by Eric Flint
"There was some sort of klatha surge," said the captain. "Did you feel it? We'll be calling vatches next."
"It's me," said Goth. "It started on Nikkeldepain. Something odd is going on. But we don't have time for that now. We'd better go and see if we're too late. Leewit… "
"No way I am staying here without you," said the littlest witch. "And no way I am going outside just yet, either. I'm just about warm. And yes. I have worked out they're probably fighting and eating people. Or each other. I'm not little any more you know."
Goth still felt that she was, even though she was not going to try to tell the Leewit that. And she couldn't get the images that she'd got when touching the wall out of her head.
"I asked Little-bit to come help," announced the Leewit. "'Cause you don't sound too good, Goth. And there is nothing happening out there. She's getting bored. She can find anything."
He's in a cage. Off that way. The sharp-dream things are fighting and eating each other, said the Vatchlet in their heads.
They followed her directions and soon found themselves in a low circular corridor. Noise of cheering and yelling came through the wall.
"Just your average happy Megair Cannibal evening out," said Pausert grimly. "I think this must lead around the arena."
It seemed to. And there was a barred entrance, with the heavy bars being crudely attached to the smooth walls and floor.
Open, said the vatchlet, and the cage door opened. Inside stood Ta'zara, the swirl-tattooed man from Na'kalauf. He didn't seem to see them. He was standing, arms akimbo, chanting something to himself.
"It's some kind of war-cry," said the Leewit, by her tone much impressed.
"Na'kalaufers do it before they wrestle," said Pausert. "Hey, Ta'zara! We've got to go."
"You've killed my brothers. My companions. Now, I will fight and die like a man of Na'kalauf. I will take as many of you with me as possible!" Ta'zara charged.
Belatedly it occurred to Goth that he was seeing their light-shifted images, and probably not thinking too clearly about them knowing his name and speaking Imperial Universum. He grabbed the captain. Goth hastily dropped the lightshift. "Idiot!" hissed the Leewit. "It's us. We've come to fetch you. We said we would."
There was a second's pause. "Do you mind letting go?" said the captain, in a slightly choked voice.
The tattooed hands dropped. "I'm going mad. I'm going mad!" He began to chant again.
The Leewit stepped in front of him, stamped her foot, and grabbed him with both hands. Goth felt a surge of klatha energy. She could recognize types by now, and she'd felt this before when the Leewit had healed the nursebeast. Ta'zara wasn't injured, but not all kinds of wounds were physical.
His chanting stopped. He looked at the Leewit, incredulously.
"Now come!" she said. "Goth is going to make all of us look like Megair Cannibals. You too. But we're not. Here. Hold my hand."
He took it, very cautiously. "What you feel is real. Not what you see. Now just hold my hand and keep walking," said the Leewit, firmly, as if she was talking to very small child. "Do you understand?"
"No," he said. "But I believe. The brothers be must right. There is redemption."
"Let's go. It might be easier if you close your eyes."
He shook his head. "I am Ta'zara. A man Na'kalauf. I know fear but it not my master," he said as if reciting. Goth realized he probably was. So she light-shifted.
"Calm down!" said the Leewit seeing his reaction. "Feel my hand. It's just a disguise."
"A disguise."
"Yeah. A clumping good disguise. Now stop standing like you've grown roots and let's go before its too late."
Goth could hear the Na'kalauf man pant a little, and her sister talk to him, calming him down. It was a different Leewit from the one she was used to.
They had walked a good long way towards the surface, before the uproar behind them told Goth the escape had been discovered.
"I think we need to run," she said.
So they did. Behind them it sounded as if every last one the of Megair Cannibals was after them.
***
The door stood before them. So did a small group of Megair Cannibals, with what Pausert now knew to be nerve-janglers at the ready. Ta'zara roared and charged. The Leewit whistled. The green passage light on the wall exploded. So did the Megair Cannibal weapons, with holders yelping and dropping them. None of that stopped the charging Ta'zara, who was flinging Megair Cannibals about as if they were shrapnel and he their personal bomb.
Barely half a minute later Ta'zara stood, panting a little. "I know fear but it not my master," he said, looking at the fallen Megair Cannibals. Now it was not so much a recitation as a statement of faith, tinged with relief. He held out his hand. "Little lady?"
The Leewit skipped forward and took his hand. "You need to teach me how to do that," she said.
"Maybe later," said the captain, with the thought of just how interesting that might make dealing with the Leewit in a tantrum.
Goth whistled at the door, and it opened.
Outside was rain and darkness. It was more welcome than what lay behind them. They went out and the door slid closed again.
"That ought to hold them for a while. I ported a piece of door out of there. I think it was part of the opening device, " said Goth. "Now all we have to do is find the ship."
"Well, let's do it together. Hold hands or I might lose you out here."
Pausert trusted to instinct to find their way to the Venture. He was getting quite good at that!
It was apparent that someone had figured that darkness was a shield for them. Lights suddenly came on. They still had a few hundred yards to go to the landing field and they did at a sprint. Vezzarn started to raise the ramp as their boots clattered onto it. Glancing back, Pausert could see why. A mass of the gray-skinned Cannibals had started to pour out of their mound. The Karres witches and the man from Na'kalauf dived in through the lock, and the captain panted past Vezzarn to the control room.
"Crash stations!" he shouted. "This may be a rough take off."
The Venture was warm and ready, and they boosted. It was one of the captain's trademark take-offs-erratic and touch and go, with the thrust-regulator down flat. Despite the Leewit's earlier efforts, the Megair Cannibals did get off a few shots as the Venture wobbled her way upwards into the cloud. But the ship did not even take a glancing hit, and the Venture, pushing g's, was hurtling for space.
"Phew!" exclaimed Goth as they began hurtling toward the sun-side of Megair 4. "Are we going to go to the Sheewash drive soon, Captain? 'Cause the Phantom ships are out there waiting. There sure are plenty of them!"
So they were. The captain could see them hanging off in space, as if they were trying to englobe the entire planet.
"How is our air pressure holding out?"
Goth checked the instruments. "Down just a tiny fraction, Captain. About 99.8 points. The seal must be leaking, I'm afraid."
"Should have shoved one of those Cannibals into the hole," said Pausert crossly. "I'll need to get the Leewit into a pressure suit." He bit his lip. "I'd forgotten about the other prisoners in the hold. I want to have the Leewit use that grav tractor I had Vezzarn bolt onto the floor in the hold airlock. But we need those people out of there-if they're in one piece."
"It has to be better than the alternative," said Goth. "If you offered me a choice between stay and be eaten and a launch without a crash-pad… "
"I gave 'em a mattress and some water," said Vezzarn.
"Well, Vezzarn, you and Goth and Ta'zara, go see how they are. Tell them we're in for some more maneuvers and they'd better come and get strapped in. We're in for a rough ride."
***
The big tattooed Na'kalauf man was looking at all of them as if he'd had a couple of knocks on the head-which might possibly be true, Goth reflected. He'd stormed into the Megair Cannibals like a one-man army. "Who are you?" he asked. "Am I dreaming? Am I dead?"
"I'll pinch you if like," sai
d the Leewit.
He nodded. "Please."
So she did. He felt the spot.
"Would it feel real in a dream?"
The Leewit stamped her foot. "I've got things to do! The captain needs me in a pressure suit and I want to get out of these clothes first. They're wet. Get up! If it is a dream, it has me in it too."
He got up and bowed respectfully. "Then at least it is a good dream. One in which I found myself and courage again. Thank you. I am yours to command, Little Lady."
"I'm the Leewit. Not 'lady'-and sure not 'little lady'! And I need you stop blocking the way and get along to the hold with me. Those other friends of yours might be hurt."
He bowed again. "Very well, Leewit. Will you accept me?"
" The Leewit. Like ' the captain'."
"But do you accept me, the Leewit?"
"If it makes you happy," she said impatiently. "Now we have work to do."
Vezzarn clapped him on the shoulder. "You'll get used to it, son. You must have realized by now that Their Wisdoms don't exactly do things the way we do." Ta'zara looked at him in some puzzlement. Obviously the term wasn't familiar to him. "I'll explain it to you sometime," said the old spacer. "Meanwhile, let's go to see to the others. I hope they're in one piece."
They went back to the hold and found the three former captives. The two thin men were doing a very proficient job of strapping Mebeckey's fore-arm to a splint they had contrived.
"Ta'zara?" one exclaimed incredulously.
The tattooed man smiled. "It's either a dream or we've been rescued."
They stared incredulously at him, then at each other. Then they dropped to their knees. "Great Patham be thanked!"
"We're not out of the woods yet, " said Goth, "and the captain says he wants you strapped in. Sorry about the arm, and the bouncing around. We had to get off-world in a hurry."
"What are bruises compared to not being eaten?" said the one tall fellow.
"You've got a point. The ship's in a bit of a state. She got looted. But we should be able to find a few crash couches intact."
"You are instruments of Patham. Our gratitude… "
"Get a move on," said the Leewit.
***
"Contact, forty-five seconds and closing."
They'd raced into a rapid transit to Megair 4's second moon, using that for a small bit of gravitational sling-shotting for the Venture. But now the Phantom ships were surrounding them. And the Leewit was sitting, anchored with makeshift combat webbing, in the open hold airlock with a grav-tractor, a gravity generator intended to push and pull freight. Gravitational force obeyed inverse square law, and for the grav-tractor to have any effect she would have to focus the beam right on the Phantom ship.
Ta'zara was on the forward nova gun pod. He'd never operated one before, but the two Dell brothers were pacifists and missionary doctors and were no better. Vezzarn was on the aft nova guns. Mebeckey had been fed a painkiller and was strapped in. Goth was ready in the co-pilot's seat, with the wires for making the framework for the Sheewash at hand.
"Contact ten seconds. Five. Fire when ready!"
Pausert saw the first Phantom go from zero on the mass-detector to thousands of tons. And then there was a burst of exploding incandescence where the ship had been. Even here in space the Venture was buffeted by it. The Leewit shrieked with triumph. The nova guns roiled sheet-lightning across the heavens. The Leewit had plainly focused on another target because a second ship erupted. She was just as accurate with the grav tractor as she was with her beloved nova guns. Odd marksmanship, really, for someone destined to be a healer-but the witches of Karres were a law unto themselves.
The cordon was fleeing now-still firing torpedoes but running.
"Time to go Sheewash. Can't keep it up too long here among the debris. But let's leave those torpedoes behind!" yelled Goth.
The orange incandescent fire danced and the Venture leapt away from the battle.
***
"They're still following, Captain," said Goth. With the detectors looted she was doing a manual search of the viewscreens behind the venture, while the captain dodged obstacles. They'd be out of the cluster soon and into open space. Right now, though, ship-handling took all his concentration.
"But they're keeping healthy distance," she continued. "They're out of grav tractor range, and we'll have time to deal with torpedoes if we spot them incoming. Can we bring the Leewit in?"
"Sure," said Pausert, not taking his eyes off the forward screens for an instant. "If she's not too tired, we can put her into the rear turret for torpedoes. She's the best shot I've ever seen. Have Vezzarn check that patch, see if we can do any more to it."
"I'm fine," said the Leewit over her suit-mike.
"Well, close that outer airlock and come in then."
"Will do. Got those clumping Phantoms!"
"Once we've got some clear space we need to go Sheewash, Captain. We're still definitely losing pressure. We won't last four days of normal ship travel," said Goth.
Pausert nodded, and yawned. "We'd better stock up on some calories then. We're further than four days out of Uldune space. I could murder a coffee and some food. Maybe we can get one of the supercargo to see to it?
"Sounds good," said Goth. "I'll page them up."
But it soon became apparent that it wasn't going to happen. The Dell brothers were very willing, and even Mebeckey staggered up from his couch (and was sent back to it), but it appeared that the robo-butler and the food supplies had been one of the casualties of the Megair Cannibals' looting spree.
"Nothing for it but to run a bit on empty," said Pausert grumpily. "I'd even eat those weeds that the Megair Cannibals provided for us."
The two Dell brothers looked helplessly at each other. "Your companion, Mebeckey ate heartily of them. But we did not bring any of the fresh leaf with us. It wasn't bad. Just monotonous, and left us feeling permanently mildly hungry. It lacks, we think, some trace elements, or amino acids. We tried to get them to let us do some lab work. We think the dietary deficiency could be treated. But… "
"But they didn't want to. They think their way of life is fine," said Goth.
The Leewit came in at this point. "I'm ravenous. And they're still a long way back on us. What happened to that food?"
"The Megair Cannibals looted the robo-butler and the supplies," admitted Pausert.
"What!" The Leewit was incensed. "Those clumping useless greasy gray slabs! I think we ought to go back and teach them a lesson."
The two Dell brothers looked shocked. "But, my daughter!" said one. "We have been given the gift our lives. We should instead be grateful. What is a little privation… "
Pausert knew that look in the Leewit's eye. Best to do some distraction before she whistled them something special. He coughed. "We're free and running, but we have problems, Leewit."
"Like what?" Her new found responsibility came to the fore.
"Well," said Goth "We have a leaking ship, hundreds of Phantom ships chasing us, and no food. But otherwise nothing much."
"So can we do something about the food first?" said the Leewit. "I'm starving. I'd start on Mebeckey if he wasn't so scrawny even after eating my Wintenberry jelly."
After the klatha-energy use, they were raveningly hungry. Pausert couldn't help laughing. The two medical missionaries looked horrified. But then they had just escaped being dinner.
"I think you should go and check on the patient," said Pausert firmly. "And strap in. We're going to use our booster. Don't come back for at least fifteen minutes."
The Leewit looked darkly at the captain. "I wouldn't have really done much to them. You know why the Cannibals didn't want to eat them? Ta'zara told me. He's not the worst, you know. Anyway the Cannibals didn't eat those two because they wouldn't fight. Wouldn't even run. No sport in them."
"And Ta'zara?"
The Leewit was silent for a bit. Then she said quietly. "They kept him for a special feast. Because he was the bravest. They hurt him really
badly with those nerve janglers. Badly enough for him to be scared to face them again. He'd tried a lot of times, I think. He was
… a mess inside."
Pausert knew that the Leewit was destined to be a healer. But he'd not thought of the cost of healing on herself. To fix a minds she'd had to understand at least in part what was wrong. And she was still very young. His protective instincts surged. "But he dared again in the passage at the door."
The Leewit shrugged. "He had to. It was part of the healing, see. So I helped him not to be afraid. But he still was. That was why he was so explosive. Winning there helped him a lot."
"You still got enough strength to help us with the Sheewash drive?" asked Goth, giving her a sisterly hug. "We need to take the Venture faster to Uldune, or we're going to run out of air, let alone go hungry."
The Leewit nodded. "For sure. Especially as we don't get any food until then."
"You should lay off teasing those missionaries," said Goth.
"They keep asking me to do it," said the Leewit. "So let's Sheewash."
The three of them, linked and pushing the ship, did in a bare few minutes with the klatha energies of the Sheewash drive, what would have taken days otherwise. They pushed the Venture toward the one-time pirate port of Uldune. Afterwards, they sat, tired, and hungry, in the control room. And after a few minutes the captain found the energy to start trying for navigation beacons. He got just one, faintly, and began transcribing it in.
The Venture 's communicators signaled a pick-up. They were back in subradio range, and being hailed. And what was more they were being hailed on a private shielded frequency with a powerful directional beam. Someone was calling the Venture.
Goth fiddled with the reception. Turned up the gain. " Venture 7333… ome in for Uldune…
"Hulik's voice!" said the Leewit delightedly. "We are receiving you, Uldune," she transmitted.
There was no mistaking the relief in the voice. "Secure channel beam length 0.699."
