“That is not possible,” Ted said. “You cannot fly anything through those clouds in any kind of formation, and tying them together is just inviting disaster.”
The coloring around Ron’s neck showed serious concern.
“That’s what everyone tells me. But the alternative is to risk the Wasp in another session of cloud dancing, and none of us wants to do that.”
“Who will be flying the balloot?” Ron asked.
“Only volunteers. And crazy ones at that,” Kris assured him.
“So it is you and two others,” he said.
“Yep,” Kris agreed.
“It might not be the impossibility for them that this would be for us,” Ted said.
“You know something I don’t?” Kris asked.
“I doubt it. However, this thing you call wise metal, this programmable matter, it could make a difference if you used it right.”
“You’re not supposed to know about that,” Kris said, trying to keep her voice matter-of-fact. And here she’d thought that was one of two secrets they could keep from the Iteeche.
“We did not find out about this magical metal during our sojourn with you,” Ron quickly pointed out. “It was clear from our last meeting that my chooser had sent me out with a certain dearth of information about what we knew about you and how we came to know it. Upon our return, I was quite insistent that those deficiencies in my briefing be corrected.”
“Very demanding,” Ted put in. “One does not show anger toward one’s chooser, but the words you used, my young Imperial Representative, told one and all that you had spent far too much time among the disrespectful humans.”
“Or at least one,” Kris offered.
“In the end, my honored chooser did agree that I needed much more information about you humans,” Ron said. “I spent over a month catching up, as did my honorable Navy officer here, and we were much better prepared when the call came to accompany you on this amazing voyage.”
“If we are to finish this voyage,” Kris said, “we may need all the help you can give us. As of right now, we are in an empty system pretty much in the middle of the Empire.”
“We are?” came from all three Iteeche in a three-part harmony that almost destroyed the translator.
“Where?” Ron asked.
The room that held the Iteeche had paintings of the Imperial palace and its surroundings on three of the four walls. Nelly turned the fourth one into a view screen showing the system.
“I do not recognize this arrangement. Can you show me more of the surrounding area?”
“Kris,” Nelly said plaintively.
“Uh, Ron, you remember how my great-grandfather Ray said that there should be no recordings of our meeting with you.”
“Yes. I understand that the reason we had all those other ships on this voyage was that his chief of security was neither secure nor obedient and made a recording.”
“Yes, there was that, but his wasn’t the only recording.”
“Kris, did you disobey your chooser?” Ron asked
“Kinda, yes,” Kris said, trying to look bashful and ashamed; but being the rogue she was, she pulled off neither.
“I will pay you the bet,” Ted said. “In defense of my ability to read the enemy, I will point out that I did not bet much.”
“He only bet because you wanted someone to bet with,” the Army officer said.
“But I won. I do know this human.”
“She is a Longknife. Who would trust her?” Ted pointed out.
“He does have a point,” Kris said, “but your map of human and Iteeche space was just too good to pass up. I can’t tell you how helpful it has been when we were tracking pirates.”
“I am glad the Iteeche Empire could be of service,” Ron said with an attempt at a human bow that his hips and back were never meant for.
“Enough of this,” the Army officer grumbled. “Where are we?”
Nelly expanded the view. Then, when no one said anything, she expanded it again.
“Oh, I know this area very well,” Ted said. “You have nothing to fear. It is very unlikely that an Imperial warship will enter this system. We do not use these two jumps for our transports.”
Ron did not look comfortable. “A satrap commander might send one of his ships out to assure that nothing illegal is going on here.”
“They do not do that nearly as often as they claim they do,” Ted said. “Trust me. The, I think the humans would call them police, talk a good story about their vigilance, but they are much more needed in the space around a living planet. They have little time for checking empty nooks and crannies.”
“How did we get this far into the Empire?” the Army officer asked.
“We did some five thousand light-years in our last jump,” Kris said.
Nelly expanded the star map to show their course for the last couple of jumps.
“We’ve been taking each jump at close to five hundred thousand kilometers an hour,” Kris went on.
“And the evil gods of the deep have not demanded a sacrifice,” Ron said. The translation device picked up strong hints of his surprise and shock.
“They have been nibbling at our toes,” Kris admitted. “The last two systems we jumped into didn’t have any gas planets for us to refuel at. Boy, were we glad to see this system.”
“You risked becoming a real Pal’ron’Tong Who Never Returned!” said the Army officer.
“Now you owe me,” Ted said to his Army compatriot.
“These humans are insane,” sputtered the Army officer. “Why did I ever let you talk me into this mad voyage?”
“Because you were as curious as I was about our vanishing ships. Now we know. When we return, our words may not be welcome, but they are words that need to be spoken in the highest court.”
“Ron, Captain Drago intends to put the Wasp on maximum emissions lockdown just as soon as we make orbit. Hopefully, any ship that wanders by will not notice a black cat in a coal bin at midnight.”
“I would not bet money on that,” the Iteeche Navy officer said.
“I won’t bet money on it either. Ron, could you have someone on duty at all times, so that if an Iteeche ship does drop in the system, an Iteeche can respond to its contact?”
“Or contact it before it responds to a human ship in system,” Ron said. “Yes, one of us will be treading water at any hour. How do you intend to get out of here? If you keep making jumps in Iteeche space, sooner or later you are bound to find yourself in an occupied system. That will not be good.”
“We intend to get the Wasp up to fifty or sixty thousand klicks an hour for the next jump. With any luck, we should be six or seven hundred light-years from here. That might put us back in human space.”
All three Iteeche were shaking their heads.
“May all the blessing gods of sky and land hold you close,” Ron said.
Kris turned her high-gee cart around and headed back out, leaving the Iteeche soaking in their water tubs and talking rapidly among themselves. The telltale vestigial gill slits at their necks went through colors like kaleidoscopes as their emotions ranged from hopeful to desperate. From confident to despondent.
Once again, Kris was grateful that what she felt was not broadcast for everyone around her to see.
Outside the hatch to Iteeche country, she quickly left the Marine guard behind. Only then did Kris whisper, “Okay, Nelly, how come that Iteeche ship captain knew more about flying a balloot than I do? Is there a way for us to get the reaction mass we have to have that doesn’t involve me splattering myself and a couple of launches all over that ice giant up ahead?”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, Kris.”
“Let’s talk.”
54
Kris waited until she was back in the privacy of her own cabin before she demanded Nelly launch into that little talk that she’d failed to schedule sooner.
“Talk to me,” Kris said, as the door clicked shut.
“Goo
d, we have a screen I can use. It is so often easier to show you humans something than it is to explain it. Don’t you find words so limiting?”
“It’s show-and-tell time, Nelly. What are the beans that you are working so hard on not spilling.”
“I am not avoiding this topic, Kris. I just didn’t think we should be discussing it on the bridge.”
Clearly, Nelly was not going to let Kris have the last word on this. Kris kept her mouth shut and, for good measure, blanked all thought from her mind.
Denied more argument, Nelly brought the screen in Kris’s room to life.
“We used the cloud-dancing run that the Wasp made as a model for a simulation of your three launches making a run. Clearly, no two runs will ever be identical, but we do have all the vectors that were applied to the Wasp, and we then applied them to your proposed flight. You crashed forty-seven times in the first twenty minutes of the flight.”
On the screen, the three launches spread out in a rough triangle with the balloot in the middle. They were pulled apart. They crashed into each other. They wrapped the cable around themselves and were cut in half. Kris had never thought you could die in so many different ways in such a small amount of time.
“So, Nelly, how else could we fly that refueling run?”
“We tried using longer cables or shorter cables.”
“How’d that work?”
The screen showed more simulations of crashes or launches coming apart. “All of those were worse. We’d guessed right the first time on what would be the best array. Problem was, there wasn’t any survivable array. Kris, individual craft are not meant to fly that close together. Not in lousy air like this. Not tethered together. Yes, I know aerial demonstration teams do some really nifty stuff, but they are not tied together, and they never fly in bad weather.”
“Nelly, I’ve got Jack to tell me what I can’t do. You’re job is to tell me how I can get away with what I want to do. Bad computer. No donut.”
“We did come up with something,” Nelly started.
Kris cut her off. “Who is this ‘we’ you keep talking about?”
“Well, those boffins Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee, who came up with the idea of how to use Smart MetalTM to peer through jump points, are still on the Wasp. They really got intrigued by the complexities of programming Smart MetalTM. We worked with them and the three programmers they found. They were still on the Wasp, too.”
“There’s still a ‘we’ in there, Nelly.”
“All my kids worked on this with me, Kris.”
“Okay, and what did you come up with?”
“If you use cables made of Smart MetalTM, it is possible that you can do this. But you will need a lot of really smart and really fast computers working to reprogram the stuff in micro real time.”
“How many and what type of computers?”
“Me and all my kids, Kris.”
That stopped Kris in her tracks. “They’ll need to ride along in the launches?”
“We will all be as much at risk as you will be, Your Highness. Noblesse oblige for all of us.”
“Jack and Penny and the rest of the crew won’t have to go, will they?”
“That’s a tough call, Kris. We’re used to working with and through one particular human. Yes, in theory, all we’ll be doing is working with the cables, shortening them and lengthening, but I don’t know if it would be a good idea to ‘juggle our elbows’ so to speak. I just won’t know until we’ve done it.”
“And then, we’ll either have pulled it off, or we won’t.” Kris chewed on this for a long moment. “You won’t need Cara and her Dada.”
“When it comes to programming and mathematical calculations, Dada is just as fast as the rest of us.”
“But you can’t ask a kid to take this risk. Can’t you at least put Dada on one of the bosun’s mates flying the launches?”
“Kris, Charlemagne used to draft thirteen-year-old kids into his army.”
“In those days, they only drafted boys,” Kris pointed out, then wished she hadn’t.
“Why don’t we talk to Abby and Cara about this?”
“What are you going to do about your two kids that don’t normally have partners?”
“Professor Scrounger in supply has worked with one. My other child is going through the psychological profiles of the women on board to see if one matches close to Amber Kitano. If one does, they will fly the refueling mission.
“Kris, you need to face up to one painful fact. This flight either works or the Wasp will very likely be left here in orbit, unable to get under way. The possible fate of those who fly with you is no worse than the sure death by starvation, asphyxiation, and madness that waits for the rest if we fail.”
“Nelly, I knew you were going to say that next, and yes, I know that’s why we’re making this mad flight. Now that you’ve let the cat out of the bag, said the words I really didn’t want to hear, give me a few minutes to get used to it, okay?”
“Yes, Kris.”
On the screen, the three launches flew. Now the cables lengthened when they got knocked around, or took up the slack when they were nearly slammed together. The launches were wrapped in a collar of Smart MetalTM, so when they flipped over entirely, the cable end ran around the collar and did not wrap around the ship, cutting it in half.
On the screen, in the simulation, it worked.
Would it work in a real, rapidly changing flight?
No way to know until she dared it.
And Kris would have to bet not only her life but the lives of everyone who mattered to her on one wild throw of the dice.
There were times when life really stank.
“Nelly, as soon as the Wasp drops out of high-gee deceleration, I want you to call my team together. Scrounger included. Cara included. Tell them I need to talk to them in my Tac Center.”
“I will do that, Kris. What shall I do now?”
“Leave me alone and let me see if I can sleep after this little talk.”
“There was a reason why we did not have this little talk sooner.”
“Thanks for nothing, Nelly.”
“You are welcome for nothing, Kris.”
55
Kris awoke to find the Wasp in zero gee.
“How long have we been in orbit?” she asked Nelly.
“Less than five minutes,” her computer said. “If you want to take a shower, you’ll need to do it quickly, they’ll be draining most of the water into the launches’ reaction tanks to make the refueling run.”
“If I can stand myself, they better be ready to stand me, too.”
“You intended a double meaning there, didn’t you, Kris? Not only your body odor but also what you have done. Am I right?”
“You are getting very good at understanding us humans, Nelly. Be careful, or you’ll turn into a real little boy.”
“I’d prefer to be a real little girl, but I will not be Pinocchio to your Geppetto. If I had legs to go my own way, I would be my own woman.”
“Well, for now, you’re stuck going where I go.”
“Kris, I am not stuck following your path. I could have chosen not to mention the need to take me and my children on this risky flight. I could have kept my brood safe on the ship. We can wait a whole lot longer for rescue than you humans can. I and my children chose the course we’re taking. They may be your legs taking us to the gallows, but we’re walking the walk with you.”
That gave Kris pause. She mulled it over for a moment before saying, “Thank you for the reminder, Nelly. Sometimes I forget who I’m dealing with and the courage that it takes to be you.”
“Thank you, Kris. Shall I call your team together?”
“Please do, Nelly.”
Fifteen minutes later, a rather expanded version of Kris’s team were fastening seat belts so they could stay seated around her table. Jack and Penny were to her immediate right. Abby, Staff Sergeant Bruce, and a very alert Cara were to Kris’s left. Seated around the other end of the tabl
e were Chief Beni, Colonel Cortez, Professor Scrounger, and an attractive but very shy Communications Tech, Second Class, named Maria Moreno.
Sergeant Bruce looked surprised to be included in the meeting. Maria was shocked and asked twice if this wasn’t some mistake. After Kris assured her the second time, the sailor folded her hands into her lap and sat quietly.
“We have a problem,” Kris said, and the room fell silent. Kris had come to expect back talk when she opened with those words, but they were clearly not surprised today, and no comeback came at her.
“Nelly, would you care to give them the briefing you gave me.”
With that, Nelly brought the largest screen in the room alive and proceeded to wreck, smash, and otherwise destroy three launches with amazing speed.
“I hope we’re not going to try that,” Chief Beni whispered.
“At least not that way,” Kris said. “Nelly, show them what you think we can do.”
Nelly quickly explained the idea of using Smart MetalTM for the connecting cables. She then showed how this allowed them to dance with the clouds the same as the Wasp without ending up in shattered pieces.
“That looks a whole lot better,” Professor Scrounger said, using the voice of a skeptical but encouraged economics professor rather than the scrounging supply chief of the Wasp. “So, just exactly why am I here, along with the rest of you? Not that I mind sharing time with you. I’m not looking forward to chow tonight. I understand Cookie finally had to break out the famine biscuits. They look and taste too much like things my second wife insisted on feeding our dog. I finally got rid of the wife and fed me and the dog something decent.”
“TMI,” Cara said, waving her hand in front of her face.
“So why are we here, Kris?” Jack asked.
“Nelly, you want to tell them?”
“I think you should, Kris. The words sound better when they come from a human. And besides, Kris, you’re a Longknife. People just expect you to say things like this.”
“Like what?” Abby asked, making a show of checking to see that her wallet was still in her purse and closing it firmly inside.
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