“Maybe that’s how they came to forget about you—somebody lost a piece of paper and nobody else knew!”
“I shouldn’t be telling you about it,” Carnaby said with a smile. “But I guess you’ll keep it under your hat.”
“You can count on me, Lieutenant,” Terry said solemnly.
“I know I can, Terry,” Carnaby said.
14
The clangor of the General Quarters alarm shattered the tense silence of the chart deck like a bomb through a plate glass window. The navigation officer whirled abruptly from the grametric over which he had been bending, collided with the deck chief. Both men leaped for the Master Position monitor, caught just a glimpse of a vivid scarlet trace lancing toward the emerald point targeted at the center of the plate before the apparatus exploded from its mounting, mowed the two men down in a hail of shattered plastic fragments. Smoke boiled, black and pungent, from the gutted cavity. The duty NCO, bleeding from a dozen gashes, stumbled toward the two men, turned away in horror, reached an emergency voice phone. Before he could key it, the deck under him canted sharply. He screamed, clutched at a table for support, saw it tilt, come crashing down on top of him . . .
On the message deck, Lieutenant Pryor clung to an operator’s stool, listening, through the stridency of the alarm bell, to the frantic voice from command deck:
“All sections, all sections, combat stations! We’re under attack! My God, we’ve taken a hit forward—”
The voice cut off, to be replaced by the crisp tones of Colonel Lancer, first battle officer:
“As you were! Sections G-987 and 989 damage control crews report! Forward armaments, safety interlocks off, stand by for firing orders! Message center, flash a code six to Fleet and TF Command. Power section, all selectors to gate, rig for full emergency power . . .”
Pryor hauled himself hand-over-hand to the main message console; the body of the code yeoman hung slackly in the seat harness, blood dripping from the fingertips of his dangling hand. Pryor freed him, took his place. He keyed the code six alarm into the pulse-relay tanks, triggered an emergency override signal, beamed the message outward toward the distant Fleet headquarters.
On the command deck, Commodore Broadly clutched a sprained wrist to his chest, stood, teeth bared, feet braced apart, staring into the forward imagescreen at the dwindling point of light that was the Djann blockade runner.
“The effrontery of the damned scoundrel!” he roared. “Lancer, launch another covey of U-95’s! You’ve got over five hundred megaton-seconds of firepower, man! Use it!”
“He’s out of range, Commodore,” Lancer said coolly. “He booby-trapped us very neatly.”
“It’s your job to see that we don’t blunder into traps, by God, Colonel!” He rounded on the battle officer. “You’ll stop that pirate or I’ll rip those eagles off your shoulders myself!”
Lancer’s mouth was a hard line; his eyes were ice chips.
“You can relieve me, Commodore,” his voice grated. “Until you do, I’m battle commander aboard this vessel.”
“By God, you’re relieved, sir!” Broadly yelled. He whirled on the startled exec standing by. “Confine this officer to his quarters! Order full emergency acceleration! This vessel’s on Condition Red at Full Combat Alert until we overtake and destroy that sneaking snake in the grass!”
“Commodore—at full emergency without warning, there’ll be men injured, even killed—”
“Carry out my commands, Captain, or I’ll find someone who will!” the commodore’s bellow cut off the exec. “I’ll show that filthy, sneaking pack of spiders what it means to challenge a Terran fighting ship!”
On the power deck, Chief Powerman Joe Arena wiped the cut on his forehead, stared at the bloody rag, hurled it aside with a curse.
“All right, you one-legged deck apes!” he roared. “You heard it! We’re going after the bandit, full gate—and if we melt our linings down to slag, I’ll have every man of you sign a statement of charges that’ll take your grandchildren two hundred years to pay off!”
15
In the near-darkness of the Place of Observation aboard the Djann vessel, the ocular complex of the One-Who-Commands glowed with a dim red sheen as he studied the apparently black surface of the sensitive plate. “The death watcher has eaten our energy weapon,” he communicated to his three link brothers. “Now our dooms are in the palps of the fate spinner.”
“The death watcher of the water beings might have passed us by,” the One-Who-Anticipates signaled. “It was an act of rashness to hurl the weapon at it.”
“It will make a mighty song,” the One-Who-Records thrummed his resonator plates, tried a melancholy bass chord.
“But what egg-carrier will exude the brood-nourishing honeys of strength and sagacity in response to these powerful rhymes, if the stimulus to their creation leads us to quick extinction?” the One-Who-Refutes queried.
“In their own brief existence, these harmonies find their justification,” the One-Who-Records attested.
“The death watcher shakes himself,” the One-Who-Commands stated. “Now he turns in pursuit.”
The One-Who-Records emitted a booming tone. “Gone are the great suns of Djann,” he sang. “Lost are the fair worlds that knew their youth. But the spark of their existence glows still!”
“Now we fall outward, toward the Great Awesomeness,” the One-Who-Anticipates commented. “Only the blackness will know your song.”
“Draw in your energies from that-which-is-extraneous,” the One-Who-Commands ordered. “Focus the full poignancy of your intellects on the urgency of our need for haste. All else is vain, now. Neither singer nor song will survive the vengeance of the death watcher if he outstrips our swift flight!”
“Though Djann and water being perish, my poem is eternal,” the One-Who-Records emitted a stirring assonance. “Fly, Djann! Pursue, death watcher! Let the suns observe how we comport ourselves in this hour!”
“Exhort the remote nebulosities to attend our plight, if you must,” the One-Who-Refutes commented. “But link your energies to ours or all is lost.”
Silent now, the Djann privateer fled outward toward the Rim.
16
Carnaby awoke, lay in darkness listening to the wheezing of Terry Sickle’s breath. The boy didn’t sound good. Carnaby sat up, suppressing a grunt at the stiffness of his limbs. The icy air seemed stale. He moved to the entry, lifted the polyon flap. A cascade of powdery snow poured in. Beyond the opening a faint glow filtered down through banked snow.
He turned back to Terry as the latter coughed deeply, again and again.
“Looks like the snow’s quit,” Carnaby said. “It’s drifted pretty bad, but there’s no wind now. How are you feeling, Terry?”
“Not so good, Lieutenant,” Sickle said weakly. He breathed heavily, in and out. “I don’t know what’s got into me. Feel hot and cold at the same time.”
Carnaby stripped off his glove, put his hand on Sickle’s forehead. It was scalding hot.
“You just rest easy here for a while, Terry. There’s a couple more cans of stew, and plenty of water. I’ll make it up to the top as quickly as I can. Soon as I get back, we’ll go down together. With luck, I’ll have you to Doc Link’s house by dark.”
“I guess . . . I guess I should have done like Doc said,” Terry’s voice was a thin whisper.
“What do you mean?”
“I been taking these hyposprays. Two a day. He said I better not miss one, but heck, I been feeling real good lately—”
“What kind of shots, Terry?” Carnaby’s voice was tight.
“I don’t know. Heck, Lieutenant, I’m no invalid! Or . . .” his voice trailed off.
“You should have told me, Terry.”
“Gosh, Lieutenant—don’t worry about me! I didn’t mean nothing! Hell, I feel . . .” he broke off to cough deeply, rackingly.
“I’ll get you back, Terry—but I’ve got to go up first,” Carnaby said. “You understand that, don’t you?”
Terry nodded. “A man’s got to do his job, Lieutenant. I’ll be waiting . . . for you . . . when you get back.”
“Listen to me carefully, Terry.” Carnaby’s voice was low. “If I’m not back by this time tomorrow, you’ll have to make it back down by yourself. You understand? Don’t wait for me.”
“Sure, Lieutenant, I’ll just rest awhile. Then I’ll be OK.”
“Sooner I get started the sooner I’ll be back.” Carnaby took a can from the pack, opened it, handed it to Terry. The boy shook his head.
“You eat it, Lieutenant. You need your strength. I don’t feel like I . . . could eat anything anyway.”
“Terry, I don’t want to have to pry your mouth open and pour it in.”
“All right . . . but open one for yourself too . . .”
“All right, Terry.”
Sickle’s hand trembled as he spooned the stew to his mouth. He ate half of the contents of the can, then leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes. “That’s all . . . I want . . .”
“All right, Terry. You get some rest now. I’ll be back before you know it.” Carnaby crawled out through the opening, pushed his way up through loosely drifted snow. The cold struck his face like a spiked club. He turned the suit control up another notch, noticing as he did that the left side seemed to be cooler than the right.