However, he had to hold the captain's attention while the Imaget made enough of an impression to maintain the contact.
After a while, the captain would not object to the conversion, if he was even aware of it. It hardly mattered what Jack said, as long as it kept the dialogue going. "Surrender your ship to me. Then I will arrange to have the counteragent delivered, so that the ship survives without crippling damage."
"This is not acceptable. Make another offer."
"Wait it out. Then the ship will crash, and all of us will die.
But you will not have the Imago or its host, and so your mission w. "II be lost."
"There is always an intermediary course. Make another offer."
"I don't seem to be getting through to you," Jack said. "I don't have to dicker for terms. I have the controlling hand. Your only choices are to surrender the ship or die. I will let you live if you yield." Because he had empathy even for the Gaol. He did not like the idea of hurting any living thing, but knew that he had to to win this encounter or many more would suffer.
"I will demonstrate the intermediary course. You will save yourself considerable distress if you issue a message for your associates, to the effect that the situation is in order and you require the antidote immediately. If you do not, you will be captured and required to do so under duress."
"Fat chance, ratcage."
"This is negation?"
"Right."
The screen faded to blank. Then fully mechanical robots appeared around the bubble, using tool appendaes to sever and seal off the various tubular connections it had to other parts of the ship.
The captain had distracted him with the dialogue while he set up his attack on the bubble! Who had been fooling whom? It was ploy and count. A ploy, in a deadly game. But the Imaget was still oriented on the Gaol. How long would it take, telepathically? If they broke in and killed him and the Imaget, the fungus would still disable the ship. But they did not intend to kill him. They were going to torture him to make him give their message. could he resist that?
The robots severed and sealed the last outside connection. Then they simply rolled the bubble to a larger chamber. A coating ot dirt was forming on the outside, which was odd; where would there be dirt in a sealed ship like this? Now Jack saw that similar bubbles enclosed the honkers who had accompanied him. All of them had been captured.
They were going to have him out and under duress very quickly. Too quickly? time was his ally, but how much time did he need? Did the process of conversion take longer by telepathy?
How could he stall, to get enough time?
The robots used what looked like lipstick applicators to mark lines on the outside of the bubble. But when they completed a circle, a panel fell out. Jack's protection was gone.
But he refused to give them any help. When a robot reached an appendage in, he knocked it aside. It was a futile gesture, but one that had to be made.
The robot swung its appendage back toward Jack, but slowly.
Now he saw that it was encrusted with furry growths. The fungus!
Jack avoided the appendage, and it was unable to catch him, even in this confined region, because the fungus interfered with its mechanism. Now he saw that the other robots were similarly overgrown. They might be able to ignore fungus on their exteriors, but it probably was growing in the joints, too, and inside. Wherever it could reach. The same thing would be happening all over the ship.
Now he realized that the dirt on the bubble was also fungus. It was on the walls and floor, too. It was doing its job of spreading.
How long would it be before - it interfered with the major systems of the ship, bringing it down?
Then another robot came. This one was spraying something.
A fungicide! It sprayed the other robots, and they then resumed faster motion. Maybe there wasn't enough of the stuff to douse the whole ship, but that wouldn't help Jack.
Then the motion slowed again. The fungus was growing even faster; he could see it appearing as a thickening film on all the sprayed surfaces. The fungus was now feeding on the fungicide!
But Jack was not yet out of trouble. Human minions came.
Fungus was growing on them, too, or at least on their clothing, but they were functioning. They spoke to Jack in the highly accented English that seemed to be the class-taught second or third language here. "Come out! Or we drag you out!"
Jack was about ready to come out anyway. He climbed through the hole in the bubble. "Now what?" He noticed that there was no fungus on him, not even his inanimate portions, such as hair and nails. It seemed that the same paint that had protected him from the gas was effective against the fungus. The honkers were not about to be hoist in their own petard.
But coated or not, these human minions meant business. One brought out what looked like a set of electric probes. Jack felt a chill; that could be exactly what they were. He knew that electn'c shock could make a lot of pain that didn't show. He didn't know whether he could handle it.
So he made a break for it. He shoved the man with the probes against the one beside him, and charged through the gap in their circle this made. He had no idea where he was going. Just so long as it was anywhere but here.
There was a faint flash. Then he lost his volition. The honker paint did not protect against that device! But why hadn't they used it before?
Jack had stopped where he was, not losing his balance, just having no power to go anywhere on his own initiative. He stood facing away from the other men.
"Turn, " a voice said from a hidden speaker.
Jack turned to face the others-and saw that all of them were turning away from him. What was going on?
"The intruding human being only will respond," the voice said.
Then Jack understood: the flash had nulled the willpower of all of them! That was why they hadn't wanted to use it. It did not differentiate; it affected any human being in the vicinity, making them almost useless. He had forced them to use it, and that had been a reasonably good move.
"Walk. Follow the blue line." A line appeared before him.
Jack walked. The line wound a devious course through the :,hip. Soon Jack was lost; he would never be able to find his way out on his own, even with the good chart of the ship the honkers had provided. Not that he was likely to be given the chance. There was a lot of walking, in a mile-diameter ship! But if he did get his will back, then he could follow the line back to his starting point.
Was there any way to break the hold of the null-volition?
Before, Tappy had been immune, because of the Imaget egg, and then she had gotten him free of it by writing Malva's name as a Gaol symbol on a piece of paper and having him eat it. He still wasn't sure how that worked. But he couldn't do that now.
No pencil. No paper. No Tappy.
But wait! Tappy had been free because of the Imaget egg she carried. Surely the Imaget itself had the same power! So why wasn't he free?
Because the Imaget was otherwise occupied at the moment.
But when it finished that job, it would revert its attention to Jack, and then he should be free. Probably he could get its attention with a strong thought, if he had to. So he had a secret weapon. Maybe.
Meanwhile, he followed the blue line. At one point it spiraled up a curving ramp, and he happened to see behind him. The line had disappeared. It faded out as he moved along it, being clear only ahead. So much for following it back! However, he also saw his footprints in the furry gray coating of fungus on the floor.
Maybe he could follow them instead, if they didn't disappear too rapidly under new growth.