The Wizard of Karres

CHAPTER 35

Even spending money like water, it took three days to get the "Evening Bird" ready for space again. The captain was nervous every minute of that time, because he knew that the amount of money they were spending was sure to get someone from the ISS interested, before too long.

So, the minute the preflight checks were done, Pausert lifted the Venture. As if to make up for his brilliant landing on jury-rigged controls and with a mere three battered tubes, the takeoff was one of his worst. Still, they were space-borne before the authorities figured out just who had been spending rivers of money on little Porlumma. There were going to be some red faces if they ever they found out that they'd put in new engines for the infamous Captain Pausert, whose vid still graced Porlumma customs control offices. Still, in fairness, they could say that Captain Aron from far-off Mulm had looked nothing like the vid-picture. The stern-visaged, planar-faced Aron bore no resemblance at all to the images of the cheerful criminal Pausert.

"Right," said the captain to his two witches. "The time has come to show me how to work the Sheewash Drive. I feel I'm ready."

"Huh. Otherwise we'll have to hit you over the head or something," said the Leewit, cheekily. "I'm not going to do it with you dragging us back like a big rock, again, that's for sure."

"Only if you promise me you'll stick to the pattern exactly this time, Captain," said Goth sternly.

So Goth and Leewit talked the captain through the pattern. As it was developing, the captain thought he saw where it could be done differently. But this time he stuck exactly to the pattern as Goth and the Leewit presented it.

They kept it up for a mere fifteen seconds. The captain was sweating and beginning to feel as if the entire weight of the Venture was pressing onto his shoulders, when Goth said "Enough."

"Whew," said the captain. "It sure does take it out of you."

"Uh-huh. Come on. Let's eat."

They walked through to the mess. The captain found that Hantis had had the forethought to order the new electric butler to make them a substantial lunch. It was more reliable than the old electric butler, but he'd gotten used to the way the old one used to burn the eggs. "How did I do?" he asked.

"We did pretty good," said the Leewit, talking with her mouth half-full.

Goth swallowed and started loading up another huge forkful. She looked sideways at him with those big brown eyes. "Told you the captain is a hot witch."

Captain Pausert concentrated on adding food to a stomach that was telling him he'd been starving for a while. After he'd got to his third plateful he said, "You know, when we were doing the klatha pattern—the part where we sort of plait those strands of light—I thought, well, if we . . ."

Both witches started to giggle. In the Leewit's case, as she had a mouthful of juice, the captain had to pat her on the back while Goth fetched a pile of napkins. "Told you so," said Goth to the Leewit.

"Good thing you didn't try it," said the Leewit sternly.

The captain held up his hands. "But it felt like it would work. And I have worked out new klatha stuff that did."

Goth grinned at the Leewit. "Like our Egger trip."

"Or those clumping cocoon shields," said the Leewit, snorting. "Toll was so right, Goth."

The captain began to feel more than a little irritated. Sure, they'd had some misadventures here and there, but he didn't have a guiding pattern in his head. "I worked out how to do klatha hooks and the vatch-handling all by myself. And the cocoon shields might have been awkward to get you out of, but they worked. They worked pretty well."

"Oh, they work all right, Captain. Except," Goth scowled, "when you leave me behind and attack hundreds of Sprites on your own. They just don't work the same way that most of the witches of Karres do things. That's what Toll said when Maleen suggested you'd need a pattern to teach you. She said you were better off learning to do them on your own and maybe seeing them in new ways. So Maleen and some of the other premotes did some work on it. Came out they agreed with Toll. Came out they thought we wouldn't survive if you were taught. So we've had to let you blunder along. Sometimes I wondered if we would survive because you weren't trained. But it seems like you're pretty lucky so far, Captain. It's hair-raising, though."

"But don't do any more 'sperimetal twists while we're linked," said the Leewit, shaking her finger at him.

The captain smiled at her. "Ex-pe-ri-men-tal. Not even little ones?"

"No," both of them said firmly.

It was somehow comforting to discover that Karres had not just turned him loose untrained without consideration of the matter. He could see the point, to some extent. A schooled witch would tend to approach things in the way in which they had been taught. Coming at it cold, he had a rather different perspective, and had come up with different but effective answers, even if some of them had been rather hair-raising.

Just that little burst of the three of them working together at the Sheewash Drive had shortened their journey by several weeks. The captain had added considerable power to the drive, as they saw when they picked up beacons on the communicator. The journey from Porlumma to the Imperial Capital would now take four days instead of nearly three weeks.

The trip wasn't entirely peaceful, though. The captain was awakened from his sleep by an intercom call from Goth. "Captain. You'd better get here, quick." She was laughing as she said it, but the Leewit was yelling in the background so he had a pretty good idea what the problem was.

He was quite right. It was Silver-eyes, who was, as usual, tormenting the Leewit. The little vatch gave up the moment the captain arrived and buzzed affectionately around him. Hello, Big Dream Thing. Ooh, did you ever give that big bully a hiding! Can I bring some more big ones? They're scared of you.

The thought was enough to make the captain shudder. Some vatches, like Silver-eyes itself, couldn't be handled. The next big one might be the same—only much more powerful. Not right now. I don't want to frighten them all off.

That seemed to amuse the little vatch. Guess so. That last big one is making a lot of noise about it. The others are mostly laughing, though.

There are a lot of others? Pausert felt weak at the thought.

Oh, sure. Little ones like me, lots and lots. Not so many big ones. But I'll be a big one too, some day. You wait and see! I'm already a little bigger now from eating that dream-candy.

Having seen the Nanites from a vatch perspective, the captain thought that he knew what Silver-eyes was talking about. Lots of it? Inside dream-people?

Yep. But they're dream-not-people. They're not there. Just the candy is. It sorts of thinks together to be a pretend-dream-people.

The vatch, obviously getting bored with all this conversation, went back to tormenting the Leewit. In the interests of peace, tranquility, and the noise levels in deep space, the captain had to tickle the vatch with klatha hooks to get it to go away.

* * *

When they entered the area around the capital planet, Pausert discovered that the new drive fitted on Porlumma had one other serious advantage: The signature of this engine was quite unlike the one that the ISS was hunting for. They passed unmolested through the cordon and went peacefully onward towards the great spaceport at the Empire's heart.

"What's the program, Hantis?" the captain asked, as they drifted in to land along with the thousands and thousands of other ships that were here for the Empire's biggest annual event.

The Sprite made a face. "The witches have cooperated for some time with Hailie. But the Empress is in quite a precarious position, as you know. Something like open contact with the witches of Karres could be the final straw to give her enemies the leverage to insist that she step down. Her stepson would jump at the opportunity. So the contacts are very secret. We have a rendezvous point at the Nenbutal Grill—it's an eatery on the portside of town. I give a certain password, and things will be taken from there."

"Hmm." The captain rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I think we'd better all go along with you."

"An escort will be welcome. We can pretend to be a mere party of diners."

So, once the ship had docked and port formalities and customs had been dealt with, the entire crew of the Venture with her special passengers took a cab into the town, heading for the Nenbutal Grill. Pausert was relieved to think that his responsibilities were almost over. It had been a tougher mission than he'd anticipated when he'd cheerfully taken it on, back on Emris. But it was finally nearing completion.

However, when they stepped out of the cab into the cold evening air, Pul took a deep sniff of the warm steamy aromas coming out of the half-timbered restaurant and suddenly evinced a desire to visit a lamp-post further up the street. Hantis followed him, holding his leash.

Hantis came back a few moments later, trailing the stocky yellow grik-dog. "My dear Captain," she said, coolly, "I'm really not feeling at all well, and the smell of that Nenbutal food has quite put me off. I don't believe I'll dine after all. Will you call me another cab to take me back to my hotel?"

Captain Pausert fumbled for words. "Ah. Certainly ma'am. I think we'll accompany you. To tell the truth, I'm not all that fond of Nenbutal food myself." And he hailed a passing cab.

Back at the huge spaceport, the captain waited until he was sure they were quite alone. "What was wrong?"

"Pul smelled Nanites," said Hantis, worriedly. "I think that the rendezvous must have been discovered."

"Pretty sure, ma'am," said Vezzarn. "Something else smelled about that restaurant, too, and I don't mean the food or these Nanites. I looked in through the window, and those diners just didn't look right. You know why? No wine. You ever been to a Nenbutal place where they haven't served more wine than food?"

"I wonder what effect alcohol, or other drugs, would have on Nanite-controlled people?" said the captain. "I guess it might make those bodies harder to handle."

"Probably," Hantis agreed. "But what do I do now?"

A plump woman with gray hair and a rather frumpish uniform approached them. "Pardon me, sirs and ladies, but your coach has arrived."

The captain was about to point out that they'd not ordered a coach, when the woman continued. "You are the party I am waiting for from Nikkeldepain, I'd venture to guess, sir?"

The captain realized suddenly that it was Hulik do Eldel. Hulik made up as an older woman, and padded out to change her shape.

"Uh. That's us."

"If you would follow me, sir?"

* * *

Ten minutes later, after a series of maneuvers designed to shake off any pursuit, they were sitting in the Thunderbird, with the Daal of Uldune. Or, rather, with two of the six Sedmons.

"Your ship is under surveillance. A large party of ISS operatives went out there shortly after you left. We've been monitoring all incoming ships of the right size-class, as we were pretty sure the vessel's appearance would be subtly altered."

"It took us a little time to get there—and we nearly ran into the ISS ourselves," continued the other. "They were probably mounting the same kind of operation."

"And the restaurant we were supposed to use as a rendezvous is full of Nanites," said Pausert. "I think there was a severe security leak. But the real question is: what do we do now? We've got no way of contacting the Empress."

One of the Sedmons coughed. "We have an official invitation to the Carnival ball. As usual, as part of the entertainment there is to be a cultural display from various planets in the Empire, organized by the Ministry for Arts and Cultures. Folk dances, traditional singing, apparently a display of fire-eating and stilt-fighting."

Goth was the first to catch on. "Is the Petey B in port?"

The Sedmons nodded in unison. "We have certain . . . associates in town. We believe a substitution could be arranged. The Ministry for Arts and Cultures is not terribly well organized."

"In the meanwhile, the ISS is searching for you," said Hulik. "We've arranged that you will disappear. We have a comfortably appointed warehouse on the northern edge of the port. Himbo Petey will be brought to see you. You may leave the arrangements to us."

"Better send Dame Ethulassia too," said Goth, thoughtfully. "We'll need to raid her wardrobe."