"I've teleported it back already. When they try it again it'll be working. And it served them right. You told some awful fibs."
He tried to look innocent. "Just false suggestions. The commodore fooled himself."
Goth laughed. "Just so long as the Leewit doesn't find out she was supposed to have imperial blood. She's already impossible!"
"Just like that little vatch." He grimaced. That had been a near thing. And the vatch hadn't even been trying to create mischief. It had said it would be back; without a doubt it would return at the worst possible moment.
Goth appeared out of no-shape. "They're hunting for us pretty hard, Captain," she said seriously.
"Yes. It's not what Threbus led to me expect."
"I guess this must be more important than they told us," said Goth, biting a strand of hair.
The captain took it gently out of her mouth. "I guess you're right, girl. And I don't like being kept in the dark."
The Leewit and the grik-dog trotted into the control room. Pul was looking even more sour-faced than usual.
"My legs are still stiff," growled the grik-dog. "Posture like that's unnatural."
"You complain?" sneered the Leewit. "Try holding yourself up sometime, pretending you're a third your real size. I'm the one had to do all the work. Fatso."
* * *
"That information," said the Nartheby Sprite, making a small moue and wrinkling her foxy brows, "is available strictly on a need-to-know basis. And I don't think you need to know, Captain."
"Well, I beg to disagree!" snapped Pausert. "And as the captain of this ship—"
Pausert felt something close on his leg. Just firmly, but with a hint of immense unused strength. "Shall I gnaw his leg off, Hantis?" asked the grik-dog out of the corner of his mouth.
"Do that and I'll swing you around my head by your tail, Pul," said Goth, crossly. "The captain has to know what he's dealing with, Hantis. Even if you don't tell him everything, you have to tell him something."
The Nartheby Sprite laughed musically, and twitched her long, pointed ears. "Very well. To save my Pul's tail and the captain's leg, I will tell you some of it. Not all of it, mind. I can't. There is a mind-block so I don't remember parts of it, and won't until I speak to the Empress. It can't even be tortured out of me."
"We grik-dogs bite people who swing us by the tail," gruffed Pul. He had, however, released the captain's leg. And the look he gave Goth was a tad uneasy.
"Let's just have the story," said the captain peaceably.
"But it goes no further than you and Goth, understand? We don't want to cause alarm and panic. That would serve them better than us."
"I give you my word."
"Very well." She sat down, arranged her graceful legs, and began. "My kind are the last remnant of an old, old civilization. Nartheby is our home-world where almost all of our kind now live, but once we roamed widely, even to your Yarthe itself. There are stories about our people visiting—although as you were a young and developing culture we largely left you alone. Then we were afflicted by a plague. It wrecked our culture, our colonies and our star travel. We only saved ourselves by retreating to Nartheby and destroying any ships that came near our world, for a period of five centuries. Then it appeared that the danger was over. But the only Sprites that survived were on Nartheby." She pinched her fine nostrils. "Now . . . The plague has resurfaced. It is spreading, fast, through the Empire."
Pausert and Goth stared at her. The captain was the first to find his tongue. "But . . . Surely we shouldn't be keeping it a secret? We should be quarantining the infected areas."
Hantis had always seemed to be smiling. Now, as she shook her head, she just looked sad. "It's not that kind of plague, Captain. That's what we thought it was too, at first. It's an invasion. The invaders are just very small. Although we've never determined their exact nature, they are at least partly klatha creatures and seem to have a collective mind. They attack the way a plague would, but they're intelligent. They invade a host, breed billions of operatives, and then take over their hosts and control them. No quarantine can stop an intelligent disease."
"Does Karres know of this?" asked Goth.
Hantis nodded. "Yes. That's why they've gone into hiding. There are no Karres witches out in the Empire at all right now. Except those on this ship."
"But why?" demanded Pausert. "Why have they just run off and left us to deal with this?"
Hantis shook her head. "They haven't. But they have to be very careful. The Nanite plague feeds on and uses klatha energy. Klatha energies are also the only way to fight them. That makes Karres and her witches the greatest danger in human space to the Nanites. They've been trying to get Karres destroyed. So Karres is preparing a number of defenses—but after the fight with the Worm World they're pretty battered."
Goth nodded. "Threbus and Maleen both kind of hinted at this. So what is it you have to do, Hantis?"
"Yes," agreed Pausert. "Why is getting you to the Empress Haile so important?"
"Because of Pul."
"Pul? Him?" Captain Pausert looked at the blue-furred animal with its impressive mouthful of teeth.
Hantis patted the grik-dog affectionately. "Yes. Grik-dogs were bred to smell out Nanite exudates. Pul here can tell if someone has been infested. No Nartheby Sprite would ever consider leaving home without one."
"And I can tell you that ISS agent from the Imperial cruiser had been invaded and taken over," growled Pul. "It was all I could do not to bite him."
"Grik-dog fangs can inject a venom that kills Nanites. Unfortunately it kills the host too, and also takes quite a long time." Hantis looked even sadder.
"Which means that anyone who is infected can't be saved." Pausert felt very cold, suddenly.
"The Empress Haile is going on her procession through her territories and dependencies soon. We've learned—suspect, at least—that there is a Nanite plot designed to reach fruition when she returns to the Imperial Capital. It is essential that Pul and I get there before then. Unfortunately, the Nanites have obviously taken over some of our own agents. They know who I am and where we are going. They will stop at nothing to prevent us from getting there."
CHAPTER 4
"Captain, that fleet is still following us," said Vezzarn worriedly. "They'd be out of detector range if you hadn't had that new stuff fitted on Uldune."
Captain Pausert looked at the small blips on the detector screen. One large and fifteen smaller spots of light, traveling in formation. The fleet was still outside the range of the visual screens. He wished he could see them.
"Let's try stepping up the power—slowly, so it isn't obvious—and changing vector slightly. This is the most direct route to the Sheris system. It is possible that they aren't actually following us . . . I suppose."
Two hours later they were able to say for certain the fleet was following them. Moreover, the fleet could also follow them despite their slow increase in speed to the Venture's maximum.
"I don't like it, Goth. I think you and the Leewit should get ready to use the Sheewash Drive," said Pausert finally. Getting rid of their followers was worth the risk.
Goth nodded. "Good idea, Captain. Let's lose them while we can. I'll go and get the Leewit."
"And I am going back to my cabin," announced Vezzarn. Witch-stuff made the old spacer nervous. If it couldn't be explained in terms of space-time physics, he wanted to be elsewhere when it was happening,
A few minutes later, a globe of orange fire danced above some twisted black wires in the control cabin. Outside, the viewscreens showed that space suddenly blurred. Captain Pausert eyed the process with interest. During the Venture's last voyage, Vezzarn, Hulik do Eldel and Laes Yango—who had also gone by the name of "the Agandar" and had commanded a fleet of pirates that were fast becoming a navy—had all wanted to steal the Sheewash Drive. They had all thought that it was something technological, and could be stolen. What they hadn't known was that it didn't work without a witch; all they had known was that it was really, really fast.