Hilda - Lycadea by Paul Kater Page A

we don't want folks snooping
around and touching things they ought not, so I planted some
'memories' in their heads. Nothing bad, just adequate."
    The wizard frowned at the tactics Rebel and
Moro employed and the ethics behind those, but the woman in leather
did not give him time to let his thoughts roam. She walked to a
wall that suddenly contained a door. She opened it and invited
William in.
    "Holy Bejeebus."
    The steering hut, as Rebel had called it,
looked like a smoky bar. Maurizio was dressed in white pants and a
yellow shirt that was mostly unbuttoned. He hung over a pool table
that was in the middle of the bar and his face showed extreme
concentration to lay down a good shot. Several men sat and hung
around the pool table and the bar on the far left. Smoke hung in
the air, although William did not smell it. Several ladies,
probably of negotiable affection, were sitting at the bar also,
sipping too brightly coloured drinks. One of them, in a very skimpy
dress, stood near a large Wurlitzer jukebox. She clearly tried to
evoke some music from the thing.
    "Who are these people? And where are we?"
    Rebel laughed. "Moro has his hang-out show on
again. These people are holograms, as are most of the objects in
this thing. Just the table is real. And we are."
    A clank and a curse told everyone that
Maurizio had messed up the shot. He threw the pool queue on the
table and turned to the visitors. "Ah, welcome. Good to see you,
William. How do you like it here?" He waved his hand generously
along the bar, his eyes lingering with the holographic ladies for
quite a while. With a sigh he looked at William again. "The real
steering hut looks so... boring," he said by way of an apology, as
one of the holographic pool players stood shouting at him,
threatening to hit him with a queue.
    "It is... different." That was the best thing
William came up with.
    As the suddenly silently shouting pool player
swung a queue through the captain, Maurizio moved a few of the
balls on the table and suddenly the scenery changed. The bar and
the ladies changed into a large array of what probably were
computers, complete with blinking lights. The posters that had
shown movie ads of Humphrey Bogart and Marlene Dietrich now were
huge displays that showed scribbles William could not make sense
of. And the table was now a dull grey desk with a kind of computer
terminal totally unfit for human manipulation.
    "See what I mean?"
    William saw. The bar, he agreed, was
better.
    Maurizio and Rebel showed him the bits of the
room they had figured out so far, which was scarily little. William
had the feeling that the Mimosa had a mind of its own and went
where it pleased, and the people on the ship were just on it for
the ride.
    Quite soon they were in the lounge again,
where they had had their first proper talk. When Hilda was still
there, William thought wryly. Whatever the two tried, they did not
succeed in cheering him up. Even the drinks that changed colour
faster than a chameleon didn't make him feel better.
    "Sorry for being a grouch," the wizard said
as he got up. "I am not in the mood to be cheerful."
    Maurizio, wearing his black pants, red coat
and eye patch again, nodded. "I understand. Rebel might also. We
are doing what we can, William."
    William nodded. "I'm going back to the deck."
As he went there, the two cats followed him like small shadows, and
just as silent. Out on the deck he summoned his broom and as he got
on it, the two cats shared the spot on the bristle. He flew to the
bow, where the large crystal was. The thing sparkled in the
fireworks of stars they passed.
    He sat down on the black floor, the two cats
sitting and looking at him. "So what do you think, guys, can this
wizard make the ship go any faster? Is that a good thing to try
even, I am not sure if anyone has a clue whether we're going in the
right direction or not?"
    Obsidian and Grimalkin looked at each other
for a moment, then looked up at William again. "Meowww," they
voiced their