by Eric Flint
“What are you going to do, Captain?” asked the Leewit. “They’re dying. I can feel it.”
She probably could. The Leewit was a shaman, a healer with klatha powers.
The problem was he just could see no way of dealing with this number of captives.
“We could use the Sheewash drive to get the hulk into an atmosphere. Use the Venture for braking and steering, and hope the grapples hold,” she suggested.
The captain shook his head. “They haven’t got the time, even if we can make it work. But I might be able to do it with klatha. Can you and Vezzarn line the Venture’s hold door up, as precisely as possible, with this hulk? If I remember right, the merchanter class hold door is the standard Imperial, same as the Venture’s.”
“What are you going to do, Captain?” repeated the Leewit, an edge of wariness in her young voice.
“Try to make a modification on the klatha cocoon I put you and Goth into. An airtight one,” said Pausert. He started working through the klatha patterns in his mind…a change there…
“Move them across in those clumping cocoons? I guess they won’t know what they are,” said the Leewit, reluctantly. She had not liked being trapped in one, even if it had saved her life.
“No, they weren’t airtight, but I hope I can change that. There are far too many for me to do individual cocoons. But I thought I would make a tunnel between the holds…”
“It’ll take a lot out of you, Captain.”
“I know. You three may have to hold the fort before I can undo it. We’ll be locked onto this hulk, and that means you’ll have to move these people out of the hold, because this hold plainly is losing pressure slowly.”
“Right, Captain. How many people?”
“A lot. Keep them out of the control room.” Inside the suit, sound was deadened, but in the headlight he could see wide-eyed, terrified people reaching frantic forcecuffed arms to them. There was no time to waste. Pausert concentrated. He knew every detail of the Venture’s hull. She was his ship; he loved her. So envisaging layers of the cocoon from just outside the hold-door frame extending into space was easy enough. Now to work the klatha patterns, to trace them in his mind and to change them slightly to be impervious even to air. Captain Pausert could feel himself sweating inside the suit. Such klatha use took enormous amounts of energy out of the user.
“Near lined up as I can get it, Captain,” said Vezzarn’s voice across the suit radio. “Can’t get a perfect match.”
That could be a problem. No match, no hold-door opening.
You make vatch-eggstuff, big dream thing! I didn’t know you could do that. I thought everything in the dreamplace was soft.
The vatchlet almost distracted him from the pattern he was building out, layer by exhausting layer. “What?”
That’s what everything hard in my place is—not like in the dream place. I can go through anything in the dream place, and anywhere. Eggstuff, I can’t. I have to undo. I must go talk to the others. This could affect the new game.
Pausert had the answer. He simply kept extending the klatha-force cocoon…right through the hull. Metal was no barrier. He could see the transparent cocoon stuff coming through the wall…
There was of course still vacuum in the space outside the hull, but also inside the klatha-force tunnel he’d created. And now that hull was not entire—the cocoon of klatha force cut right through it. And the hull section—part hull, part door and severed leaking hydraulic servos—sucked out. Captain Pausert heard Ta’zara yell in shock, but he was too exhausted to care.
“Vezzarn, get the hold door slid open. Ta’zara, see if you can cut that bar with your blaster. I’m just going to sit…” He did, before he fell over, as Ta’zara adjusted his blaster and took careful aim at the bar the prisoners were tethered to. The poor prisoners panicked and tried to retreat. That was probably better than having them close in, anyway, thought Pausert.
Ta’zara burned through the bar—a tough job with a blaster that really wasn’t designed for that. The melted end glowed white-hot—he still had to hold off the prisoners with the blaster as the ones just back from the front tried to shove the others forward to escape.
“Atmospheric pressure reading from the Venture’s hold zero point seven eight ship normal. Looks like you did it, Captain,” said the Leewit. “You all right?”
“Yes. Just dead-beat and starving,” he answered.
“Use the glucose syrup tube in your suit, Captain,” said Ta’zara.
Pausert could have kicked himself for not thinking of that earlier. But that was the problem with being too tired. Thinking logically was difficult. Sucking on the tube even seemed hard work, but it did revitalize him a bit.
“Is there enough atmosphere for me to crack my helmet and talk to these people?” asked Ta’zara.
“Yes. It’s losing a little pressure. Down to point seven seven eight ship normal. Safe enough but it must be leaking. There is no time to waste. I can pump more air in to our hold…”
“Don’t,” said the captain, tiredly. “Let’s get them across, close up and then do it.”
Ta’zara had cracked his helmet seal and now Captain Pausert could hear the panic and pandemonium from the prisoners—after all, they didn’t know that he and Ta’zara weren’t just pirates, or just what was going on. “Shut UP!” Boomed the broad man from Na’kalauf. “We’re here to rescue you. Be calm.”
That might have reduced the volume by a tiny bit, but it did change the tone. “The end of the bar is still too hot for you to get past. Don’t push! You will be safe!” shouted Ta’zara, trying to physically hold them back.
Judging by the noise, that wasn’t working too well. Tired or not, Pausert knew he had to intervene. He put a tiny klatha-force cocoon on the glowing end of the bar and it dropped off, heat trapped inside. From a two-finger-wide gap, with a molten, dripping end, it was now the size of a large fist, the one end not even glowing. “Ta’zara. Bend it. Use them.”
A glance from the big Na’kalauf man plainly took in the instruction and the new situation, and he bellowed at the frantic prisoners. “Pull! This way.”
He led by example. The bar bent and the prisoners were able to thrust their way to freedom. Several of them were down, but Pausert was not sure if they were dead or just injured. They had to be pushed and dragged along, until they could let those beyond them off. In the meanwhile, Ta’zara was shoving them toward the Venture’s hold. He came back and helped Pausert to his feet. “Move you across now, Captain. The Leewit charged me with seeing to your safety.”
Pausert was too tired to quibble, and anyway, his crossing the slippery transparent klatha-cocoon stuff was an encouragement to the others. Some had panicked and had run. A few were helping others, but most of them were fearfully milling around, instead of moving into the light of the Venture’s hold. Moving was a good idea, Pausert felt. The hulk of the pirate ship could break up more, and anyway, they were bleeding the Venture’s air into the hulk. He said as much to Ta’zara, who nodded and went back. Pausert could hear him chivvying the prisoners along, getting them to carry some of those who were either unconscious or injured, or possibly dead.
Part of the problem was that there were a lot of people to move into a fairly full cargo hold. After a while, Pausert got up enough strength to help marshal them around a bit.
“Captain,” said Vezzarn across the suit radio. “We’re drifting in on those asteroids. I’m going to need to apply some thrust soon, Captain.”
“Get Ta’zara across from the hulk and close the hold doors,” said Pausert urgently.
“I am just back,” said Ta’zara. “I could find no more prisoners. I have carried the last three over. I think they are dead.”
Even if they were, there must have been seventy people crowded into the hold. “Close the doors,” said Pausert, “and try to be gentle with the thrust, since no one is strapped in.”
He was relieved to see the hold doors close. That had been his major unspoken stress. With tha
t off his shoulders, all he wanted now was to lie down…and eat. The burst of power Vezzarn gave to the tubes was about as gentle as possible, but there was a limit to how little you could do with rocket tubes. It wasn’t a Pausert trademark takeoff, but still enough to knock most of them off their feet—except Ta’zara. He stepped over them to the captain, and picked him up as if he was a ragdoll.
“Taking you through to the Leewit, Captain,” he said firmly, and pushed and stepped his way through to the inner door to the hold. That was locked, but Ta’zara called through the radio, and got it unlocked. He put the captain down, and pushed back the four people who tried to follow. The Leewit was there already, getting his helmet undogged, and just about pouring some sickly sweet gunk into his mouth. Well, normally it would have been sickly. Now, it tasted like nectar. “Help me carry him to his cabin,” she said. “He’s pushed it too far, again.”
Pausert didn’t try to resist, or walk. The Leewit was right, and she sounded far too worried for him to have argued, even if he felt he had the strength.
“We’ll deal, Captain. You just recover,” said Ta’zara.
And he was happy to do that, right now.
CHAPTER 2
Touching the captain, when he slumped like that, barely able to drink the energy brew she’d gotten out of the robochef, frightened the Leewit badly. She had allowed herself to do what the Toll pattern in her mind said was an absolute no-go for a klatha healer—reading without preparing barriers within herself, without creating a distance between healer and patient. Her Toll pattern was a klatha learning device, a partial replica of the personality of an adult witch whose basic individuality was similar to that of the witch child using it. She usually followed its advice, but in this case…
He’d pushed too far, and too hard again! Goth would never forgive her if she let him die. But, just before reaching into herself to pour some of her energy into the captain…the Toll pattern in her mind was insistent. Check first. Assess. Assess and then treat calmly and sensibly, as if it wasn’t someone she cared a lot about. Stupidity and panic would help no one and could kill both of them.
So she did. His vital signs were serious, but there was nothing actually wrong with him besides literally being out of energy at the cellular level. It had been strange at first to have the klatha sense of being able to feel the body from the inside. Overwhelming and more than a little scary. It was why one had to be buffered. But there was improvement, even as she worked, checking him out. She could boost those…
The Toll pattern supplied mitochondria. But no. He’d get better without that. And much though she wanted the security of the captain making decisions, letting him recover slowly was better for him. And she could cope. She had to: She was the remaining Karres witch on the ship. He would not survive the Egger Route like that. She could only hope he hadn’t burned out his ability to be a klatha witch. That happened too, sometimes.
And there was not a bit of use in climbing anything, or whistling at it, either.
Once the captain was in his cabin, being put into his bunk by Ta’zara, she went back to the flight deck, where Vezzarn was sitting in the captain’s chair, warily watching instruments. “Is the captain all right, Your Wisdom?” he asked with the nervous respect of Karres and klatha that Uldune’s people had—for good historical reason, the Leewit knew. Vezzarn was always respectful, but this was…different, somehow? And then she realized what it was and scowled fiercely at him for reminding her. She was in charge now. No Goth, no Maleen, no Toll, no Threbus. Just nobody. “Yeah. Leave him alone. Anything you need to do, you do. Don’t you dare wake the captain. Call me, not him. So: Are we clear of the asteroids?”
“There is nothing of a size that needs worrying about close, Your Wisdom. Except for that piece of hulk. It’s still stuck up against us. We can’t really boost with it there. It’d mess with the center of mass, and I’m just a spaceman, not up to the captain’s level of piloting. Can you undo that?”
“No. The captain has to. We will worry about it if it becomes a problem.”
Then there was the issue of what to do about the rescued people. She met Ta’zara in the companionway, just outside the captain’s cabin. “He’s asleep…or in a coma,” he said. “He didn’t even know I took his suit off.” Ta’zara had removed his spacesuit, but not, the Leewit noticed, the blaster. And he too turned to her for orders…well, in a way he always did, but not about running the ship. “What do you wish to do about the people we rescued, mistress?”
“What do you think?” she asked.
He rubbed his jaw. “I cannot watch all of them. There are too many for this ship, I think. They need to be put off on some hospitable world, as soon as possible.”
“We can’t really head for one until the captain wakes up. Which he will.” She said that with all the confidence she could muster.
He nodded. “Then I think leave them in the hold, and we will provide what we can. Food. Water.”
“And treatment for the badly injured.”
He looked at her with concern. “You must not do to yourself what the captain has done, mistress. I know your power, but I know it is not without its cost.”
“Yeah. I know. Come on, let’s get to the robochef and see what we can do to feed them.”
None of it proved quite as simple as the Leewit had hoped. The robochef didn’t have any programs for lots and lots of quick food, all at once. It was designed to cater for ten people at the outside, and not to provide drinks for seventy or more. Vezzarn got her a water refill carboy from the storage locker to start with. Food could wait, she decided. She and Ta’zara went down to the hold. Even from outside one could hear the racket and the banging.
“Great Patham’s toenails. They better not be damaging the cargo!” she said furiously. Goth had been the one who had worked on making the Venture 7333 profitable, but now she wasn’t here. The captain relied too much on his luck. The Leewit pulled open the hold door—and had to hastily sidestep to avoid the three men and the small crate they’d been using as a makeshift—and hopeless—ram, falling through.
There was no place to go up, so she whistled at them. It was an odd talent, but one that could be deadly. This wasn’t intended to kill, just to hurt the ears, and by the way they clutched those ears, it did work. “What do you clumping dopes think you’re doing?” she demanded. “Who said you could bash our cargo and doors around?”
There was a stunned silence and then they all started yelling at once and a bunch tried to come shoving forward. Ta’zara dealt with them by picking up two of the makeshift ram carriers and throwing them back in the crowd. He grabbed the fallen crate and used it as battering ram—not on the open door, but the mass of people. “Back, mistress!”
The Leewit did nothing of the kind. She leaned past him and whistled instead. This time it was a real buster of a whistle. She hoped the cargo would be all right. A lot of the people weren’t. Quite a few fell over, and all of them tried to cover their ears, and retreat. She realized that Ta’zara had drawn his blaster. “I shoot the first of you to advance. Back. Now!”
There was no doubting Ta’zara’s tone. They backed up.
“What’s wrong with you dopes?” said the Leewit crossly. “We’ve clumping well rescued you. I’ve just brought you water. We’ll bring food soon. But not if you’re behaving like drunken bollems. You can starve.”
“I’m Councilor Stratel…” began one fellow with a fancy-pants hairstyle that had survived being chained up and even being rescued. His clothes hadn’t done as well.
“Bully for you,” said the Leewit, taking an instant dislike to him. “Now shut up, you clumping nitwit. If I need to know who you are, I’ll ask.”
He plainly wasn’t used to being treated like that. His mouth opened and shut, but no sound came out. That was an improvement.
“Slavery is a vile abuse…” began one of the men Ta’zara had flung back, one of the ram-holders. He was a tall, skinny serious-looking fellow, who looked like he’d never he
ard a joke he understood.
“You’re not clumping slaves, you idiot. We just rescued you,” said the Leewit, but the fellow was in full flow, waving his one arm about.
“It’s against the basic rights of man!” he bellowed, his face flushed and eyes wild, as he pushed his way forward, and then…fell over.
The Leewit looked at him, startled. That arm was at an odd angle. “Ta’zara,” she said. “Give them the water. And then can you carry this fellow up to the spare stateroom. There is something not right with him.”
“You have to let me out of here; I’m Councilor Stratel, and you must recover my possessions!” said the annoying man.
“Shut your cakehole, you clumping idiot!” said the Leewit. “Look, I’ll be back with food. Sort out who is worst hurt so can we see what we can do.”
“I demand to see the captain!” said Stratel.
So she told him to shut up, using some of her best words, before shutting them in the hold again. That was at least a little fun.
Using her klatha senses she examined the unconscious man.
His shoulder was dislocated. She said as much to Ta’zara. “It could have happened when I threw him back into the hold. I can try and pull that.” So he did. The Leewit was still rather wary about her klatha-healer skills. It was tiring and sometimes uncomfortable, getting inside the patterns that were people. But she felt the joint slip into place and the changes that caused. She felt like throwing up. Buffering herself from the pain had been among the first lessons she’d had to learn.
But there was more than just pain going on here. The man was fevered and…something else was wrong with him. It took her a little time to track it down. He was suffering from poisoning—that she got quickly enough. His liver was enflamed and the toxic metal that was affecting him was being concentrated there. That she could, and did move. She traced the source, down the blood vessels, and came to something that her healer sense had no control over—a foreign body, resting under his rib cage. She had no idea what it was, but it was going to kill him.
