"So?"
"It could already have happened to us, Earl. We could end as monsters."
"Maybe, but we aren't dead yet so why worry about it?" Dumarest filled an empty glass and lifted it in a toast. "To life, Timus. Don't give it up before you have to."
"No." The engineer drew a deep breath. "I guess I'm just tired. Well, to hell with it. I knew the risks when I joined up with this expedition."
The man had relaxed long enough. Dumarest said, "How long will it take to repair the generator?"
"Days, Earl. A week at least. It isn't enough just to replace the units. The generator has to be cleaned, checked, the new parts tuned-say six days not counting sleep."
"And if I help?"
"Six days, Earl. I assumed you would be." Timus added bleakly, "It's too long. We can't push our luck that far. It's a bust, Earl. We haven't the time."
But they could get it. Drugs would delay the need for sleep and slow-time would stretch minutes into hours. Timus blinked as Dumarest mentioned it.
"Now why the hell didn't I think of that? Slow-time. You have it?"
"Sufan has. You've used it before? No? Well just remember to be careful. You'll be touching things at forty times the normal speed and what you imagine to be a tap will be a blow which could shatter your hand. And keep eating. I'll lay on a supply of basic and Marek can deliver more. Get things ready-and no more wine."
"No wine." The engineer swallowed what was left in his glass then said meaningfully, "How long, Earl?"
"For what?"
"You know what I'm getting at. How long are we going to look for Balhadorha? Sufan's crazy and will keep us at it until we rot I'm willing to take a chance but there has to be a limit. If it hadn't been for you we'd be as good as dead now. A thing like that alters a man's thinking. Money's fine, yes, but what good is a fortune to a dead man?"
If a fortune was to be found at all. If the Ghost World existed. If the whole adventure was something more than a crazed dream born and nurtured over the years, fed by a feverish imagination.
"We've come too far to turn back now," said Dumarest. "We'll keep looking. Well go to where Sufan swears the Ghost World is to be found."
"And if it isn't?"
"Then we'll keep going."
To the far side of the Hichen Cloud, to a new world where he wouldn't be expected, to lose himself before the Cyclan could again pick up his trail.
"Up!" said Embira. "Up!" And then, almost immediately, "To the left! The left!"
She sat like a coiled spring, muscles rigid beneath the soft velvet of her skin, hands clenched, blind eyes wide so that they seemed about to start from their sockets. Thin lines of fatigue marred the smooth contours of her features and her hair, in disarray, hung like a tarnished skein of gold.
Standing beside her Dumarest felt the ache and burn of overstrained muscles, the dull protest of nerve and sinew. Days had passed since the repair and he had slept little since the period of concentrated effort. Timus was in little better condition, but he had rested while Dumarest had attended the girl. She had refused to work without him at her side.
"Left!" she said again. "Left!"
Ahead space blazed with a sudden release of energy, a sear of expanding forces which caused the instruments to chatter and the telltales to burn red. Another danger averted by her quick recognition, but always there were more and how long could they continue to escape?
Without turning Rae Acilus said, "We're almost at the heart of the Cloud. There are five suns-which are the three?"
Crouched beside the navigator Sufan Noyoka studied his paper and conferred with Jarv Nonach. Their voices were low, dull in the confines of the control room. The air held a heavy taint compounded of sweat and fear, their faces, in the dull lighting, peaked and drawn.
"Those set closest, Captain. They are in a triangle set on an even plane. Head for the common point."
An instruction repeated, more for the sake of self-conviction than anything else. And yet the captain wasn't to be blamed. During the nightmare journey all sense of orientation had been lost as the ship, like a questing mote, had weaved its way on a tortuous path.
"Right!" said Embira. "Down! Up again!"
Directions sharpened by her fear, but for how long would she be able to retain the fine edge of judgment without which they had no chance? Dumarest dropped his hand to her shoulder, pressed gently on the warm flesh. Beneath his fingers she relaxed a little.
"Can you krang the planet, Embira? Is there anything there?"
"No. I-yes. Earl! I can't be sure!"
Another problem to add to the rest. A planet had mass and should have stood out like a beacon to her talent, but the suns were close and could have distorted her judgment.
"There could be nothing," said the captain. "If there isn't-"
"There is! There has to be!" Sufan would admit of no possibility of failure. "Search, Captain! Get to the common point and look!"
The suns were monstrous, tremendous solar furnaces glowing with radiated energy, one somberly red, one a vibrant orange, the other burning with an eye-searing violet. Acilus guided the vessel between them, his hands deft on the controls, sensing more by instinct than anything else the path of greatest safety.
"Jarv?"
"Nothing." The navigator checked his instruments. "No register."
"There has to be! Balhadorha is there, I know it! Look again!" Sufan's voice rose even higher, to tremble on the edge of hysteria. "I can't be wrong! Years of study-look again!"
A moment as the navigator adjusted his scanners and then, "Yes! Something there!" His voice fell. "No. It's gone again."
The Ghost World living up to its reputation, sometimes spotted, more often not. But instruments could be unreliable and forces other than the gravity of a planet could have affected the sensors.
Dumarest said quietly, "Embira, we're relying on you. Be calm now. Try to eliminate all auras other than those in the common point."
"Earl-I can't!"
"Try, girl! Try!"
For a moment she sat, strained and silent, then said, "Down a little. Down and to the right. No, too far. Up. Up-now straight ahead."
The screens showed nothing, but that was to be expected, the world was too distant-if what she saw was a world. And the scanners reported nothing.
"Only empty space," said Jarv bleakly. "Some radiation flux and an intense magnetic field, but that's all."
"Ahead," she said. "Up a little. Be careful! Careful!"
And then, suddenly, it was there.
The instruments blazed with warning light, the air shrilling to the sound of the emergency alarm, overriding the cut-off in its desperate urgency. Acilus swore, strained at the controls, swore again as the Mayna creaked, opposed forces tearing at the structure.
Large in the screens loomed the bulk of a world, small, featureless, devoid of seas and mountains, bearing a scab of vegetation, an atmosphere, a city.
Chapter Eleven
It was cupped like a gem in the palm of surrounding hills, small and with a central spire which rose in a delicate cone. A spire which fell to mounds set in an intricate array each as smoothly finished as the shell of an egg. On them and the spire the light of the blue and yellow suns shone with rainbow shimmers so that Dumarest was reminded of a mass of soap bubbles, the light reflected as if from a film of oil.
"It's beautiful!" whispered Pacula. "Beautiful!"
She stood with the others on the summit of a low mound. The ship lay behind them in a clearing of its own making, a hacked path reaching from the mound to where it stood. To either side stretched a sea of vegetation; shoulder-high bushes bearing lacelike fronds, some in flower, others bearing fruit. Underfoot rested a thick carpet of mosslike undergrowth, broken stems oozing a pale-yellow sap.