Free The Chaos Weapon by Colin Kapp Page A

the request was granted frequently justified the presence of the gods on the marshals’ shoulders.
    “Breathe,” said Coul finally.
    “Hullo, Jym! This is Hover. What’s on your mind?”
    “I’m still on Mayo, Cass. I’ve got the Chaos Seer, but lost the patrol-ship. At the moment we’re sitting it out in the crawler, but the local constabulary has elevated unfriendliness to the status of a fine art. What can you do about getting us off?”
    “Hold a second while I check the shipping updates.
Mmm!
Not good. Space Force detected a mass alien breakthrough and put every ship they had about twenty kilo-parsecs out in the galactic drift. Even if they couldspare a cruiser, it couldn’t get to you inside of six days. There’s nothing commercial anywhere near your edge of the Rim. Our best bet is a patrol-craft out from Terra, but that could take ten days. Can you hold out that long?
    “No chance! Without the patrol-ship I can’t even refuel the crawler—leaving aside the niceties of food and rest.”
    “Leave it to me, Jym. I’ll put out an all-service priority call. There’s bound to be some experimental craft around, or a random patrol-scout which isn’t on the updates. Whatever you do, reserve enough power for the radio-beacon, so you can be located from space. How’s he taking all this—the seer?”
    “He’s not a he, he’s a she. Name of Roamer.”
    “Aren’t you overdoing this running-low-on-fuel bit?”
    “Knock it off, Cass. She’s about sixteen.”
    “But she is a Chaos reader?”
    “Pure and natural. I’d have been fried goose if she hadn’t predicted that the patrol-ship was going to blow.”
    “Then clear all lines,” said Hover. “We need that talent fast. The Chaos Weapon just struck at Gannen, and we lost the relativity research ship and some of the best scientific brains in the galaxy.”
    Wildheit added another fifty kilometers to their distance from the city before he decided to stop for the night. In the desert sand, the crawler left broad and easily followed tracks, so he reasoned that only distance could give them relative security from surprise attack. He then closed down all non-essential systems to conserve their dwindling fuel and activated the radio beacon in case Hover’s estimate had been unduly pessimistic.
    Just before dawn, the soft bleep of the beacon’s return signal threw him sharply awake.
    “What’s the matter?” Roamer asked.
    “Spacecraft in the stratosphere. Very likely trying for a landing. I think we’re about to get lucky.”
    He switched on the detectors and watched a spot oflight falling across the screen, while the figures on the digital readout chased each other back and forth like agitated snakes.
    “Landing for sure, but that’s no Service craft. I’ve seldom seen such a haphazard approach mode. At a guess he’s without instruments, blind drunk, and operating the controls with his feet.”
    “Is that bad?” Roamer asked gravely.
    “Well, there’s only one group in space who can be that bad and still survive—and that’s the Rhaqui.”
    “The Rhaqui?”
    “Space gypsies. There’s three or four tribes of them. They wander around in several old spacecraft salvaged from breaking yards. A finer gang of outright villains you’ll never meet. Nobody will give them planet-space, and they’re too lazy to develop a world of their own.”
    From the path of its final trajectory they could tell that the descending spacecraft was nominally homing on their radio beacon. So crazy was the approach mode that Wildheit cancelled the beacon and drove a kilometer or so out of position lest the craft descend on top of them. Finally the huge hulk loomed down out of the sky and made an incredibly prolonged and untidy touchdown on the desert sands.
    “That’s the Rhaqui for sure,” said Wildheit. “We’ll give them till sun-up then go over. It’ll take that long for the ground to cool.”
    At the sight of the first edge of the sun, Wildheit maneuvered