All that remains to do is to test the matter transmitter. Linc knew. But even if it takes time to get it working, once we’re in a stable orbit around Beryl we’ll have plenty of time. Already the main computer up in the hub was going over all the necessary data and working up a program that would tell Linc how to repair and test the matter transmitter system.
If Jerlet could only see this! He’d be proud of me. But Linc frowned to himself. He knew who he really wanted to see his accomplishments: Magda. But she had never once visited the bridge, his domain.
Monel had come.
Red-faced, thinner, and nastier than ever, he had come flanked by six of his guards and watched—angry and snarling—as more than a dozen people worked at the tasks Linc had assigned them.
“You’ll get no food!” he screamed at them. “None at all! Don’t expect to go against my orders and still get fed.”
Linc countered, “We have food processors at the hub and other levels of the ship. The servomechs keep us well-supplied. We won’t starve.”
Monel spun his chair around and wheeled himself away from the bridge. One of his guards stayed with Linc, a fellow named Rix. “He’s gone crazy,” Rix said. “I’m better off with you.”
Linc didn’t tell everyone that the food processors couldn’t feed a large number of people indefinitely. They would need inputs of fresh food eventually. But by that time we’ll either be in orbit around Beryl or dead.
Monel was back a few days later, this time threatening to have the guards tear people away from the bridge by force, if necessary.
“Violence?” Linc asked.
“Justice!” Monel snarled.
Linc went to a desk top and touched a button. A servomech rolled up to Monel’s chair and stood there, its dome sensors pulsing with a faint reddish light. Monel backed his chair away.
“Those metal arms,” Linc said, “can inflict a lot of justice on your guards. Or you.”
Monel left the bridge. He never returned. Neither did his guards.
And Magda never came at all.
I could go get her, Linc thought. But he shook his head at the idea. No! Let her come to me. She’s wrong and I’m right.
Besides, there was Jayna and a dozen other girls who wanted to be with him now. Let Magda sit in her shrine, Linc told himself. Let her meditate ’til she turns green!
Most of the people came to the bridge to help him every day, then returned to their quarters for meals and sleep. Despite the threats and grumblings, Monel took no action to stop them. Slav and his farmers hardly ever showed up on the bridge, but Linc knew they were on his side.
Linc himself slept in the captain’s lounge, next to the bridge. He ate what Jayna or some of the other girls brought him.
He spent most of his time working on the matter transmitter.
It was incredibly complex, and he didn’t understand the first tenth of what he was doing. But the computer patiently showed detailed diagrams, gave him long lists of parts and instructions on where to find them and how to use them.
And each day the yellow sun grew brighter, bigger. It seemed to be reaching out for them.
Linc was squatting on the floor of the transmitter booth—a» tall cylinder of transparent plastic that stood in front of the system’s roomful of electronic hardware—when Hollie came running up to him.
“Linc,” she called breathlessly, “the astrogation computer is starting to print out the final course corrections!”
Linc scrambled to his feet and wordlessly followed her to the bridge. Hollie was a slim, lanky girl, almost Linc’s own height, and her long legs kept pace with him as they raced down the corridor from the transmitter station to the bridge.
More than a dozen people were crowded around the astrogation computer desk. They moved back when Linc arrived and let him slide into the seat.
Above the desk, the computer’s main viewscreen had split into several different displays. One showed numbers: the exact timing and thrust levels of the rocket burns that must be made. Another showed a picture of their course, laid against a schematic drawing of the solar system that they were finally reaching. Thin yellow lines showed the orbits of the system’s six planets: Beryl was the second-closest to the yellow sun. A glowing blue Linc showed the course that the ship would have to follow; it ended in a circular orbit around Beryl. A flashing green dot showed where the rocket burns had to be made.
Linc studied the numbers and nodded.
“Twelve hours,” he said. “The first rocket burn has to be made in twelve hours.”
They all clapped and laughed. They were excited, eager. Their long weeks of work were finally resulting in something they could see.
But Linc found himself wishing for more time. I’ve got to be in a dozen places at once, he realized. The matter transmitter wasn’t ready for testing yet, and no one else could read or handle the tools well enough to be trusted with it. But he also had to be here on the bridge to make certain that the course-changing maneuvers were done exactly right. Otherwise everything was doomed.
And, he realized, he had to see Magda.
It was night. Everyone was asleep. Linc stood by the astrogation computer and watched all the unsleeping, hard-working instruments of the bridge. The whole ship is at my fingertips. All mine. Just as though nobody else existed.
In three more hours they would all be awake and clustered here at the bridge while the rocket engines roared briefly to life. A few seconds to thrust, that was all that was needed for this first course correction. A quick burn that would swerve them away from Baryta’s glaring hot grasp.
The difference between life and death.
She won’t come to see it happen, he knew. She’ll stay in her little shrine and wail for me to come to her.
He paced the length of the bridge once. Then twice. Abruptly he strode to the hatch and pushed it open. For the first time in many months, he went back to the living area.
It seemed strange to be walking down the old corridor again. His home, for most of life. But now it looked old, worn, and tired, somehow different than Linc remembered it. The walls were stained and discolored. The floor was scuffed and dull.
He passed the big double doors of the farm section. How many lifetimes ago had he repaired the pump that Peta had damaged? How much had happened since then!
Linc found himself slowing down as he neared Magda’s door. He glanced up and saw a long-dead TV camera’s eye staring blindly out of the ceiling. I could fly that and watch the corridor from the bridge, he thought idly.
He finally got to her door, hesitated, then tapped on it lightly.
“Come in Linc,” came Magda’s muffled voice.
The room was the same. The walls glowed dimly. The strange sky shapes shone across the ceiling. Magda sat on the bunk, her face deep in shadow, as Linc stepped in and let the door slide shut behind him.
“How did you know it was me?” he asked. She pushed her hair back away from her face with a graceful hand.
“I’m the priestess. I can see things that other people can’t see.”
He didn’t answer.
“Besides,” she said, “who else would it be? I knew you’d come sooner or later. And probably while everyone else was asleep.”
H e crossed the tiny room in three strides and sat on the floor, at her feet.
“You don’t sleep?” he asked.
“Not very much, anymore.”
From this close he could see, despite the room’s dimness, that her face was even more gaunt and hollowed than his own.