The SF Hall of Fame Volume Two B (57 page)

He glanced at the captain. "I believe we can forestall
the accused's plea that these pilfered goods also were restored. They were, in
the face of superior force!"

"Fourth," the policeman went on patiently,
"depraved and licentious conduct while acting as commercial agent, to the
detriment of your employer's business and reputation—"

"WHAT?" choked the captain.

"—involving three of the notorious Witches of the
Prohibited Planet of Karres—"

"Just like his great-uncle Threbus!" nodded
Councilor Onswud gloomily. "It's in the blood, I always say!"

"—and a justifiable suspicion of a prolonged stay on
said Prohibited Planet of Karres-"

"I never heard of that place before this trip!"
shouted the captain.

"Why don't you read your Instructions and Regulations
then?" shouted Councilor Rapport. "It's all there!"

"Silence, please!" shouted Councilor Onswud.

"Fifth," said the policeman quietly, "general
willful and negligent actions resulting in material damage and loss to your
employer to the value of eighty-two thousand maels."

"I've still got fifty-five thousand. And the stuff in
the storage," the captain said, also quietly, "is worth half a
million, at least!"

"Contraband and hence legally valueless!" the
policeman said. Councilor Onswud cleared his throat.

"It will be impounded, of course," he said.
"Should a method of resale present itself, the profits, if any, will be
applied to the cancellation of your just debts. To some extent, that might
reduce your sentence." He paused. "There is another matter—"

"The sixth charge," the policeman said, "is
the development
and
public demonstration of a new type of space drive,
which should have been brought promptly and secretly to the attention of the
Republic of Nikkeldepain!"

They all stared at him—alertly and quite greedily.

So
that
was it—the Sheewash Drive!

"Your sentence may be greatly reduced, Pausert,"
Councilor Onswud said wheedlingly, "if you decide to be reasonable now.
What have you discovered?"

"Look out, Father!" Illyla said sharply.

"Pausert," Councilor Onswud inquired in a fading
voice, "what is that in your hand?"

"A Blythe gun," the captain said, boiling.

There was a frozen stillness for an instant. Then the
policeman's right hand made a convulsive movement. "Uh-uh!" said the
captain warningly. Councilor Rapport started a slow step backwards.

"Stay where you are!" said the captain.

"Pausert!" Councilor Onswud and Illyla cried out
together.

"Shut up!" said the captain.

There was another stillness.

"If you'd looked," the captain said, in an almost
normal voice, "you'd have seen I've got the nova gun turrets out. They're
fixed on that boat of yours. The boat's lying still and keeping its little yap
shut. You do the same—"

He pointed a finger at the policeman. "You got a
repulsor suit on," he said. "Open the inner port lock and go squirt
yourself back to your boat!"

The inner port lock groaned open. Warm air left the ship in
a long, lazy wave, scattering the sheets of the
Venture's
log and
commercial records over the floor. The thin, cold upper atmosphere of
Nikkelde-pain II came eddying in.

"You next, Onswud!" the captain said.

And a moment later: "Rapport, you just turn
around—"

Young Councilor Rapport went through the port at a higher
velocity than could be attributed reasonably to his repulsor units. The captain
winced and rubbed his foot. But it had been worth it.

"Pausert," said Illyla in justifiable
apprehension, "you are stark, staring mad!"

"Not at all, my dear," the captain said
cheerfully. "You and I are now going to take off and embark on a life of
crime together."

"But, Pausert-"

"You'll get used to it," the captain assured her,
"just like I did. It's got Nikkeldepain beat every which way."

"Pausert," Illyla said, whitefaced, "we told
them to bring up revolt ships!"

"We'll blow them out through the stratosphere,"
the captain said belligerently, reaching for the port-control switch. He added,
"But they won't shoot anyway while I've got you on board!"

Illyla shook her head. "You just don't
understand," she said desperately. "You can't make me stay!"

"Why not?" asked the captain.

"Pausert," said Illyla, "I am Madame
Councilor Rapport."

"Oh!" said the captain. There was a silence. He
added, crestfallen: "Since when?"

"Five months ago, yesterday," said Illyla.

"Great Patham!" cried the captain, with some
indignation. "I'd hardly got off Nikkeldepain then! We were engaged!"

"Secretly . . . and I guess," said Illyla, with a
return of spirit, "that I had a right to change my mind!"

There was another silence.

"Guess you had, at that," the captain agreed.
"All right—the port's still open, and your husband's waiting in the boat.
Beat it!"

He was alone. He let the ports slam shut and banged down the
oxygen release switch. The air had become a little thin.

He cussed.

The communicator began rattling for attention. He turned it
on.

"Pausert!" Councilor Onswud was calling in a
friendly but shaking voice. "May we not depart, Pausert? Your nova guns
are still fixed on this boat!"

"Oh, that—" said the captain. He deflected the
turrets a trifle. "They won't go off now. Scram!"

The police boat vanished.

There was other company coming, though. Far below him but
climbing steadily, a trio of revolt ships darted past on the screen, swung
around and came back for the next turn of their spiral. They'd have to get a
good deal closer before they started shooting; but they'd try to stay under him
so as not to knock any stray chunks out of Nikkeldepain.

He sat a moment, reflecting. The revolt ships went by once
more. The captain punched in the
Venture's
secondary drives, turned her
nose towards the planet and let her go. There were some scattered white puffs
around as he cut through the revolt ships' plane of flight. Then he was below
them, and the
Venture
groaned as he took her out of the dive.

The revolt ships were already scattering and nosing over for
a countermaneuver. He picked the nearest one and swung the nova guns towards
it.

"—and ram them in the middle!" he muttered between
his teeth.

SSS-whoosh!

It was the Sheewash Drive—but, like a nightmare now, it kept
on and on!

"Maleen!" the captain bawled, pounding at the
locked door of the captain's cabin. "Maleen-shut it off! Cut it off!
You'll kill yourself. Maleen!"

The
Venture
quivered suddenly throughout her length,
then shuddered more violently, jumped and coughed; and commenced sailing along
on her secondary drives again. He wondered how many light-years from everything
they were by now. It didn't matter!

"Maleen!" he yelled. "Are you all right?"

There was a faint
thump-thump
inside the cabin, and
silence. He lost almost a minute finding the right cutting tool in the storage.
A few seconds later, a section of door panel sagged inwards; he caught it by
one edge and came tumbling into the cabin with it.

He had the briefest glimpse of a ball of orange-colored fire
swirling uncertainly over a cone of oddly bent wires. Then the fire vanished,
and the wires collapsed with a loose rattling to the table top.

The crumpled small shape lay behind the table, which was why
he didn't discover it at once. He sagged to the floor beside it, all the
strength running out of his knees.

Brown eyes opened and blinked at him blearily.

"Sure takes it out of you!" Goth grunted. "Am
I hungry!"

"I'll whale the holy, howling tar out of you
again," the captain roared, "if you ever—"

"Quit your bawling!" snarled Goth. "I got to
eat."

She ate for fifteen minutes straight, before she sank back
in her chair, and sighed.

"Have some more Wintenberry jelly," the captain
offered anxiously. She looked pretty pale.

Goth shook her head. "Couldn't—and that's about the
first thing you've said since you fell through the door, howling for Maleen.
Ha-ha! Maleen's
got
a boyfriend!"

"Button your lip, child," the captain said.
"I was thinking." He added, after a moment: "Has she
really?"

"Picked him out last year," Goth nodded.
"Nice boy from town— they get married as soon as she's marriageable. She
just told you to come back because she was upset about you. Maleen had a
premonition you were headed for awful trouble!"

"She was quite right, little chum," the captain
said nastily.

"What were you thinking about?" Goth inquired.

"I was thinking," said the captain, "that as
soon as we're sure you're going to be all right, I'm taking you straight back
to Karres!"

"I'll be all right now," Goth said. "Except,
likely, for a stomach ache. But you can't take me back to Karres."

"Who will stop me, may I ask?" the captain asked.

"Karres is gone," Goth said.

"Gone?" the captain repeated blankly, with a sensation
of not quite definable horror bubbling up in him.

"Not blown up or anything," Goth reassured him.
"They just moved it! The Imperialists got their hair up about us again.
But this time, they were sending a fleet with the big bombs and stuff, so everybody
was called home. But they had to wait then till they found out where we were—me
and Maleen and the Leewit. Then you brought us in; and they had to wait again,
and decide about you. But right after you'd left. . .
we'd
left, I mean
. . . they moved it."

"Where?"

"Great Patham!" Goth shrugged. "How'd I know?
There's lots of places!"

There probably were, the captain admitted silently. A scene
came suddenly before his eyes—that lime-white, arenalike bowl in the valley,
with the steep tiers of seats around it, just before they'd reached the town of
Karres—"the Theater where—"

But now there was unnatural night-darkness all over and
about that world; and the eight thousand-some Witches of Karres sat in circles
around the Theater, their heads bent towards one point in the center, where
orange fire washed hugely about the peak of a cone of curiously twisted
girders.

And a world went racing off at the speeds of the Sheewash
Drive! There'd be lots of places, all right. What peculiar people!

"Anyway," he sighed, "if I've got to start
raising you—don't say 'Great Patham' any more. That's a cuss word!"

"I learned it from you!" Goth pointed out.

"So you did, I guess," the captain acknowledged.
"I won't say it either. Aren't they going to be worried about you?"

"Not very much," said Goth. "We don't get
hurt often—especially when we're young. That's when we can do all that stuff
like teleporting, and whistling, like the Leewit. We lose it mostly when we get
older—they're working on that now so we won't. About all Maleen can do right
now is premote!"

"She premotes just dandy, though," the captain
said. "The Shee-wash Drive—they can all do that, can't they?"

"Uh-huh!" Goth nodded. "But that's learned
stuff. That's one of the things they already studied out." She added, a
trace uncomfortably: "I can't tell you about that till you're one
yourself."

"Till I'm what myself?" the captain asked,
becoming puzzled again.

"A witch, like us," said Goth. "We got our
rules. And that won't be for four years, Karres time."

"It won't, eh?" said the captain. "What
happens then?"

"That's when I'm marriageable age," said Goth,
frowning at the jar of Wintenberry jelly. She pulled it towards her and
inspected it carefully. "I got it all fixed," she told the jelly
firmly, "as soon as they started saying they ought to pick out a wife for
you on Karres, so you could stay. I said it was me, right away; and everyone
else said finally that was all right then—even Maleen, because she had this
boyfriend."

"You mean," said the captain, stunned, "this
was all planned out on Karres?"

"Sure," said Goth. She pushed the jelly back where
it had been standing, and glanced up at him again. "For three weeks,
that's about all everyone talked about in the town! It set a precedent—"

She paused doubtfully.

"That would explain it," the captain admitted.

"Uh-huh," Goth nodded relieved, settling back in
her chair. "But it was my father who told us how to do it so you'd break
up with the people on Nikkeldepain. He said it was in the blood."

"What was in the blood?" the captain said
patiently.

"That you'd break up with them. That's Threbus, my
father," Goth informed him. "You met him a couple of times in the
town. Big man with a blond beard—Maleen and the Leewit take after him."

"You wouldn't mean my great-uncle Threbus?" the
captain inquired. He was in a state of strange calm by now.

"That's right," said Goth. "He liked you a
lot."

"It's a small Galaxy," said the captain
philosophically. "So that's where Threbus wound up! I'd like to meet him
again some day."

"We'll start after Karres four years from now, when you
learn about those things," Goth said. "We'll catch up with them all
right. That's still thirteen hundred and seventy-two Old Sidereal days,"
she added, "but there's a lot to do in between. You want to pay the money
you owe back to those people, don't you? I got some ideas—"

"None of those teleporting tricks now!" the
captain warned.

"Kid stuff!" Goth said scornfully. "I'm
growing up. This'll be fair swapping. But we'll get rich."

"I wouldn't be surprised," the captain admitted.
He thought a moment. "Seeing we've turned out to be distant relatives, I
suppose it is all right, too, if I adopt you meanwhile—"