"It's something." Gefty glanced around the instrument room. He had
placed an emergency light on the console, but except for that, the
control compartment was in darkness. The renewed battering the _Queen_
had absorbed had knocked out the power in the forward section. The
viewscreens were black, every instrument dead. But he'd seen the stars
of normspace through the torn vault floor. It was something....
"We might have the light that slugged us to thank for that," he said.
"I'm not sure just what did happen there, but it could have been
Maulbow's control unit it was attacking rather than the ship. Maulbow
said the lights were sensitive to the unit. At any rate, we're here, and
we're rid of the gadget--and of the janandra." He hesitated. "I just
don't feel you should get your hopes too high. We may find out we're a
very long way from the Hub."
Kerim's large eyes showed a degree of confidence which made him almost
uncomfortable. "If we are," she said serenely, "you'll get us back
somehow."
Gefty cleared his throat. "Well, we'll see. If the power shutoff is
something the _Queen's_ repair scanners can handle, the instruments will
come back on any minute. Give the scanners ten minutes. If they haven't
done it by that time, they can't do it and I'll have to play repairman.
Then, with the instruments working, we can determine exactly where we
are."
Unless, he told himself silently, they'd wound up in a distant cluster
never penetrated by the Federation's mapping teams. And there was the
other little question of where they now were in time. But Kerim looked
rosy with relief, and those details could wait.
He took up another emergency light, switched it on and said, "I'll see
how Maulbow is doing while we're waiting for power. If the first aid
treatment has pulled him through so far, the autosurgeon probably can
fix him up."
Kerim's face suddenly took on a guilty expression. "I forgot all about
Mr. Maulbow!" She hesitated. "Should I come along?"
Gefty shook his head. "I won't need help. And if it's a case for the
surgeon, you wouldn't like it. Those things work painlessly, but it gets
to be a mess for a while."
He shut off the light again when he reached the sick bay which was
running on its independent power system. As he opened the cabin door
from the dispensary, carrying the autosurgeon, it became evident that
Maulbow was still alive but that he might be in delirium. Gefty placed
the surgeon on the table, went over to the bed and looked at Maulbow.
To the extent that the emergency treatment instruments' cautious
restraints permitted, Maulbow was twisting slowly about on the bed. He
was speaking in a low, rapid voice, his face distorted by emotion. The
words were not slurred, but they were in a language Gefty didn't know.
It seemed clear that Maulbow had reverted mentally to his own time, and
for some seconds he remained unaware that Gefty had entered the room.
Then, surprisingly, the slitted blue eyes opened wider and focused on
Gefty's face. And Maulbow screamed with rage.
Gefty felt somewhat disconcerted. For the reason alone that he was under
anesthetic, Maulbow should not have been conscious. But he was. The
words were now ones Gefty could understand, and Maulbow was telling him
things which would have been interesting enough under different
circumstances. Gefty broke in as soon as he could.
"Look," he said quietly, "I'm trying to help you. I ..."
Maulbow interrupted him in turn, not at all quietly. Gefty listened a
moment longer, then shrugged. So Maulbow didn't like him. He couldn't
say honestly that he'd ever liked Maulbow much, and what he was hearing
made him like Maulbow considerably less. But he would keep the man from
the future alive if he could.
He positioned the autosurgeon behind the head of the bed to allow the
device to begin its analysis, stood back at its controls where he could
both follow the progress it made and watch Maulbow without exciting him
further by remaining within his range of vision. After a moment, the
surgeon shut off the first-aid instruments and made unobtrusive use of a
heavy tranquilizing drug. Then it waited.
Maulbow should have lapsed into passive somnolence thirty seconds
afterwards. But the drug seemed to produce no more effect on him
mentally than the preceding anesthetic. He raged and screeched on. Gefty
watched him uneasily, knowing now that he was looking at insanity. There
was nothing more he could do at the moment--the autosurgeon's decisions
were safer than any nonprofessional's guesswork. And the surgeon
continued to wait.
Then, abruptly, Maulbow died. The taut body slumped against the bed and
the contorted features relaxed. The eyes remained half open; and when
Gefty came around to the side of the bed, they still seemed to be
looking up at him, but they no longer moved. A thin trickle of blood
started from the side of the slack mouth and stopped again.
* * *
The control compartment was still darkened and without power when Gefty
returned to it. He told Kerim briefly what had happened, added, "I'm not
at all sure now he was even human. I'd rather believe he wasn't."
"Why that, Gefty?" She was studying his expression soberly.
Gefty hesitated, said, "I thought at first he was furious because we'd
upset his plans. But they weren't his plans ... they were the
janandra's. He wasn't exactly its servant. I suppose you'd have to say
he was something like a pet animal."
Kerim said incredulously, "But that isn't possible! Think of how
intelligently Mr. Maulbow ..."
"He was following instructions," Gefty said. "The janandra let him know
whatever it wanted done. He was following instructions again when he
tried to kill me after I'd got away from the thing in the vault. The
real brain around here was the janandra ... and it was a real brain.
With a little luck it would have had the ship."