Murphy understood the drill and said, "Well, she seems in good shape. All we need are passengers."
Maslovic started for a moment, then remembered that the old man, for all his looks and manners, was in fact a licensed interstellar pilot himself. "Could you fly her in a pinch?"
"Oh, probably, but I wouldn't know what half the stuff was. Probably dump fuel in the coffee dispenser and go orbital upside down and backwards after putting us all into cryogenic suspension accidentally. And, of course, it wouldn't recognize me in any event. No, I take 'em out of orbit, feed 'em the navigation data, stick 'em on autopilot and sit around until we get there. The likes of an old freighter, it ain't that hard. This, now-this is a speedster. I got to say I don't feel comfortable in ships that are most definitely smarter than I am."
Maslovic looked around at the food service ports. "Would you like something while we wait? Who knows how long it's going to be before the others arrive?"
"I don't think they have the recipe in there for what I need this trip," the old captain responded. "Unless that thing can dispense a good, fillin' dark ale that would feel comfy in an Irishman's gut, I guess I'll pass for now."
Maslovic shrugged. "Let's see." He turned and said to the console, "Ale, seven percent, malt brewed, very dark."
There was a tinny kind of whistling sound from the port, and then a bell sounded and the small drink compartment door slid back. Inside was a large molded cup with a bubble top on it. The sergeant took it out and handed it to Murphy, who looked at the drink suspiciously. He removed the lid, since they had gravity and no potential motion problems, sniffed it, then sipped it. There was foam on the top. Surprised at what he tasted, he gave an approving nod and quite literally downed the entire cup in one continuous series of swallows.
Maslovic was impressed, not so much by the drink as by the manner. You had to have long practice to gulp down a heavy brew like that.
"Not bad at all," the old captain said approvingly. "Where the devil did they get that recipe? I've had better, but it's pretty good."
"We have data and formulas for just about every known cuisine, food and drink both, in the big ship, and this is just a subset. We ourselves don't generally eat or drink too much exotic, but the ability is there. We have to cater to guests now and then, and we've also found that the formulas are often quite welcome on some of the colonial worlds. It breaks the ice, I think the old term is."
"Indeed it does! The only thing that it needs is to understand that you drink ale in liters, not in dainty little cups!"
"Well, I doubt if those kinds of liter-or-more vessels would fit in there, but you have a nearly unlimited supply so it's all the same, isn't it?"
"Not quite, laddie, but it'll do. Damn! Wonder where in the world them girls are. I hope they didn't get lost or decide to get into more trouble instead of gettin' outta here. They couldn't have been much farther away than I was!"
There was the sudden sound of girlish laughter in the air, both right there and yet as if from afar, raising the hairs on the back of Murphy's neck. As he stiffened and tried to look around, the main hatch connecting the shuttle to the frigate closed and locked with a hissing sound, and then the outer lock did the same. Murphy looked back through the aft hatch, past the bedroom area, and saw that the main door was now closed and sealed and had a red light flashing on top of it. The light steadied after a moment, and there was a second loud hissing sound, like air brakes being applied. The air quite clearly was being pumped out of the lock.
"I think our guests have arrived," Sergeant Maslovic commented dryly.
Murphy looked around. "Girls? That you? C'mon, now! Your old captain's got an old man's heart. He can't take but so much of this spooky business! Come! Give me a hug I can see and let's be off this cold place!"
He didn't get the hug, although he wasn't sure if he'd feel comfortable getting one from some unseen presence anyway. He did get more ghostly giggles, and it was Maslovic, who seemed far less nervous than the old captain, who said to thin air, "Lieutenant, our guests have arrived. I believe they want us to depart before they'll show themselves and things get back to normal."
"Buckle in or hold on," the voice of the pilot came at them over the intercom. "Five… four… three… two… one… Launch!"
Murphy and the sergeant both hoped that the girls were holding on as well, as the ship suddenly shot forward and away from the big frigate like a cannonball with too much powder, pushing them back and to the side. Murphy's thankfully empty cup of ale sped off the table and hit the wall just to the left of the aft hatch. They both could feel the thrust pinning them against the bulkhead. Then, suddenly, the acceleration cut off, and they had the rapid and uneasy feeling of weightlessness.
"Engaging gravitational field at slowly rising rate to fifty percent of norm," the pilot announced, and almost immediately they could feel weight returning to them, although not at the level that it had been before. Assuming the girls hadn't all just gone into labor at the shock of the launch, though, it would be a lot easier on them for the rest of the run to be at half weight, and might minimize some potential complications. Still, the pilot had taken a risk with that launch.
Murphy let out a deep breath and rubbed the back of his neck for a moment. The launch was surprise enough, and he hadn't been too gentle in meeting that bulkhead because of it. He was also finding it harder to get used to the sudden half gravity than he should have. Maybe it was the ale, he told himself, or maybe he was just getting old after all.
"Girls! You all right?" he called out as soon as he got his wits back. "C'mon, girls! Show yourselves! We got a long way to go here, and we don't want any mishaps!"
For a while it seemed as if nothing happened, and Murphy grew worried that perhaps they hadn't been in the room, or, if they had, that they'd been knocked about too badly by the takeoff. He hoped not. It wouldn't only be messy, it would make them madder than hell.
"Girls?" he called out, growing suddenly worried.
Maslovic gestured to the center table in the lounge with his head and eyes, and Murphy looked and saw what the sergeant had noticed.
Slowly, deliberately, somebody was using some kind of paint or marker to draw a crude design on that shiny clean tabletop.
At first it was more or less a closed circle, and then inside of it a five-pointed star with some odd symbols that looked mostly like swashes inside the outer portion between each star point.
Murphy and Maslovic both stared hard now, not at the design but inside it, and above it, and, to their mutual surprise, they could actually see the three witches, sort of. They seemed to flicker in and out, and parts of them flashed here and there. Finally, though, they attained a more permanent solidity, and the two men could hear them chanting in some unknown tongue.
They looked bedraggled and downright filthy, their hair in tangles, their bodies stained with not only whatever they'd used to paint themselves a day or so earlier but also grease and all sorts of other stuff. There were some fresh scrapes, too, and the red-haired one had a cut on her leg that was still bleeding slightly. Others had small cuts and scratches all over that had healed, and were in a few cases already beginning to bruise.