Though Hell Should Bar the Way

by David Drake

  The other male Karst officer was older than his colleague, forty or so, but he had hollow circles in place of pips on his collar and was obviously subordinate. He looked from me to the first man and said, “I know the Alfraz, I was her captain until I sold her to the government and joined the navy. She’s a Karst ship.”

  “She may well have been,” I said, stepping past the Karst officers to get into the cabin. “The ben Yusuf pirates steal from anybody, as I understand it. Mistress Smith and I captured it from the pirates at Salaam and escaped with it. I’m perfectly willing to have the matter of ownership determined in court, but”—I smiled at the Karst officers as I put my hand on the airlock controls—“on Saguntum, please. Mistress Smith is a citizen, and I’m an officer of the Republic of Cinnabar Navy, who was shanghaied off my ship there.”

  I didn’t open the locker to get tools out—Lal had been wearing his belt when I ordered him to get to work on the antenna, which should be enough. My real concern was to get away from the Meduse’s officers until Hobbins or some other high-ranking local arrived. That might be hours.

  Before I could move into the lock—on the surface, the only way onto the hull was up a ladder welded onto the hull—an aircar passed over the Alfraz moving low and slow. I heard it circle and moments later land on the quay. Thank goodness.

  “Gentlemen and milady,” I said, passing the Karst personnel in the other direction, “I believe that will be the Benedict officials we’ve been waiting for.”

  I certainly hoped so, anyway. I led Monica and our visitors to the boarding ramp. Master Hobbins was already on the extension walkway, walking briskly toward us.

  “Sir!” I said, bracing myself to attention. Hobbins didn’t have military rank, but I wanted to impress on the Karst officers that he was important. “Midshipman Olfetrie, acting captain of the Alfraz, welcomes you aboard!”

  “Sir,” said the Meduse’s captain. “The Alfraz is a Karst ship and this fellow, whoever he is, isn’t captain of her!”

  “You’d be Lieutenant Sisk of the Meduse, I believe?” Hobbins said. His voice was calm but not warm.

  “Ah, yes, sir, I am,” the Karst officer said. “My sailing master here recognizes her.”

  “Yessir, I do,” the older officer said. The female officer hadn’t said a word that I’d heard since boarding. “I was her captain, I was, sir.”

  “And you’re saying that Captain Olfetrie did not capture the Alfraz on ben Yusuf, Lieutenant?” Hobbins said. “Because you should know that my experts have examined the ship’s log and found that she did in fact lift from Salaam on ben Yusuf and proceed here with only two short intermediate stops.”

  “Well, that may be,” said Sisk, obviously taken aback. “But she’s still a Karst ship!”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Hobbins said. “And it should be easy to prove in Admiralty Court, though there would of course be compensation to Captain Olfetrie if he’s proved to have retrieved the vessel from pirates. But that is a matter for the court to decide, Lieutenant. Not for a bureaucratic flunky like the port superintendent here.”

  He nodded to the man in khaki, who avoided meeting Hobbins’ eyes.

  “Well, what do you propose to do about it?” Sisk said. “You can’t try throwing your weight around with me, you know!”

  “I propose,” Hobbins said without emphasis on the repeated word, “to wait for a court to determine ownership issues. And to prevent breaches of the peace from occurring on Benedict. I believe the Hegemony of Karst has friendly relations with Saguntum, does it not?”

  “Of course we do!” said Sisk. “But that doesn’t mean that Saguntine citizens can steal our property!”

  “Of course not, Lieutenant,” Hobbins said, nodding. “But if I may make a suggestion? You’re a naval man, used to the cut and thrust of battle. Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to confer with the Karst Advisor in the city rather than to take matters into your own hands? I think we might all avoid embarrassment if you were to take that line.”

  Sisk stood without moving for a long moment. Then he nodded curtly and said, “Come on Byerly, Hesketh. We’re going back to the ship!”

  He strode down the ramp with his subordinates in tow. I watched silently for a moment, then turned and said to Master Hobbins, “Thank you, sir. If it’s all right with you, I’ll go up on the hull to help Lal.”

  “May I ask how long will it take you to complete the task?” Hobbins said.

  I shrugged. “Less than an hour,” I said. “Probably a lot less. But an electrician is coming tomorrow to give us an estimate on the switch replacement.”

  “Is that necessary?”

  “Not necessary, no,” I said, “if we’ve got the rig complete again. But it’ll be a lot safer to be able to use the pump.”

  “Captain Olfetrie,” Hobbins said with a cold smile. “It will be much safer for you to be off planet immediately. The Karst Advisor would be very embarrassed if the crew of the Meduse were to capture the Alfraz by force and hang her crew, but realistically I couldn’t do anything but write a stiff note if that happened. Karst is the power in this region.”

  Monica said, “Thank you, sir. I have full confidence in Captain Olfetrie’s ability to reach Saguntum without taking on additional water. We’ll leave as soon as the antenna is repaired and port control gives us authorization.”

  “You have your authorization now,” Hobbins said, bowing to her. “And I’ll see to it that no other ship lifts from Howardport until the Alfraz has entered the Matrix.”

  He strode briskly down the ramp. The port personnel in their jitney and the car from the Meduse had already pulled away.

  I kissed Monica. “I’ll see how Lal is coming along,” I said. “Soon!”

  I was really looking forward to making Saguntum.

  Chapter Thirty

  We made our first insertion into the Matrix when we were only three hours out from Benedict, much sooner than I’d have chosen if I hadn’t needed to vanish as quickly as possible. I could only add velocity in normal space.

  I could adjust that velocity relative to normal space in bubble universes where constants of time, velocity, and distance varied; when we extracted into normal space, our location could be very much farther from our point of insertion than would have been the case if we’d remained in normal space the whole time. That said, the faster we were going when we inserted, the multiplication within the Matrix was greater in absolute terms.

  Master Hobbins had laid the reason for getting away quickly on the personal safety of the Alfraz and her crew. That was certainly real, but there was also a serious risk to Hobbins and to Benedict. From a Cinnabar viewpoint—my viewpoint—Karst was a very minor power. To independent planets in the immediate region, however, Karst was more important than Cinnabar or even than the Alliance which had a greater local presence than we did.

  Master Hobbins had been very supportive. I didn’t want to cause him needless problems by remaining in the vicinity.

  All things considered, the rig behaved properly. That said, Lal and I spent more time on the hull than we did in the cabin. He didn’t complain, and I found I was coming to like it.

  Being immersed in the Matrix made it familiar to me and even welcoming. I was beginning to notice the minuscule changes in apparent color from one viewing to another. This was all in my mind because visible light didn’t exist beyond the ship’s individual bubble, but it did indicate relative energy states and relative changes.

  I came in, feeling tired but good. Lal was asleep on his bunk. We’d been taking solo watches because there really wasn’t any choice. We had enough experience with the air suits to be willing to trust them, and I’d insisted that Lal use a safety line the way I did. I think my concern puzzled him, but I was the captain.

  Monica got off the couch at the console’s main screen and moved around to the striker’s seat. “The rig is well?” she said, an excuse to speak.

  “I twitched the ventral alignment a notch and squirted some grap
hite in the race,” I said as I took my suit off. I ached pretty generally—as I usually did now—and I knew I’d be feeling today’s work in my rib muscles tomorrow morning. “It’s worn but I think it’ll get us to Saguntum fine.”

  I needed a shower, a meal, and some sleep, but first I wanted to check our position in the sidereal universe. There were two opinions on going through extraction while you were asleep. The majority feeling was that the effects stayed with you longer; that was me in spades. Some folks, one in ten or so, missed the effects completely if they were asleep. Lal was in the minority and slept through extractions unaware.

  Monica and I weren’t so lucky. I glanced at my course projection and said, “Prepare to extract in five seconds. Three, two, one, now!”

  I slid down through a bath of cold water and came out the other side shivering but unharmed a few seconds later. Monica, on the other hand, gasped so loudly that she awakened Lal. She had to cling to the console to keep from falling off her seat.

  I engaged the High Drive and compared our real position with the position I’d calculated when I set the course. I was sorry for Monica, but there was nothing I could do—and goodness knows, I’ve had miserable extractions also. Astrogation was my job, and to my delight we were remarkably close to where we should have been in the sidereal universe.

  I was feeling pretty good about that. Sure, I knew it meant that my errors were cancelling one another out, but being lucky is even better than being good. Well, I’ve heard guys say that.

  I got up from the console and said to Lal, “We’re spot on for the moment. I’m going to check the fusion bottle before I calculate the sail plan for the next insertion.”

  I spoke loudly so that Lal could understand me over the High Drive. Monica could hear also, but I was pretty sure nothing was going to penetrate her consciousness in her present condition.

  We were accelerating at 1.5 g, the best the Alfraz was capable of with the High Drive alone. While we weren’t really short of reaction mass, we had no means of replenishing it. I wasn’t going to use what we had in a wasteful fashion.

  I walked heavily to the internal hatch, opened it, and stepped over the coaming with great care. I could move easily enough, but simply raising my boot higher than usual in taking a step required deliberation.

  The readout was on a box at head height on the side of the fusion bottle. I tapped the switch to illuminate the readout. I was already considering how I would modify the console’s “book solution” for our next insertion.

  The needle was well into the red.

  In the split second while I took in the fact, the needle dropped back toward the bottom of the yellow zone and quivered there.

  What in hell am I going to do now?

  The needle was beginning to rise again in tiny, trembling increments. I tramped back to the console.

  “Oh, that was a bad one,” Monica said, trying to smile at me.

  “Monica,” I said. “I need you to go into the hold and watch the display on the fusion bottle. Don’t worry about the numbers, just the green-yellow-red readout. Tell me what the needle’s doing!”

  She went to the hold, taking Lal with her. I thought she needed help walking under acceleration, but I didn’t ask.

  I cut back the High Drive to 1 g. There hadn’t been a problem until now. I hadn’t been checking the bottle constantly, but I had checked whenever I thought about it. Maybe hourly when we’d been in sidereal space, or at least every couple or three hours.

  The power usage to feed the High Drive—converting normal matter to antimatter, which provided thrust when it combined with normal matter in the motors—was the greatest draw a starship put on its fusion bottle. Running the converters at high rate shouldn’t have been an overload, but it was the only thing I could change.

  Lal reappeared at my shoulder, offering a note. When I realized what he was doing, I snatched it out of his hand and read IN YELLOW ONE EIGHTH INCH ABOVE GREEN. The block printing was the same as I remembered Monica using when she wrote cards for me to read through the palace cameras.

  I nodded to Lal and thumbed him back toward the hold. Then I returned to my course calculations.

  Rather than try to shout over the High Drive, Monica was using Lal as a messenger. RCN commo helmets would have made the job much easier, but having a real engineer—and for that matter, regular RCN maintenance—would have been better yet. Failing those things, having somebody as sharp as Monica was the best I could imagine.

  I didn’t have my third-year rotation on Power Room Practice at the Academy. I’m sure there’d have been a lot of information beyond the basics I’d gotten in my first-year introduction, but I was also pretty sure that fixing a bottle that fluctuated as badly as ours had was beyond anything I’d be able to handle if I’d graduated as a midshipman.

  This was the sort of problem that only a long-service expert like Chief Pasternak could diagnose. And even a Pasternak might say that the answer was to shut down the fusion bottle and replace it immediately.

  Lal came with another note: NEEDLE UNSTABLE BUT ON AVERAGE HAS DROPPED SLIGHTLY.

  I nodded and continued to work.

  We didn’t have the option of shutting down and replacing the bottle. We were many light-years away from the nearest replacement.

  I finished my calculations and entered the course, including the point at which we would insert. If I died this minute, the Alfraz would still execute my commands. When Lal came with a third note, I took it but rose from the couch and went into the hold to join Monica.

  She looked up, startled. We could talk when we were this close. “Is it all right?” she said.

  I nodded. “It’s as good as I can make it,” I said. The needle was below where it’d been when I first noticed the problem, but it hadn’t dropped into the green as I’d hoped it would. “We’ll insert in fourteen minutes”—probably thirteen by now—“and the bottle will basically be at stand-by until we engage the High Drive again. I’ll think we’ll be okay.”

  Intellectually, that was true. My gut didn’t think it was going to be fine, but it was no smarter than the gut of any other frightened kid. Frightened young man, I suppose, but I wasn’t feeling very manly.

  “So we continue as we’ve been doing, then?” Monica said. She was just asking a question—not protesting, not complaining. She wanted to know what the situation was.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “There were two things different going on when I noticed the problem with the bottle. I’d raised it to maximum output to accelerate on High Drive. When I cut it back, the bottle settled down pretty well. The other thing I did, though, was to extract from the Matrix.”

  “What does extracting do?” Monica said.

  We were both watching the needle. There were six separate windows below that; the multidigit numbers on each ran up and down in quick bursts, like startled roaches. It was going up again. Not fast, but definitely the wrong direction.

  “It shouldn’t do anything,” I said, “but nothing we’re doing should be a problem. This fusion bottle was intended for a bigger ship than ours. Our six motors shouldn’t have stressed it. Wouldn’t have stressed it if it was working the way it ought to be.”

  “Will we be able to get to Saguntum?” Monica said.

  “We should,” I said. “But we could get back to Benedict faster.”

  “What will happen to us if we run out of power in the Matrix,” Monica said. Her voice sounded perfectly calm, but her eyes were wide open and terrified.

  “That can’t happen,” I said, smiling brightly. “We’re at risk of a high-end failure, not a shutdown. If the bottle fails, it’ll convert everything inside the hull into plasma in a heartbeat. Probably most of the hull too.”

  Monica giggled. “Well, that’s all right, then,” she said. She sounded like she meant it. “I don’t want to go back to Benedict.”

  “The other thing …” I said, leading her back into the cabin with me. We were getting close to when I’d set the console to i
nsert, having based the course calculations on our velocity at that time. “The other thing is that we’ll being trying to reach Saguntum in a single run instead of breaking it into three as I’d planned.”

  “But that’s good, isn’t it?” Monica said as she settled onto her couch. Lal was already on the striker’s seat of the console.

  “It’s good if my astrogation’s better than I think it is,” I said. “I’ll have my fingers crossed. But it means we’ll be in the Matrix for seven days straight because our sidereal velocity’s not as high as I’d like it to be. There’s stories about long insertions causing folks to see things. Nothing harmful, but, well, really odd.”

  People who came back into the normal universe hadn’t been harmed. What might have happened to folks who hadn’t extracted, well, there was nobody to say.

  “It’ll give us something to tell people about when we’re back on Saguntum,” Monica said.

  I settled onto my couch. The High Drive shut off automatically as we prepared to insert. If either Monica or I was as cheerful about our prospects as we sounded, we were nuts.

  “Inserting!” I said. We rippled out of the normal universe.

  * * *

  I can’t describe the next week. Looking back on it, everything was clear and sharp for the first day or two but after that the world lost its edges.

  The work on the hull was hard from the beginning. After a while it crushed me flat. I no more thought about it than I thought about breathing.

  The rig ceased to be antennas, cables, and sails. It became a pattern. When something went askew with the pattern, it glowed red in my mind until I’d put it right.

  I’d heard spacers talk about seeing alien ghosts during long runs in the Matrix. One night Barnes and Dasi had described things they’d seen on a twenty-day run in the corridors of Captain Leary’s corvette, the Princess Cecile, and sometimes walking through bulkheads. I didn’t see anything like that, but by the end of the week I had become part of the Alfraz. I was a machine working the sails while I was awake, and when I slept my dreams were still out on the hull.