"I'm not very experienced at this Karres witchery. I think we'd better try and get them back to the Venture. I might need to find another Karres witch—and that could be difficult, seeing as how the ship isn't likely to be going anywhere without these two."
Hulik shook her head. "It's worse than that, Captain. We may already be too late to save the Venture or the lives of Pul and Hantis. I've been listening in on the communications on the ISS band. As soon as the team arrived to pick you up, they discovered that the prison warders were dead."
"Dead?" exclaimed Pausert.
"Yes, dead," said Hulik, grimly. "You were captured by some local hoodlum called Fullbricht."
"And some of the Agandar's pirates," added Pausert. "They definitely considered this Fullbricht as a sort of bungling minor functionary."
"Yes. He was probably a local spy for the Agandar, once. Well, that explains the heavy weapons and the brutality! Anyway, they murdered the prison warders. But the local police and the ISS are blaming you. So they've sent an order to have enough fuel run into the Venture for a take-off. Then they're going to use her as they'd planned, for a naval training exercise, and blow her apart."
Pausert shook himself, scattering gobs of ferroplast. "Come on. Let's get Goth and the Leewit into that groundcar. I'll have see what I can do. We'd better try to get to the Venture."
"I'll bring the groundcar over here, Captain."
As Hulik moved across to the showy groundcar, Pausert looked around. "How do we get out of here? Can we just crash through those doors?"
Vezzarn shook his head. "This is a hazardous material store, Captain. Those will be especially hardened doors. Guess I better go to work on the locks."
Pausert tried to shake more ferroplast off himself, while he reflected that having an expert safe-breaker and lock-pick in your crew could be very useful. He set his mind to work undoing whatever it was that he'd done to Goth and the Leewit. He had no idea on how or where to start.
Hulik brought the car over. She'd picked up Vezzarn. "Someone is trying to open the doors. I guess Vezzarn wasn't the only one who could trail Fullbricht back here by the cars, Captain. But I think that hole the exploding barrel made in the wall over there is big enough for this groundcar."
They loaded the slickly smooth invisible eggs containing Goth and the Leewit into the car. Hulik eased the vehicle forward and they bumped out through the hole in the side wall. The warehouse plainly hadn't been used for some time. There were plenty of weeds and some rusting stacks of a very familiar barrel. As they drove further, the reflection of flashing lights on the surrounding concrete wall revealed that Gerota Town's finest were at work on the warehouse door.
Hulik clicked the groundcar lights off. By the light of Pidoon's moons, they quietly edged away from the building, following the trail cleared by Goth's flying barrel. Pausert realized just what an intensely fast and powerful reaction he must have caused by his klatha use. The barrel had finally smashed into the concrete wall. The wall was only partially flattened, but, short of going out past the Gerota Town police, there was no other escape route.
"Shall we charge it?" asked Hulik, making the groundcar's motor growl.
"Let's just try pushing, " said Vezzarn. "It looks weakened."
It was, and a section fell in. They bumped and bounced their way down onto the deserted adjoining street and turned the powerful vehicle towards the spaceport. As they did so, they listened in on Hulik's ISS-issue communicator to the reports coming in concerning the search for them.
Apparently, the Agandar's pirates had done them something of a favor, as the vehicle they'd fled in had been spotted and was being pursued. There were also reports from the ISS man and the local space-pilot they'd rounded up to get the Venture into space. The ISS man had had some trouble getting fuel out of Pidoon Fuels and Lubricants. Pausert, despite the fact that he was having absolutely no luck in reversing his klatha shield around Goth and the Leewit, found that that was worth laughing about.
The spaceport was bustling. As bustling, at least, as the spaceport of a small town of a minor backwater planet could be just before dawn. There were seven vehicles in the groundcar park. One was an ISS-liveried loader. At least there were no police waiting. Perhaps they assumed that now that the ISS men were aboard the Venture and that she was getting ready for take off, there would be no need for them to watch the spaceship any more.
"How will we get onto her?" asked Vezzarn, as they drew into the parking lot.
"Borrow the ISS loader," said Pausert. "Hulik, contact the agent to let him know that we've got a load of explosives, intended to make doubly sure that the Venture is totally destroyed."
Hulik looked at him in surprise. "That's not like you, Captain."
Pausert shrugged. "I don't like to break the law. But I'm wanted here already for murders I didn't do. Stealing an ISS vehicle can't add more than another execution to the list. If we live through this and get to explain, we can always pay for it. Provided we get to use the Venture's money again."
Vezzarn was already out of the vehicle, working on the door lock of the loader. Breaking in took him barely a minute. The captain and Hulik manhandled Goth and the Leewit out of Fullbricht's groundcar and onto the lowbed of the loader. There was a tarpaulin which he and Vezzarn tossed over the top of the girls. Pausert would have sworn Goth's eyes were now open. But the light was bad and time was pressing. Hulik was already on the communicator.
"Agent Sboro. We've dispatched a load of explosives to make sure that the vessel is completely destroyed. See that your pilot doesn't attempt to leave before it's aboard," snapped Hulik into her ISS communicator.
There was a pause. "Yes, ma'am. I will open the cargo hatch."
Agent Sboro sounded a little breathless, thought Pausert, as they drove across the concrete to the old Venture. Pausert looked lovingly but fearfully at her. If he couldn't work out how to get Goth and the Leewit out of the trap he'd put them into, then they were in even more trouble. It seemed, right now, that the Venture and her crew had only been lurching from disaster to disaster since the beginning of their mission.
They hastily unloaded the Leewit and Goth. Then, because it was quickest way to do it, rolled the transparent egg shapes up into the cargo hatch.
The captain saw the flaw in his plan. There was no way out of the cargo hold into the ship—unless, like the Agandar, you had a Sheem war robot that could cut through the bulkheads.
The ship intercom crackled. "Get off the ship. We're about to launch!"
"We've got a confidential message for you. It must be delivered in person," said Pausert smoothly. "We can't get off until it is delivered. Orders."
"I repeat, get off. If you're not out of the cargo hatch by the count of five, I'm sealing it and we'll blast anyway. One. Two . . ."
"It is essential!"
"Three. Four."
"We have information about the hidden passengers. We know where they are."
The hatch began to close. "I'm coming down. You're about to take a ride into space. Line up against the back wall with your hands away from any weapons."
"What do we do?" asked Hulik.
Vezzarn and Pausert looked at each other. Hulik was a fine marksman, and a good companion. But she was no spaceman. Pausert shrugged. "Cooperate," he said. "We have to strap in on acceleration couches for launch."
"Oh."
"If this agent Sboro is humane enough to let us." Pausert looked at Goth's definitely open eyes. "We'll just stand behind Goth and the Leewit. We know that the shield can stop even a Mark Twenty blaster bolt." He felt guilty about it all the same. "Put your gun on the floor, Hulik. If need be you can drop and shoot."