She ignored him. Silence and the green deadly eyes, fixed on Trehearne.
He went to her and put his hand on her shoulder. "Be reasonable,
Shairn. I know how you feel but none of it was done with intent. And
we're all your friends, whether you agree with us or not."
He jerked back but not quite in time. Her claws raked his cheek. He
stepped away. She sat motionless and said not one word.
Trehearne swung on his heel and went out. Edri came after him and
locked the door. "Perhaps Joris can talk to her," he said. His tone did
not hold much hope.
"Oh, she'll come out of it," said Trehearne. "Nobody can stay that mad
forever."
Edri shook his head. "I've known her longer than you have. I wouldn't
count on it."
The intercom boomed over their heads--Joris calling from the bridge.
"Edri--will you and Trehearne step up here? The bad news is starting to
come in."
Communications was just abaft the bridge. Joris had relinquished the
controls to the Second and was standing in the cramped space behind the
operator, listening intently to the thin metallic voice that came from
the ultra-wave receiver.
"_Channel One--Alert. All ships in Sector M29 ... request radar
confirmation on ship believed on course as follows._..."
"Port radar base would have got our coordinates at take-off, of
course," said Joris. "They're just making sure."
"Listen," said Edri.
The metallic voice finished repeating the coordinates. It went on,
"_All ships will identify immediately when challenged. All ships will
identify._..."
"Cruisers," said Edri.
Joris frowned. "They could man at least one in a hurry. I told you we'd
need a head start."
He returned to the bridge to inspect the dials and order the generators
stepped up.
"We'll have to reach acceleration peak in half the normal time or we
might as well have stayed on Llyrdis. I'm going to see what radar has
turned up."
Trehearne followed along, brooding on the subject of cruisers. The
Vardda had no warships, being in the enviable position of having no use
for them. But the Council maintained a small fleet of armed craft with
maximum velocities considerably above those of the slower cargo ships,
for the purpose of keeping down occasional outbursts of illegal trading
among the Vardda themselves, and for protection of their factors on
dangerously barbaric worlds.
The three-dimensional radar screens showed the normal number of tiny
red sparks--the faster-than-light energy impulses of ships' generators.
Joris scanned them with a practised eye.
"Nothing to bother us yet. Too early to tell--the sector immediately
behind us is too crowded with shipping from the port." He turned to
Quorn, the Communications officer. "Keep a damn sharp lookout astern.
Call me the minute you see anything unusual. We can spell you a bit but
you're going to get blasted little relief."
Relief was a problem on that voyage. No one got much of it. They had
slightly over half the number of men required for a full crew under
normal circumstances and some of them were not trained technicians.
Trehearne found himself doing one eight-hour trick on the bridge,
calling out dial readings, and another in Communications. Since,
obviously, there was no sending to be done, he could handle the
receiver well enough to get by.
Channel One, which was the official, top-priority voice of the Vardda
Council, continued to request--and get--confirmation of their course.
It was not long before Quorn reported that radar showed a red spark
astern that seemed to be following their course.
Calculating distance by intensity it was possible to judge the rate of
approach. Joris demanded more thrust from the generators, ignoring the
shuddering agony of the hull and the equally painful reactions of his
men.
"Until we pick up Arrin," he said, "it's got to be cut and run. Thuvis
is the first place they'll block off, and anything but a direct course
on our part will give them time to do it."
They reached their acceleration peak--maximum stress for the fabric of
the ship. Joris pushed it over. They prayed.
The observation port began to show a thinning star-field ahead. Wider
and wider the areas of darkness spread and the colonies of suns were
fewer and more scattered. The red sparks on the radar screens dwindled
and faded until only two or three were left--lonely traders, outbound
to these isolated systems. Those--and the single spark that brightened
always astern.
The hours became a lagging monotony of constant watching, constant
strain. Numb from lack of sleep, Trehearne went mechanically through
his duties, forgot even to worry about what was going to happen.
Yesterday was an eon ago, tomorrow was lost in nothingness. There was
only today and he was tired.
It was the same with all of them. Joris seemed neither more nor less
exhausted than the rest and Trehearne marvelled at the old man's
strength.
Shairn remained locked in her cabin. She would not speak to anyone,
except the youngster who brought her food, then only to voice a curt
thanks.
Ahead the darkness deepened. The main axis of the Milky Way plane
was "below" them. Beyond the isolated systems they could glimpse the
lightless gulf of utter emptiness. Its black blankness afflicted
Trehearne with a creeping horror. It was like seeing the primal Chaos
before creation.
At last a dim red sun was centered in the field. It began to grow. The
radar screens were empty, save for the one grim following spark that
had become almost a flame, ominously bright.
Joris made his calculations and again they prayed.
They completed deceleration in a little less than half the normal time.
That was the period during which no one ate and only those who had to
remained erect.
Thuvis hung in the sky before them, an idiot sun, devouring the last
of its strength and peering with a dull red eye at the cosmic face of
death. It was circled by a single world.
"We'll have to make it fast," said Joris harshly. "You be ready, Edri."
The _Mirzim_ landed on an arid tableland swept by bitter winds. Quorn
stayed to maintain his tense vigil at the radar screens but the rest of
them went out, glad of solid ground if only for a few minutes.
The wind-driven dust tore at Trehearne, cutting into his flesh like
tiny cold daggers. The sky was dusky at midday but there were few
stars. Even at night there would be few stars here. The sullen glare of
Thuvis washed the dusty desert world with red and where a deep ravine
cleft the tableland the shadows clung like clotted blood. Trehearne
could not think of a place that more resembled hell.
Edri had hastened to the lip of the ravine. Trehearne followed and
looked down. Below the steep sides, below the ugly screes, was a tangle
of pallid vegetation, stunted trees and leprous shrubbery, clustered
around warm springs that smoked like little fumaroles in the chill air.
There was a settlement here, three or four small plastic structures
surrounded by a wall, and outside the wall a pathetic expanse of tilled
land.
"They're coming!" cried Edri. "They saw the ship...."
A narrow path led steeply up from the ravine. Men were already toiling
along it. Trehearne counted them. Eight, ten, eleven--eleven men, the
total population of this world of ultimate exile.
Edri was shouting. His voice echoed back and forth in the ravine with
a hollow booming sound. Other shouts answered him. The men on the path
began to run. They slipped and staggered in their haste, clawing their
way upward. Trehearne could see their white faces strained toward him.
He watched them come--gaunt wind-bitten hopeless men with the greyness
of living death upon them, striving up from that deep red-lit prison,
answering the call of Edri's voice. He saw their eyes, the eyes of men
called back suddenly from that terrible numbing of the mind that is
worse than clean destruction.
Edri threw his arms around the man who came first over the rim. He had
not been there as long as the others and the stamp was not so deep on
him. He turned and shouted at his mates to hurry. His beard and his
unkempt hair blew in the wind and his voice was wild.