by Dale Olausen
“Think you’re going to be okay, Steph?” he asked.
“Yeah,” the pilot rasped. “Gimme a minute, okay?”
He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes again, and breathed in lungfuls of the Camin’s recycled air.
“Boy, those omega-jumps are killers when you’re not prepared,” he finally said, sounding much more alive. “I feel as if someone had battered me until I broke into ten thousand pieces and someone else threw the pieces together again, but not very carefully.”
Coryn smiled thinly. The description was apt…and its very aptness jolted him. Sarah and the cat! What had happened to the unconscious girl during the jump?
He heaved himself out of the chair, and, ignoring the pounding in his head and the churning in his stomach, he hurried to the back of the ship.
He need not have worried. Sarah was in remarkably good shape, he saw that immediately. She looked as well as she had before the jump. Her skin colour was good, the pulse was strong and the breathing even. Coryn turned to look at the cat on the floor beside her couch, and stared at it in shock. The animal had been able to take care of Sarah’s body during the abrupt omega-jump but apparently it had not been able to protect itself from the effects. It lay on the floor, seeming ill and exhausted – much as Steph was looking, and he himself was feeling.
“How’s the girl?” Steph was walking on unsteady feet towards the living area
“Good,” answered Coryn and turned his eyes in the direction of the medicine chest. Sarah might not need any drugs but the pilot, the cat, and he himself could use some help.
“The cat looks completely worn out, just like you and me,” Steph commented, leaning against the back of one of the dining chairs. “I put the ship on auto and I expect that we don’t have to worry about pursuers for a bit. They’ll have to locate us, and then reach coordinates that’ll bring them here. We ought to use the breather to get us all back into shape – we may have to repeat that last trick before this trip is over.”
Coryn muttered agreement and pulled the medicine kit onto the dining table. The rows of pill bottles and vials filled with liquids made him feel better even as he just looked at them.
“What can I open up for you?” he asked Steph who had stepped over to the food dispenser and was coaxing high protein dishes from it.
“Give me a couple of headache tablets and a capsule to settle the stomach,” Steph answered. “Got any idea how much that cat can eat?”
Coryn opened a pill bottle and shook his head.
“No, I don’t. But I’d hazard a guess that about three or four human portions would be a start.”
“As long as it’s not portions of humans,” Steph said. He still felt a bit uneasy about sharing quarters with the animal.
Coryn spilled enough tablets and capsules on the table for both Steph and himself. A glass of water from the beverage dispenser to chase the pills down, and relief would be forthcoming. Feeling happier, he began to help the pilot dump the contents of several meal containers on a tray. Steph indicated the packets of liquid energy concentrate that he had tossed on the table.
“If you’ll open those energy concentrates into this mess I think that the animal ought to perk up soon enough. Provided that it can digest food intended for humans, that is.”
Coryn nodded. If the cat could not use the food, Sarah was out of luck. He hoped not.
At least the greencat eagerly accepted the food. With its needs looked after, Coryn and Steph turned back to the food dispenser to provide for themselves. They mixed the energy concentrate into their own main dishes, too; it was designed to give the consumer a quick energy boost, safely and without interfering with the flavour of the food with which it was taken. They ate ravenously and in silence, finishing the meal with cups of coffee. By then Coryn felt much better, ready to talk, if not to start thinking about the possibility of having shortly to face another sudden omega-jump.
“So what do you think the situation looks like at the moment?” he asked the pilot as he began to sip his coffee.
“One thing that I’m sure of is that we won’t have to worry about that Camin look-alike ship anymore,” Steph replied. “If it managed to jump before the dragon caught it – and I think that it did – it was to some place so far from here that it’ll never be able to reach us before we make it to Kordea. I should imagine, however, that the Hounds have ships stationed at most of the other crossroads areas and some of them will certainly be here before long. But –” he glanced at the timekeeper, “we’re less than an hour away from the coordinates that’ll take us to Kordea. Only so much can happen in that amount of time.”
“And the Witches keep the space around their planet free of intruders,” added Coryn.
“Right. Which is another reason why I chose this route.” Steph grinned. “The space outside the clear area around Kordea probably sparkles with Organization battle ships that are waiting to intercept us when we try to struggle through to the planet. There aren’t too many coordinate points from which you can jump right into the clear area.”
“And I wouldn’t try doing it if we didn’t have the Stones with us,” muttered Coryn dryly. “Who knows what would happen to a craft that makes the jump but isn’t wanted there by the Witches?
“But do you think the Hounds have caught on to your plan yet?”
“They may well have. That’s why we better be prepared to make another jump on the run. The next hour is their last chance to grab the Stones – be assured that they’ll try. What I’m counting on is that what we’ve done will come as a big surprise to them and they’re not in a position to launch an all-out attack on us. I expect that most of their forces are stationed along routes, one of which we would have taken if I’d been sensible.”
Steph grinned impishly and Coryn smiled back. Steph’s ingeniousness was irresistible. Carovan certainly knew how to pick the right person for the job!
“So you’re always thinking?” Coryn asked with a laugh.
“Always.” Steph laughed too. “I don’t do too badly for a street-urchin from ZAR. Not that there were any streets on the space station, nor any homeless waifs either – spacer kids are never homeless. But we were a bunch of rascals, seven or eight of us, always looking for trouble.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“It was. We used to stow away on the cargo ships bound for the surrounding planets. I suffered my first omega-jump in the washroom of a ship loaded with computer parts heading for Chantilla. I was discovered of course – stowaway kids always are – and packed off back to ZAR on the next outgoing craft. I didn’t see anything of Chantilla except the space port. Once home, I was severely punished – and turned up on the next ship to Oneida twelve hours later.
“It was easy to stow away on the ships going out to the planets that ZAR services; there were no elaborate checks made before the craft took off. Everything was pretty informal. My ambition, however, was to hide away on one the ships going to the inner space stations and planets. That was much more difficult to do, though.”
“Did you do it?”
Steph smiled smugly.
“Yeah. Didn’t get past Acta, though. But that was far enough. I earned a licking for that trip – I think I drove my poor parents to distraction.”
Coryn had to laugh.
“Was it this interest in space travel that prompted you to become a pilot?”
“I should think so.” Steph chuckled. “I had the gall to apply to the Mallora Centre for Pilot Training. The very respectable facility that they have on Acta wasn’t good enough for me! The amazing thing was that the Mallora Centre accepted me right away – no hassle at all!”
Not so amazing, thought Coryn. When Steph had begun his training on Mallora, Carovan had still been the heart and soul of the pilot training facility. He had an unerring eye for what he termed “good raw material”.
“Did Carovan talk you into joining up with the Experimental Craft Division after you had finished training?” the Agent inquired.
Steph’s eyes lighted up as those of the old students often did when the discussion turned to their beloved mentor.
“I suppose you could say that,” he replied. “The old man’s a really great guy, don’t you think? I mean, he’s tough and he expects you to give your best, but once that’s been established he’s very fair. He and I get along really well.”
“He’s a great friend to have,” agreed Coryn warmly.
The answer aroused the pilot’s curiosity.
“How did you come to know him?” he queried.
“You may find this a little hard to believe,” the Agent replied, an amused glint flashing in his eye, “but I spent some six months myself at the Mallora Centre, training to become a pilot. Carovan kicked me out at the end of the probationary period, telling me that I would never learn how to navigate – I don’t have the patience for that level of technical detail. He steered me into Agency work instead – advice that I have never had reason to regret.”
Steph stared at the Agent, his eyes wide open, and shook his head.
“You don’t look like the type of person who trains at the Centre,” he protested, then blushed apologetically. “I mean – you’re – what – too refined, maybe? I don’t know exactly. Only, everyone there was more like me – hot-headed and rough around the edges. Even the women.”
Coryn threw his head back and laughed, long and loud.
“I’ve acquired most of my surface sophistication since I started living the life of an alyen on RES,” he explained, still chuckling. “Although it is true that I never had the advantage of roughing it in the fringes. My family lived on an inner space station in relative comfort – my mother had Calligan blood, and my father had tenuous connections to one of the ancient clans—Carovan’s clan, to be precise.”
He reflected for a moment; then continued. The pilot listened quietly.
“I got into the Mallora Centre through nepotism, pure and simple.
“I’d been a handful to my parents, too, although in very different fashion from the way you were. The girls liked me - and not just the girls, some of the women panting after my body were quite grown up - and my strait-laced father was quite upset. My mother, bless her soul, thought it was the funniest thing going, her cute little boy chased by skirts, some of them as old as she was. Calligans can be like that; they take the sex drive in their stride. I admit that I took advantage of the situation, shamefully, no doubt, but those women were old enough to know what they were doing; and teen-aged boys are horn-dogs.”
He smiled with the recollection.
“My father explored all the family connections that he could think of, in order to find an institution that would accept me, and keep me busy doing things other than playing footsie with women my mother’s age. Apparently Carovan had done the favour of taking in unruly boys from the old families every now and then - and sometimes these fellows even turned out to make decent pilots - so he figured that he could do as much for a frantic father belonging, however tenuously, to his own clan, too. So I went to the Mallora Centre for Pilot Training, and lived the austere life of a Trainee for six months. I learned to deal with space rats who had no respect for inner galaxy dandies. I never made pilot – Carovan didn’t let family feelings get in the way of turning out the best pilots in the Confederation - but he and I became friends, probably because I really wasn’t an inner galaxy dandy, after all. I have my mother to thank for that, I think; she had too solid a sense of the ridiculous to allow me to develop a swelled head.”
When Coryn had finished speaking, the two men drank coffee in a companionable silence. Shared difficulties seemed to turn the unlikeliest people into friends – how long had it been since those awkward first moments back at the RES Port, Steph wondered? He would have gladly thrown Coryn off the ship then, had he not had orders to trust the alyen. Now, during this lull between attacks, they were swapping personal stories about their pasts. On his part, Coryn reflected on the power of danger to forge strong bonds – some of his most enduring friendships had been born under the most dangerous of circumstances.
His eyes wandered over to the unconscious girl on the couch and the strange big cat lying on the floor beside it. Those two were also comrades in this adversity, even if the girl was in a coma, and the cat didn’t know human speech. But there was a friendship between them, he could see that.
His feelings about them had changed since he had first seen each of them. In the beginning he had believed the cat to be nothing more than a forest animal, perhaps even a dangerous one. Now he knew better. It was not human, but it was something impressive, though he wasn’t sure in just what way. The secrets it must possess would be fascinating to know.
As for Sarah, when Fiana had first introduced them, she had appeared to be just another young thing - and not even a pretty young thing, by the elevated standards of beauty that he was used to in his profession. Fiana’s liking for the girl had affected him somewhat – Fiana didn’t take to just anybody – but if Sarah had not turned out to be amarto-sensitive he would have forgotten her the moment she had left his sight. Naturally, the fact that she was amarto-sensitive coloured his assessment of her. That had raised her in his estimation to “the spunky kid from Earth with plenty of character”. Now he smiled at that thought. Thrown into heaven only knows what adventures, stranded and alone on an alien planet, Sarah had returned with the coveted Witches’ Stones, accompanied by an odd animal protector. How she had managed that…Coryn could only hope that she would soon come out of her coma and tell the tale.
*****
His thoughts scattered abruptly as the ship’s alarm jangled to life, announcing another craft within range of the viso-viewers.
“Here we go,” muttered Steph, on his feet instantly, running into the control sector.
Coryn stopped to observe the cat – he might not get another opportunity to do so if things grew hot. The food and energy concentrate seemed to have done their job; the animal’s eyes were clear, and it held its head up alertly. It would be ready to repeat its strange magic when it was time for the next omega-jump, the Agent concluded. He ran a friendly hand down its green furred back – the cat didn’t seem to mind. Then he joined Steph in the control sector.
The pilot swore profusely while he studied the viso-screens. Coryn repressed a fleeting desire to laugh. He would certainly have the street language of ZAR down pat before this trip was over!
But whatever had Steph cursing was no laughing matter. The pilot turned to the computer and rapidly punched in questions. He scowled as he studied the answers.
“It’s a fighter, and it’s lumbering in a direction that makes it a real obstacle to us,” he said harshly to the waiting Agent. “No way we can avoid it without a detour that’ll cause us more harm than good. We have to get out of here fast, but we need to use the omega-jump coordinates that I have already laid out – otherwise it’s back to square one, and we can’t afford that.”
“No contingency plan for this one?” asked Coryn.
Steph shook his head.
“We’ll have to push through, and count on the Camin’s speed to get us by safely. But I don’t like it. I can’t guarantee that she can take a beating and still make a jump afterwards. If it was a raider, there’d be nothing to worry about, but a fighter…. We’ve run out of luck I guess – I had hoped we wouldn’t have to deal with a fighter.”
The Organization fighters were equipped with four cut-rays and a host of other lethal weapons. What chance did the Camin’s medium-powered defence field have in the face of that? One inexperienced defence-screen operator could not hope to keep four cut-rays blocked.
Coryn walked over to the defence panel and stared at the small viso-screens with their neat little grids. Was there some way to increase the odds in the Camin’s favour? They were much too close to Kordea to give up now, or even go down fighting! Surely he could come up with an idea!
“Hey Steph,” he shouted to the pilot a short while later. “In a fighter all
the weapons are aimed at the side of the target that’s closest, right?”
“I think so,” Steph answered, looking up from his computer screen. “Cut-rays are direct fire weapons and I haven’t heard of Organization fighters being equipped with missiles smart enough to circle around to the rear of a target, then double back. That would be cute, but if the Confederation hasn’t thought of it, The Organization hasn’t had a chance to copy it. Why?”
Coryn wasn’t altogether satisfied that Steph’s contemptuous assumption about The Organization was well founded. They seemed to be capable of more originality than everyone figured. After all, nobody within the Confederation had thought to bring amarto-power within technological control, but The Organization seemed to have learned that trick. Still, there was a grain of truth to the commonly held opinion about their lack of originality. It was a chance worth taking.
“What have you got in mind?” Steph asked again.
“It occurred to me that if we don’t have to worry about our backside, I can use the energy from that section of the screen to reinforce the part of the ship that’s under attack. These controls will allow me to do that – I just have to keep shifting the strengthened field as we pass the fighter, keeping it between it and us.”
Steph came over to stare at the defence panel alongside the Agent.
“Hm.” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “That’s not a bad idea. In fact, it’s a damn good idea. It won’t give us the protection of a high-powered screen, but if you manage the operation correctly there won’t be any major gaps – well, except for the biggie on the other side of the ship. Yes – it ought to get us through. The Camin might take some hits, but we ought to get through.”
