Alex Benedict 07 - Coming Home

by Jack McDevitt

  “Próso Olotahós!”

  Classical Greek phrase, meaning to get the wind in one’s sails, to race forward with all possible acceleration.

  —Dictionary of Standard Speech, 32nd edition, 1422

  I rode up on the shuttle with Shara. “Are Nick and JoAnn,” I asked her, “already on Skydeck?”

  “They left three days ago,” she said.

  “Three days ago? Aren’t they riding with us?”

  “They’re both on the Grainger, Chase.”

  “Okay. They’re not still going to be on board when it makes its jump, are they?”

  She gave me a clenched-teeth nod. “Yes.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Why don’t they let the AI handle everything?”

  “JoAnn says she has to be there so she can get a feel for what’s happening and react on the spot. Which means she needs a pilot with some passenger-ship experience. That’s Nick.”

  “They’re taking their chances.”

  “That’s why we’re going along. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll take them off the Grainger and bring them home.”

  “It’s not a good idea,” I said again.

  “JoAnn thinks there’s no other way to do it. And we’re running out of time. We need to know whether she can fix the problem. And demonstrate it to everybody’s satisfaction.”

  “How confident is she?”

  “She says they’ll be okay.”

  “I hope.”

  “She’s the best we’ve got. If she can’t shut down the cycle, it’s not going to happen.”

  It wasn’t exactly a topic that was going to make for light conversation, but all efforts to change the subject failed. We went over it and over it, and the mood got darker. “Does Nick know what he’s gotten himself into?” I asked finally.

  “You think he wasn’t paying attention during the first test?” We were leaving the atmosphere by then. Below us, there was nothing but clouds and ocean.

  “That’s not what I’m saying, Shara.”

  “We don’t really have much of a choice.”

  Our voices had been getting loud, and we were drawing stares from a woman across the aisle. I said something about how I was sure everything would be fine. We were both quiet for a minute or two. But there was no avoiding the issue. “How’s JoAnn been?” I asked.

  “How do you mean?”

  “Nick thought this whole process was getting to her.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry about her,” Shara said. “She’s committed. There’s no question about that. And she’s pretty tough.”

  “Who’s our pilot going to be?”

  “We can get one at Skydeck. But I thought you might want to volunteer—”

  * * *

  We arrived on the platform with some time to spare, so we stopped for lunch at Karl’s Dellacondan, where the atmosphere lightened a bit. Maybe it was the string music, maybe it was that the place was filled with tourists talking about the view. Whatever had happened, we relaxed and tried to pretend everything was under control. The sandwiches were good, the manager stopped by our table to ask whether we were satisfied with the service, and a young man in a station uniform who had been one of Shara’s students appeared and told her what a great teacher she’d been, and that he was confident her presence on the Capella team would guarantee a happy result. “If,” he added, “anything would.”

  We were just finishing when Operations called. “Chase,” they said, “the Casavant’s ready. It’ll be at Dock Six.”

  Fifteen minutes later, we boarded the yacht and sat down on the bridge. I ran the systems check while the luggage arrived. We took it back to our cabins, returned to the bridge, and got ready to leave. As best I can recall, we were trying to divert a general sense of unease by talking about guys when the radio blinked on. “Casavant,” said a female voice, “you’re cleared to go.”

  “Acknowledge, Ops. On our way.” I switched over to the AI. “Richard, release the magnetics and take us out.” On the far side, the doors were opening. “So what’s the plan, Shara?”

  “They’ve put the original drive unit back into the Grainger. That makes it vulnerable to the warp. Nick and JoAnn left early because they didn’t want to emerge from hyperspace anywhere near the affected area. So it took them almost three days to get to their destination. Which is the same place we were last time. When we get close to our target, which is eight million kilometers downrange, they’ll submerge. The drive should react exactly as the Capella’s did. It’ll get them tangled. If that happens, they’ll get pushed forward like the Carver. Except a lot farther. JoAnn has it worked out so they’ll come back in about seventeen hours, in an area where we’ll be waiting.”

  “Good. I’m glad to hear it’ll only be a few hours and not five and a half years.” That was supposed to be a joke.

  Shara didn’t react. “When they come out of it, they’ll contact us, and we’ll join them. JoAnn says she’ll be able to get some readings on how the drive gets affected, which should help. She expects that after they come out that first time, it will take about five hours before they get pulled under again. When that happens, she’ll put the drive into acceleration. She thinks they can run the ship out of the warp. There won’t be much time to do it because she says it has to happen during the first minute or two of the process.”

  “What happens then?”

  “If it’s successful, they’ll come out of it immediately. They’ll surface again, and it will be over.” Her lips formed the words I hope.

  * * *

  I didn’t like going anywhere near warps. Most, if not all, interstellars are now equipped with drive units that theoretically don’t line up with the damaged area and consequently prevent you from getting dragged under. We’ve only lost one vehicle in the last three years, and that didn’t seem to be connected with the issue. But I’m never going to believe we’re entirely safe around those things.

  We rolled out under the light of the Moon, adjusted course, and accelerated. After about a half hour, Richard announced we were ready to make our jump.

  “Do it,” I said. The lights dimmed, and we passed into transdimensional space.

  * * *

  We’d been back on the surface less than an hour when the AI announced that he had located the Grainger. “Range is eight million kilometers.”

  I looked at the navigation display. But it was too far to get a picture.

  Richard again: “Incoming transmission.”

  It was Nick: “Hello, Casavant. Good to see you guys.”

  “Hi, Nick,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  There was a delay of about a minute before his response got back to us. “Chase, is that you?”

  “Sure. Who else did you expect?”

  I covered the mike. “Shara,” I said, “does John know Nick’s doing this?”

  “Yes. And he’s not happy. Nick said his brother threatened to cancel the attempt.”

  JoAnn’s voice came in: “Right now,” she said, “we’re adrift. We’re on the bridge, which is probably bigger than the entire ship you guys are riding in.”

  Shara leaned over the mike. “Everything okay, JoAnn?”

  “So far. Of course, we haven’t really done anything yet.”

  “Okay. If there’s any problem, we can pick you up.”

  “Negative. We’ll see you downstream. There’s a slight adjustment in the area where we should come back out. Nick has forwarded it to you.”

  Richard indicated we had it, and I acknowledged.

  “We’re accelerating now,” said JoAnn. “We’ll make our jump in about thirty-five minutes. Nick says we’ll arrive tomorrow at approximately 1100 hours.” The current time was 1813. Seventeen hours would pass before they’d show up although for them it would be only about thirty minutes. “It’s spooky,” I said.

  Shara passed my comment on to JoAnn. She laughed. “Tell Chase that what’s spooky is walking around in this giant ship and finding absolutely nobody.”
>
  Eventually, Nick got back on the circuit and told us they were about to make their jump. “See you in a half hour.” He flashed a wide grin.

  * * *

  I brought up a picture of the Grainger. It could have been the Capella. The colors were different, silver rather than light blue. But those were only details. The external design of the two ships was identical.

  “Everything is in order,” said Richard. “If all goes according to the plan, we will arrive in the target area approximately one hour before they do.”

  * * *

  We spent the evening watching comedies. Neither of us felt much like sleeping, but we would need to be awake in the morning. Nobody wanted to be alone either so we both slept in the passenger cabin. I spent much of the night staring at the overhead. Then, in the morning, we were up early. Richard would have awakened us had anything happened, but I couldn’t resist asking him anyway. “No, Chase,” he said. “There’s been no activity.”

  We had breakfast and went up onto the bridge, where we sat trying to think up things to talk about other than how unnerving the situation was. With two hours remaining, Richard posted a countdown on the auxiliary display. “Does anybody really understand time/space structure?” I asked.

  Shara laughed. “Anybody who says he does is deranged. The math works, Chase, and that’s all we have. Maybe all that matters.” We watched the stars. We’d long since gone to cruise mode, so there was no sense of movement. The Casavant could have been frozen in place.

  Shara took to walking around the ship. I tried reading. Couldn’t do fiction. Not under those circumstances. I did a search for Apollo artifacts. Alex, guessing I’d do that, had loaded several books on the subject into the library, but they were all highly speculative. One argued that Dmitri Zorbas had sold them to his father-in-law, another that Zorbas had tried to transport them east, but they’d been taken from him as they passed through Chicago, a large and lawless city at the time. Even more so, apparently, than other big cities.

  The arrival time came and went. Shara was back in her seat by then, staring at the clock on the display. “Don’t worry, Chase,” she said, “they’ll be okay. There’s a fair amount of give-and-take in the estimate.” She was obviously scared out of her wits.

  But at 11:22, Richard’s voice broke through the silence: “They’re here.”

  “Hello, Chase.” It was Nick. “What time is it?”

  “You’re twenty minutes late, Nick.”

  “It’s JoAnn’s fault.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “We’re fine.”

  JoAnn got on: “Shara, Chase, everything looks okay. We’ll be with you for about five hours, then the process will start again. We’ll go under, but we should be able to shut it down. If it works as I expect, as I hope, we’ll be back in linear space within a few minutes. Your time, that is. If that happens, we should be able to go home and have a parade. And then see if we can convince everybody that we can rescue the Capella. You’re here in case it doesn’t work. If that happens, you’ll have to wait another—what?—seventeen hours so you take us off.”

  “Let’s hope that won’t be necessary.”

  * * *

  They were farther out than we’d anticipated. We’d just arrived within visual range when JoAnn got on the circuit. “Best you not come any closer, Chase. If things go wrong, there’s a chance you’d get dragged down with us.”

  I pulled onto a parallel course, about ten kilometers off their port side. The ship was gigantic. “We’ll be okay,” I said. “When it starts, how quick is the process? Do you have enough time to manage the controls?”

  “When the cycle begins, we get tremors throughout the ship. We should have about a thirty-second window to make this work.”

  “Okay. Let us know if we can do anything.”

  “Of course.”

  She handed it over to Nick. “She’s right,” he said. “You really feel alone in this thing.”

  “Well, when we get back to Skydeck, I suggest we do a party.”

  “I’m in favor of that, Chase.” He paused. “Something else.”

  “Okay.”

  “When we get home, I’d love to take you to dinner. Maybe Cranston’s.”

  Cranston’s was one of those restaurants where they didn’t put the price of the food on the menu. It wasn’t supposed to matter to the clientele. “I’d enjoy that,” I said.

  “Beautiful. I’ll look forward to it.”

  “Me, too.” Nick, I decided, was my kind of guy. Along with Khaled. Life was good. But we needed to stay on topic. “Did it really take you only a half hour to get here?”

  “It was about thirty-four minutes. We were talking to you guys, then the ship shook a couple of times. But whatever it had been went away, and everything quieted down. A half hour later, here we are.”

  “Incredible.”

  “Yeah, it is. It’ll be even more so if next time you can stop it dead in its tracks.” He had turned and was obviously talking to JoAnn. “By the way, when it starts again, I’ll have to sign off in a hurry. We don’t get much time to react.”

  “Maybe we should get off the circuit altogether, Nick. So you can concentrate on what you’re doing.”

  “Your call, Chase. But it’s not likely to happen for a few hours yet. By the way, I don’t know whether you’re aware, but everything we do over here with the drive unit is being forwarded to you. Just in case there’s a problem.”

  “That sounds a bit scary.”

  “It’s just a precaution. JoAnn wants to make sure nothing gets lost.”

  A transmission came in from John Kraus. “JoAnn,” it said, “good luck. Keep us informed.”

  Nick responded a minute or two later: “JoAnn’s doing math right now, John. But we’re fine. Waiting for the warp to kick in. We’re still four hours away.”

  * * *

  Richard set another countdown going to mark the time since Grainger had arrived in the target area. If everything went according to plan, it would reappear shortly after being taken down, we’d get JoAnn and Nick off and return to Skydeck. Then we’d sit it out for a few days. If the Grainger remained stable, we’d go back and retrieve it. Eventually, it would be returned to Orion which, Shara told me, was already complaining that its customers wouldn’t want to travel on it after this.

  As the countdown proceeded, we simply sat on the bridge, exchanging encouragement and assurances with JoAnn and Nick and with each other.

  The long silences made everyone uncomfortable, on both ships, but every topic other than the one that hung over our heads seemed trivial. Nick and JoAnn, at different times, both said how they wished it was over. That they wanted it done with.

  So did I. I resisted making any more suggestions that they should clear out of the Grainger while there was still time. That we could swing in close, and I could take the lander over and get them off. Of course, I knew the answer I’d receive, how they had a lander on board if they needed one. I thought about approaching the subject sideways by inquiring whether their lander would be safe, or whether it would also be caught when the warp activated. But that, too, had an obvious answer.

  I looked over at Shara. “Do they really have to stay on board during all this?”

  “Yes,” she said. “JoAnn has a Keppinger detector with her and—”

  “What’s a Keppinger detector?”

  “It reacts to conditions in the warp. It gives her the information she needs to make the adjustments to the drive unit.”

  “Couldn’t they just install the thing and let the AI take care of it?”

  “There’s more to it than that, Chase. JoAnn needs to make judgments about the readings.”

  “Great.”

  * * *

  JoAnn and Shara were talking quantum theory or something when the conversation suddenly went quiet.

  “What’s wrong?” Shara asked.

  “It’s starting. Gotta go.”

  The Grainger floated serenely among the stars. No
thing seemed to have changed. I could hear Shara breathing beside me, staring out through the wraparound. “Even if it works,” she said, speaking neither to me nor the microphone, “I’m not sure I’d trust it.”

  “I can understand why,” I said.

  “We’ll need more than a single trial to convince anyone. To convince me, for that matter. But let’s get past this first and see what we have.”

  A faint glow appeared along the Grainger hull. And brightened. We could see what appeared to be stars inside the ship. It was becoming transparent. Then the light faded. And, finally, there was only the field of stars.

  THIRTY

  Twilight and evening bell,

  And after that the dark!

  And may there be no sadness of farewell

  When I embark.

  —Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Crossing the Bar,” 1889

  Theory indicated that if everything went as expected, they would return within minutes. Or maybe seconds. We held our breath.

  Richard started another countdown on the auxiliary screen. “Shut it off,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, Chase. I was only trying to help.”

  “Just leave it alone.”

  Shara was holding tight on to the arms of her chair. I sat there looking out at the night, watching for the silhouette of the giant ship to reappear. Please, God. “We should do this more often,” said Shara.

  “You want some coffee?”

  “No. Not at the moment.”

  We sat, listening to each other breathe. We didn’t really know if, when the ship reappeared, we’d be close enough to see it. The vehicles that got tangled in the warp tended to maintain a direct course, so we could assume it would come back along that same vector. But it was possible that it would be several million kilometers away. Which meant that the news might come by radio.