'You abrogated his command. He would not have cut the generator.'
'He forgot what he was doing. He let anger overcome him.'
'True, but Rae Acilus is a hard man, Earl, and he will not forget the slight. You shamed him before others. If the opportunity rises I suggest that you kill him before he kills you.' He added meaningfully, 'There are others who can run the ship.'
'Such as?'
'You, perhaps, my friend. And Nonach has some ability.' He turned another card. 'And I am not without talent.'
A possibility and Dumarest considered it. One successful flight would be enough-and no captain was immortal. Others had taken over command before, need replacing trained skill. As long as they could land and walk away from the wreck it would be enough.
But first, the ship had to be repaired.
Pacula looked up from where she sat at the side of the cot as Dumarest looked into Embira's cabin. The girl was asleep, twitching restlessly, one hand clenched, the other groping. He touched it and immediately she quieted.
'She's overstrained,' said Pacula accusingly. 'What did you do to her in the control room?'
'Nothing.'
'But-'
'She was performing her part,' he interrupted curtly. 'This isn't a picnic, Pacula. And she isn't made of glass to be protected. We need her talent if we hope to survive. How is Usan?'
The woman had suffered another attack and lay now on her cot. Like the girl she was asleep, but her rest was due to drugs and exhaustion. Dumarest stooped over her, touched the prominent veins in her throat, felt the clammy texture of her skin.
Pacula said, 'Is she dying?'
'We are all dying.'
'Don't play with words, Earl.' She was irritable, annoyed at having been taken from her charge. 'Will she recover?'
Already she was living on borrowed time, but her will to live dominated the weakness of her body.
Dumarest said, 'Drug her. Keep her unconscious. Worry will increase the strain she is under and-'
'If we're all to die she needn't know it.' Pacula was blunt. 'Is that it, Earl? Your brand of mercy?'
'You have a better?'
She looked into his eyes and saw what they held, the acceptance of the harsh universe in which he lived, one against which she had been protected all her life. Who was she to condemn or judge?
'You think a lot of Usan, Earl. Why? Does she remind you of your grandmother? Your mother?'
'I remember neither.'
'She saved your life with her lies. Is that it?' And then, as he made no answer, she said bleakly, 'Well, now it's up to you to save hers.'
'Not me,' he said. 'Timus Omilcar.'
The engineer was hard at work. Stripped to the waist he had head and shoulders plunged into the exposed interior of the generator. As Dumarest entered the engine room he straightened, rubbing a hand over his face, his fingers leaving thick, black smears.
'Well?'
'It could be worse.' Timus stretched, easing his back. 'You gave the order just in time. A few more seconds and the entire generator would be rubbish. As it is we're lucky. Two units gone but we saved the rest.'
Good news, but the main question had yet to be answered. Dumarest stepped to where wine rested in a rack on the bench, poured a glass, handed it to the engineer. As the man drank he said, 'Can it be repaired?'
'Given time, yes. We carry spares. Have we time?'
'We're drifting, but you know that. The girl's asleep, so there could be danger we know nothing about and could do nothing to avoid if we did. As it is space seems clear and we're safe.'
'For how long?'
Dumarest shrugged. 'Your guess is as good as mine. An hour. A day. Who can tell?'
Timus finished his wine and reached for the bottle. Dumarest made no objection, the man was fatigued, he would burn the alcohol for fuel.
'A hell of a way to end, Earl. Waiting for something to smash you to a pulp or smear you like a bug on a wall. At least that would be fast. I saw a man once, in a hospital on Jamhar. The sole survivor of a ship which had been caught in a space storm. Their field had collapsed and the vessel wrecked, but he'd been in the hold and was found.' He drank half the wine. 'He wasn't human, Earl. One arm was like a claw and his head looked like a rotten melon. They kept him alive with machines and ran endless tests. Wild tissue and degenerate cells, they said. The basic protoplasmic pattern distorted by radiation. They should have let him die.'
'So?'
'It could already have happened to us, Earl. We could end as monsters.'
'Maybe, but we aren't dead yet so why worry about it?' Dumarest filled an empty glass and lifted it in a toast. 'To life, Timus. Don't give it up before you have to.'
'No.' The engineer drew a deep breath. 'I guess I'm just tired. Well, to hell with it. I knew the risks when I joined up with this expedition.'
The man had relaxed long enough. Dumarest said, 'How long will it take to repair the generator?'
'Days, Earl. A week at least. It isn't enough just to replace the units. The generator has to be cleaned, checked, the new parts tuned-say six days not counting sleep.'
'And if I help?'
'Six days, Earl. I assumed you would be.' Timus added bleakly, 'It's too long. We can't push our luck that far. It's a bust, Earl. We haven't the time.'
But they could get it. Drugs would delay the need for sleep and slow-time would stretch minutes into hours. Timus blinked as Dumarest mentioned it.
'Now why the hell didn't I think of that? Slow-time. You have it?'
'Sufan has. You've used it before? No? Well just remember to be careful. You'll be touching things at forty times the normal speed and what you imagine to be a tap will be a blow which could shatter your hand. And keep eating. I'll lay on a supply of basic and Marek can deliver more. Get things ready-and no more wine.'
'No wine.' The engineer swallowed what was left in his glass then said meaningfully, 'How long, Earl?'
'For what?'
'You know what I'm getting at. How long are we going to look for Balhadorha? Sufan's crazy and will keep us at it until we rot I'm willing to take a chance but there has to be a limit. If it hadn't been for you we'd be as good as dead now. A thing like that alters a man's thinking. Money's fine, yes, but what good is a fortune to a dead man?'
If a fortune was to be found at all. If the Ghost World existed. If the whole adventure was something more than a crazed dream born and nurtured over the years, fed by a feverish imagination.
'We've come too far to turn back now,' said Dumarest. 'We'll keep looking. Well go to where Sufan swears the Ghost World is to be found.'
'And if it isn't?'
'Then we'll keep going.'
To the far side of the Hichen Cloud, to a new world where he wouldn't be expected, to lose himself before the Cyclan could again pick up his trail.
* * *
'Up!' said Embira. 'Up!' And then, almost immediately, 'To the left! The left!'
She sat like a coiled spring, muscles rigid beneath the soft velvet of her skin, hands clenched, blind eyes wide so that they seemed about to start from their sockets. Thin lines of fatigue marred the smooth contours of her features and her hair, in disarray, hung like a tarnished skein of gold.
Standing beside her Dumarest felt the ache and burn of overstrained muscles, the dull protest of nerve and sinew. Days had passed since the repair and he had slept little since the period of concentrated effort. Timus was in little better condition, but he had rested while Dumarest had attended the girl. She had refused to work without
