Frowning with concern, Brim rose from his recliner and quickly joined the others beside a starboard console. He required only one glance through the Hyperscreens. "By the beard!"
he swore, rubbing his eyes. "1 can't look directly at it, either...." Outside, perhaps three hundred irals off the starboard boat deck, was the shimmering, half-seen ghost of a small starship-and for some reason, his eyes refused to focus on it properly. He shook his head and peered into the emptiness beyond the bow. All the stars in the shoal appeared in sharp focus. Yet when he tried to look at the ship off to port, it seemed to be ephemeral. Some of the brighter constellations were actually shining through its hull! As if it were from another dimension. His heart thumped with sudden apprehension. Perhaps the crazy fiction writers weren't so far off after all! Or..."Do you suppose we're looking at a bender?" he whispered.
Ursis smote his forehead. "I vould bet on it!" he exclaimed. "And somewhere this ship is clearly radiating something that it cannot bend!"
"Do you suppose they know that?" Brim asked sharply.
The Bear shook his head and smiled sardonically. "No..." he said slowly. "I believe that they do not. And... look, they are drawing closer."
"If only we knew what it was that they cannot bend," Brim said over a whole chorus of creaking hull plates.
"Whatever it is," Ursis rumbled, "we must at least notify the Fleet that something of the sort exists." He turned to Barbousse. "Utrillo," he ordered, "see if you can prepare the KA'PPA set for use. I was about to restore the ship's main power when you spotted this apparition. I shall finish the work immediately."
"Aye, Lieutenant," Barbousse said, moving slowly off to the communications console.
The big star was now making itself felt through the ship's weakened local gravity.
Amid a nearly continuous dissonance of sepulchral groans and clamor from the overstressed hull, Brim continued to watch the little ship as it slowly approached Providential's starboard rail.
"Stand by to switch power from storage cells to the normal reactor," Ursis warned.
"Ready, sir," Barbousse answered.
Suddenly-at the exact tick the whirring consoles went silent on the bridge-the little ship disappeared completely, then rematerialized a moment later in the same position when the consoles resumed operation. Now, however, the bender was considerably more visible, with only the brightest stars shining through its ghostly hull. Suddenly, Brim felt at least a milston lighter in the ship's revitalized local gravity. "What'd you just do?" he asked.
"Restored primary power to the mains," Ursis said hurriedly, then turned to Barbousse.
"Utrillo, see if you can get a message off to-"
"Hold off a moment, Nik," Brim interrupted, pointing out the Hyperscreens at the bender.
"I think whatever else you did to the mains, you also put the bender back into... what do they call it when the ship's invisible?"
'"Spectral mode,'" Ursis said, frowning out at the little ship and shaking his head. "But it is still perfectly visible, Wilf Ansor. See for yourself."
"I know full well what it looks like now, you stubborn Sodeskayan," Brim answered hotly,
"but it wasn't that way a cycle ago when you momentarily shut off power to everything.
Remember, I was looking...."
Ursis held up a hand of supplication. "I do not doubt your word, friend. Believe me. During the moment of switchover, everything on board the ship lost power-including whatever we've got on board that is transmitting those radiations the bender can't bend."
"Speaking of which," Brim added, pointing over his shoulder with a thumb, "the Leaguer is a lot more visible now, for some reason."
"So it is," Ursis agreed. "Therefore, our mysterious radiating source must also be getting more power." He shook his head in frustration. "What in the filthy name of David L. Voot do you suppose it could be?'
"I wonder, gentlemen," Barbousse interjected, looking up from a large utility console at the rear of the bridge, "if it might be the N-rays this ship is sprayin' all over the Universe? I've been checking around, and those Vergonians shut most everythin' else down cold, like..."
Brim looked at Ursis and shrugged ignorance.
"The N-ray projectors are still emitting?" Ursis asked.
"Aye, sir," Barbousse said, "at least accordin' to these five switches they are. The diagram here shows the mains are wide open."
"You may have found it, then," the Bear answered, getting to his feet. "Switch them off-all of them-and we'll have a look through the Hyperscreens."
"Aye, sir," Barbousse answered. Presently, a series of sharp clicks sounded from the rear of the bridge. "How's that?" the big rating asked.
Brim peered at the enemy ship just in time to see it go completely invisible again. "It's gone." he exclaimed in amazement.
"By the ice lizard's toe!" Ursis said. "So it is, Utrillo. Turn them on again."
Barbousse switched the N-ray mains on again, and the ship immediately reappeared.
"Switch them off again."
"Aye, sir."
"Aha! On again, please."
"Aye, sir."
"And off again."
"Aye, sir."
"Barbousse figured it out!" Brim cheered. "Look, the bender's disappeared again."
"That seems so," Ursis said, nodding his head thoughtfully, "It seems that the damned Leaguers have not tested their new vehicle thoroughly." A rumbling chuckle escaped his lips. "It makes sense when I think about it, too. N-rays are nothing but highly compressed beams of photons that act by swamping electron energy that must be present to sustain the uncollapse of an electro-collapsite like hullmetal. Imagine what happens when such a highly packed beam hits a bender."
Brim frowned. "I guess it saturates the bender, too, doesn't it?"
"Correct, my furless friend," Ursis said. "The bender simply cannot retransmit so many quantums at one time-and some of them reflect." He peered through the Hyperscreens.
"Ah-ha-see: he has now reappeared again." He turned to Barbousse at the utility console and waited until a particularly noisy creaking spent itself somewhere in the decking beneath his feet. "Perhaps we should stop the testing now, my friend," he suggested, "before something gives us away."
"I didn't do anything that time, Lieutenant Ursis," Barbousse protested. "The N-ray mains are still closed."
"Then she's come out of spectral mode on her own," Brim stated through clenched teeth.
"Probably looking us over to see if we're worth finishing off." Grimly, he peered through the Hyperscreens and listened to the hull breaking up below. The bender was small-perhaps 115 irals in length. And narrow: no more than ten irals in diameter-little more than three times the height of a man. An awkward-looking control bridge jutted vertically from the hull almost dead amidships. It was topped by a stubby KA'PPA antenna. A row of small Hyperscreen panels extended around its forward curve like a toothy smile. Aft, the tower returned to the hull in two steps, each surmounted by an ugly-looking disruptor. Brim easily identified the top one as a rapid-firing 37-mmi Tupfer-Schwandl. The lower weapon was much larger: probably one of the long-nosed Schneidler 98s he'd run up against on A'zurn-he'd never seen one up close. At either side of the hull, obese nacelles welled outward like great, swollen tumors. These clearly housed the Drive components; each ended some twenty irals abaft the control bridge in finned reverser rings.
And every square milli-iral of the ship's surface (including gratings in front of the Hyperscreens) was covered by a fine pattern of tiny, rectangular logic units-literally millions of diem. Steady waves of feeble ruby light flowed over these from the bow to the stem in regularly timed sequences.