“How much did you give us?”
“Less than one percent.”
She gaped. “The dial goes to one hundred?”
“Look for yourself.” He leaned out of the way so she could see. “The normal range runs up to sixty percent. The top portion is what Senior Pilot Grimson called the Stellar range, that’s handled by the override here. Then there’s the redline.” He traced a finger around the stable control meter. “You have to remember, this was developed to work with sensitives who don’t hear anything without being hooked up to the amp. I’ve never seen directions for how it works with a Talent.”
“Two minutes,” intoned the helmsman.
“What do you think we should do?”
He thought it over. “Let’s take it one step at a time. This first transition, we’ll stay undamped but with no amp power, and see how we feel. Maybe go a little higher on the next transition, and see if we can chart our way.”
The captain completed his final station-by-station check just as the helmsman began chanting down the seconds. Despite Wander’s calm confidence, Consuela felt a thrill of nerves. “I wish I could hold your hand.”
Reluctantly Wander shook his head. “I don’t think that’d be a good idea. Not on the flight deck.”
“Ten,” chanted the helmsman. “Nine, eight, seven, six . . .”
And then time began to slow.
Gradually Consuela’s attention was stretched in two, a physical portion linked to the steady chanting, and a mental which began to slow and stretch like taffy. Except for Wander’s calm presence there beside her, she would have been terrified.
The ship continued along the carefully charted and computed course, barreling down the lightway, increasing speed at a steady rate until the final second, the final nudge, and the instantaneous push through null-space. Beyond time, beyond physical reality, in and out in the span of no time at all, not even a microsecond.
Yet there had been something. Between the elastic final second and the return to the first stretched second after transition, her sense of awareness moved beyond the vastness of space. There was an instant beyond time, and at that point something called to her at the very deepest level. Something so powerful and yet so comforting that sensing it created an answering voice in her heart. A soundless, wordless keening, a yearning for that which she somehow felt she had known all along, yet never truly known. Something she had lost, yet never had.
The helmsman’s chant began counting back up the seconds, the power officer intoned the gradual braking reduction in force, and little by little the sense of physical time and mental time meshed back together for her. Wander rose unsteadily to his feet. His voice trembled slightly as he said, “I need a break.”
Consuela needed both hands to pull off her headset. “Did you hear it?”
“I’m not sure what I heard,” he replied and pushed himself to his feet. “Let me take a moment’s rest, then we’ll talk.”
Chapter Fifteen
“I don’t like it,” Consuela whispered. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Less dangerous than the ship going into a possible strike-point cold,” Wander replied. “The captain has already said he’s going to place the ship on full alert. All they have to go on are records of a couple of ships that disappeared between standard communication checks.”
They had been arguing since transition. Wander’s idea was to try to extend their awareness beyond the ship, and see if the shadowlane could be identified in advance. Knowing Wander was right did not make it any easier to accept. “But what if—”
“You know we’re going to try,” Wander told her, settling into his seat. “We can keep arguing, or we can just go ahead and start.”
His calm resolve robbed her of the will to resist. She settled into her own chair, said, “Promise me you’ll take it easy.”
“The first sign of trouble,” he assured her, “and we retreat immediately.”
The flight deck was quiet, each station staffed by only one crewman. But it was a tense calm, a time of waiting. The fifteen-minute checks were done with voices clipped and strained by what all knew lay ahead.
“That transition reminded me of something. When I was little,” she began, then hesitated, caught by the look he gave her as he turned from his controls. “What is it?”
“That is the first time you have spoken of your childhood,” he said. “Go on. What happened?”
“I went to a church around the corner sometimes. It was safe there, and quiet, and people were nice. Sometimes I had a sense of being connected with, I don’t know, something beyond. But as I grew older I thought it was childish, and I needed to put it aside. Now I’m not so sure.”
Wander watched her for a moment, then said softly, “I would like to know all about when you were young.”
“It was not a happy time.”
“No,” he said, his eyes deepening with compassion. “Perhaps that’s why it seems so special to share the memories.”
She reached over, squeezed his hand, not caring who noticed or what they thought. Her heart was simply too full to let the moment go without some act of sharing.
He let the moment linger, a bond growing between them, then finally said, “Ready to start?”
“If you are.”
“Okay.” Reluctantly he released her hand, turned back to the dials, said, “We will take this one small step at a time.”
Consuela adjusted her headset, leaned back, and sighed as the power began surging, granting her that sense of expansion. With the first nudge of power, she felt her awareness pushed beyond the flight deck to encompass the entire ship. Not touching anything, not belonging anywhere. Another notch up the power-scale, and she felt herself extending beyond the ship itself, moving into the toneless depths of neighboring space. Another nudge, and she grew able to travel up and down the lightway, moving ahead of the ship, holding on to the security of her chair, feeling the ship anchoring her physically as her heightened senses reached out farther and farther.
“Can you hear me?” Wander whispered.
“Yes.”
“Do you want to go on?”
“Maybe just a little.”
A fourth nudge, and she found herself better able to focus if she closed her eyes. A fifth, and she knew if she wanted she could alter her mental course and begin searching space in every direction. Yet she did not reach out. She could not. It was hard enough to remain anchored in the speeding ship, her attention stretched outward along the lightway, without reaching through the vastness of empty space. She was afraid if she moved too far from the lightway’s established path she might never find her way back.
A sixth notch up the power scale, and her awareness shot forward, flying down the lightway that she measured her distance in time the ship would take to travel, like inches along a golden ruler. And there it was. A second shadowlane. Much smaller than the previous one, a dark ribbon etched into the fabric of space, empty and lifeless.
A seventh nudge, and she flew further still. Then she became aware of something else. Something more.
****
“There isn’t anything I can teach this lad,” Simmers announced to the senior weapons officer. Simmers was a lanky gunner’s mate whose laconic air belied a mind as sharp as a knife.
In their first few moments together, Rick had quickly surmised that Simmers loved his machines and would brook no slacking when it came to learning the tasks at hand. Which made the sudden appearance of the required knowledge that much more pleasing.
“He musta memorized the entire ship’s weapons manuals,” Simmers reported. “Even knew the wiring and circuitry patterns.”
Guns bore down hard on Rick. “You told me the truth about your background?”
“Yes, Senior Weapons Officer.”
“Never seen anything like it in all my born days,” Simmers declared.
“I have ways of checking this out,” Guns warned. “Changing your name won’t help you in the end.”
“I�
��ve never spaced before in my life, honest,” Rick said.
“We’ll see about that,” he growled. Then his gaze flickered to the other side of the flight deck. “What’s this, what’s this?”
Rick turned to see Captain Arnol climb to the pilot’s dais and lean against the console as Wander spoke low and urgently.
“Those the sensitives Tucker was going on about?” Simmers asked quietly.
“Aye, and there’s trouble a’brewing, you can bet your back teeth on that,” Guns rumbled. “Wonder what mischief they’re scheming up over there.”
The captain checked the chrono read-out, then demanded, “Signals, we still on target for our next danger zone?”
“Aye, Skipper. Such that it is.” The junior signals officer coded in her console, then replied, “A highly questionable strike-point a half-parsec from here. One freighter missing and presumed, two Standards ago.”
He looked back to Wander. “You notice anything that close in?”
Together they nodded. “It was another shadowlane,” Wander replied. “Smaller than the other one. But nothing else.”
Captain Arnol turned back to the signals officer and demanded “What’s our travel time to the next one after that?”
“Ninety-six minutes and counting, Captain.” The officer did not need to check her notes. “A code red, high alert. Seven vessels unaccounted for, two broken transmissions. One mentioned attack.”
The captain turned back to Wander and demanded harshly, “That it?”
“It must be,” Wander replied.
Consuela nodded agreement. “The distances fit.”
“Are you sure?”
Wander hesitated. “No, Captain. But I think this is real.”
“You can’t expect me to throw the entire ship into a panic because of a guess, Scout,” Arnol snapped.
“Just as I said,” Guns muttered. “Trouble’s on the rise.”
“Captain, it’s all too new for me to say for certain what—”
“Well, I can,” Consuela declared defiantly. “Two of us can’t be totally wrong. It’s definitely another shadowlane.”
Rick watched the captain glare at her, but she refused to back down. His eyes still on Consuela, he snapped, “Helmsman!”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Inform the chief petty officer that the ship is to move onto full combat footing.”
An electric current shot through the flight deck. The captain wheeled about and demanded, “Guns, who is on weapons station duty?”
“I am, Captain,” Simmers replied.
The captain frowned. “What are you doing away from your station, mister?”
“I ordered him up to flight deck, Skipper,” Guns replied. “We’re planning the lad’s training.”
“Training will have to wait. Are we ready for full power to all weaponry?”
“Aye, Captain,” Guns replied. “I ran through the gamut myself not two hours ago.”
“Very well. Simmers, you have precisely ten seconds to return to your station and prepare for attack mode.”
“Mind if I ask what’s amiss, Skipper?” Guns asked.
“The scouts have detected not one but two more shadowlanes,” Captain Arnol replied, speaking to the flight deck as a whole. “The first they say is empty.”
“And small,” Consuela added, seemingly fearless, even when confronted with the captain’s stern glare.
The captain scowled at her, then continued “They claim there’s activity on the next lane down, and well within cannon range.”
“Pirates?” Guns said doubtfully and glared at the scouts. “Skipper, do you really think these novices can be trusted—”
“Don’t bother me with questions I can’t answer, Guns. Simmers, you have your orders. Helmsman!”
“Chief Petty Officer Tucker has been informed, Captain.”
“Very well.” The captain hesitated long enough to cast another glance toward his scouts, then said, “All crew, stand by for action stations. This vessel will enter red alert status in one hour. Mark!”
“Red alert, sixty minutes and counting,” intoned the helmsman.
“All senior officers to my cabin in five minutes.” Arnol focused on the scouts and said ominously, “You had better be right.”
****
Curiously, neither Consuela nor Wander felt ensnared by the feverish excitement that captured the rest of the ship. Consuela willingly accepted Wander’s suggestion that they return to his cabin until they approached the next shadowlane. The passages were filled with crew who went hurtling by, pausing only to flash an incredulous glance their way. Word had already spread throughout the vessel. Two young scouts, utter novices to space, claimed to have detected two more shadowlanes. The same shadowlanes which, up to now, had been little more than speculation. They also claimed to have identified pirates lying in wait. The same pirates who, up to now, had been little more than rumors. And on the basis of their unsubstantiated claims, the captain had ordered the ship to be readied for combat.
“Hey, youngsters!” A gray-headed swabbie stopped them with an upraised hand. He had the look of a veteran tomcat, scarred and beat up and still full of life. “This challenge for real?”
“We think so,” Wander replied.
“We know so,” Consuela corrected. “Something’s out there where it shouldn’t be. Whether it’s a pirate or not, your guess is as good as mine.”
“Ain’t nothing else could be hanging about in the middle of deep space,” the swabbie replied and eyed them shrewdly. “They’s laying ten-to-one odds that you’re wrong and the whole thing ain’t nothing but smoke. Think I should take some of that?”
Consuela grinned and replied, “Bet your back teeth.”
The swabbie laughed and slapped his thigh. “Gal, I like your spirit. Anybody on lower decks tries to make trouble, you come find old Tinker.”
“Thank you, Tinker,” Consuela said, putting as much feeling as she could into the words. “It’s good to know we have friends like you.”
Ancient eyes sparked with pleasure. “Aye, missie, friend it is. Like I say, any of these swabbies stand in your way, give me a shout. We’ll fix ’em good.”
As he keyed open his door, Wander asked, “What was that all about?”
“Oh, he reminded me of some of the geezers back in my old neighborhood.” She eased her neck muscles. “Now that we’re off the deck, I really feel tired.”
“Me too.” Wander called for chair and bed. “You can lie down, if you like.”
“Come sit down beside me,” she said, settling down and patting the mattress. “I need to tell you something.”
“I think I know,” Wander said.
“You can’t. It’s not possible.” Suddenly she was nervous. Not so much about his reaction. Wander was the most accepting person she had ever met. But bringing it up forced her also to consider beyond the moment. To face the threat of tomorrow.
“You don’t come from an outworld,” Wander said quietly, his eyes returning to the sorrow of earlier days. Days before they had met. “Not the way we think of it.”
She showed her astonishment. “How did you know?”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about it,” he said. “Little things keep coming up, things even an outworlder had to know. And something else. It wasn’t until I was here alone after takeoff that I realized what had bothered me about that night when we met on the field.” He looked at her. “There was only one set of footsteps in the snow coming out from the port.”
“I wanted to tell you,” she said. “From the very first moment. I just didn’t know how.”
He took her hand in both of his. “Tell me now.”
Chapter Sixteen
Rick thought it felt a lot like the run-up to a big game.
He sat in the far corner of the weapons platform, grateful for the chance to stay. He was almost completely ignored. The first team had been called in. Guns manned the primary console, his numbers two and three tucked in to either side. Ric
k’s chair was squeezed up to the back railing, but he didn’t mind—he was still able to sit and feel a part of the rising tension.
Then Wander and Consuela returned, and Rick found himself minding very much.
The entire flight deck turned, and all activity stopped momentarily as attention focused on the pair who had brought them to ready status.
“I believe we have a countdown to red alert,” the captain barked, and activity resumed. But attention was continually cast their way.
Rick found himself reaching a slow burn. He wasn’t used to being sidelined while someone else played the star.
He watched movement slow once more as the next shadowlane was approached. He saw the pair huddle together, as though drawing support from one another, although only Wander wore the headset. Rick heard Signals chant down the seconds to the next possible shadowlane. He and all the flight-deck crew saw a shudder rack both Wander and Consuela.
Rick watched Wander struggle to push off the after-effects, then announce, “It’s another one, Captain. Smaller than the first one, but there just the same.”
The captain snapped, “Mark!”
Signals responded, “Right on target again, Skipper.”
The flight deck responded with a murmur of astonishment, which only the senior weapons officer and his crew did not share. “Aye, all right for some,” Guns muttered and coursed his stubby fingers across the weapons console. “But it takes guts to handle real power.”
From his central station, Captain Arnol asked the scouts, “Can you still function?”
“I can,” Consuela said quietly, and stilled Wander’s protest with a hand on his arm. “I didn’t wear the headset. You did. Let me check.”
“But I can’t monitor,” he protested.
“You don’t have to listen in to set the amp level.” Consuela slipped on her headset, settled back and said, “Ready.”
An electric stillness held the flight deck as Consuela closed her eyes and frowned in concentration.
Rick whispered to no one in particular, “What is she doing?”
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