The mother-plant looked at the three in the airlock. The part of the plant that had been Captain Pausert identified them as Goth, the Leewit and Ta'zara, some form of physical defender. The mother-plant had reason to know that he was good at that. That human had been the reason the mother-plant had failed to get all of them on Pampez. That had turned out to be a good thing. It had not known it would need the klatha powers, and that being part of the plant would suppress them. They must be inferior beings, to be destroyed when the plant had completed its purpose. But for the moment, they were useful.
Could they do it with one klatha operative? One was easier to control. The Pausert-plant said no: they were not easy to control, anyway. The smaller, blonde one operated the grav-tractor with precision that must come from klatha skills—and the older could do the drive. But neither was very strong.
There was no need to keep the physical defender, though. Killing it at this stage might provoke an undesirable reaction, but she would give it a spore, and she would have it to watch over them. They seemed to believe that she, the mother-plant, could let go easily. They were welcome to their delusion.
"The bodyguard must be seeded," said Marshi, taking something in a little glass tube from a box that reminded Goth strongly of the one she'd found, so long ago, in Pausert's mother's house.
The Leewit looked at her. "Fat chance."
But Marshi was already leaning in. Ta'zara jerked convulsively as Marshi touched his hand. He pulled it away, looking at the greenish mark where she had pressed the tube to him.
"Keep calm," said Goth. "We need to see Pausert."
In her pocket were two analgesic tablets of the same type as had been given to Mebeckey.
Pausert came in from somewhere in the ship. His eyes were empty. A few seconds later Goth had done something she'd never even tried before: she'd 'ported two tablets directly into his stomach.
They were, very shortly thereafter, searched—in a manner that Goth thought intrusive, but there was nothing personal about it. She might as well have been patted down by a tree.
It would take more than a pat-down search to find the toys that Sedmon had given them. Of course, Ta'zara could betray those. But so far the impassive-faced tattooed man showed no signs of it. He fitted right in here in some ways, Goth had to admit. He didn't show much sign of emotion, didn't say much.
"What do you need?" asked the woman. "The wires remain in the drawer at the command desk."
So she knew that much. Goth was wondering when Pausert would be affected. They'd worked out that it had taken about twenty minutes from when they'd given Mebeckey the pills to when the blackish-green plant stared oozing out of his nose. Well . . . she'd be happier out from under the
Thunderbird
's guns. The Daal had been far from pleased about letting them go, and he might decide on expediency. That would be something he could well claim had nothing to do with him, with no surviving witnesses. Goth had no illusions about the brutal pragmatism of Uldune. She dared not lie too much—obviously Marshi had the basic information.
And to make matters more complex, she was relling vatch.
Little-bit?
she said in her mind.
Watching. This dream is very strange and complicated. The big dream thing Pausert tastes odd now. Like the other dream thing with the thing that came out of its nose.
The Leewit could probably get it to help. She took a deep breath. "I just need some space," she said to Marshi. "And the Leewit needs to get suited up and webbed into position. You could send Ta'zara to help. He would make it quicker. It would help if the captain could help me."
"No. Captain Pausert cannot."
If Goth understood the flat voice properly, it was not that Marshi would be unwilling to let Pausert help. Just that he would not be able to, because right now he was not the captain. He was a part of the plant.
The Leewit was casually walking off down the narrow passage, followed by Ta'zara. The Na'kalaufer was sneezing his head off for some reason. Well, if they lived through all of this, he could be sick properly later.
"Let the captain stay with me, then. It'll make me feel better," said Goth. "You can keep anyone else you like here, but they need to be strapped in."
She knew that there were only two chairs in the control room. There were several more crash couches yards away in the observation lounge with acceleration straps and webbing. If a plant was going to come out of the captain's nose, she didn't want it seen. But perhaps the plant would know about it anyway?
"Mistress," said Ta'zara quietly.
"Yes?" said the Leewit equally quietly.
"I have just sneezed out a small version of that thing that came out of Mebeckey's nose. I think that was one of the spores she put onto me."
He doesn't taste funny
, said the vatchlet.
The Leewit took a deep breath. "Ta'zara. I don't know if this is going to work. But I want you to pretend that you are just like all these others. Be our secret agent. Watch them without them guessing."
Like the other one. The one that's hiding in the space up there.
"What?"
I think you call him Vezzarn. I've been helping him, but he can't hear or see me.
They'd arrived at the suit-bay and Ta'zara helped her into her pressure suit, and then into the strapping they'd set up at the grav-tractor inside the cargo airlock.
"You there?" said Goth in her headphones. "I'm ready when you are."
The Leewit opened the outer airlock and looked out into space. "Ready. Let's go."
The Sheewash drive blurred space. They closed on the bright suns of the Megair cluster. The Leewit kept a lookout for Phantom ships. She saw them soon enough. But they were all well out of range, and appeared to her not to be following the
Venture
at all. Instead they seemed to be holding position.
Goth confirmed that. "They're not chasing us."
She left off the Sheewash drive, and the universe stopped hurtling past. One of the reasons the scientists of the Empire were so mystified by the Sheewash drive was that it did not alter a ship's momentum. The Leewit had heard the phenomenon explained on Karres as being due to the fact that the universe moved around the ship rather than the ship moving through the universe. She didn't understand the explanation—but she suspected that the adults didn't understand it, either. Adults were given to pretending a lot.
She closed the airlock and waited. A few minutes later, one of Marshi's impassive-faced goons came and fetched her.
"You may need us again," said Goth calmly.
The pilot who had come in with Marshi looked at her with wide, terrified eyes. Goth decided he was probably not part of the plant. "What was that?" he demanded.
"Not something you can do," said Goth, dismissively.
One of Marshi's goons—she must have them packed three deep in the
Venture—
undid the strapping. Goth got up slowly. It had been at least twenty minutes now since she'd 'ported those tablets into the captain's stomach. Yet he was just sitting there, staring into space. No plant was leaving him by his nose.
"I'd better stay close," she said. The goon stopped what he was doing, and Pausert got up and let Marshi's pilot take the controls. Pausert stood there, as if awaiting orders. Goth wondered just exactly where they were going to: the Megair cluster . . . but where?
"I need food," she said. "Both of us do, if we are going to be able do that again."
Wordlessly one of the men left and returned a little later with a plate of food from the robo-butler. Goth ate slowly. Deliberately, chewing each mouthful. It was hard after klatha use when she just wanted to wolf it down. She certainly wasn't saying anything to Marshi, but the behavior of the Phantom ships had been . . . well, very different. She wished she knew why.
The Leewit had been taken to one of the smaller rooms at the back of the vessel. Plainly, Marshi's goons had been sleeping here too, but it had been emptied to make a prison for her. They also brought her food—which was good, because she was starving.
The Leewit took advantage of the privacy to send a note to Vezzarn via the vatch. And Ta'zara came and quietly knocked and asked if she was all right. So the Leewit sent a second note to Vezzarn, telling him that Ta'zara was still part of their side. Vezzarn might wonder where the notes came from, but during all this time of mixing with Karres witches, he'd probably learned not to wonder too much, just to fit in with their plans.
A little later, Goth was pushed into the room too. The Leewit knew her sister well enough to know that she was worried and upset.
When the door was locked, Goth activated the spyshield in the chronometer on her wrist. "It didn't work. The pills didn't work."
The Leewit sighed. She wondered if she could cure the captain, if he was still infected by the plant. She wasn't sure. She wasn't even sure that she could cure the captain of the addiction, once the plant was gone. She had had no effect on Mebeckey's mind. Yet she'd healed Ta'zara—and he'd been damaged more. The difference might be that Ta'zara had been damaged and had known it, and had desperately wanted to be healed.
"Well, the good news, for what it's worth, is that Vezzarn is alive and free and hiding in the crawl spaces. And it seems that for some reason Ta'zara wasn't affected by the plant spore. He sneezed it right out again, and I think it was dying. It was going black on his handkerchief. And he still seems to be on the loose."
There was a faint rattle at the door, and it swung open, to reveal Ta'zara and a rather disheveled Vezzarn with a lock-pick. "Your Wisdoms," he said, locking the door, "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you! I didn't think you'd come and get me this time. We're heading straight back to Megair 4. I saw the coordinates."
"You mean the Megair Cannibals are Marshi's whatsit . . . what did Mebeckey call them? Illtraming? They clumping deserve each other!"
Goth nodded. "I'd feel sorry for any species that had been slaves. But I guess just having been a slave doesn't always make you too nice. Still, I wish I knew how we could get the captain free of this thing. Those pills had no effect."
"And yet," said Ta'zara. "I must have poisoned the plant."
Vezzarn coughed. "Your Wisdoms. Do you remember when that Mebeckey told us about these Melchin, how their slaves got some disease that killed the plant? And they ended up as the Illtraming?"
"Yep. That is why the plant that is Marshi wants to find their world. So it can have a host again. A proper one. Not us."
"Well, if Megair 4 is the Illtraming homeworld and the Megair are these hosts," said the old spacer, "maybe the disease is still there. It didn't affect the animals, the way I understood it. So maybe it's something that Mebeckey caught while he was there. Ta'zara was also there. They didn't do anything else together."
Goth bit her knuckle. Then shook her head. "But we were also there. The captain would have caught it too, surely?"
"Well," said Ta'zara. "Not if it was in the food. That Mebeckey ate quite a lot of it. And so did I, to stay alive. But I didn't see you eat anything."
"And the plant tried the Dell brother and let itself be pulled away . . . Okay, it might have been sick. But I think you're right! It must be the food. Must be."
"It's a gamble, Sis," said the Leewit.
"So is everything," said Goth. "
Hist!
Here comes someone. I'll hide you two in no-shape."
It was Pausert, his eyes empty. "You are needed again. There are more Illtraming ships."
"I think we can just work together for speed," said Goth.
There was an infinitesimal pause and Pausert nodded.
The Leewit calmly pulled the door shut behind her. They walked to the control room, and once again she did the Sheewash drive—just briefly—past ships that seemed to ignore them.
"It seems speed is the key," said Marshi. "Do you need more food? The navigation is difficult."
"Yes. More than last time. And some rest. It drains a lot of our energy." Goth understood, suddenly, why Marshi appeared so obtuse sometimes. Yes, Marshi had obviously gotten part of the information in the captain's head—but she got what she looked for. Not everything, obviously. And the plant was obviously not as good at joining the dots as a human would be. Marshi hadn't yet figured that the
Venture
was going straight back to where she'd come from—and the problems it had had there. Mebeckey was no astrogator, and had not provided the mother-plant with that crucial linking piece of information:
where
. The pilot had been given coordinates to fly to. He was from some inner-Empire world. He didn't know this was the Megair cluster, and that the ship's records had navigational data.
So the witches were fed again. Marshi made no objection to them taking the food back to the room designated as their cell. And Vezzarn was glad to share their meal with them.
"Now, if we can figure some way of getting some of those leaves they fed you back on Megair 4. I could really fancy some," said the Leewit, who, if she had to tell the truth, was not too good about eating leafy vegetables.
"Too far to 'port," said Goth. "And I've been thinking, don't say the name of the place. The plant hasn't worked it out yet. We'll need to get down in one piece on the planet, and I'll bet they've done some fixing since we left, more's the pity. Get some of the local food into the captain . . . and get all of us out of there alive. I'm sorry, Ta'zara. I didn't mean to bring you back to your nightmare again.
The big tattooed man just smiled. "I am starting to be like this old man," he said, prodding Vezzarn. "You got me in. You'll get me out. Besides, the Leewit," he bowed respectfully, "gave me something more valuable than anything else to a man of Na'kalauf. More valuable than merely my life."
"What?"
"She gave me back myself. My self-respect. I will never let them take that away from me again."
There was the sound of keys at the door. Goth hid the other two and the witches went out for another short Sheewash hop. Goth kept it to a few seconds, since she wanted to conserve her strength.