The Unreasoning Mask (26 page)

 

 

While waiting for the too-slow process, Ramstan activated a screen in
the bridge. It was placed high but was tilted so that he could see the
central part of the control room. Benagur was pacing back and forth much
as Ramstan did when he was there. Nuoli stood by a bank of screens. Teimo,
by the com-op, said, "The Tolt launch is one hundred kilometers distant,
sir, slowing down now."

 

 

"Very well," Benagur said. He did not look pleased, though. His enormous
black eyebrows were bent downward below a wrinkled forehead; his mouth,
when closed, was tight.

 

 

"The Popacapyu hasn't changed position?"

 

 

"No, sir."

 

 

Toyce came within range of the screen. Benagur said, "Doctor, bring the
glyfa up now."

 

 

"Yes, sir." She hesitated, then said, "Captain, I'll get a container
for it. The Tenolt won't like the idea that we've been handling it with
bare hands. They'd regard that as sacrilegious. In fact, even after the
glyfa is boxed, whoever carries the box should wear gloves.

 

 

Benagur stopped, grimaced, and said, "Sacrilegious! That idol! Very well,
Toyce. We have to respect exotic mores. You're the sentientologist.
Do what you think is best."

 

 

Toyce walked out of view of Ramstan's screen. It would take her perhaps
five minutes to get a container, unless she had one prepared. She probably
did have one. Give her two minutes to get it and five to get into Benagur's
quarters and discover that the glyfa was gone. No. He could gain more time.
He gave al-Buraq an order to refuse to open the bulkhead-safe for her.
Toyce would be irritated and would think that there was a malfunction.
She would call one of the bioengineers, perhaps the chief, Indra. It might
take him five minutes to get to the cabin or he might do his troubleshooting
from the main engine room. Probably, the latter.

 

 

Ramstan had ship show him that room. Indra was sitting cross-legged on
the deck, his eyes on some screens, the mentoscope attached to a band
around his head, its detection-end, looking much like the end of a plumber's
helper, against an indicator-bossing. His eyes, their epicanthic folds
reflecting his Chinese ancestors, were slitted even more in deep thought.
His large hawk's nose was moving, his nostrils flaring out.

 

 

Indra already knew that something was wrong. But he did not know what
that was. Otherwise, he would have been reporting to Benagur.

 

 

Ramstan checked with al-Buraq on the progress of the glyfa. It would
take ten more minutes before it reached his cabin.

 

 

The chief engineer's eyes snapped wide open, and he muttered something
in Bengali, his natal tongue. Then he rose swiftly to his feet.

 

 

Ramstan shot orders at al-Buraq. Immediately thereafter, a similitude
of Carmen Mijako, the subcommander engineer, appeared on a screen in the
main engine room. It was Ramstan who spoke, but his voice was reproduced
as Mijako's.

 

 

"Sir, I need your assistance in supply room 3-A at once. It's an emergency!"

 

 

"In a supply room?" Indra said. "Take care of it yourself, Mijako. I have
a greater emergency to handle."

 

 

"I've found something you should look at at once, sir," her image said.
"A bulkhead section fell out, why I don't know. But the nerve cables behind
are damaged. I can't figure it out."

 

 

Indra grimaced. "Just a minute."

 

 

"No, sir, the cables look diseased."

 

 

"Diseased?"

 

 

"Rotting. Pustulant."

 

 

"Impossible!"

 

 

"I don't think so, sir."

 

 

"Maybe that's the trouble, though I don't see how it could be," Indra
muttered. He strode swiftly down the corridor, the screen which showed
Mijako's image preceding him. He turned into the supply room. As soon as
be had stopped through it, the iris closed behind him, and the bulkheads
moved in. Indra yelled, but he was squeezed between the four bulkheads
and unable to move. Though he shouted for help and gave al-Buraq orders,
he was not heard. All communication to the room had been cut off.

 

 

Ramstan watched Toyce as she walked down a corridor holding the handle
of a large plastic box. Benagur had told ship to open the iris to his
quarters; Ramstan had told al-Buraq to obey this order. Toyce went into
the big chamber and spoke the code word given her by Benagur. She put
the box on the deck while the bulkhead iris was opening. Straightening,
seeing that the safe was empty, she said, "What the . . .?"

 

 

Behind her, the entrance iris closed. She did not notice it because she
had thrust her head into the safe and was feeling around it. The walls
of the safe closed down; the iris extended lips and closed like a mouth
over her head and shoulders. Though she screamed and struggled furiously,
she was held tight.

 

 

Benagur, on the bridge, was speaking through the translator hanging by a
cord from his neck. The machine spoke Tolt in answer to the commander of
the launch from the Popacapyu. This was stopped a few meters from a port
on the starboard side. Ramstan, looking at a bridge screen, could see the
white set face of Branwen Davis through the transparent upper part of the
hull. There were also twelve Tenolt there, heavily armed and looking grim.

 

 

"Your god will be here within a minute or two," Benagur said. "I assure
you that you have no reason to fear treachery. I regret deeply that
our former commander stole the glyfa, and I will see to it that he gets
maximum punishment."

 

 

The launch commander had identified his rank as
'sakikl
, equivalent to
commodore, and his surname as Khekhani'l. His deep harsh voice, speaking
Terrish through the translator, said, "The fate of the blasphemer thief
is up to you. Our only concern is to get our god back."

 

 

And then? Ramstan thought.

 

 

He gave another order to al-Buraq, following it with the code word to
put the order into action.

 

 

Benagur looked at the bridge chronometer. He momentarily turned the
translator off and said, "Tenno, open the channel to my quarters."

 

 

It was obvious that he meant to find out if Toyce had left the cabin yet.

 

 

Tenno did as ordered.

 

 

"The screen is blank, sir," Tenno said.

 

 

"I can see that," Benagur said. "Try voice."

 

 

Tenno spoke into the screen. Then, "No response, sir."

 

 

He opened a channel to the main engine room. It was empty, so he used
the all-ship channels to call for an engineer.

 

 

Benagur scowled and said, "I don't like this, Tenno. Get Indra on it.
Put me through to Ramstan."

 

 

The glyfa would arrive in another five minutes. Ramstan began pacing back
and forth as if he were thinking deeply about something, which he was.
Benagur's face appeared on a screen, and he bellowed, "Ramstan!"

 

 

It might have been better to seem to be startled, but Ramstan would not
give Benagur that satisfaction. He stopped and turned slowly. "Yes?"

 

 

Benagur looked the brig over, but he would see nothing out of the way.
Nevertheless, he was suspicious. His expression said that his prisoner
had to be up to something and that he was probably responsible for
Toyce's being late and for the malfunction in his cabin channels.
Still, he could do nothing about it.

 

 

Benagur did not even give Ramstan the courtesy of answering him.
The screen went blank.

 

 

The cell screen showed Ramstan the bridge. Benagur said, "Tenno, send
someone after Toyce and scan ship for her."

 

 

He looked at the chronometer again and then at the screen showing the
Tolt launch. "Where's Indra?"

 

 

"Can't find him as yet, sir," Tenno said.

 

 

"Can't find him?" Benagur's voice lost some of its deepness. "What do you
mean, you can't find him? What's going on?"

 

 

Tenno called Mijako. "Do you have any idea where Commodore Indra is?"

 

 

Mijako shook her blonde head. "No, sir. Just a minute ago he was in the
main engine room, testing."

 

 

"For what?"

 

 

"He said he suspected some sort of malfunction."

 

 

"He was right!" Benagur said. "We're up to our ass in malfunctions!"

 

 

That was the first time Ramstan had heard the commodore use any phrase
even hinting at vulgarity. Ramstan smiled. Benagur was very nervous.

 

 

The Tolt commodore spoke again, asking what was causing the delay. Benagur
replied that Toyce would be on the bridge within a minute with the glyfa.
He asked the commodore if he would enter ship now. It would expedite
matters. The Tolt refused, and, a minute later, called Benagur.

 

 

"My captain gives you ten more minutes to surrender our god. If I don't
report that the glyfa is in the launch by then, I am to proceed back to
my ship."

 

 

That meant that the Popacapyu might attack as soon as the launch returned.
Branwen Davis would still be a prisoner.

 

 

Ramstan thought briefly about her. She was very attractive, and he was
very fond of her. But he was not in love with her. He could not, would
not, permit himself to be. All the women he had fallen in love with and
who had fallen in love with him had left him. Those who had told him
why they had left had said that he was missing something vital. He was
flawed. Not that they could not tolerate certain flaws in their men.
As the saying went, nobody was perfect. But he was always thinking of
something other than them, even at the times when he should have been
entirely with them. One with them, as Nuoli had once said. He did not
satisfy them. They did not use that phrase in the sexual sense; he was
far from wanting in bed. Physically, that is. But he was searching for
something, and when he drove hard into their bodies, it was as if he
was trying to clutch that something inside them.

 

 

They did not have it, of course, and they hated him for using their bodies
as a channel for it.

 

 

Ramstan had denied their accusations at first, but eventually he had
admitted to himself that they were right. He did not want things to be
that way. But he could not help himself.

 

 

What was he looking for?

 

 

Immortality? He could have had that from the glyfa, though it was in a form
that he would take only as a last resort. Perhaps not then.

 

 

Despite this, he grieved about Branwen Davis, though only for a short time.
Allah alone knew what she faced if she remained the captive of the Tenolt.
Even though they had forced her to be their tool, they would regard her as
a blasphemer. She had touched the glyfa.

 

 

Until now, the Tenolt had never been absolutely sure where their god was.
They had preferred a waiting game; using cunning and guile and patience.
Now, they knew that the glyfa was in al-Buraq. They were getting very
impatient and very desperate. They could attack and destroy al-Buraq and
not harm the glyfa. Its hard surface would defy even a laser or an atom
bomb, if what the glyfa had told him was true. It had been forged in a
star, had burned up the star as fuel. It could fall into a white dwarf
and not be damaged or affected in any way.

 

 

For all Ramstan knew, the Tolt launch was armed with a neutron bomb.
Its commodore might be under orders to set it off if he had to. He would
not hesitate to do so. His act would ensure his soul eternal delight
within the glyfa.

 

 

The more Ramstan considered this possibility, the more he was sure that
the Tenolt would be prepared for such an act.

 

 

In any event, he did not plan that they would get the glyfa.

 

 

If he gave the code word now, al-Buraq would go into alaraf drive.
She would vanish from the sight of the Tenolt. If they indeed did have
the ability to trace the passage of al-Buraq, they would still have to
chase her, and Ramstan thought he might lose them. Even if he could not,
he could get ship to a more defensive or offensive situation.

 

 

Going into alaraf drive, however, would leave Branwen Davis in Tenolt hands.

 

 

He thought furiously for a moment and then decided to take a chance. The
weapons in the launch might be set to operate automatically if al-Buraq
or her crew made a sudden offensive move. And even if that was not the
situation and if the launch crew was not overcome swiftly enough, its
commodore might trigger a bomb -- if it had a bomb.

 

 

He gave another order to ship. Her deck and bulkhead quivered. He had
ship fold a shock-cushion of flesh around him, a formation from the deck.
Partially enclosed in this, he said, "Now!"

 

 

The swift movement of al-Buraq thrust him sideways into the yielding but
still-holding flesh. Anyone else in ship who was unsecured would be hurled
from the deck or pressed against a chair or bulkhead or whatever. There
would be injuries, but he could not help that. He must do what he was doing
if Branwen was to be saved from torture and death.

 

 

Al-Buraq shot toward the launch, swallowed it in the port, and deck and
bulkheads and overhead squeezed down. The launch was being pressed down --
if things were going as Ramstan planned -- until there would be only room
enough within the launch for its occupants to lie on the deck. The hull
would be a mangled can squeezing them, keeping them from moving enough
to get to the controls. And the control machinery should be compressed
and out of operation.