by Allen Wold
"I don't know, all I can see is blurs."
"The Tschagan are still looking for us," Denny said.
"Let them," Rikard said as he felt a weight settling down on his shoulders.
It was Grayshard. "Just getting a better look," the Vaashka told him. Several of his tendrils, singularly or in clumps, waved in the air over the console. Others waved in other directions. The tendrils near the console clumped, then separated to form new tendrils as old ones came apart. Rikard watched in fascination. "My 'eyes' are at the ends," Grayshard explained.
Then Grayshard slid off Rikard's shoulders and down onto the slanting deck beside him on the left side. "It's not quite the same," he said, "as it would be in one of our ships, but I'll wager that the people who made this ship had no symmetry, or at most radial symmetry."
"That makes sense," Rikard said. "From the layout of the console, I'd guess radial."
~Of course,~ Droagn said, ~and I'd guess they were also buoyant in their atmosphere. That would explain the decks.~
"I've never heard of anybody like that," Rikard said, "but I think you're right. The Belshpaer were radial, this console would have seemed normal to them, but their decks would have been level."
"Does that help you make any sense out of all this?" Sukiro asked.
"It can. No right or left, no front or back, and in this case no reason to stay on the floor. So the controls would be arranged by a different logic."
"And one not that difficult for me to figure out," Grayshard added.
"But why do you think this is the master panel," Sukiro asked, "instead of that one in the middle of the room?"
~That one,~ Droagn said, ~is for general display. It's almost all display panels, there are very few controls. And all the other panels on the walls are in clusters, the one where Rikard Braeth lies is isolated.~
"My thought exactly," Rikard said.
Droagn, on Rikard's right, reached out a finger, touched the central screen, then touched the one on the upper right. Another image formed, adjacent to the one on the central screen. It showed an area of the hangar above floor level. ~They still have to account for thrust and direction in a spacecraft,~ Droagn said.
Grayshard, clumped together on Rikard's left, bunched a mass of tendrils and with it touched the center screen, then one on the lower left. Most of what the screen then showed was the platform under the ship. And the central screen now showed distant Tschagan, moving from platform to platform, pausing at each almost long enough to be seen before going on.
"Our friends are being cautious," Sukiro said.
"So we've got a navigator's console," Falyn observed, "will it control the whole ship?"
"Only one way to find out," Rikard told her. He shifted his position so that he was crouching over his knees, which left him both hands free. But for the moment he just leaned on them, between the radial arms of the mysterious controls.
"Toggles are obvious," he said, "though who knows what they do." He touched a blank readout disk. It came on.
"I just realized," Sukiro said. "This ship has power even though it has been here at least ten thousand years."
"Are we connected to the Tschagan station in any way?" Falyn asked.
Rikard looked at the meaningless readout. It displayed a collection of dots and squiggles, which were not arranged in any array or pattern he could discover. "I didn't notice any connections when we were outside," he said.
~The bottom of the ship,~ Droagn said, ~was—ah—one meter above the support pad, if that means anything.~
"Tight-beam broadcast?" Sukiro suggested.
"The Tschagan are getting closer," Fresno warned.
Rikard touched the raised outline of the ship and then a screen. A diagram appeared, showing what was obviously the ship, in schematic form. "Love it," he said, then touched an area on the schematic that corresponded to the hatch by which they had entered and then another screen. An enlarged view on this other screen showed the hatch itself. "Love it! Now how do I lock that thing?"
He touched the image of the hatch, it opened. He touched it again, it closed.
"We'll have to take it for granted," he said, "that it's locked if it's closed."
"What did you do?" Dyson called to him. "The Tschagan on the hatch side are all staring at us, if I can judge."
"They saw or heard the hatch opening," Raebuck said.
"Damn," Rikard muttered.
"They still have to get up to it," Sukiro said. "But now they know where we are."
"I think we've got trouble," Corporal LeClarke said. "A bunch of Tschagan have gone off to some equipment over to one side."
"Nothing we can do about it," Rikard told her. He turned his attention back to the schematic and touched the representation of the ship's lower sphere—which might have been analogous to the power sphere on a Federation ship—then another unused screen. The display showed a simulated panel, its hexagons all showing single dots.
~Let's guess those are zeroes,~ Droagn said.
Rikard touched one of the simulated hexes, then another screen, but nothing useful happened. "Some things require more direct control," he said. "Probably an anti-idiot circuit."
"Are we going to blast off before we open the hatches?" Sukiro asked.
Rikard pointed to another area on the schematic. "That's the drives," he said, "I just want power." He looked at the readout from the power sphere*—if indeed that was what it was—and noticed that some of the lines between hexes were thicker than others.
"First digit is here"—he pointed at the central hex—"and it goes this way." He traced a spiral out counterclockwise.
~Gotcha,~ Droagn said, ~and look here.~ He pointed to another display which, until now, had been non-functional. ~Base eight. ~
"You're right," Grayshard said.
"So how does that help us turn on the power?" Falyn asked.
Rikard tapped the central hex of the power display eight times. The symbols flickered, changing from one shape to another, then turned back into a dot. But the second hex in the spiral now showed the first symbol to appear after a dot.
"They've got a platform outside the hatch," Fresno said, "and they're using some kind of cutting tools."
"All right," Sukiro said, "have a squad ready to blast them when they cut through." She turned back to Rikard. "Can you close off inner hatches?"
Rikard looked at the schematic. "I think so."
Rikard, Droagn, and Grayshard continued to examine the controls. They tried them out cautiously, and learned more with each experiment. Sometimes they tried things that had to do with life support, or internal communications, and sometimes things they didn't understand at all. These last they quickly abandoned.
"We have to learn the logic first," Rikard said.
They continued to experiment, until at last, between the three of them, they thought they had an idea of how to control the drives. But they could not test this knowledge since, as Sukiro had suggested, they couldn't go anywhere with the station's hatches closed.
Fortunately the Tschagan outside seemed to be having trouble cutting their way into the ship. It was, apparently, well armored. But more Tschagan were arriving, and some of them were bringing in equipment that looked to some of the goons like heavy duty mounted blasters, though they could not have been.
At last Rikard thought they could turn on the power, and with Grayshard's and Droagn's concurrence, did so. They could all feel the ship respond, a subtle vibration, a movement of the air. But not all the telltales on the schematic came on, many remained dark. Rikard, Droagn, and Grayshard reevaluated the mathematics and tried again, and this time the whole ship came alive.
And outside, the Tschagan were zipping around like the angry insects they were. There was no dust at all within a hundred meters of the ship, and the blurs of the moving Tschagan were seen all over the place.
"How about weapons?" Sukiro asked. "We could blast our way out."
Falyn leaned over Rikard's shoulder, and pointed to several places
on the schematic. "Those?" she suggested.
"They won't be blasters," Rikard said, but he put them on another display, which now showed what they knew were power readouts, and something more besides, which seemed to be a special coordinate system.
~Might be worth a try,~ Droagn said.
"Read it this way," Grayshard said, and started to try to explain how he thought the system worked, but Rikard interrupted him.
"It's just like my built in ranging system," he said, "only the symbols are different." And it worked by touch. When he touched a portion of the screen, a series of radiating lines centered on the spot, and after a moment a small circle followed. Rikard wasn't aiming at anything, just over the tops of the nearest ships. He touched the schematic, where now several small lights were glowing in the waist between the bottom and middle spheres, and there was a brief, intense flicker of blue light.
"UV laser," Sukiro said. The bolt left a dark scar along the far roof of the hangar, where the weapon happened to have been pointed.
The Tschagan outside were startled by the shot, and had all dashed away, but when they saw where the shot had gone they came back.. They brought up heavy weapons and opened fire. They were projectile weapons which, judging by the flashes they produced when they hit the skin of the ship, fired armor piercing shells.
The ship's armor was good, however, and nothing penetrated, but yellow signals lit up on the schematic. Rikard brought enlargements of those areas to other screens, and from the diagrams shown guessed that the shells had done some small damage to the hulJL If the Tschagan concentrated their fire they could probably breach the hull in time, and then the ship wouldn't be space worthy.
It took several tries but Rikard and his two companions eventually figured out how to turn on the antigravity lifters. But once they were independent of whatever it was the Tschagan had used to keep it afloat, the ship began to rock and tilt. They couldn't maintain balance from just this one console. They set the ship back down again, and while the Tschagan outside scurried around almost invisibly, set several goons at other control stations and quickly instructed them as to what to do. The Tschagan's confusion gave them the time they needed to learn how to maneuver the ship on its own lifters.
~We still have to get out of here,~ Droagn said. ~I think we could blast our way through the hull right overhead.~
"I wouldn't count on it," Rikard told him. "I suspect that the hull armor is far too strong for even UV lasers. It's designed to withstand meteorites, after all. And besides, I don't want to cause any more damage than we have to. But we can try to blow out the hatch."
The three of them worked together. They lifted the ship again, and slid and sidled over toward the hatch, a dome in the roof of the hangar a dozen ship-spaces away. But as the ship left its docking pad it fell off the pad's supporting field. It was a drop of less than three meters, but they could all feel the crunch as the ship's flicker spike touched the deck.
Outside, the Tschagan were thrown into a frenzy. At least they weren't shooting at the moment.
Rikard and his impromptu crew got the ship back up off the deck and, learning as they went, kept it upright as they moved it between other ships toward the hatch. Telltales on the schematic showed that the short fall had caused considerable damage to the jump spike, but as far as Rikard could tell it was still functional.
The Tschagan started firing again, aiming at the damaged bottom of the ship. Under Rikard's direction the ship moved over an empty gravity pedestal. It lurched up toward the ceiling, spoiling the Tschagan's aim.
He brought the ship down off the other side of the pedestal, more gracefully this time—it didn't hit the deck. But as they passed another ship the two brushed sides and they started spinning.
It took a moment to stop the spin, and when they did they found that they'd drifted to one side. But at least they were nearing the area below the hangar's hatch.
Grayshard and Droagn, leaving Rikard in charge of the ship's movement, went to other, nearby control stations, and started learning how to aim the ship's weapons. They blasted a group of Tschagan manning a cannon, which sent other Tschagan nearby running for cover. They hit another ship without causing any noticeable damage, blew a hole in a far wall, and smashed yet another ship to pieces. The Tschagan retreated in disorder. But the weapon couldn't be brought to bear on the hatch which, by now, was directly overhead.
"Everybody grab hold of something," Rikard called out. "Get word to the others, we're going to tip over." He did not wait for a reply, but delicately fingered the controls on his display console. As the ship started to tip, it slid away from its position, in the direction its base was pointing, and started to topple. Quickly he righted it.
"Shoot when you can," he shouted to Grayshard and Droagn. He performed the clumsy maneuver again, and in the instant when the ship was tipped but still in control, they fired upward at the hatch.
The ship slipped, Rikard righted it. The shot had hit the edge of the hatch without causing damage.
"Once again," Rikard called. This was the third time, and his crew and gunners were ready for it. They were able to keep the ship more or less under control, though it continued to slip and tilt, and Droagn and Grayshard got off three shots before they had to right again. The last shot hit square on the center of the hatch.
It blew open. The atmosphere in the hangar rushed out, a storm of dust that obscured all the vision screens. Rikard held the ship steady, and after a moment the dust was gone and the rush of air stopped as the station's inner seals closed.
"Hang on!" Rikard shouted. "We're going through!" He slowly lifted the ship toward the blasted hatch, fragments of which still hung in the opening. The ship brushed against the broken and twisted metal valves as it pushed its way out, and telltales on the schematic showed minor damage but no breaks in the hull. The ship got stuck for a moment as its central sphere came up against a solid piece of the hatch. Rikard pushed the ship up harder. They could feel and hear the tearing as the ship pushed its way through. Then suddenly they were out into space.
Rikard slumped back exhausted. "Get us away from here," he told his crew, "away from the surface until we can figure out the inertial drive."
Droagn and Grayshard came back to his side. "I think this is the communications system," Grayshard said, indicating various areas on the console.
"Try to call the gunship," Rikard told him.
Grayshard did so, but though the console screens and telltales indicated that he was doing the right things, he could get no response.
"This ship," Falyn said, "probably uses a different range of frequencies."
"You and Grayshard get on it then," Rikard said, "over there. I've got to get the inertials working."
Grayshard went with Falyn to a nearby console, and Sukiro took the Vaashka's place.
Droagn pointed at an area of the schematic. ~Could that be the inertial drive?~ he asked.
"One way to find out," Rikard said.
With Sukiro and Droagn offering advice, Rikard manipulated the alien controls. Droagn's suggestion seemed to be right, and the drive seemed to be working. But if Rikard could read the telltales correctly, there was little fuel left in the craft—that was something modem ships hardly ever had to worry about.
The inertial drives were controlled by a track-ball device, set to one side of the central display of screens. But the ball not only rotated and spun in its socket, it responded to pressure. Thus direction and speed of rotation and pressure all contributed to the working of the drive, and it took Rikard a while, testing the drive at its lowest functional setting, to even begin to get the hang of it. But at last the urgency to move overbalanced his need for caution, and he pulled the ship up and away from the derelict—clumsily it was true—and moved the alien vessel out to what he judged to be five of the station's diameters from it.
"Hold on," Sukiro said, "I think I've got direct contact with the ship. We must have come over the horizon relative to it."
&nbs
p; And as the other goons in the bridge acknowledged similar contact, Grayshard and Falyn gave up trying to figure out this ship's communicators.
"Hold on," Sukiro said again, and then fell silent as, via her com-link, she told the crew of the gunship that they were coming, and described the alien vessel so Brenner wouldn't fire on it.
At the same time Iturba was in communication with the com-chief on board the gunship, and told her about the alien ship's communicators, and after a moment the speakers came on so that Rikard, Droagn, and Grayshard could also hear what was being said.
Captain Brenner reported that nothing had happened on the gunship since the rest of the goons had gone down to the station, but some repairs had been done, though the drive itself was totally nonfunctional. The gunship's inertials were damaged but working, their weapons were fine, their communications were functional, and they were ready for action should the pirates on the station come out.
"They won't," Sukiro told him. She quickly described the battle, ending that the survivors had all been taken prisoner and were on board. "But there's a second pirate craft," she concluded, "that could come at any time."
"We've got you located," someone on the gunship reported, then gave a string of numbers that were relative coordinates.
Rikard did not understand this, but Sukiro instructed him on where to go. After a few moments Rikard saw a blip on one of the external screens. That was the gunship. Clumsily, the two craft maneuvered toward each other.
"We've got other craft on our detectors," the crewman on the gunship said. "They're small, but they're coming up fast, from over the horizon."
They could only be Tschagan ships, and there were several dozen of them. They were probably fighters, and were closing quickly.
Rikard and the others working the consoles of the alien ship had not had a chance to try out its long range scanners, and couldn't get a reading on the Tschagan craft. They had to depend on the reports from the gunship, which now, at least, was well within visual range, and saw the flash of its blasters firing.
The Tschagan fighters, when at last they came into view, were strange open structures without any streamlining. Fortunately, the laws of physics kept these ships from moving as fast, relatively speaking, as the Tschagan did themselves. But all of them were well armed, if one could judge from the muzzle flashes, which were clearly visible on even the most distant of them.
