He brought the unit of vatch energy as close to the ship as the viewscreens permitted first. At that distance both of them relled it. Goth’s face became very intent for perhaps half a minute; he guessed she had all her klatha antennae out, probing for other indications. Then she shook her head. “Can’t spot it!” she said. “Know it’s there because it rells, that’s all.”
Neither was there anything in her current equipment which would let her direct the energy about as the captain had been doing. That might require the ability to recognize it clearly as a prior condition. She hadn’t heard of witches who did either, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.
The captain described its pseudo-appearance. Goth said the vatches themselves were supposed to be put together in much the same way. “Thought of anything else you can do with it yet?”
He hadn’t. “Somewhere along the line it might come in handy to know the stuff can be manipulated,” he said. “Especially if the vatch doesn’t suspect it.” He shifted the screens, added, “Right now we’d better use it to get that cloud pack back before it drifts apart!”
The thunderstorm, left to itself, had turned gradually on an easterly course; but the vatch device checked it and drew it back towards the
It was an hour or so before dawn when the captain was aroused from an uneasy half-sleep on the couch by Goth’s buzzer signaling an alert from the control desk. He relled vatch at once, glanced over at the open door to her cabin and coughed meaningfully. The buzzer sound stopped. He laid his head back on the cushions and tried to relax. It wasn’t too easy. The vatch indications weren’t strong, but the next moments might bring some unpredictable new shift in their situation.
However, nothing happened immediately. The impressions remained faint, seemed to strengthen a trifle, then faded almost to the limits of perceptibility. Goth stayed quiet. The captain began to wonder whether he was still sensing the creature at all. Then suddenly it came close, seemed to move in a circle about them, drew away again. There was a brief, distant rumble of the wind-voice.
It went on a while. The klatha entity hung around, moved off, returned again. The captain waited, puzzled and speculating. There was something undecided in its behavior, he thought presently. And perhaps a suggestion of querulous dissatisfaction in the occasional mutterings he picked up.
He cleared his throat cautiously. The vatch hadn’t addressed him directly since it realized something was preventing it from sensing his thoughts. It might suspect it was something he had done or assume there was a block of unknown type between them which also would keep him from understanding it. Possibly — if it hadn’t been able to work out a solution to the Worm World problem, which seemed indicated by the way it was acting — it would be useful to reopen communication with it. But he’d have to try to avoid offending the monster, which apparently was easy enough to do with vatches. Under the circumstances, that probably would be disastrous now.
He cleared his throat again. It seemed fairly close at the moment.
“Vatch?” he said aloud.
He had an impression that the vatch paused.
“Vatch, can you hear me?”
A vague faint rumble — it might have been surprise or suspicion rather than a response to the question. Then gradually the vatch grew closer… very close, so that it seemed to loom like a mountain of formless blackness in the night above the ship, the rain washing through it. Once again the captain had the impression that from some point near the peak of that mountain two great, green, slitted eyes stared at him. And he became aware of something else… Goth’s comment about the probable makeup of vatches was true. This gigantic thing seemed to consist of swirling torrents of black energy, pouring up and down through it, curved and intermingled as they slid past and about each other in tight patterns of endlessly changing intricacy. The scraps of vatch power it had left here on Karres to hold them secure during its absence might have been simply flecks of itself.
“There is a way Moander can be destroyed,” the captain told the looming blackness.
The rumbling came again — perhaps a stirring of annoyance, perhaps a muttered question.
“You need only take us and this ship and the synergizer to the other Karres,” the captain said. “To the Karres of Moander’s time…”
The vatch was silent now, staring. He went on. The witches on the other Karres had a way to break the power of the Worm World’s ruler if they were given the synergizer. They had abilities and knowledge neither he nor anyone else on the ship at present possessed — and that was what was required to beat Moander. Transferring them to that Karres would be the winning move, the way to end the long game -
The blackness stirred. Vatch laughter exploded deafeningly about the captain, rolled and pealed. The ship shook with it. Then a great wind-rush, fading swiftly. The vatch was gone…
Goth slipped out of her cabin as the captain swung around and stood up from the couch. “Don’t know what good that did!” he said, rather breathlessly. “But we might see some action now!” He switched on the room lighting.
Goth nodded, eyes big and dark. “Vatch is going to do something,” she agreed. “Like to know what, though!”
“So would I.” He’d already made sure the Manaret synergizer’s strongbox was still standing in its place against the wall. It had occurred to him he might have sold the vatch on the importance of getting that potent device to the Karres of their time without giving it enough reason to take them and the
Another thought came suddenly. “Say, we’d better look inside that box!”
But when he opened the box, the synergizer was there. He locked it up again. Goth suggested, “Vatch might have gone to Karres-now first to figure out what they’d do with it if they got it!”
“Yeah.” The captain scratched his head. He hadn’t much liked that wild gust of laughter with which the thing departed. Some vatchy notion had come to it while he was talking — and about half its notions at least spelled big trouble! He checked the time, said, “We’ll just have to wait and see. Night’s about over…”
They sat before the screens, watched the air lighten gradually through the steady rainfall, waited for the vatch to return and speculated about what it might be up to. “There’ve been times just recently, child,” the captain observed, “when I’ve wished you were safely back on Karres with your parents and Maleen and the Leewit! May not be long now before we’re all there.”
“Uh-huh. And if they’re set to jump the Worm World, may not be so safe there either!” Goth remarked.
“There’s that.”
“Anyway,” she said, “if I weren’t keeping an eye on you, you’d likely as not be getting into trouble.”
“Might, I suppose,” the captain agreed. He looked at the chronometer. “Getting hungry? Sitting here won’t hurry up anything, and it’s pretty close to breakfast time.”
“Could eat,” Goth admitted and got out of her chair.
They found their passenger and the crewman wrapped up in their blankets on the floor of the outer section of the control compartment, soundly asleep. Before settling down for the night, the do Eldel had brought sleep pills from her stateroom; and Vezzarn had asked for and received a portion. The captain felt the two might as well slumber on as long as they could, but they came groggily awake while he was preparing breakfast and accepted his invitation to come to table.
They were halfway through breakfast when the Leewit arrived on the
The captain and Goth had a few seconds’ warning. He’d been wondering what he could say to their companions to prepare them for the moment when things suddenly would start happening again. It wasn’t easy since he had no idea himself of just what might happen. They were both basically hardy souls though, and, with their backgrounds, must have been in sufficiently appalling situations before. Like Hulik, Vezzarn now appeared to be facing up stoically to the fact that he was caught in a witchcraft tangle where his usual skills couldn’t help him much, which he couldn’t really understand, and from which he might or might not emerge safely. The probability was that Vezzarn, as he’d sworn, wouldn’t panic another time. He gave the captain a determinedly undaunted grin over his coffee, remarked that the viewscreens indicated the day would remain rainy, and asked what the skipper
