Lipinski’s gaze was resting heavily on her. She didn’t want to think about it, but she knew there was no getting away from it.
Yerusha’s voice came back after a five second pause. “We’ve got enough to make it to Vicarage, but that’s it.”
“All right, we can stock up when we get there. As soon as you see a clear path, get us out of here.”
“On it.” Her voice was slow, as if she wanted to disagree. There was a pause. “Intercom to Houston.”
“Here, Pilot,” he answered mechanically.
“What’s left of The Gate’s AI is in a wafer stack in the main comm boards. If their network’s at all stabilized, we’d better give it back to them before we leave.” It was costing Yerusha something to say this. Al Shei could hear it in her voice. Schyler’s report is going to be very, very interesting.
“Giving their AI back is probably a good idea,” he agreed. “Thank you for mentioning it. Intercom to close.”
He turned away from the intercom, his face the frozen mask it became when things had gone far to far.
I’m sorry, Houston, they’re about to get worse.
Al Shei gripped the chair arms and took a deep breath. One slow, careful sentence at a time, she told him what Dobbs had told her.
When she finished, the silence stretched out so long she thought for a ridiculous moment that Lipinski had forgotten how to speak.
Then, he did speak in a low, steady voice that somehow managed to express more outrage than any of his dramatic shouting ever did.
“Al Shei, how could you do this?”
“What did you want me to do, Houston?” She spread her hands. “Leave it? Kill it? If Dobbs is right and it was created deliberately, we’ve got a genuine threat to all of Settled Space out there and one lead to the source of it.” She pointed towards the deck. “It’ll be off the ship as soon as we reach The Vicarage.” She leaned forward across the table, trying to catch his gaze, but his focus kept sliding towards the table top. “In the meantime, I need you. I need you to draft a message to the Farther Kingdom’s diplomatic corps and let them know the AI’s gone and make sure that message gets somewhere useful. Then, I’m going to need a line open so I can get a background check on Amory Dane. I’m going to need you to sort through what Uysal gave us about Tully’s smuggled data. There are two possibilities for where this thing came from; either it came out of Toric, or it came from Amory Dane. Asil is checking on Dane’s movements on Port Oberon, and that might get us something, but it probably won’t be enough.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re asking a whole set of good questions. Here’s another: What did Tully think he was doing?”
Al Shei nodded in agreement. “I’m going to ask him first chance I get, believe me.”
Lipinski pulled his shoulders up a little straighter. “This is going to take fast-time communications. It’s going to be expensive.”
Al Shei bowed her head. “Allah, forgive me. I didn’t realize I had that much of a miser’s reputation.” She looked up again. “Do it, Houston. We’re so far in the hole one way and other, it won’t matter. Our only hope of salvaging this run is to lay this whole mess in its grave.” She laid her hand on the table, not quite touching him, but reaching out. “I also need you to refine those roadblock programs of yours. Dobbs says she can keep that thing under control, but I don’t want to take any chances, all right?”
Lipinski nodded and climbed to his feet.
“Intercom to Pasadena,” Yerusha’s voice cut through the air. “Emergency launch prep! Starting now!”
Al Shei was on her feet and half-way to the door before she had a chance to think about it. She wasted a precious second to turn and face her Houston one more time.
“You still with me, Rurik?”
His wide mouth quirked up in an attempt to smile. “Still with you.”
Neither one of them lost any more time. They strode out into the corridor and onto the stairs to get to their duty stations. Al Shei tried very hard not to think about how she was never going to be able to return to this world again and attempted to concentrate on how she was going to get herself and her ship away from it.
Chapter Eight — Flight
Yerusha finished tightening the launch straps around herself just as Schyler burst onto the bridge. He threw himself into his own chair.
“Intercom to Pasadena,” he called out as he pulled his straps around him. “Role call, all hands!”
“Law!” came Resit’s voice.
“Comm, Huston, Odel, Rosvelt.”
“Galley, Sundars!”
“Engine, Ianiai, Javerri, Shim’on.”
“Cheney, on my way up!”
“Cheney, you get to your bunk and strap in!” called Yerusha. “We’ll handle it up here!”
The voices rattled off the crew names, and Schyler’s breathing began to grow easier. They’d done it, she could practically hear him thinking. They’d gotten them all back.
Yerusha turned her attention back to her own boards. They’d gotten them back. Now it was her job to get them all out of here.
“Watch, we need to put out some kind of clearance call,” Yerusha said, scribbling down her orders to the ship. Set the engines on stand-by. A check of the lines to The Gate showed some repairs had been managed. She could get to the docking clamps. She called up Trustee’s authorization codes and set the clamps on stand-by as well. Change the view on the screens, make sure there was still a clear route out there.
Schyler drove his pen across the boards, opening the lines to the port. “This is mail packet Pasadena to The Gate Flight Control. We will be launching in thirty seconds. I repeat we will be launching in thirty seconds.”
“Pasadena,” called an unidentified man’s voice. “You’re under house arrest! You’re not go…” A burst of static cut the voice off.
“Oh yes we are,” answered Schyler and he shut the line down. He nodded to Yerusha. “And make it good.”
“Aye-aye, Watch. Intercom to Pasadena. Clamps releasing. Prepare for free fall.” Yerusha slapped the OVERRIDE key and brought both hands down on the boards.
The station fell back and what little hold gravity had on them vanished. Years of training screamed at Yerusha to call in, to get the distance and time verification. She glanced at the clock over her board. Two clicks at fifty seconds. A good rate. Steady. Three point six at one minute twenty. She checked the angle on the thrusters.
“Pasadena this is the Farther Kingdom Port Master!” shouted an auto-translator’s tinny voice across the intercom. “You are hereby ordered to stand down your…”
“Don’t,” said Schyler quietly to Yerusha.
“I wasn’t going to.” Five clicks at four minutes fifty five seconds. Close, but not fatal. She hit the command keys on her board. The primary indicators blinked from yellow to green. “Torch lit.”
The port shot backwards and gravity laid its hand over the ship again. Yerusha didn’t give the all clear, or make a move to undo her own straps. She kept her gaze fastened on the window and its attendant view screens. The screens showed everything clear, port, starboard, stern, bow, topside and keel. The proximity alarms stayed quiet. The way ahead was unbroken darkness.
But they still had no contact from the port, no real flight plan out of the system, and no way to know what any one else out there was doing. She cursed the reasoning that made her send Maidai home. They could have used her. She could have made her a foster…
She could have left The Gate to founder in its own mistakes, except it turned out that she couldn’t. She had told herself that she was sending Maidai home because The Gate could hold a soul and her wafer stack couldn’t. But that wasn’t the whole truth.