewit, snippily.

'You're lucky I can't move,' grumbled Goth.

In the interests of peace, Pausert intervened. 'What, Goth? Have you some idea of how we can get out of here?'

'Well, no. But I think I have some idea of how we got in here. You remember you said you had changed some things in the pattern?'

'Yes,' admitted the captain. 'They . . . well, they just didn't seem right. It felt as if my changes would stop all the vibrations.'

'And it did,' said Goth, thoughtfully. 'Never heard of that with the Egger Route, before. But we—the Leewit and me—were also using that same klatha pattern. And so I think we didn't end up where any of us were heading.'

'So you mean we could just do it again?' asked the Leewit.

'Doubt it,' answered Goth. 'It might do something else entirely. Anyway, I've tried all sorts of klatha stuff. It doesn't work. There is just nothing here, except us. Or nothing here yet. Looks like only vatches can handle this place, though I don't know why that should be true.'

Goth was sounding very like her mother, Toll, now. The captain wondered whether it was her Toll-pattern speaking, and wished, yet again, that he could have such an instructor.

'It also means,' she continued, 'that to reverse it we'd probably have to work together.'

'Uh-oh!' interjected the Leewit. 'I'm relling vatch again. Big vatch.'

It was a big vatch. A huge one—and it was in hot pursuit of little Silver-eyes, who didn't seem in the least bit amused about anything. Downright scared, in fact.

The huge eyes were green, at the top of a mountain of tumbling black energy, roiling and twisting klatha force. The vatch paused abruptly in its chase, its eyes fixed on Pausert and his crew.

HOW DID THEY GET HERE? HOW ODD. The big vatch laughed thunderously. NO—HOW DELIGHTFUL! WELL, I'M GLAD I FOLLOWED YOU AFTER ALL, YOU LITTLE NUISANCE.

Pausert hastily began fashioning klatha hooks in his mind.

They're mine! All mine! hissed the little one, buzzing around the big vatch and then hastily retreating.

Before Captain Pausert could react, he was plucked, no, hurtled, out of the Venture. He was dimly aware of the passage of enormities of time and space. And then of sitting down, hard, onto blue-green spongy stuff.

His first realization was that he'd actually felt that landing. The next was that, far from the darkness of a few moments before, his senses were almost drowning in colors. The horizon was pricked by