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to decide whether or not to chase it when his instruments showed a tiny punch
and it was gone.
"What was that?" Sabatini asked in wonder.
"The brain of the Val, I'd guess" came the reply. "I never knew anybody who
beat one of these bastards before, so we might be among the first to see that.
Get cracking-I need that hulk broken up into pieces small enough to get us
back on the charts. Remember, there's a second Val around here someplace and
if that little thing that just got away is anything at all it's speeding
someplace to report on all this and call in the big guns. Let's move it!
Besides, if we don't get somewhere where we can link with Star Eagle in a
little while, I'm afraid
I'm gonna die."
They laid out Nagy's body on the deck, but kept him connected to the
interface.
Sabatini disengaged and checked Nagy's condition. "He's in deep shock," he
told the others. "If he's moved or if he disengages, he's dead. I can't even
guarantee anything if he stays hooked up, but at least there won't be any
pain."
Raven shook his head sadly. "Anything that could help him? Anything we could
do, I mean?"
Sabatini chuckled dryly. "I think even the medical kit went overboard, for all
the good it would do. Short of a really good medical center with all its
support stuff, the only hope he's got is a transmitter big enough and
independent enough to do the job. The only one we got is on the Thunder."
Raven sighed. "Yeah, and that's a couple of days away at the minimum. He's not
gonna last that long."
"I can't tell you how this conversation is cheering me up," Nagy said through
the intercom; his own throat was no longer capable of speech. The voice
startled
Raven and Warlock; they had forgotten that the man in bad shape in front of
them was also interfaced with the ship.
"Yeah, well, I'd want it straight and I guess you would, too," Raven replied.
"Hell, I think you know your condition."
"Better than you. I'm pretty torn up inside and I got a punctured lung. I
don't need it spelled out for me. About the only hope I got, let's face it, is
if
Star
Eagle got the emergency message we sent out just before punching into the
middle of nowhere and is coming to the chart position we were in when we sent
it on the off chance we'll double back. According to my calculations, even if
Star Eagle did that and started off immediately, the ship wouldn't be there
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until about a half hour after we get back."
Raven's eyebrows went up. "Then you are doubling back. What if that other Val
is backing up the one we blew to hell back there? We got lucky this once, but
I
ain't sure we could pull that twice."
Sabatini stared at him. "You had the bright idea of doubling back in the first
place."
"Yeah, well, I didn't think it all the way through. It was the best I could
come up with, all things considerin'."
"Well, we had no choice anyway," Nagy told him. "We got as much of the Val
ship's remains as we could, but we're still running pretty low, and it's not
easy to get back on the chart for home from where we wound up. If the Val's
still there, then it is and we'll deal with it, kill or be killed. If it's
not, maybe Star Eagle will come with the Thunder. If nobody's home or showing
up, there's nothing else to do but follow the routine."
Sabatini thought a moment. "Nagy, if it's not there... you don't have to
die-exactly. Not exactly."
Nagy was silent a moment, then realized the nature of the offer. "I'm not too
sure I want to be absorbed. The one thing I got left is my own mind, my
independence. You're not Sabatini-you're an imitation who could mimic Sabatini
exactly if you wanted to but you aren't Sabatini much at all right now and you
wouldn't really be Arnold Nagy, either. You'd have my looks and my memories,
but
I'd kinda like to keep my memories. There are some things a man would rather
let die than tell. No, when I go, if I go, just stick me in the lock and set
me adrift. It's kinda fitting that way."
"Don't talk that way yet!" Raven snapped. "We should all be dead right now
according to all the fancy computers and brains around. If we can't find what
we need, maybe we can figure an angle. You just don't give up, you hear?"
"I never give up," Arnold Nagy responded. "Isn't that obvious by now?"
They hadn't punched very long the last time because of their limited fuel
supply, and even though they had to retrace their path exactly in order to
find the destination once again, it was a matter of long hours, not days. They
were getting used to the process now.
"Kinda funny how this muddles your brain," Raven noted as they waited.
"Huh?" Sabatini was half asleep and looked up, startled. "What?"
"This ridin' in a metal coffin. Hour after hour, day after day sometimes, with
nothin' at all to say or do. Not that I mind the company, but you get talked
out in a day or two and that's that. When you're in the wilderness, out in the
mountains or on the prairies, there's always something. Maybe it's not
conversation, maybe not even real thinkin'-something inside you reacts and
you're at peace even in dangerous territory. Even our damned little island has
some of that. You can always go off into the mountains or sit and look at the
water and feel the breeze on your face. This-this is death. Worse than death.
It's my people's vision of hell. Hawks' nation, now, they have a real strange
theology but out here is supposed to live the Lords of the Middle Dark, whose
domain is defined as a great nothingness. Maybe they're right."
"You could try sleeping," Sabatini grumbled. "Even I must sleep. Only you of
all the people I have ever heard of is immune from that necessity."
"I can sleep on a prairie filled with buffalo, or by the side of a raging
river.
It's this kind of thing that gets to me."
"This is hardly the normal trip. Usually there are books, tapes, learning
programs, computers, and much else to occupy your time or divert your mind.
Some of us like being in space more than we like being with other people."
"Not me. I don't think I'll ever get used to it."
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Nagy's inert body suddenly shook with spasms and he began to cough long and
hard, bringing up blood. They rushed to his side, but there was nothing they
could do, and the attack finally subsided. Nagy wasn't all of it, but he as
part of it, Raven knew. To die here, alone, in this sterile junkheap, and be
cast out into the darkness... it was wrong. All human beings died, the great
and small alike, but he had always envisioned his own death out in the free,
clean air, his body either cremated and scattered or simply allowed to feed
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