He shrugged off her support and sat upright by himself. “I can feel it,” he said. His eyes were suddenly clearer. “Something—my head hurts—I’m afraid!”
“Don’t be afraid,” said Marij-Black. “The esperon won’t make your head hurt, it just makes you better. We’re all here with you. Nothing to fear.” She stroked his brow. “Tell us what you see.”
Thale Lasamer looked at Royd’s ghost with terrified little-boy eyes, and his tongue flicked across his lower lips. “He’s—”
Then his skull exploded.
* * *
—
Hysteria and confusion.
The telepath’s head had burst with awful force, splattering them all with blood and bits of bone and flesh. His body thrashed madly on the tabletop for a long instant, blood spurting from the arteries in his neck in a crimson stream, his limbs twitching in a macabre dance. His head had simply ceased to exist, but he would not be still.
Agatha Marij-Black, who had been standing closest to him, dropped her injection gun and stood slack-mouthed. She was drenched with his blood, covered with pieces of flesh and brain. Beneath her right eye, a long sliver of bone had penetrated her skin, and her own blood was mingling with his. She did not seem to notice.
Rojan Christopheris fell over backward, scrambled to his feet, and pressed himself hard against the wall.
Dannel screamed, and screamed, and screamed, until Lindran slapped him hard across a blood-smeared cheek and told him to be quiet.
Alys Northwind dropped to her knees and began to mumble a prayer in a strange tongue.
Karoly d’Branin sat very still, staring, blinking, his chocolate cup forgotten in his hand.
“Do something,” Lommie Thorne moaned. “Somebody do something.” One of Lasamer’s arms moved feebly, and brushed against her. She shrieked and pulled away.
Melantha Jhirl pushed aside her brandy snifter. “Control yourself,” she snapped. “He’s dead, he can’t hurt you.”
They all looked at her but for d’Branin and Marij-Black, both of whom seemed frozen in shock. Royd’s projection had vanished at some point, Melantha realized suddenly. She began to give orders. “Dannel, Lindran, Rojan—find a sheet or something to wrap him in, and get him out of here. Alys, you and Lommie get some water and sponges. We’ve got to clean up.” Melantha moved to d’Branin’s side as the others rushed to do as she had told them. “Karoly,” she said, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder, “are you all right, Karoly?”
He looked up at her, gray eyes blinking. “I—yes, yes, I am—I told her not to go ahead, Melantha. I told her.”
“Yes, you did,” Melantha Jhirl said. She gave him a reassuring pat and moved around the table to Agatha Marij-Black. “Agatha,” she called. But the psipsych did not respond, not even when Melantha shook her bodily by the shoulders. Her eyes were empty. “She’s in shock,” Melantha announced. She frowned at the sliver of bone protruding from Marij-Black’s cheek. Sponging off her face with a napkin, she carefully removed the splinter.
“What do we do with the body?” asked Lindran. They had found a sheet and wrapped it up. It had finally stopped twitching, although blood continued to seep out, turning the concealing sheet red.
“Put it in a cargo hold,” suggested Christopheris.
“No,” Melantha said, “not sanitary. It will rot.” She thought for a moment. “Suit up and take it down to the driveroom. Cycle it through and lash it in place somehow. Tear up the sheet if you have to. That section of the ship is vacuum. It will be best there.”
Christopheris nodded, and the three of them moved off, the deadweight of Lasamer’s corpse supported between them. Melantha turned back to Marij-Black, but only for an instant. Lommie Thorne, who was mopping the blood from the tabletop with a piece of cloth, suddenly began to retch violently. Melantha swore. “Someone help her,” she snapped.
Karoly d’Branin finally seemed to stir. He rose and took the blood-soaked cloth from Lommie’s hand, and led her back to his cabin.
“I can’t do this alone,” whined Alys Northwind, turning away in disgust.
“Help me, then,” Melantha said. Together she and Northwind half-led and half-carried the psipsych from the lounge, cleaned her and undressed her, and put her to sleep with a shot of one of her own drugs. Afterwards Melantha took the injection gun and made the rounds. Northwind and Lommie Thorne required mild tranquilizers, Dannel a somewhat stronger one.
It was three hours before they met again.
* * *
—
The survivors assembled in the largest of the cargo holds, where three of them hung their sleepwebs. Seven of eight attended. Agatha Marij-Black was still unconscious, sleeping or in a coma or deep shock; none of them were sure. The rest seemed to have recovered, though their faces were pale and drawn. All of them had changed clothes, even Alys Northwind, who had slipped into a new jumpsuit identical to the old one.
“I do not understand,” Karoly d’Branin said. “I do not understand what…”
“Royd killed him, is all,” Northwind said bitterly. “His secret was endangered so he just—just blew him apart. We all saw it.”
“I cannot believe that,” Karoly d’Branin said in an anguished voice. “I cannot. Royd and I, we have talked, talked many a night when the rest of you were sleeping. He is gentle, inquisitive, sensitive. A dreamer. He understands about the volcryn. He would not do such a thing, could not.”
“His projection certainly winked out quick enough when it happened,” Lindran said. “And you’ll notice he hasn’t had much to say since.”
“The rest of us haven’t been unusually talkative either,” said Melantha Jhirl. “I don’t know what to think, but my impulse is to side with Karoly. We have no proof that the captain was responsible for Thale’s death. There’s something here none of us understands yet.’’
Alys Northwind grunted. “Proof,” she said disdainfully.
“In fact,” Melantha continued, unperturbed, “I’m not even sure anyone is responsible. Nothing happened until he was given the esperon. Could the drug be at fault?”
“Hell of a side effect,” Lindran muttered.
Rojan Christopheris frowned. “This is not my field, but I would think no. Esperon is extremely potent, with both physical and psionic side effects verging on the extreme, but not that extreme.”
“What, then?” said Lommie Thorne. “What killed him?”
“The instrument of death was probably his own talent,” the xenobiologist said, “undoubtedly augmented by the drug. Besides boosting his principal power, his telepathic sensitivity, esperon would also tend to bring out other psi-talents that might have been latent in him.”
“Such as?” Lommie demanded.
“Biocontrol. Telekinesis.”
Melantha Jhirl was way ahead of him. “Esperon shoots blood pressure way up anyway. Increase the pressure in his skull even more by rushing all the blood in his body to his brain. Decrease the air pressure around his head simultaneously, using teke to induce a short-lived vacuum. Think about it.”
They thought about it, and none of them liked it.
“Who could do such a thing?” Karoly d’Branin said. “It could only have been self-induced, his own talent wild, out of control.”
“Or turned against him by a greater talent,” Alys Northwind said stubbornly.
“No human telepath has talent on that order, to seize control of someone else, body and mind and soul, even for an instant.”
“Exactly,” the stout xenotech replied. “No human telepath.”
“Gas giant people?” Lommie Thorne’s tone was mocking.
Alys Northwind stared her down. “I could talk about Crey sensitives or githyanki soulsucks, name a half-dozen others off the top of my head, but I don’t need to. I’ll only name one. A Hrangan Mind.”
That was a
disquieting thought. All of them fell silent and stirred uneasily, thinking of the vast, inimical power of a Hrangan Mind hidden in the command chambers of the Nightflyer, until Melantha Jhirl broke the spell with a short, derisive laugh. “You’re frightening yourself with shadows, Alys,” she said. “What you’re saying is ridiculous, if you stop to think about it. I hope that isn’t too much to ask. You’re supposed to be xenologists, the lot of you, experts in alien languages, psychology, biology, technology. You don’t act the part. We warred with Old Hranga for a thousand years, but we never communicated successfully with a Hrangan Mind. If Royd Eris is a Hrangan, they’ve improved their conversational skills markedly in the centuries since the Collapse.”
Alys Northwind flushed. “You’re right,” she said. “I’m jumpy.”
“Friends,” said Karoly d’Branin, “we must not let our actions be dictated by panic or hysteria. A terrible thing has happened. One of our colleagues is dead, and we do not know why. Until we do, we can only go on. This is no time for rash actions against the innocent. Perhaps, when we return to Avalon, an investigation will tell us what happened. The body is safe for examination, is it not?”
“We cycled it through the airlock into the driveroom,” Dannel said. “It’ll keep.”
“And it can be studied closely on our return,” d’Branin said.
“Which should be immediate,” said Northwind. “Tell Eris to turn this ship around!”
D’Branin looked stricken. “But the volcryn! A week more and we shall know them, if my figures are correct. To return would take us six weeks. Surely it is worth one additional week to know that they exist? Thale would not have wanted his death to be for nothing.”
“Before he died, Thale was raving about aliens, about danger,” Northwind insisted. “We’re rushing to meet some aliens. What if they’re the danger? Maybe these volcryn are even more potent than a Hrangan Mind, and maybe they don’t want to be met, or investigated, or observed. What about that, Karoly? You ever think about that? Those stories of yours—don’t some of them talk about terrible things happening to the races that meet the volcryn?”
“Legends,” d’Branin said. “Superstition.”
“A whole Fyndii horde vanishes in one legend,” Rojan Christopheris put in.
“We cannot put credence in these fears of others,” d’Branin argued.
“Perhaps there’s nothing to the stories,” Northwind said, “but do you care to risk it? I don’t. For what? Your sources may be fictional or exaggerated or wrong, your interpretations and computations may be in error, or they may have changed course—the volcryn may not even be within light-years of where we’ll drop out.”
“Ah,” Melantha Jhirl said, “I understand. Then we shouldn’t go on because they won’t be there, and besides, they might be dangerous.”
D’Branin smiled and Lindran laughed. “Not funny,” protested Alys Northwind, but she argued no further.
“No,” Melantha continued, “any danger we are in will not increase significantly in the time it will take us to drop out of drive and look about for the volcryn. We have to drop out anyway, to reprogram for the shunt home. Besides, we’ve come a long way for these volcryn, and I admit to being curious.” She looked at each of them in turn, but no one spoke. “We continue, then.”
“And Royd?” demanded Christopheris. “What do we do about him?”
“What can we do?” said Dannel.
“Treat the captain as before,” Melantha said decisively. “We should open lines to him and talk. Maybe now we can clear up some of the mysteries that are bothering us, if Royd is willing to discuss things frankly.”
“He is probably as shocked and dismayed as we are, my friends,” said d’Branin. “Possibly he is fearful that we will blame him, try to hurt him.”
“I think we should cut through to his section of the ship and drag him out kicking and screaming,” Christopheris said. “We have the tools. That would write a quick end to all our fears.”
“It could kill Royd,” Melantha said. “Then he’d be justified in anything he did to stop us. He controls this ship. He could do a great deal, if he decided we were his enemies.” She shook her head vehemently. “No, Rojan, we can’t attack Royd. We’ve got to reassure him. I’ll do it, if no one else wants to talk to him.” There were no volunteers. “All right. But I don’t want any of you trying any foolish schemes. Go about your business. Act normally.”
Karoly d’Branin was nodding agreement. “Let us put Royd and poor Thale from our minds, and concern ourselves with our work, with our preparations. Our sensory instruments must be ready for deployment as soon as we shift out of drive and reenter normal space, so we can find our quarry quickly. We must review everything we know of the volcryn.” He turned to the linguists and began discussing some of the preliminaries he expected of them, and in a short time the talk had turned to the volcryn, and bit by bit the fear drained out of the group.
Lommie Thorne sat listening quietly, her thumb absently rubbing her wrist implant, but no one noticed the thoughtful look in her eyes.
Not even Royd Eris, watching.
* * *
—
Melantha Jhirl returned to the lounge alone.
Someone had turned out the lights. “Captain?” she said softly.
He appeared to her; pale, glowing softly, with eyes that did not see. His clothes, filmy and out-of-date, were all shades of white and faded blue. “Hello, Melantha,” the mellow voice said from the communicators, as the ghost silently mouthed the same words.
“Did you hear, captain?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice vaguely tinged by surprise. “I hear and I see everything on my Nightflyer, Melantha. Not only in the lounge, and not only when the communicators and viewscreens are on. How long have you known?”
“Known?” She smiled. “Since you praised Alys’s gas giant solution to the Roydian mystery. The communicators were not on that night. You had no way of knowing. Unless…”
“I have never made a mistake before,” Royd said. “I told Karoly, but that was deliberate. I am sorry. I have been under stress.”
“I believe you, captain,” she said. “No matter. I’m the improved model, remember? I’d guessed weeks ago.”
For a time Royd said nothing. Then: “When do you begin to reassure me?”
“I’m doing so right now. Don’t you feel reassured yet?”
The apparition gave a ghostly shrug. “I am pleased that you and Karoly do not think I murdered that man. Otherwise, I am frightened. Things are getting out of control, Melantha. Why didn’t she listen to me? I told Karoly to keep him dampened. I told Agatha not to give him that injection. I warned them.”
“They were afraid, too,” Melantha said. “Afraid that you were only trying to frighten them off, to protect some awful plan. I don’t know. It was my fault, in a sense. I was the one who suggested esperon. I thought it would put Thale at ease, and tell us something about you. I was curious.” She frowned. “A deadly curiosity. Now I have blood on my hands.”
Melantha’s eyes were adjusting to the darkness in the lounge. By the faint light of the holograph, she could see the table where it had happened, dark streaks of drying blood across its surface among the plates and cups and cold pots of tea and chocolate. She heard a faint dripping as well, and could not tell if it was blood or coffee. She shivered. “I don’t like it in here.”
“If you would like to leave, I can be with you wherever you go.”
“No,” she said. “I’ll stay. Royd, I think it might be better if you were not with us wherever we go. If you kept silent and out of sight, so to speak. If I asked you to, would you shut off your monitors throughout the ship? Except for the lounge, perhaps. It would make the others feel better, I’m sure.”
“They don’t know.”
“They will. You made that remark about gas gi
ants in everyone’s hearing. Some of them have probably figured it out by now.”
“If I told you I had cut myself off, you would have no way of knowing whether it was the truth.”
“I could trust you,” Melantha Jhirl said.
Silence. The spectre stared at her. “As you wish,” Royd’s voice said finally. “Everything off. Now I see and hear only in here. Now, Melantha, you must promise to control them. No secret schemes, or attempts to breach my quarters. Can you do that?”
“I think so,” she said.
“Did you believe my story?” Royd asked.
“Ah,” she said. “A strange and wondrous story, captain. If it’s a lie, I’ll swap lies with you anytime. You do it well. If it’s true, then you are a strange and wondrous man.”
“It’s true,” the ghost said quietly. “Melantha…”
“Yes?”
“Does it bother you that I have…watched you? Watched you when you were not aware?”
“A little,” she said, “but I think I can understand it.”
“I watched you copulating.”
She smiled. “Ah,” she said, “I’m good at it.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Royd said. “You’re good to watch.”
Silence. She tried not to hear the steady, faint dripping off to her right. “Yes,” she said after a long hesitation.
“Yes? What?”
“Yes, Royd,” she said, “I would probably sex with you if it were possible.”
“How did you know what I was thinking?” Royd’s voice was suddenly frightened, full of anxiety and something close to fear.