The Unreasoning Mask

  Ramstan paced again, then stopped. Frowning, he started toward the bulkhead area, holding the electron-microscope. Something had been bothering him, nibbling mice at the periphery of his mind. Only now did he realize what it was. The lighting was less bright than it should have been.

  He called the bridge. "Tenno, is there anything wrong. . . ? I mean, any indications of a power malfunction, for instance?"

  "Not that we've noticed here, sir. But I'll call the engineers. May I ask why you ask?"

  "Just check."

  He could not bring Indra to his quarters to look for a malfunction in the neural system. Troubleshooting might lead Indra to the safe. If Indra was then forbidden to open it, he would get suspicious.

  He spoke to the glyfa. "For the sake of Allah, what happened here? Tell me! You must know if someone's been here!"

  He could hear only his rasping breath.

  There was one thing to check before he used the microscope. He told al-Buraq to run off the monitor. A screen glowed immediately, though not as brightly as it was supposed to. He groaned. No video! Somebody had erased it! And he shouldn't have been able to do so!

  He started again towards the bulkhead in which the microscope was. But he whirled, went to the table on which the glyfa was, and turned the a-g units on its ends to zero power. He gripped the egg and lifted it easily.

  His cry rang out.

  "It's a fake!"

  ... 15 ...

  The lighting dimmed and was gone.

  He called the bridge. No reply.

  Feeling along the bulkhead, he located the slight protuberance that indicated the cabinet holding the flashlights. But his order to ship to open it up was not obeyed.

  He swore again, and he called out the order to make an exit for him. Again, no response.

  Someone had entered and then arranged for the malfunction, perhaps through an anesthetic or a controlled-rate drug. Or the drug might have been injected first and the person had entered. He or she . . . or it . . . might also have mixed a hypnotic with the anesthetic. Or perhaps there had been no drug, but the sabotager had somehow hypnotized al-Buraq.

  No time for speculation now. He should get the pseudo-glyfa back into the safe. The bulkhead wouldn't close now, but he would have it ready to be closed.

  He put the egg into the bag, and he groped to the opposite bulkhead and felt around until he located the hole. When the egg was in the hole, he walked slowly, his hands out, back to the table. He gripped its edges as if he could squeeze photons from it. The darkness seemed to have smothered all the light in the world. The air moved slowly over his sweating face and hands. He could hear only the blood rushing through him and the singing of silence.

  If all of ship were drugged, obviously malfunctioning, Indra and his engineers would be troubleshooting furiously. It wouldn't take them long to find out what was wrong and to fix it.

  Meanwhile, whoever had taken the glyfa would be long gone. He sweated even more heavily.

  If al-Buraq had been operating fully, the humidity in the quarters would have been dropped and the air would have gotten cooler.

  "Iblis take this bio-ship!"

  His voice sounded hollow and faraway to him.

  There were many advantages to a biological spaceship, but now the disadvantages were too obvious. The designers had not thought of saboteurs or of a crewmember going mad.

  He pounded the table top with his fists, allowing himself a lack of control he would never have shown anybody under any circumstances he could envision. Or to himself under different circumstances. But, here in this dark, silent hollow, he could behave like a baby.

  As his fist struck, he caught a flash of green out of the corner of his left eye. He jumped back from the table, his hands still balled. Green? He could see color in this total darkness?

  No. He hadn't really seen it. He couldn't have. Not his eyes but his mind had glimpsed the green.

  Why?

  He thought of the green-clothed man whom he'd identified as al-Khidhr or Luqman or Elijah or all three as the same, though there was no proof that the green man was any one of them.

  It was his brain that had originated that slash of color in the blackness around him. Just as, if he were to bump his head, he might see white or colored "stars" for a second or two. Explosions of asterisks or comets caused by nerves firing impulses caused by a too-hard contact with real things. But he had not struck his head against anything. His fists had been beating the table, but that couldn't account for the parenthesis of green. A thin, curving zip of color . . . perhaps not so much a parenthesis as a scimitar.

  Or the edge of a turban or cloak.

  The edge of the green iris of an eye of a man wearing green?

  He waited. He did not see the flash again. Nevertheless, he had an overpowering feeling that someone else was in his quarters.

  He bellowed, "Who's there?"

  Silence.

  "Is it you?" he yelled, not knowing whom he meant by you .

  He listened and looked, turning his head so he could sweep one hundred and eighty degrees and then turning his body to take In three hundred and sixty.

  He thought, or thought he thought, that he saw something very pale green. But surely that was a ghost of a ghost, a reflection of an image of an image. Imagination supplying something to back up its reality.

  Something spoke to him.

  His mother's voice? The voice stimulated by the glyfa?

  No. It had to be something he'd wished. It was so far-off, so thin, so . . .

  The darkness began to pale. Then he could make out objects dimly as if he were deep under water and light was seeping through the surface of the ocean far above him.

  Abruptly, full brightness swept through the chamber. Tenno's voice came. "Captain?"

  "Here!" he shouted.

  At the same time, he thought, Where is here?

  The answer, of course, was, where I am.

  "What happened?"

  "We don't know yet, sir," Tenno said. "But Doctor Indra thinks that someone drugged ship."

  Ramstan said, "Put out an ACRS. I want everybody back in ship in ten minutes. Check them out as they come in."

  He paused. "Is Commodore Benagur in his quarters?"

  He could have asked al-Buraq directly, but protocol demanded that he go through the executive officer.

  Tenno must have checked quickly. He said, "Yes, sir, he is."

  Ramstan called Indra. The dark hawkish face was distressed.

  "Yes, it's a drug. It was carried through the circulatory system, and its point of injection is the bulkhead outside your quarters. The traces of drug are being analyzed right now."

  How had the drugger learned the code words?

  Perhaps the drug had uninhibited al-Buraq so much that she revealed codes when the intruder had asked for them. Or perhaps she hadn't done that. Perhaps the intruder had just overridden the codes with a direct order to open.

  He made up new code words and gave them to ship. The deck quivered under him as ship, in a manner of speaking, wagged her tail.

  Ramstan stopped as he headed toward the exit.

  "Allah!"

  The glyfa knew the code words. It had "heard" him speak them many times. What if it had summoned one of the crew and made him carry it away? Or, now that he thought of how the Tenolt guards had not seemed to know he was in the temple, what if a non-Terran had entered and removed the glyfa with its help?

  He would never know what happened unless he got the glyfa back. And perhaps not then.

  Why should he worry about the glyfa? He was rid of it. He no longer had to carry the burden of its presence. As time passed, he would be able to shed his guilt. There would be times when he would burn with it, but the pain would lessen. From now on, he could act as the captain of al-Buraq should. Though he might never entirely forgive himself, he need not carry out every act with consideration of the glyfa darkening it.

  "Let it go!" he said aloud.

  He had the exit opened
, and he stepped out into the passageway.

  Down the right-hand bulkhead of the corridor raced a glowing circle. It stopped just ahead of him, then reversed its direction and matched his pace. Tenno's face was solemn as he said, "The ten minutes are up, sir. Everybody's reported in . . . except one."

  "Who's that?"

  "Lieutenant Branwen Davis, sir."

  Ramstan entered the lift, the circle following him into it and stopping on the door before him.

  "Have you called her?"

  "Yes, sir. She doesn't answer."

  "Just a moment."

  Ramstan spoke the necessary order, and the circle was bisected, half of it showing a reduced image of Tenno and the other the face of Indra.

  "Is ship fully recovered?"

  The engineer lifted his right wrist to one ear. Perhaps he was listening to the time through his skinceiver.

  "My people say she'll be fully operational in ten more minutes, sir. There's still a residue of drug not flushed out yet. It takes time . . ."

  "Notify me the second she's ready."

  Indra's face disappeared. Tenno's swelled to fill the circle. But the lift door opened, and he was in the bridge. He at once asked the exec if he had questioned the crew on Davis's whereabouts.

  "Yes, sir. Everybody's been contacted. Three say they saw her in the port main building for a few minutes."

  Ramstan had to force himself to ask the next question. "Did they say she was carrying a large bag? Or a box? Anything bulky?"

  Tenno looked startled. Those on the bridge who had overheard gave him expressionless glances but some looked at others as if to transmit a silent message.

  "I don't know, sir. I just asked if she'd been seen."

  "Ask them if she was carrying a bag or a box!"

  Tenno put ship on all-phone and did as ordered. Ramstan ordered several search squads out. They were to cover the port and also to question Kalafalans about Davis. Within forty seconds, Tenno made his report.

  "Lieutenant Davis was carrying a box, sir."

  "Al-Khidhr, Isa, and Muhammad!"

  The exclamation was subvocalized; he had enough control not to show his panic.

  If Davis was the one who'd taken the glyfa, why hadn't she accepted his invitation to bed? She could have seen his quarters in order to better her plans. She could have tried to get the code words out of him. She'd have failed, but surely she would have made the attempt.

  But then she probably thought that getting into his cabin wasn't necessary. Nor had it been.

  Who had put her up to this?

  He mastered his rage, sickness, and fear. He said, "Send out two more search parties. Post two people where they can observe the Tolt ship."

  A minute later, a CPO reported from the port tavern.

  "Sir, a Kalafalan says she saw an Earthwoman who was carrying a box go into the hotel."

  Ramstan ordered Tenno to have two jeeps with marines armed with olsons only ready to go within two minutes.

  "I'll be in command. We're going to the hotel. Call in the search parties. Put ship on emergency take-off status, alaraf drive. As soon as I get back, we'll depart."

  Tenno swallowed and said, "May I ask what this is all about?"

  "I don't have time for explanations now," Ramstan said. "Be ready!"

  He strode to the lift. If he caught Davis and brought the glyfa back with her, what then? She would reveal what she had done and why, and he could not deny that he had taken the glyfa from the Tolt temple. He'd be arrested.

  He stepped out of ship. The bright sun was sliding down the final quarter of unclouded, pinkish sky. The air was delightfully fresh even though strained through his mask. Far to the west, black was building up on the horizon, a storm charging in from the ocean. It was a beautiful serene view with a hint of something sinister coming -- typically Kalafalan in scenery and psychology.

  The marine sergeant in command saluted. Ramstan looked briefly at the armed and masked men, got into the back seat of the front jeep, strapped himself in, and said, "To the hotel." The jeep rose to an altitude of 12 meters and began accelerating.

  As yet, Ramstan had not ordered that any Tolt accompanied by Davis or any with a large box be intercepted. He was certain that an attempt to stop them would meet with vigorous resistance. There would be shooting. Then what? Would the Tolt ship attack al-Buraq? Probably. He would have put ship and crew in unnecessary danger. He'd be responsible for the deaths of many and for the wipeout, perhaps, of al-Buraq.

  Why did he not just call off the search? He'd told himself that he was fortunate to be rid of the glyfa. He should have thought of some excuse to leave Kalafala. Branwen Davis would be marked down as a deserter.

  He sighed deeply. Despite his original intentions, he was lusting for the glyfa. He had to have it back. Yet, he couldn't explain to himself why he must.

  Perhaps, somehow, he could get the glyfa without altercation and could get rid of Branwen. He didn't have the slightest idea how this could be arranged nor did he genuinely believe it could be. Nevertheless, he would try.

  Then he reared up against the restraining magnetic field, his hands pressed to his ears. The hands did not diminish the noise or his pain.

  He screamed and he could hear his cry, though he should not have been able to do so.

  The vast whistling sounded as if the very fabric of space-matter was being ripped apart.

  As if the universe was crying out in a death agony.

  ... 16 ...

  The jeep drivers hands were pressed to her ears; her eyes were puddled with agony, and the face under the mask must be contorted. The jeep, its controls released, automatically slowed down and stopped.

  Ramstan strove to overcome the pain from the whistling. He looked around for its origin but saw only that the other marines were also trying to block out the whistling with their palms. Their efforts were as useless as his. All around and below him, the Kalafalans on the street and the hotel steps were clamping their hands against their own ears, their mouths wide open as if they could ease their agony by letting the sound out from their mouths, their eyes also wide open, and their faces twisted, as if the whistling was a wringer through which their faces were being run.

  Many were running headlong, stumbling, bumping into others, knocking them down or themselves falling. Others stood motionless as if turned into pillars of salt

  Some of the marines were screaming and so were many of the Kalafalans. He could hear them clearly through the whistling. Yet that awful noise should have overridden any other sound. That it did not meant that the whistling came from within hinself. No! He was not originating it! That noise came from somewhere, but it was not transmissible in air or flesh; it came from something other than vibrations in the atmosphere.

  "Run, Ramstan, run!"

  The words were those of the voice in the tavern, but the voice was not the same. He did not recognize it.