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.”Rachad nodded gravely, pleased with his knowledge.Some of the semi-legendary lore he had heard from Gebeth was useful after all.Bruge seemed doubtful.“Small threat if they are so easily disposed of,” he said.“After all this time they must be almost exhausted of life force,” Rachad answered.“Long ago they would have been more formidable—though even then, creatures that grew at such an unnatural rate can’t have lived for more than a brief time.The type of matter they are made of is a product of alchemy, compounding fresh mass out of itself but quickly collapsing again.”A grunt came from Patchman.“It’s lucky this one hadn’t the strength to reach its full size,” he observed, indicating the beast on the deck, “or we wouldn’t be talking together now.”At this remark Zhorga nodded, and looked sternly at Rachad.“It’s a rule of space travel, young man, never to take anything onto the ship until you know with absolute certainty what it is.”Rachad, his conceit damaged, hung his head, as far as he was able in his suit.He coughed.“I don’t want to spread alarm,” he said, “but I spotted hundreds of space eggs floating not far from us.Even if they came close enough, though, I doubt if scarcely any of them would have the power to germinate.”Despite his reassurances there were mutterings.The fear so recently banished reappeared.Zhorga turned to his followers.“I’ll take a look at this myself.The six of us may have to arrange a special watch by the bombards for a while.But not a word of what you’ve just heard to anyone else, understand? The slobs we have crewing for us fall to pieces at the first hint of trouble.”They nodded.And without another word the six began to chop up the disintegrating monster, ready to be carried above and cast over the side.***When his watch ended Clabert reported to Zhorga’s cabin.He found the Captain poring over the chart table, having just prepared a new heliocentric horoscope.Near to hand was Gebeth’s orrery, meticulously brought up to date.As Clabert entered he lay down the pair of dividers with which he had been checking distances.“And what mood are the men in now?” he asked wryly.“They do what they’re told,” Clabert told him in a low voice.“But then they don’t have much choice.There’s nothing they can do—it’s too late for them to think of turning back now.” He paused.“Patchman and Small have taken the second watch forward.The others are below.”“Still pretty scared, eh?”“Yes, in spite of having it proved that space monsters aren’t anything supernatural.”Zhorga chuckled without humor.“And all cursing their captain, as usual!” Crew dissatisfaction rarely bothered him.He knew from experience that he could simply browbeat most men into obedience, and that was his method.“They’d be more frightened still if they knew what I know,” he said somberly.“Come and take a look at this.”His stubby finger pointed to a mark he had made on the chart.“Here’s where we are, halfway between the orbits of Earth and Mars.Here’s Mars … and you’ll see how close our path will shortly take us to the trailer here.”Clabert drew in his breath.Every planet generated a type of vortex known as a trailer, which it dragged along with it some millions of miles downsun.Directly behind a planet, the ether flow tended to be relatively smooth.Nevertheless there were latent tensions which eventually broke out in a series of flurries and rapids, culminating in the large and dangerous etheric whirlpool.“I thought we were going to miss that by a good margin,” he grumbled.“So we were—but my calculations are off, of course, due to early discrepancies.We could still change course to give it a wide berth—but then we’d risk never catching up with Mars.” Zhorga rattled his fingers nervously on the table.“No, we shall have to run the flurry, I’m afraid.Bit of a nuisance.Still, there’s no evident danger.Just means we’ll pass too damn close to the vortex for comfort, that’s all.”Both men were silent for a while.Both knew all too well what being caught in an ether vortex meant.There was no way out of it, except by discarding all silk, which meant being left adrift without sail power.Toward the center the forces were so intense that ether silk was broken up, first to shreds, and then to dust.The eye of the vortex then carried that dust along with it forever [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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