How many other ships would go on a similar crusade?

  A bubble burst to show the secretive face of Nasir Kalif, probably wandering in his garden at Polar North.

  Another burst bubble framed the face of Ludwig Kreutzal.

  Then the face dissolved to reveal a ghastly montage of skin and bone and pulsating organs and, above, the face of a woman crowned with a golden helmet of hair.

  "No!" Varl jerked upright, feeling the hammer of his heart against his ribs. Sweat dewed his face, neck, and torso, and rested in clammy liquidness in his groin. "No," he said more quietly as if speaking to an alien but attentive god. "No."

  Light bloomed as he rose, a soft effulgence which banished ghosts but left the questions intact. There were too many questions. He padded to the shower to stand beneath the lash of stinging spray. The water woke him but did little else, so he stepped out to fumble in a cabinet until he remembered and gave up the search. He had no ka'sence; that he had used before had been donated by Erica from her store.

  Sitting, letting his body dry, he thought again of Ovidio, of Yegorovich, of the thing which had cursed the ship he had been given to command.

  Why? How? When?

  The times, at least, were known. Cole had vanished during the initial attack, and the others had gone with him. Rachel's scream had marked when Yegorovich had been opened to lie on the floor of the compartment, and Ovidio's death had been close. Close? How close?

  Varl rose to pace the floor, conscious of something nagging at his mind, something noted and filed but overlooked in the pressure of events. Ovidio had been outside and had been hit at about the same time as Yegorovich. No -- at the same time, he was sure of it. Were there other associations?

  He halted, looking at the bulkhead, seeing in his mind's eye a plan of the _Odile_; the gun emplacement on the hull where Ovidio had been working was almost above the compartment in which Yegorovich had died. And what was it Rachel had said? Something bright. Flashing. Moving. Changing.

  Had he seen it before it struck?

  Varl closed his eyes, forcing himself to remember the passage, Erica's cabin, and the spot of brightness he had seen. He had dismissed the flash as a visual aberration created by the toxins of fatigue, and he had almost forgotten it in the erasure of the scream.

  The scream, the alarm, the ghastly aftermath.

  Blood and bone and pulsating organs.

  A man smeared like paint.

  Monsters waiting, reaching, hungry for revenge.

  Varl jerked as he almost fell, realizing that he had drifted into sleep, his thoughts veering into the realm of dreams, where speculation was easy and logic dismissed.

  Filling a bowl, Varl plunged his head into the water, rose, immersed face and temples again, to rise gusting moisture from his nostrils. The procedure gave him only small relief, and he dressed, remembering

  Erica and the ka'sence she would have.

  In the passage he changed his mind and went to the sick bay for oxygen. As he took his third deep inhalation, the door opened and Stacey entered the room. He looked once at Van, then, without speaking, opened a cabinet, took out a bottle, and filled a glass with brandy.

  Varl watched him drink. "I guess you needed that."

  "I did."

  "Mind telling me the reason?"

  "You know the reason. I've just finished the autopsy you ordered."

  Varl nodded and went to the cabinet. He found another glass, poured it half full, and took a sip.

  "What took you so long?"

  "Yegorovich was dead and could wait. Others couldn't." Stacey looked at his glass. "I could have wished there had been more of them."

  "Bad?"

  "You could say that." The doctor shuddered and finished his drink, then helped himself to another.

  "I've seen it," he said. "A dozen times when I've watched the recording from the _Lewanna_. But, you know, I'd begun to believe it wasn't real. That it was all a sick joke or something rigged for a purpose.

  There were too many things I couldn't swallow -- the unbroken hull, the anatomical impossibilities. I thought it was something designed to use as a spur to drive us to action. Something was out there, yes, but no one knew what. Ships had vanished, true, but no one knew why. So find some people and give them a reason for heading into the unknown. Bolster their pride and offer them the reward of regained dignity. Hell, let them think they were heroes. You, me, all of us." He drank. "Fools!"

  "And now?"

  "I know better." Stacey drew in his breath. "He wasn't dead, you know, not when you found him.

  He was alive and aware of what had happened and only God can know the state of his mind. His pain.

  He couldn't scream," he added, with strange detachment. "But he must have wanted to."

  "He whimpered."

  "The best he could manage." The doctor looked at his glass, at the hand wrapped around it. He watched as the crystal shattered to lacerate his palm. "You were merciful -- I wouldn't have had the guts."

  Varl sipped at his brandy as Stacey washed his hand, applied a dressing, then filled a new glass. "So what happened?"

  "To Yegorovich? The same thing that happened to those found in the _Lewanna_. He'd been damned near turned inside out. But the skin hadn't been broken. You understand what I'm saying? He was still all in one piece and anatomically unharmed. Of course, he couldn't move or eat or drink or do any of the things we think of as human, but he was alive and would have stayed that way for longer than I like to think about."

  "Not broken? Then -- "

  "How did we see him the way we did?" Stacey shook his head. "I don't know. Physically it's impossible, but it happened. There was no rupture. No wounding. The blood around him was due to seepage from capillaries broken through lack of normal support. Minor damage -- you'd have worse with a nosebleed." The doctor downed his brandy. "Hell, I don't want to think about it. When I do, I'm in his place, scared, hurting, praying someone will do something to help me. He was lucky. He had you."

  And now he was dead. And Rachel, who had loved him, had joined him in a mental grave.

  She lay on her bunk, knees drawn to her chin, back bowed, arms wrapped around her legs, eyes closed, and head bowed in the classic fetal position.

  "Catatonia," Gloria Arle said. She leaned back in the chair beside the bed and eased her bandaged arm. "Hans told me all about it." Her voice became petulant. "He shouldn't have left her. A doctor's place is with his patient."

  "He was busy." Varl looked at the woman and saw that her eyes were dilated as if from drugs.

  Sedatives, he guessed. "When you were outside that compartments the one where we found Rachel, did you see anything?"

  "I don't think so." She frowned, trying to remember. 'No. I just heard the screams and came running.

  Then you arrived and kicked open the door. Then -- " She broke off, swallowing. "I just fainted, I guess.

  Varl nodded, thinking of the door and the way it had stuck. Something had jammed it -- what? The flashing thing he had seen when it passed through?

  "Nothing else?"

  "No." She paused. "Commander, we're in a bad way, aren't we? I mean, what with the hydee out and the rest of it. And now this thing attacking us. I don't want to end up like Ivan. Not even like her."

  She glanced at Rachel. "God! What a way to end!"

  "She's alive," Varl said. "And can recover. And we'll get out of this."

  "How?"

  "We'll get out. It's only a matter of time. Before you know it you'll be back on Earth and acting the heroine. Now how about making some coffee and taking it around?"

  "I don't know. Hans said I should just sit here and take -- "

  "I give the orders!" Varl hardened his voice, holding her eyes, watching for the spark of anger which would signal her return from the happy clouds of sedation. "You can't do anything for Rachel sitting here.

  And the rest of us can't afford to nurse you. On your feet, woman! Get that coffee made!"

  The anger came and, after a moment, the obedience. Varl was not proud of the small victory, but gentleness was something he could not afford.

  In the engine room, he glanced at the slumped figure of Asner, then at Garewell.

  "Any improvement?"

  "He's getting worse, Commander." The aide stepped from his charge and lowered his voice. "I can't understand how he's still managing to remain active. He should be comatose by now. Dead, even."

  "Your diagnosis?"

  "All right," Garewell admitted. "I'm not a doctor, but I do know how many injections he's had. How many transfusions. How many pills. He needs deep sleep and life support and -- "

  "Has he finished the repairs?"

  "The hydee." Garewell looked at it. "The machine or the man -- a hell of a choice."

  "No choice," Varl said. "You know that. It's no choice at all. Is he awake?"

  Asner stirred as the aide held a vial beneath his nostrils. He looked ghastly, his eyes laced with a mesh of red lines, dried blood edging the corners of his lips, the rim of his nostrils. Seepage, Stacey had explained, capillaries bursting to release tiny hemorrhages. Minor damage of no real concern but symptomatic of greater injury caused by the accident.

  "Commander." He tried to smile. "I've done the best I can. The engine -- I've done my best. But..."

  His voice trailed into silence.

  "Jarl?" Varl reached him, touched the flaccid skin of the throat. "Jarl, damn you! Don't let me down now!"

  "...depends on the new application of Kreutzal's sub-space tensors." The engineer continued as if there had been no break, no silence. "One chance to make it. If we don't, we'll be either a cloud of atoms or stuck. Wrecked and drifting, you understand? Lost in this..." Again his voice trailed into silence and again, slowly returned. "...don't stop. That's of prime importance. Keep going at all costs. To break out and through we must have ... application of Kreutzal's equations and ... a cascade. Obvious when..."

  This time when the voice trailed into silence it did not return.

  Asner was dead.

  --------

  *CHAPTER 21*

  SOMEONE was singing something about bottles falling from a wall; Mboto thought it was Stacey, but the doctor did not sound drunk, and was singing with a bitterness which verged on pain: _"Nine green bottles standing on the wall_

  Nine green bottles standing on the wall

  And if one green bottle should accidentally fall

  There'll be eight green bottles standing on the wall."

  The voice died as Mboto moved from the spot on the bulkhead. Had the doctor begun his song by numbering the full original complement of the _Odile_? Already he had passed the number now crewing the vessel and was going down; nine to eight to seven -- would he go the whole way? And, when there were no bottles standing on the wall, what then?

  The small pad at the end of Mboto's wire found a new site and held as the muted sounds of the ship reached his ear. The usual susurration of noise, then two voices loud and clear: Carter and Shelia Laudert.

  "Stan! Stan -- don't!"

  "I'm soft for you, Shelia. You know that."

  "And I like you too, but -- "

  "Is it Brad? Quimper was a good man and I liked him, but he's gone now. You going to mourn all your life?"

  "No. That would be stupid. But, well, now isn't the time."

  "Am I asking for anything? I just want to feel we belong. And, Shelia, maybe we haven't much time.

  Know what I mean? I'd hate to go without having what you could give me."

  There was a rustle. "You mean it, Stan? You really like me?"

  "I love you." Carter spoke with an unusual intensity. "Shelia, I love you!"

  Mboto pulled free the wire, not wanting to hear more, and moved on to another place. He did not move away until the door of the cabin opened and Varl stood looking down at where he crouched.

  "I'd wondered," he said. "I thought it might be you."

  "Why?"

  "A news hound. One too eager to get a story and too quick to drop it. It was a nice act you pulled, but it didn't quite make sense."

  "And you suspected Nasir Kalif would have planted an agent in the _Odile_." Mboto rose to his feet, wrapped the wire into a small loop, and tucked the eavesdropper into a pocket. "But what choice did you give me? Had I backed out after the initial showing of the recording, what would you have done?"

  "Made sure you didn't talk."

  "And I can guess how." Mboto ran one finger across his throat. "Not that it matters now. I was supposed to make certain you didn't take off and run. Then, when we got hit, that didn't apply anymore.

  So I just remained quiet and acted the historian and kept my eyes and ears open. Incidentally, if you suspected Major Borken, you followed the path Kalif wanted you to take. He's a shrewd man."

  "All that's in the past," Varl said. "But if you're not a true news hound, what are you?"

  "A psychologist. I find out what makes people tick. Another reason I'm aboard -- you are a complex character, Commander, and out of Kalif's normal experience. He needed you but didn't wholly trust you. So -- "

  "We can forget that too. What about the present state of the ship?"

  "You mean the crew, and you mean condition, not state. People aren't metal and plastic and wire; machines to be kicked into action. You want a rundown by individual, or a general summation?"

  "General."

  "You're sitting on a powder keg. Sooner or later it's going to hit them that they are on a one-way ride to hell. When they do, you are going to get the blame. It may not be fair and it certainly isn't logical, but that's the way it's going to be. I've already picked up hints of mutiny from a couple of sources. Just vague thinking, as yet, but it can stiffen." He paused. "Asner's dying didn't help."

  "Reitsch is taking his place."

  "Otto's a good man, but -- "

  "The hydee has been repaired. We're ready to go as soon as a few things are settled."

  "Things?"

  "Have you forgotten the _Lewanna_? How we were hit? Whatever attacked us is still out there. I don't want to risk meeting it again until we're ready."

  "And in the meantime we sit and wait to be killed like Yegorovich and Ovidio." Mboto shook his

  head. "How long do you think the crew will risk that now the hydee has been repaired? You picked a good crew, Commander, one with guts and intelligence. They'll fight for you, what's left of them, but they won't stand still to be executed."

  "They will if they have to."

  "Maybe." Mboto was dubious. "Do you know what's causing it?"

  "Yes," Varl said. "I know."

  "The deaths?"

  "All of it -- I think."

  Varl expounded his theory in the control room, facing the screens that showed the alien space outside, the host of enigmatic shapes.

  Stacey shook his head, frowning. "Odd," he said. "They remind me of something, but I can't remember just what."

  "A kaleidoscope?" Erica suggested. "Colored pieces which move to fashion a new pattern?"

  Machen spoke. "Never mind what it looks like out there -- how the hell do we get out of it?"

  "The same way we got in." Varl sat at the chart table, clean sheets of paper spread before him.

  Picking up a marking crayon, he made a dot in the center of one of the sheets. "A man," he explained.

  "Us. The ship if you like." Around it he drew a spiral which reached halfway to the edge of the paper.

  "Call that distance -- the thing we have to cover if we are to get from here, say, to here." He made two marks on different loops of the spiral. "Are you with me?"

  "Flatland," Erica said. "You're demonstrating a two-dimensional world."

  "No," Owen corrected. "A three-dimensional world in two-dimensional terms."

  "The dot -- the man -- has only one way of covering distance," Varl said. "He has to move along the spiral." He illustrated the point with the crayon. "He can't go over it because he is limited to his dimensional reality. In this case, two. In our case, three. Then along came Kreutzal, who provided an alternative." The crayon rose up in a straight line, across and down again to connect the dot to the outer loop of the spiral. "A shortcut through an added dimension. To the dot it would be the third. To us, the fourth."

  "And that's the hydee?" Machen frowned. "Did Kreutzal ever claim that?"

  "Not in as many words." Varl looked at his drawing. "But he didn't have our evidence. Maybe he found it too late. How many ships had to vanish before the _Lewanna_ was discovered?"

  "The unbroken hull," Stacey said. "And the rest. All the damned rest!"

  Varl drew a circle on a clear sheet. "The hull of a ship," he said. "A sphere. If a flatlander was inside he couldn't get out without breaking through the line. If it was a sphere neither could we. But as we are to the flatlander so something else is to us. Something which can reach in and do all the things we've seen done."

  "Smear us over the hull," Stacey said. "Reach in and grip our guts and pull and turn us inside out. Or maybe they don't even have to pull. For God's sake, man! Do you know what you're saying?"

  Varl watched their faces as they reacted to the knowledge that they drifted in an alien region inhabited by creatures -- or things -- which could, at any moment, turn them into objects of horror.

  There could be no defense against such monsters. Suits, walls, the hull -- all were useless, as were the guns. How could they fire at something they could not see?

  "They can be seen," Varl said when Mboto mentioned the point. "I saw one, or, rather, a part of one. It showed as a flash, a gleam. Rachel saw it too. It passed me in the corridor just before Yegorovich was hit. Had I been alert I could have shot it."

  "Maybe it's as well you didn't." Stacey looked at the curve of metal above his head, at the screens depicting the shapes outside. "Weird," he said. "It's all so damned weird."

  "It's a place." Varl was harshly practical. "Just a place."

  "One we want out of." Machen was blunt. "The hydee's repaired, so let's go!"

  "And forget what we came here for?"

  "For God's sake, Kurt!" Erica said. "You can't still want us to go on!"

  But she saw by his face, his eyes, that he did. She listened with the others to his reasons: They had

  crossed, they were as safe now as they could ever be, the hydee had been repaired, and whenever things got too bad, they could run from danger. A nice, neat, reasonable summation -- why did she think he was lying?

 

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