Read Online The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz - Free Book Online Page B

the three beacon signals he'd picked up. When he located the corresponding star maps they told him within a lightday where the ship had to be at present.
    In spite of everything else that had happened, he simply didn't believe it at first. It was impossible! He went through the checking procedure again. And then there was no more doubt.
    There were civilized worlds indicated on those maps of which he had never heard. There were other names he did know--names of worlds which had played a role, sometimes grandly, sometimes terribly, in galactic history. The ancient names of world so remote from Nikkeldepain's present sphere of commercial interest that to him they seemed like dim legend. Goth's run on the Sheewash Drive had not simply moved them along the Imperial borders be yond the area of the official charts. It had taken them back into the Empire, then all the way through it and out the other side--to Galactic East of the farthest eastern provinces. They were in a territory where, as far as the captain knew, no ship from Nikkeldepain had come cruising in over a century.
    He stood looking out the viewscreens a while at the unfamiliar crowded stars, his blood racing as excitement continued to grow in him. Here he was, he thought, nearly as far from the stodginess of present-day Nikkeldepain as if he had, in fact, slipped back through the dark centuries to come out among lost worlds of history, his only companion the enigmatic witch-child sleeping off exhaustion in the captain's cabin...
    About him he could almost sense the old ship, returned to the space roads of her youth and seemingly grown aware of it, rise from the miasma of brooding gloom which had settled on her after they left Karres, shaking herself awake, restored to adventurous life-ready and eager for anything.
    It was like coming home to something that had been lost a long while but never really forgotten.
    Something eerie, colourful, full of the promise of the unexpected and unforeseen-and somehow dead right for him!
    He sucked in air, turned from the screens to take the unused star maps and other materials back to the storage. His gaze swung over to the communicators. A small portable lamp stood on the closer of the two, its beam fixed on the worktable below it.
    The captain gave the lamp a long, puzzled stare. Then he scowled and started towards it, walking a little edgily, hair bristling, head thrust forwardsomething like a terrier who comes suddenly on a new sort of vermin which may or may not be a dangerous opponent.
    There was nothing wrong or alarming about the lamp's appearance. It was a perfectly ordinary utility device, atomic-powered, with a flexible and extensible neck, adjustable beam, and a base which, on contact, adhered firmly to bulkhead, deck, machine, or desk, and could be effortlessly plucked away again. During the months he'd been travelling about on the Venture he'd found many uses for it. In time it had seemed to develop a helpful and friendly personality of its own, like a small, unobtrusive servant.
    At the moment its light shone exactly where he'd needed it while he was studying the maps at the worktable. And that was what was wrong! Because he was as certain as he could be that he hadn't put the lamp on the communicator. When he'd noticed it last, before going to the storage, it was standing at the side of the control desk in its usual place. He hadn't come near the desk since,
    Was Goth playing a prank on him? It didn't seem quite the sort of thing she'd do... And now he remembered--something like twenty minutes before, he was sitting at the table, trying to make out a half-faded notation inked into the margin of one of the old maps. The thought came to him to get the lamp so he'd have better light. But he'd been too absorbed in what he was doing and the impulse simply faded again.
    Then, some time between that moment and this, the better light he'd wanted was produced for him strengthening so gently and gradually that, sitting there at