"So?" Dumarest looked from one to the other. "Are you saying you can't handle it?"
"I can guide a ship to anywhere in the universe," snapped Niall. "I'm saying it won't be easy. Stars are thin so far out and so are planets. If anything should go wrong we'll have nothing to rely on but ourselves. I'll have to plot a safe course and it'll have to be done in stages. One mistake could be our last."
The ship burned, seared, twisted by invisible forces created by the death and disintegration of suns. Falling into the maw of a vortex, a warp, a black hole. Caught in local regions of intense strain which could crush a hull or turn a vessel into a ball of incandescent vapour. To freeze it in an eternal stasis or to rotate it into an alien dimension.
Dangers of which Dumarest was aware and he watched as the others frowned over a cluster of charts.
"Once we leave the Drift we'll head to the Solloso," said the captain. "Then to Quegan and the Myrm Cluster."
Niall disagreed. "Not the Myrm. We can avoid it by first going to Sabela then on to Stark. That area is pretty safe. A longer flight, but in the right direction."
Dumarest left them to it, moving through the ship on a routine inspection. The vessel was different to others he had known. One built for a specific purpose now adapted for another. The holds had been partitioned into sections holding tiered bunks to accommodate the enlarged compliment. All personal weapons had been locked away. Life would be cramped, restrained, far from comfortable. Only the officers had the privacy of their own cabins.
Zehava was in the communications shack. She turned as Dumarest entered.
"Earl?"
"We'll be off soon. Check the compliment is settled."
"Nadine -"
"Has her duties. Get on with yours."
As she left Dumarest looked at the operator busy with his equipment. Sending final messages back to Kaldar and among them would be the coordinates he had given the captain. Figures which would take them into the area he wanted to reach, but not those giving the true position of Earth. An elementary precaution against probable betrayal. Later it wouldn't matter. For all he cared the entire galaxy could know where Earth was to be found. But only after he had reached it. Only when he was home.
The firing control was unique to vessels designed for combat.
"Hi!" The officer in charge lifted a hand in greeting. Isin Badwasi had retained the exuberance of youth though his cropped hair held traces of silver. His face was mobile, eyes dark and holding a gleam of amusement. Gold shone in rich profusion against the rich blackness of his skin. "Come to look at my toys, commander?"
"They're safe?"
"As a virgin locked behind fifty feet of stone." He sobered at Dumarest's expression. "Sorry, I just like to joke. All locks are in place. Firing mechanisms inactive. Heads unarmed. The way things are we couldn't hurt a fly."
"How long before we could?"
"Too long," admitted Badwasi. "If we were attacked now we'd be dead before we knew what hit us. A precaution," he explained. "Against a ship failing to clear the gravity well or a generator failing at a critical time. It happened to Domhar three years ago. His vessel didn't make it. Luckily it hit well away from town but it still made a nasty mess."
"Does that happen often?"
"Once was enough. So we don't arm the missiles until we're in the clear. But the electronics are functioning."
"Show me." Dumarest watched as the man sent his hands dancing over his instruments. Screens lit to show the vista of space, the great ball of Kaldar looming close as they circled it in orbit. Lines crossed circles to form impact points, computers maintaining alignment. "Have you automatic locking?"
"You name it, we have it. Toibin never spared expense when it came to equipment. We can lock on a target, hold, fire by time or remote. This ship can hold its own against anything in space."
Creatures of the imagination born from the dreams of a violent childhood when the unknown held terrors and to be armed was to be safe. A sense of insecurity carried into adult life. Ships could not fight in space as Badwasi well knew; the Erhaft field made such conflict impossible. The instruments and armament housed in the vessel were for use against helpless towns and the people in them.
Dumarest studied a panel, the board marked as to various rooms and levels. "Slave gas?"
"The system doesn't work."
"You've carried slaves?"
"Often. But not for some time now. Toibin didn't like it. He claimed the profit was too small and the trouble too great. I guess he had a point."
"I guess he had," said Dumarest. "Were you a friend of his?"
"We got along."
"Do you know where he got that knife he used?"
"Against you in the fight?" Badwasi shook his head. "No. I can't remember seeing it before. He must have picked it up somewhere."
"Or received it as a gift?"
"It's possible. Toibin had a lot of friends. He was popular. People liked to do things for him. Give him gifts. Do what he wanted. He said people liked him. I guess he was right."
"Yes," said Dumarest. "Dead right."
"Meaning?"
"Toibin's gone. What he wanted or didn't want no longer matters. It's what I want that matters now. Get this system working. I want everything on this ship to be fully operational. Is that understood?"
"Sure, but the captain-"
"Gives the orders. I know. Do you want to make an issue of it?" Dumarest met the other's eyes, waited until they lowered. Quietly he said, "Were you on Arpagus?"
"I was."
"In charge of the armament?"
"That's right." Badwasi straightened, his eyes wary. "I aimed and fired the missiles – but I didn't call the shots."
"Remember that," said Dumarest. "From now on no one calls the shots but me."
"Understood, commander." Badwasi turned to his panels as the lights flickered their warning. "Good. At last we're on our way."
In the caverns the temperature was constant and it was only imagination which caused Ryon to feel the semblance of a chill. Yet was it wholly imagination? He could feel the tension beneath the scarlet robe as his body adopted a protective stance against the loss of heat. An association, he decided, one born of the learning of failure and almost psychosomatic in its end result. One alien to all previous experience – never had he known fear. Yet now, scanning the report, he could sense what such an emotion could be.
But if fear was alien to his experience so was regret. The past was over and unchangeable. To blame the phenomenal luck which attended Dumarest was to follow an illogical path. A proof of inefficiency which he would never tolerate. The challenge remained and must be met. The means were to hand.
Machines had smoothed the floors so that the stone held a soft sheen over which he glided with an assured tread. An aide hovered discretely to one side. Another led the way through passages, rooms, compartments to an area in which the air pulsed with the murmur of assembled apparatus. Against a wall a screen showed a nacreous surface. Those present wore sterile white touched with the insignia of their crafts. Among them Ryon and his aides resembled living flames.
"Master." Sing Candhar, seamed with years of study and service, bowed to the Cyber Prime. A gesture of respect for achievement and not an admission of servitude. "The experiment is prepared and waiting."
"Continue."
The screen glowed to vibrant color. It showed a sterile chamber in which apparatus was assembled on a bench and, to one side, a construction of rods, cranks, and levers.
"A mechanical analogue of the human body," explained Candhar. "The major problem we have as yet encountered is the difficulty of the recorded mind-imprint to adjust itself to the unfamiliar host in which it finds itself. The brains have been divested of their bodies for many years and old habits have died or been forgotten. It is basically a matter of re-education."