Lester del Rey - The Wind Between the Worlds

Vic started to give Ptheela’s explanation of unbalanced resonance between the vacuum of the center and the edges in contact with matter, but dropped it quickly. “I’ll probably know better when I can read the results from the instruments.”

The Looech grumbled to itself. “You suppose you could send me the readings? We’re about on a Galactic level, so it wouldn’t strain the law too much.”

Vic shook his head. “If I can’t complete the chain, there won’t be any readings. I imagine you could install remote cut-offs fairly easily.”

“No trouble, though nobody ever seemed to think they might be needed. I suppose it would be covered under our emergency powers, If we stretch them a little. Oh, blast you, now I won’t sleep for worrying about why the field spreads. When will you begin?”

Vic grinned tightly as they arranged the approximate time and let the Looech carry him back to the capsule. He flashed through Ecthinbal, and climbed out of the Chicago transmitter to find Pat looking worriedly at the capsule, summoned by the untended call announcer.

“You’re right, Pat,” he told her. “Engineers run pretty much to form. Tell Flavin we’ve got Ee.”

But there were a lot of steps to be taken still. He ran into a stumbling block at Norag, and had to wait for a change of shift, before a sympathetic engineer cut the red tape to clear him. And negative decisions here and there kept Flavin jumping to find new routes.

They almost made it, to find a decision had just been reversed on Seloo by some authority who had gotten word of the deal. That meant that other authorities would probably be called in, with more reverses, in time. Once operating, the engineers could laugh at authority, since the remote cut-off could be easily hidden. But time was running out. There were only twenty-seven minutes left before the bombs dropped, and it would take fifteen to countermand their being dropped.

“Give me that,” Flavin ordered, grabbing the phone. “There are times when it takes executives instead of engineers. We’re broken at Seloo. Okay, we don’t know where Seloo ships.” His Galactic Code was halting, but fairly effective. The mechanical chirps from the Seloo operator leaped to sudden haste. A short pause was followed by an argument Vic was too tired to catch, until the final sentence. “Enad to Brjd to Teeni clear.”

“Never heard of Brjd,” he commented.

Flavin managed a ghost of a swagger. “Figured our lists were only partial, and we could stir up another link. Here’s the list. I’ll get Wilkes. Now that we’ve got it, he’ll hold off until we see how it works.”

It was a maze, but the list was complete, from Earth to Ecthinbal, Ee, Petzby, Norag, Szpendrknopalavotschel, Seloo, Enad, Brjd, Teeni, and finally through Plathgol to Earth. Vic whistled the given signal, and the acknowledgments came through. It was in operation. Flavin’s nod indicated Wilkes had confirmed it and held off the bombs.

Nothing was certain, still; it might or might not do the trick. But the tension dropped somewhat. Flavin was completely exhausted. He hadn’t had decent exercise for years, and running from communications to routing had been almost continual. He flopped over on a shipping table. Ptheela bent over him and began massaging him deftly. He grumbled, but gave in, then sighed gratefully.

“Where’d you learn that?”

She managed an Earthly giggle. “Instinct. My ancestors were plants that caught animals for food. We had all manner of ways to entice them—not just odor and looks. I can sense exactly how your body feels in the back of my head. Mm, delicious!”

He struggled at that, his face changing color. Her arms moved slowly, and he relaxed. Finally he reached for a cigar. “I’ll have nightmares, I’ll bet, but it’s worth it. Oh, oh! Trouble!”

The communicators were chirping busily.

“Some of the rulers must be catching on and don’t like it,” Ptheela guessed.

To Vic’s surprise, though, several did like it, and were simply sending along hopes for success. Etchinbal’s message was short, but it tingled along Vic’s nerves: “It is good to have friends.”

Bennington was reporting by normal televisor contact, but while things seemed to be improving, they still couldn’t get near enough to be sure. The field was apparently collapsing as the air was fed inside it, though very slowly.

Ptheela needed no sleep, while Flavin was already snoring. Pat shook her head as Vic started to pull himself up on a table. She led him outside to the back of one of the sheds, where a blanket covered a cot, apparently used by one of the supervisors. She pushed him toward it. As he started to struggle at the idea of using the only soft bed, she dropped onto it herself and pulled him down.

“Don’t be silly, Vic. It’s big enough for both, and it’s better than those tables.”

It felt like pure heaven, narrow though it was. Beside him, Pat stirred restlessly. He rolled over, pulling himself closer to her, off the hard edge of the cot, his arm over and around her.

For a moment, he thought she was protesting, but she merely turned over to face him, settling his arm back. In the half-light, her eyes met his, wide and serious. Her lips trembled briefly under his, then clung firmly. His own responded, reaching for the comfort and end of tension hers could bring.

“I’m glad it’s you, Vic,” she told him softly. Then her eyes closed as he started to answer, and his own words disappeared into a soft fog of sleep.

The harsh rasp of a buzzer woke him, while a light blinked on and off near his head. He shook some of the sleep confusion out of his thoughts, and made out an intercom box. Flavin’s voice came over it harshly and he flipped the switch.

“Vic, where the hell are you? Never mind. Wilkes just woke me up with a call. Vic, it’s helped, but not enough. The field is about even with the building now. It’s stopped shrinking, but we’re still losing air. There’s too much loss at Ecthinbal and at Ee—the engineer there didn’t get the portals capped right, and Ecthinbal can’t do anything. We’re getting about one-third of our air back. And Wilkes can’t hold the pressure for bombing much longer! Get over here.”

“Where’s Ptheela?” Vic asked as he came into the transmitter room. She needed no sleep, and should have taken care of things.

“Gone. Back to Plathgol, I guess,” Flavin said bitterly. “She was flicking out as I woke up. Rats deserting the sinking ship—though I was starting to figure her different. It just shows you can’t trust a plant.”

Vic swept his attention to the communicator panel. The phones were still busy. They were still patient. Even the doubtful ones were now accepting things; but it couldn’t last forever. Even without the risk, the transmitter banks were needed for regular use. Many did not have inexhaustible power sources, either.

A new note cut in over the whistling now, and he turned to the Plathgol phone, wondering whether it was Ptheela and what she wanted. The words were English, but the voice was strange.

“Plathgol calling. This is Thlegaa, Wife of Twelve Husbands, Supreme Plathgol Teleport Engineer, Ruler of the Council of United Plathgol, and hereditary goddess, if you want the whole letterhead. Ptheela just gave me the bad news. Why didn’t you call on us before—or isn’t our air good enough for you?”

“Hell, do you all speak English?” Vic asked, too surprised to care whether he censored his thoughts. “Your air always smelled good to me. Are you serious?”

The chuckle this time wasn’t a mere imitation. Thlegaa had her intonation down exactly. “Sonny, up here we speak whatever our cultural neighbors do. You should hear my French nasals and Vromatchkan rough-breathings. And I’m absolutely serious about the offer. We’re pulling the stops off the transmitter housing. We run a trifle higher pressure than you, so we’ll probably make up the whole loss. But I’m not an absolute ruler, so it might be a good idea to speed things up. You can thank me later. Oh—Ptheela’s just been banned for giving you illegal data. She confessed. When you get your Bennington plant working, she’ll probably be your first load from us. She’s packing up now.”