The Winds of Time Read online

console andshivered slightly. She said, "I was thinking, Gefty ... isn't theresomething they call Space Three?"

  "Sure. Pseudospace. But that isn't where we are. There're somespecial-built Navy tubs that can operate in that stuff if they don'tstay too long. A ship like the _Queen_ ... well, you and I andeverything else in here would be frozen solid by now if we'd got suckedsomehow into Space Three."

  "I see," Kerim said uncomfortably. Gefty heard her move over to thesuitcases. After a moment, she asked, "What do the vault keys looklike?"

  "You can't miss them if he's just thrown them in there. They're over sixinches long. What kind of a guy is this Maulbow? A scientist?"

  "I couldn't say, Gefty. He's never referred to himself as a scientist.I've had this job a year and a half. Mr. Maulbow is a very considerateemployer ... one of the nicest men I've known, really. But it was simplyunderstood that I should ask no questions about the business beyond whatI actually needed to know for my work."

  "What's the business called?"

  "Maulbow Engineering."

  "Big help," Gefty observed, somewhat sourly. "Those instruments hebrought along ... he build those himself?"

  "No, but I think he designed some of them--probably most of them. Thecompanies he had doing the actual work appeared to have a terrible timegetting everything exactly the way Mr. Maulbow wanted it--There'snothing that looks like a set of keys in those first two suitcases,Gefty."

  "Well," Gefty said, "if you don't find them in the others, you mightstart thumping around to see if he's got secret compartments in hisluggage somewhere."

  "I do wish," Kerim Ruse said uneasily, "that Mr. Maulbow would regainconsciousness. It seems so ... so underhanded to be doing these thingsbehind his back!"

  Gefty grunted noncommittally. He wasn't at all certain by now that hewanted his secretive client to wake up before he'd checked on thecontents of the _Queen's_ storage vault.

  * * * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, Gefty Rammer was climbing down to the storagedeck in the _Queen's_ broad stern, the newly fashioned set of vault keysclanking heavily in his coat pocket. Kerim had remained with heremployer who was getting back his color but still hadn't opened hiseyes. She hadn't found the original keys. Gefty wasn't sure she'd triedtoo hard, though she seemed to realize the seriousness of the situationnow. But her loyalty to Mr. Maulbow could make no further difference,and she probably felt more comfortable for it.

  Lights went on automatically in the wide passage leading from the cargolock to the vault as Gefty turned into it. His steps echoed between thesteel bulkheads on either side. He paused a moment before the bigcircular vault doors, listening to the purr of the _Queen's_ idlingengines in the next compartment. The familiar sound was somehowreassuring. He inserted the first key, turned it over twice, drew it outagain and pressed one of the buttons in the control panel beside thedoor. The heavy slab of steel moved sideways with a soft, hissing sound,vanished into the wall. Gefty slid the other key into the lock of theinner door. A few seconds later, the vault entrance lay open before him.

  He stood still again, wrinkling his nose. The area ahead was only dimlyilluminated--the shaking-up the _Queen_ had undergone had disturbed thelighting system here. And what was that odor? Rather sharp, unpleasant;it might have been spilled ammonia. Gefty stepped through the door intothe wide, short entrance passage beyond it, turned to the right andpeered about in the semidarkness of the vault.

  Two great steel cases--the ones Maulbow had taken down to an airlessmoon surface, loaded up with something and brought back to the_Queen_--were jammed awkwardly into a corner, in a manner whichsuggested they'd slid into it when the ship was being knocked around.One of them was open and appeared to be empty. Gefty wasn't sure of theother. In the dimness beside them lay the loose coils of some verythick, dark cable--And standing near the center of the floor was a thingthat at once riveted his attention on it completely. He sucked hisbreath in softly, feeling chilled.

  He realized he hadn't really believed his own hunch. But, of course, ifit hadn't been an unheard-of outside force that plucked the _Queen_ outof normspace and threw her into this elsewhere, then it must besomething Maulbow had put on board. And that something had to be amachine of some kind--

  It was.

  About it he could make out a thin gleaming of wires--a jury-riggedsafety field. Within the flimsy-looking protective cage was a doublebank of instruments, some of them alive with the flicker and glow oflights. Those must be the very expensive and difficult-to-build itemsMaulbow had brought out from the Hub. Beside them stood the machine,squat and ponderous. In the vague light, it looked misshaped anddiscolored. A piece of equipment that had taken a bad beating of somekind. But it was functioning. As he stared, intermittent bursts ofclicking noises rose from it, like the staccato of irregular gunfire.

  For a moment, questions raced in disorder through his mind. What was it?Why had it been on that moon? Part of another ship, wrecked now ... aship that had been at home _here_? Was it some sort of drive?

  Maulbow must know. He'd known enough to design the instruments requiredto bring the battered monster back to life. On the other hand, he hadnot foreseen in all detail what could happen once the thing was inoperation, because the _Queen's_ sudden buck-jumping act had surprisedhim and knocked him out.

  The first step, in any event, was to get Maulbow awake now. To tamperwith a device like this, before learning as much as one could about it,would be lunatic foolhardiness. It looked like too good a bet that thenext serious mistake made by anybody would finish them all--

  Perhaps it was only because Gefty's nerves were on edge that he grewaware at that point in his reflections of two minor signals from hissenses. One was that the smell of ammonia, which he had almost stoppednoticing, was becoming appreciably stronger. The other was the faintestof sounds--a whispering suggestion of motion somewhere behind him. Buthere in the storage vault nothing should have moved, and Gefty's muscleswere tensing as his head came around. Almost in the same instant, heflung himself wildly to one side, stumbling and regaining his balance assomething big and dark slapped heavily down on the floor at the pointwhere he had stood. Then he was darting up through the entrance passage,turning, and knocking down the lock switches on the outside door panel.

  It came flowing around the corner of the passage behind him as the vaultdoors began to slide together. He was aware mainly of swift, smooth,oiling motion like that of a big snake; then, for a fraction of asecond, a strip of brighter light from the outside passage showed along, heavy wedge of a head, a green metal-glint of staring eyes.

  The doors closed silently into their frames and locked. The thing wasinside. But it was almost a minute then before Gefty could control hisshaking legs enough to start moving back towards the main deck. In thehalf-dark of the vault, it had looked like a big coiled cable lying nextto the packing cases. Like Maulbow, it might have been battered aroundand knocked out during the recent disturbance; and when it recovered, ithad found Gefty in the vault with it. But it might also have been awakeall the while, waiting cunningly until Gefty's attention seemed fixedelsewhere before launching its attack. It was big enough to haveflattened him and smashed every bone in his body if the stroke hadlanded.

  Some kind of guard animal--a snakelike watchdog? What other connectioncould it have with the mystery machine? Perhaps Maulbow had intended toleave it confined in one of the cases, and it had broken loose--

  Too many questions by now, Gefty thought. But Maulbow had the answers.

  * * * * *

  He was hurrying up the main deck's central passage when Maulbow's voiceaddressed him sharply from a door he'd just passed.

  "Stop right there, Rammer! Don't dare to move! I--"

  The voice ended on a note of surprise. Gefty's reaction had not been toorational, but it was prompt. Maulbow's tone and phrasing implied he wasarmed. Gefty wasn't, but he kept a gun in the instrument room foremergencies. He'd been through a whole series of unne
rving experiences,winding up with being shagged out of his storage vault by something thatstank of ammonia and looked like a giant snake. To have one of the_Queen's_ passengers order him to stand where he was topped it off.Every other consideration was swept aside by a great urge to get hishands on his gun.

  He glanced back, saw Maulbow coming out of the half-opened door,something like a twenty-inch, thin, white rod in one hand. Then Geftywent bounding on along the passage, hunched forward and zigzagging fromwall to wall to give Maulbow--if the thing he held was a weapon and heactually intended to use it--as small and erratic a target as possible.Maulbow shouted angrily behind him. Then, as Gefty came up to the nextcross-passage, a line of white fire seared through the air