The Quillian Sector

"So?" The last of her anger vanished with her shrug. "All right, I'm sorry. I should have managed to control myself. But I can't stand a man who hits women."

"Or a woman who kills men?" Dumarest met her eyes. "She could have a poisoned needle attached to her finger," he explained. "Or a lethal paste set beneath a sharpened nail. Like Bochner, I, too would have taken precautions had she slapped at my face."

"And slapped her back?"

"It's one way to teach a lesson." He changed the subject. "Have you anything which could be adapted to give underwater protection? Masks, air tanks, suits?"

"Tanks, yes," she said. "Masks could be made and we could use padding to protect bodies. And, of course, we have the emergency sacs."

The last resort, should a vessel be destroyed while in space, but only the insanely optimistic would ever use them. Transparent membranes containing air and other supplies which could maintain life for awhile; bubbles drifting in the void with those inside them, hoping against hope that some nearby vessel would hear their radio beacon and come to the rescue. The wise chose to die with their ship.

"The sacs!" The mercenary lifted his head like a dog smelling food. "The beacon-don't you have one fitted to the Entil?"

"Or a radio?" Roster added his suggestion. "We are on a listed world and it must have a field and people of some kind. We could contact them. Ask for rescue."

At a price which would leave them stripped of all assets but, dead, they would have lost everything anyway.

Zeda mistook Egulus's hesitation. "The radio, man! Are you afraid of losing your vessel as salvage?"

"It's lost anyway," said the captain. "But the radio's useless."

"And the beacon?"

Jumoke had overlooked it, as had Dumarest and the captain, both assuming the navigator had done his worst. Dilys sucked in her breath as she drew it from its housing; a small, compact piece of electronic wizardry which operated only when the generator failed and the field collapsed, sending a coded electronic "shout" which, even in the Rift, could be heard by a ship which was close, or by a nearby world. Even in the Quillian Sector.

And the thing had operated twice.

"A line," said Dilys. "If anyone heard both signals they could draw a line, extend it, and know just where we are."

"They won't be able to see us," said Egulus. "They could come looking and pass right over us."

But they would keep looking. A ship in distress was a fortune in salvage. Add to that the price of cargo, rescue fees and rewards, and no captain of a hungry trader would give up too soon.

And neither, Dumarest knew, would others who must be searching for him.

He said, "What now?"

"We wait." Bochner joined the discussion. "We sit and wait until someone comes to help us. Why not? We have air and food and water. We have wine and certain other comforts." He glanced at Gale Andrei. "So why risk death outside?"

"Perhaps we could rig up a new radio?" suggested Charl Zeda. "I've some experience in electronics and, with the emergency beacon intact, we have a viable base on which to build. And it doesn't have to be an ultra-radio-all we want is something which can contact someone locally and serve to guide them to us. You'll help me, Shan?"

"You need help?"

"For the assembly, yes." The mercenary gestured at his damaged shoulder. "I'm not too good at fine work at the best of times, and you're accustomed to handling delicate fabrications. If we could use the facilities in the engine room?"

"Sure," said Dilys. "Why not? I'll even-" She broke off with a catch of breath. "What-what's that? What the hell's happening?"

The ship had moved.

It rolled a little, lifting to settle again, bumping to rest, to roll once more as, from the hull, came an ugly grating. A sound as if something hard had dragged over the metal. As the sound faded into silence, Gale said, "God, what's that?"

The screens answered her. In them loomed the shape of madness, scaled, tentacular, spines tipped with barbs, mouths lined with rows of savage teeth. A monstrous creature of the depths attracted by the shock of their landing, now busy investigating the intruder into its realm. And it was big. Big.

"It's like a mountain," whispered Fele Roster. With the others, he stood crammed into the control room and his whisper was an automatic defense mechanism; what the thing couldn't hear it couldn't be aware of. "A living mountain."

One which spread in formless confusion, fogging at the edge of visibility, coils writhing in seemingly endless profusion, tentacles filing its watery world. The Entil rolled like an egg in its grip, its bottom lifting to bang against the rocky bottom, to send metallic verberations echoing from the stricken metal, gongs to herald doom.

"The hull." Threnond's voice, while controlled, betrayed his strain. "How thick is it?"