The Witches of Karres Read Online Free PDF

after leaving the capital was going to deplete the Venture's reserves. They would have to juice up...
    A large, extremely handsome Sirian freighter lay beside them at the moon station. It was half a battlecraft really, since it dealt regularly beyond the borders. They had to wait while it was being serviced; and it took a long time. The Sirians turned out to be as unpleasant as their ship was good-looking, a snooty, conceited, hairy lot who talked only their own dialect and pretended to be unfamiliar with Imperial Universum.
    The captain found himself getting irked by their bad manners, particularly when he discovered they were laughing over his argument with the service superintendent about the cost of repowering the Venture.
    "You're out in deep space, Captain," said the superintendent. "And you haven't juice enough left even to travel back to the border. You can't expect Imperial prices here!"
    "It's not what you charged them!" The captain angrily jerked his thumb at the Sirian.
    The superintendent shrugged. "Regular customers. You start coming by here every three months like they do, and we can make an arrangement with you, too. "
    It was outrageous; it actually put the Venture back in the red. But there was no help for it.
    Nor did it improve the captain's temper when he muffed the take-off once more; and then had to watch the Sirian floating into space, as sedately as a swan, a little behind him.
TWO
     
    an hour later, as he sat glumly at the controls, debating the chances of recouping his losses before returning to Nikkeldepain, Maleen and the Leewit hurriedly entered the room. They did something to a port screen.
    " They sure are!" the Leewit exclaimed. She seemed childishly pleased.
    "Are what?" the captain inquired absently.
    "Following us," said Maleen. She did not sound pleased. "It's that Sirian ship, Captain Pausert!"
    The captain stared bewilderedly at the screen. There was a ship in focus there. It was quite obviously the Sirian and, just as obviously, it was following them.
    "What do they want?" he wondered. "They're stinkers but they're not pirates. Even if they were, they wouldn't spend an hour running after a crate like the Venture."
    The Leewit observed, "Got their bow turrets out now ! Better get those nova guns ready!"
    "But it's all nonsense!" the captain said, flushing angrily. He turned towards the communicators. "What's that Sirian general beam length?"
    " Point zero zero four four, " said Maleen.
    A roaring, abusive voice flooded the control room immediately. The one word understandable to the captain was " Venture." It was repeated frequently.
    "Sirian," said the captain. "Can you understand them?" he asked Maleen.
    She shook her head. "The Leewit can." The Leewit nodded, grey eyes glistening.
    "What are they saying?"
    "They says you're for stopping," the Leewit translated rapidly, apparently retaining some of the original sentence structure. "They says you're for skinning alive . . . ha! They says you're stopping right now and for only hanging. They says— "
    Maleen scuttled from the control room. The Leewit banged the communicator with one small fist.
    "Beak-wock!" she shrilled. It sounded like that anyway. The loud voice paused a moment.
    "BEAK-Wock?" it returned in an aggrieved, startled tone.
    "Beak-Wock!" the Leewit affirmed with apparent delight. She rattled off a string of similar-sounding syllables.
    A howl of inarticulate wrath responded. The captain, in a whirl of outraged emotions, was yelling at the Leewit to shut up, at the Sirian to go to Great Patham's Second Hell—the worst—and wrestling with the nova gun adjust e rs at the same time. He'd had about enough! He'd—
    SSS whoosh!
    It was the Sheewash Drive.
    "And where are we now?" the captain inquired, in a voice of unnatural calm.
    "Same place, just about," the Leewit told him. "Ship's still on the screen. Way back though—take them an hour again to catch up." She seemed disappointed; then brightened. " You got lots of time