“It determines where we show up on the other side.” In sublight space.
The cable parted, and she separated the links and cast them away, making sure the ship was clear.
“I thought these things, these jumps, were pretty inexact.”
“Not at a range this close.” She turned and moved smoothly toward the Mac’s after section, aiming for a sensor dish. “This is almost pinpoint. Even a few seconds’ delay can put us hopelessly off target.” She became aware that Claymoor was tracking her, recording every move. Details at eleven.
“Two minutes.”
She used the dish to stop herself, pushed down to the mount, activated the cutter, and applied it against the line. Like the other connecting cables, it was really a triple. She realized belatedly she should have tried to work out another plan, had somebody else here to help. This was just too close.
“What are you going to call it?” she asked Claymoor.
“Call what?”
“The show. The report on the rescue.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said. “If it succeeds, it’ll be After the Chindi.”
One of the strands separated. Mist blew across the rocky surface below her. “What if it fails?” she asked.
“It’ll be different. Don’t know yet what I’d want to call it, but it would have to be different.”
“One minute. Hutch, finish up and get inside. Everybody else, prepare for jump.”
She was still cutting. “Not going to make it, Yuri.”
“Then let it go, Hutch. Get to the airlock.” It was too late to abort. Try that now and he’d damage the engines. Maybe blow them up altogether.
The second strand parted.
“Hutch. For God’s sake.”
And Claymoor: “Let it go, Hutch.”
Let it go and they’d drag the rock back out with them or even if they didn’t and it fell off it would wreck the numbers. Either way Tor was dead.
“Hutch.”
“Wait one, Yuri.”
“Come on, Hutch, let’s go.”
Sweat poured off her. God help her, there was a way, if she could anchor herself to the hull. She shut off the laser.
“Good,” said Brownstein, obviously watching through one of the hull imagers. “Now we’re making sense.”
She clipped the cutter to her harness.
“We’ll figure something out later.”
But of course he knew they wouldn’t.
She reached inside her harness, found the shutoff toggle for the e-suit. Then she pushed the sleeve control and simultaneously pulled the toggle. The suit shut off, the world went frigid, and her senses reeled.
She tugged her belt off and looped it around one of the sensor mount’s supporting bars. Then she let go of it and reactivated the suit. The field re-formed around her.
“What are you doing?”
She turned the cutter on and went back to work. Claymoor was still watching her. “Henry,” she said, “go.”
No fool Claymoor. He was already at the airlock.
“For God’s sake, Hutch—” The captain’s voice was a growl.
She held the laser to the remaining strand, watched it begin to eat through. Jennifer broke in with a stern warning and started a countdown. Trying to scare her. What kind of AI resorts to that sort of tactic? The hull beneath the cable was getting scorched. Not good.
“Fifteen seconds,” said the AI.
Claymoor was leaning out of the airlock, watching her. “Get inside, Henry,” she cried. “Close it up.”
“Not without you.” The idiot didn’t move. He was still pointing the imager at her.
“Get in. Or you and After the Chindi will both stay here.”
She heard him talking with Brownstein, instructing him to cease and desist. God help her, that was actually the terminology he used. Then, at last, apparently persuaded he had no option, he was gone, and the hatch closed.
The cable separated. Because the asteroid and the yacht were traveling at the same velocity, Dogbone didn’t fall away, and the strands remained where they were. She had to heave them clear.
She twisted the belt around her arm. “You’re free, Yuri,” she said. “Go.”
Brownstein had delayed pushing the button, had given her an extra few seconds. But it was the limit of what he could safely do. “Hold on,” he said.
The Hazeltines kicked in and the hull rose under her. Steering thrusters adjusted their angle and fired. The yacht lifted away from Dogbone. The rock began to grow misty.
Hutch watched it fade. Felt the first sensations of approaching transition.
“Stay with us, Hutch.”
INSIDE A SUPERLUMINAL, people usually take transition with little or no discomfort. Some get mildly ill, suffer disorientation, lose the contents of their stomachs. It’s why passengers are always cautioned to eat lightly, or skip the meal altogether, when a jump is imminent. Theory holds that the damping field, which protects against momentum effects, also helps limit the physical reaction. To Hutch’s knowledge, that was a notion that had never been tested, and consequently she had no idea what to expect riding the hull of the McCarver as it went sublight.
Had there been time, she’d have run her belt through the harness, in one sleeve and out the other, to make sure she didn’t fall off. But there hadn’t been time and now she was no longer sure where the belt was, or her harness, or her arm. Her mind retreated into a dark cave while everything around her swirled.
Somewhere she was holding onto something. And she should continue to do that. Hang on. Don’t let go.
Her gorge rose. Not good. There was no provision in the e-suit for emptying the contents of her stomach.
Once, at about the age of seven, she’d been playing with a swing that hung from a tree limb. In an experimental mood, she’d stood beside the swing and turned it round and round until the sustaining ropes were so twisted she couldn’t continue. Then she’d climbed into it and lifted her feet and it had begun to spin. It had continued spinning and suddenly the world was spinning and the sky was underfoot and she crashed into the ground.
It was like that now. The cave was turning, and she caught flashes of light but the images were all indistinct, faces, clouds, a stretch of metal hull, voices far off talking to her, or about her or maybe about the weather. Who knew?
Transition time is normally about six seconds. But vertigo went on and on until she became convinced that she and the belt had somehow slipped into one of the nether regions associated with TDI.
She threw up. Couldn’t help it. The warm wet sticky stuff went into her nose and back down her throat. She choked. Couldn’t breathe.
Darkness crowded the edges of consciousness.
There was a sudden blast of extreme cold. Suit was off. How the hell…?
It was her last thought as she slipped angrily into the night.
AS A RULE, Claymoor approved of heroic types. They made good copy, and they were generally self-effacing in interviews, unlike, say, politicians, who were always trying to take over the conversation. But there was a problem with heroes: They tended to get other, more reluctant, people involved in the heroics. Consequently, if a death-defying act was to be performed, it was always a good idea to arrive after it had been, successfully or not, completed.
He had tried to intervene when he saw what Hutchins was going to do, urging Brownstein to call off the jump. But he’d been too late, had hesitated too long. The ship might slip out of this ghostly place at any moment, and he was damned sure Henry Claymoor was going with it.
Given time, he’d have dragged the damned fool inside. But he’d had to settle for whispering good-bye and closing the hatch, grateful to be inside, thinking what a waste, somebody that attractive. He’d sat down on the bench, propping himself against a bulkhead, where he endured the brief giddiness that always assaulted him during jumps.
He’d learned they were easiest for him if he rode backward and closed his eyes. He’d done that. He knew when
it was over, always knew because the vertigo went away as if someone had thrown a switch. And he was listening to Brownstein frantically calling Hutch’s name.
He reopened the hatch, and was delighted to see that she was still there. He had the imager ready and got pictures. But she’d apparently been knocked loose from her perch and was drifting away from the yacht. The running lights were trained on her. Her arms and legs were twitching, jerking, and he saw with horror precisely what had happened. She’d thrown up, clogged the narrow hard-shell air bubble that the e-suit provided over the face, and she was strangling on her own vomit.
Her struggles were growing more intense. She was already a long way from the ship. Maybe ten meters.
“Henry.” Brownstein’s voice. “Can you reach her?”
Claymoor paused in the hatch. Not really, he thought. Not me. She’s way the hell out there. Off the port beam, as they like to say in command circles.
“Henry?”
If Claymoor was devoted to anything, it was keeping risk to a minimum. Come out with a whole skin, that was his motto after a lifetime of working in, and beyond, the world’s trouble spots. But he’d produced when there had been nothing else for it. He’d been with the Peacemakers during the Guatemala rescue, he’d gone down once at sea in a flyer, and in his time he’d faced angry mobs and outraged heads of state.
And he’d hated every minute of it.
He gauged angle and trajectory, wondered what would happen if he missed, and jumped for her. But his adrenaline was running and he put too much effort into it. He was moving faster than he’d expected, and feared he would pass their intersection point before she arrived.
“Henry!” Brownstein’s startled voice. “Not like that. I wanted you to throw her a line.”
Lot of good that would do. The captain apparently hadn’t seen what Claymoor had.
Her struggles had begun to lessen. He was going to pass in front of her, but her belt was leading her, and he was able to grab it as he went past. It jerked her after him.
He congratulated himself, and caught a glimpse of the McCarver through his legs as they tumbled away. It was already beginning to look pretty far off.
He twisted her around to get at her right arm, found the red pad on the sleeve, and the emergency toggle inside her vest and shut off the field.
Flickinger fields are reflective. In the glow of the ship’s lights, Hutch had been surrounded by an aura. It blinked off, and the ejecta and a few frozen flakes of oxygen drifted away. He watched her spasm and cough. Next time, baby doll, don’t try to do everything yourself.
The vacuum helped. The air exploded out of her lungs, bringing the vomit with it. He released his vest, gave her face a quick wipe, and reactivated her suit. She coughed a few more times, but he was relieved to see that she was breathing again.
“What happened?” Brownstein broke in on him.
“She threw up,” he said.
“Okay. Hang on to her. I’ll send the shuttle over for you.”
Hutch struggled.
“Take it easy, Sweetcakes,” he said. “You’re all right.”
She tried to speak but couldn’t seem to get anything out. Claymoor smiled. She was not at all the take-charge little fireball who’d come aboard.
“Just relax,” he told her. “We’re still outside, but you’re okay.”
She looked at him and stiffened momentarily. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she was still gulping down a lot of air. She tried to rub her hands against her face but seemed surprised to find the shell. “E-suit,” she said.
“Yes.”
Her eyes drifted shut. “How’d we do?” she asked.
The question confused him until he realized it was meant for the captain.
“Don’t know yet. Can’t tell anything until we locate the chindi. We did run a bit longer in the sack than we should have.”
Hutchins nodded and she looked as if she were trying to digest what she’d just been told. Abruptly she turned her eyes on Claymoor. “Henry,” she said. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. I used to make my living rescuing beautiful women in distress.”
She made a gurgling sound that might have been an attempt to laugh. Or maybe she was still trying to clear her throat. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Yuri,” he said, “did we pick up the velocity we needed?”
“That’s the same question Hutch asked. I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Nothing to measure it against out here. Give me a little time.”
The shuttle had disconnected itself and was rotating to come after them. “Don’t need it,” she said. “It’ll take too long.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.” She looked up at Claymoor. For a long moment they simply floated there, while he watched the McCarver continue to dwindle. Then she told him to hang on, suggested he watch his foot, and lighted her go-pack. It was maybe a one-second burst and it jolted him because it had more kick than he’d expected, but they were headed back toward the airlock.
FOR BROWNSTEIN, IT had been a frantic experience. He was engaged in an exercise that put the yacht at risk. He wasn’t sure what his status would be if it sustained damage. Engines were not cheap. And he’d come within a hair of losing one of his passengers, and then had seen his prime-time star jump out of the airlock.
He’d been piloting superluminals for more than twenty years, first for LightTek, then for Kosmik, and finally for Universal News. And in the last ten minutes he’d watched his entire career pass before his eyes.
He hadn’t violated the code. In fact, refusal to help Hutch recover her own lost passenger could have left him open to legal action. At the same time, he could get into serious trouble for putting his ship in jeopardy. Law, as it applied off-Earth, was a confusing and sometimes contradictory business. (There were those who maintained that was nothing new in jurisprudence.)
Nevertheless, he was still trying to settle his own nerves when Claymoor reported that they were both back aboard. He activated the visuals as they came through the airlock and saw that Hutch looked a little beat-up. Bruises and broken blood vessels were evident. Of course, one would expect that of somebody who, in the last few minutes, had twice been breathing vacuum.
“We have acquired the chindi,” said Jennifer.
He took a deep breath. “Status?”
She put it on the display board. They were behind the chindi, as they’d hoped they would be.
And they were moving slightly faster than.26c!
Incredible. Hutch had been right, and they’d effectively scored a bull’s-eye. In almost every way. But he’d been in the sack a bit too long. They were closer than they wanted to be and had to shed more velocity than had been planned.
The AI had already begun rotating the McCarver, pointing its thrusters forward.
“We’ll reach it in twenty-six minutes, Yuri. But we’ll need a twenty-two-minute burn to overtake and match velocity.”
Twenty-two minutes? With engines already red-hot? The plan had called for seven or eight. “Hutch,” he said, “we have a problem.”
BROWNSTEIN’S NEWS HAD, on the whole, been encouraging. Greenwater had worked, and now they had a decent chance.
Hutch was still somewhat shaken up. The first thing she did on returning to the yacht was to gargle and brush her teeth. She did that on the run, with a lot of spilled water, while the ship maneuvered into braking position. It stopped, started, realigned. Pointed its main thrusters forward.
She grabbed a clean blouse from her bag and hurried half-dressed to the bridge, arriving just before the fusion engines came back on line and fired.
Claymoor, looking every bit the heroic male, was already there. His voice seemed to have deepened. He was enjoying his moment, and she saw him looking surreptitiously through the Mac’s visuals of the incident. Some of that was undoubtedly going to show up on the UNN coverage.
Yuri shook her hand and congratulated her, but his mood was subdued. On the console beside t
he navigation screen the engine warning lights were already blinking.
She was in the right-hand seat. “Can you patch me through to the chindi, Yuri?” she asked. “I want to talk to Tor.”
They were still pretty far away. “Can he reply at this range?” he asked.
“No. But I can talk to him.”
“Go ahead, Hutch. You’re on.”
“Tor,” she said, “if you can hear me, we’re less than a half hour away.” She checked the time. He should be all right for another hour or so.
She chattered away at him, trying to stay upbeat, describing how the jump had been perfect, how the transit had worked, how they’d dumped the mass but kept the velocity and roared out of hyperspace. How they were coming. Almost there. We’ll not do any more wandering off onto alien artifacts, will we? Especially ones with big propulsion tubes.
“In about fifteen minutes,” she said, “we’ll be within your transmission range. You’ll be able to talk to us.”
Claymoor nodded approvingly. “If I ever get in trouble,” he said, “I hope you’re with the rescue party.”
She smiled with all due modesty.
“You could have killed yourself out there.”
“I’m responsible for him.”
“Only up to a point.” He tilted his head, appraising her. “Anybody ever try that before? Staying outside during a jump?”
Brownstein looked back over his shoulder. “Nobody else that crazy,” he said.
“And I didn’t get any pictures.”
“Sure you did,” said Hutch.
“Not of you during the jump.” His eyes narrowed. “You know, I’ll bet if we check the hull imagers, we might find something.”
“Henry,” she said, “you pulled my rear end out of the fire out there, and I wouldn’t want you to think I’m not grateful.”
“But…?”
“But you’re probably right, and I’m sure there is a visual record of me throwing up and all the rest of it.”
“It’s great stuff, Hutch. Nobody expects you to maintain appropriate decorum in that kind of situation.”
“I’m not talking about decorum. I’m talking about how I looked. I don’t want the world to see me like that and I’d appreciate—” She stopped dead, listening. The gee-forces were gone.
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