"Oh." She thought for a moment. The direct approach hadn't worked. "Rod. Listen. Please. You see this as a tremendous adventure, don't you? How do you think I feel? Whether those are aliens or just lost colonists trying to find the Empire again, this is my field. It's what I was trained for, and I'm the only anthropologist aboard. You need me."
"We can do without. It's too dangerous."
"You're letting Mr. Bury stay aboard."
"Not letting. The Admiralty specifically ordered me to keep him in my ship. I don't have discretion about him, but I do about you and your servants—"
"If it's Adam and Annie you're worried about, we'll leave them here. They couldn't take the acceleration anyway. But I can take anything you can, Captain My Lord Roderick Blaine. I've seen you after a hyper-space Jump, dazed, staring around, not knowing what to do, and I was able to leave my cabin and walk up here to the bridge! So don't tell me how helpless I am! Now, are you going to let me stay here, or . . ."
"Or what?"
"Or nothing, of course. I know I can't threaten you. Please, Rod?" She tried everything, including batting her eyes, and that was too much, because Rod burst out laughing.
"Commander Frenzi, sir," the Marine sentry outside the bridge companionway announced.
"Come in, Romeo, come in," Rod said more heartily than he felt. Frenzi was thirty-five, a good ten years older than Blaine, and Rod had served under him for three months of the most miserable duty he could ever recall. The man was a good administrator but a horrible ship's officer.
Frenzi peered around the bridge, his jaw thrust forward. "Ah. Blaine. Where's Captain Cziller?"
"On New Chicago," Rod said pleasantly. "I'm master of MacArthur now." He swiveled so that Frenzi could see the four rings on each sleeve.
Frenzi's face became more craggy. His lips drooped. "Congratulations." Long pause. "Sir."
"Thanks, Romeo. Still takes getting used to myself."
“Well, I'll go out and tell the troops not to hurry about the fueling, shall I?" Frenzi said. He turned to go.
"What the hell do you mean, not to hurry? I've got a double-A-one priority. Want to see the message?"
"I've seen it. They relayed a copy through my station, Blaine—uh, Captain. But the message makes it clear that Admiral Cranston thinks Cziller is still in command of MacArthur. I respectfully suggest, sir, that he would not have sent this ship to intercept a possible alien if he knew that her master was—was a young officer with his first command. Sir."
Before Blaine could answer, Sally spoke. "I've seen the message, Commander, and it was addressed to MacArthur, not Cziller. And it gives the ship refueling priority. . ."
Frenzi regarded her coldly. "Lermontov will be quite adequate for this intercept, I think. If you'll excuse me, Captain, I must get back to my station." He glared at Sally again. "I didn't know they were taking females out of uniform as midshipmen."
"I happen to be Senator Fowler's niece and aboard this ship under Admiralty orders, Commander," she told him sternly. "I am astonished at your lack of manners. My family is not accustomed to such treatment, and I am certain my friends at Court will be shocked to find that an Imperial officer could be so rude."
Frenzi blushed and looked around wildly. "My apologies, my lady. No insult intended, I assure you ... I was merely surprised we don't very often see girls aboard warships certainly not young ladies as attractive as you I beg your pardon . . ." His voice trailed off, still without punctuation, as he withdrew from the bridge.
"Now why couldn't you react like that?" Sally wondered aloud.
Rod grinned at her, then jumped from his seat. "He'll signal Cranston that I'm in command here! We have—what, about an hour for a message to get to New Scotland, another for it to get back." Rod stabbed at the intercom controls, "ALL HANDS, THIS IS THE CAPTAIN. LIFT OFF IN ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES. LIFT OFF IN ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES. IF YOU'RE NOT ABOARD WE'LL LEAVE YOU BEHIND."
"That's the way," Sally shouted as encouragement. "Let him send his messages." While Blaine turned to hurry his crew along, she left the bridge to go hide in her cabin.
Rod made another call. "Commander Sinclair. Let me know if there's any delay out there." If Frenzi slowed him down, Blaine just might be able to get him shot. He'd certainly try . . . long ago he'd daydreamed of having Frenzi shot.
The reports came in. Cargill came onto the bridge with a sheaf of transfer orders and a satisfied look. MacArthur's boatswains, copies of the priority message in hand, had gone looking for the best men on Brigit.
New crew and old hands swarmed around the ship, yanking out damaged equipment and hurriedly thrusting in spares from Brigit's supply depot, running checkout procedures and rushing to the next job. Other replacement parts were stored as they arrived. Later they could be used to replace Sinclair's melted-looking jury rigs ... if anyone could figure out how. It was difficult enough telling what was inside one of those standardized black boxes. Rod spotted a microwave heater and routed it to the wardroom; Cargill would like that.
When the fueling was nearly finished, Rod donned his pressure suit and went outside. His inspection wasn't needed, but it helped crew morale to know that the Old Man was looking over everyone's shoulder. While he was out there, Rod looked for the intruder.
The Face of God stared at him across space.
The Coal Sack was a nebular mass of dust and gas, small as such things go—twenty-four to thirty light years thick—but dense, and close enough to New Caledonia to block off a quarter of the sky. Earth and the Imperial Capital, Sparta, were forever invisible on its other side. The spreading blackness hid most of the Empire, but it made a fine velvet backdrop for two close, brilliant stars.
Even without that backdrop, Murcheson's Eye was the brightest star in the sky—a great red giant thirty-five light years distant. The white fleck at one edge was a yellow dwarf companion star, smaller and dimmer and less interesting: the Mote. Here the Coal Sack had the shape of a hooded man, head and shoulders; and the off-centered red super-giant became a watchful, malevolent eye.
The Face of God. It was a famous sight throughout the Empire, this extraordinary view of the Coal Sack from New Cal. But standing here in the cold of space it was different. In a picture it looked like the Coal Sack. Here it was real.
And something he couldn't see was coming at him out of the Mote in God's Eye.
Chapter Six
The Light Sail
One gravity only—with queasy sensations as MacArthur lined up on her proper interception course. Elastic webbing held him in the acceleration chair during these few moments of changing but normal gravity —minutes, Rod suspected, that he'd soon look back on with wistful longing.
Kevin Renner had been mate of an interstellar trading vessel before joining MacArthur as her sailing master. He was a lean man with a narrow face, and he was ten years older than Blaine. As Rod steered his acceleration chair up behind him, Renner was matching curves in a view screen; and his self-satisfied grin was not the expression of a Navy man.
"Got our course, Lieutenant Renner?"
"Yes, sir," Kevin Renner said with relish. "Right into the sun at four gees!"
Blaine gave in to the desire to call his bluff. "Move her."
The warning alarms sounded and MacArthur accelerated. Crew and passengers felt their weight settle gradually deeper into beds and chairs and couches, and they nerved themselves for several days of weighing far too much.
"You were joking, weren't you?" Blaine asked.
The Sailing Master looked at him quizzically. "You knew we were dealing with a light-sail propulsion system, sir?"
"Naturally."
"Then look here." Renner's nimble fingers made a green curve on the view screen, a parabola rising sharply at the right. "Sunlight per square centimeter falling on a light sail decreases as the square of the distance from the star. Acceleration varies directly as the sunlight reflected from the sail."
"Of course, Mr. Renner. Make your point."
They stick where they hit the sail. The momentum is transferred directly—and it's all radial to the sun."
"You can't tack against it," Blaine realized suddenly. "You can tack against the light by tilting the sail, but the stellar wind always thrusts you straight away from the sun."
"Right. So, Captain, suppose you were coming into a system at 7 percent of the speed of light, God forbid, and you wanted to stop. What would you do?"
"Drop all the weight I could," Blaine mused. "Hmm, I don't see how it'd be a problem. They must have launched the same way."
"I don't think they did. They're moving too fast. But pass that for a minute. What counts is they're moving too fast to stop unless they get very close to the sun, very close indeed. The intruder is in fact diving right into the sun. Probably it will tack hard after the sunlight has decelerated it enough . . . provided the vessel hasn't melted and the shrouds haven't parted or the sail ripped. But it is such a close thing that they simply have to skydive; they have no choice."
"Ah," said Blaine.
"One need hardly mention," Renner added, "that when we match course with them, we too will be moving straight toward the sun . . ."
"At 7 percent of the speed of light?"
"At 6. The intruder will have slowed somewhat by then. It will take us one hundred twenty-five hours, doing four gees most of the way, slowing somewhat near the end."
"That's going to be hard on everybody," Blaine said. And suddenly he wondered, belatedly, if Sally Fowler had in fact gotten off. "Especially the passengers. Couldn't you give me an easier course?"
"Yes, sir," Renner said instantly. "I can pull alongside in one hundred and seventy hours without ever going over two and a half gees— and save some fuel too, because the probe will have more time to slow down. The course we're on now gets us to New Ireland with dry tanks, assuming we take the intruder under tow."
"Dry tanks. But you liked this course better." Rod was learning to dislike the Sailing Master and his grin that constantly implied that the Captain had forgotten something crucial and obvious. "Tell me why," he suggested.
"It occurred to me the intruder might be hostile."
"Yes. So?"
"If we were to match courses with him and he disabled the engines . . ."
"We'd be falling into the sun at 6 percent of light speed. Right. So you match us up as far from Cal as possible, to leave time to do something about it."
"Yessir. Exactly."
"Right. You're enjoying this, aren't you, Mr. Renner?" "I wouldn't have missed it for anything, sir. What about you?"
"Carry on, Mr. Renner." Blaine guided his acceleration chair to another screen and began checking the Sailing Master's course. Presently he pointed out that the Sailing Master could give them nearly an hour at one gee just before intercept, thereby giving everyone a chance to recuperate. Renner agreed with idiot enthusiasm and went to work on the change.
"I can use friends aboard my ship," Captain Cziller used to tell his midshipmen, "but I'd sell them all for a competent sailing master." Renner was competent. Renner was also a smartass; but that was a good bargain. Rod would settle for a competent smartass.
At four gravities nobody walked, nobody lifted anything. The black box replacements in the hold stayed there while MacArthur ran on Sinclair's makeshifts. Most of the crew worked from their cots, or from mobile chairs, or didn't work at all.
In crew sections they played elaborate word games, or speculated on the coming encounter, or told stories. Half the screens on the ship showed the same thing: a disc like the sun, with Murcheson's Eye behind it and the Coal Sack as background.
The telltales in Sally's cabin showed oxygen consumption. Rod said words of potent and evil magic under his breath. He almost called her then, but postponed it. He called Bury instead.
Bury was in the gee bath: a film of highly elastic mylar over liquid. Only his face and hands showed above the curved surface. His face looked old—it almost showed his true age.
"Captain, you chose not to put me off on Brigit. Instead, you are taking a civilian into possible combat. Might I ask why?"
"Of course, Mr, Bury. I supposed it would be most inconvenient for you to be stranded on a ball of ice with no assured transportation. Perhaps I was mistaken."
Bury smiled—or tried to. Every man aboard looked twice his age, with four times gravity pulling down on the skin of his face. Bury's smile was like weight lifting. "No, Captain, you were not mistaken. I saw your orders in the wardroom. So. We are on our way to meet a non-human spacecraft."
"It certainly looks that way."
"Perhaps they will have things to trade. Especially if they come from a nonterrestrial world. We can hope. Captain, would you keep me posted on what is happening?"
"I will probably not have the time," Blaine said, choosing the most civil of several answers that occurred to him.
"Yes, of course, I didn't mean personally. I only want access to information on our progress. At my age I dare not move from this rubber bathtub for the duration of our voyage. How long will we be under four gees?"
"One hundred and twenty-five hours. One twenty-four, now."
"Thank you, Captain." Bury vanished from the screen.
Rod rubbed thoughtfully at the knot on his nose. Did Bury know his status aboard MacArthur? It couldn't be important. He called Sally's cabin.
She looked as if she hadn't slept in a week or smiled in years. Blaine said, "Hello, Sally. Sorry you came?"
"I told you I can take anything you can take," Sally said calmly. She gripped the arms of her chair and stood up. She let go and spread her arms to show how capable she was.
"Be careful," Blaine said, trying to keep his voice steady. "No sudden moves. Keep your knees straight. You can break your back just sitting down. Now stay erect, but reach behind you. Get both the chair arms in your hands before you try to bend at the waist—"
She didn't believe it was dangerous, not until she started to sit down. Then the muscles in her arms knotted, panic flared in her eyes, and she sat much too abruptly, as if MacArthur's gravity had sucked her down.
"Are you hurt?"
"No," she said. "Only my pride."
"Then you stay in that chair, damn your eyes! Do you see me standing up? You do not. And you won't!"
"All right." She turned her head from side to side. She was obviously dizzy from the jolt.
"Did you get your servants off?"
"Yes. I had to trick them—they wouldn't have gone without my baggage." She laughed an old woman's laugh. "I'm wearing everything I own until we get to New Caledonia."
"Tricked them, did you? The way you tricked me. I should have had Kelley put you off." Rod's voice was bitter. He knew he looked twice his age, a cripple in a wheel chair. "All right, you're aboard. I can't put you off now."
"But I may be able to help. I am an anthropologist." She winced at the thought of trying to get up again. "Can I get you on the intercom?"
"You'll get the middie of the watch. Tell him if you really need to talk to me. But, Sally—this is a warship. Those aliens may not be friendly. For God's sake remember that; my watch officers haven't time for scientific discussion in the middle of a battle!"
"I know that. You might give me credit for a little sense." She tried to laugh. "Even if I don't know better than to stand up at four gees."
"Yeah. Now do me another favor. Get into your gee bath."
"Do I have to take my clothes off to use it?"
Blaine couldn't blush; there wasn't enough blood flowing to his head. "It's a good idea, especially if you've got buckles. Turn off the vision pickup on the phone."
"Right."
"And be careful. I could send one of the married ratings to help—"
"No, thank you."
"Then wai
t. We'll have a few minutes of lower gee at intervals. Don't get out of that chair alone in high gee!"
She didn't even look tempted. One experience was enough.
"Lermontov's calling again," Whitbread announced.
"Forget it. Don't acknowledge."
"Aye aye, sir. Do not acknowledge."
Rod could guess what the cruiser wanted. Lermontov wanted first crack at the intruder—but MacArthur's sister ship wouldn't even get close to the aliens before the approach to the sun was just too close. Better to intercept out where there was some room.
At least that's what Rod told himself. He could trust Whitbread and the communications people; Lermontov's signals wouldn't be in the log.
Three and a half days. Two minutes of 1.5 gee every four hours to change the watch, grab forgotten articles, shift positions; then the warning horns sounded, the jolt meters swung over, and too much weight returned.
At first MacArthur's bow had pointed sixty degrees askew of Cal. They had to line up with the intruder's course. With that accomplished, MacArthur turned again. Her bow pointed at the brightest star in the heavens.
Cal began to grow. He also changed color, but minutely. No one would notice that blue shift with the naked eye. What the men did see in the screens was that the brightest star had become a disc and was growing hourly.
It didn't grow brighter because the screens kept it constant; but the tiny sun disc grew ominously larger, and it lay directly ahead. Behind them was another disc of the same color, the white of an F8 star. It, too, grew hourly larger. MacArthur was sandwiched between two colliding suns.
On the second day Staley brought a new midshipman up to the bridge, both moving in traveling acceleration chairs. Except for a brief interview on Brigit, Rod hadn't met him: Gavin Potter, a sixteen-year-old boy from New Scotland. Potter was tall for his age; he seemed to hunch in upon himself, as if afraid to be noticed.
Blaine thought Potter was merely being shown about the ship; a good idea, since if the intruder turned out hostile, the boy might have to move about MacArthur with total familiarity—possibly in darkness and variable gravity.
The Mote In God's Eye Page 6