DAW 30th Anniversary Science Fiction Part 45

She held out her hand as Kate ripped the packaging open.

"Here," said Kate, putting the pill into her hand. "I brought a gla.s.s of water for you."

"Thanks," she said, gratefully. "I should be fine in a few minutes." The pill dissolved instantly on her tongue, but she washed it down with the water anyway, handing the empty gla.s.s back to the young female.

Eyes closed again, she waited for the drug to take effect. "He didn't say anything about where he wants to go, did he?"

"No. I expect he wants to go home. Wouldn't you?"

"I suppose. How long was I out?"

"Only about half an hour."

Jeedah felt the seat give as Kate sat down beside her.

"You said this ship wasn't capable of deep s.p.a.ce flight, so what happens when we run out of fuel?"

"I lied," said Jeedah, thankful that her stomach seemed to be settling. "What do you know about the Valtegans?"

"Very little. I know they'd taken over the colony on Keiss and that your people came to free us. I wasn't on the first colony ship."

"And Taynar?"

"No more than I do."

Their lack of knowledge was a relief to her. At least they weren't going to panic about their captor's eating habits-yet. She tried to think through what needed to be done next, but her head still ached abominably. Opening her eyes, she glanced slowly round the room, trying to take stock of the situation. They might be locked out of the bridge, but at least the rest of the ship was still open to them.

"What's up with him?" she asked, catching sight of Taynar sitting motionless on the sofa by the aft door.

"I don't know," said Kate, a worried tone creeping into her voice. "He's been like that since Nekaba was killed. It's as if he's running on automatic. He won't speak, and his mind feels as if it's asleep."

"Great. See if you can shake him out of it. We all need to be alert if we're going to ... get through this." Just in time she stopped herself from saying survive this.

"I heard all Valtegans were afraid of Sholans," said Kate. "Why isn't this one? And where did he come from, Jeedah? I thought they'd all been captured or killed a year ago."

"Must have gone to ground somewhere," said Jeedah, ma.s.saging her temples gently. The pain was beginning to recede a little. "Be careful of him, Kate. We've only found one other like him. He's one of the command officerswho hardly ever set foot on Keiss. Gossip on the Khalossa had it that they were a different breed of Valtegan-more intelligent, and not as psychotically afraid of us as the ordinary soldiers were. Stay away from him and let me do all the talking."

Kate nodded, setting the soft brown curls that framed her face bobbing gently.

"You sort Taynar out, I'm going to see if I can find anything useful before he comes back," said Jeedah, getting up slowly.

When Jeedah returned, she had a variety of dubiously useful items culled from her quick search of the kitchen and a brief foray into the cargo areas. If the Valtegan consolidated his hold on the Mara, she knew she'd never get the chance to go there again.

There was a large first aid kit, a small electrical tool pack, a signal gun with three flares that she'd gotten from the aircar in the rearmost hold, a small laser-powered spot welder, and a couple of reasonably sized wrenches.

As she put them on the dining room table, Kate left Taynar's side to join her.

"Not much of a haul," Jeedah admitted, picking up the welder. "But I also have my own gun and belt knife concealed in my cabin. Did he search you for weapons?"

"Yes, but we didn't have any. Are you going to use these as weapons?" she asked.

"We are," Jeedah said, heading for the bench seat and lifting off one of the padded cushions. Underneath was a wooden board that she slid to one side. She thrust the spot welder into the cavity there.

"Help me," she said, putting first the cover then the cushion back. "I need to get these hidden before he returns."

Within minutes, they'd hidden everything but the last wrench in the lounge or the small kitchen next door.

"Why does he want us? He could have left us at Hillfort if all he wanted was your ship," said Kate quietly, glancing over her shoulder at the still unresponsive Taynar. "How likely are we to survive this, Jeedah?"

"I was afraid you'd ask that," muttered Jeedah, opening her uniform jacket and shoving the wrench inside out of sight, yet still within easy reach. "Depends on our usefulness to him. You two he needed as cover to get on the Mara, me he needs to navigate and run her. We've just got to convince him that since he killed my copilot, you two are now indispensable to me." She leaned back against the table and surveyed the young Human critically.

Kate seemed a practical youngling, one who thought things through carefully from the way the kit had handled herself after the Valtegan had knocked Jeedah out cold. Thankfully she was dressed practically, too-she was wearing the one-piece coveralls favored by the Human military when they were working with the Sholans. There was a saying on Keiss among the Humans-never get aValtegan to notice you. Given that Valtegans had used some of the Human females in their pleasure cities on Keiss, she was glad one as pretty as Kate was not dressed in attractive off duty clothes.

"What do you know about Sholan craft? Have you ever flown one, even an aircar?" she asked.

Kate shook her head. "Nothing. As I said, I came here on the second Earth colony ship. My father's one of the geologists-and before you ask, I've had no training as a Telepath either. I didn't even know I was one until I met Taynar a couple of weeks ago."

Jeedah shut her eyes briefly in despair, then opened them quickly. "Did you read my question?" she demanded. "How did ... ?"

"I know what you were going to ask?" finished Kate with a wry smile. "I don't know. Probably because it was the next obvious question."

"Humans have a Talent for reading alien minds. Have you tried reading his?

Have you just known anything about him, too?" she asked, trying not to let the hope sound in her voice.

Again Kate shook her head. "No, I haven't."

Inwardly she sighed. Their telepathic Talent was no use to them, then.

Taynar, however, should know how to pilot aircars. "How d'you cope?" she asked suddenly. "Living inside each other's thoughts the whole time-and with someone like Taynar?" It was said before she realized it, and when she did, she lowered her ears backward in embarra.s.sment.

Kate grinned. "He's not so bad, and he's very young, really."

He's young? She makes me feel positively ancient! thought Jeedah. Both of them were hardly more than kitlings.

"I suggest we all sleep together for our mutual safety," she said. "We can use my cabin, it's the largest one."

"We can't," said Kate. "Our Link days. That's when we join to let our memories merge."

"Oh, yeah, I'd forgotten about that," muttered Jeedah, tail flicking in discomfort, annoyed with herself for forgetting. She'd made a point of reading all she could on Leska pairs before she left the Khalossa, "They installed a psychic damper in one of the cabins for you."

"That's only every fifth day, though. The other nights we can share your room."

She nodded. "I see you got nowhere with rousing Taynar. I think it's time for drastic action," she said, pushing herself away from the table and going over to the young male.

She grabbed his arms and began hauling him to his feet.

Though his body responded to her pushing and pulling him toward the aft door, his mind was definitely a million miles away. She dragged him through the air lock iris and into the first cabin, threading her way past the furniture to the bathing room, then over to the shower cubicle. Kate followed her, her face creased in worry."You do realize that what he feels, I feel, too, don't you?" she said.

"In that case," said Jeedah cheerfully, propping the youth against the cubicle wall and stepping back, "brace yourself!" With that, she turned on the cold water.

Seconds later, Taynar was yowling in shock and struggling to get out from under the cold deluge. Beside her, Kate wrapped her arms around herself with a small moan of discomfort.

Like a cork from a bottle, the young male shot out of the cubicle and stood dripping on the tiled floor.

"What the h.e.l.l do you think you're doing?" he demanded angrily of her as water streamed from his clothing and pelt.

"Waking you up," said Jeedah shortly. "We've been captured by a Valtegan officer and ..."

"I know what's happened," he interrupted, starting to take his slicker off. "I know everything my Leska knows. What're you going to do about it?"

"Me?" demanded Jeedah, grasping him by the front of his coat. "Us, Taynar.

We're all in this together."

"I can sense him coming," said Kate urgently.

Jeedah had barely turned around before their captor was standing in the doorway. He took in the scene at a glance then gestured to Jeedah.

"You. Come. Set course," he said.

"It's not that easy," she began, but his free hand snaked out and grasped her by the arm, his nonretractable claws digging into her flesh. "Hey!"

"I show you where we going. You take us. Now," he said, dragging her into the narrow corridor and hauling her off toward the bridge.

"Look at me! I'm soaking! Get me a towel, Kate." Taynar began to undo his belt and peel off his soaking slicker and tunic.

It was more an order than a request. Kate tried to stop thinking about what was happening to Jeedah and stepped past him into the bathroom to find a towel.

"Stop worrying about her, she'll find a way to get us out of this mess," he said, taking it from her and beginning to rub himself down. "Females always know what to do. That's why she asked you for your help."

"But I can't help, Taynar, and you know I can't," Kate said quietly, picking up his wet clothes and looking for somewhere to put them.

"She'll find something for you to do, don't worry. Females always stick together. See if there're any dry clothes in those cupboards," he ordered as he headed out of the bathing room and into the single bedroom.

Mentally she retreated to the tiny place in her mind where he couldn't reach, the place where she could think her own thoughts, be separate from him. He had a deep conviction that women, including her, not only held the answers to all his problems in life, but were there to smooth it out for him."It's not that easy this time, Taynar. Any or all of us could be killed, just as he killed the other pilot."

His ears flicked back and his nose wrinkled in a frown. "Don't remind me. I felt his pain as that . . . animal . . . killed him! We can't do much, Kate, you know that. Telepaths can't fight. We feel the pain we inflict. It just can't be done, Jeedah knows this." He threw the towel on the bed. "Now make yourself useful.

Go and look in the cupboard for some dry clothes," he said patronizingly. "Or get my bag from the lounge."

He made Jeedah sit in her pilot's chair and indicated the navigation chart he'd called up on the comp unit. A claw tip touched an area toward what she recognized as Chemerian home s.p.a.ce.

"That's too far," she said. "It can't be done in one jump, and that's uncharted s.p.a.ce out there."

"Not for me. We do two jumps. Where first?" She thought quickly, trying to work out what her best options were. They could land outside Shola's system, but that would just create the situation she'd been afraid of in the first place-the Valtegan finding out where their home world was. Still, a courier as small as hers would go unremarked in the time it would take to recalibrate for the second jump. With the comm out, there was no way she could alert anyone to their predicament, but there was also no way incoming messages could be heard. She still didn't want to risk it. Her safest bet was to head for a jump point in Chemerian s.p.a.ce and hope that she could overpower him by that time. If she couldn't, then the ever-paranoid Chemerians' satellite warning systems would certainly be alerted as they emerged from jump. With any luck, they'd intervene if all else failed.

She pointed to a bright spot on the map. "There. I can take us as far as there," she said. "Beyond that . . ." She flicked her ears, then shrugged, realizing he wouldn't understand the negative Sholan gesture.

He sat in the copilot's chair, rifle cradled across his lap. "You enter course, I watch," he hissed, leaning forward till he could clearly see her screen. "I understand what you do. Do it right, or I take one of captives and kill it a little at a time."

Hands slick with sweat, Jeedah began to call up the more detailed map of that sector. Star maps there were in plenty in the database, but thank the G.o.ds for Sholan caution, none were labeled. All the standard routes were there, too, but since they'd discovered the Humans and the Valtegans on Keiss, all those maps were security locked and coded. Obviously, he either hadn't realized they were there, or their craft were so different from his that he couldn't find a frame of reference on her nav panel to begin looking for them. That meant she'd have to work out their route the hard way.

Praying that she could still remember her math, she reached for her personaldrawer, forgetting for a moment about the Val-tegan at her side.

An angry hiss, then a choking pressure around her throat were all the warning she got. As the claws pressed into the flesh over her larynx, she looked into his green slitted eyes, trying desperately to remain calm.

"Comp pad," she gasped. "In drawer. Need it to calculate route." Just as suddenly the pressure was gone, and she slumped across the console coughing.

"No sudden moves! Next time, you die! I get hatching to pilot!"

"Can't navigate," she croaked, ma.s.saging her throat as she pushed herself up. "Kill me and you lose your navigator."

He hissed angrily, forked tongue flicking in and out. "Get pad!"

As she reached for her drawer once more, she noticed how badly her hand was trembling. Dammit! She must be careful! Another false move like that and they could all be dead. Despite her best efforts, her ears were flattening and folding sideways against her head. Let them, she thought angrily. Let the son of a tree-rhuddha know how angry I am!

"We can't jump yet, you know that, don't you?" she said, her voice sounding far calmer than she felt. "We have to get up to speed first, leave this system behind. That'll take several days." He gave a long drawn out hiss. "How many?"

"Three days till we can jump, then to get where you want to go, about six weeks, three for each jump." As she said it, her heart sank. There was no way he could survive without food for that long.

This time, the sound he made was an ominous low rumble. "Show me navigation! Plot course, then fix panel!"

After she'd laid in the course for their jump point, he'd marched her to the rearmost cargo bay to fetch the tools necessary to fix the panel he'd blasted.

There he'd seen the aircar, and the ceiling hatch above it. Once he'd realized there was a laser turret up there, he'd demanded a tour of the rest of the Mara.

Back on the bridge, he'd made her reprogram the air locks and irises so he could enter his own combinations. Because it was adjacent to the bridge, he'd also claimed her cabin for his own use.

Since she'd taken the electronic tools already, she'd had to make do with an a.s.sortment of what remained in the tool locker.

Once she'd taken the cover plate off, it was obvious even to him that it was beyond repair.

"What this do?" he'd demanded, pointing to the copilot's controls.

"Duplicates some of my controls like maneuver jets, nav, sensors, and gunnery," she'd replied, fixing the panel back together again.

"Communications ?"

"No."

"Show me," he'd demanded, hauling her over to take the seat he'd been in.

That was when she saw that though he was clawed like her, his claws werenonretractable and too big to use the recessed Sholan controls. He couldn't pilot the ship alone!

When she was finished, he took her to the pa.s.senger cabin and locked her in.

"Hey!" she yelled, hammering at the door. "You can't leave me here! Come back!" She didn't want him left alone with the younglings at any cost. Fear for them coursed through her, making her hammer even louder at the door. "I need the younglings! Bring them to me! I need their help to pilot the ship in jump!"