Страница 25 из 68
“You don’t feel afraid of the Chaladoor either?” the Daal asked.
“A little,” Hulik admitted. “But considerably more afraid of not getting the drive from Captain Pausert, if it should turn out later that there really was such a thing on his ship. When the stakes are high, the Imperium becomes a stringent employer!” She shrugged. “And since success in this might be as deadly to me as failure, you and Uldune can count on me… afterwards.”
A colored, soundless whirlwind was spi
He did. The giddily spi
He glanced around. It seemed a big underground vault, wide and low, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet long. Thick stone pillars supported the curved ceiling sections. A number of glowing white globes in iron cages hung by chains from the ceiling, giving a vague general illumination to the place. Across the vault, the captain saw a narrow staircase leading up through the wall. It seemed the only exit.
On his right, some thirty feet away, was a fireplace…
He gazed at the fireplace thoughtfully. It was built into the wall; in it was a large, hot coal fire. The individual coals glowed bright red, and continuous flickerings of heat ran over the piled mass. A poker shaped like a small slender spear stood at a slant, its tip in the coals, its handle resting on a bronze fire grate.
Some feet away from the fire was a marble-topped table. Beside it, a large wooden tub.
It was an odd-looking arrangement. And why should anyone build such a great fire on a warmish spring evening on Uldune? He could feel the waves of heat rolling out of it from here.
Warmish spring evening — the captain’s memory suddenly awoke. This was the day they’d made a complete ground check of the Evening Bird’s instrumentation. Everything was in faultless working order; he and Goth had been delighted. Then Goth had gone back to the house. Su
He could see no harm in buying her a drink. There’d been a low-ceilinged, half dark, expensive bar off the spaceport. Somebody guided them around a couple of corners, left them at a table in a dim-lit niche by themselves. The drinks appeared — and right around then that rainbow-hued whirlwind seemed to have begun revolving around him. He couldn’t recall another thing.
Well, no sense sitting here and pondering about it! He’d go upstairs, find someone to tell him where he was and what had happened to Su
A narrow metal ring was closed around his right ankle. A slender chain was locked to the ring, and eight feet away the chain ended in a link protruding from the solid wall. He stared down at it in shocked outrage. Why, he was a prisoner here! Conflicting surmises tumbled in momentary confusion through his mind. The most likely thought seemed then that there’d been trouble of some kind in the bar and that as a result he’d wound up in one of the Daal’s jails… but he still couldn’t remember a thing about it.
The captain scrambled to his feet, the chain making mocking clanks along the floor beside him. “Hey!” he yelled angrily. “Hey! Somebody here?”
For a moment he thought he’d heard a low laugh somewhere. But there was no one in sight.
“Hey!”
“Why, what’s the trouble, Captain Aron?”
He turned, saw Su
The captain stared at her. She was in one of her costumes. This one consisted of crimson trousers and slippers, a narrow strip of glittering green material wound tightly about her breasts, and a crimson turban which concealed her hair and had a great gleaming green stone set in the front of it above her forehead. She stood motionless, her face in shadow, watching him.
The costume didn’t make her appear attractive or seductive. Standing in the big, silent vault, she looked spooky and menacing. Her head shifted slightly and there seemed to be a momentary glitter in the eyes of the shadowed face. The captain cleared his throat, twisted his mouth into a smile.
“You had me worried, Su
Su
“How about getting me loose from the wall now?” the captain said coaxingly. “A joke’s a joke… but there are really a number of things I should be taking care of. And I told, uh, Dani I’d be home in time for di
Su
“Come on, Su
Su
He wasn’t too alarmed. Su
She didn’t come that close. She stopped twelve feet away, well beyond his reach.
“Captain Aron,” she said, “I think you already know this isn’t really a joke! I want something you have, and you’re going to give it to me. Now let me tell you a story…”
It was the story, somewhat distorted and with many omissions, of his experiences with the Sheewash Drive on the far side of the Empire. It didn’t mention Karres and didn’t mention klatha. Neither did it mention that he’d picked up three witch children on Porlumma. Otherwise, it came uncomfortably close to the facts.
“I don’t have any such drive mechanism on the ship,” the captain repeated, staring at her, wondering how she could possibly have got that information. “Whoever told you I did was lying!”
Su
“No, you’re lying,” she said. “Though it may be true that the drive mechanism is not on the ship at present. But you know where it is. And you’ll tell me.”
As the captain started to speak, she brought some small golden object from a pocket of her trousers, lifted it to her mouth. There was a short, Piercing whistle. Su