'I'm serious.'
'So am I.' Her gesture embraced the instruments, the almanacs and navigational tables, the charts. 'Facts, Earl. I have to deal in facts and they are against us. We aren't free agents. That damned generator makes us prisoners of the equations and we can only go so far. So which is it to be? Millett or Emney?'
The decision was reached through fatigue but absolved her of further strain. Now the burden was his and she could rest and close her eyes and remember the touch of cool winds on her face and hair as she ran over rolling plains to where the fires of the evening meeting already shone like ruby stars beneath their thin columns of smoke.
That moment of illusory comfort was lost as he said, harshly, 'You're falling down on the job. You boasted you were the best navigator in space but this is a hell of a way to prove it. Maybe I should ask Craig to take over.'
Her eyes opened, flaring with the anger he'd deliberately aroused; rage washed her brain clear of dulling fatigue even as it thinned her lips.
'Earl! You-'
'Think again,' he snapped, giving her no time to protest. 'And stop trying to play it safe. Drift, you said, well, why not? Maybe we could use a force-current or magnetic flow to help stretch the fuel. Damn it, woman, use your imagination!'
She said tightly, 'Pendance was a bastard-don't try to be a bigger one.'
'Or?' He saw the movement of her hand and caught her wrist as her fingers touched the bright metal of her buckle. 'You'll kill me, is that it?' He gripped the metal and pulled and looked at the blade which shone in his hand. Short, with a double-edge and a wicked point. A stabbing blade with the buckle acting as a grip. 'Have you ever used this?'
'You want a demonstration?'
Dumarest shook his head and slid the blade back into the belt. Rising, he stepped back and away from the woman, watchful, ready to act if her rage overpowered her. She sat where he had left her, seething, fighting for control. A wrong word and, like the innate savage she was, she would explode into a mindless, berserker fury.
At the door he said, 'Get back to work. Use that skill you boasted of. Forget those worlds you mentioned and find alternatives. And do it soon!'
'Go to hell!'
'Do it!' She recoiled as he stepped toward her, his face a mask of barbaric cruelty as ugly as his voice. 'Do it or, by God, you'll learn what a real bastard can be!'
Outside he strode down the corridor, fighting to control the anger which had started as pretense and edged into the real. Too much depended on the woman for him to be gentle. Strong herself she respected only a greater strength; a trait which could have drawn her to Pendance mistaking the slaver's viciousness for the attribute she admired.
Reaching the captain's cabin Dumarest entered and looked around, seeing the whips, the electronic scourges, the mementos of his career. The cabinet held ornate finery and a box of assorted rings and gems of price. Spoils he could use as he could the bottle of rare brandy and the vials of stimulating drugs. Opening the spirit, he added the contents of a vial, shook the mixture and went in search of the engineer.
Craig was lying asleep on the cot he kept in the engine room, lost in a nightmare in which he lay at the edge of a turbulent sea wreathed in hampering weed and with crabs tearing at his face. Cruel pincers ripped and stung and shed his blood to be lapped by slimed things which reared from the sand.
Looking down at him Dumarest saw the restless twitching of the eyeballs beneath their lids. Sweat dewed the scarred face and edged the spikes of hair. Lines had dug their way into the corners of the eyes and the expanse of the forehead, betraying marks of age as was the flaccid skin beneath the jaw, the mottled blotches marring the hands. The man was too old to hope for a better berth, content to ride with slavers, to be treated like a dog. He needed a carrot as Ysanne needed a whip.
He shuddered awake as Dumarest touched his shoulder.
'God! I thought-God!' Sleeping while on duty, taken unawares-what would Pendance have done? Then he saw the tall figure standing at his side with the bottle in his hand. 'I dropped off,' he said quickly. 'Just to take a short nap. The instruments were beginning to blur.'
Excuses Dumarest didn't need. He said, gently, 'You needed a rest, Jed, and were wise enough to take it. A tired brain can make mistakes and you're the only engineer around. Like a drink?' He lifted the bottle. 'Mind sharing the neck?'
Craig shook his head, rising to stand beside Dumarest as he tilted the bottle, neck to his mouth, throat working as he pretended to drink.
'Here!'
'Thanks!' Craig's own drink was real and he felt the warm comfort of the alcohol as it hit his stomach, the stimulation of the drugs it contained which banished his nagging fatigue. 'We got a destination yet?'
'Ysanne's working on it.'
'A smart girl. The kind I could have gone for if I were younger and had the kind of face a woman could bear to look at. It was never good but Pendance made it worse. Well, the bastard got what was coming.'
Dumarest said, 'Those scars can be fixed.'
'Sure. With money.'
'You'll get money. We'll all get it. A fortune.' Dumarest held out the bottle. 'Have another drink.'
Craig nodded his thanks and swallowed and said, 'You understand, Earl. You've known what it is to be short and stranded and glad to take anything as long as you can eat I'm a good engineer. I can strip and assemble a generator, tune it too, there's not many can do that without the right equipment.'
'I believe you,' said Dumarest. 'I guess we're lucky to have you. Ysanne and I, that is. Our lives are in your hands. Think we can make it?'
'I wish I knew.' Craig gestured to the console, the instruments it carried. 'The synch-variation is getting wilder and I don't know how much longer it will stay within tolerance. It could strike a balance, but if it doesn't and the generator goes-' He broke off, shrugging. 'I guess you know what'll happen then.'
The Erhaft field would collapse to leave the
Dumarest said, 'I expect you've thought of fixing a monitor to cut the field if the variation gets too far out of line?'
'I was about to do that.'
'Good. One with a mutual override? How long will it take?'
'Not long. It's mostly a matter of registers and cut-outs. Say a couple of hours. I'll have to cut the drive to do it though. When do you want me to start?'
'As soon as you're ready. Can you manage on your own?'
'Sure, but you could leave me the bottle.'
Dumarest lifted it, checking the contents. More and the engineer would have had too much. 'Later,' he said. 'I'll save it until you've finished.'
Back in the control room Dumarest took his place in the big chair, letting his head fall back against the padding, looking at the screens with their patterns of stars, the instruments, the glowing telltales. As normal the room was in gloom, the lights bright, hypnotic in their shifting flickers.
Captains rarely stood watch alone. Usually there was someone with them, the second in command, the chief engineer, the navigator, a junior officer. A human presence to ease the strain of concentration as well as to provide a second pair of eyes and a brain to monitor the messages the instruments delivered.
To be alone was to be enclosed in a surrogate womb, warm, comfortable, isolated, entranced by endless vistas of space.
'Earl!' Dumarest jerked as Craig's voice came from the intercom. He had been drifting on the edge of sleep, bemused by the lights, the repetitive pulse of a glaring ruby eye on a piece of unfamiliar apparatus. 'Ready to cut drive now.'
'A moment.' Dumarest checked the systems and found no trace of ethereal danger. 'Go ahead.'
A moment later the stars flickered as the instruments flared. An alarm sounded, dying as he touched a control, lights shifting as the ship's systems adjusted to the new conditions. Now the
