The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz Page A

ago, yesterday," said Illyla.
    "Great Patham!" cried the captain, with some indignation. "I'd hardly got off Nikkeldepain then! We were engaged!"
    "Secretly... and I guess," said Illyla, with a return of spirit, "that I had a right to change my mind!" There was another silence.
    "Guess you had, at that," the captain agreed. "All right. The lock's still open, and your husband's waiting in the boat. Beat it!" He was alone. He let the locks slam shut and banged down the oxygen release switch. The air had become a little thin. He cussed.
    The communicator began rattling for attention. He turned it on.
    "Pausert!" Councilor Onswud was calling in a friendly but shaken voice. "May we not depart, Pausert? Your nova guns are still fixed on this boat!"
    "Oh, that ..." said the captain. He deflected the turrets a trifle. "They won't go off now. Scram!" The police boat vanished. There was other company coming, though. Far below him but climbing steadily, a trio of atmospheric revolt ships darted past on the screen, swung around and came back for the next turn of their spiral. They'd have to get closer before they started shooting, but they'd stay between him and the surface of Nikkeldepain while space destroyers closed in from above. Between them then, they'd knock out the Venture and bring her down in a net of paramagnetic grapples, if he didn't surrender.
    He sat a moment, reflecting. The revolt ships went by once more. The captain punched in the Venture's secondary drives, turned her nose towards the planet, and let her go. There were some scattered white puffs around as he cut through the revolt ships' plane of flight. Then he was below them, and the Venture groaned as he took her out of the dive. The revolt ships were already scattering and nosing over for a countermanoeuvre. He picked the neares t one and swung the nova guns toward it.
    " —and ram them in the middle!" he muttered between his teeth.
    SSS-whoosh!
    It was the Sheewash Drive, but like a nightmare now, it kept on and on...
    " Maleen! " t he captain bawled, pounding at the locked door of the captain's cabin. "Maleen, shut it off! Cut it off! You'll kill yourself. Maleen!"
    The Venture quivered suddenly throughout her length, then shuddered more violently, jumped and coughed, and commenced sailing along on her secondary drives again.
    "Maleen!" he yelled, wondering briefly how many light-years from everything they were by now. "Are you all right?"
    There was a faint thump-thump inside the cabin, and silence. He lost nearly two minutes finding the right cutting tool in the storage and getting it back to the cabin. A few seconds later a section of steel door panel sagged inwards; he caught it by one edge and came tumbling into the cabin with it. He had the briefest glimpse of a ball of orange-coloured fire swirling uncertainly over a cone of oddly bent wires. Then the fire vanished and the wires collapsed with a loose rattling to the table top.
    The crumpled small shape lay behind the table, which was why he didn't discover it at once. He sagged to the floor beside it, all the strength running out of his knees. Brown eyes opened and blinked at him blearily.
    "Sure takes it out of you!" Goth muttered. "Am I hungry!"
    "I'll whale the holy howling tar out of you again," the captain roared, "if you ever— "
    "Quit your yelling!" snarled Goth. "I got to eat." She ate for fifteen minutes straight before she sank back in her chair and sighed.
    "Have some more Wintenberry jelly," the captain offered anxiously. She looked pale.
    Goth shook her head. "Couldn't... and that's about the first thing you've said since you fell through the door, howling for Maleen. Ha-ha! Maleen's got a boy friend!"
    "Button your lip, child," the captain said. "I was thinking." He added, after a moment, "Has she really?"
    Goth nodded. "Picked him out last year. Nice boy from the town. They’ll get married as soon as she's marriageable. She just told you to come back because she was upset about you.