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"Well," Vorongil said, slowly and almost reflectively, "let's take her up then." He touched some controls. The humming grew. Then, swift, hard and crushing, weight mashed Bart against his couch. "Position!" Vorongil's voice sounded harsh, and Bart fought the crushing weight of it.
He fumbled in the capacious folds of his cloak for his papers. His voice sounded shrill, even to himself. "Bartol son of Berihun in respectful greeting, rieko mori." Unmistakably, Vorongil's snort was laughter. "So you've been talking, Ringg?" Ringg retorted, "Better that I tell one man than that you have to hunt the planet over or run the long haul with the drive-room watches short by one man."
And after a little while he went out on the balcony and stood looking down at the spaceport, where the Swiftwing lay in shadow, huge, beloved renounced. "What now, Bartol?" Vorongil's quiet voice asked from his elbow. "You're famous notorious. You're going to be rich, and a celebrity." "I was wishing I could get away until the excitement dies down." "Well," said Vorongil, "why don't you?
Putting on speed, he saw the tall, austere shape of Vorongil, his banded cloak dark against the glaring light. Vorongil turned, startled, at the sound of his running feet. Suddenly, Bart realized that he was still holding his energon-ray. In shock and revulsion, he dropped it at Vorongil's feet. "Captain, go warn the men! They'll all be dead in half an hour! There are lethal radiations " "What?
They reached the officer's deck, got Rugel into his cabin and into his bunk, hauled off his cloak and boots. Ringg stood shaking his head. "And they say Captain Vorongil's so tough!" Bart made a questioning noise. "Why, just look," said Ringg.
"I think he's coming round," said Vorongil's voice. "Yes, and a lot too soon for me," said a bitter voice which Bart recognized as that of the ship's medic. "Freak!" "Listen, Baldy," said Vorongil, "whoever he is, he could have been blinded or killed. You wouldn't be alive now if it wasn't for that freak, as you call him. Bartol, can you hear me? How much light can your eyes stand?"
You betrayed your home world and the whole human race! Don't you know the Lhari may fight a war over this?" Bart remembered Vorongil's silent, sad confession of the Lhari fears. "No," he said gently. "No. There won't be any war unless we start one. The Lhari won't start any war. Believe me." But inwardly, he sweated. What would the Lhari do?
Bart looked at his red-tipped claws in ill-concealed horror, but it was lost in a general gasp of consternation, for Vorongil had flung the drive room door open, taking in the scene in one blistering glance. "What's going on down here?" For the first time, Bart understood Vorongil's reputation as a tyrant.
Bart stood waiting, feeling empty and cold. Vorongil's stare baffled him with unreadable emotion. "You fool, you unspeakable young idiot!" Raynor One groaned. "Why did you blurt it out like that before every news media in the galaxy? Why, we could have had a monopoly on the star-drive Eight Colors and Vega Interplanet!"
"I don't like to run it that close." Vorongil's face was bitten deep with lines. He turned to Ramillis, head of Maintenance. "Do we need spare parts? Or just general repairs?" "Just repairs, sir. We have plenty of shielding metal. It's a long job to get through the hulls, but there's nothing we can't fix." Vorongil flexed his clawed hands nervously, stretching and retracting them.
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