“Are we losing pressure—?”
“No, sir. Not yet. That ballooning must be residual gas.”
Korie flicks a communicator. “Leen! Dammit—why wasn’t the gym secured?!!”
A puzzled chief engineer, “Sir?”
“The gym! Why wasn’t it secured?!!”
“As far as I know, sir, it was.”
“It wasn’t!”
“It wasn’t—??”
“Take a look on your screen. Channel D.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want two men down there immediately. Get that damn thing sealed—and fast.”
“I’m on my way, sir—”
“You stay on station. Send someone else.”
“Yes, sir.”
Korie switches off. Almost immediately, he switches back on. “Why wasn’t that secured in the first place?”
Leen again. “Sorry, sir. I don’t know.”
“Find out—who did you assign to do it?”
“No one, sir. I went myself.”
“You—went—yourself—”
“Yes, sir.”
Korie stops himself from speaking. (No, I can’t put Leen on report—not now. I—we need him.) “Uh—Chief, we’ll have to go over this later.” Very quietly, he says, “Just get it secured now.” He switches off, and very carefully, very slowly, steps back away from the board.
The crewman there looks at him. “Sir—?”
“Give them—five minutes—to secure it—”
“Yes, sir.”
“—and if they can’t get it secured by then—” He weighs his words carefully. “—jettison it.”
“Jettison it. Yes, sir.”
Korie steps back down into the pit, makes his way to his seat. He is pale and almost shaking. The sudden surge of adrenalin in his veins has left him quivering. (Leen, that bastard, I thought I could depend on him—)
After a moment, he straightens, forces himself to be firm again. (Come on, man—it’s only the gym. The real thing is still to come—)
“Eight minutes to approach.”
(Eight minutes—they’ll never get it in that time.) He bounces back up to the horseshoe, hovers nervously over the crewman and his board. On the monitor screen, something can be seen jerking at the plastic, but no progress is being made.
“They’re not going to get it,” he says. “Tell them to stand clear; I’m going to jettison.”
The crewman mumbles something into a mike. After a moment, “They’re clear.”
“All right.” Korie punches at the board. Red lights flash; he snaps two more switches. There is only one way to jettison the gym—inflate it quickly with a small charge of gas under high pressure, then release the pressure collar that holds it fast to the ship. On the monitor, the bulge grows quickly to a sphere.
Behind him, there is a mutter of voices. “What the—”
“Hey! They’re inflating the gym—”
The interior hatch is closed. Korie breaks a locked cover, turns a key—the exploding bolts are armed. A quick check of the board and he presses the button. The gym is cut free; the giant bladder squirts away from the ship. On the screen, it can be seen as a ghostly blur of pale white, reflecting the glare of the single spotlight against the hull of the ship. Like some vast, slow-fluttering butterfly, it swirls out toward the edge of the warp and is gone.
“Damn! There goes the gym,” someone says.
Korie ignores it; he clears the board, punches for a check. All lights flash green. “Your board is clear,” he says to the crewman.
“Thank you, sir.” The man steps back up to it; Korie returns to the pit.
“Four minutes to approach. All stations, stand by.”
As Korie starts to sit down, Brandt whispers to him, “Was that necessary—jettisoning the gym?”
“I think so.”
Brandt considers it. At last, he says, “All right.”
Korie explains, “Perhaps it wasn’t necessary from a security standpoint; the gym alcove and observatory are double-sealed. But it was necessary for disciplinary reasons—it will serve as an example.”
“An example?” Brandt raises a shaggy eyebrow.
“If we’re going to be a battle cruiser, we’d better act like one. Next time, they’ll make sure the gym is secured.”
“Hm,” says Brandt. “An interesting point.” He falls silent, allows Korie to return to his position behind the seat.
“Three minutes,” says Barak. “All stations, prepare for autocontrol.”
“Standing by.”
“Warp factor at 1.1.”
“Right.”
The screens are flickering rapidly; diagrams flash, only to disappear and be replaced by others.
“Ninety seconds.”
“All systems. Last check.”
“Warp control?”
“All green.”
“Power bay?”
“Green.”
“Life support?”
“Go.”
“Engine room?”
“Go.”
“Astrogation?”
“Right on.”
“EDNA—?”
“She says go.”
“Systems check?”
“All on.”
“Go to autocontrol.”
“Fifteen seconds to approach.”
The forward screen remains empty. Red and empty.
“Ten seconds. Stand by.”
“Standing—”
“Five seconds.”
“Autocontrol is green—”
“And go—!”
Somewhere a circuit closes—the Burlingame’s warp alters its shape and—
Now the ship is hurtling down a corridor of space, 174 times the speed of light, visible only on the flashing graphs.
The monitors beep. The screens flicker with lines and streaks, imaginary boundaries drawn by computers, directed by men; lines to mark the range of the battle, lines to give the minds of men something to identify in an otherwise empty environment.
“Radec! Report.”
“Scanning for bogie. No response.”
On the screen ahead, the stress-field grid swells and hurtles past. Korie moves to the center of the pit. In the darkened bridge, the lines streak past him like bullets. He fingers his hand mike impatiently.
“Still scanning,” comes Rogers’ voice. “No response.”
“Six minutes to center,” says Barak. “Scramble pattern standing by.”
The screens flicker-flash. Their bright glare is hellish.
“Still scanning. No response.”
“Five minutes to scramble.”
“No response.”
Flicker-flash. Flicker-flash.
“Still no bogie.”
“All right, already,” mutters Korie, half to himself. “Where is he?”
Brandt is immobile behind him, strobe-lit by the screens. He rumbles. “He should be here—”
The streaking lines on the screens flash to red, then white again.
“What was that—?”
“Just a visual cue, relax.”
The consoles make sounds of their own, as involuntary a process as the sound of a man’s heavy breathing.
“Four minutes.”
“Still scanning. No response.”
“Missile control, stand by.”
“We’re standing—”
And still the lines streak across the screens. The garish images are scribed across the bridge, a shattering, splattering corridor of light.
“Three minutes—”
“Still scanning.”
“Where the hell is that bogie?”
The question remains unanswered. The endless tunnel of emptiness continues to rush past the ship. Korie fumbles at his mike. “Missile crew—”
“We’re still standing, sir.”
The insistent beeping of the monitors digs at Korie’s brain. “Give me a target, already,” he mutters.
“Two minutes.”
“Ra
dec—?”
“Nothing, sir—nothing.”
“We should have spotted him by now.”
“Not if he’s on the other side of the target.” That was Barak.
Korie snaps back, “We’re close enough to see that far—”
Barak doesn’t answer; the empty flashing screen says it for him.
“One minute—”
“Stand by for scramble pattern. Just in case.”
Korie drops into his couch, impatiently. The bridge is a silent tableau; only the screens give the appearance of motion.
“Thirty seconds. Thirty.”
“Radec?”
“Still scanning, sir.”
“Well, where the hell is my bogie, dammit?!!”
“I don’t know, sir. I—”
“Sir—” Barak, speaking to the captain. “—there’s no bogie—”
“Scramble anyway,” says Brandt.
Barak stabs his console. “Scramble!”
For one brief second all the screens flicker-flash out of synch. Suddenly the wild, rushing gridwork is viewed from a dozen different angles; the Burlingame ricochets madly through it.
“Radec!”
Rogers’ voice, almost panicky: “I’m sorry, sir—there’s nothing here!”
“Mr. Barak—” The captain. “Cut the scramble. Go to stationary fields.”
“Yes, sir.”
The screens flash insanely, then—
“End of scramble. Warp velocity zero. Stationary fields.”
The screens are empty. And still. The bridge is strangely silent.
Brandt rumbles, “All hands, stand by.”
A pause; they listen to the stillness. From a dozen mocking angles, the monitors grin down at them, toothless and empty.
Korie is in the pit. He whirls about, staring from screen to screen to screen. Futilely.
All empty. Silent and still.
He looks at Brandt. Brandt looks at Barak. Barak looks at Korie.
Brandt glances from one to the other, takes a breath. “Well, Mr. Korie—it looks like your preparations were in vain.”
Korie opens his mouth; he takes an angry half-step toward Brandt—then stops himself. He looks at Barak. “Radec—?”
Barak looks at his board, then back at Korie. “Check it out—”
Korie says, “I will,” and leaps to the horseshoe and out the back of the bridge—down the corridor and into the narrow radec room. Bridger and Rogers look up startled.
“Get up,” Korie snaps. He drops into Rogers’ seat, clears the board, and punches for a systems check. The panel lights up green.
He hits the intercom. “Systems reliability, I want a full check on all scanning systems—now.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turns his attention back to the board, begins setting up a new scanning procedure. “So help me, Rogers,” Korie breathes, “if that bogie is there and you’ve somehow missed it—”
“Sir,” the intercom cuts in. “Preliminary check shows all systems on and working okay.”
“Cross-circuit and try again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Korie,” says Rogers, “but there’s nothing there—”
The board confirms this. Before him, six monitor screens grin emptily. Korie clears the board, sets up another routine. Still nothing.
Again, the intercom: “Mr. Korie, all scanning systems are within 91 per cent optimum efficiency. Scanning quotient is at ninety-nine.”
Korie doesn’t answer. He sets up one more scan. Impatiently, he waits while the console digests it. Then, one by one, the screens blink—but remain empty.
Korie looks at Rogers, as if seeing him for the first time. He glances back at the screens once more to reassure himself that he has not made a mistake too, then says to the other, “All right, Rogers. You can have your board back.” He levers himself out of the chair.
Rogers waits until the first officer steps past, then slips back into his position at the console. His expression is sullen.
Bridger, a quiet man with a bony face, leans over and touches his arm. “Relax, he didn’t mean anything by it. He just had to see for himself.” Rogers doesn’t reply.
Back in the bridge, both Barak and Brandt look at Korie. “Well—?”
“Nothing.” He slams himself into his couch. “The scanners check out okay.”
“Then the bogie’s gone—” Barak.
Brandt nods slowly. “While we were sneaking in, he was sneaking out.”
“Do you suppose,” says Barak, “that he might have been trying to sneak up on us during the thirty-four hours that we were trying to sneak up on him?”
Korie shakes his head at the thought. Brandt considers it. “It’s possible, but—”
“Mr. Barak,” says Korie. “In the computer, coded under BOGIE, you will find a set of preliminary search patterns, spiraling outward from this point. They’ll cover the activities of this ship for the next nine hours. I would appreciate it if you would set them up on the boards, please.”
Barak looks to Brandt; the captain nods.
“Also in the computer,” Korie continues, “coded under BOGIE II, you will find a search pattern that will cover the next three days of ship’s activities. Would you please set that one up on standby?”
Again Barak looks to Brandt; again the captain nods.
“Also,” Korie adds, “you will find supplementary search programs coded under BOGIE III and BOGIE IV. Those are prolonged-search programs—I hope we won’t need them.”
The captain nods a third time. “Good thinking, Mr. Korie. I’m glad you planned ahead. Now, if I may see both of you gentlemen in my cabin—” He rises and leaves the bridge.
Korie and Barak exchange a glance. Barak pauses to give an order to Jonesy, then they follow the captain aft.
SIXTEEN
Morality—like velocity—is relative. The determination of it depends on what the objects around you are doing. All one can do is measure one’s position in relation to them; never can one measure one’s velocity or morality in terms of absolutes.
—JARLES “FREE FALL” FERRIS,
Philosophy and Relativity: A Survey of Ideas
The captain is standing by his table. “Come in, gentlemen.”
Korie follows Barak into the room, a thoughtful, almost skeptical expression on his face.
“Close the door, please.”
Korie does so.
Brandt looks from one to the other; the husky, heavyset black astrogator and the lanky, pale first officer. He weighs his words carefully. “We have made a—what you might call a valiant effort to catch this bogie—”
Korie snorts.
Brandt ignores it. “—But I think the time has come to assess the situations realistically. First of all, I should like to congratulate you, Mr. Korie—and you too, Mr. Barak—on the fine way you handled yourselves and the crew this morning. I’m impressed by the skill and speed that was displayed in the precision handling of the ship during the attack maneuver. The response to orders has rarely been as prompt as it was today. Uh, my compliments to both of you for the fine manner in which you have trained and prepared this crew and this ship. I am entering a note of recommendation into the log.”
Brandt drops his gaze to the table beside him, rearranges some papers on it. “Now, as for the bogie—of course, we will search for him.” He looks up again, abruptly. “There is certainly the chance that his is still in the area. However—it is much more likely that we have lost him for good. We should—be aware of that—and consider it in our future decisions—”
Korie is looking at him strangely; Barak too. Brandt hurries on. “I—I think we’ve won something out of this experience—a moral victory. We’ve proven that the Burlingame can be a responsible member of the United Systems Fleet. The autolog, of course, will confirm this to the High Command that we’ve—in effect, lifted ourselves by our own bootstraps. We’re more than just a backwater patrol boat—and—and that’s something t
hat we can be proud of.
“Now, we will, uh—continue the search long enough to be sure that the enemy is not still in the area—and then we will head for home. I trust that—”
“Sir—” It is Korie.
Frowning at the interruption: “Yes, Mr. Korie?”
“Sir, I would like it entered in the log that I opposed this course of action to begin with.”
“This course of action—?”
“The maneuver we have just completed—the low-speed attempt to sneak up on the bogie. I would like to go on record as having recommended an alternate course of action from the one we followed. If you will remember, I wanted to go in at high speed from the start.”
“Uh, yes—” Brandt pauses for a moment, slightly taken aback. He licks his lips carefully. “All right. Yes, of course—uh, by all means, we’ll enter it in the log. Who knows? You may have been right, Mr. Korie, but—the decision was mine to make, and I believed I was acting correctly at the time. I chose the course of action which seemed to me to be the best. There is no way of knowing whether or not it was—”
“Except that we’ve lost the kill.”
“There is that, but—”
“If we had gone in the way I had wanted to, we would have taken only eight hours to close with him. It’d have been only one-fourth the time and we probably would have caught him trying to sneak away.”
“Mr. Korie, we thoroughly discussed all of these possibilities on the bridge, thirty-five or thirty-six hours ago. I do not feel like going over it again. I chose the course of action which seemed to me the best—”
“And it was wrong—”
Brandt looks at him coldly. “I do not think that either of us is in a position to make that kind of assessment. If any of my command decisions turn out to be obviously wrong, I will be the first to admit the error.”
Korie meets his gaze firmly. “Yes, sir.”
Brandt takes a breath. “Do you have anything to say on this matter, Mr. Barak?”
Barak’s expression is noncommittal. “No, sir. My job is to execute the decisions, not make them.”
“Mm,” says Brandt, slightly displeased with the answer. “All right.” His manner changes, becomes more abrupt. “Now, about this search pattern—”
“Sir—” Korie again.
Slightly annoyed: “You could let me finish, Mr. Korie.”
“Sir. I would like to recommend—”
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