"Going to have to try and run again, then." Captain Pausert dropped himself into the control chair. "Goth, the Leewit—you two go and eat and get some rest. We may need to use the Sheewash Drive again."
Soon, Pausert started worrying that even the Sheewash Drive wouldn't get them out of the fix they were in. The fancy ship detectors they'd had fitted on Uldune were registering a second layer of ships—an outer englobement pattern. The captain handed control over to Vezzarn while he wrestled with the computations. After a few minutes, he clicked the trajectory calculation screen off and bit his knuckle.
"What is wrong, Captain?" asked Hantis, coming in with a tray of food.
Captain Pausert looked at the elfin alien woman that the Nanites were so desperate to kill. "They've deployed a lot of ships. They've obviously been tracking us and coordinating their efforts by subradio. The formation out there is big and elaborate. At the best speed we can manage with the Sheewash Drive at the moment . . . we're going to have to come under fire from at least one Imperial Space Navy ship. And I'm not at all sure we're heavily enough armored to survive that."
"I see," said Hantis. "How much time have we got?"
"The longest I can gain for us is half an hour."
"We'll have to try the Egger Route, after all. I'll get Goth and the Leewit." The Nartheby Sprite hesitated a moment; then, said softly: "I'm afraid it may mean abandoning the Venture, Captain."
Pausert patted the console awkwardly. The Venture was old, but she was his ship. He hated the idea of losing her. "It's the ship or our lives, Hantis."
But when she came into the control room, Goth had other ideas. "Me and the Leewit can work together. We'll just have to take a chance on not being in a trance, the two of us. We should be able to bring the Venture into Egger Space with us. The only trouble is that we'll have to go somewhere we've been or to someone we know. Otherwise—well, you can come out anywhere."
Vezzarn looked nervously at the screens. "I reckon, Your little Wisdom. Anywhere would be better than right here."
Pausert still had a mission to complete. "Can you take us anywhere closer to the Imperial Capital? Or at least on the other side of this cordon?"
The two little witches looked at each other. "Well. There's always Porlumma. You know, the world where we met you."
Pausert nodded. "That would probably be close enough. But it's on the opposite side of the Capital."
Goth shrugged. "Distance doesn't really matter much in Egger Space, Captain."
Pausert looked at the screens. The Imperial warships were closing steadily. "Okay, Porlumma it is. Anything I can do?"
"We'll need a clear piece of floor space. And some chalk, if you've got it. It helps to draw the klatha pattern for this one. And then I guess we'd better all strap in and pad ourselves. There'll be no one to wrap us up on the far side."
"Is the ship going to shake the way you did?"
The Leewit nodded. "Threbus and Toll did it with a house once. You can move pretty well anything over the Egger Route. But when they got there . . . the house was a real shambles. Didn't have a roof left at all." She seemed to find this very funny.
Pausert didn't. "We'd better secure everything we can then, Vezzarn. Set that course and come and join me. It doesn't matter exactly where the Venture goes for now. We're going elsewhere soon."
"I hope," muttered the old spacer.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, with the first Imperial cruisers sending probing fire towards the Venture, they were all strapped in.
And then the shaking began. At first it felt as if a herd of fanderbags was thundering past in the distance, but the intensity began to build. Pausert tried to move, but could not. He felt as if his body was strapped to a gigantic drumhead and the drummer was picking up both the volume and the tempo. The droning noise was like thunder.
Then it began to die away. "It's no use," said Goth. "That swimming through jelly feeling is back. We need more power."
The hull vibrated for an entirely different reason. "Near miss, Captain," said Vezzarn. "Can't you help the little Wisdoms?"
The Leewit looked at Goth. Goth stared back at the Leewit. "Going to have to try it I guess," said Goth. "Captain. Follow the pattern with us."
Captain Pausert realized that he had been staring at it while they'd tried. Now he did his best to mesh in with Goth and Leewit. Suddenly, the mesh came into being.
It was like being plugged into an electrical outlet. The Egger Route was grinding away at him, and shaking everything. He found himself twisting parts of the pattern that now burned as if outlined in fire. Tweaking this, flicking that over. Gradually the shaking lessened and died away.
But the darkness that enveloped them was complete.
"Are we dead?" asked Vezzarn, nervously.
CHAPTER 28
"No, I don't think so," said Goth's voice, out of the darkness.
"But don't ask us where we are . . . because we don't know," said the Leewit. The Leewit didn't sound grumpy, as she usually did when things went wrong. Just a little scared.
"What I do finally know," said Goth, "is what caused that swimming-though-jelly feeling, Captain. It went away just as soon as you joined us. But the power you poured into that pattern and the changes—it was like riding a runaway bollem. I got no idea what happened or even where we are."
Embarrassment flooded the captain. The other Karres witches had grown up with witch magic. They had instructor patterns in their minds to guide their development. Pausert, a one time citizen of the stuffy and conservative little Republic of Nikkeldepain, had no such special advantages. He just had to muddle along with klatha. He did achieve some spectacular results, some time to time, though they were rarely the results trained operatives would achieve. But his uncontrolled klatha pooling had disturbed all the adult witches when he'd been on Karres, and even the adolescents.
"You mean I might have been causing the problems with the Sheewash Drive?"
"Pretty sure, Captain. The feeling was the same."
Hantis spoke from the darkness. "Have you been concentrating on the patterns for the drive, all this time?" she asked.
"Er. Yes. I felt I nearly had them . . ." Pausert heard his own voice trail off.
"Foolish churl," growled Pul. "Haven't you been told that klatha powers come in their own time?"
If the darkness had been mere absence of light, then Pausert was sure the others could have seen the dull red glow he was sure that his face was putting out. "Yes. But, well . . . I thought I could help. And I felt I nearly had it."
"Instead you were dragging like a dead weight at those who did have it," said Hantis. "At least we understand what was wrong, then."
"Yeah," said the Leewit. "Now all we need to know is what went wrong with the Egger Route. And where we are."
"This isn't the Egger Route, then?" asked Pausert.
"Nope," said the Leewit. "Not like it at all." In a small voice: "Can you get us out of here, Captain?"
"Well," said the captain. "I'd like to. But how? Like I did with those shields? Tracing it backwards?"
"If that worked at all, we'd be right back under fire from Imperial cruisers," pointed out Goth.
"Anyway, I don't know if I can," admitted Pausert. "The pattern. Well. I sort of changed things as I went along, because it was hurting, and I'm not sure I can visualize it."
Then suddenly he relled vatch.
So there you went! said a cross little voice. How did you get here, Big Real Thing? And why did you run away from me? Did you think I wouldn't find you? There was a trace of plaintiveness in the voice.