The next day, Eliot told Alahnso that he needed to return to his ship to start work on repairs. He had been planning to take only Jabez with him, but Alahnso quickly made him to understand that this was not an option. In the end, Munkustrap and Admeetus escorted Eliot and Jabez back to the Phantom, then Munkustrap left, saying that Admeetus could bring them back when he heard the hunters returning. The three of them went up to the tiny bridge; Eliot sat down at the console while Jabez leaned over his shoulder and Admeetus reclined, cat-like, in the doorway.
"The first thing we need to do," Eliot said, to no one in particular, "is figure out where we are." He tapped a few buttons and a star chart appeared on the screen in front of him. "Now, here's where we were when we hit hyperspace, and this was roughly our trajectory…" Eliot traced a path through the stars with his finger as they slowly scrolled sideways. "So we went……there!" He stopped the scroll feature. "These are the stars I saw last night."
"So where does that put us?" Jabez asked skeptically.
"It puts us…" Eliot studied the names of the stars and his pale face turned even paler. "It puts us right on the edge of Ungai space," he groaned.
"What?" Jabez cried, looking for himself. "Oh, no!"
Eliot leaned back and rubbed his unshaven chin thoughtfully. "I've done business with the Ungai before," he said musingly. "They can be damn ruthless when they want to be, and their allies, the Unlai, aren't much better. I'd sooner cut my own throat before I asked any of them for help. So I'm not going to try sending out a distress signal."
Jabez watched as Eliot called up sensor readings on the outlying areas and began perusing them. "So what are we going to do?" he demanded.
"Hmmmm," Eliot murmured half to himself. "I wonder when the Ungai were figuring on getting their ugly butts over here to chart this area."
"How do you know they haven't?" Jabez asked, glancing suspiciously over at Admeetus, who was grooming himself and took no notice.
"Well, I'm not sure how current Pelh'Su kept his maps," Eliot admitted, speaking of the Phantom's previous owner, "but I'm pretty sure the Ungai haven't discovered this planet yet."
"Why's that?"
"Because there's a mountain range about fifty kilometers or so away," Eliot observed, "that is chock full of gold and titanium ores. The Ungai would kill to have it."
"Really?" Jabez leaned forward to see. "Wow!" he said quietly, dropping into the co-pilot's chair.
Eliot flicked off the monitor and turned to Admeetus. "Hey, have you guys ever had any otherworldly visitors, besides us, I mean?"
Admeetus cocked his head and stared silently at Eliot. "Maybe he doesn't understand our language, El," Jabez suggested.
"Well, everyone else can, it seems," Eliot said in annoyance. "In fact, Munkustrap talked like there have been other aliens here and that's how they learned to speak our language in the first place."
"There have been other off-worlders," Admeetus rumbled. It was the first time they had heard him speak; he had a voice like a bull clearing its throat.
"What did they look like?" Eliot asked. "I mean, did they look like Terrans, like us?"
Admeetus looked at them long and hard then shook his head. "Not…exactly like you. They were furless except on their heads, but their ears were different…bigger, and their skin was blue, not pink. They all wore strange masks over the lower halves of their faces. I know they were masks because they got knocked off once, and the aliens started gasping like they could not breathe."
"Shalins," Eliot and Jabez said together.
"The atmosphere here is about like Terra's," Eliot observed, "with less than 0.1% CO2."
"That would definitely send a Shalin into respiratory distress," Jabez nodded. "Well, at least we know the Shalins wouldn't tell the Ungai about this unspoiled planet."
"Yeah, they'd want to keep it for themselves," Eliot said cynically. He didn't hold the mostly aristocratically run people of Shalis in very high regard. "Anyway, who says that they're the only ones?"
"They are the only ones that I remember," said Admeetus.
Eliot shrugged. "Hmm, well, Jabe, why don't you head down and check on the…cargo, then meet me in the engine room."
Admeetus straightened up as Jabez walked off the bridge. Munkustrap had instructed him to keep watch over the Terrans, but how was he to do that if they split up?
Eliot interrupted his thoughts, "Admeetus, you might as well come with me to the engine room; I may need your help." Eliot didn't really think that the giant Coricat would be much help, but he sure didn't want him roaming around loose on his ship.
Eliot was dismayed to find the engine room in complete disarray, more so than usual, anyway. The fire had started in one of the access panels and spread to the nearest plasma conduit before it could be contained. The ship's emergency system had long since pumped out the escaped plasma and cooled the overheated bulkhead, but there was plenty of incinerated debris, and the area where the fire had started had a considerable amount of carbon scoring.
Hardly knowing where to begin, Eliot walked over to the control panel to look at the damage report. A sound of groaning metal made him look up in time to see a tortured metal beam pull away from its support and come swinging down toward him. He barely had time to scream before Admeetus leaped forward and caught the beam in its descent. Then he stood there, holding this impossibly heavy piece of metal in his hands as if it were nothing, looking quizzically at Eliot.
"Uh, just set it down, Admeetus. Gently, please!" Eliot said as soon as he was able.
"God, Eliot, are you okay?" Jabez asked, coming into the engine room.
"Uh, yeah," Eliot mumbled as he struggled to regain his composure. "Just scared me out of a year's growth, that's all."
"It must have happened many times before this, then," Admeetus observed blandly.
Eliot indignantly drew himself up to his full height (170 cm), and glaring up at the nearly two meter tall Coricat, opened his mouth to deliver a retort, but Jabez got in ahead of him, asking, "Was that a joke?"
Admeetus cocked his head and gave them a look of wide-eyed innocence. "I'm not sure," Eliot muttered. "How's the cargo?"
"Oh, everything seems to be intact," Jabez assured him. "There was practically no damage to the cargo bay."
"Good, it's bad enough having to explain to Jorath why we're late with his…stuff," Eliot said. "I'd hate for it to be damaged, too."
"El, do you really think you can get the Phantom off this planet without outside help?" Jabez asked. "She looks pretty bad."
"Hey, I've gotten this old ship out of worse scrapes than this," Eliot protested.
"Name one example," Jabez challenged him.
Eliot found that he was stumped. "Uh, well, I can't think of one right now--"
"I thought so!" Jabez interjected.
"--but it shouldn't be too hard to get the Phantom up and running again. Anyway, we're not going to get anything done by arguing, so let's get to work." Eliot paused for a moment to scan the damage report. "Well, the hyperdrive is burned out, but that's not exactly top priority right now. Let's start with the antigrav; without that we won't even get off the ground."
So Eliot and Jabez set to work, with Admeetus helping where he could. The sun was starting to set outside the ship when Admeetus announced that it was time to return. Eliot was well into his repairs and was reluctant to stop, but Admeetus was insistent. The Terrans managed to take quick showers and change clothes before they left for what they had come to think of as the feasting hall.
©1999 Delilah