The Witches of Karres

Maleen was simply a very good all-around junior witch who’d recently been taken into advanced training three or four years earlier than was the rule.

Goth clearly didn’t think he should be given much more information than that at present; and he didn’t press her for it. As long as he didn’t attract any more vatches he’d be satisfied. He retained mixed feelings about klatha. Useful it was, no doubt, if one knew how to handle it. But it was uncanny stuff.

There were enough practical matters on hand to keep them fully occupied. He gave Goth a condensed course in the navigation of the Venture; and she told him more of what had been going on east of the Empire than he’d ever learned out of history books. It confirmed his first impression that life around here should be varied and interesting…

One interesting variation came their way shortly after the calendric chronometer had recorded the beginning of the fourth day since they’d turned on course for Uldune. It was the middle of the captain’s sleep period. He woke up to find Goth violently shaking his shoulder.

“Uh, what is it?” he mumbled.

“You awake?” Her voice was sharp, almost a hiss. “Better get to the controls!”

That aroused him as instantly and completely as a bucketful of ice-cold water…

There was a very strange-looking ship high in the rear viewscreen, at an indicated distance of not many light-minutes away. Its magnified image was like that of a flattened ugly dark bug striding through space after them on a dozen spiky legs set around its edges. The instruments registered a mass about twice that of the Venture. It was an unsettling object to find coming up behind one.

“Know who they are?” he asked.

Goth shook her head. The ship had been on the screens for about ten minutes, had kept its distance at first, then swung in and begun to pull up to them. She’d put out a number of short-range query blasts on the communicators, but there’d been no response.

It looked like trouble. “How about the Drive?” he asked.

Goth indicated the open passage door. “Ready right out there!”

“Fine. But wait with it.” They didn’t intend to start advertising the Sheewash Drive around here if they could avoid it. “Try the communicators again,” he said. “They could be on some off-frequency.”

He hadn’t thrown the override switch on the throttled main drive engines yet. It might have been the Venture’s relatively slow progress which had attracted the creepy vessel’s interest, giving whoever was aboard the idea that here was a possibility of easy prey which should be investigated. But if they set off at speed now and the stranger followed, it could turn into a long chase… and one long chase could finish his engines.

If they didn’t run, the thing would move into weapons range within less than five minutes.

“Captain!”

He turned. Goth was indicating the communicator screen. A green-streaked darkness flickered on and off in it.

“Getting them, I think!” she murmured.

He watched as she slowly fingered a pair of dials, eyes intent on the screen. There was a loud burst of croaking and whistling noises from one of the communicators. Then, for a second or two, the screen held a picture.

The captain’s hair didn’t exactly stand on end, but it tried to. There was a sullen green light in the screen, lanky gray shapes moving through it; then a face was suddenly looking out at them. Its red eyes widened. An instant later the screen went blank, and the communicator racket ended.

“Saw us — cut us off!” Goth said, mouth wrinkling briefly in distaste.

The captain cleared his throat. “You know what those are?”

She nodded. “Think so! Saw a picture of a dead one once.”

“They’re, uh, unfriendly?”

“They catch us, they’ll eat us,” Goth told him. “That’s Megair Cannibals.”

The name seemed as unpleasant as the appearance of their pursuers. The captain, heart hammering, reflected a moment, eyes on the grotesque ship in the rear screens. It was considerably closer, seemed to have put on speed.

“Let’s see if we can scare them off first,” he said suddenly. “If that doesn’t work, you better hit the Drive!”

Goth’s expression indicated approval. The captain turned, settled himself in the control chair, tripped the override switch, fed the Venture power, and set her into a tight vertical turn as the engine hum rose to a roar. His hand shifted to the nova gun mechanisms. The image of the pursuing ship flicked through the overhead screens, settled into the forward ones, spun right side up and was dead ahead, coming towards them. The gun turrets completed their lift through the Venture’s hull and clicked into position. The small sighting screen lit up; its cross-hairs slid around and locked on the scuttling bug shape.

He snapped in the manual fire control relays. They still had a good deal of space to cover before they came within reasonable range of each other; and if he could help it they wouldn’t get within reasonable range. He’d done well enough in gunnery training during his duty tour on a space destroyer of the Nikkeldepain navy, but the Megair Cannibals might be considerably better at games of that kind. However, it was possible they could be bluffed out of pressing their attack. He edged the Venture up to full speed, noted the suggestion of raggedness that crept into the engines’ thunder, put his thumb on the firing stud, pressed down.

The nova guns let go together. Reaching for the ship rushing towards them and falling far short of it, their charge shattered space into shuddering blue sheets of fire.

It was an impressive display, but the Megair ship kept coming. Something hot and primitive, surprisingly pleasurable, began to roil in the captain as he counted off thirty seconds, pressed the firing stud again. Blue sheet lightning shivered and crashed. The scuttling thing beyond held its course. Answering fire suddenly speckled space with a cluster of red and black explosions.

“Aa-aa-ah!” breathed the captain, head thrust forwards, eyes riveted on the sighting screen. Something about those explosions…

Why, he thought joyfully, we’ve got the range on them!

He slapped the nova guns on automatic, locked on target, rode the Venture’s thunder in a dead straight line ahead in the wake of the guns’ trail of blue lightning. Red and black fire appeared suddenly on this side of the lightning, rolling towards them -

Then it vanished.

There was something like the high-pitched yowl of a small jungle cat in the captain’s ears. A firm young fist pounded his shoulder delightedly. “They’re running! They’re running!”

He cut the guns. The sighting screen was empty. His eyes followed Goth’s pointing finger to another screen. Far under their present course, turning away on a steep escape curve, went the Megair Cannibals’ ship, scuttling its best, dipping, weaving, dwindling…

* * *

As they drew closer to Uldune, other ships appeared with increasing frequency in the Venture’s detection range. But these evidently were going about their own business and inclined to keep out of the path of strange spacecraft. None came close enough to be picked up in the viewscreens.

While still half a day away from the one-time pirate planet, the Venture’s communicators signaled a pick-up. They switched on the instruments and found themselves listening to a general broadcast from Uldune, addressed to all ships entering this area of space.

If they were headed for Uldune on business, they were invited to shift to a frequency which would put them in contact with a landing station off-planet. Uldune was anxious to see to it that their visit was made as pleasant and profitable as possible and would facilitate matters to that end in every way. Detailed information would be made available by direct-beam contact from the landing station.

It was the most cordial reception ever extended to the captain on a planetary approach. They switched in the