Star Rigger's Way (23 page)

He huddled, terrified of losing himself in the gestalt. But he peered out through the mind of the Mu-Laan, and he saw over fabulous distances, scenes as far away as the other galaxies, as near as the internal organs of the glassfish. He viewed through other eyes, he touched other riggers, human and otherwise; he glimpsed creatures which dwelled in the glassfish universe, in the Flux.

Perhaps he could focus: he glimpsed the Hurricane Flume through the eyes of a rigger passing in a ship. No memory this—it was a vision different from his, a vision of another being. And here: the Wall of the Barrier Nebula, from outside, and just at the edge of the Flux. A rigger somewhere in Golen space, diving deeper. Thoughts and feelings of riggers fluttered across his senses. The touch of a pirate ship, a raider—and the paranoia and fear of the riggers who drove her. Legroeder! Had he touched Legroeder? The sense fluttered away before he could isolate it from the blur.

But he understood now what had happened to Legroeder; he had caught that in the flurry. Legroeder had been captured and impressed by the raiders, as he had guessed. And, he felt sadly, Legroeder would never be seen free and alive again by his old friends. He was sure of the fact, though he did not know how he knew.

The pain made his resolve waver, and for a moment he was aware of his own frailty here; he was split in two minds, and he looked out of
Spillix
at the glassfish even as he looked out of the Mu-Laan mind at the Flux universe.

But if he could see so far and so clearly—

—could he touch Janofer and Skan in the nets of their ships?

Mind whirling, he squinted and focused.

* * *

Stratified mists. Janofer looked at him curiously across the lightyears, the meaningless lightyears which did not even exist in the Flux. She looked at him but did not see him. She flew in the net of a ship—where?—in Golen space, flying speedily back toward protected territory. His astonishment was so great that it erupted joyfully out of his breast and echoed across the distances. And at the sound of joy ringing through space, Janofer widened her eyes; and she saw him and cried out in recognition.

Hope and amazement and bewilderment and loving desperation reverberated through the void between them. A part of the feeling was his and a part of it Janofer's, and he felt himself joined to her by tears and wordless emotions.

Janofer! How could he call to her, speak to her?

Janofer! Was it possible, after searching for so long?

She tossed her head against space. Her eyes gazed at him with delight and wonder, through the shimmering reality of the Mu-Laan vision. How could he know that she was real? He had spoken and flown with so many Janofers, so very many of her. Janofers who were constructs of memory and fantasy, Janofers who had touched him and cared for him and tried to help him love another, Janofers who had saved him in the net. Janofers who had vanished when his fantasy-sequences had ended.

There should be a difference.

The Mu-Laan consciousness grew restless around him. But the glassfish seemed gruffly interested in the mental knot he was struggling with—and so far they were refraining from aggression. (But Cephean, the part of him still on
Spillix
saw, was stirring with belligerent outrage.)

Janofer, what should I do?
he cried out in desperation. And he wondered why he had cried out so.

Gev—it's you!

Yes! Janofer!

How are you reaching me?
Her eyes were tearful with wonder.
I
never expected to see you again! I've been thinking so much of you, and worrying!

Janofer!
This really was her; no doubt could remain.
I've been searching for you—I want you to come back and fly
Lady Brillig
with me!
His mind was shaking with joy.
And Skan! Is Skan with you?

Confusion touched him, and he knew suddenly that Janofer was not flying with Skan, But he needed to reach Skan, as well. Impulsively he sent his vision lancing out through tangerine space, focusing dizzyingly, to wherever it was that Skan right now must be.

* * *

Skan gaped in astonishment. He squinted at Carlyle with one eye, blinking furiously, while with the other he jockeyed the silvery rig of his ship toward an approaching star system. Janofer caught the image, too, and cried out in delight—and Skan forgot his flying and stared at them both. Carlyle swam in an ocean of Mu-Laan powers and prayed desperately that he would not lose the image or lose his anchor in his own reality, in the ship where his physical body lay slack in a rigger-station couch. (
Cephean, are you there?
he cried from his split mind.)

(Ssssssss! Ff-ff-ish-ssssss! Bvroil-damnsss-kh-khilll!)

(Cephean, don't try anything yet! Hold tight for me! Don't do anything!)

Skan! Skan! Can you hear me?

I'll be damned,
whispered Skan.
Am I mad?

Skan, we're real! Please listen!
pleaded Carlyle.
Please!

I am mad.
Dark despair.

No, Skan,
Janofer cried.
Listen to him. He's touched me, too!

Skan blinked, and nodded. Carlyle quickly cried,
Skan, will you come back to Chaening's World? Fly
Lady Brillig
with us! Janofer's coming.

Janofer started to protest—but she choked herself off. She peered anxiously.
What about Legroeder, Gev?

Carlyle flashed a convulsive image of his meeting with the raiders. He said tearfully,
I'm afraid for him. But you'll come, won't you, Janofer? Skan?

Gev, you are the one who's mad,
said Skan, shaking his head unbelievingly.
It will never work. If it didn't work before, why should it now?
He seemed to study Janofer thoughtfully; then he said,
But Gev, you've always been a little mad, haven't you? I don't know how you are doing this—but all right. I'll try.

Back to Chaening's World,
Carlyle repeated.

Skan blinked in alarm.
And now I have a ship to bring in.
He vanished.

Me too, Gev,
said Janofer. She shimmered, looking paler and more tired than Carlyle remembered her.

Janofer, wait! Can't you—?

The glassfish moaned, an eerie echoing groan of impatience or boredom or anger.

Janofer shimmered to a blur.
I'll
try. Good-bye.
She was gone.

* * *

Carlyle stared at the memory of her. The Mu-Laan rocked him roughly in his pain, as though determined to dislodge him from its mental processes.
What are you doing?
Carlyle thought at the glassfish. He looked out through their tangerine vision and saw
Spillix
caught like a silver fly in the clear syrup surrounding the glassfish. For a moment he was content to watch, to think of the glassfish still scrutinizing him and Cephean in the net; and then he realized that his mind was dangerously split, and if he did not rejoin himself quickly he might never be able to. He gazed at the glassfish in black space/he gazed at
Spillix
in tangerine space.

The glassfish still had their thoughts locked musingly on the creatures in the ship's net. Leaping, Carlyle skated on that thought-link toward his ship. His own net rushed like a warm mist around him, and suddenly he was whole; and he gazed with a whole mind at those awesome, luminous glassfish hanging in the depths of space.

How little he had learned about the creatures themselves, though. Or had he learned so little? They lived their lives in the Flux—lives of millions of years of normal-space existence (he thought)—or did the comparison have meaning? They were somewhat scornful of, somewhat intrigued by, the occasional intruders who wandered their way from other realities.

Caharleel!
growled Cephean ominously.

Cephean. I'm back.

H-now h-we gho!

Cephean, these creatures are powerful. I don't think we can escape—we have to communicate, to make them understand that we want to go.

H-no, Caharleel! Ff-ffish! Noss h-afraidss ff-ffish!

Carlyle reshuffled his thoughts frantically. The cynthian was angry, more angry than Carlyle had ever seen him. More angry than even the raiders had made him.
Cephean, I don't know—

Sssssss!

From the stern-station flashed out an incredible series of enormous white daggers—teeth! The daggers gathered at the periphery of the net, poised to strike at the midsection of the nearest Mu-Laan glassfish.

Cephean!

Shsssssss!

Carlyle was stunned. The sight was both terrible and comic: three ethereal creatures of deep space—no, of the Flux—being threatened by an astonishing array of teeth, by the jaws of an incredible and otherwise invisible cat-creature. The teeth hovered and gleamed. And Cephean meant to strike.

Cephean!

Quiessssss!

Consternation blasted out from the glassfish and left the net shaking, reverberating. But Cephean, if disturbed by the warning, did not let it show. His teeth remained aimed, glowing, threatening.

The nearest of the glassfish backed off slightly, and the other two jockeyed for different positions. Colored luminous spots glowed along their dorsal surfaces, and their transparent bodies shined with a fuller light against the blackness of space. There were no linking thoughts between
Spillix
and the glassfish now, and Carlyle began to feel a chill in his portion of the net, and in the deepest nerves of his spine. Fear seeped through his body like alcohol, first to his stomach, then to his fingertips, then to his head.

Cephean was going to provoke an attack, then; he was sure of it. And if he couldn't dissuade the cynthian, he had to back him. Even if it meant death for both of them.

He strengthened the sinews of the net and watched the three glassfish.

The shockwave from the glassfish seemed to move slowly at first. It was an expanding spiral of light, blazing torchlight, and it first hit the array of teeth, exploding it to bits—and then it accelerated as it spiraled outward. It collapsed the front of
Spillix
's net—Carlyle's own nerves absorbed the impact—and it swept through the net seeking the center of leverage for the ship. It gathered power and carried the ship and its two riggers, helpless as a chip on a spurting stream, outward, outward on the front of the spiral. The black ocean of night was gone, and in its place a watery cathedral of sunlight, and then smudges of dust and swirls of cloud and confusing flickering light, and then fog lashing against the ship and sucked away by vacuum. Carlyle was dizzy and scared, but he held the net together tightly until he felt loss of consciousness . . .

 . . . which lasted, he thought, for only seconds. But when his senses cleared,
Spillix
was alone and drifting quickly upward through ascending layers of the Flux, spiraling on momentum. Pinpoints of light sprang up against blackness.

Cephean!

Yiss.
Weakly.

They were in normal-space; and they were clear of the hazily glowing Wall of the Barrier Nebula by at least a lightyear. Somewhere deep within that Wall, in the Flux reality corresponding to the inside of that nebula, three deep-space Mu-Laan glassfish floated serenely, presumably pleased to have disposed of the latest intruders. Carlyle guessed that they were, by rigger-travel time, a good three to four days' journey from the location of the glassfish, and perhaps more, should they have wanted to return.

He did not, nor did he think Cephean would.

Cephean, it worked. You did it.

Yiss. Hoff khorss.

Carlyle made no other remark. He turned the ship for a navigational fix and began plotting for the fastest possible course back out of Golen space.

The glassfish had thrown them to a position not far from the civilized border of Golen space. Flying the most direct route Carlyle could envision, they made it back to the Andros system in just two days of rigging through the Flux.

They were weary, still shaken, and relieved to land finally on Andros II. But they rested only briefly. Both were anxious to continue the journey—Carlyle to return to Chaening's World, and Cephean to put as much distance as possible between himself and Golen space, raiders, and glassfish. As soon as a mail cargo was offered to Fetzlen III, they lifted from Andros II and continued on their journey.

Traveling in stages, they worked their way back into northern Aeregian space, stopping at each port only as long as necessary to sign on new cargo. Not quite four weeks after leaving Golen space,
Spillix
entered the Verjol system; and Carlyle called for a tow to Chaening's World.

Four months, shiptime, had passed from departure to their arrival back at the Jarvis spaceport. On Chaening's World, nearly a standard year had gone by.

* * *

Upon landing, Cephean pronounced that he and the riffmar greatly needed some time in the forest, and they would leave at once if Carlyle would arrange their transportation. He hated to see them leave; but on the cynthian's assurance that he would return, Carlyle made the arrangements and saw them off on a flyer. All he wanted for himself, for at least the first two days, was to rest.

But instead of doing that, he went directly to see Irwin Kloss.

He waited in the Jarvis offices for several hours before Kloss came in; meanwhile, he considered his journey just past, what he had learned and what he hoped for the future.
Spillix
he had placed in overhaul and indefinite layover—they had sufficient credit from their helter-skelter cargo hauls to maintain their command of her, even in layover—but what he wanted, of course, was to release the ship altogether when he resumed his career aboard
Lady Brillig.
However, there was no word yet from Skan or Janofer, and he held no hope at all for Legroeder's return. Still, he had come so far; he had to persist.

Kloss finally arrived at his office and invited Carlyle in. "You were trying to gather your old crew together again, weren't you, last time we spoke?" he asked genially, showing Carlyle a seat.