The Coming Event

Moira was helpless before the impact of interstellar forces; the shifts and eddies of spatial disturbances which eroded planetoids, disintegrated the detritus of broken worlds, turned hapless vessels into things of abstract sculpture.

Before him the ruby light blazed with a new, eye-searing intensity and looking at it Dumarest knew what it had to be.

A radio beacon.

Something in space was calling for help.

'It's a ship! Earl! It's a ship!' Ysanne leaned close, previous animosity long forgotten in the excitement of the chase, eyes glistening with reflected light as she stared at the shape swelling larger in the screens. 'Slow down, Earl! Slower!'

The shape steadied as he obeyed, seeming to move as the Moira came to relative rest. A craft after the general pattern of their own, the hull blotched with markings.

'The Galya,' said Craig as he joined them in the control room. 'Small, maybe a private, adapted to carry extra cargo.' He read the symbols and design with practiced ease. 'Not drifting for long by the look of her. There'd be more attrition of the plates if she had. Any idea as to where she's from?'

'No.' There had been no answer to their signals. Dumarest added, 'We'd best try direct laser contact. That beacon's automatic and the normal radio could be broken. Ten minutes, Jed?'

It took fifteen before Dumarest, suited, saw the hatch open and the Galya framed in the aperture. He lifted the communication-laser in gloved hands, aimed, fired the beam and spoke into the connected microphone.

'Calling the Galya. Moira calling the Galya. We picked up your signal. Answer if you can.'

He received vibrations carried as electronic pulses by the beam of the laser, impinging on the hull and being translated back into vibration. These harmonics repeated his voice within the ship's structure.

'Answer if you can. Flash a light. Show a signal. Respond. Respond!'

Again the wait, the silence.

'Dead,' said Craig. 'They must all be dead.'

Lying stark and withered or too ill to move. Starved or dehydrated, listening to the voice of rescue but unable to make the one sign which would bring it in time. Not, perhaps, even recognizing his voice for what it was.

An emergency radio beacon was the last, desperate effort anyone stranded in space could make. The odds against it being picked up were astronomical. The chance that, even if it was received, a ship would break its journey to make a tedious search was almost as slim. Only the hope of a reward would encourage anyone to try.

'Salvage,' muttered Craig. 'The kind a man dreams about. All out there for the taking-and we've no way to get it to a market. What do we do, Earl?'

'Go and investigate,' said Dumarest. 'But I'll go alone.'

He heard a keening as he crossed the gap between the ships; a thin, wailing echo which lifted to fade and die as if a crying child had been suddenly snatched far distant at high velocity. The sound seemed to originate within his brain, created by electronic impulses from surging particles of radiation, riding a spatial wind or circling and gaining momentum as they spun in the magnetic flux which could swell to become the heart of a vortex or the twisting complex of a warp.

A danger sign he ignored as the Galya grew large before him.

The hull slapped against his boots and he swayed before inching over the rounded plates to where the lock rested toward the rear. It was sealed but there was an emergency trip on which he rested his hand.

To Ysanne he said, 'Anything?'

'Nothing, Earl. It's still as dead as before.' Her tone carried a note of anxiety. 'The instruments register a growing nexus of undisciplined energy. We're close to a decaying vortex and there could be a transference of energy potential. If so there could be a danger of a local storm.'

'Remote or immediate?'

'You've got time,' she said. 'But don't waste any. Be careful-I want you back.'

The trip moved beneath his hand and the lock gaped open. Releasing his safety line he jammed it against the hull, the gekko-pad holding it fast. Inside the lock he paused for a moment then thumbed the mechanism. Rotated inside he stepped from the lock into the hold of the vessel.

It was as he had expected, matching the holds of a hundred other vessels he had known. A compartment half-filled with bales, some sacs lying to one side, the caskets designed for the transportation of beasts lined up beneath a cold, blue-white glow. The normal appearance of any trader working on a slender margin. The handler probably doubled as steward, there would be only one engineer, one navigator, a captain and his second in command. Even if, as Craig had suggested, the Gayla was a private vessel, there would be no more.

Dumarest moved toward the engine room, opened the door and stared at a scene of devastation. The generator was ruined, nothing but a seared and fused mass of metal resting where it had been. To one side the burned body of a man lay in a pool of congealed blood, the fluid dried to a brown hardness. The blast which had caught him had seared his upper torso, turning his head into a knob of ash, his chest into a blackened crust through which showed the yellow of bare bone. His hands were gone, his arms past the elbows, and Dumarest guessed he had been leaning over the generator, touching it, when it had blown.

From the lower regions a corridor ran between cabins to the salon and control area. Light shone with a steady luminescence from plates set in the ceiling and dust reflected it in misty shimmers. A sure sign of air but Dumarest made no effort to open his helmet. The air could be breathable but contaminated.

A cabin door opened beneath the pressure of his hand and he saw an unmade bunk, some scattered clothing, a bottle lying on its side, a scatter of small, blue pills. The pillow carried long, dark hairs, and a woman's cosmetic kit rested on a shelf. Another held some toys, a heap of small garments, the portrait of a girl with wide eyes who clutched a furry pet.

In the third waited madness.

Dumarest saw the flicker of motion and threw himself backwards as steel whined through the air where he had stood. A long, curved blade shimmered like a mirror bathed in light, flashing as it sliced toward him, missing as he dodged, making a dull, flat sound as it bit deep into the edge of the door.

Bit and stuck as the man who wielded it screamed in maniacal fury.

He was tall, skeleton-thin, wearing soiled but ornate robes. His hair hung in a shoulder-length tangle from a peaked skull and his mouth, open, revealed filed teeth set with gems. The eyes were red, crusted, blotched with yellow.

His face belonged to a creature from delirium.

The flesh had left the contours of the bone and taken on a shape of its own, hanging in pendulous drippings and puffed protrusions as if the face had been made of wax and exposed to the softening influence of a fire. Or of a soft plastic bathed in the vapors of a corrosive acid.

'No!' he screamed. 'You will not take me! The transformation is not yet complete. I will not yield to demons of torment. Die! Die!'

The sword came ripping from the door to lift and slash as Dumarest turned and ran down the corridor back to the hold. Hampered by his suit, restricted by the confines of the cabin and corridor, faced by a creature with insane strength and a sword which could slash through metal, he needed space in which to defend himself.

He reached in just in time, diving sideways as the blade whined through air, moving, searching for a weapon, seeing a pile of metal rods stacked beside a case together with the familiar bulk of an extinguisher.

Dumarest reached it as curved steel slashed a long opening in his suit, lifting it as the blade rose for another cut, ducked behind a case as it came down. A moment gained in which he slammed his head against the control and raised the extinguisher in time to block a slash which would have taken the head from his shoulders.

Foam spouted from the nozzle, caught the tormented face, the red, glaring eyes. Filled the mouth with its substance and coated arms and torso with clinging whiteness. The foam robbed the air of oxygen and sent the swordsman to his knees, blade falling, hands lifting as he fought to clear his mouth. The fight ended as the assailant slumped, sprawling, in the unmistakable posture of death.