Fantastic Stories Presents the Poul Anderson Super Pack. Poul Anderson
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never came home. They don’t like visitors.” Donovan saw her smile, and his own lips twitched. “But they did, I suppose, take some prisoners, to learn our language and anything else they could about us.”
She nodded. “I’d conjectured as much. If you don’t accept theories involving the supernatural, and I don’t, it follows almost necessarily. If a few of them projected themselves aboard and hid somewhere, they could manipulate air molecules from a distance so as to produce the whisperings—” She smiled afresh, but the hollowness was still in her. “When you call it a new sort of ventriloquism, it doesn’t sound nearly so bad, does it?”
Fiercely, the woman turned on him. “And what have you had to do with them? How are you so sure?”
“I—talked with one of them,” he replied slowly. “You might say we struck up a friendship of sorts. But I learned nothing, and the only benefit I got was escaping. I’ve no useful information.” His voice sharpened. “And that’s all I have to say.”
“Well, we’re going on!” Her head lifted pridefully.
Donovan’s smile was a crooked grimace. He took her hand, and it lay unresisting between his fingers. “Helena,” he said, “you’ve been trying to psychoanalyze me this whole trip. Maybe it’s my turn now. You’re not so hard as you tell yourself.”
“I am an officer of the Imperial Navy.” Her haughtiness didn’t quite come off.
“Sure, sure. A hard-shelled career girl. Only you’re also a healthy human being. Down underneath, you want a home and kids and quiet green hills. Don’t lie to yourself, that wouldn’t be fitting to the Lady Jansky of Torgandale, would it? You went into service because it was the thing to do. And you’re just a scared kid, my dear.” Donovan shook his head. “But a very nice-looking kid.”
Tears glimmered on her lashes. “Stop it,” she whispered desperately. “Don’t say it.”
He kissed her, a long slow kiss with her mouth trembling under his and her body shivering ever so faintly. The second time she responded, shy as a child, hardly aware of the sudden hunger.
She pulled free then, sat with eyes wide and wild, one hand lifted to her mouth. “No,” she said, so quietly he could scarce hear. “No, not now—”
Suddenly she got up and almost fled. Donovan sighed.
Why did I do that? To stop her inquiring too closely? Or just because she’s honest and human, and Valduma isn’t? Or—
Darkness swirled before his eyes. Wocha came awake and shrank against the farther wall, terror rattling in his throat. “Boss—boss, she’s here again—”
Donovan sat unstirring, elbows on knees, hands hanging empty, and looked at the two who had come. “Hello, Valduma,” he said.
“Basil—” Her voice sang against him, rippling, lilting, the unending sharp laughter beneath its surprise. “Basil, you have come back.”
“Uh-huh.” He nodded at the other. “You’re Morzach, aren’t you? Sit down. Have a drink. Old home week.”
The creature from Arzun remained erect. He looked human on the outside, tall and gaunt in a black cape which glistened with tiny points of starlight, the hood thrown back so that his red hair fell free to his shoulders. The face was long and thin, chiseled to an ultimate refinement of classical beauty, white and cold. Cold as space-tempered steel, in spite of the smile on the pale lips, in spite of the dark mirth in the slant green eyes. One hand rested on the jeweled hilt of a sword.
Valduma stood beside Morzach for an instant, and Donovan watched her with the old sick wildness rising and clamoring in him.
You are the fairest thing which ever was between the stars, you are ice and flame and living fury, stronger and weaker than man, cruel and sweet as a child a thousand years old, and I love you. But you are not human, Valduma.
She was tall, and her grace was a lithe rippling flow, wind and fire and music made flesh, a burning glory of hair rushing past her black-caped shoulders, hands slim and beautiful, the strange clean-molded face white as polished ivory, the mouth red and laughing, the eyes long and oblique and gold-flecked green. When she spoke, it was like singing in Heaven and laughter in Hell. Donovan looked at her, not moving.
“Basil, you came back to me?”
“He came because he had to.” Morzach of Arzun folded his arms, eyes smoldering in anger. “Best we kill him now.”
“Later, perhaps later, but not now.” Valduma laughed aloud.
Suddenly she was in Donovan’s arms. Her kisses were a rain of fire. There was thunder and darkness and dancing stars. He was aware of nothing else, not for a long, long time.
She leaned back in his grasp, smiling up at him, stroking his hair with one slender hand.
His cheek was bloody where she had scratched him. He looked back into her eyes—they were cat’s eyes, split-pupiled, all gold and emerald without the human white. She laughed very softly. “Shall I kill you now?” she whispered. “Or drive you mad first? Or let you go again? What would be most amusing, Basil?”
“This is no time for your pranks,” said Morzach sharply. “We have to deal with this ship. It’s getting dangerously close to Arzun, and we’ve been unable yet to break the morale and discipline of the crew. I think the only way is to wreck the ship.”
“Wreck it on Arzun, yes!” Valduma’s laughter pulsed and throbbed. “Bring them to their goal. Help them along, even. Oh, yes, Morzach, it is a good thought!”
“We’ll need your help,” said the creature-man to Donovan. “I take it that you’re guiding them. You must encourage them to offer no resistance when we take over the controls. Our powers won’t stand too long against atomic energy.”
“Why should I help you?” Donovan’s tones were hoarse. “What can you give me?”
“If you live,” said Valduma, “and can make your way to Drogobych, I might give you much.” She laughed again, maniac laughter which did not lose its music. “That would be diverting!”
“I don’t know,” he groaned. “I don’t know—I thought a bargain could be made, but now I wonder.”
“I leave him to you,” said Morzach sardonically, and vanished.
“Basil,” whispered Valduma. “Basil, I have—sometimes—missed you.”
“Get out, Wocha,” said Donovan,
“Boss—she’s toombar—”
“Get out!”
Wocha lumbered slowly from the cabin. There were tears in his eyes.
4
The Ganymede’s engines rose to full power and the pilot controls spun over without a hand on them.
“Engine room! Engine room! Stop that nonsense down there!”
“We can’t—they’re frozen—the converter has gone into full without us—”
“Sir, I can’t budge this stick. It’s locked somehow.”
The lights went out. Men screamed.
“Get me a flashlight!” snapped Takahashi in the dark. “I’ll take this damned panel apart myself.”
The beam etched his features against night. “Who goes?” he cried.
“It’s I.” Jansky appeared in the dim reflected glow. “Never mind, Takahashi. Let the ship have her way.”
“But ma’m, we could crash—”
“I’ve finally gotten Donovan to talk. He says we’re in the