Then he waited—in sudden and terrifying silence. Whatever new fate awaited his twelve comrades outside in the K tube, it was evidently now decided.
In due time, the hooter answered his summons with the tinny imitation of a woman's voice:
"Overmann Zotreb?"
Brim eyed the body at his feet. So that was the name of the man he killed. He shuddered. "Yes?" he responded in Vertrucht, muffling his voice through a fist.
"Overmann?"
"Yes."
"You do not sound yourself, Overmann Zotreb."
Heart in his mouth for the hundredth time since he left Truculent, Brim searched the bare walls for an answer—deciding attack was his best defense. "And just what is it you expect?" he snapped angrily, still muffling his voice.
"N-Nothing, Overmann!" the voice responded placatingly.
"You will concentrate on your own concerns in the future," Brim growled. "Now, what message disturbs my contemplation of the Weed?" he demanded.
"S-Sorry, Overmann," the voice said. "The call was placed at your personal request."
"Well get on with it, damn your worthless hide!"
"Y-Yes sir. You are due on the bridge in twenty cycles, Overmann."
"And that is all?"
"Yes, Overmann."
"Acknowledged," Brim spat, then turned the device back to "MONITOR." He frowned, concentrating. Twenty cycles of relative safety before they started looking for Zotreb. After that, it was just a matter of time until...He snorted. He couldn't very well just sit in the cabin. Ursis hadn't set up his escape so he could run away to hide. And now that he found himself with a few options again, it was necessary he make the most of his time and do something about the disaster their mission had become.
Soon! Every cycle brought the little crew closer to an enemy spaceport and slavery or death—eventually the latter, in any case.
Brim suddenly grimaced. Of course. That was the answer. Whatever else he might accomplish, it was necessary first to stop the corvette. That meant getting himself to the engineer's flat in the aftmost module and somehow disabling the starship's single gravity generator. Its uneven rumble irritated him almost as much as the Controllers. But how could he get all the way back there? His answer came from the corpse.
The late Overmann Zotreb had no further use for his uniforms now, but Wilf Brim did. In less than five cycles, the Carescrian was dressed in one of the dead man's hated black uniforms—too big overall, but a lot less noticeable than his own bright blue Imperial battle suit. He consulted his timepiece. About fifteen cycles remained—perhaps forty until they started looking and found the body. After that, Universe knew.
But one step at a time.
Wiping clotted blood from Zotreb's big blast pike, he carefully opened the door, peered both ways along the empty K tube, then started aft toward the propulsion module at what he hoped was a casual rate of speed.
Footsteps echoing in the smooth-walled tube, Brim didn't get far at all before his disguise was put to the test. A gray-clad rating, arm around a bundle of logic assemblies, appeared suddenly from a companionway, turned on his heel, and passed at a fast walk. He saluted but never lifted his eyes. Brim breathed a deep sigh of relief as he entered the ship's central module, carefully memorizing everything he saw. One never knew....
Unlike similar modules built around a K tube, this corvette's central globe was part of the tube itself—a place where the long, cannular structure swelled to a spherical chamber before shrinking again at the point opposite his present position. The walkway cantilevered across twenty irals of open space to meet its counterpart on the other side.
Centered in the chamber, a glowing vertical tube divided the catwalk and extended through wide, circular openings at the top and bottom of the room—beyond which were control rooms located just inboard of the ship's 99-mmi disruptor turrets. Brim easily picked out the firing consoles (triggering gear all looked pretty much the same everywhere) in the harsh light that streamed from the rooms and provided most of the illumination around him. Elsewhere in the chamber, great power conduits sprang from the aft opening to the K tube and disappeared within the brilliance of the rooms. Numerous ledges jutting from the curved inner walls contained consoles—some manned, most not—many of which Brim could not identify. These oddly placed displays cast random, moving patterns of colored lights throughout the strange spherical chamber and everything it contained. Clearly, a great deal of the activity that took place on the bridge of an Imperial warship was decentralized throughout this ship. A nice point of design, he allowed, for a warship. It would make her much harder to knock out with one well-placed hit. But it also denied the close team atmosphere that resulted from concentrating decision-making power. He filed it away in his mind as he strode (more confident looking, he hoped, then he felt) across the catwalk, gripping Zotreb's blast pike and trying to act as if he belonged where he was. If he ever got back to his own side of the war, the information he memorized could prove handy in many ways. He snorted to himself. If he ever got back.
As he moved into the aft continuation of the K tube, more and more gray-clad crew members passed, all avoiding his eyes—most, in fact, cringed while they hurried by as if they were relieved to be out of his way. He smiled to himself—no more relieved than he!
Then, passing an open door in the next-to-last module, he heard voices, glanced inside, and was rewarded with a view of five Controllers sitting wound a circular table—clearly pursuing serious matters among themselves. Putting his haste aside for the moment, he stepped to a position outside the door where he could hear what was gong on inside but still remain unseen by the conferees. He rested the butt of his blast pike on the deck beside his right hoot, then assumed the Universal position of a bored-guard.
So far as he could remember, Brim himself seldom questioned armed guards—especially commissioned armed guards—and guessed it was a pretty typical reaction. This was verified only moments later when he was passed by three, gray-suited ratings (who saluted) and two Controllers (who did not). Not one of them so much as met his eyes.
"It is now under control?" a smooth, perfectly modulated voice demanded in Vertrucht from inside.
"It is, Prefect," a younger voice declared, fear just below the surface.
Brim felt his eyebrows raise. Prefects were the equivalent of Imperial lieutenant commanders. The corvette was too small for more than one of these—so it was a sure bet he was listening to the ship's captain.
"And the count, Officiant Naddock—how many were they?" the Prefect's flawless voice demanded.
"Ah," the younger voice began. "Ah, I..." A chair scraped the deck.
"Well, Officiant?"
"We have all twelve of them locked up, Prefect," a female voice asserted. Brim recognized it as the scarred officer's from the K tube. "Gray Officer Mocht—the ex-professor—counted them just after the Bear had his fit."
Brim smiled—Ursis' distraction had come just in time. They couldn't know he was loose. Yet.
"You had better hope the Gray fool's count is accurate, my scarred beauty," the modulated voice sneered. "Or I shall make certain you are both more painfully interested in detail during any future operations you survive to join."
This was answered by a sharp intake of breath and then silence. Brim returned a melancholic salute from a fat, gray-suited rating with a painful-looking, and very swollen, black eye, who slowly limped along the corridor. Souvenir of Ursis' free-for-all in the K tube, he guessed, hard put to stifle his smile.