Abdul al Mardoum, captain of the Patrick Heffernan, usually had no objection to long flights. He read history and poetry and played chess with Bill, the AI, or with his passengers, if they were so disposed. And he put time aside for contemplation. The great void through which the Academy’s superluminals traveled tended to overwhelm a lot of people, even some of the pilots. It was big and empty and pitiless, so they tried not to think about it but instead filled their days with talk of whatever projects lay ahead and diverted their evenings with VR. Anything to get away from the reality of what lay on the other side of the hull. But Abdul was an exception to the general rule. He loved to contemplate the cosmic vastness.
They were, at the moment, in transdimensional space, which was another matter. The void was gone, replaced by eerie banks of mist and an absolute darkness illuminated only by whatever light the ship might cast. All ships necessarily moved through the cloudscape at a leisurely pace. It was a physical law that Abdul didn’t quite understand. The Heffernan might have been a sailboat adrift on the Persian Gulf. To Abdul, it was daunting, yet he accepted it as more evidence of the subtlety and providence of the Creator, of His care to leave pathways through a universe so vast that without their existence the human race would have been confined to its home sun.
It was the second week of the mission. Their destination was Betelgeuse IV, one of the oldest known living worlds. Intelligence had never developed there, at least not the sort of intelligence that uses tools and devises political arrangements. Because the biosystem was so ancient, it was of intense interest to researchers, who had established an orbiting station and were forever scrabbling about on the surface of the world, collecting samples to be taken to the orbiter and examined with relentless enthusiasm. The local life-forms did not use DNA, a fact of great interest to the biologists, though Abdul never understood that, either.
This flight, he realized, was going to be long. Usually he enjoyed these missions, took a kind of perverse pleasure in the solitude, looked forward to the conversations that the environment invariably stimulated. But this would be different.
The Heffernan was carrying four passengers, all specialists in varying biological fields. The senior man was James Randall Carroll, Professor Carroll, no casual intimacy, thank you very much. He was tall and a trifle bent. He was forever brushing his thin white hair out of his eyes. He smiled a lot, but you never got the sense he meant it. Despite his inclination toward formality, he wanted very much to impress his colleagues and Abdul. He did that by going on endlessly about the differences between terrestrial reptiles and their closest cousins on Betelgeuse IV.
There were, he would point out as though it really mattered, fascinating similarities in eye development, despite the differences in the local spectrum. Here, let me show you. And twenty minutes later they were into the feeding habits of warm-water reptiles. Or mating procedures. Or the curious and as-yet-unexplained diversity of propulsion methods by certain inhabitants of one of the southern swamp areas. Particularly annoying was his habit of periodically asking Abdul whether he understood, whether he grasped what the change in refraction really implied. The professor even followed him onto the bridge when he tried to retreat. (He’d made the mistake of inviting the four passengers to come forward anytime they liked, to see how the ship operated. It was a tradition, an offer he’d been making for years. But no more.)
Betelgeuse was approaching supernova stage. It would happen sometime during the next hundred thousand years or so, and Abdul found himself wishing it would happen while Carroll was in the vicinity. He’d like to see his reaction if the world, the swamps, and all its lizards, were blown to hell.
Abdul had been piloting Academy ships most of his career. He loved the job, loved carrying researchers to faraway places, loved watching their reactions when they saw the pale shrunken suns, or the supergiants, or the ring systems. He had no family, could not have had one and kept his career. It was the sacrifice he’d made. But it was well worth it. He treasured every mission. But Carroll was going to take this one from him.
“Abdul.” It was Bill, the AI. “We’re getting fluctuations from the 25s.”
The 25s were the jump engines. They controlled action across the interface, in and out, and provided initial momentum after insertion. But once the Heffernan was under way through the clouds, they went into maintenance mode. There should not have been any fluctuations. “Can you see a problem, Bill?”
He blinked on. In his gray eminence persona. That meant he was trying to reassure Abdul everything was under control. Which scared the devil out of him. “Don’t know. I’m getting contradictory signals. Mixer’s not running properly, but it appears the entire system is misfiring. Power levels are dropping.”
Abdul opened a channel to Union, the space station. “Ops immediate,” he said. “This is the Heffernan. We are having engine problems. May have to abort flight.” He closed the channel while he thought what else he wanted to say. “I’ve been with this outfit my entire life,” he told the AI. “It’s always been smooth riding. I’d like not to blow an engine now.”
“Maybe you’re due.”
“Maybe.” He opened the channel again but was startled to see the Academy logo blink on. And then an ops officer.
Odd coincidence. From out here, at a range of almost ninety light-years, a transmission should take about eighteen minutes to reach Earth. So they couldn’t have a reply already.
“Acknowledge your last,” the ops officer said. Abdul stared, unbelieving, at his image. “Leave the channel open. We’ll stand by to assist.” The screen blanked. The lights on the hyperlink flashed and went off. “The system’s down,” said Bill. “Power surge.”
“Can you restore it?”
“Negative.”
“How’s the radio?”
“Radio’s okay.” Not that that would help if they were stranded out here. “We are getting a prejump warning, Abdul. Four minutes.”
How did the reply come back so quickly? What was going on?
The jump engines were designed, in the event of a major problem, to terminate operations and return the ship to normal space. That was what the warning was about. Jump in four minutes. Nobody wanted to break down in hyperspace. If you did, no help could reach you. If the engines blew, you couldn’t get out. Ever. He didn’t know whether it had actually happened to anyone. Two ships had vanished during the seventy years or so that the superluminals had been in operation.
“Bill,” said Abdul, hesitantly, “are we capable of making the jump safely?”
“I am optimistic.”
Abdul opened the allcom so he could speak to his passengers. They were gathered in the common room, where Carroll was going on about predators in saltwater marshes. “Everybody buckle in,” he said. “We have a minor engine difficulty, and we’re going to jump back into normal space until we can get it resolved.”
That got their attention. “How big a problem?” one of them asked.
“Not serious. Strictly nuisance value.” He didn’t really know that was true. There was, for example, an outside chance the engines could explode. And there was a somewhat better possibility that the jump would fail. That power levels were not sufficient to move the ship between dimensions. “We should be fine,” he added, knowing before he’d finished the remark that it was the wrong thing to say.
“Can you fix it?” asked the youngest of his passengers, Mike Dougherty, who was just out of Bernadine. Nice kid. Of the four, Abdul suspected he was the one who’d really be missed if things went wrong.
“No. It has to go back to the shop, Mike.” He heard them moving to the couches, heard the harnesses taking hold. “Sorry about the short notice. These things are automatic, so I’ve no control over them. But we’ll be out the other side in a couple of minutes. Just sit tight.” He activated his own harness. Bill’s image disappeared. “Bill.”
“Yes?”
“Are we by any chance not where we think we are?”
“It would see
m to be the only explanation for the response from ops. We’ve apparently traveled a much shorter distance than we should have.”
“Damn. What the hell’s happening?”
“I suspect we haven’t left the solar system.”
Okay. Whatever. Under the circumstances, that might be a good thing. But the priority at the moment was to make a safe exit. He went through the check-off list with Bill, the readings on both sets of engines, fuel levels, pile temperature, probable entry vector, external mass indicator. If necessary, he could abort the jump. But everything was within the guidelines.
“One minute,” Abdul told his passengers. “Everybody belted in? Please let me hear it.” He did not have the warning lamps of the tour ships.
One by one, they replied. All set. But their voices betrayed a degree of nervousness. “How far out are we?” asked Carroll.
“We should be a bit over ninety light-years.” Except that the response from ops had come back too quickly.
“Will they be able to find us?” asked Mike.
“Sure,” he said. No reason why not. Abdul left the channel open. Heard Carroll comment that jump engines could be dangerous. “My uncle was on a flight once — ”
“Ten seconds,” said Abdul. He thought his voice sounded relaxed. Professional. Utterly confident.
LIBRARY ENTRY
There is no safer method of transport than superluminal. Since the passage of the Kern-Warburton Act, almost thirty years ago, there has not been a single documented case of catastrophic loss due to malfunction.
— The Engineering Annual, XXVII
chapter 3
…So we have progressed to the point where we can move politicians around faster than light. I’m not sure I see the advantage.
— Gregory MacAllister, Notes from Babylon
They woke Priscilla Hutchins before dawn with word that the Heffernan was missing. Lost. We don’t know where it is.
“How do you mean lost? It’s in hyperflight.”
“Something went wrong. They jumped out.”
She was talking to the watch officer at the Academy. “Who’s on duty at Union?”
“I got the news from Peter.” That would be Peter Arnold, the watch supervisor.
“Patch me through.” Hutch was already on her way down to her living room, pulling on a stylish satin robe that she kept specifically for these occasions.
“Hello, Hutch,” Peter said, as she descended the stairs. “We have no idea where they are.”
“That’s Abdul’s mission, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What happened?”
“We got a message from him about fifteen minutes ago. He said there was an engine problem. They were going to exit back into normal space.”
“And you haven’t heard from him since?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Okay. Get me an estimate of his probable location, and let’s start looking to see who else is in the area.”
“Already working on it, Hutch.”
She descended into her living room and switched to visual. Peter was a big, easygoing guy who had been an interior lineman during his college days. But at the moment he looked worried. “Where are they now? How far out?”
“About ninety light-years.”
“Okay. I take it there’s been no follow-up transmission?”
“No, ma’am, that’s why I’m worried.” His forehead was creased. “The engines may have exploded. During the jump. Otherwise, we should have heard from him by now.”
“He may not have been able to get a message off right away. He has passengers to worry about. There’s also a possibility the hypercomm failed.”
“At the same time as the engines? I doubt it.”
“The Heffernan’s a Colby class, Peter. The systems are interrelated. They could have gone down together. If so, they’re adrift out there somewhere. Waiting for help to arrive.”
“My God. If that’s the case, it’s not going to be easy to find them.”
“You know precisely when communication stopped. If they made the jump successfully, that will tell you approximately where they are. More or less.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Scramble anything you can find. And, Peter — ”
“Yes, Hutch?”
“Try not to let it get out. Keep me informed and let me know if you need anything.”
SHE ALERTED MICHAEL Asquith, the Academy’s commissioner. He listened patiently, commented that these things never seem to happen during business hours, and asked how serious she thought it was.
“They’re probably okay,” she said. “The ship’s old, but the drive system is well designed. It’s possible they got stranded in hyperspace, and it’s possible the engines could have exploded. But either of those eventualities is unlikely. They’re almost certainly adrift somewhere. But without communications.”
“They have radio?”
“Probably.”
“But the search area’s too big for radio?”
“It won’t be easy if that’s all they have.”
“Okay,” he said. “Stay on top of it. And keep me informed.” He signed off. At the moment, there was nothing more to do, so she went back to bed. But she didn’t sleep.
She gave up eventually and headed for the shower. She was covered with soap when Peter called back. They’d worked out the search area. It was big, but that was inevitable because of the vagaries associated with hyperflight, and the fact they didn’t have the precise moment when the Heffernan made its jump. “But we caught a break,” said Peter. “The Wildside is in the immediate area. They can be on the scene early Tuesday morning. We couldn’t have planned it better.
“The al-Jahani is also in the neighborhood, so I’ve diverted them as well.” The al-Jahani was an Academy ship, on its way back from Quraqua. It had passengers on board, but there’d be room for the Heffernan people if a pickup was necessary. As seemed likely.
She updated Asquith. Got him out of bed to do it. He listened, frowned, nodded, shook his head. “Let’s keep the lid on this,” he said, “until we know what’s happening.”
“I’ve cautioned our people, Michael. But we’re not going to be able to sit on it long. The story’s too big.”
“Do what you can.”
“You might want to think about holding a press conference later this morning. Tell the media what we know. Control things a bit. It’s just a matter of time before it gets out.”
“Okay,” he said. “See to it.”
“Michael,” she said, making no effort to hide her annoyance, “Eric works for you.”
He nodded. “Coordinate with him. Make sure he has everything he needs.”
THERE WAS STILL no word from the Heffernan when she got to the office an hour later. Not a good sign. She turned on her desk lamp, said hello to Marla, her AI, and collapsed into a chair.
If Abdul’s hypercomm was down, they had a serious problem. They could not precisely compute the ship’s position in hyperspace. Where transdimensional space was concerned, there was always a fudge factor. Academy pilots were trained, in the event they had to exit, to send a message immediately before they took the action. His failure to do so left them operating from guesswork.
Vehicles moving through hyperspace traveled at an equivalent rate of approximately 1.1 billion kilometers per second. Not knowing precisely when Abdul made his jump meant they could be anywhere along a track billions of kilometers long. Abdul and his people might be pretty hungry by the time help arrived.
She listened to the original message, in which Abdul said he was having engine trouble, and they were going to make their jump. And she decided she was worrying unnecessarily. The guy was a veteran, and he was telling them he was seconds away from pulling the trigger. The Wildside should have no trouble finding them.
Nothing more she could do. Outside it was still dark. She let her head drift back and closed her eyes.
“Hutch,” said Marla. “Sorry to interrup
t. You’ve a call from Eric.”
Eric Samuels was the Academy’s public relations director. He held the job primarily because he had an engaging smile and a reassuring manner. Everybody liked Eric. When he was in front of an audience, you knew things were going to be okay. He was about average size, black hair, blessed with the ability to sound utterly sincere no matter what he was saying. Curiously, his private manner was at contrast with the public persona. He was a worrier, his gaze tended to drift around the room, and you always got the feeling the situation was headed downhill. His subordinates didn’t dislike him, but they didn’t like working for him. Too nervous. Too excitable. “Do you really think it blew up?” he asked.
“I hope not, Eric. We just don’t know yet.”
“Have we started notifying the families?”
That was the problem, wasn’t it? The families would assume the worst no matter what they were told. “No,” she said. “When do you plan to talk to the media?”
“At ten. We can’t wait any longer than that. I understand the story’s already gotten out.”
Moments later she had another call. “Cy Tursi,” Marla said. Tursi did the science beat for the Washington Post. “Wants you to get right back to him. And hold on, there’s another one coming in. Hendrick, looks like.”
Hendrick was Newsletter East. “Refer them to Eric, Marla. And get me the commissioner.”
“He’s not in his office yet.”
“Get him anyway. And I need to see the passenger manifest for the Heffernan. And a next-of-kin list for them and for Abdul.”
Asquith’s voice broke in on her: “What is it, Priscilla?” He always used her given name when he was annoyed with her.
“The story’s getting out. We need to notify the families.”
“I know. I’d appreciate it if you’d take care of it. Personally. Tell them all we know is we lost contact. No reason for alarm.”
“I’d be alarmed.”
“I’m not worried about you. Anything else?”
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