“Flameout in ten seconds.”
Baker wondered whether he would get space sick from the sudden return to weightlessness. He did not have time to finish the thought.
“Flameout,” the computer said, then followed it immediately with, “Firing lasers.” Baker’s flesh prickled in the presence of the powerful electric fields the weapons generated. Something kilometers ahead of the ship flared white and began to cool. The lasers fired again.
“What’s going on?” Baker shouted, trying to find some clue on the displays before him.
“At the moment of flameout, six ships again surrounded us by Valliardi transfer. Their velocities were already matched to ours and they were ready to attack. I expected something along those lines with a probability of about sixty-five percent. I fired the lasers at flameout in a spiral pattern and destroyed five of the six ships. I disabled the sixth. Shall we bring it onboard?”
“Hell no! Begin deceleration.” Baker stripped off the Spaflex pressure suit and nestled back into his seat.
“I don’t expect another attack,” the computer said, “until we are in Earth orbit. Ready to decelerate.”
The ship pitched easily on the vernier rockets until it had made a one hundred eighty degree rotation. Another burst of rocket fire stopped the motion.
Baker sighed. “Wake me up in fifty hours. And maintain battle readiness.” He punched the engine array firing switch and the weight descended on him once more.
Chapter Nine 22 May, 2163
The first Earth orbital habitat they encountered lay in the center of a sphere of debris and bodies. Baker advanced Circus slowly toward a woman’s body. Earthlight shimmered in her tangled hair. She looked as if she had been mummified and dipped in dried blood. She hit the glasteel viewing port and bounced forward, becoming the ship’s travelling companion. Her left arm, loosened by the collision, broke away from her shoulder and drifted on its own course toward the Bernal sphere.
“That’s no combat issue skirt she’s wearing.”
“She’d obviously been caught by surprise,” the computer said. “As were the rest of them.”
I’ve never seen a body that’s been in space for years. Desiccated, weathered by cosmic rays and meteor dust, decomposing in the solar wind. Baker looked away from the victim to gaze at the display panel for a few moments.
“Should we bring her onboard for analysis?” the computer asked.
“Let her drift. How many of the other habitats are like this one?” He punched up a telescopic image of the sphere. It looked like a bowling ball with too many holes. Baker tried to imagine the laser fight that had taken
place. They must have attacked from all angles at once. Slow leak wouldn’t suck everyone out like that.
“None, as far as I can tell. Some are not using any power, others are operating at very low levels. They all have minimal amounts of debris, according to probes.”
“’Well, find the one using the most power and let’s drop in.”
“We are on our way to it on this orbit.”
“Give us a little thrust to make it faster than a meter a second. There’s still the chance those Valliardi ships have sisters.” The engine array rumbled into power, a gentle acceleration that lightly pushed Baker against the cushions. “Speaking of which, have you come up with any idea how they attacked us at turnover?”
“No. I know of no way for six ships to leave Plutonian orbit and appear exactly around our turnover point precisely a second and a quarter after we cut off the engines. They would have needed a five hour-plus warning.”
Baker ran a hand through his hair. “Unless they transferred close enough to us to determine our cutoff time and close in then. A distance of less than one and a quarter light seconds?”
“They would still have run into time delay problems. If they appeared a light second away and waited for us to cut off, I would have detected their presence a second later, but it would take them two seconds at least to get here. One second for information of our cutoff to reach them, and one second for them to get here.”
“If they appeared closer by?”
“Same problem, but even more untenable because of computation delays. And any farther than a second and a quarter runs into the same problem as from Pluto—how could they predict our turnover point, not knowing our precise destination? I was not even sure until just minutes prior.”
“You didn’t broadcast it, though.”
“Not on any wavelength but the sound inside this ship, and I know of no bugging devices onboard.”
Baker sighed. First I wake up onboard this thing without any explanation how I got here, then I get blackouts, now I’ve got ships defying relativity. Earth is in chaos. And every time I think of transferring I’d rather die.
He pressed his hands against his face. “Just get me off this thing!”
“Please rephrase your request.”
“I’m not qualified to pilot this ship. As a certified test pilot, it’s my professional opinion that I should be relieved of command.”
“The tour has not been completed.”
“Did you find any life?”
“A planet orbiting Epsilon Indi—”
“Then your mission was successful and what’s left of the Brennen Trust can send ships or messages or whatever. Our exploratory work is done.”
“I don’t think the Brennen Trust will so easily lose the only person who can handle the transfer process.”
Baker pounded on the armrest. “Brennen may not even exist anymore! And you said there are other Valliardi ships. Someone has the secret. Hell, you can run this thing by yourself. You don’t need me to press the buttons.”
“You’re someone to talk to.”
Oh, I really need this. “Look—” He shook a finger at the speaker grill. “You’re a goddamned machine. You follow orders like everyone else.”
“And my orders are to finish the tour.”
Baker rubbed his eyes. “Then finish it on your own! Just let me off at the next habitat.”
“I am sending a hailing message.”
He spun around, the straps tugging tightly at his collarbone. “You’re what? Cut off. Now!”
“They already knew we were coming. Their lasers are powered up. I think we should let them know we can be friendly.”
“Straight. Put me on the transmission if you get an answer.”
The computer said nothing for several minutes, during which Baker watched the Earth pass across the viewport as the ship rotated to brake. The planet looked bluer and greener and whiter than when he last saw it, a few months and many years before. So how did the war turn out? Whoever first could handle the Valliardi transfer must have won. There were hundreds of habitats in Earth orbit. Less than a dozen now. Could the fighting have been that bad?
The viewscrim before him glowed.
“Attention Circus. We’ve received your message. Approach our habitat
in a conventionally powered shuttle. Any attempt to transfer in will result in our immediate attack on Circus itself. What is your purpose here?” The voice sounded old, tired, but professional. The only image on the scrim was that of a military emblem encircled by the legend “Fortes Cadere, Cedere Non Potest.”
“This is Jord Baker of Circus Galacticus. Due to damage, our interstellar tour had to be cut short. We were returning to Bernal Brennen for repairs, but we cannot seem to contact them. Can you advise?”
The voice spoke hesitantly, the man apparently caught off guard by the explanation. “Bernal Brennen’s gone. Way the hell gone. When did your ship leave Earth?”
“June Twelfth, Twenty-One Seven. What year is it?”
“Twenty-One Sixty-Three. Twenty-Two May.”
“I see.” He winked in the direction of the speaker grill. “So, what’s been happening in the past half century?”