Chapter 4: Ambush

Pain! Aching, everlasting pain, that felt like all his bones were being pounded into smaller and smaller pieces! Nausea wrenched his stomach, and threatened to turn his bowels to water. He was freezing one second, burning the next. Rand hunched over his console. His vision was blurred by the sweat that poured down his face, and he pressed keys with fingers whose trembling was almost uncontrollable. At his shoulder, Berniss stood ready to lend him strength if he faltered. Was she really there? Or was she nothing but a construct of his own imagination, conjured up by his need, and their link through Skryben?

A cold hand, damp and quivering, touched his forehead. She was real, then. The thought lent him new strength, and he concentrated once more on his console. In the center of the bridge, his captain still stood. Upright, unmoving, but no longer the tower of strength that they all relied upon. The golden statue that was Captain Jeryth was the very image of weariness, bowed, one hand braced on the empty chair of the Second Officer's station.

"First shift Pilot Yurtloss... Change course by... sixty degrees to... rimward." Captain Jeryth's voice was the same as ever; low, yet resonant, but the words were dragged out, ragged.

"Course... Course adjustment, sixty degrees rimward. Adjust... Adjustment completed." Pilot Yurtloss, his stubby fingers held steady by an incredible act of will, turned the knobs that controlled Skryben's heading. Under them, the great ship shifted sluggishly. Even her mind was dazed by the ordeal they had suffered.

"Third Officer Korsun... , report!"

"Inertial guidance... tracking. Capacitors charged in... thirty seconds. Ready for j... jump."

"First shift Pilot Yurtloss... , report!"

"Ship heading st steady. Ready f for jump."

Somewhere, deep within his mind, the power indicator approached its extreme position. It fell back to zero, and a new wave of dizziness assaulted him with a rising tide of darkness. For what must have been a long, long time, he could only gaze uncomprehendingly at his surroundings, where each thing he looked at was haloed by flickers of crimson. Then, one by one, things took on meaning. There was the pilot, slumped over his console, unconscious. And Captain Jeryth, down on one knee, trying vainly to rise. Beside his own console, crumpled on the resilient deck, Berniss breathed shallowly, her mouth half open. He could see a rim of bloodshot white under the edge of one eyelid.

"Pilot... Yurtloss... Re... porrrt!"

Captain Jeryth's words were just another jumble of noise in Rand's ears, but Pilot Yurtloss stirred, raising his head.

"Jumm... c'pleted." The stunned look began to leave the pilot's face, as the stocky body bequeathed to him by generations of dirt farmers shook off the effects of the last in the long series of jumps.

"Jump... completed," Rand managed to report, his words slurred almost beyond recognition. "Coordinates logged... into... data banks."

"Very... Very good." The captain managed to stand upright, still holding tightly to the back of the Second Officer's chair. Already, his voice was stronger, more coherent. "Now, we'll soon know whether they followed us. Medic Morss! Report!"

Berniss was sitting up, braced by one trembling arm, her head pillowed on Rand's knee. She squinted up at Captain Jeryth. He could feel her mind, fumbling for its linkage with Skryben, scanning... , scanning...

"Ship's complemenn... , sevenny four. Loss' in... in first encounner with Vorrigen... , 'leven. Nine of 'leven are in the ship's stasis tanks for poss... possible future revival. Of the 'maining sixxy three officers and crew, seventeen are unconscious from shock or drugs, twenny nine are cons... conscious but non functional, and the other sev'nteen are at their posts. All gun turrets are manned, six medics're on duty, and two of the engine room crew. No deaths from jump shock... No deaths... No deaths, so far... No deaths..." Her last words were a low mumble, inaudible to anyone more than a few steps away, and her head returned to its position against his knee.

"All right. No more jumps. Tell the crew... No more jumps. We lost 'em... , or else, we didn't. No! More! Jumps! Not for a while, anyway. Give the crew twenty five minutes to recover, then sound Yellow Alert. Twenty five minutes, that's the soonest their ships could show up. After that, they can rest at their battle stations. If the Vortigen can follow us at all, they'll show up within the next hour. By that time, we'll be able to fight. As well as they can, or better." Captain Jeryth drew himself fully erect, and his voice regained some of its wonted crispness. "Third Officer Korsun. If they do not appear, you will lay a course to the nearest portion of the Vortigen Drift. We will make our first jump three hours from the time we arrived here, and jump at three hour intervals after that."

Captain Jeryth left the bridge. Rand was hardly aware that he had gone. He sat for long minutes, stroking Berniss' hair. In his mind was his own pain, shared with the pain of Skryben and her crew from the repeated shocks of too many jumps, too close together. No mind, no body, flesh or not, was meant to withstand such treatment.

"Medic Morss?" He bent to touch her hair. "Berniss? Are you all right?"

"I think so," she answered in a hoarse whisper. She raised her face to look up at him, and he was shocked at how haggard she was, her cheekbones trying to poke through her skin. She seemed to have lost twenty pounds in a single day, from a body that was already slender. "I think I am. Ooh, my poor head. My poor body. I'm getting too old for this sort of fooling around."

Too old? He didn't say the words aloud, but she must have caught the question in his eyes. Or, perhaps, through their link with the ship.

"Yes, Rand. Old. We medics have our secrets, and not the least of them is how to stay young. Young in body, at least. It's one of the requirements for promotion within our ranks; learning how to keep our own bodies from aging."

It didn't matter, he still wished that he could comfort her. The interlude with Pilot Tasca burned in his memory, but for a moment it was as though it hadn't happened. There had been no real link from mind to mind, only the shared warmth of their bodies. He reached out through the mind of Skryben, searching for the taste of Berniss Morss among the tangled web of the ship's crew. She was there, as always, but pulled away, refusing to meet him fully. The rest of his mental environment was ignored, the cries of pain and confusion, as he tried to make contact with her mind, and failed.

'... fifteen minutes and forty five seconds from... Mark!... '

"No more jumps right now," he told the ship. His fingers steadied as he reached for his console, and he disabled the sequence that had hurled them across the light years each time the capacitors charged. That would have hurled them onward, unendingly, as long as the ship itself still lived. "Watch for the enemy. Tell us if they appear. Sound Yellow Alert, nine minutes from... Mark. Maintain alert for another thirty five minutes after that. Captain Jeryth will confirm."

'... Captain Jeryth cannot be contacted. First Officer Tshegh cannot be contacted. Third Officer Korsun is in command until one of the above can be contacted. Acting Captain Korsun's orders are being followed... '

"Acting Captain?" He jerked upright in his padded chair, looking toward the First Officer's station, then winced as the too sudden movement sent a lance of pain through his skull. Joerd Tshegh was sprawled limply over his board, and for a frightened moment Rand thought that he was dead. Then, Tshegh's chest heaved, and a bubbling snore emerged from his slack lips. At the Pilot's station, Nie Yurtloss was still awake, but sitting inertly with a stupefied look on his blunt features.

"Yurtloss! First shift Pilot Nie Yurtloss! Give me a hand with First Officer Tshegh. Come on, Nie, get up!" Rand heaved himself to his feet and staggered over to the uncomprehending Yurtloss. At Rand's urging, the pilot finally got to his feet and crossed over to the First Officer's station. Between them, they got the man out of his chair and stretched out on the floor, his wadded tunic under his head. "There, he'll be all right there for a while. Sit yourself back down, while I check on the Captain."

"I'd better come with you," Berniss whispered, struggling to her feet. Rand caught her as she almost fell. "No, I'll be all right in a minute. Let me lean on you."

Supporting each other with trembling muscles, they left the bridge. In the corridor outside, they turned right, instead of left toward the stair and his quarters. At the end of the corridor, their way was blocked by a tightly closed door. There was no knob, and he saw no way to open it until he thought to contact Skryben.

"Open the door to Captain Jeryth's quarters," he commanded.

Reluctantly, it seemed, the door swung open. He'd never been invited to Captain's Quarters, and had no idea what to expect. What comforts would a metallo organic body require? What recreations, what hobbies would the mind in such a body find to interest it?

The reality was less exotic than he had imagined. There was only a single room, no larger than his own. The walls were bare, except for a framed abstract that he recognized as an oversized communications panel. Faint outlines etched into the wall next to the panel revealed the presence of drawers for personal belongings.

The only furniture in the room was an oval metallo organic slab extruded from the floor, the size of an over long bed. On this, Captain Jeryth's naked body lay outstretched. From the surface of the slab, five thick tendrils of the same golden material pulsed sluggishly, their ends fastened to the Captain's throat, wrists, and ankles.

"It's all right," Berniss restrained him when he would have moved closer. "His system is being regenerated, that's all. Skryben knows how to take care of him. She has suppressed his consciousness, so that physical regeneration can take place without interference from his will. It's only necessary about once a month, or after intense stress. Other than that, he doesn't sleep. He'll be awake again in... ," she communed with the mind of the ship, "in about an hour. We can leave him."

"But... But, what if the Vortigen show up first?"

"He can be wakened, if necessary, but it's better not to. A human mind in a metallo organic body has some... , let us say, some unusual strains imposed upon it. He must be allowed to rest."

"We'd better get back to the bridge." Rand was only too glad to leave the bare room. "Just how did he come to be this way? I've heard stories, but that's all."

"It's been a long time," she answered as they walked slowly back along the corridor. "He was among the first casualties of the conflict with the Vortigen, almost a hundred years ago. The small patrol ship he was commanding answered a distress call from a cruise liner that was being attacked by what they thought was a pirate ship. He saved the liner, destroying the Vortigen craft by ramming it. He was the only survivor, his body crushed by the impact, and there was no way of keeping him alive until the ships could make port."

"Then, how did they save him?"

"The passenger liner had a party of workers from Lurgo on board, experts in fashioning metallo organic artifacts. They were returning to their home planet, Yta III, from working in a Fleet shipyard, and had all of their tools with them. To save his life, and to reward him for saving theirs, they fashioned him a new body from material salvaged from his wrecked ship. It wasn't an exact copy of his original one, but, being Lurgo, they were able to do a marvelous job. They constructed an incredibly detailed replica."

"Well," he answered doubtfully, "I guess that it would be better than dying. How did he react to his new body?"

"Not well, not for a long time. Then he realized that his new body gave him super fast reflexes, and the ability to commune with his ship's mind at a level few others could achieve. Since that time, commanding ship after ship, he has devoted his life to fighting the Vortigen. When he heard about this mission to explore the Vortigen Drift, he was the first to volunteer."

Rand visualized the scene aboard the rescued liner. The Lurgo, insectile beings from a low gravity planet, were famed for their delicacy of design. They had fashioned a human body for their rescuer, but one that was patterned on their own slender, graceful bodies. Doubtless, they had considered the new body they fashioned to be more esthetically pleasing than the one it replaced. Perhaps it was, to them.