“That missile attack really backfired on us,” Floyd said.
“On the other hand, it may have helped us,” Tunguska said. “Niagara may believe that his return strike destroyed us. With all the acoustic noise, there’s no way he could have bounced an echo off us.”
“So it could go either way,” Auger said. “That’s the top and bottom of it, right?”
“I confess that there are a number of unknowns.”
“It would help if we knew which door he’d taken,” Auger observed.
The hyperweb transition had thrown them thousands of light-years across the galaxy. Auger didn’t need to know the details. There was still at least one transition ahead of them; maybe several. Given the knotted topology of the hyperweb links, they could end up almost anywhere, if they ever succeeded in following Niagara’s trail to the ALS.
“Even if Niagara made his next throat insertion before our emergence,” Tunguska said, “I was still hoping for an unambiguous sign of which portal he used.”
“And?” Auger asked impatiently, tapping a fingernail against the table.
Tunguska had already called up a display of the immediate volume of space around the four neighbouring portals. They were all anchored to anonymous rocks orbiting a compact, dark binary where major planetary formation had never taken place. It was a bleak, hellish place, sizzling with high-energy particles chewed up and spat out again by the twisted Siamese magnetosphere of the binary stars.
“At maximum thrust, with all safety margins disengaged, he could have reached any one of the three outgoing portals a shade before our emergence,” Tunguska said. “He must have been confident that the Molotov device could tolerate that kind of acceleration without its own containment mechanisms failing… but then again, perhaps that was a risk he was prepared to take.”
“Can you see a thrust trail?” Auger said.
“No. Too much ambient radiation around for us to be able to sniff out the ionisation products.”
“What about the portals?” she asked. “Didn’t the staff see which one he used?”
“There are no staff,” Tunguska said. “Apart from routine visits for maintenance, these portals here take care of themselves.”
“Then the machines—”
“All three tell the same story,” Tunguska said, one step ahead of her questions. “They were all activated, geared up for throat insertion and controlled collapse. Niagara sent activation signals to all three—like a man opening all the doors in the corridor in order to mask the one he really stepped through.”
“Clever guy,” Floyd said. “You have to give him that.”
Auger buried her head in her hands. She felt a tremendous, welling frustration with Tunguska. Despite all his technology, all his cool, calm Slasher wisdom, he was still powerless against a single agile adversary. It was unfair, she knew, but she couldn’t help herself. In the presence of a wizard, she wanted miracles, not excuses.
“This is not good,” she said. “Don’t you have any clues? He only had one ship. Only one of those portals was really used.”
“That’s our only straw,” Tunguska said. “As it is, one of the portals shows a slightly different collapse signature compared to the other two he might have used. If I had to put money on it, I’d say that’s the one that really had a ship squeezed through it.”
“How much money?” she asked, smiling.
“You’d rather not know.”
“OK,” Auger said. “If that’s our only option… we have to take it. Once we’re inside, will we be able to bounce an echo off him?”
“Perhaps,” Tunguska said, “but the absence of an echo won’t necessarily prove that we chose the wrong door. He could be just too far ahead of us for it to reach him.”
“Do we have any other options?”
“No. That’s why I’ve already committed us to the portal with the odd signature. As soon as drive repair is complete, we’ll ramp up to maximum pursuit thrust.”
“Good,” Auger said. “I’d rather be chasing a shadow than sitting around here talking about it.”
“Unfortunately, chasing shadows may be all we end up doing. Even if that signature is real, it’s at the limit of readability. If Niagara had shaved just an additional hour off his arrival time, we’d never have seen it.”
“Then we’d better not waste a minute.”
“That’s the problem.” Tunguska replaced the schematic image of the quadruple-portal system with the fractured-glass map of the galactic hyperweb network. He zoomed in on one little area, highlighting a conjunction of four filaments. “This is where we are now,” he said. “And this—given our best guess—is where Niagara will emerge, after an eight-hour transit.”
He directed their attention to another part of the map, further around the great clockface of the galaxy.
“Another cluster of portals,” Auger said.
“Six, all told, including the one we’ll enter through. There’s no ALS there, so it can’t be his final destination. He’ll be taking another portal.”
“We’ll just have to hope that the same trick works twice.”
“It won’t, I’m afraid,” Tunguska said. “The time differential between his departure and our arrival will be too great. There’ll be no detectable difference between the portals, regardless of the fact that only one of them will have had a ship fly through it.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that unless he has spectacular bad luck between here and there—we’ll have lost him.”
“We can’t lose him,” Auger said. “That’s simply not an acceptable outcome.”
“We may have to live with it. He knows the way to the ALS. We don’t. It’s that simple.”
“Cassandra should have looked at those documents in more detail,” Auger said, with an odd feeling of self-criticism, as if she was reproaching herself for some unacceptable omission or failing.
“She did the best she could,” Tunguska said. “At the time, she had only a vague idea that they might be of strategic importance. It’s lucky we got what we did.”
“Lucky?” Auger snapped. “The cargo told us nothing.”
“I’m sorry,” Tunguska said. “If there was anything I could do… We’ll continue the chase, of course, and hope for good luck.”
“That’s the best you can offer?”
“I’m afraid so.”
No one said anything, until Floyd raised his hand and spoke. “Anyone mind if I make a small contribution?”
THIRTY-EIGHT
The bleed-drive was still not ready for maximum thrust. While they toiled at a leisurely one gee towards the suspect portal, Floyd led Auger and Tunguska back to his quarters.
“This had better be worth it,” Auger said.
“You got any viable alternatives?”
“I just mean… don’t raise false expectations here, Floyd. I know you’re trying to help, but really.”
He looked back at her, wounded pride on his face. “ ‘But really’ what?”
“This is a very technical matter,” she said.
“What she’s saying,” Tunguska interjected, adopting a conciliatory tone, “is that there are some things you might be reasonably expected to have a useful opinion on… and some things you might be reasonably expected not to have a useful opinion on.”
“I see,” Floyd said tersely.
“And I’m afraid the matter of hyperweb navigation falls resoundingly into the latter category,” he went on.
“At least hear me out, Jack.”
“Floyd, I know you mean well,” Auger said, “but we really should be preparing for when the bleed-drive is back on-line.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know that you’re headed in the right direction, before you light that torch?”