The Witches of Karres Read online

  He slapped the nova guns on automatic, locked on target, rode the Venture's thunder in a dead straight line ahead in the wake of the guns' trail of blue lightning. Red and black fire appeared suddenly on this side of the lightning, rolling towards them—

  Then it vanished.

  There was something like the high-pitched yowl of a small jungle cat in the captain's ears. A firm young fist pounded his shoulder delightedly. "They're running! They're running!"

  He cut the guns. The sighting screen was empty. His eyes followed Goth's pointing finger to another screen. Far under their present course, turning away on a steep escape curve, went the Megair Cannibals' ship, scuttling its best, dipping, weaving, dwindling . . . .

  * * *

  As they drew closer to Uldune, other ships appeared with increasing frequency in the Venture's detection range. But these evidently were going about their own business and inclined to keep out of the path of strange spacecraft. None came close enough to be picked up in the viewscreens.

  While still half a day away from the one-time pirate planet, the Venture's communicators signaled a pick-up. They switched on the instruments and found themselves listening to a general broadcast from Uldune, addressed to all ships entering this area of space.

  If they were headed for Uldune on business, they were invited to shift to a frequency which would put them in contact with a landing station off-planet. Uldune was anxious to see to it that their visit was made as pleasant and profitable as possible and would facilitate matters to that end in every way. Detailed information would be made available by direct-beam contact from the landing station.

  It was the most cordial reception ever extended to the captain on a planetary approach. They switched in the station, were welcomed warmly to Uldune. Business arrangements then began immediately. Before another hour was up Uldune knew in general what they wanted and what they had to offer, had provided a list of qualified shipbuilders, scheduled immediate appointments with identity specialists, official assessors who would place a minimum value on their cargo, and a representative of the Daal's Bank, who would assist them in deciding what other steps to take to achieve their goals to best effect on Uldune.

  Helpful as the pirate planet was to its clients, it was also clear that it took no unnecessary chances with them. Visitors arriving with their own spacecraft had the choice of leaving them berthed at the landing stations and using a shuttle to have themselves and their goods transported down to a spaceport, or of allowing foolproof seals to be attached to offensive armament for the duration of the ship's stay on Uldune. A brief, but presumably quite effective, contamination check of the interior of the ship and of its cargo was also carried out at the landing station. Otherwise, aside from an evident but no-comment interest aroused by the nova guns in the armament specialists engaged in securing them, the Daal's officials at the station displayed a careful lack of curiosity about the Venture, her crew, her cargo, and her origin. An escort boat presently guided them down to a spaceport and their interview at the adjoining Office of Identities.

  Chapter FOUR

  Captain Aron, of the extremely remote world of Mulm, and his young niece Dani took up residence late that evening in a rented house in an old quarter of Uldune's port city of Zergandol. It had been a strenuous though satisfactory day for both of them. Much business had begun to roll.

  Goth, visibly struggling for the past half hour to keep her eyelids open wide enough to be able to look out, muttered good-night to the captain as soon as they'd located two bedrooms on the third floor of the house, and closed the door to one of them behind her. The captain felt bone-weary himself but his brain still buzzed with the events of the day and he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep for a while. He brewed a pot of coffee in the kitchen and took it up to a dark, narrow fourth-story balcony which encircled the house, where he sipped it from a mug, looking around at the sprawling, inadequately lit city.

  Zergandol, from what he had seen of it, was a rather dilapidated town, though it had one neatly modern district. One might have called it quaint, but most of the streets and buildings were worn, cracked, and rather grimy; and the architecture seemed a centuries-old mixture of conflicting styles. The house they were in looked like a weathered layer cake, four round sections containing two rooms each placed on top of one another, connected by a narrow circular stairway. Inside and out, it was old. But the rent was moderate—he wasn't sure yet where they would stand financially by the time they were done with Uldune and Uldune was done with them; and the house was less than a mile up a winding street from the edge of the spaceport and the shipyards of the firm of Sunnat, Bazim & Filish where, during the following weeks, the Venture would be rebuilt.

  The extent to which the ship would be rebuilt wasn't settled yet. So far there'd been time for only a brief preliminary discussion with the partners. And the day had brought an unexpected development which would make it possible to go a great deal farther with that than they'd planned. It was one of the things the captain was debating now. The Daal's appraiser, with whom they'd gotten together immediately after being equipped with new identities, hadn't seemed quite able to believe in the Karres cargo:

  "Wintenberry jelly and Lepti liquor?" he'd repeated, lifting his eyebrows, when the captain named the first two of the items the witches: had loaded on the Venture. "These are, uh, the genuine article?"

  Surprised, the captain glanced at Goth, who nodded. "That's right," he said.

  "Most unusual!" declared the appraiser interestedly. "What quantity of them do you have?"

  The captain told him and got a startled look. from the official. "Something wrong?" he asked, puzzled.

  The appraiser shook his head. "Oh, no! No, not at all." He cleared his throat. "You're certain . . . well, you must be, of course!" He made some notes, cleared his throat again. "Now—you've indicated you also have peltries to sell—"

  "Yes, we do," said the captain. "Very fine stuff!"

  "Hundred and twenty-five tozzami," Goth put in from her end of the table. She sounded as if she were enjoying herself. "Fifty gold-tipped lelaundel—all prime adults."

  The appraiser looked at her, then at the captain.

  "That is correct, sir?" he asked expressionlessly.

  The captain assured him it was. It hadn't occurred to him to ask Goth about the names of the creatures that had grown the magnificent furs in the storage; but "tozzami" and "gold-tipped lelaundel" evidently were familiar terms to this expert. His reactions had indicated he also knew about the green Lepti liquor and the jellies. Possibly Karres exported such articles as a regular thing.

  "That perfume I put down," the captain went on. "I don't know if you've heard of Kell Peak essences—"

  The appraiser bared his teeth in a strained smile.

  "Indeed, I have, sir!" he said softly. "Indeed, I have!" He looked down at his list. "Eight thousand three hundred and twenty-three half-pints of Kell Peak essences. . . . In my twenty-two years of professional experience, Captain Aron, I have never had the opportunity to evaluate an incoming cargo of this nature. I don't know what you've done, but allow me to congratulate you."

  He left with samples of the cargo to have their genuineness and his appraisal notations confirmed by other specialists. The captain and Goth went off to have lunch in one of the spaceport restaurants. "What was he so excited about?" the captain asked, intrigued.

  Goth shrugged. "He figures we stole it all."

  "Why?"

  "Hard stuff to just buy!"

  She explained while they ate. Tozzamis and lelaundels were indigenous to Karres, part of its mountain fauna; but very few people knew where the furs came from. They had high value, not only because of their quality, but because they were rarely available. From time to time, when the witches wanted money, they'd make up a shipment and distribute it quietly through various contacts.

  It was a somewhat different matter with the other items, but it came out to much the same thing. The significant ingredients of the liquor, jell
ies, and perfume essences could be grown only in three limited areas of three different Empire planets, and in such limited quantities there that the finished products hardly ever appeared on the regular market. The witches didn't advertise the fact that they'd worked out ways to produce all three on Karres. Klatha apparently could also be used to assist a green thumb . . . .

  "That might be worth a great deal more than we've calculated on, then!" the captain said hopefully.

  "Might," Goth agreed. "Don't know what they'll pay for it here, though."

  They found out during their next appointment, which was with a dignitary of the Daal's Bank. This gentleman already had the appraiser's report on hand and had opened an account for Captain Aron of Mulm on the strength of it. He went over their planned schedule on Uldune with them, added up the fees, licenses, and taxes that applied to such activities, threw in a figure to cover general expenses involved with getting the Venture—renamed Evening Bird, operating under a fictitious Mulm charter—established as a trading ship, and deducted the whole from the anticipated bid value of the cargo, which allowed for the customary forty per cent risk cut on the appraised real value. In this instance the bidding might run higher. What they'd have left in cash in any case came to slightly less than half a million Imperial maels, and they could begin drawing on the bank immediately for anything up to that sum.

  He'd counted on reimbursing Councilor Onswud via a nontraceable subradio deposit for the estimated value of the Venture, the Venture's original Nikkeldepain cargo, and the miffel farm loan, plus interest. And on investing up to a hundred and fifty thousand in having the Venture reequipped with what it took to make her dependably spaceworthy. It had looked as if they'd be living rather hand-to-mouth after that until they'd put a couple of profitable trading runs behind them.

  Now, leaving themselves only a reasonable margin in case general expenses ran higher than the bank's estimate, they could, if they chose, sink nearly four hundred thousand into the Venture. That should be enough to modernize her from stem to stern, turn her into a ship that carried passengers in comfort as well as cargo—a ship furthermore equal to the best in her class for speed, security, and navigational equipment, capable of running rings around the average bandit or slipping away if necessary from a nosy Imperial patrol. All that without having to fall back on the Sheewash Drive, which still would be available to them when required.

  There hadn't been a good opportunity today to discuss that notion with Goth. But Goth would like it. As for himself . . . .

  The captain shook his head, realizing he'd already made up his mind. He smiled out over the balcony railing at dark Zergandol. After all, what better use could they make of the money? Tomorrow they'd get down to business with Sunnat, Bazim & Filish!

  He placed the empty coffee mug on a window ledge beside the chair he'd settled himself in and stretched out his legs. There was a chill in the air now and it had begun to get through to him, but he still wasn't quite ready to turn in. If someone had told him even a month ago that he'd find himself one day on blood-stained old Uldune . . . .

  They'd varnished over their evil now, but there was evil enough still here. As far as the Daal's Bank knew, he'd committed piracy and murder to get his hands on the rare cargo they'd taken on consignment from him. And if anything, they respected him for it.

  In spite of the Daal's rigid limitations on what was allowable nowadays, they weren't really far away from the previous bad pirate period. In the big store where he and Goth had picked up supplies for the house, the floor manager earnestly advised them to invest in adequate spy-proofing equipment. The captain hadn't seen much point to it until Goth gave him the sign. The device they settled on then was small though expensive, looked like a pocket watch. Activated, it was guaranteed to make a twenty-foot sphere of space impervious to ordinary eavesdroppers, instrument snooping, hidden observers, and lip-readers. They checked it out with the store's most sophisticated espionage instruments and bought it. There'd be occasions enough at that when they'd want to be talking about things nobody here should know about; and apparently no one on the planet was really safe from prying eyes and ears unless they had such protection.

  In the open space about Uldune, of course, the old wickedness flourished openly. During the day, he'd heard occasional references to a report that ships of a notorious modern-day pirate leader, called the Agandar, had cleaned out a platinum mining settlement on an asteroid chain close enough to Uldune to keep the Daal's space defense forces on red alert overnight . . . .

  The captain's eyes shifted to the sky. Low over the western horizon hung the twisted purple glow of the Sea of Light, as familiar to him by now as any of the galactic landmarks in the night skies of Nikkeldepain. He watched it a few minutes. It was like a challenge, a cold threat; and something in him seemed to reply to it:

  Wait till we're ready for you . . . .

  About it lay the Chaladoor. Another ill-omened name out of history, out of legend . . . a vast expanse of space beginning some two days' travel beyond Uldune, with a reputation still as bad as it ever had been in the distant past. Very little shipping moved in that direction, although barely half a month away, on the far side of the Chaladoor, there were clusters of prosperous independent worlds wide open for profitable trade. They could be reached by circumnavigating the Chaladoor, but that trip took the better part of a year. The direct route, on the other hand, meant threading one's way through a maze of navigational hazards, hazards to an ordinary kind of ship such as to discourage all but the hardiest. Inimical beings, like the crew of the Megair highwayman which had stalked the Venture during the run to Uldune, were a part of the hazards. And other forces were at work there, disturbing and sometimes violently dangerous forces nobody professed to understand. Even the almost universally functioning subradio did not operate in that area.

  Nevertheless there was a constant demand for commercial transportation through the Chaladoor, the time saved by using the direct route outweighing the risks. And the passage wasn't impossible. Certain routes were known to be relatively free of problems. Small, fast, well-armed ships stood the best chance of traversing the Chaladoor successfully along them—and one or two runs of that kind could net a ship owner as much as several years of ordinary trading.

  More importantly, from the captain's and Goth's point of view, Karres ships, while they carefully avoided certain sections of the Chaladoor, crossed it as a matter of course whenever it lay along their route. Constant alertness was required. Then the Sheewash Drive simply took them out of any serious trouble they encountered . . . .

  What it meant was that the remodeled, rejuvenated Venture also could make that run.

  The captain settled deeper into the chair, blinking drowsily at the bubble of light over the spaceport, which seemed the one area still awake in Zergandol. Afterwards, he couldn't have said at what point his reflections turned into dream-thoughts. But he did begin to dream.

  It was a vague, half-sleep dreaming, agreeable to start with. Then, by imperceptible degrees, uneasiness came creeping into it, a dim apprehension which strengthened and ebbed but never quite faded. Later he recalled nothing more definite about that part of it, but considerable time must have passed in that way.

  Then the vague, shifting dream imagery gathered, took on form and definite menace. He was aware of color at first, a spreading yellow glow—a sense of something far away but drawing closer. It became a fog of yellow light, growing towards him. A humming came from it.

  Fear awoke in him. He didn't know of what until he discovered the fog wasn't empty. There were brighter ripplings and flashes within it, a seething of energies. These energies seemed to form linked networks inside the cloud. At the points where they crossed were bodies.

  It would have been difficult to describe those bodies in any detail. They seemed made of light themselves, silhouettes of dim fire in the yellow haze of the cloud. They were like fat worms which moved with a slow writhing; and he had the impression that they were not only aliv
e but aware and alert; also that in some manner they were manipulating the glowing fog and its energies.

  What alarmed him was that this mysterious structure was moving steadily closer. If he didn't do something he would be engulfed by it.

  He did something. He didn't know what. But suddenly he was elsewhere, sitting in chilled darkness. The foggy fire and its inhabitants were gone. He discovered he was shaking, and that in spite of the cold air his face was dripping with sweat. It was some seconds before he was able to grasp where he was—still on the fourth-story balcony of the old house they had rented that day in the city of Zergandol.

  So he'd fallen asleep, had a nightmare, come awake from it. . . . And he might, he thought, have been sleeping for several hours because Zergandol looked almost completely blacked out now. Even the spaceport area showed only the dimmest reflection of light. And there wasn't a sound. Absolute silence enclosed the dark buildings of the old section of the city around him. To the left a swollen red moon disk hung just above the horizon. Zergandol might have become a city of the dead.

  Chilled to the bone by the night air, shuddering under his clothes, the captain looked around. And then up.

  Two narrow building spires loomed blackly against the night sky. Above and beyond them, eerily outlining their tips, was a yellowish haze, a thin, discolored glowing smear against the stars which shown through it. It was fading as the captain stared at it, already very faint. But it was so suggestive of the living light cloud of his dream that his heart began leaping all over again.

  It dimmed further, was gone. Not a trace remained. And while he was still wondering what it all meant, the captain heard the sound of voices. They came from the street below the balcony—two or three people speaking rapidly, in hushed tones.

  They might have been having a nervous argument about something, but it was the Uldunese language, so he wasn't sure. He heaved himself stiffly out of the chair, moved to the balcony railing and peered down through the gloom. A groundcar was parked in the street, two shadowy, gesticulating figures standing beside it. After some seconds they broke off their discussion and climbed into the car. He heard a metallic click as its door closed. The driving lights came on dimmed, and the car moved off slowly along the street. In the reflection of the lights he'd had a glimpse of markings on its side, which just might have been the pattern of bold squares that was the insignia of the Daal's police.