"Get ourselves into spacesuits first, and then get Maulbow's control
unit out of the ship. The janandra may be looking around for him. If it
is, it won't bother us."
* * * * *
He hadn't wanted to remind Kerim that, from what Maulbow said, there
might be more than one reason for getting rid of the control unit as
quickly as possible. But it had been constantly in the back of his mind;
and twice, in the few minutes that passed after Maulbow's strange
weapons were silenced, he had seen a momentary pale glare appear in the
unquiet flow of darkness reflecting in the viewscreens. Gefty had said
nothing, because if it was true that hostile forces were alert and
searching for them here, it added to their immediate danger but not at
all to the absolute need to free themselves from the inexorable rush of
the Great Current before they were carried beyond hope of return to
their civilization.
But those brief glimpses did add to the sense of urgency throbbing in
Gefty's nerves, while events, and the equally hard necessity to avoid a
fatally mistaken move in this welter of unknown factors, kept blocking
him. Now the mysterious manner in which Maulbow's unpleasant traveling
companion had appeared on the main deck made it impossible to do
anything but keep Kerim at his side. If Maulbow was still capable of
taking a hand in matters, there was no reasonably safe place to leave
her aboard the _Queen_.
And Maulbow might be capable of it. Twice as they hurried up the narrow,
angled passages along the _Queen's_ curving hull towards an airseal
leading to the next compartment, Gefty caught a trace of the
ammonia-like animal odor coming over the ventilating system. They
reached the lock without incident; but then, as they came along the
second deck hall to the ship's magazine, there was a sharp click in the
stillness behind them. Its meaning was disconcertingly apparent. Gefty
hesitated, turned Kerim into a side passage, guided her along it.