The captain nodded. “So he did.”
“Never heard of but one place where you’d see dead suns all around,” Goth said. “And that’s in the Chaladoor, the Tark Nembi Cluster. There’re people who call it the Dead Suns Cluster. It’s another spot everyone keeps away from because when you don’t, you don’t come back. So the Worm World could have been sitting inside it all the time… And if it’s there,” Goth concluded, “we ought to be able to find Karres about one jump from Tark Nembi right now. “
The captain grunted. “I bet you’re right and that could be our solution! If we get back and can make a break for the Cluster on the Sheewash Drive without being stopped by the vatch, we’ll give it a try!”
“Right,” said Goth. “Looks like the vatch will have to move first, though.”
“So it does,” agreed the captain. “Well-“ He sighed. “You say you set up camp with Vezzarn and Hulik around here?”
Goth came to her feet. “Just a bit behind the rise,” she said. “Quarter-mile. Let’s go get them, easier than moving the ship.”
Halfway up the slope they turned aside to pick up some items she’d dropped when she caught sight of the captain, a sturdy handmade bow and a long quiver of tree bark out of which protruded the feathered shafts of arrows. Beside these articles lay a pair of freshly killed furry white-and-brown animals tied together by their hind legs. The captain lifted them while Goth slung bow and quiver over her shoulders. “Dinner, eh?” he said. “Didn’t take you long to get set up for the pioneering life!”
“Forgot to tell you about that,” said Goth. “Can’t quite figure it, but while you were having a talk with the Cheel-thing we’ve been here eight days… ”
The captain couldn’t quite figure it either. Goth filled him in as they went on towards the camp. Neither Hulik do Eldel nor Vezzarn remembered anything between the crash take-off from the planet of the red sun and their awakening in a chill, misty dawn on Karres. Goth had come awake first, by half an hour or so, had known immediately on what world she was, and deduced the rest when the Talsoe Twins lifted above the mountains and the mists thinned enough to show her a small moon still floating in the northern sky. She hadn’t informed her companions of their whereabouts in space and time, both were upset enough as it was for a while. Hulik’s impulse, when she awoke and discovered Vezzarn stretched out unconscious beside her, was to blast him for a filthy traitor as he lay there. “Couldn’t find her gun though, or his, till she’d cooled down again,” Goth said with a grin. “Then Vezzarn came to and he bawled like a baby for an hour…”
“What about?”
“Because you waited to let him get aboard before you took off. So then he was going to shoot himself rather than face you when you got back. Couldn’t find his gun either though.”
“Looks like you’ve had your hands full with the two,”
“Oh, they settled down pretty quick. Hulik’s even speaking to Vezzarn again. She’s not the worst, that Hulik.”
“No, she isn’t,” agreed the captain, remembering the bad moments on the ledge of the cliff. “What do they make of the situation?”
Both seemed to have decided they’d gotten themselves involved in some very heavy witch business and the less they heard about it, the better, Goth said. They hadn’t asked questions. She’d told them Captain Aron would be rejoining them, but she didn’t know when, and they’d better settle down here for a perhaps lengthy stay. She glanced up at him. “Didn’t know if you’d show up, really! Especially when it got to be four, five days. Figured it must be the vatch, of course … and you never can tell with vatches.”
But that was a private distress. Outwardly they’d had no problems. Vezzarn, doing what he could to make up for an enormity committed in panic, had a shipshape little camp set up for them on the banks of a creek before evening of the first day, kept it tidy and improved on it daily thereafter, fashioned Goth’s hunting gear for her though not without misgivings, tended to the cooking, and was dissuaded with difficulty from charging forth, waving his blaster, whenever sizable specimens of Karres fauna came close enough to be regarded by him as a potential menace to the ladies. Hulik stayed tightened up for some twenty-four hours, keeping a nervous eye on the mountain horizons as if momentarily expecting vast, nameless menaces to begin manifesting there. But on the second day, the autumn warmth of the Talsoe suns seemed to soak what was left of those tensions out of her, and she’d been reasonably relaxed and at ease since.
“Any idea, by the way,” asked the captain, “what we ran into on that world? It does look as if something besides the robot was deliberately out to get us, and nearly made it finally.”
Goth nodded. “Guess something was, Captain! From what Vezzarn and Hulik say, it sounds like you got a bunch of planetaries stirred up when you landed. And some of them can get mighty mean.”
It appeared planetaries were a type of klatha entity native to this universe and bound to the worlds of their origin. They varied widely in every way. Most worlds had some, Goth thought. Karres definitely did; but they were mild, retiring beings that rarely gave indications of their presence. Sometimes they’d been helpful. The world of the red sun evidently harbored a high-powered and aggressive breed which did not tolerate trespassers on what it considered its exclusive domain.
The arrival at camp was made briefly embarrassing by Vezzarn who began weeping at sight of the captain, then knelt and tried to kiss his hand. Not until the captain announced formally that everybody had forgiven him, this time, would Vezzarn get to his feet again.
“I’m a rat, sir!” he told the captain earnestly then. “But I’m a grateful rat. You’ll see ….”
They left the camp standing as it was, returned to the Venture together. Goth and Vezzarn went off to see what could be done about tidying up the trail of destruction left by the Sheem robot, Hulik following them. The captain closed the lock and settled down at the control desk for a routine engine check.
It turned out to be nonroutine. There was no indication of malfunction of any kind, except for one thing. The engine systems were not delivering power to any of the drives.
He chewed his lip. Vatch, he thought. It had to be that. Thrust was being developed, smooth, even, heavy thrust. By all physical laws, there was nowhere for it to go except into one of the drives. But it wasn’t reaching them.
He shut the engines down again, reopened the lock. The vatch had made sure they’d stay here until it came for them. There was nothing wrong with the ship; they were merely being prevented from leaving with it. He decided it didn’t matter too much. In this time, there was no place they’d want to go in the Venture anyway.
When he looked around, Hulik do Eldel stood in the entry to the control room, watching him.
“Come in and sit down,” the captain said. “I’m afraid I never really got around to thanking you for helping out with the Agandar!”
She smiled and came in. After eight days she’d spent camping out on Karres, Hulik looked perhaps better than she ever had. And she’d looked extremely good in a delicate-featured, elegant way since the first time the captain had seen her. For a moment it became a bit difficult to believe those warm, dark eyes had been sighting down the gun which blasted death at last into the legendary Agandar.
“I was helping myself out, too, you know!” she remarked. She added, “I heard the engines just now and wondered whether we were leaving.”
“No, probably not for a while,” the captain said. He hesitated. “The fact is I don’t know when we’ll be leaving or where we’ll go when we do. We’re still in something of a jam, you see. I can’t tell you what it’s about but I hope things will work out all right. And I’m sorry you’re in it with us, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”
Hulik was silent a moment. “Did you know I’m an Imperial agent?” she asked.
“Yango mentioned it.”
“Well, he told the truth for once. I signed up for passage on the Chaladoor run in order to steal the secret drive you were supposed to have on this ship. “
“Hmm, yes!” nodded the captain. “I gathered that… It isn’t something that would be of any use to you or the people you work for.”
“I,” Hulik said, “had gathered that some two ship-days before the trouble with Yango began. At any rate, if I’m in a jam with you and our little witch, it’s because I’ve worked myself into that position. I suspect I can’t be of much further assistance in getting us out of it. If I can, let me know. Otherwise I’ll simply try to keep out of the way. I’m considered a capable person, but Karres matters have turned out to be above my head.”