In other words, what my life would be like if each of my major decisions had gone the other way.
I spent a moment looking down the line, focusing on each of the semi-transparent images in turn. Four figures away, conspicuous among the jumpsuits and coveralls on either side of it, was an image of myself in the gold and white of a star liner captain.
I didn't regret the decision I'd made a year earlier that had lost me that universe, but the image still sometimes raised a reflexive lump into my throat. I had the Dancer-my ship, not some bureaucracy's-and I was satisfied with my position... but there was still something siren-song impressive about the idea of being a liner captain.
I didn't regret the decision I'd made a year earlier that had lost me that universe, but the image still sometimes raised a reflexive lump into my throat. I had the Dancer-my ship, not some bureaucracy's-and I was satisfied with my position... but there was still something siren-song impressive about the idea of being a liner captain.
Reaching to the small section of control board that still showed lights, I activated the Dancer's flywheel.
The hum was clearly audible in the silence, and I shifted my gaze to the mirror that showed the long gyroscope needle set into the ceiling above my head. Slowly, as the flywheel built up speed, the needle began to move. The computer printout by my elbow told me the Dancer needed a rotation of three point two degrees to make the four point four light-years we needed for this jump. It was annoying to have to endure a cascade point for such relatively small gain-the distance traveled when we left Colloton space went up rapidly with the size of the yaw angle the ship had rotated through-but there was nothing I could do about it. The configuration of masses, galactic magnetic field, and a dozen other factors meant that the first leg of the Baroja/Earth run was always this short. And it was accounted for in our-as usual-tight schedule. So I just leaned back in my chair, did what I could to ease the induced tension that would turn into a black depression when we returned to normal space, and thought about Alana. Alana, and her phantom captaincy.
It had been on the last cascade point coming in to Baroja that she'd first seen the gold-and-white uniform in her own cascade image pattern, tucked in there among the handful of first- and second-officer dress whites that represented the range of possibilities had she stayed with the Angelwing. She'd caught the significance immediately, and the resulting ego-boost had very nearly gotten her through the point's aftermath without any depression at all. She'd left the liner four years back for reasons she'd apparently never regretted, which put the new image into the realm of pleasant surprise rather than that of missed opportunity. A confirmation of her skills; because had she stayed aboard the liner, she, not Lenn Grandy, would be captain today.
Or so the theory went. None of us who believed it had ever come up with a way to prove it.
The gyro needle was creeping toward the three-degree mark now. Another minute and I'd shut the flywheel down, letting momentum carry the Dancer the rest of the way. A conjugate inversion bilinear conformal mapping something something, the mathematicians called the whole thing: a one-to-one mapping between rotational motion in Colloton space and linear translation in normal space. Theorists loved the whole notion-elegant, they called it. Of course, they never had to suffer the drive's side effects.
But then, neither did most anyone else these days. The Aker-Ming Autotorque had replaced the old-fashioned manual approach to cascade maneuvers aboard every ship that could afford the gadgets.
The Angelwing could do so; the Dancer and I could not. I wondered, with the first hint of cascade point depression, whether Alana would spend her own next point regretting her decision to join up with me.
Three point one degrees. I flipped the gyro off and, for no particular reason, turned my attention back to my cascade pattern.
The ship was still rotating, and so the images were still doing their slow dance, a strange kaleidoscopic thing that moved the different images around within each branch of the cross. A shiver went up my back as I watched: that complex interweaving had saved my life once, but the memory served mainly to remind me of how close I'd come to death on that trip. Automatically, my eyes sought out the pattern's blank spots, those half-dozen gaps where no image existed. In those six possible realities I had died... and I would never know what the decision had been that had doomed me.
The gyro needle had almost stopped. I watched it closely, feeling afresh the sensation of death quietly waiting by my shoulder. If I brought the Dancer out of Colloton space before its rotation had completely stopped, our atoms would wind up spread out over a million kilometers of space.
But the spin lock holding the field switch in place worked with its usual perfection, releasing the switch to my control only when the ship was as close to stationary as made no difference. I flipped the field off and watched my cascade images disappear in reverse order; and then I drew a shuddering breath as my eyes filled with tears and cascade point depression hit like a white-capped breaker, dragging me under. I reactivated the Dancer's systems and, slumping in my seat, settled down to ride out the siege.
By dinnertime two hours later the ship and crew were long back to normal, and the passengers were showing signs of life, as well.
Or at least some of them were. I reached the dining room to find a remarkably small crowd: three of our eight passengers plus Alana, Tobbar, and Matope. They were grouped around one of the two tables, with two seats to spare. "Good evening, all," I said, coming forward.
"Ah-Captain," Alana said, a look of surprise flicking across her face before she could catch it. "I was just explaining that you probably wouldn't be able to make it down here for dinner."
A fair enough assumption, if not entirely true: I usually managed to find a plausible reason to avoid these get-togethers. But a chance comment Tobbar had made when reporting the passengers were all aboard had made me curious, and I'd decided to drop by and see the phenomenon for myself. "I probably won't be able to stay very long," I said aloud to Alana and the table at large. "But I'd hoped at least to be able to personally welcome our passengers aboard." I cocked an eyebrow at Tobbar.
He took the cue. "Captain Pall Durriken, may I present three of our passengers: Mr. Hays Trent, Mr.
Kiln Eiser, and Mr. Rollin Orlandis."
Trent and Eiser were youngish men, with what seemed to be very athletic bodies under their business suits and smiles that somehow didn't reach their eyes. I said hello and turned my attention to Orlandis...
and found that Tobbar had been right.
Orlandis didn't belong on a ship like the Dancer.
That much I got in my first quick glance; but as my brain switched to logic mode to try and back up that intuitive impression, I realized it wasn't nearly as obvious a conclusion as I'd thought. His suit, which had seemed too expensively cut for a tramp starmer passenger, turned out to be merely a small jump above the outfits Trent and Eiser were wearing, not much more than twice what I could afford myself. His ring and watch looked new but ordinary enough; his vaguely amused look no worse than others I'd seen directed the Dancer's way. But something about the man still felt wrong.
I apparently hesitated too long, and the conversational ball was plucked neatly from my hands. "Good evening, Captain Durriken," Orlandis said, giving me an easy, not-quite-condescending smile. His voice was quiet and measured, with the feel of someone used to being listened to. "First Officer Keal has been explaining the ins and outs of the Aura Dancer to us, and I must say it sounds like a fascinating craft.
Would you be able to spare her a bit later in the journey for a guided tour? Say, tomorrow or the next day?"
Would you be able to spare her a bit later in the journey for a guided tour? Say, tomorrow or the next day?"