The Witches of Karres

time. The Sirians turned out to be as unpleasant as their ship was good-looking — a snooty, conceited, hairy lot who talked only their own dialect and pretended to be unfamiliar with Imperial Universum.

The captain found himself getting irked by their bad manners — particularly when he discovered they were laughing over his argument with the service superintendent about the cost of repowering the Venture.

“You’re out in deep space, Captain,” said the superintendent. “And you haven’t juice enough left even to travel back to the border. You can’t expect Imperial prices here!”

“It’s not what you charged them!” The captain angrily jerked his thumb at the Sirian.

The superintendent shrugged. “Regular customers! You start coming by here every three months like they do, and we can make an arrangement with you, too.”

It was outrageous — it actually put the Venture back in the red. But there was no help for it.

Nor did it improve the captain’s temper when he muffed the take-off once more — and then had to watch the Sirian floating into space, as sedately as a swan, a little behind him.

Chapter TWO

An hour later, as he sat glumly at the controls, debating the chances of recouping his losses before returning to Nikkeldepain, Maleen and the Leewit hurriedly entered the room. They did something to a port screen.

“They sure are!” the Leewit exclaimed. She seemed childishly pleased.

“Are what?” the captain inquired absently.

“Following us,” said Maleen. She did not sound pleased. “It’s that Sirian ship, Captain Pausert!”

The captain stared bewilderedly at the screen. There was a ship in focus there. It was quite obviously the Sirian and, just as obviously, it was following them.

“What do they want?” he wondered. “They’re stinkers but they’re not pirates. Even if they were, they wouldn’t spend an hour running after a crate like the Venture.”

Maleen said nothing. The Leewit observed, “Got their bow turrets out now! Better get those nova guns ready!”

“But it’s all nonsense!” the captain said, flushing angrily. He turned towards the communicators. “What’s that Empire general beam length?”

“.00r44,” said Maleen.

A roaring, abusive voice flooded the control room immediately. The one word understandable to the captain was “Venture.” It was repeated frequently.

“Sirian,” said the captain. “Can you understand them?” he asked Maleen.

She shook her head. “The Leewit can.”

The Leewit nodded, gray eyes glistening.

“What are they saying?”

“They says you’re for stopping,” the Leewit translated rapidly, apparently retaining some of the original sentence structure. “They says you’re for skinning alive… ha! They says you’re for stopping right now and for only hanging. They says—”

Maleen scuttled from the control room. The Leewit banged the communicator with one small fist.

“Beak-Wock!” she shrilled. It sounded that way, anyway. The loud voice paused a moment.

“BEAK-Wock?” it returned in an aggrieved, startled tone.

“Beak-Wock!” the Leewit affirmed with apparent delight. She rattled off a string of similar-sounding syllables.

A howl of inarticulate wrath responded.

The captain, in a whirl of outraged emotions, was yelling at the Leewit to shut up, at the Sirian to go to Great Patham’s Second Hell — the worst — and wrestling with the nova gun adjustors at the same time. He’d had about enough! He’d -

SSS-whoosh!

It was the Sheewash Drive.

* * *

“And where are we now?” the captain inquired, in a voice of unnatural calm.

“Same place, just about,” the Leewit told him. “Ship’s still on the screen. Way back though — take them an hour again to catch up.” She seemed disappointed; then brightened. “You got lots of time to get the guns ready…”

The captain didn’t answer. He was marching down the passage towards the rear of the Venture. He passed the captain’s cabin and noted the door was shut. He went on without pausing. He was mad clean through — he knew what had happened!

After all he’d told her, Goth had teleported again.

It was all there, in the storage. Items of up to a pound in weight seemed as much as she could handle. But amazing quantities of stuff had met that one requirement — bottles filled with what might be perfume or liquor or dope, expensive-looking garments and cloths in a shining variety of colors, small boxes, odds, ends, and, of course, jewelry…

He spent half an hour getting it loaded into a steel space crate. He wheeled the crate into the big storage lock, sealed the inside lock door and pulled the switch that activated the automatic launching device.

The outer lock door slammed shut. He stalked back to the control room. The Leewit was still in charge, fiddling with the communicators.

“I could try a whistle over them,” she suggested, glancing up. She added, “But they’d bust somewheres, sure.”

“Get them on again!” the captain said.

“Yes, sir,” said the Leewit, surprised.

The roaring voice came back faintly.

“SHUT UP!” the captain shouted in Imperial Universum.

The voice shut up.

“Tell them they can pick up their stuff — it’s been dumped out in a crate,” the captain instructed the Leewit. “Tell them I’m proceeding on my course. Tell them if they follow me one light-minute beyond that crate, I’ll come back for them, shoot their front end off, shoot their rear end off, and ram ’em in the middle.”

“Yes, SIR!” the Leewit sparkled. They proceeded on their course.

Nobody followed.

“Now I want to speak to Goth,” the captain announced. He was still at a high boil. “Privately,” he added. “Back in the storage—”

Goth followed him expressionlessly into the storage. He closed the door to the passage. He’d broken off a two-foot length from the tip of one of Councilor Rapport’s overpriced tinklewood fishing poles. It made a fair switch.

But Goth looked terribly small just now! He cleared his throat. He wished for a moment he were back on Nikkeldepain.

“I warned you,” he said.

Goth didn’t move. Between one second and the next, however, she seemed to grow remarkably. Her brown eyes focused on the captain’s Adam’s apple; her lip lifted at one side. A slightly hungry look came into her face.

“Wouldn’t try that!” she murmured.

Mad again, the captain reached out quickly and got a handful of leathery cloth. There was a blur of motion, and what felt like a small explosion against his left kneecap. He grunted with anguished surprise and fell back on a