The Quillian Sector

A fact she knew too well, and she drank, slowly, feeling the warmth of the spirit sting her mouth and throat and trace a warm path to her stomach. Conscious, too, of the fatigue which dulled her mind and made every muscle an aching irritation. Had she done all that needed to be done? The cleaning? The coils? The connections? The adjustments? Had a tool been overlooked? A scrap of wire? A shred of metal, or a fragment of insulation? Work had slowed as the hours had passed and it was easy to overlook the obvious when tired.

"Dilys?" She jerked, aware that she had been dozing, on the edge of sleep. Dumarest said, "If you've finished your drink, let's find out how good an engineer you are."

The drink-the remains rested in her glass and she emptied it with a single swallow. A silent toast to the oblivion which could be waiting at the turn of a switch. A silent prayer to the gods of chance on whose laps they now all rested. Dumarest was right, they could use nothing less than success.

Had she achieved it?

There was only one way to find out.

She took a step forward and swayed, and felt the edge of the workbench press hard against her spine as she moved back against it. She sagged, welcoming the support, shaking her head as Dumarest came toward her.

"No, Earl, I can't. I'm beat You do it. Everything's set- just throw the switches."

She watched as he obeyed, hearing the generator hum into life, feeling a success which blazed through her so powerfully that she straightened and smiled her triumph; a smile which died as the hum faltered, to steady, to falter again.

"I've failed," she smiled dully. "I tried but I wasn't good enough. The damned generator isn't going to last."

The place held the memory of summer flowers, of fields graced with blossoms harvested by smiling girls, to be taken and treated and condensed into vials of concentrated joy. Traces of perfume which held the stamp of the one who had worn it Dilys, lying now on her bed, her face flaccid, the curves of her figure like those of an erotic dream.

Dumarest tightened the restraints, which held her in broad bands of yielding webbing to her cot. Extra thicknesses of mattresses lay beneath her and he had arranged further padding so as to cocoon her within the restraints. Her condition made his task easy; drugged, deep in exhausted unconsciousness, she had barely stirred as he'd worked.

A woman who had burned herself out. Who had done her best and discovered it wasn't good enough. An added ingredient to Jumoke's revenge.

Outside the cabin Dumarest paused, looking along the passage. Allain emerged from a door, curses following him fading as he closed the panel. The dancer spitting her venom.

"She's drunk," the steward explained, "but not drunk enough. God, what a hag!"

"You've put her in restraints?"

"I tried, but she fought like a wildcat. Well, to hell with her."

"Try again later," said Dumarest. "If she's drunk, she isn't responsible. The rest?"

"Warned and as ready as they'll ever be. Now I'm going to look after myself." The steward hesitated. "Do you think we'll make it?"

"If the generator holds out, yes."

"And if it doesn't?" Allain answered his own question. "We burn, we drift, we starve. If we're lucky, we die quick."

"Or we live," said Dumarest. "Luck comes in two kinds."

"Sure, that's what I mean. With good luck we go out easy-with bad we linger. Well, to hell with it. I'm going to hit the bottle."

He headed for his own cabin as Dumarest moved on. As he entered the control room, Egulus said, "Dilys?"

"Still out. I wrapped her well."

"The others?" The captain shrugged as he heard the report. "Passengers! At times they act as if they're crazy. Well, they've had their warning. My main concern now is with the Entil."

A crippled ship, now heading towards an isolated world. Taking his place in the navigator's chair, Dumarest could see it in the screens, a mottled ball of green and ocher, patched with expanses of dingy white, streaked with smears of dusty black.

"That's Hyrcanus, as far as I can make out." said Egulus. "But right or wrong, it's the only chance we have. We make it or burn." He glanced at the sun, which blazed with awesome splendor. "But if the generator holds, we've a chance."

One which grew as the ball of the planet swelled larger, colors breaking into a blurred jumble, the instruments in the control room clicking as they relayed information.

Closer, and the ship began to shudder a little as opposed gravities fought for supremacy. A slight shift told of a dying vortex, spewed from some flaring sun. A peculiar turning sensation as it passed through an area of intra-dimensional instability. The normal hazards to be expected within the Rift.

Another which was not.

Egulus swore as the ship died beneath his hands. "The generator! It's dead!"

Strained beyond endurance by the impact of external forces, the interior now a mass of fused and molten rubbish, the Erhaft field gone, and this time never to be replaced.

And the world was close.

Close!