The Winds of Time
He contracted for a charter trip—
but the manwho hired his spacer wasn't quite a man,
itturned out—and he wanted more than service!
by James H. Schmitz
Illustrated by Brotman
Gefty Rammer came along thenarrow passages between the SilverQueen's control compartment and thestaterooms, trying to exchange thehaggard look on his face for one ofcompetent self-assurance. There wasnothing to gain by letting his twopassengers suspect that during thepast few minutes their pilot, the ownerof Rammer Spacelines, hadbeen a bare step away from plain andfancy gibbering.
He opened the door to Mr. Maulbow'sstateroom and went inside. Mr.Maulbow, face very pale, eyes closed,lay on his back on the couch, still unconscious.He'd been knocked outwhen some unknown forces suddenlystarted batting the Silver Queen's turnip-shapearound as the Queen hadnever been batted before in hereighteen years of spacefaring. KerimRuse, Maulbow's secretary, knelt besideher employer, checking his pulse.She looked anxiously up at Gefty.
"What did you find out?" she askedin a voice that was not very steady.
Gefty shrugged. "Nothing definiteas yet. The ship hasn't been damaged—she'sa tough tub. That's one goodpoint. Otherwise ... well, Iclimbed into a suit and took a lookout the escape hatch. And I saw thesame thing there that the screensshow. Whatever that is."
"You've no idea then of what'shappened to us, or where we are?"Miss Ruse persisted. She was a rathersmall girl with large, beautiful grayeyes and thick blue-black hair. At themoment, she was barefoot and in asleeping outfit which consisted ofsomething soft wrapped around hertop, soft and floppy trousers below.The black hair was tousled and shelooked around fifteen. She'd beenasleep in her stateroom when somethingsmacked the Queen, and shewas sensible enough then not toclimb out of the bunk's safety fielduntil the ship finally stopped shudderingand bucking about. Thatmade her the only one of the threepersons aboard who had collected nobruises. She was scared, of course, buttaking the situation very well.
Gefty said carefully, "There're anumber of possibilities. It's obviousthat the Queen has been knocked outof normspace, and it may take sometime to find out how to get her backthere. But the main thing is that theship's intact. So far, it doesn't look toobad."
Miss Ruse seemed somewhat reassured.Gefty could hardly have saidthe same for himself. He was a qualifiednormspace and subspace pilot. Hehad put in a hitch with the FederationNavy, and for the past eightyears he'd been ferrying his own twoships about the Hub and not infrequentlybeyond the Federation'sspace territories, but he had neverheard of a situation like this. What hesaw in the viewscreens when the shipsteadied enough to let him pick himselfoff the instrument room floor,and again, a few minutes later andwith much more immediacy, from theescape hatch, made no sense—seemedsimply to have no meaning. Thepressure meters said there was a vacuumoutside the Queen's skin. Thatvacuum was dark, even pitch-blackbut here and there came momentarysuggestions of vague light and color.Occasional pinpricks of brightnessshowed and were gone. And therehad been one startling phenomenonlike a distant, giant explosion, a suddenpallid glare in the dark, whichappeared far ahead of the Queen and,for the instant it remained in sight,seemed to be rushing directly towardsthem. It had given Gefty the feelingthat t