Fifteen minutes later, when I judged it was safe enough, I turned off the Colloton generator and went out hunting. Eiser and Trent were easy to find, lying unconscious on the floor halfway from the stairs to the bridge. Close, but not too bad: their tiny guns were still at the bottom of the stairs, where they'd apparently been dropped.
And a half hour later I was talking to an extremely relieved duty officer on the Angelwing.
What with all the electronic equipment that got singed by my unscheduled cascade point, the Dancer was in pretty poor shape by the time we rendezvoused with the Angelwing. But Matope and Tobbar were able to make running repairs, and with the computer intact none of us was especially worried about making the short trip back to Baroja. If worse came to worst, we still had that little backup in our hold.
The passengers were somewhat more troubled. They started out furious at having had to actually experience a cascade point; shifted to astonished and only slightly less angry to find we were nowhere near Earth; and finally turned to shock at finding out the truth about Orlandis and company. I decided not to strain them further with pessimistic reports of the Dancer's spaceworthiness, but dropped our three prisoners off with the Angelwing for safekeeping and headed to Baroja to whistle up the cavalry.
Through all of it Alana was very professional, never bringing up her feelings about the whole incident and my handling of it, but doing her part to ensure that the Dancer made it through in one piece. But her underlying tension was plain; and I therefore wasn't really surprised when she came to my cabin two hours after we were safely down on Baroja to discuss her resignation.
Through all of it Alana was very professional, never bringing up her feelings about the whole incident and my handling of it, but doing her part to ensure that the Dancer made it through in one piece. But her underlying tension was plain; and I therefore wasn't really surprised when she came to my cabin two hours after we were safely down on Baroja to discuss her resignation.
"That's a... a nice compliment," she said, no better than I'd been at hiding her emotions on this. "I've enjoyed working with you, Pall-with all of you. But it seems to be time to move on."
I sighed, wondering what I should do. Offer her some inducement-any inducement-to stay? Get down on my knees and beg? Or should I simply acknowledge that she was capable of making her own decisions and let her walk out with our individual dignities intact? "You'll be badly missed," I said at last. Even now, I realized, with such a loss staring me in the face, I couldn't take the risk of losing my dignity in front of her. Of looking foolish. "You know more about dealing with people than I ever will. I don't suppose...
don't suppose there's anything I can say that would change your mind?"
She shook her head minutely, tears glistening in her eyes. "It's a matter of trust, Pall. Trust, and a realistic evaluation of my strengths as well as my weaknesses. If you can't make that evaluation by now, then I don't think you'll ever be able to."
I took a deep breath. "Alana, look... I'm sorry I put you through the hoop-I really am. I suppose if I'd thought it out a little better I might have been able to piece together what had happened without having you reenact it. But I was stuck, and we were running out of time."
"You could have come to me." Her voice was quietly accusing. "You didn't know from the beginning that you'd need to reenact things, so there wasn't any good reason to keep me in the dark about Orlandis.
Trust, Pall-you trusted Wilkinson with part of it, and Matope, and even Pascal. But me you completely cut out."
"But I had to. You were spending time with Orlandis-lots of time-"
"And you didn't think I could handle the knowledge that he might have killed Lenn Grandy? What did you think you were going to do, keep me in the dark forever? Just because I'm able to get close to people doesn't mean I lack emotional strength-"
"Who said it did?" I interrupted, frowning. "Good God, Alana-you've got more deep-down toughness than the rest of us put together. I know that."
It was her turn to frown. "Then... why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you were close to Orlandis, like I said... and all your other qualities aside, you're a lousy actress."
Her mouth fell open a crack. "You mean... all you were worried about was Orlandis getting tipped off?"
"Of course."
She licked her lips. "Oh. Well. Uh-" She stopped, looking acutely uncomfortable.
It was an old, old line... but for all that, it worked. "Sold," she said with the first smile I'd seen on her in days. "Thank you, sir. I hear the Aura Dancer's a good ship to serve on."
But of course it wasn't the Dancer we shipped out on three months later. There'd been just too much ship-wide damage to be worth repairing, at least in the opinion of the Cunard Lines officials assigned to handle our reward for saving the Angelwing. Like so many people spending other people's money, they opted for the simpler if more expensive approach.
Certainly I'm not complaining. The Daydreamer is a beauty of a ship, with the most up-to-date equipment Cunard's money could buy... including the necessary mounting socket for an Aker-Ming Autotorque.
An Autotorque which is currently still in its shipping box in our Ming-metal shield. I figure we'll haul it out and use it one of these days, but strangely enough, neither Alana nor I is in any particular hurry to do so.
For all the stress and trouble cascade images have brought into our lives... well, I guess it just wouldn't be like the old Dancer without them.
GUARDIAN ANGEL
Seldom in the history of the world had there been a success story like that of J. Thaddeus Draut. Born in the middle of the twenty-first century in the Cleveland slums-which had resisted a century's worth of eradication efforts-he had fought and struggled his way to the very top. Not an inventive or even particularly brilliant man by nature, he had instead the rare ability to inspire those who were so gifted.
The "overnight" success of his modest engineering firm came after twelve years of work and sweat on what came to be known as the Kuntz-Sinn force beam. The force beam had applications in every field from medicine to construction to aeronautics, and it put Draut Enterprises in the top ten of the Fortune
1000. When Draut's scientists came up with phased force beams, which could deliver all their power to a single point, the industrial world went crazy; and when the initial dust settled the corporation was number one. Draut himself was widely considered to be the richest man on Earth, a statement which ranked with that of the world being round: not strictly true, but close enough for practical purposes.
Unlike many wealthy men, Draut had no desire to amass money for its own sake, and he quickly found he could not spend all his income by himself. Thus, much of his money went back into the corporation, spent on a variety of projects. Most were of the borderline screwball type, which meant a large percentage of the funds invested vanished without a ripple. Occasionally, one would work out properly, sometimes even making money.
And once in a great while, there was a truly major brainstorm.
The Public Information room at the Draut Building, the three-hundred-floor headquarters of Draut Enterprises, was crammed with reporters when Draut arrived and made his way to the lectern.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the press," he said when things had quieted down and the cameras were humming, "thank you for coming here today. It is my pleasure to announce a new division of Draut Enterprises, and a scientific breakthrough that must be considered one of the greatest discoveries of our time."
He paused, and in the middle of the room Craig Petrie took the opportunity to get a better grip on his camera, held precariously but steadily above the heads of those in front of him. As a feature writer for International magazine, he didn't really need good film of Draut's announcement-his work began after the headlines had faded. But he'd once been a news filmer himself and still had some leftover professional pride.