The Sinners of Erspia

She rolled over, retching. For some moments Laedo was torn between what he wanted to do and what he knew he must do. What he wanted to do was to get hold of Histrina and subject her to the worst experiences a totally depraved mind could devise. In the end, he did what he knew he should do. He moved a control wheel, and the ship swung aside.

Out of the path of the beam.

He sank to the floor, holding his head in his hands. Nausea overwhelmed him. It was as though a spring of evil-smelling liquid, that had soaked his feelings and driven him crazy, was draining back to where it had come from, into his censored unconscious, no longer prodded and awakened by Ahriman's lance.

Histrina did not calm down quite so quickly. When her pain abated she continued to make animal-like gestures, clawing the air with her hands as though to strike at him, and hissing like a snake. But after a few minutes her gestures became mechanical and empty, then ceased altogether.

“Do you feel any better?” Laedo asked.

She nodded.

“We were too close to Ahriman,” he explained, noting as he spoke that her eyes still gleamed in a rather unpleasant way. “He was too strong for us. Ormazd's influence is so weak out here."

He adjusted the screen. The Ahrimanic sphere appeared in side view, the chute-like shaft projecting from it like the barrel of a gun.

He wondered what flying up the Ormazdian beam would be like. Paroxysms of benevolence, perhaps.

Carefully he scrutinized the sphere for some sign of an entrance, and spotted a circular crack that was, possibly, a hatch. If it would open he could presumably get inside without exposing himself to thought projection again. But he realized that his action in coming here had lacked discrimination, had been too subjective. He was now frightened of what he might find inside the Ahrimanic stronghold.

The sphere of Ormazd sounded safer.

He turned the ship away and set a course for the opposite side of Erspia. As they passed out of shadow the sun became visible, glaring against the stars.

“Don't worry, we'll be all right,” he told her without conviction. “We're going to Ormazd instead."

“Why are you doing this?"

As succinctly as was practicable, Laedo explained that he was seeking help to escape from Erspia and return to the world he had come from. “Or rather, worlds,” he ended. “There are hundreds of inhabited ones out there, all of them a hundred times bigger than the one you know. You'll like it, Histrina. Erspia is like never leaving your own back yard. It's amazing you've turned out as bright as you are."

He could see the idea appealed to her.

The sun grew near, and the viewscreen automatically tuned down its increasing brilliance. Laedo took care to stay clear of the thought cone, and soon found himself facing a ribbed, striated globe that was, to appearances, identical to the one he had just left.

He pondered on how to gain entrance. There was a ploy for such situations which often worked on human space vehicles, but there was no clue as to whether this one was of human or alien manufacture.

The ploy was to hurl a mass of radio signals at the lock, if there was one, which would often respond by opening. Laedo had a recording of the most likely signals (such items could be purchased at any space port for a paltry sum) and he fed it into his transmitter.

Hopefully he edged his ship closer to the hatch. The sphere itself was large; several times the size of his own ship, and larger, in fact, than a decent-sized cargo vessel. Large enough, he reminded himself, to be manned.

At first nothing happened. Then the hatch began to rotate. Instead of withdrawing or projecting, however, it seemed to roll aside, leaving a gaping pit.

“Karaka!” Laedo cried.

Histrina frowned. “What?"

“We hit the spot.” Laedo had been quoting from a numbers game. He put out landing legs so the ship could grip the wall of the sphere, then put down. He found he didn't need to use sticky-extrusion: the sphere was magnetically permeable and the legs were able to clamp on it that way.

Opening a locker, he took out a suit and a weapon. “You stay here,” he told Histrina. “I'm going to take a look."

“No! Don't leave me on my own!"

He held up the suit. “There's no air out there. You have to wear one of these to breathe. You'll be scared."

“No, I won't."

He sighed, took out a spare suit and threw it to her. “Get into it, then."

Fastening up the slim suit for her, and connecting her to him by a line in case she lost her footing and went floating off into space, he led her through the passageway airlock. They stepped down onto the metal surface of the sphere.

Histrina was not reassured by the lifeline. She floundered, and then panicked on seeing herself surrounded by such a strange and alien environment. Laedo took her arm and guided her to the entrance, showing her how to place her feet so that she wouldn't cast herself adrift.