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What am doing
I
? he cried.
I m looking for you and the others! What are you doing with pirates? And why
didn t you warn me?
I just found out it was you! Wait
There was a change, and
Spillix seemed to be resisting the raider s pull more successfully.
I m feigning difficulty with the others. I can t keep it up long
.
Why didn t you warn me an hour ago, when we were flying together?
Carlyle cried frantically.
What? What are you talking about?
When you&
and suddenly he remembered, that had been a fantasy-
construct of Legroeder& God, he was losing his grip&
never mind.
What s going to happen to us?
You re in trouble, Gev. The man doesn t take many captives. If I m going to
help you we ve got to move fast
.
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What are you doing here, Legroeder?
No choice. And no time and I don t know why you re looking for Janofer
and Skan in Golen space, of all the
They came this way
.
What? Well, why did you ?
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STAR RIGGER S WAY by Jeffrey Carver
Lady Brillig, Legroeder
so we can fly her again!
For that you
Christ, Gev, our chances aren t worth
wait
wait&
The moment seemed to last an hour, and they were drawing very close to
normal-space now. Then the pounding of the drums faltered. Legroeder shouted,
Gev! Go!
Beneath
Spillix
, a ribbon of the raider net broke free and trailed away, exposing a window of
ink-black space. A window for escape.
Carlyle hesitated. There was so much to say! And Legroeder&
GEV, GO! THIS IS IT!
Caharleel!
The escape window was closing. The drums picked up and thundered, booming.
The cynthian didn t wait for Carlyle s decision. Yowling, he kicked, clawed
his nails deep into the Flux, and drove downward with
Spillix on his tail. Carlyle swung, gasping, and almost cartwheeled out of the
net, stomach reeling and he dove, hung onto Cephean, and focused on keeping
Spillix
s net as small and as hard and as dense as he could.
Spillix
flew like a stone. Wind and drums and screaming voices rushed in his ears and
somewhere among them was Legroeder shouting farewell. Carlyle clenched his
eyes to keep the tears in, and they dropped through the hole in the raider s
net just before it sizzled closed, and vacuum hit them with a thunderclap.
Around them was only darkness& and receding, receding screams of anger.
Cephean kept the ship hurtling, spinning. So fierce was his desperation that
he paid no heed to Carlyle or to the pursuing raiders or to direction, except
to plunge back deeper and deeper into the Flux.
The Wall wheeled into view, a shimmering cloud, curling away to the left.
Keep diving, Cephean!
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The cynthian didn t answer. Carlyle held his breath, and the Wall grew before
them, covered with enormous hungry anemones, and
Spillix arrowed straight through the ocean night and into the soft surface of
the Wall, through billowing luminous clouds. The night was lost astern, and so
was the raider, and with it, Legroeder.
They were swimming in eerie chambers of cloud and flowing vapors.
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STAR RIGGER S WAY by Jeffrey Carver
Steer clear of the high-density areas
, Carlyle warned as he finally took up his own reins in the net, with Cephean.
They could be Flux abscess
.
Chamber opened into chamber, with walls of streaming pastel vapor. The
densities he referred to were embedded like cysts in the fluid walls.
Spillix
drifted steadily through the system of chambers.
Good job getting us out of that
, Carlyle choked, thinking of Legroeder.
Odd shudders rippled through his spine. He stretched nervously through the
net, glad for the cynthian s presence to keep him from dwelling on
Legroeder. Cephean, too, was tired and nervous, and they both kept looking
around for signs of pursuit. Carlyle felt that they were safely clear of that
danger, but they were also clear of Legroeder. The time had been so incredibly
short so many things unsaid, unasked, unanswered. They had come so far
looking, and now he was gone.
But Legroeder was a changed man, different from the man who lived in
Carlyle s memory-visions. So abrupt, so forceful, so forward. Even in an
extreme situation, that was not the man Carlyle knew or imagined. Never mind
that he was a pirate. Probably he had risked his life for Carlyle s. It was
doubtful that he could have concealed his actions from the others in the
raider net. Would he return to
Lady Brillig
? Would he even be able to try?
Doubts crowded into Carlyle s mind. Even if he found Janofer and Skan, what
new people and new realities would he discover?
Caharleel, h-where h-are we?
Cephean whispered.
The present intruded again.
I why, I don t know
. Their surroundings were eerily beautiful, whatever they represented. But
though he assumed that they were somewhere within the analogue of the Barrier
Nebula, Carlyle had not the slightest idea of their bearings or position. They
would have to be extremely cautious until they learned more about the nature
of this space. They might avoid one kind of abscess or queered gravitational
effect, only, perhaps, to be taken unawares by another. And there was no
reason to assume that other outlaw ships did not fly or lie in wait in these
peculiar clouds, though why any raider would expect innocent traffic in these
clouds he couldn t imagine. Unless they maintained a base&
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