by Issac Asimov
He shouldn’t tell her; there was no point in telling her; it would be cowardly to frighten her; and she’d be hard to handle if she got really frightened, panicky frightened. He kept telling himself all that and it did no good. He wanted to share it with somebody. He wanted part of it off his own mind.
He said, “There are some things I should know that I don’t. Things like the mass density between here and Lin-gane affect the course of the Jump, because that mass density is what controls the curvature of this part of the universe. The Ephemeris—that’s this big book here—mentions the curvature corrections that must be made in certain standard Jumps, and from those you’re supposed to be able to calculate your own particular corrections. But then if you happen to have a super giant within ten light-years, all bets are off. I’m not even sure if I used the computer correctly.”
“But what would happen if you were wrong?”
“We could re-enter space too close to Lingane’s sun.”
She considered that, then said, “You have no idea how much better I feel.”
“After what I’ve just said?”
“Of course. In my bunk I simply felt helpless and lost with so much emptiness in all directions. Now I know that we’re going somewhere and that the emptiness is under our control.”
Biron was pleased. How different she was. “I don’t know about its being under our control.”
She stopped him. “It is. I know you can handle the ship.” And Biron decided that maybe he could at that.
Artemisia had tucked her long unclad legs under her and sat facing him. She had only her filmy underclothes for cover, but seemed unconscious of the fact, though Biron was definitely not.
She was facing him. He noted that her face had been cleaned of its make-up and wondered how that had been done; probably with a handkerchief and as little of the drinking water as she could manage. She didn’t suffer as a result, for her clear white skin was the more startlingly per-feet against the black of her hair and eyes. Her eyes were very warm, thought Biron.
They were closer to one another. He could have reached out and touched her, held her in his arms, kissed her.
And he did so.
It was a complete non sequitur. Nothing, it seemed to Biron, had led to it. One moment they were discussing Jumps, and the next she was soft and silky in his arms ana soft and silky on his lips.
His first impulse was to say he was sorry, to go through all the silly motions of apology, but when he drew away and would have spoken, she still made no attempt at escape but rested her head in the crook of his left arm. Her eyes remained closed.
So he said nothing at all but her kissed again, slowly and thoroughly. It was the best thing he could have done, and at the time he knew it.
Finally she said, a bit dreamily, “Aren’t you hungry? IH bring you some of the concentrate and warm it for you. Then, if you want to sleep, I can keep an eye on things for you. And—and I’d better put on more of my clothes.”
She turned as she was about to go out the door. “The food concentrate tastes very nice after you get used to it. Thank you for getting it.”
Somehow that, rather than the kisses, was the treaty of peace between them.
When Gillbret entered the control room, hours later, he showed no surprise at finding Biron and Artemisia lost in a foolish kind of conversation. He made no remarks about the fact that Biron’s arm was about his niece’s waist.
He said, “When are we Jumping, Biron?”
“In half an hour,” said Biron.
The half hour passed; the controls were set; conversation languished and died.
At zero time Biron drew a deep breath and yanked a lever the full length of its arc, from left to right.
It was not as it had been on the liner. The Remorseless was smaller and the Jump was consequently less smooth. Biron staggered, and for a split second things wavered.
And then they were smooth and solid again.
The stars in the visiplate had changed. Biron rotated the ship, so that the star field lifted, each star moving in a stately arc. One star appeared finally, brilliantly white and more than a point. It was a tiny sphere, a burning speck of sand. Biron caught it, steadied the ship before it was lost again, and turned the telescope upon it, throwing in the spectroscopic attachment.
He turned again to the Ephemeris, and checked under the column headed “Spectral Characteristics.” Then he got out of the pilot’s chair and said, “It’s still too far. I’ll have to nudge up to it. But, anyway, that’s Lingane right ahead.”
It was the first Jump he had ever made, and it was successful.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Autarch of Lingane pondered the matter, but his cool, well-trained features scarcely creased under the impact of thought.
“And you waited forty-eight hours to tell me,” he said.
Rizzett said boldly, “There was no reason to tell you earlier. If we bombarded you with all matters, life would be a burden to you. We tell you now because we still make nothing of it. It is queer, and in our position we can afford nothing queer.”
“Repeat this business. Let me hear it again.”
The Autarch threw a leg upon the flaring window sill and looked outward thoughtfully. The window itself represented perhaps the greatest single oddity of Linganian architecture. It was moderate in size and set at the end of a five-foot recess that narrowed gently toward it. It was extremely clear, immensely thick, and precisely curved; not so much a window as a lens, funneling the light inward from all directions, so that, looking outward, one eyed a miniature panorama.
The Autarch said, without turning from the window.
“Start with the mail ship, Rizzett. Where did it meet this cruiser in the first placer
“Less than one hundred thousand miles off Lingane. The exact coordinates don’t matter. They’ve been watched ever since. The point is that, even then, the Tyrannian cruiser was in an orbit about the planet.”
“As though it had no intention of landing, but, rather, was waiting for something?”
“Yes.”
“No way of telling how long they’d been waiting?”
“Impossible, I’m afraid. They were sighted by no one else. We checked thoroughly.”
“Very well,” said the Autarch. “We’ll abandon that for the moment. They stopped the mail ship, which is, of course, interference with the mails and a violation of our Articles of Association with Tyrann.”
“I doubt that they were Tyranni. Their unsure actions are more those of outlaws, of prisoners in flight.”
“You mean the men on the Tyrannian cruiser? It may be what they want us to believe, of course. At any rate, their only overt action was to ask that a message be delivered directly to me.”
“Directly to the Autarch, that is right.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing else.”
“They at no time entered the mail ship?”
“All communications were by visiplate. The mail capsule was shot across two miles of empty space and caught by the ship’s net.”
“Was it vision communication or sound only?”
“Full vision. That’s the point. The speaker was described by several as being a young man of ‘aristocratic bearing,’ whatever that means.”
The Autarch’s fist clenched slowly. “Really? And no photoimpression was taken of the face? That was a mistake.
“Unfortunately there was no reason for the mail captain to have anticipated the importance of doing so. If any importance exists! Does all this mean anything to you, sir?” The Autarch did not answer the question. “And this is the message?”
“Exactly. A tremendous message of one word that we were supposed to bring directly to you; a thing we did not do, of course. It might have been a fission capsule, for instance. Men have been killed that way before.
“Yes, and Autarchs too,” said the Autarch. “Just the word ‘Gillbret.’ One word, ‘Gillbret.’”
The Autarch maintained his ind
ifferent calm, but a certain lack of certainty was gathering, and he did not like to experience a lack of certainty. He liked nothing which made him aware of limitations. An Autarch should have no limitations, and on Lingane he had none that natural law did not impose.
Under the Autarchy, Lingane had increased its wealth and strength. Even the Tyranni, attacking thirty years earlier at the height of their power, had been fought to a standstill. They had not been defeated, but they had been stopped. The shock, even of that, had been permanent. Not a planet had been conquered by the Tyranni since the year they had attacked Lingane.
Other planets of the Nebular Kingdoms were outright vassals of the Tyranni. Lingane, however, was an Associated State, theoretically the equal “ally” of Tyrann, with its rights guarded by the Articles of Association.
The Autarch was not fooled by the situation. The chauvinistic of the planet might allow themselves the luxury of considering themselves free, but the Autarch knew that the Tyrannian danger had been held at arm’s length this past generation. Only that far. No farther.
And now it might be moving in quickly for the final, long-delayed bear hug. Certainly, he had given it the opportunity it was waiting for. The organization he had built up, ineffectual though it was, was sufficient grounds for punitive action of any type the Tyranni might care to undertake. Legally, Lingane would be in the wrong.
Was the cruiser the first reaching out for the final bear hug?
The Autarch said, “Has a guard been placed on that ship?”
“I said they were watched. Two of our freighters”—he smiled one-sidedly—“keep in massometer range.”
“Well, what do you make of it?”
“I don’t know. The only Gillbret I know whose name by itself would mean anything is Gillbret oth Hinriad of Rho-dia. Have you had dealings with him?”
The Autarch said, “I saw him on my last visit to Rhodia.”
“You told him nothing, of course.”
“Of course.”
Rizzett’s eyes narrowed. “I thought there might have been a certain lack of caution on your part; that the Tyranni had been the recipients of an equal lack of caution on the part of this Gillbret—the Hinriads are notable weaklings these days—and that this now was a device to trip you into final self-betrayal.”
“I doubt it. It comes at a queer time, this business. I have been away from Lingane for a year or more. I arrived last week and I shall leave in a matter of days again. A message such as this reaches me just when I am in a position to be reached.”
“You don’t think it is a coincidence?”
“I don’t believe in coincidence. And there is one way in which all this would not be coincidence. I will therefore visit that ship. Alone.”
“Impossible, sir.” Rizzett was startled. He had a small, uneven scar just above his right temple and it suddenly showed red.
“You forbid me?” asked the Autarch dryly.
And he was Autarch, after all, since Rizzett’s face fell, and he said, “As you please, sir.”
Aboard the Remorseless, the wait was proving increasingly unpleasant. For two days they hadn’t budged from their orbit.
Gillbret watched the controls with restless concentration. His voice had an edge to it. “Wouldn’t you say they were moving?”
Biron looked up briefly. He was shaving, and handling the. Tyranni erosive spray with finicky care.
“No,” he said, “they’re not moving. Why should they? They’re watching us, and they’ll keep on watching us.”
Biron was surveying his face in the mirror, wondering how he would look in sideburns down to the angle of the jaw, when Artemisia said from the doorway, “I thought you were going to sleep.”
“I did,” he said. “Then I woke up.” He looked up at her and smiled.
She patted his cheek, then stroked it gently with her fingers. “It’s smooth. You look about eighteen.”
He carried her hand to his lips. “Don’t let that fool you,” he said.
She said, “They’re still watching?”
“Still watching. Isn’t it annoying, these dull interludes that give you time to sit and worry?”
“I don’t find this interlude dull.’’
“You’re talking about other aspects of it now, Arta.”
She said, “Why don’t we cross them up and land on Lin-gane?”
“We’ve thought of it. I don’t think we’re ready for that kind of risk. We can afford to wait till the water supply gets a bit lower.”
Gillbret said loudly, “I tell you they are moving.”
Biron crossed over to the control panel and considered the massometer readings. He looked at Gillbret and said, “You may be right.”
He pecked away at the calculator for a moment or two and stared at its dials.
“No, the two ships haven’t moved relative to us, Gillbret. What’s changed the massometer is that a third ship has joined them. As near as I can tell, it’s five thousand miles off, about 46 decrees rho and 192 degrees phi from the ship-planet line, if Ive got the clockwise and counterclockwise conventions straight. If I haven’t, the figures are, respectively, 314 and .168 degrees.”
He paused to take another reading. “I think they’re approaching. It’s a small ship. Do you think you can get in touch with them, Gillbret?’
“I can try,” said Gillbret.
“All right. No vision. Let’s leave it at sound, till we get some notion of what’s coming.”
It was amazing to watch Gillbret at the controls of the etheric radio. He was obviously the possessor of a native talent. Contacting an isolated point in space with a tight radio beam remains, after all, a task in which the ship’s control-panel information can participate only slightly. He had a notion of the distance of the ship which might be off by a hundred miles plus or minus. He had two angles, either or both of which might easily be wrong by five or six degrees in any direction.
This left a volume of about ten million cubic miles within which the ship might be. The rest was left to the human operator, and a radio beam which was a probing finger not half a mile in cross section at the widest point or its receivable range. It was said that a skilled operator could tell by the feel of the controls how closely the beam missed the target. Scientifically, that theory was nonsense, of course, but it often seemed that no other explanation was possible.
In less than ten minutes the activity gauge of the radio was jumping and the Remorseless was both sending and receiving.
In another ten minutes Biron was able to lean back and say, “They’re going to send a man aboard.”
“Ought we to let them?” asked Artemisia.
“Why not? One man? We’re armed.”
“But if we let their ship get too close?”
“We’re a Tyrannian cruiser, Arta. We’ve got three to five times their power, even if they were the best warship Lin-gane had. They’re not allowed too much by their precious Articles of Association, and we’ve got five high-caliber blasters.”
Artemisia said, “Do you know how to use the Tyrannian blasters? I didn’t know you did.”
Biron hated to turn the admiration off, but he said, “Unfortunately, I don’t. At least, not yet. But then, the Linganian ship won’t know that, you see.”
Half an hour later the visiplate showed a visible ship. It was a stubby little craft, fitted with two sets of four fins, as though it were frequently called upon to double for stratospheric flight.
At its first appearance in the telescope, Gillbret shouted in delight. “That’s the Autarch’s yacht,” he cried, and his face wrinkled into a grin. “It’s his private yacht. I’m sure of it. I told you that the bare mention of my name was the surest way to get his attention.”
There was the period of deceleration and adjustment of velocity on the part of the Linganian ship, until it hung motionless in the plate.
A thin voice came from the receiver. “Ready for boarding?”
Ready!” clipped Biron. “One person only.”
It was like a snake uncoiling. The metal-mesh rope looped outward from the Linganian ship, shooting at them harpoon-fashion. Its thickness expanded in the visiplate, and the magnetized cylinder that ended it approached and grew in size. As it grew closer, it edged toward the rim of the cone of vision, then veered off completely.
The sound of its contact was hollow and reverberant. The magnetized weight was anchored, and the line was a spider thread that did not sag in a normal weighted curve but retained whatever kinks and loops it had possessed at the moment of contact, these moving slowly forward as units under the influence of inertia.
Easily and carefully, the Linganian ship edged away and the line straightened. It hung there then, taut and fine, thinning into space until it was an almost invisible thing, glancing with incredible daintiness in the light of Lingane’s sun.
Biron threw in the telescopic attachment, which bloated the ship monstrously in the field of vision, so that one could see the origin of the half-mile length of connecting line and the little figure that was beginning to swing hand over hand along it.
It was not the usual form of boarding. Ordinarily, two ships would maneuver to near-contact, so that extensible air locks could meet and merge under intense magnetic fields. A tunnel through space would connect the ships, and a man could travel from one to the other with no further protection than he needed to wear aboard ship. Naturally, this form of boarding required mutual trust.
By space fine, one was dependent upon his space suit. The approaching Linganian was bloated in his, a fat thing of air-extended metal mesh, the joints of which required no small muscular effort to work. Even at the distance at which he was, Biron could see his arms flex with a snap as the joint gave and came to rest in a new groove.
