Jack of Swords

for a legendary world?'

A facile explanation and, Dumarest hoped, a true one. But from a man who courted danger?

A matter of degree, he decided. The risk of betrayal was nothing against the perils that waited for them in the Hichen Cloud.

Chapter Ten

The first shock came ten days later, a jerk as if the vessel had been struck by a giant hand, and as the alarms shrilled Dumarest ran to the control room. The girl was already at her station, sitting in a chair behind the one occupied by Rae Acilus.

The captain was curt. 'There is no place for you here, Earl.'

'I want him to stay.' Embira reached out and took his hand, groping until he placed his fingers within her own. 'Earl, you stay with me?'

'I'll stay.'

'Then don't interfere.' Acilus's voice was the rap of a martinet. 'I've enough to think about as it is. Jarv?'

The navigator was at his post, Sufan Noyoka at his side. On all sides massed instruments hummed and flashed in quiet efficiency; electronic probes and sensors scanning the void, a computer correlating the assembled information, mechanical brains, eyes and fingers which alone could guide the vessel on its path from star to star.

Again the ship jerked, warning bells ringing, the alarms dying as the captain hit a switch. An impatient gesture born of necessity-within the Cloud the alarms would be constant.

Dumarest stared at the picture depicted on the screens.

He had been in dust clouds before, riding traders risking destruction for the sake of profit, and had no illusions as to the dangers they faced. The space ahead, filled with broken atoms and minute particles of matter was an electronic maelstrom. Opposed charges, building, wrenched the very fabric of the continuum and altered the normal laws of space and time. Only by delicate questing and following relatively safe paths could a vessel hope to survive and always was the danger of shifting nodes of elemental force, which could turn a ship into molten ruin, rip it, turn it inside out, crush it so as to leave the crew little more than crimson smears.

And the Mayna was going too fast. Sufan had placed too much faith in the girl's ability.

'Up!' she said. 'Quickly!'

Ahead space looked normal, the instruments registering nothing but a dense magnetic field, but the forces which affected the registers could affect human brains so eyes saw other than reality.

'Obey!' snapped Sufan as the captain hesitated. 'Follow Embira's instructions at all times without hesitation.'

The ship sang as, too late, the captain moved his controls. A thin, high-pitched ringing which climbed to the upper limit of audibility and beyond. Dumarest felt the pain at his ears, saw ruby glitters sparkle from the telltales, then it was over as they brushed the edge of the danger.

Opposing currents which had vibrated the hull as if it had been a membrane shaken by a wind. Yet, around them, space seemed clear.

'Left,' she said and then quickly, 'and down!'

This time Acilus obeyed without delay.

Dumarest said, 'What route are we following?'

As yet Sufan had been mysterious, conferring with Jarv Nonach and Marek Cognez alone, making computations and avoiding questions. Hugging the secret of his discovery as if it were a precious gem. But now Dumarest wanted answers.

'Tell me, Sufan. How do we find Balhadorha?'

'We must reach the heart of the Cloud,' said the man reluctantly. 'There are three suns in close proximity and the Ghost World should be at the common point between them.'

'Should be?'

'Will be?' Sufan blazed his impatience. 'For years I have devoted my life to this matter. Trust me, Earl. I know what I'm doing.' He stared at the paper in his hand, muttering to the navigator, then said, 'Captain, you are off course. The correct path lies fifteen degrees to the left and three upward. There will be a star. Approach it to within fifteen units then take course…'

Dumarest glanced at the girl as the man rattled a stream of figures. She was sitting, tense, her blind eyes gleaming in the subdued lighting. Her fingers, gripping his own, were tight.

'Earl?'

'I'm here, Embira. You know that. You can feel my hand.'

'Your hand!' She lifted it to her cheek and held it hard against the warm velvet of her skin. 'It's hard to krang you, Earl. The auras are so bright and there are so many of them. Hold me! Never let me go!'

A woman afraid and with good reason. For her normal matter did not exist, it was an obstruction, unseen, known only by touch. Instead there was a mass of lambent glows and, perhaps, shifting colors. Now she sat naked among them, conscious of lethal forces all around, denied even the comfort of the solid appearance of the protective hull. The metal, to her, would be a haze shot with streamers of probing energy, startling, hurting, the cause of fear and terror.

'The left!' she said abruptly. 'No, the right, quickly. Quickly. Now up! Up!'

Her voice held confusion, one which grew as the hours dragged past and, beneath his hand, Dumarest could feel her mounting tension.

He said, 'The girl must have rest.'

Acilus turned, snarling, 'Earl, damn you, I warned you not to interfere!'

'This is madness. The instruments are confused and we're practically traveling blind.'

'The girl-'

'Is only human and can think only at human speed. She's tired and has no chance to assess what she discovers. We're deep in the Cloud now. Slow down and give her a chance to rest.'

'And if I don't?'

'It's my life as well as yours, Captain.' Dumarest met the hooded eyes, saw the hands clench into fists as they left the controls. 'Maintain control!' he rapped. 'Acilus, you fool!'

Embira screamed. 'Turn! Turn to the right! Turn!'

Again no danger was visible or registered in the massed instruments but as the ship obeyed the delayed action of the captain, telltales blazed in a ruby glow, the vessel itself seeming to change, to become a profusion of crystalline facets, familiar objects distorted by the energies affecting the sensory apparatus of the brain. A time in which they had only the guide of the girl's voice calling directions.

One in which the air shook to the sudden screaming roar from the engine room, Timus's voice yelling over the intercom.

'The generator! It's going!'

'Cut it!' shouted Dumarest. 'Cut it!'

The ship jarred as the order was obeyed, the normal appearance returning as the field died. Slumped in her chair the girl shuddered, her free hand groping, tears streaming down her cheeks.

'The pain,' she whispered. 'Earl, the pain!'

'It's all right,' he soothed. 'It's over.'

'Earl!'

He pressed her hands, soothing with his presence, his face grim as he looked at the screens. The field was down, they were drifting in the Cloud and, if the generator was ruined, they were as good as dead.

* * *

Marek sat in the salon, outwardly calm, only the slight tremor of his hands as he toyed with a deck of cards revealing his inner tension.

'So we gamble, Earl, hoping that we escape danger while we drift.' He turned a card and pursed his lips. 'The captain is not happy.'

'To hell with him.'