“Hauea, do something!”
Masurathoo’s eyes bulged out even farther than usual as he struggled with the controls of the bucking, plunging skimmer. Moments earlier the craft’s automatic detection equipment had signaled the nearby presence of a suddenly activated emergency beacon. Homing on it, they had quickly made visual contact with a downed skimmer that could only belong to the human they had been sent to rescue. The instant the Deyzara had locked their skimmer’s tracker on the signal, control of their own craft had been lost.
Now Masurathoo was desperately trying to regain it, fighting the manual instrumentation as they sank downward in an uncontrollable dive. He was too busy to wonder what had happened. The agitated Sakuntala waving his long arms in the seat next to him was not helping matters.
“I assure you that I am doing the very best that I can!” At the moment Masurathoo was wishing for more than his two arms. “Nothing is responding properly. It is as if, I am remorseful to say, control of our craft has been taken over by an outside source.”
“Override it!” Jemunu-jah stared helplessly at the bank of instruments. Though he could not pilot one himself, he knew that flying a skimmer was not as complicated as operating certain other Commonwealth machinery. It was designed to be easy to operate. What was the problem? Why was the stupid Deyzara letting this happen? It served him right for placing his life in the hands of one of the two-trunks! The fact that if they crashed Masurathoo might also die was not allowed to intrude on this line of reasoning.