The Coming Event

CHAPTER TEN

The hold was silent save for the gushing whisper of air from his tanks, Ysanne's voice echoing urgently from the speakers.

'Earl! Earl, answer me! Is anything wrong? I heard odd noises. Earl!'

'Nothing's wrong.' She had caught the sounds of combat carried via the diaphragms. He hurried on before she could demand explanations. 'Everything's under control here. Can you move the Moira to make direct contact?'

'Maybe, but it wouldn't be wise. That storm I mentioned is building up into something serious. Direct contact means we increase our united mass and invite energy condensation.'

'Do what you can. I want things easy for transfer.'

'People? Goods?' A pause, then, 'How's the generator?'

He left that question unanswered as he doffed the suit. Slashed, it was useless and if the air was contaminated he had already been exposed. Drawing his knife he stepped to where the swordsman lay sprawled and kicked aside the fallen blade. Thirty inches of polished steel, curved like the stamen of a flower, the hilt a continuation of the blade, made of wood elaborately carved. The guard was small, ornate, and from the pommel hung a tassel of yellow silk.

A weapon favored by the Akita of Sardo-had the Galya come from there?

Dumarest rested his left foot on the man's right wrist and, stopping over the figure, used the point of his knife to open an artery. The blood barely welled from the shallow gash, lying dark and turgid in the wound. A sure sign of death; that was a precaution, as had been his silence as to the condition of the generator. If Ysanne knew it had blown and was useless she might be tempted to leave him and run-take the Moira to a close world, sell it and live soft on the proceeds. Twice as soft if Craig was disposed of.

'Earl!' Her voice called from the speakers of the discarded helmet. 'Earl, answer me, damn you! Earl!'

The voice faded as he made his way back up the corridor, ears strained, body alert, and he halted to lean against a door. This cabin was empty but showed signs of hasty evacuation; clothing scattered, some rings and vials of perfume lying on the floor. One had broken and the air held the memory of a cloying scent.

In the next cabin he entered lay the body of a man.

He was dressed like the swordsman in an ornate robe, the condition immaculate, the long hair braided and wound in a topknot pierced with a spine of polished wood. His thin hands rested on his chest, the fingers gripping a sword which was the twin to the other. Cosmetics had turned his face into a snarling mask of bestial fury, but beneath the paint it was unravaged.

Next to him, on a small table, rested an empty glass containing the dregs of wine and a locket graced with a familiar symbol. Dumarest looked at the grinning skull, at the glass, then at the dead man. Suicide, but the painted face showed it was not chosen because of any personal sense of disgrace. The man had armed himself, painted himself for war-and had died to combat enemies untouchable on a physical plane.

The rest of the cabins were deserted or locked as was the salon, the control rooms. Dumarest returned to the hold and picked up one of the metal bars. Back at the salon he rammed it between the door and the jamb, heaved, stepped back as it yielded.

At the table sat a ring of statues.

Men and women frozen in the midst of a game, cards in their fingers, chips scattered on the baize. An old woman, gems on her gnarled fingers, cosmetics on her raddled cheeks. A younger woman at her side, hard-faced, hair cropped, dressed in a quilted tunic, pants, calf-high boots. Two others who could have been attendants. A man who had the appearance of a trader. Another who wore the robe of a monk.

The monk sat at the end of the table, cowl thrown back to reveal a face thin but not austere, as if he had seen too much of the harsh side of life; the poverty and deprivation, the disease, the hunger, the despair which stalked all worlds like a corroding miasma. A man who believed in a simple credo and was dedicated to a life of personal sacrifice, he wore no gems; ornaments could buy food for the hungry. He had no pride; that was a luxury beggars could not afford. He had nothing but the conviction that, one day, when all men could look at each other and say, 'There, but for the grace of God, go I!' the millennium would have arrived.

He would never live to see it; men bred too fast and spread too quickly, but he would continue to do what he could to ease suffering where he found it. He and his fellows formed the Church of Universal Brotherhood.

Neither he nor the others had looked up when Dumarest had broken open the door. Lost in the magic of quick time, their metabolism slowed to far below normal, they had barely registered the incident. For them normal minutes were but seconds and before they could even see him he had gone.

At the control room Dumarest lifted the bar then, pausing, again tried the door. This time it swung open and he looked into the dim interior lit with the glow of signal lights, the blaze of stars from the screens.

In one of them the Moira loomed close, Ysanne's voice coming from a speaker, edged with sharp impatience.

'Respond, damn you! Calling the Galya! Calling the Galya! Signal if you can hear! Respond!'

Dumarest moved forward and touched a button. 'All right, Ysanne, contact established.'

'Earl! What-'

'Have Craig come over with a spare suit to collect what he needs.' Alone she could never handle the Moira. 'I'm in the control room with the captain.' Dumarest looked inquiringly at the figure seated in the big chair. 'Captain Andre Batrun. We're about to discuss terms of rescue.'

Batrun was old, his face lined, his hair a neat crop of silver. He had spent his life in the cold reaches between the stars and now, ripe with experience, faced total ruin.

'Life,' he mused. 'What is it worth? Without it you have nothing, so, therefore, it must be worth all you possess.'

He found this philosophy less than comforting and he took a pinch of snuff from an ornate box and dusted a few grains of the brown powder from his impeccable uniform. Watching him, Dumarest could guess his thoughts.

'Let's talk of salvage,' he said. 'Your generator is ruined and without it the Galya is useless. Which leaves your cargo and whatever else can be transferred.'

'Agreed.' Batrun made a small gesture. 'I am not a man to expect another to burn atoms, break his journey and take risks for nothing. But I carry passengers and some of the cargo is theirs.'

To be forfeited with all else they possessed if Dumarest insisted and they hoped for rescue. These details could be settled later; now he was curious as to what had happened.

'Madness,' said Batrun. 'Bad luck and, from what happened, sabotage. I'm carrying the Matriarch Su Posta and her party to Jourdan and we had trouble from the beginning. My handler fell sick with an infection which affected his brain and he ran amok. Three died before he could be restrained; then he broke free and headed for the generator. God knows what he intended but, apparently, he tried to open the casing and it blew.' He nodded as he saw Dumarest's frown. 'I agree. It shouldn't have done that and the only explanation I can think of is that it was booby-trapped in some way, perhaps with a device coupled to a timer which would have done the same job. He anticipated it, that's all.'

'And?'

'What can you do when your ship is drifting?' Batrun took a pinch of snuff. 'Each make their own arrangements.'

Some to die quick and clean by their own hand. Others to settle into a routine, facing extinction as all creatures faced it-the only real difference being the sharpened awareness of time.

'The Akita?'

'A part of the matriarch's retinue. Bodyguards. The one who attacked you had been caught in the fringe of the blast when the generator went.'

His flesh reacting to wild radiations, swelling in grotesque cancerous growths, the brain itself distorted to fill the universe with inimical foes.

Dumarest said, 'He thought he was being transformed into something wonderful. Well, now, maybe he is. Have you men to help with the transfer?'

'The steward and second engineer. The matriarch might let you use some of her people.'