Allain came toward her as she stepped inside. He looked like a ghost in a living garden; walking through the tumult of flowers, the glint of metallic wings adding extra eyes to the tension of his face. He caught her arm and drew her from the salon.
"Jumoke-have you seen him?"
"No." She sensed his urgency. "Is something wrong?"
"Yarn wants him. The instruments are acting all to hell, and he's worried. Jumoke could be responsible. He-"
"Jumoke commit sabotage? That's impossible!"
"Once, yes, but now I'm not so sure." The steward was bitter. "He's been eating smoke and God alone knows what other things. The man's half-crazed and not even seeing straight. I've tried to cover for him, but now he's gone too far. Have you seen him? I've checked the salon but he isn't there. His cabin?"
"Maybe." She made her decision. "I'll look-he'll answer for me."
Answer, if he was inside and read more into her call than was intended, but that was a problem to be settled later. Now, with the ship in potential risk, there was no time for worry about personal commitments. As a crew, all had to stick and operate together.
But he wasn't inside. The door remained closed and, when she opened it with the master key, the cabin was empty aside from the acrid taint of drugged vapors.
"Smoke," said Allain, grimly. "He must have hidden some away. I thought I'd found every can."
"The instruments," she said. "Just what is the situation?"
"Bad. Yarn's doing his best, but Jumoke is the navigator. We're off course as it is, and surrounded by trouble. At the best, days have been added to the journey. The worst-" He didn't need to complete the sentence. "Where the hell is he?"
A jerk gave the answer. A slight movement of the deck beneath their feet, a twitch of the hull, a movement of the fabric itself, as if the ship had shrugged within its skin.
Yarn Egulus felt it and reared in his chair, his face ghastly in the subdued light of the telltales. The historian felt it and shrugged, happy in his ignorance. Gale Andrei pursed her lips as the hologram shook a little, then steadied to its former beauty. Bochner felt it and guessed. Dumarest felt it and knew.
As did the dancer who halted the undulating movements of her arms, the complex pattern she wove among the blaze of flowers to stand, mouth open, the scarlet smear of a bloom casting the semblance of blood over her throat and chest, a blotch which quivered as she screamed.
"The ship! My God, the ship! The field is down!"
Chapter Seven
Jumoke lay where he had died, looking very small now, a limp figure with burned and blackened hands and a face which had one cheek pressed hard against the bulk of the generator which he had ruined. A face still tormented by the devils which had possessed him, one unrelaxed by the peace he had hoped to gain.
"The bastard!" Allain was bitter. "If he wanted to die, why take us with him?"
"He was crazy," said Dilys. "You said so yourself."
"And who sent him that way?" The steward's anger was the product of fear. "You could have given in to him. Let him have you and kept him sane."
"I'm not property. The ship doesn't own me."
"Where would have been the harm? You went with him before and you knew how he felt. You could have lied, promised, given him hope. Damn it, a kiss could have saved us!"
"That's enough," said Dumarest. "Dilys isn't at fault. If anyone is to blame, it's you. You knew he was eating smoke. Why didn't you stop him?"
"I tried."
"Like hell you tried!" Dilys flared with a sudden rage. "Did you report it to Yarn? Did you tell anyone? Did you take precautions against something like this happening?" She gestured to the body, the machine. "Damn you, Allain. Damn you!"
Dumarest caught her lifted hand before she could send its palm against the steward's cheek. For a moment, she struggled with him and he felt the strength of her, the fear and anger which powered the muscles beneath the skin, then, abruptly, she was against him, her face pressed against his own, a dampness on her cheek.
"Earl! Oh, Earl!"
He held her, waiting for the moment to pass, knowing that until it did, nothing constructive could be done. When she finally straightened, he said, "How bad is the damage? Can it be fixed?"
"I don't know. I'll have to check."
"Then get on with it." Stopping, Dumarest gripped the body and swung it to one side. "Allain, you'd better get back to the passengers. Give them tranquilizers if they need them, and any lies which can give them comfort. We've had a temporary breakdown which will take a little while to fix. In the meantime, they can enjoy the hospitality of the ship. Break out some spirits and strong wines. Euphoriants, too, and get that woman to play more of her recordings."
"They aren't stupid, Earl. They know what it means once the field is down."
As they all knew-knowledge which gave no peace of mind. Once the shimmering haze of the Erhaft field was down the ship dropped to below light speed, to drift in the immensity between the stars, to be vulnerable to any wandering scrap of debris which might cross their path-motes which could penetrate the hull and larger fragments which would vent their kinetic energy in a fury which would turn metal into vapor. And there were other dangers, less tangible, but more to be feared. The impact of invisible energies which could twist and distort the vessel and all within it, forces which were thick in the area they now traversed.
"Dilys?"
"I'm working as fast as I can, Earl." She was at the generator, tools spread in orderly confusion around her, hands grimed, as was her face, her hair. She had stripped off her blouse and wore nothing above the waist but the fabric confining her breasts. They, and the flesh of back and shoulders, glistened with perspiration. "He'd loosed the covers," she said. "Lifted them and put something inside. A scrap of wire which he used to short out the coils."
"So?"
"Like Allain said, the poor devil was crazed. He must have wanted to attract my attention in some way."
"He wanted to die."
"Perhaps not, Earl. He didn't know too much about generators. He needn't have meant to do much damage."
"He wanted to die and take us with him." To Dumarest it was obvious and he wondered why she would want to think of excuses for her ex-lover. Because of that, perhaps, a reluctance to think ill of someone who had been so close. "Is there anything I can do to help?"
For answer, she shook her head. He had done enough, dragging the dead body into the hold and cycling it through the lock. Dead meat, fit only to be dumped into the void, but once it had been a man and one she could have saved had she been less harsh. Allain had been right. A kiss could have saved them all.
A kiss, and a little less carelessness on her part.
Had she not left the engine room untended. Hadn't wandered down the passage to enter Dumarest's cabin and waste time talking to Bochner. Hadn't become enamored of the picture he had painted, the house and prospects, the position he'd mentioned. The one dependent on marriage. Would Earl have married her to make himself eligible?
Was he a man who could be bought?
Questions which now had no meaning. Looking into the interior of the generator, she could see the damage which Jumoke had caused; delicate installations now seared and blacked, insulation charred, surfaces which should have gleamed like mirrors now dulled with the impact of heat, stained by condensed vapors. Things which could be repaired, and would be repaired if given the time, but the main problem was within the triple helixes. Each set at right angles to the other, things of delicate fabrication, matched to within five decimal places of similarity. How badly had they been distorted?