“Oh? Why not?”
“Because they’ll burn right up — flames and smoke — if they try to do them and don’t stop fast enough,” Goth said. “Never seen someone do it, but it’s happened.”
She might have thought he was nervous if he hadn’t repeated the experiment right away to get in the practice she felt he needed. So he did. It was surprisingly easy then. On the first run through, the line patterns seemed to flicker into existence almost as his thoughts turned to one after another of them. On the second, he could barely keep up with the overall pattern as it took shape and was blanked out again by the spinning blue blur. On the third, there was only an instant flash of brilliance and that odd semiaudible snap near the top of his skull. At that point he realized there had been no recurrence of the uncomfortable heat sensations.
“You got it now!” his mentor decided when he reported. “Won’t matter if you’re asleep either. The locks know their business.”
“Incidentally, how did you know I could do it?” the captain inquired.
“You picked up the Nuris,” Goth said. “That’s good, so early…” Over dinner she filled out his picture of the Worm World and its unpleasant inhabitants. Manaret and the witches had been at odds for a considerable time — around a hundred and fifty years, Karres time, Goth said; though she wasn’t sure of the exact period. The baleful effect of the Worm World on human civilizations was more widespread and more subtle than anyone like Vezzarn could guess, and not limited to the Nuri raids. There were powerful and malignant minds there which could act across vast reaches of space and created much mischief in human affairs.
Telepathic adepts among the people of Karres set out to trace these troubles to their source and presently discovered facts about Manaret no one had suspected. It was not a world at all, they found, but a ship of unheard-of size that had come out of an alien universe which had no normal connections to the universe known to humanity. Several centuries ago, some vast cataclysm had temporarily disabled the titanic ship and hurled it and its crew into this galaxy; and the disaster was followed by a mutiny led by Moander, the entity who “spoke in a thousand voices.” Moander, the witches learned, was a monstrous robot-brain which had taken almost complete control of the great ship, forcing the race which had built Manaret and been its masters to retreat to a heavily defended interior section where Moander’s adherents could not reach them.
Karres telepaths contacted these people, who called themselves the Lyrd-Hyrier, gaining information from them but no promise of help against Moander. Moander was holding the ship in this universe with the apparent purpose of gaining control of human civilizations here and establishing itself as ultimate ruler. The Nuris, whose disagreeable physical appearance gained Manaret the name of Worm World, were a servant race which in the mutiny had switched allegiance from the Lyrd-Hyrier to Moander.
“So then,” Goth said, “Moander found out Karres was spying on him. That’s when the Nuris started hunting witches…”
The discovery also slowed down Moander’s plans of conquest. Karres, the megalomaniac monster evidently decided, must be found and destroyed before it could act freely. The witches at that time had no real defense against the Nuris’ methods of attack and, some eighty years ago, had been obliged to shift their world beyond the western side of the Empire to avoid them. The Nuris were not only a mental menace. They had physical weapons of alien type at their disposal which could annihilate the life of a planet in very short order. There had been a great deal to learn and work out before the witches could consider confronting them openly.
“They’ve been coming along with that pretty well, I think,” Goth said. “But it’s about time, too. Manaret’s been making a lot of trouble and it’s getting worse.”
“In what way?” The captain found himself much intrigued by all this.
The Worm World more recently had developed the tactics of turning selected individual human beings into its brain-washed tools. It was suspected the current Emperor and other persons high in his council were under the immediate influence of Moander’s telepathic minions. “One of the reasons we don’t get along very well with the Imperials,” Goth explained, “is the Emperor’s got orders out to find a way to knock out Karres for good. They haven’t found one yet, though.”
The captain reflected. “Think the reason your people moved Karres had to do with Manaret again?” he asked.
Goth shrugged. “Wouldn’t have to,” she said. “The Empire’s politics go every which way, I guess. We help the Empress Hailie — she’s the best of the lot. Maybe somebody got mad about that. I don’t know. Anyway, they won’t catch Karres that easy…”
He reflected again. “Have they found out where the Worm World is? Vezzarn thought…”
“That’s strategy, Captain,” Goth said, rather coldly.
“Eh?”
“If anyone on Karres knows where it is, they won’t say so to anyone else who doesn’t have to know they know. Supposing you and I got picked up by the Nuris tonight?”
“Hm!” he said. “I get it.”
It sounded like the witches were involved in interesting maneuvers on a variety of levels. But he and Goth were out of all that. Privately, the captain regretted it a little.
Their own affairs on Uldune, however, continued to progress satisfactorily. Public notice had been posted that on completion of her outfitting by the firm of Sunnat, Bazim Filish, the modernized trader Evening Bird, skippered by Captain Aron of Mulm, would embark on a direct run through the Chaladoor to the independent world of Emris. Expected duration of the voyage: sixteen days. Reservations for cargo and a limited number of passengers could be made immediately, at standard risk run rates payable with the reservations and not refundable. A listing of the Evening Bird’s drive speeds, engine reserves, types of detection equipment, and defensive and offensive armament was added.
All things considered, the response had been surprising. Apparently competition in the risk run business was not heavy at present. True, only three passengers had signed up so far, while the Venture’s former crew quarters had been remodeled into six comfortable staterooms and a combined dining room and lounge. But within a week the captain had been obliged to put a halt to the cargo reservations. He’d have to see how much space was left over after they’d stowed away the stuff he’d already committed himself to carry.
They were in business. And the outrageous risk run rates made it rather definitely big business.
Of the three passengers, one was a beautiful dark-eyed damsel, calling herself Hulik do Eldel, who wanted to get to Emris as soon as she possibly could, for unspecified personal reasons, and who had, she said, complete confidence that Captain Aron and his niece would see her there safely. The second was a plump, fidgety financier named Kambine, who perspired profusely at any mention of the Chaladoor but grew hot-eyed and eager when he spoke of an illegal fortune he stood to make if he could get to a certain address on Emris within the next eight weeks. The captain liked that part not at all when he heard of it. But penalties on cancellations of risk run reservations by the carrier were so heavy that he couldn’t simply cross Kambine off the passenger list. They’d have to get him there; but he would give Emris authorities the word on the financier’s underhanded plot immediately on arrival. That might be very poor form by Uldune’s standards; but the captain couldn’t care less.
The last of them was one Laes Yango, a big-boned, dour-faced businessman who stood a good head taller than the captain and had little to say about himself. He was shepherding some crates of extremely valuable hyperelectronic equipment through the Chaladoor, would transfer with them on Emris for a destination several weeks’ travel beyond. Yango, the captain thought, should create no problems aboard. He wasn’t so sure of the other two.