Later, Hulik came back with another ISS agent. By his flat nasal accent he was a local man, and this was plainly the biggest thing that had ever happened in his career. He cracked his outsize knuckles, while attempting an intimidating stare. "You will tell us where they're hidden!" he yelled abruptly.
"Your customs men searched my ship from stem to stern," said Pausert. "There is nothing and no one hidden on it."
"Lieutenant do Eldel, get me the keys for this cell. I'm going to beat it out of him."
The captain looked at the ISS agent. The fellow was big, but he was definitely pudgy. Maybe now would be good time to depart from this cell, especially if Hulik was ready to help. Pausert put his hands on his hips. "You and which army?"
Hulik hadn't moved. "Lieutenant do Eldel!" snapped the ISS man.
"Yes, District Officer?" Hulik asked, cocking her head in polite enquiry.
He held out his hand. "The cell key."
"Sir, we know that the officer commanding in Pidoon City has sent an aircraft to fetch this man. It's a long flight but they'll be here by three a.m., and they'll be questioning him."
"I know that!" snapped local officer in annoyance. "But I want to get the answers."
"I advise against it, sir. The Agandar's lieutenant is a notorious killer, reputed to be very skilled at unarmed combat. I believe he is trying to provoke you into going into his cell."
The local ISS man snatched back the hand he'd been holding out for the key, as if it had been burned. He tried to look nonchalant, and only succeeded in looking foolish. "Humph. Consider yourself lucky," he told Pausert. "Or unlucky. The fellows from headquarters will bring tools that will make you sing, all right."
They left, and the evening wore on.
There were no lights in the cell, and the passage lights had long been switched off. Pausert had nothing by which to judge the passage of time. They'd confiscated his chronometer along with his belt and his boots. Time did seem to be passing exceptionally slowly. Pausert became increasingly convinced that Hulik had either been caught or hadn't been able to come. Once the ISS men came to take him to their headquarters, escape would be even more difficult and he'd be a long way from the Venture.
And then he began to rell vatch. Like the sound of a scent, like the smell of music.
You're in trouble again, Big Dream Thing. The familiar little silver-eyed vatch seemed quite delighted.
Pausert was desperate enough even to be pleased to see it. You don't know where the others are, do you? he thought at the vatchlet.
They're in a cell in the next passage. They asked me where you were! The vatch apparently found this quite funny. Even the little one asked nicely. You're not going to tickle me again, are you?
Can you get me out of here?
Yes, but I can't stay. And I want to watch!
Please? I chased the big one for you, didn't I? And they're coming to take me away. I won't be able to save Hantis and Pul, or my ship if they take me off to Pidoon City. That would finish your fun.
The little slitty quicksilver eyes considered him. Oh, all right. If you give me that piece of vatch stuff you took from the big one. It's not doing well on its own.
Pausert had forgotten about the fragment of vatch stuff. The tiny piece of blackness was still there, in his pocket. A black fragment of nothingness was not something that the warders who had confiscated the rest of his property would have seen. Or been able to move or touch. I'll lend it to you.
'Kay.
The vatch took it. The silvery-eyed little thing grew a tiny fraction.
Have fun, Big Dream Thing. I'll see you later. And the vatch was gone to wherever small vatches went.
He was about to curse it for a rotten cheat, when the lock on the cell door clicked open.
Captain Pausert was free—and on his own in the darkened passages of Gerota Town prison. Free, without boots, belt or any real idea of where to go. He stood in the passage, listening, straining his ears for the sound of patrolling warders. Instead he heard, faintly, the Leewit's voice. When she was yelling like that, faintly and far-off was the best way to hear it. But the sound still cheered the captain immensely. He set off to see if he could find them.
CHAPTER 7
Pausert found himself blessing the Leewit. Her voice was very easy to follow—and the passages were dark. He also found himself cursing the loss of his boots. He'd been very proud of those boots. They'd come from the hands of Mister Hildo of Hildo and Naugaf, Nikkeldepain's finest cobblers, back in the days when it had seemed he was going to be the first of Nikkeldepain's miffel-fur millionaires. Right now what he missed most about them was the fact that they protected his feet. Not only was the concrete floor of the jail-block brutally cold, but he had stubbed his toes a couple of times already.
Bare feet did make him walk a lot more quietly than the jailor who was also heading down the passage, which was still echoing with the Leewit's voice. "If you don't shut up, you'll get no food in the morning!" threatened the jailor angrily. When he reached the Leewit's cell, he rapped on the bars of the cell with his nightstick, as he shone his torch around the cell. "Some of us are trying to sleep!"
The Leewit blew him a magnificent raspberry. The warder was lucky. At least she didn't whistle at him. And she did shut up. Pausert knew the Leewit too well by now to believe that was likely to be without reason. So he shrank back into the shadows and waited for the warder to head back towards the desk he had been sleeping at.
He was dead right. The man had hardly been gone a minute when the captain heard a clink of keys and Goth's whisper. "Here. You try. The door only unlocks from outside and your hands are smaller than mine. You'll have to reach through the bars."
He walked quietly over to the cell door. "Let me help you. It'll be easier from this side," he whispered.
"Captain!" both girls squeaked.
"Hush. We don't want the guard coming back here now that you have teleported his keys, do we?" Pausert took the key from the Leewit and opened the door.
The girls piled out of the cell. "Knew you were coming," said Goth, gruffly, squeezing his arm.
"Do either of you have any idea of the time?"
"No," said Goth. "They took our watches before they put us in the cell. I thought it must be pretty late, so we got the Leewit to call the guard."
"They took mine, too." Pausert worried a little that he might have misestimated the time. "Did Hulik come to see you?"
"Yeah. With that creep of a local ISS officer friend of hers. She'd better hope we never catch up with her," said the Leewit nastily.
"It's not as simple as all that," said the captain. "I'm not too sure what game she's playing. She was supposed to come and let us out at midnight. The ISS have sent their agents from the capital of this mudball to come and fetch us. They should be here around about three in the morning."
"We'd better get out of here then, Captain," said Goth decisively. "It's got to be well after midnight by now."
"I suppose so. I'm inclined to trust her, myself, but . . . there are so many things that could have gone wrong. I reckon we should head for the old Venture. They're planning to use her as a target hulk. Leaky airlock, low fuel or not, I think we'd better run. Are you two rested enough to do the Sheewash Drive again?"
"Yep. Count on us. It's a pity you can't help, Captain. You're a hot witch."
"Believe me," said Pausert, "you can't want me to do it any more than I do. I feel as if I'm almost getting it."
"You can try too hard with klatha stuff," said Goth sternly. "Sometimes it comes when you need it, rather than when you want it."