"Um. Okay, well, you head below and work out the details. If you come up with a plausible feedback mechanism we'll talk some more about it."
"Sure. See you later, Captain."
I settled down into my seat and ran through the checkout routine... but even as my fingers kept themselves busy, my eyes kept straying to the Colloton field switch. In some ways Pascal was a curiously naive man; he could theorize an incredible tangle of assumptions about the universe at large while missing entirely the factor of simple, human evil.
You didn't need line current across the Aker-Ming Autotorque when a bomb would work equally well.
I reached over to the crew intercom, keyed for the engine room where Tobbar had just come on duty.
"Everything normal back there?" I asked when he answered.
"Yes, sir. No problems at all."
"Good. Tobbar, you once told me that Orlandis didn't belong on the Dancer. Why not?"
"He's too rich and important," was the prompt reply. "Probably rich enough to own his own ship; at least rich enough to charter a decent one."
"But how do you know?"
"Because he talks too slowly."
I blinked. "Say again?"
"He talks too slowly. You see, Captain, when you're important enough you don't have to talk fast-people will take whatever time's necessary to hear you out. It's those of us at the bottom of the social heap who have to get our thoughts out quickly before everyone walks away."
I thought back over the few brief conversations I'd had with Orlandis, and damned if Tobbar wasn't right.
Precise, carefully measured speech-and a very clear sense that you would stand patiently by until he'd finished. "Any chance he could be faking it?" I asked Tobbar.
He shrugged. "I doubt it. It he were trying to pass himself off as the original nabob of borscht he should have put some more money into his clothes and jewelry. If he were smart enough to change his speech pattern, he should have been smart enough to think of obvious details like that."
I gritted my teeth. "Yeah. Okay, thanks. We'll be doing our next point in about three hours, so you can start securing things whenever you're ready."
"Yes, sir."
I broke the connection and scowled at the Colloton field switch for a few minutes. Okay: so Orlandis was rich. And the yacht in our hold was certainly expensive; it was hard to avoid the inference that the two went together. So let's see: Orlandis had sabotaged the Angelwing by unknown means and for unknown purpose, then signed aboard the Dancer in hopes of getting confirmation of his success. A
sudden thought occurred to me, and I called up the passenger manifest. Yes: Orlandis had booked passage four days after our arrival on Baroja; two days after Alana's first get-together with her old Angelwing friends. With a good enough information network, then, he would have had enough time to hear about her cascade point "captaincy" and make his plans.
I broke the connection and scowled at the Colloton field switch for a few minutes. Okay: so Orlandis was rich. And the yacht in our hold was certainly expensive; it was hard to avoid the inference that the two went together. So let's see: Orlandis had sabotaged the Angelwing by unknown means and for unknown purpose, then signed aboard the Dancer in hopes of getting confirmation of his success. A
sudden thought occurred to me, and I called up the passenger manifest. Yes: Orlandis had booked passage four days after our arrival on Baroja; two days after Alana's first get-together with her old Angelwing friends. With a good enough information network, then, he would have had enough time to hear about her cascade point "captaincy" and make his plans.
Steady, Durriken, steady, I told myself as a lump rose to about the middle of my windpipe. Think it out.
Would getting rid of us really do the trick? If we didn't raise the alarm the first hint of trouble would be when the Angelwing failed to show up at Lorraine. Twenty-eight days after her departure from Baroja; nearly that since her accident. I hadn't been joking earlier about Cunard's clock-watching reputation: on a given run their ships always took the exact same number of cascade points, each of an exactly specified length, with the real-space intervals between them equally well defined. Given that, the Lorraine office probably wouldn't let the ship be more than two or three days overdue before sounding the alarm... and when they did, they would have only those four precisely demarcated real-space areas to search.
Except that from the timing of Alana's cascade point event we knew that the disaster had occurred on one end or the other of the Angelwing's first maneuver... which meant it was either a few hours out from Baroja-and presumably already rescued-or else nine point two light-years out toward Lorraine. To reach that spot, the Lorraine searchers would require another three weeks. Total time: less than eight weeks.
Easily within the three months the Angelwing should be able to survive.
I shook my head, trying to clear it. The more I tried to track through the logic, the more confused I became and the more the loose ends threatened to grow up my sleeves. If Orlandis was trying to destroy the Angelwing, he was doing a lousy job of it. If he wasn't, then none of this made any sense at all.
Unless the accident itself was what he needed, fatalities or lack of them being irrelevant. The accident, and getting quickly to Earth. Well, if that was what it took to make him feel happy, then I was perfectly happy to oblige. Keying the main intercom to general broadcast, I flipped it on. "Good morning, everyone, this is Captain Durriken," I said into the mike. "In just under three hours Dr. Epstein will be administering your sleepers for the Aura Dancer's next cascade maneuver. You will be pleased to know that we've changed course once again and will be continuing on to Earth as scheduled. A few minutes ago I was able to contact another ship bound for Baroja, and so the rescue mission I told you about will be handled without any need for us to go back. Thank you for your patience, and I'm glad things have worked out this way. Enjoy your day; Captain out."
I switched off the intercom and picked up the printout Pascal had left me. If Orlandis wanted to play games, fine. I could play games, too. Maybe sometime in the next few days I'd figure out what exactly was going on here. Preferably before we actually arrived at Baroja.
Death and taxes are still the only two items universally acknowledged as inevitable; but on my own personal list a post-cascade visit from Orlandis was running a pretty close third. Correctly, as it turned out; and as I came down the spiral stair to the passenger deck at the end of my shift I found him waiting.
At least this time he'd had the grace to stay where he belonged.
"I just wanted to thank you for your assistance and cooperation, Captain," he said as I stepped around the stairway railing. "And I wanted also to assure you that my end of the arrangement will be carried out as soon as we reach Earth."
"I just wanted to thank you for your assistance and cooperation, Captain," he said as I stepped around the stairway railing. "And I wanted also to assure you that my end of the arrangement will be carried out as soon as we reach Earth."
"It should be," he nodded. "In fact, if you could allow me access to the ship's communication equipment once we're within range, I could practically guarantee it."
"Well... we'll see, but it should be all right. I don't suppose this deal is anything I could get in on?"
His smile wasn't quite condescending, but it was pretty damn close. "I'm afraid not, Captain. Not unless you have a hundred million in investment capital available to you. Tell me, what do you think happened to the Angelwing?"
The abrupt change in subject threw me off guard. "The-uh-what do you mean?" I stammered at last.
"You know-the accident you believe happened to it. What do you think went wrong?"