Mercedes Lackey - The Wizard of Karres

Pausert knew sadness and despair. His ship was in no state to go anywhere. The old Venture would be lucky if it ever made another planetfall.

But he didn't let any of that show in his voice. "Vezzarn, better check the engine room. Give me a damage assessment as soon as possible. Goth, check the air recycler. Hantis, you and the Leewit start collecting suits, and get yourselves suited up. Then report back here." The captain was already examining the control panels. "A navigation readout would be good, too, if we've got anything still operating that will pick up beacons."

The captain himself had already taken the small atomic powered lamp from the worktable, and started undogging the access hatches to the control panel's electronics boards. The circuitry there was mostly solid-state, but there were various plug-in spares he could try.

"Ow." He burned his hand and sucked his fingers while trying to work out what was going on. The smoke didn't help. He waved it away and continued to examine the boards. He moved one and was rewarded with a shower of sparks. At least there was still power, even if Patham himself didn't know what was shorting out what.

He took a deep breath, coughed, and let klatha guide his hands. He pulled out one of the units. Part of it was melted and Pausert dropped it hastily with a word he hoped the Leewit wasn't near enough to hear. He plugged the replacement unit from the spares compartment into the panel. Luckily it was a J-83 and that was one of the modules the Venture carried in case of emergencies. He was rewarded by a buzzing sound and a red-flickering in the darkened control room. Hastily pulling his head out of the control panel, the captain was relieved to see that the flickering was caused by a bank of telltales, flashing red. The buzzing was stilled by flicking a switch or two, and the telltales at least told him where to start looking. There was life in the boards, and that in itself was reassuring. What wasn't, was the sheer number of faults being registered.

There was a sudden comforting hum, a vibration of machinery somewhere in the deepspace-silence of the Venture . The intercom crackled to life. "Captain, I've got the number two auxiliary running on manual. We can draw power for the air recycler off that, and some lights."

"Well done, Vezzarn. What's the status of the rest of the engine room?"

"Not good, Captain." There was a pause. "We had a burnback. We've lost part of the aft tubes. The main drive . . . I don't know yet, Captain."

It was not what Pausert needed to hear. He studied the telltales, deciding what to do next.

Goth came in. "Got power to the air recycler again. They're working just fine, Captain. We'll at least have this smoke dealt with pretty soon." She went straight to the communicator and dialed the space beacon frequencies.

"Doesn't seem to be any life in the communicator system," she said.

"Hang on. You should have power now." Pausert pushed the module onto its pins and crossed his fingers. There were stars out there. The familiar river of light that was the Milky Way said that they were at least back in the right galaxy—but exactly where and when they were was another matter.

"The dials have lit up," announced Goth. "Still not getting anything, though."

"Try the general and Imperial ship-to-ship channels." The captain wrestled with a hot board that seemed to have soldered itself in place.

There was a vague crackly noise from the communicator. "Might almost have been someone saying something," said Goth.

The captain, more familiar with communicator problems, felt some relief. He'd definitely picked up a word there, in Universum. They were back in a familiar part of the galaxy, in human-occupied space. "I think we might also have lost our external aerials. It's a quick job to replace them."

"Uh-huh," said Goth. "Well, seeing as the Leewit's brought me a suit, I'll suit-up and see to it. You're busy and it's just plug-in, plug-out stuff." Since Goth had moved herself into the Venture , she'd taken on responsibility as naturally as a miffel grew winter fur to deal with the cold. The girl was a fair way to becoming a competent ship-handler, and her skill with navigation sometimes left the captain feeling embarrassed about his own ability.

"Anything else we can do, Captain?" asked the Leewit.

"A general check. Keep out of the engine room, but do a damage assessment of the rest."

* * *

The captain went back to his work. Some of the boards could be bypassed. Some could be replaced. It was a painstaking process that required him sticking his head under the console, and then getting out again, to check the readouts and displays.

" . . . proach on standard incoming lane three," squawked the communicator.

Goth must have replaced the aerials. And they had communications and they couldn't be too far from a planet or refuel space-station, with space traffic. That was a weight off his mind.

"Well, we've broken some furniture, and the electric butler's not working," said the Leewit. "Can't see any big damage so far though, Captain. And it's not so smoky any more."

Trust the Leewit to check out the electric butler first! That was the least of the captain's worries right now. The electric butler had always been a bit cranky and inclined to deliver ice cream when you asked for steak, and sometimes deliver it to the control room floor with a cackle, instead of to the small mess-room. He'd worry about starving to death once they'd reestablished control and engine function.

"Thanks. Try the communicators on the beacon channel again."

"What's the beam length?"

".02r00."

Less than half a minute later the captain heard the beep of the beacon signal. "You want the trans . . . transwatsisname, Captain?" asked the Leewit.

"Transcription. Yes, please. It's the green button on the right."

Two minutes later, the captain knew that he was back in his old stamping grounds. He could have been home in the stuffy Republic of Nikkeldepain within three weeks ship time. And the world of Porlumma, where he'd once rescued three witch-girls from slavery, lay just ahead.

Now the captain only had two problems. The first was simple enough to deal with. Certainly he, and probably Goth and the Leewit, were considered to be criminals on Porlumma, despite the fact that he'd sent Wansing's jewels back to him.

Well, the Venture could still travel under her Uldune-obtained false papers as the Evening Bird . He could go back to being Captain Aron of Mulm and Goth his niece, Dani. They could come up with a suitable alias for the Leewit and no papers would be needed, as long as she didn't leave the ship. But he wouldn't be surprised if there were "wanted" holovids all over the dock. He'd have to talk to Goth about doing a suitable light-shift, although he knew that was a tiring exercise to keep up.

The second problem was more immediate. Would the Venture make it to the surface of Porlumma at all? The captain got up and went to inspect the engines for himself. There was still several more hours work here on the control systems, but he needed some tools from the engine room to get into some of the panels. And besides, what was the use in fixing control and navigation systems if the engines weren't usable? At least they were within easy reach of Porlumma by lifeboat, if worse came to worst.

Down in the engine room the captain found Vezzarn hard at work on the main drive. "Might get three of her tubes functional, Captain. But they're none of them going to be calibrated right. I've adjusted the thrust settings as best I can for the situation. The main drive itself . . . well, she's working, but for how long I can't say. We'll be lucky if we get a light-year out of her, and I don't know if the damage can really be repaired at all. She'll need to be seen by the engineers. The tubes themselves are a write-off."