The Witches of Karres Read online

* * *

  Karres, it developed, was in the Iverdahl System. He couldn't find any planet of that designation listed in his maps of the area, but that meant nothing. The maps weren't always accurate, and local names changed a lot.

  Barring the use of weird and deadly miracle-drives, that detour was going to cost him almost a month in time—and a good chunk of his profits in power used up. The jewels Goth had illegally teleported must, of course, be returned to their owner, he explained. He'd intended to look severely at the culprit at that point; but she'd meant well, after all. They were extremely unusual children, but still children—they couldn't really understand.

  He would stop off en route to Karres at an Empire planet with interstellar banking facilities to take care of that matter, the captain added. A planet far enough off so the police wouldn't be likely to take any particular interest in the Venture.

  A dead silence greeted this schedule. He gathered that the representatives of Karres did not think much of his logic.

  "Well," Maleen sighed at last, "we'll see you get your money back some other way then!"

  The junior witches nodded coldly.

  "How did you three happen to get into this fix?" the captain inquired, with the intention of changing the subject.

  They'd left Karres together on a jaunt of their own, they explained. No, they hadn't run away—he got the impression that such trips were standard procedure for juveniles in that place. They were on another world, a civilized one but beyond the borders and law of Empire, when the town they were in was raided by a small fleet of slavers. They were taken along with most of the local youngsters.

  "It's a wonder," the captain said reflectively, "you didn't take over the ship."

  "Oh, brother!" exclaimed the Leewit.

  "Not that ship!" said Goth.

  "That was an Imperial Slaver!" Maleen informed him. "You behave yourself every second on those crates."

  * * *

  Just the same, the captain thought, as he settled himself to rest on a couch he had set up in the control room, it was no longer surprising that the Empire wanted no young slaves from Karres to be transported to the interior! Oddest sort of children. . . . But he ought to be able to get his expenses paid by their relatives. Something very profitable might even be made of this deal . . . .

  Have to watch the record entries though! Nikkeldepain's laws were explicit about the penalties invoked by anything resembling the purchase and sale of slaves.

  He'd thoughtfully left the intercom adjusted so he could listen in on their conversation in the captain's cabin. However, there had been nothing for some time beyond frequent bursts of childish giggling. Then came a succession of piercing shrieks from the Leewit. It appeared she was being forcibly washed behind the ears by Maleen and obliged to brush her teeth, in preparation for bedtime.

  It had been agreed that he was not to enter the cabin, because—for reasons not given—they couldn't keep the Sheewash Drive on in his presence; and they wanted to have it ready, in case of an emergency. Piracy was rife beyond the Imperial borders, and the Venture would keep beyond the border for most of the trip, to avoid the more pressing danger of police pursuit instigated by Porlumma. The captain had explained the potentialities of the nova guns the Venture boasted, or tried to. Possibly they hadn't understood. At any rate, they seemed unimpressed.

  The Sheewash Drive! Boy, he thought in sudden excitement, if he could just get the principles of that. Maybe he would!

  He raised his head suddenly. The Leewit's voice had lifted clearly over the communicator.

  " . . . not such a bad old dope!" the childish treble remarked. The captain blinked indignantly.

  "He's not so old," Maleen's soft voice returned. "And he's certainly no dope!"

  He smiled. Good kid, Maleen.

  "Yeah, yeah!" squeaked the Leewit offensively. "Maleen's sweet onthu—ulp!"

  A vague commotion continued for a while, indicating, he hoped, that someone he could mention was being smothered under a pillow.

  He drifted off to sleep before it was settled.

  * * *

  If you didn't happen to be thinking of what they'd done, they seemed more or less like normal children. Right from the start they displayed a flattering interest in the captain and his background; and he told them all about everything and everybody in Nikkeldepain. Finally he even showed them his treasured pocket-sized picture of Illyla—the one with which he'd held many cozy conversations during the earlier part of his trip.

  Almost at once, though, he realized that was a mistake. They studied it intently in silence, their heads crowded close together.

  "Oh, brother!" the Leewit whispered then, with entirely the wrong kind of inflection.

  "Just what did you mean by that?" the captain inquired coldly.

  "Sweet!" murmured Goth. But it was the way she closed her eyes briefly, as though gripped by a light spasm of nausea.

  "Shut up, Goth!" Maleen said sharply. "I think she's very swee . . . I mean, she looks very nice!" she told the captain.

  The captain was disgruntled. Silently, he retrieved the maligned Illyla and returned her to his breast pocket. Silently, he went off and left them standing there.

  But afterwards, in private, he took it out again and studied it worriedly.

  His Illyla! He shifted the picture back and forth under the light. It wasn't really a very good picture of her, he decided. It had been bungled. From certain angles, one might even say that Illyla did look the least bit insipid.

  What was he thinking, he thought, shocked.

  He unlimbered the nova gun turrets next and got in a little firing practice. They had been sealed when he took over the Venture and weren't supposed to be used, except in absolute emergencies. They were somewhat uncertain weapons, though very effective, and Nikkeldepain had turned to safer forms of armament many decades ago. But on the third day out from Nikkeldepain, the captain made a brief notation in his log:

  "Attacked by two pirate craft. Unsealed nova guns. Destroyed one attacker; survivor fled . . . ."

  He was rather pleased by that crisp, hard-bitten description of desperate space adventure, and enjoyed rereading it occasionally. It wasn't true, though. He had put in an interesting four hours at the time pursuing and annihilating large, craggy chunks of an asteroid swarm he found the Venture plowing through. Those nova guns were fascinating stuff! You'd sight the turrets on something; and so long as it didn't move after that, it was all right. If it did move, it got it—unless you relented and deflected the turrets first. They were just the thing for arresting a pirate in mid-space.

  The Venture dipped back into the Empire's borders four days later and headed for the capital of the local province. Police ships challenged them twice on the way in; and the captain found considerable comfort in the awareness that his passengers forgathered silently in their cabin on these occasions. They didn't tell him they were set to use the Sheewash Drive—somehow it had never been mentioned since that first day—but he knew the queer orange fire was circling over its skimpy framework of twisted wires there and ready to act.

  However, the space police waved him on, satisfied with routine identification. Apparently the Venture had not become generally known as a criminal ship, to date.

  Maleen accompanied him to the banking institution which was to return Wansing's property to Porlumma. Her sisters, at the captain's definite request, remained on the ship.

  The transaction itself went off without a visible hitch. The jewels would reach their destination in Porlumma within a month. But he had to take out a staggering sum in insurance. "Piracy, thieves!" smiled the clerk. "Even summary capital punishment won't keep the rats down!" And, of course, he had to register name, ship, home planet, and so on. But since they already had all that information on Porlumma, he gave it without hesitation.

  On the way back to the spaceport, he sent off a sealed message by subradio to the bereaved jeweler, informing him of the action taken and regretting the misunderstanding.


  He felt a little better after that, though the insurance payment had been a severe blow. If he didn't manage to work out a decent profit on Karres somehow, the losses on the miffel farm would hardly be covered now . . . .

  Then he noticed Maleen was getting uneasy.

  "We'd better hurry!" was all she would say, however. Her face turned pale.

  The captain understood. She was having another premonition! The hitch to this premoting business was apparently that when something was brewing you were informed of the bare fact but had to guess at most of the details. They grabbed an aircab and raced back to the spaceport.

  They had just been cleared there when he spotted a group of uniformed men coming along the dock on the double. They stopped short and scattered as the Venture lurched drunkenly sideways into the air. Everyone else in sight was scattering, too.

  That was a very bad take-off—one of the captain's worst. Once afloat, however, he ran the ship promptly into the nightside of the planet and turned her nose towards the border. The old pirate-chaser had plenty of speed when you gave her the reins; and throughout the entire next sleep period he let her use it all.

  The Sheewash Drive was not required that time.

  * * *

  Next day he had a lengthy private talk with Goth on the Golden Rule and the Law, with particular reference to individual property rights. If Councilor Onswud had been monitoring the sentiments expressed by the captain, he could not have failed to rumble surprised approval. The delinquent herself listened impassively, but the captain fancied she showed distinct signs of being impressed by his earnestness.

  It was two days after that—well beyond the borders again—when they were obliged to make an unscheduled stop at a mining moon. For the captain discovered he had badly miscalculated the extent to which the prolonged run on overdrive after leaving the capital was going to deplete the Venture's reserves. They would have to juice up . . . .

  A large, extremely handsome Sirian freighter lay beside them at the moon station. It was half a battlecraft really, since it dealt regularly beyond the borders. They had to wait while it was being serviced; and it took a long time. The Sirians turned out to be as unpleasant as their ship was good-looking—a snooty, conceited, hairy lot who talked only their own dialect and pretended to be unfamiliar with Imperial Universum.

  The captain found himself getting irked by their bad manners—particularly when he discovered they were laughing over his argument with the service superintendent about the cost of repowering the Venture.

  "You're out in deep space, Captain," said the superintendent. "And you haven't juice enough left even to travel back to the border. You can't expect Imperial prices here!"

  "It's not what you charged them!" The captain angrily jerked his thumb at the Sirian.

  The superintendent shrugged. "Regular customers! You start coming by here every three months like they do, and we can make an arrangement with you, too."

  It was outrageous—it actually put the Venture back in the red. But there was no help for it.

  Nor did it improve the captain's temper when he muffed the take-off once more—and then had to watch the Sirian floating into space, as sedately as a swan, a little behind him.

  Chapter TWO

  An hour later, as he sat glumly at the controls, debating the chances of recouping his losses before returning to Nikkeldepain, Maleen and the Leewit hurriedly entered the room. They did something to a port screen.

  "They sure are!" the Leewit exclaimed. She seemed childishly pleased.

  "Are what?" the captain inquired absently.

  "Following us," said Maleen. She did not sound pleased. "It's that Sirian ship, Captain Pausert!"

  The captain stared bewilderedly at the screen. There was a ship in focus there. It was quite obviously the Sirian and, just as obviously, it was following them.

  "What do they want?" he wondered. "They're stinkers but they're not pirates. Even if they were, they wouldn't spend an hour running after a crate like the Venture."

  Maleen said nothing. The Leewit observed, "Got their bow turrets out now! Better get those nova guns ready!"

  "But it's all nonsense!" the captain said, flushing angrily. He turned towards the communicators. "What's that Empire general beam length?"

  ".00r44," said Maleen.

  A roaring, abusive voice flooded the control room immediately. The one word understandable to the captain was "Venture." It was repeated frequently.

  "Sirian," said the captain. "Can you understand them?" he asked Maleen.

  She shook her head. "The Leewit can."

  The Leewit nodded, gray eyes glistening.

  "What are they saying?"

  "They says you're for stopping," the Leewit translated rapidly, apparently retaining some of the original sentence structure. "They says you're for skinning alive . . . ha! They says you're for stopping right now and for only hanging. They says—"

  Maleen scuttled from the control room. The Leewit banged the communicator with one small fist.

  "Beak-Wock!" she shrilled. It sounded that way, anyway. The loud voice paused a moment.

  "BEAK-Wock?" it returned in an aggrieved, startled tone.

  "Beak-Wock!" the Leewit affirmed with apparent delight. She rattled off a string of similar-sounding syllables.

  A howl of inarticulate wrath responded.

  The captain, in a whirl of outraged emotions, was yelling at the Leewit to shut up, at the Sirian to go to Great Patham's Second Hell—the worst—and wrestling with the nova gun adjustors at the same time. He'd had about enough! He'd—

  SSS-whoosh!

  It was the Sheewash Drive.

  * * *

  "And where are we now?" the captain inquired, in a voice of unnatural calm.

  "Same place, just about," the Leewit told him. "Ship's still on the screen. Way back though—take them an hour again to catch up." She seemed disappointed; then brightened. "You got lots of time to get the guns ready . . ."

  The captain didn't answer. He was marching down the passage towards the rear of the Venture. He passed the captain's cabin and noted the door was shut. He went on without pausing. He was mad clean through—he knew what had happened!

  After all he'd told her, Goth had teleported again.

  It was all there, in the storage. Items of up to a pound in weight seemed as much as she could handle. But amazing quantities of stuff had met that one requirement—bottles filled with what might be perfume or liquor or dope, expensive-looking garments and cloths in a shining variety of colors, small boxes, odds, ends, and, of course, jewelry . . . .

  He spent half an hour getting it loaded into a steel space crate. He wheeled the crate into the big storage lock, sealed the inside lock door and pulled the switch that activated the automatic launching device.

  The outer lock door slammed shut. He stalked back to the control room. The Leewit was still in charge, fiddling with the communicators.

  "I could try a whistle over them," she suggested, glancing up. She added, "But they'd bust somewheres, sure."

  "Get them on again!" the captain said.

  "Yes, sir," said the Leewit, surprised.

  The roaring voice came back faintly.

  "SHUT UP!" the captain shouted in Imperial Universum.

  The voice shut up.

  "Tell them they can pick up their stuff—it's been dumped out in a crate," the captain instructed the Leewit. "Tell them I'm proceeding on my course. Tell them if they follow me one light-minute beyond that crate, I'll come back for them, shoot their front end off, shoot their rear end off, and ram 'em in the middle."

  "Yes, SIR!" the Leewit sparkled. They proceeded on their course.

  Nobody followed.

  "Now I want to speak to Goth," the captain announced. He was still at a high boil. "Privately," he added. "Back in the storage—"

  Goth followed him expressionlessly into the storage. He closed the door to the passage. He'd broken off a two-foot length from the tip of one of Councilor Rapport's
overpriced tinklewood fishing poles. It made a fair switch.

  But Goth looked terribly small just now! He cleared his throat. He wished for a moment he were back on Nikkeldepain.

  "I warned you," he said.

  Goth didn't move. Between one second and the next, however, she seemed to grow remarkably. Her brown eyes focused on the captain's Adam's apple; her lip lifted at one side. A slightly hungry look came into her face.

  "Wouldn't try that!" she murmured.

  Mad again, the captain reached out quickly and got a handful of leathery cloth. There was a blur of motion, and what felt like a small explosion against his left kneecap. He grunted with anguished surprise and fell back on a bale of Councilor Rapport's allweather cloaks. But he had retained his grip—Goth fell half on top of him, and that was still a favorable position. Then her head snaked around, her neck seemed to extend itself, and her teeth snapped his wrist.

  Weasels don't let go—

  * * *

  "Didn't think he'd have the nerve!" Goth's voice came over the intercom. There was a note of grudging admiration in it. It seemed she was inspecting her bruises.

  All tangled up in the job of bandaging his freely bleeding wrist, the captain hoped she'd find a good plenty to count. His knee felt the size of a sofa pillow and throbbed like a piston engine.

  "The captain is a brave man," Maleen was saying reproachfully. "You should have known better."

  "He's not very smart, though!" the Leewit remarked suggestively.

  There was a short silence.

  "Is he? Goth? Eh?" the Leewit urged.

  "Perhaps not very," said Goth.

  "You two lay off him!" Maleen ordered. "Unless," she added meaningly, "you want to swim back to Karres—on the Egger Route!"

  "Not me," the Leewit said briefly.

  "You could do it, I guess," said Goth. She seemed to be reflecting. "All right—we'll lay off him. It was a fair fight, anyway."

  * * *

  They raised Karres the sixteenth day after leaving Porlumma. There had been no more incidents; but then, neither had there been any more stops or other contacts with the defenseless Empire. Maleen had cooked up a poultice which did wonders for his knee. With the end of the trip in sight, all tensions relaxed; and Maleen, at least, seemed to grow hourly more regretful at the prospect of parting.