When it came to problems on Uldune, he still had a number to handle there. But they were business matters and would be resolved. Sunnat appeared to have realized at last she’d been making something of a nuisance of herself and was now behaving more sensibly. She was still very cordial to the captain whenever they met; and he trusted he hadn’t given the tall redhead any offense.
Chapter FIVE
Sedmon the Sixth, the Daal of Uldune, was a lean, dark man, tall for the Uldunese strain, with pointed, foxy features and brooding, intelligent eyes. He was a busy ruler who had never been known to indulge in the frivolity of purely social engagements. Yet he always found time to grant an audience to Hulik do Eldel when she requested it. Hulik was a very beautiful young woman who, though native to Uldune, had spent more than half her life in the Empire. She had been an agent of Central Imperial Intelligence for several years; and she and the Daal had been acquainted for about the same length of time. Sometimes they worked together, sometimes at cross-purposes. In either situation, they often found it useful to pool their information, up to a point.
Hulik had arrived early that morning at the House of Thunders, the ancient and formidable castle of the Daals in the highlands south of Zergandol, and met Sedmon in his private suite in one of the upper levels of the castle.
“Do you know,” asked Hulik, who could be very direct when she felt like it, “whether this rumored super spacedrive of Karres really exists?”
“I have no proof of it,” the Daal admitted. “But I would not be surprised to discover it exists.”
“And if you did, how badly would you want it?”
Sedmon shrugged.
“Not badly enough to do anything likely to antagonize Karres,” he said.
“Or to antagonize the Empire?”
“Depending on the circumstances,” the Daal said cautiously, “I might risk the anger of the Empire.”
Hulik was silent a moment.
“The Imperium,” she said then, “very much wants to have this drive. And it does not care in the least whether it antagonizes Karres, or anybody else, in the process of getting it.”
Sedmon shrugged again. “Each to his taste,” he said drily.
Hulik smiled. “Yes,” she said, “and one thing at a time. To begin with then, do you believe a ship we have both shown interest in during the past weeks is the one equipped with this mysterious drive?”
The Daal scratched his neck.
“I’m inclined to believe the ship was equipped with the drive,” he acknowledged. “I’m not sure it still is.” He blinked at her. “What are you supposed to do?”
“Either obtain the drive or keep trace of the ship until other agents can obtain it,” Hulik said promptly.
“No small order,” said Sedmon.
“Perhaps. What do you know about the man and the girl? The information I have is that the man is a Captain Pausert, citizen of Nikkeldepain, and that the child evidently is one of three he picked up in the Empire shortly before the first use of the drive was observed and reported. A child of Karres.”
“That is also the story as I know it,” Sedmon told her. “Let’s have a look at those two…”
He went to a desk, pressed a switch. A picture of the captain and Goth appeared in a wall screen. They came walking towards the observer along one of the winding, hilly streets of Zergandol. When their figures filled the screen, the Daal stopped the motion, stood staring at them.
“To all appearances,” he said, “this man is the citizen of Nikkeldepain described and shown in the reports. But there are still unanswered questions about him. I admit I find those questions disturbing.”
“What are they?” Hulik asked, a trace of amusement in her voice.
“He may be officially the citizen of Nikkeldepain he is supposed to be, now masquerading with the assistance of my office as Captain Aron of Mulm — and still be a Karres agent and a witch. Or he may be a Karres witch who has taken on the appearance of Captain Pausert of Nikkeldepain. One simply never knows with these witches…”
He paused, shaking his head irritably. After a moment Hulik said, “That’s what is bothering you?”
“That is what is bothering me,” Sedmon agreed. “If Captain Pausert, alias Captain Aron, is in fact a witch, I want no trouble with him or his ship.”
“And if he isn’t?”
“The girl almost certainly is of the witches,” the Daal said. “But I might be inclined to take a chance with her. Even that I would not like too well, since Karres has ways of finding out about occurrences that are of interest to it.”
“May I point out,” said Hulik, “that the entire world of Karres was reliably reported to have disappeared about the time this Captain Pausert was last observed in the Nikkeldepain area? The official opinion in the Imperium is that the planet was accidentally destroyed when the witches tested some superweapon of their devising, against the impending arrival of a punitive Imperial Fleet.”
The Daal scratched his neck again.
“I have heard of that,” he said. “And, in fact, I have received a report from one of my own men in the meanwhile, to the effect that Karres does seem to be gone from the Iverdahl System. It is possible that it is destroyed. But I don’t believe it.”
“Why not?”
“I have had dealings with a good number of the witches, Hulik, and for many years I have made a study of Karres and its history. This is not the first time it was reported that world had disappeared. Nor, when it was observed again, was it necessarily within some months of ship travel of the point where it had been observed before.”
“A super spacedrive which moves a world?” Hulik smiled. “Really Sedmon!”
“As to that, I will say nothing more,” replied the Daal. “There are other possibilities. For all I know, Karres still is at present in the Iverdahl System but made invisible, indetectable, by the skills of the witches.”
“That, too, seems rather improbable,” Hulik remarked.
“It may seem that way,” said Sedmon. “But I know it to be a fact that, before this, ships have gone to the Iverdahl System in search of the world of Karres and were unable to find it there.”
He shrugged. “In any event, it seems much safer to me to assume that the world of Karres and the witches of Karres have not disappeared permanently…”
He stared at the frozen figures in the screen, pursed his mouth in puzzled worriment. “And besides…”
“Well?” said Hulik as he hesitated.
The Daal waggled his finger at the screen. “I have the strangest feeling I have encountered that man before! Perhaps also the child… And yet I find no place for either of them in my memories.”
Hulik glanced curiously at him. “That must be your imagination,” she told him. “But your nervousness about the witches explains why you have been conducting your search for Captain Pausert’s mystery drive in what I felt was an excessively roundabout manner.”
The Daal grinned briefly.
“I have,” he said, “great faith in the basic unscrupulousness of Sunnat, Bazim Filish. And in the boldness of Sunnat. The story that came to her naturally did not mention the possibility that her clients were witches. But she and her partners are completely convinced the superdrive exists.”
“And have been searching most industriously for it in the course of rebuilding the ship,” Hulik added. “Sunnat also has attempted to bedazzle Captain Aron with her obvious physical assets… you, in the meanwhile, hovering above all this, hoping they would discover the drive for you.”