Return to Fanglith

TWENTY-FOUR

Deneen:

It was still night when we got to the island. I put the Jav down near the little stream, at about where we'd been before. A little farther from it, actually, in case a big rainstorm came along and the creek outgrew its banks.

With the power off, we'd be down to basics. And I mean basics. Most of our equipment, including kitchen and sanitary equipment, operated off ship's power, while what hand-powered tools we had were designed for working on ship systems and structure. We didn't have so much as a shovel to bury trash with or dig a latrine.

Somehow, I hadn't thought about any of this until we were on the island. Then, for a couple of minutes, I considered going back to the continent and having Tarel and Moise get us some things, but that would mean being on power again for several hours, and there was the possibility that they might get into trouble on the ground. Possibly trouble that could take days on power to handle. Unlikely, maybe, but I wasn't willing to take the risk.

Then I remembered that we had the fire starters from our packs, and the shortsword and dagger that Larn had gotten Tarel in Marseille. Plus stunners to hunt with, and Uncle Piet's survival training. And more than anything else, Bubba was with us as our super watch-canid and master hunter.

We were better off than I'd thought; it wasn't like me to get all shook up with no good reason. That's when I realized how worried and distracted I was about Larn. Which was kind of dumb, because it didn't do anyone any good-Larn or any of us.

Tarel and I looked around for anything I'd missed that might be useful and didn't require ship's power. Then I shut the power off and we all went out and slept on solid ground-more solid than I was used to.

I lay there for a while with Larn on my mind. Both in Provence and Normandy, and recently on the ship from Marseille, he'd shown a lot of ability, resourcefulness, and ingenuity, which had helped keep him alive. But an important part of it had been-let's face it-really good luck. And while luck is very good to have, I'd never felt very comfortable about relying on it. It seemed to me that you couldn't know when you'd run out of it-at least, not until it was too late.

Of course, ability has its limits too, but you at least had some idea of what those limits were. And while you couldn't measure ingenuity or resourcefulness, you knew if you had it or not. just now, Larn's abilities weren't what I could wish they were. For example, his skill with local weapons was almost nonexistent, and Arno had gotten his stunner and blaster away from him. What he had left was his ability to do the right thing at the right time-duck when he needed to. And that's where ability shaded over into luck, which he might or might not have some of at any particular time.

Or was luck another ability-a kind that people didn't usually recognize as one?

That's the kind of thing that went through my mind for a while after I lay down beside the Jav. But in half an hour or so I went to sleep anyway.

We got along through five days and five nights, and it wasn't as bad as I thought it might be-at least not for me. I may have been a little bossy at times-let's face it, I was-but someone had to be in charge, and it was my hat. On the morning of the sixth day, with everyone on board, I powered up and called for a systems check on the computer. Including a check of the fuel slugs.

It could have been worse. Crystallization was greatly reduced, but there was still more than I was willing to live with. I'd have to take her out 700,000 miles and run her in FTL mode for a while-lock her into a loop that would bring her back in-system at the same system coordinates. I told Tarel what I was going to do, and told him to explain as much of it as he could to Moise. They'd gotten to be pretty good friends on the island- buddies you could say. And Moise had learned considerable Evdashian through the learning program, although he didn't understand some of our concepts yet.

So far I'd been impressed with how calmly Moise had reacted to all the strange, and to him far out, things he'd been exposed to since I'd put the spotlight on the pirate ship. I'd wondered a time or two if it was partly because, in his world, they believed in so many supernatural things. Then, when he ran into something real that seemed supernatural, it might not be as big a shock.

Now, of course, he knew we weren't a threat to him. But it must have been really weird and scary when strange people had hauled him inside a sort of giant boat, or big steel flask, and whisked him into the sky.

As Tarel started explaining, I headed us outbound and then called the maintenance manual into memory. The entry on fuel crystallization referred to a number of library entries, and now that I had time, it seemed to me I ought to read them. The third one I came to was the one I needed to see. One sequence of events that could lead to crystallization was rare, but it fitted all too well what had happened to the Jav.

"Prolonged impacts by heavy blaster charges on a ship's energy shield," it said, "can result in weak magnetization of the power transfer system. Subsequent use of the weapons system, with its translation of the gray force into pulse mode, will initiate crystallization in the fuel slugs."

I had no idea what that meant, but for the moment, I kept reading, hopeful that I wasn't getting into mental quicksand.

"Once crystallization is initiated," it went on, "subsequent low-intensity power use, as in mass-proximity mode, and the resulting resistance to normal matrix function, causes feedback to the fuel slugs, extending crystallization rapidly, "When fuel crystallization occurs, do the following: I avoid using the ship's weapons system until the power transfer module has been changed; 2. decrystallize the fuel slugs; and 3. change the power transfer module."

It fitted. The Jav's energy shield had taken a lot of blaster charges before we'd lifted from Evdash. And I'd discovered serious fuel cell crystallization within twenty standard hours of demonstrating the scout's weapons system for Arno.

Well, I told myself, I know what to do about it now. Fingers on the keyboard, I called up parts storage and asked for a new power transfer module. It replied that power transfer modules were not part of standard parts stock on scouts. That was followed by a list of places where I could get one-any of the three Evdashian naval stations.

I muttered an expression that mom and dad wouldn't approve of.

From there I skimmed on through the rest of the articles, looking for information that might be helpful. There wasn't any. But it seemed obvious that I'd better not use the weapons system again, and in trying to establish a political and military power base on Fanglith, that would be a serious disadvantage.

"Tarel!" I called.

"What is it?" he asked, coming over. I brought the third article back to the screen-the article that explained what had happened. He read it over my shoulder.

"And there isn't any replacement module," I told him. "Any suggestions?"

"We've got hand weapons," he said. "Including blast rifles. Maybe they'll be enough, along with our speed and communicators."

"I guess they'll have to be," I answered. But I didn't feel very good about it. We couldn't have too many advantages, and we'd lost a big one. At 700,000 miles I shifted into FTL mode on a ten-hour loop, and before we returned to mass-proximity mode, all residual crystallization was gone. Back at Fanglith I parked above the north shore of Sicily at an altitude of fifty miles. The scanner located the biggest town there, a good-sized city even by Evdashian standards. Palermo was where Larn should be. From where I sat, the moon stood well above the horizon-high enough that its light paled the island. I turned on the radio receiver, checked the communicator channel, and touched the send switch.

"Larn," I said, "this is Rebel Jave-lin. Larn, this is Rebel Javelin. Over,"

He didn't answer. He doesn't have his remote on, I told myself. That's all. It didn't reassure me a bit. Why didn't he have his remote on? It was controlled with a switch on his communicator, and the last I knew, Arno had the communicator. The likeliest explanation I could think of for the remote being off was that Arno had turned it off-whether by accident, or because he'd learned about it.

"Bubba!" I called. He came over to me, meeting my eyes. "I'm going to drop low over Palermo," I told him, speaking out loud. "When we get there, I want you to scan around and find Larn. I can't get him on the radio."

He nodded like a human might, and of course he read the concern in my mind. I already had a scanner view of northern Sicily, and asked the computer for a coordinate overlay, to get the coordinates of Palermo. Then, using voice mode, I ordered the scout to park above Palermo at an elevation of five miles. We headed for it.