Wizards’ Worlds (45 page)

In spite of his struggles, she managed to get the laser out of his hold, and for the
second time knew a surge of great relief. He made no sound, but his eyes were wild
and his lips so tightly drawn against his teeth, his mouth slightly open, that a small
trickle of spittle oozed from one corner to wet his chin. Looking at him dispassionately,
Tamisan thought him near insane at that moment.

The spacecrewman was moving. He hitched along as she swung around with the laser as
a warning, his shoulders against the wall keeping him firmly on his feet, his unbound
legs giving him more mobility, though the cord of the tangler anchored him to Kas.
Tamisan glanced around, searching for what he appeared so desperate to reach. There
was a com box.

“Stand where you are! For now—” she ordered.

The threat of the laser kept him frozen. With that still trained on him, she darted
short glances over her shoulder to the hatch opening. Sliding along the wall in turn,
the tangler thrust loosely into the front of her belt, she managed with one arm to
slam the hatch door and give a turn to its locking wheel.

Now—Using the laser as a pointer she motioned the crewman to the com, but the immobile
Kas was too much of an anchor. Dared she free the crewman by even so much? There was
no other way. She motioned with one hand.

“Stand well away.”

He had said nothing during their encounter, but he obeyed with an agility which suggested
he liked the sight of that weapon in her hand even less than he had liked it when
Kas had held it. He stretched to the limit the cord would allow so she was able to
burn it through.

Kas spit out a series of obscenities which were only a meaningless noise as far as
Tamisan was concerned. Until
he was released, he was no more now than a well-anchored bundle—helpless. But the
crewman had importance.

She gestured him on to the com, reaching it before him. Now she played the best piece
she had in this desperate game.

“Where is Hawarel? The native who was brought on board?”

He could lie, of course, and she would not know it. But it seemed he was willing to
answer, probably because he thought that the truth would strike her worse than any
lie.

“They have him in the lab—conditioning him.” And he grinned at her with some of the
evil malignancy she had seen in Kas.

She remembered the Captain’s earlier threat to make of Hawarel a tool to use against
the Over-Queen and her forces. Was she too late? But there was only one road to take
and that was the one she had chosen in those few moments when she had taken up the
tangler and used it for herself.

“You will call.” She spoke as she might to one finding it difficult to understand
her. “And you will say that Hawarel will be released, brought here—now!”

“Why?” the crewman returned with visible insolence. “What will you do? Kill me? Perhaps,
but that will not defeat the Captain’s plans. He will be willing to see half the crew
burned—”

“That may be true.” She nodded. Not knowing the Captain, she could not tell whether
or not that was a bluff. “But will his sacrifice then save his ship?”

“What can you do?” began the crewman and then he paused. His grin was gone; now he
looked at her speculatively. In her present guise she perhaps did not look formidable
enough to threaten the ship, but he could not be sure. And one thing she knew from
her own time and place—a spaceman learned early to take nothing for granted on a new
planet. It might well be that she did have
command over some unknown force.

“What can I do? There is much.” She took quick advantage of that hesitation. “Have
you been able to raise the ship?” She plunged on, hoping very desperately that she
had made the right guess. “Have you been able to communicate with your other ship,
or ships, in orbit?”

His expression was her answer, one which fanned her hope into a bright blaze of excitement.
The ship
was
grounded, had some sort of a hold on it which they had not been able to break!

“The Captain won’t listen.” He was sullen now.

“I think he will. Tell him that we get Hawarel—here—and himself—or else we shall truly
show you what happened to that derelict across the field.”

Kas had fallen silent. He was watching her, not with quite the same wariness of the
crewman, but with an emotion she was not able to read. Surprise? Or did it mask some
sly thought of taking over her bluff, captive though he was?

“Talk!” The need for hurry rode Tamisan now. By this time those above would wonder
why their captives had not been brought before them. Also, outside, the Over-Queen’s
men would certainly have reported that Tamisan and a seeming guard had entered the
ship. From both sides enemies might be closing in.

“I can not set the com,” her prisoner answered.

“Tell me then!”

“The red button—”

But she thought she had seen a slight shift in his eyes. Tamisan raised her hand,
to press the green button instead. Without accusing him of the treachery she was sure
he had tried, she said again, more fiercely:

“Talk!”

“Sannard here.” He put his lip close to the com. “They—they have me. Rooso and Cambre
are dead. They want the native.”

“In good condition,” hissed Tamisan, “and now!”

“They want him now, in good condition,” Sannard repeated. “They threaten the ship.”

There came no acknowledgment from the com in return. Had she indeed pressed the wrong
button because she was overly suspicious? What was going to happen? Time—she could
not wait on time!

“Sannard—” the voice from the com was metallic, without human inflection or tone.

But Tamisan gave the crewman a push which sent him sliding back along the wall until
he bumped into Kas and the binds of both men immediately united to make them one struggling
package. Tamisan spoke into the com.

“Captain, I do not play any game. Send me your prisoner or look upon that derelict
you see and say to yourself that will be your ship. For this is so, as true as I stand
here now, with your man as my captive. Also—send Hawarel alone, and pray to whatever
immortal powers you believe sit in judgment over your actions that he can so come!
Time grows very short and there is that which will act if you do not, and to a purpose
you shall not relish!”

The crewman, whose legs were still free, was trying to kick away from Kas. But his
struggles instead sent them both to the floor in a heaving tangle. Tamisan’s hand
dropped to her side as she leaned against the wall, breathing heavily. With all her
will she wanted to control action as she did in a dream, but only fate did that now.

T
HOUGH
she sagged against the wall, Tamisan felt rigid, as if she were in a great encasement
of su-steel. And, as time moved at so slow a pace as not to be measured normally,
that prisoning hold on her body and spirit grew. The crewman and Kas had ceased their
struggles. She could not see the crewman’s face, but that which Kas turned to her
had a queer, distorted look. As if before
her eyes, though not through any skill of hers, he was indeed changing, taking on
the aspect of another man. Since her return to the sky tower in the second dream she
had known he was to be feared. Now, in spite of the fact that his body was securely
imprisoned, she found herself edging away, as if by the very intentness of that hostile
stare he could aim a weapon to bring her down. But he said nothing, lay as broodingly
quiet and impassive as though he had foreknowledge of utter failure for her.

She knew so little, Tamisan thought, she who had always taken pride in her learning,
in the wealth of lore she had drawn into furnishing her memory for action dreaming.
The spacecrew might have some way of flooding this short corridor with a noxious gas,
or using a hidden ray linked with a scanner to finish them. Tamisan found herself
running her hands along the walls, studying the unbroken surface a little wildly,
striving to find where death might enter quietly and unseen.

There was another bulkhead door at the end of this short corridor; at a few paces
away from the outer hatch a ladder ascended to a closed trap. Her head turned constantly,
until she regained a firmer control of herself, from one of those entrances to the
other. They had only to wait to call her bluff—only to wait.

Yes! They had waited and they were—

The air about her was changing, there was a growing scent in it. Not unpleasant—but
even a fine perfume would have seemed a stench from the dungheap when it reached her
nostrils under these present conditions! Also the light which radiated from the jointure
of the corridor roof and ceiling was altering. It had been that of a moderately sunlit
day, now it was bluish. So under it her own brown skin took on an eerie look. She
had lost her throw! Maybe, if she could open the hatch again, let in the outer air—

Tamisan tottered to the hatch, gripped the locking
wheel and brought her strength to bear. Kas was writhing again, trying to break loose
from his unwilling partner. But oddly enough the crewman lay limp, his head rolling
when Kas’ heaving disturbed the lay of his body, but his eyes were closed. And, at
the same time Tamisan braced against the wall, her full strength turned on the need
for opening the door, she knew a flash of surprise. Was it her overvivid imagination
alone which made her believe that she was in danger? When she rested to draw a deep
breath—

Why—in her startlement she could have cried out aloud. She did utter a small sound.
She was gaining strength, not losing it. Every lungful of that scented air she breathed
in—and she was breathing deeper, more slowly as if her body desired such nourishment—was
a restorative.

Kas, too? She turned to glance at him again. Where she breathed deeply, with lessening
apprehension, he was gasping, his face ghastly in the change of light. And then, even
as she watched, his struggles ended, his head fell back so that he lay as inert as
the crewman he sprawled across.

So whatever change was in progress here, it affected Kas and the crewman—that latter
faster than the former—but not her. And now her trained imagination took another leap.
Perhaps she had not been so far wrong in threatening those on this ship with danger.
Though she had no guess as to how it was done, this could be another strange weapon
in the armament of the Over-Queen.

Hawarel? The spacemen had probably never intended to send him. Dared she go to seek
him? Tamisan wavered, one hand on the hatch wheel, looking to the ladder and the other
door. If all within this ship save she had reacted to the strange air, there would
be none to stop her. But if she fled the ship, she would face the loss of the keys
to her own world—Starrex and Kas. In addition, she might be met by some evil fate
at the hands of the Over-Queen. She had broken prison, and—if they did not know of
Kas—had
left dead men behind her. As the Mouth of Olava, she shuddered from the judgment which
would be rendered one deemed to have practiced wrongful supernatural acts.

Resolutely, Tamisan went to the door at the end of the corridor. It was really true
that she had no choice at all. She must find Starrex, somehow bring him here, so that
they three could be together and win a small space of time in which to arrange a dream
breaking—or she was totally defeated.

She loosened her belt a little so she could draw up her robe through it, shortening
the hampering length, leaving her legs freer. There was the tangler and Kas’ laser.
In addition was this mounting feeling of strength and well being, though an inner
warning suggested she not trust to overconfidence.

The door gave under her push and she looked out upon a scene which first startled
and then reassured her. There were crewmen in the corridor. But they lay prone as
if they had been caught while on their way to the hatch. Lasers—of a slightly different
pattern than that Kas had brought—had fallen from their hands, and three of the four
wore tanglers.

Tamisan picked her way carefully around them, gathering up all those weapons in a
fold of her robe, as if she were some maiden in a field gathering an armload of spring
flowers. The men were alive, she saw as she stooped closer, but they breathed evenly
as if peacefully asleep.

She took one of the tanglers, discarding the one she had used, fearing its charge
might be near exhaustion. As for the rest of the collection, she dropped them at the
far end of the passageway and turned the beam of Kas’ weapon on them; she left behind
a metal mass of no use to anyone.

Her idea of the geography of the ship was scanty. She would simply have to explore
and keep exploring until she found Starrex. But she would start at the top and work
down. So she found a level ladder, three times coming
upon a sleeping crewman. Each time she made sure he was disarmed before she left him.

The blue shade of the light was growing deeper, giving a very weird cast to the faces
of the sleepers. Making sure her robe was tightly kilted up, Tamisan began to climb.
She had reached the third level when she heard the sound, the first she had noted
in this too-silent ship since she had left the hatchway.

She stopped to listen, deciding it came from somewhere in the level into which she
had just climbed. With laser in hand, she tried to use it as a guide, though it was
misleading—and might have come from any one of the cabins. Each door she passed Tamisan
pushed open. There were more sleepers—some stretched in bunks, others on the floors
or seated at tables with their heads lying on those surfaces. But she did not halt
now to collect weapons. The need to be about her task, free of this ship, built in
her as sharp as might a slaver’s lash laid across her shrinking shoulders.

Suddenly the sound grew louder as she came to a last door and pushed it. Now she looked
into a cabin not meant for living but perhaps for a kind of death. Two men in plain
tunics were crumpled by the threshold. As if they had had some limited warning of
danger to come and had tried to flee, but fallen before they could reach the corridor.
Behind them was a table and on that a body, very much alive, struggling with dogged
determination against confining straps.