Star Rigger's Way (21 page)

Who were these raiders? Why was Legroeder with them?

The voices in the Flux had crescendoed into a kind of terrifying music. He could no longer identify Legroeder's voice. Perhaps he had been mistaken! Perhaps Legroeder was not there, was not a pirate. But no—even Cephean had distinguished the voice. And if he was there in the raider's net, Carlyle had to let him know who it was that he was attacking. Surely Legroeder could stop it if he knew!

The method of attack was an astounding overplay of the raiders' Flux imaging and Carlyle's own. It should be possible to reply in kind, if he had the power—but he was being hammered, and he was dizzy, and he was confused, and he could hardly think or breathe. Discordant chimes struck him in the face—backed by a bombardment of drums, booming drums, tribal undersea drums of terror and doom.

Whass iss thiss, Caha-harleel?
Cephean cried in anguish.

Doom, doom, doom doom doom . . .

Pirates, Cephean! Raiders! They're after us and our ship!

Whass he-we dho? (Anger! Terror!)

Doom doom doom doom doomdoomdoom . . .

I
don't know!
But he did know; he had to try to reach Legroeder.
Cephean! Create the old image—the nighttime image, the dark! Black out these lights! Muffle the sound!
They were being assaulted by sight and by sound; they were being wracked through their bones. God knew how many riggers they were combating in the other ship, or how much amplifying power in the raider's flux-pile. But they had to subdue this insanity to project a message through to Legroeder.

He felt Cephean clawing and spitting against his fear to create quiet, to regain the old image—to find the Wall to the right, and oceanic night all around. Lights flashed randomly about them, generating confusion, lights out of synchrony with the doom doom doomdoomdoom. Carlyle focused on night . . . night . . . night deep night . . . and what conceivable image could tell Legroeder that it was Gev Carlyle out here?
Try, Cephean, try!
And he thought and thought, and the lights flashing and drums dooming became a little darker, a little less distinct. He doubled his effort with Cephean; and for a moment, flickeringly, they held an image of night with a ghostly wall, with a phantom ship silhouetted treacherously against a pale and evil light.

Carlyle flashed out an image: Deusonport Field, Janofer and Skan and Legroeder crying farewell.

Night swallowed the image—and then came thunder booming and the coronal light-show of a rigger-net blossoming entirely around them. They were losing the battle; they were surrounded.

Again, Cephean, again! I have to get through!

Cephean sputtered, and the light darkened smokily, and again they were in a night sea moving inexorably on the current toward the other ship. The thunder receded.

Carlyle flashed forth another image:
Lady Brillig
, bold and gleaming against an evening sky.

Madness shattered the image. Tentacles of fire encircled them and joined, welded, and drew them inward. They were captured.
Spillix
fell sideways in the current toward the raider.

Carlyle cried out against the bonds, and terror reverberated between him and the cynthian. He struck vainly against the tightening web of fire drawing them in.

* * *

There was a change in the Flux. The raider was beginning to climb with
Spillix
, out of the Flux toward normal-space.

Cephean! Deeper! Dive deeper!

Sssssss!
cried Cephean frantically—and for a moment the cynthian's terror overwhelmed the total power of the enemy. Carlyle joined him fiercely, twisting downward, and
Spillix
like an enormous hooked fish dragged the raider deeper into the Flux. Night spilled like ink through the deadly light of the raider's net.

They succeeded for a few moments. But then the surprise and the momentum were lost, and the raider's superior power began to tell against them. The two ships again moved upward through the diminishing layers of the Flux.

Suddenly a shaft of light, just out of phase with the rest, spun from the raider and struck full into
Spillix
's net. It blazed and then darkened in its center, and with a jump in focus Carlyle found himself staring down an enormous barrel toward the raider. Swirling energies in the tube wall held it solid, sealed against the outside.

Show yourself!
demanded a voice, reverberating.

Carlyle peered down the bore in alarm. He could see nothing; it might have been the pirate's leader shouting, but he had to take the chance. He drew himself to full size in the net (whispering to Cephean,
Be ready! Be ready!
), and he bellowed down the tunnel:
This is Gev Carlyle! You show yourself!

Christ, Gev—what are you doing here?
roared Legroeder.

Carlyle stared, dumbfounded, up the tunnel. Finally he found his wits.

What am
I
doing
? he cried.
I'm looking for you and the others! What are you doing with pirates? And why didn't you warn me?

I just found out it was you! Wait—

There was a change, and
Spillix
seemed to be resisting the raider's pull more successfully.

I'm feigning difficulty with the others. I can't keep it up long.

Why didn't you warn me an hour ago, when we were flying together?
Carlyle cried frantically.

What? What are you talking about?

When you . . .
and suddenly he remembered, that had been a fantasy-construct of Legroeder . . . God, he was losing his grip . . .
never mind. What's going to happen to us?

You're in trouble, Gev. The man doesn't take many captives. If I'm going to help you we've got to move fast.

What are you
doing
here, Legroeder?

No choice. And no time—and I don't know why you're looking for Janofer and Skan in Golen space, of all the—

They came this way.

What? Well, why did you—?

Lady Brillig,
Legroeder—so we can fly her again!

For
that
you—Christ, Gev, our chances aren't worth—wait—wait . . .

* * *

The moment seemed to last an hour, and they were drawing very close to normal-space now. Then the pounding of the drums faltered. Legroeder shouted,
Gev! Go!

Beneath
Spillix
, a ribbon of the raider net broke free and trailed away, exposing a window of ink-black space. A window for escape.

Carlyle hesitated. There was so much to say! And Legroeder . . .

GEV, GO! THIS IS IT!

Caharleel!

The escape window was closing. The drums picked up and thundered, booming.

The cynthian didn't wait for Carlyle's decision. Yowling, he kicked, clawed his nails deep into the Flux, and drove downward with
Spillix
on his tail. Carlyle swung, gasping, and almost cartwheeled out of the net, stomach reeling—and he dove, hung onto Cephean, and focused on keeping
Spillix
's net as small and as hard and as dense as he could.
Spillix
flew like a stone. Wind and drums and screaming voices rushed in his ears and somewhere among them was Legroeder shouting farewell. Carlyle clenched his eyes to keep the tears in, and they dropped through the hole in the raider's net just before it sizzled closed, and vacuum hit them with a thunderclap.

Around them was only darkness . . . and receding, receding screams of anger. Cephean kept the ship hurtling, spinning. So fierce was his desperation that he paid no heed to Carlyle or to the pursuing raiders or to direction, except to plunge back deeper and deeper into the Flux.

The Wall wheeled into view, a shimmering cloud, curling away to the left.
Keep diving, Cephean!
The cynthian didn't answer. Carlyle held his breath, and the Wall grew before them, covered with enormous hungry anemones, and
Spillix
arrowed straight through the ocean night and into the soft surface of the Wall, through billowing luminous clouds. The night was lost astern, and so was the raider, and with it, Legroeder.

They were swimming in eerie chambers of cloud and flowing vapors.
Steer clear of the high-density areas
, Carlyle warned as he finally took up his own reins in the net, with Cephean.
They could be Flux abscess.
Chamber opened into chamber, with walls of streaming pastel vapor. The densities he referred to were embedded like cysts in the fluid walls.
Spillix
drifted steadily through the system of chambers.

Good job getting us out of that,
Carlyle choked, thinking of Legroeder. Odd shudders rippled through his spine. He stretched nervously through the net, glad for the cynthian's presence to keep him from dwelling on Legroeder. Cephean, too, was tired and nervous, and they both kept looking around for signs of pursuit. Carlyle felt that they were safely clear of that danger, but they were also clear of Legroeder. The time had been so incredibly short—so many things unsaid, unasked, unanswered. They had come so far looking, and now he was gone.

But Legroeder was a changed man, different from the man who lived in Carlyle's memory-visions. So abrupt, so forceful, so forward. Even in an extreme situation, that was not the man Carlyle knew or imagined. Never mind that he was a pirate. Probably he had risked his life for Carlyle's. It was doubtful that he could have concealed his actions from the others in the raider net. Would he return to
Lady Brillig
? Would he even be able to try?

Doubts crowded into Carlyle's mind. Even if he found Janofer and Skan, what new people—and new realities—would he discover?

Caharleel, h-where h-are we?
Cephean whispered.

The present intruded again.
I
—
why, I don't know.
Their surroundings were eerily beautiful, whatever they represented. But though he assumed that they were somewhere within the analogue of the Barrier Nebula, Carlyle had not the slightest idea of their bearings or position. They would have to be extremely cautious until they learned more about the nature of this space. They might avoid one kind of abscess or queered gravitational effect, only, perhaps, to be taken unawares by another. And there was no reason to assume that other outlaw ships did not fly or lie in wait in these peculiar clouds, though why any raider would expect innocent traffic in these clouds he couldn't imagine. Unless they maintained a base . . .

Cephean, we must steer very carefully through here. I don't know what to expect.

Glowing clouds passed to the right, to the left, above and below them, like the system of some living, gaseous sponge. Carlyle shaped the spiderweb traceries of the net into sails and vanes, which were extensions of his own arms and legs; and he encouraged Cephean to use his tail as a rudder. The cynthian cooperated, but tensely. Carlyle wanted to say something, to apologize, to excuse the behavior of his fellow humans, but he could think of nothing to say. He was stunned and bewildered himself. Later. Perhaps later they would both understand.

Legroeder—what will happen to you for setting us free?

If only he could have done something to help his friend in return. The price Legroeder would pay might be his life. And probably Carlyle would never know.

The Flux current moved smoothly, gently. They passed several dark regions of coalescing matter, giving a wide berth, and then they saw no more such hazards. In time, the mists thinned and edged out into the center current until there was no clear passageway, not even fuzzy boundaries between cloud and space. Now there were just varying intensities of mist, and they steered through the lesser. The current slowed, dissipated by its broadening, and eventually it was difficult to tell whether or not they were even still moving.

Carlyle studied the surroundings: pale illumination in all directions, but mostly in areas of obscurity, lemon and rose fogbanks. They were in a doldrums area; he could detect no current at all. This was probably a good place to rest. He set the stabilizers and set alarms to summon him in the event of significant change.
Cephean, would you like to pull out for a while and rest?

Ho yiss,
whispered the cynthian—and he was gone from the net.

Carlyle joined him.

* * *

Four shipdays later, they were still in the doldrums zone. Carlyle really wasn't even sure that they had moved since entering the zone. They were trying to decide whether to continue waiting the situation out (while who knew how many days went by in the normal-space universe), or to change the image to something shiftier and probably riskier.

"I really wish I
knew
what we should do next," said Carlyle. He watched the cynthian poke idly at the smaller riffmar, who were clustered raggedly about him on the floor of the commons. Carlyle reached out and tickled the leaves of Odi (at least he thought it was Odi), who was standing nearby with his back turned. The riffmar quivered and
sssss
'd gigglingly. Carlyle changed his touch to a stroke, and the riffmar relaxed.

But what Cephean had wanted to know, Carlyle thought, was what they were going to do
later
, if and when they made their way out of this area, and assuming that Carlyle could reestablish his bearings with respect to navigable space. They had made an intuitive judgment to remain in the Flux rather than leave it, because they would probably only confuse themselves more by emerging blind somewhere inside the Barrier Nebula. Better to go with intuition and go with the Flux.

Did Carlyle intend to continue on the uncertain trail of Janofer and Skan? He wasn't sure. But Cephean had made clear that
he
was sure of something: he wanted nothing more to do with pirates or raiders.

"We'll just have to see. Legroeder didn't think Skan and Janofer were even in Golen space—but that Thangol told me that Janofer flew to Denison's Outpost." If she made it, he thought worriedly. Legroeder probably didn't make it to wherever he was going—probably captured by raiders himself and impressed into service. What chance that he's even still alive? So do I keep looking for Janofer and Skan?