apprehension, then shining. “Even when I thought directly at it,” he concluded, “it didn’t seem able to read me.”
“That is a vatch lock then. A
“Think so?” He felt pleased but there was too much to worry about at present for the feeling to linger. “Well, let’s assume that when we can’t rell the vatch, we can talk freely,” he said. “And that when we do rell it, we’d better keep shut up about anything important but needn’t worry about what we’re thinking… But now, what can we do? We’ve got the
Goth shook her head. Some witches had done some experimentation with moving back in time, but she hadn’t heard of anyone going back farther than their own life span. The vatch must have used klatha in bringing them here; but then it
It looked as if they’d have to depend on the vatch to get them back, too. It was not a reassuring conclusion. The klatha entity was playing a game and regarded them at present as being among its pieces. It had heard that there seemed to be no way to overcome Moander in his stronghold on Manaret and was out to prove it could be done. At best it would consider them expendable pieces. It might also simply decide it had no further use for them and leave them where they were. But as long as the synergizer remained in their custody, they could assume they were still included in the vatch’s plans.
It wasn’t a good situation. But at the moment there seemed to be nothing they could do to change it.
“Olimy found the synergizer and should have been on his way to Karres with it when the Nuris nearly caught him,” the captain observed reflectively. “About the same time it was reported the Empire was launching an attack on Karres, and Karres disappeared. There was no word it had showed up again anywhere else before we left Uldune.”
Goth nodded. “Looks like they knew Olimy was coming with the thing and went to meet him.”
“Yes… at some previously arranged rendezvous point. Now, you once told me,” the captain said, “that Karres was developing klatha weapons to handle the Nuris and was pretty far along with the program.”
“Uh-huh. They might have been all set that way when we left,” Goth agreed. “I wasn’t told. They weren’t far from it.”
“Then the synergizer actually could have been the one thing they were waiting to get before tackling the Worm World. They’d know from their contacts with the Lyrd-Hyrier it wouldn’t be long before Moander had so many more Nuris to fight for him that reaching him would become practically impossible…”
Goth nodded again. “Guess they’ll hit Manaret whether they get the synergizer or not!” she remarked. “Looks like they have to. But if they were waiting for it they got a way to use it — and they’d still want it bad, and fast!”
The captain scowled frustratedly.
“Even if we were back in our time,” he said, “and on our own — meaning no vatch around — the best we could do about it would be to get the thing to Emris! We don’t know where Karres is. And we don’t know where Manaret is… even though I’ve been there now, in a way.”
“Well, I’m not sure,” Goth told him. “Maybe we do know where they are, Captain.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“You said Cheel told you the Nuris were putting up new space barriers between the dead suns all around Manaret—”
The captain nodded. “So he did.”
“Never heard of but one place where you’d see dead suns all around,” Goth said. “And that’s in the Chaladoor — the Tark Nembi Cluster. There’re people who call it the Dead Suns Cluster. It’s another spot everyone keeps away from because when you don’t, you don’t come back. So the Worm World could have been sitting inside it all the time… And if it’s there,” Goth concluded, “we ought to be able to find Karres about one jump from Tark Nembi right now.”
The captain grunted. “I bet you’re right — and that could be our solution! If we get back and can make a break for the Cluster on the Sheewash Drive without being stopped by the vatch, we’ll give it a try!”
“Right,” said Goth. “Looks like the vatch will have to move first, though.”
“So it does,” agreed the captain. “Well—” He sighed. “You say you set up camp with Vezzarn and Hulik around here?”
Goth came to her feet. “Just a bit behind the rise,” she said. “Quarter-mile. Let’s go get them — easier than moving the ship.”
Halfway up the slope they turned aside to pick up some items she’d dropped when she caught sight of the captain — a sturdy handmade bow and a long quiver of tree bark out of which protruded the feathered shafts of arrows. Beside these articles lay a pair of freshly killed furry white-and-brown animals tied together by their hind legs. The captain lifted them while Goth slung bow and quiver over her shoulders. “Dinner, eh?” he said. “Didn’t take you long to get set up for the pioneering life!”
“Forgot to tell you about that,” said Goth. “Can’t quite figure it, but while you were having a talk with the Cheel-thing we’ve been here eight days…”
The captain couldn’t quite figure it either. Goth filled him in as they went on towards the camp. Neither Hulik do Eldel nor Vezzarn remembered anything between the crash take-off from the planet of the red sun and their awakening in a chill, misty dawn on Karres. Goth had come awake first, by half an hour or so, had known immediately on what world she was, and deduced the rest when the Talsoe Twins lifted above the mountains and the mists thinned enough to show her a small moon still floating in the northern sky. She hadn’t informed her companions of their whereabouts in space and time — both were upset enough as it was for a while. Hulik’s impulse, when she awoke and discovered Vezzarn stretched out unconscious beside her, was to blast him for a filthy traitor as he lay there. “Couldn’t find her gun though — or his — till she’d cooled down again,” Goth said with a grin. “Then Vezzarn came to — and
“What about?”
“Because you waited to let him get aboard before you took off. So then he was going to shoot himself rather than face you when you got back. Couldn’t find his gun either, though.”
“Looks like you’ve had your hands full with the two!”
“Oh, they settled down pretty quick. Hulik’s even speaking to Vezzarn again. She’s not the worst, that Hulik.”
“No, she isn’t,” agreed the captain, remembering the bad moments on the ledge of the cliff. “What do they make of the situation?”
Both seemed to have decided they’d gotten themselves involved in some very heavy witch business and the less they heard about it, the better, Goth said. They hadn’t asked questions. She’d told them Captain Aron would be rejoining them, but she didn’t know when, and they’d better settle down here for a perhaps lengthy stay.
She glanced up at him. “Didn’t know
But that was a private distress. Outwardly they’d had no problems. Vezzarn, doing what he could to make up for an enormity committed in panic, had a shipshape little camp set up for them on the banks of a creek before evening of the first day, kept it tidy and improved on it daily thereafter, fashioned Goth’s hunting gear for her though not without misgivings, tended to the cooking, and was dissuaded with difficulty from charging forth, waving his blaster, whenever sizable specimens of Karres fauna came close enough to be regarded by him as a potential menace to the ladies. Hulik stayed tightened up for some twenty-four hours, keeping a nervous eye on the mountain horizons as if momentarily expecting vast, nameless menaces to begin manifesting there. But on the second day, the autumn warmth of the Talsoe suns seemed to soak what was left of those tensions out of her, and she’d been reasonably relaxed and at ease since.
“Any idea, by the way,” asked the captain, “what we ran into on that world? It does look as if something besides the robot was deliberately out to get us — and nearly made it finally.”
