With a free hand, Brim waved through the Hyperscreen frame while he cycled the generators to FORWARD.
Claudia must have been able to see him; she waved back.
"Friend of yours?" Calhoun chuckled quietly.
"You might say," Brim answered noncommittally. A moment later, Prize began to pick up speed and headed into the main canal. Just before she nosed into the first turn, he leaned out the Hyperscreen frame and peered back toward the Payless wharf-barely in time to see the figure under the Karlsson lamp throw him a kiss. Then she and Payless both disappeared behind another dreary warehouse....
Presently, the canal emptied into Grand Harbor and Brim set up a high-speed taxi toward the takeoff vector. A stiff hibernal breeze was now blowing through his still-open Hyperscreen frame, filling the bridge with smells of the sea. Brim soaked up the sensations of the old ship: her generators vibrating his boots, the distant splashing of her gravity footprint twenty-five irals below the hull. Presently, a voice interrupted from the COMM console. "S.S. Prize: Atalanta Tower. Taxi into position and hold nineteen right, traffic landing two five left."
"Position and hold nineteen right, S.S. Prize," Brim answered, sliding the Hyperscreen panel shut and activating the seal. Claudia's distant figure blowing a kiss appeared momentarily before his mind's eye, but the pretakeoff checklist kept him too busy to dwell on such thoughts-appealing as they were.
Within moments, a ruby light appeared in the distance and blinked three times. "S.S. Prize cleared for takeoff," sounded from the COMM console.
"S.S. Prize," Brim acknowledged, advancing the power levers to MAXIMUM TAKEOFF.
He grinned as the old starship began to speed over the water. "One of these days, Claudia," he whispered to himself. "One of these days." Somehow, there never seemed to be time for anything but war....
Chapter 7
I.F.S. PRIZE
Within days, Prize settled on station, audaciously cruising the main trade routes to and from Haelic in an ironic attempt to counter an entirely new technology with one of the oldest ruses known to warfare. And true to Ursis's conjecture, Calhoun accepted the challenge as if he had been dealing with D-ships all his life.
The elder Carescrian did everything he could think of to get into contact with a bender.
Each day, a special bureau in the Admiralty collated all reports that even suggested bender activity, then KA'PPAed the lot in a specially coded message to Prize. Calhoun personally plotted each of these "sightings" in case the Leaguers might be employing any sort of "system" with their new ships. But except that they sometimes worked in pairs, it seemed clear that-during this early period of their deployment, at least-each bender captain was free to devise his own system.
Frequently the old ship traveled under markings of neutral civilizations such as Lixor, Vornardian, or Rhodor-a strategy requiring much preparation that was often carried out under the most difficult circumstances imaginable. Nationality markings had to be removed-then reapplied-often while the ship was at Hyperspeed. This necessitated use of special, highly caustic chemical coatings applied in the absence of all but the most basic safety techniques. In addition, both nacelles usually required some sort of special modification. At minimum, the port of registry had to be changed on her nameplates with painfully correct language translations, and the KA'PPA antenna was constantly returned, just a hair off either way, to give the ship disparate transmission signatures. They even removed her Reynolds Pivot Marks-required by intragalactic legislation to visibly indicate the hull's pivot point. Most neutral "tramp" transports didn't bother with such niceties.
At first, the Admiralty theorized that benders might well be forced to navigate by internal gyros, especially in spectral mode, and would therefore be forced to reaffirm their positions with considerable frequency. Accordingly, Calhoun concentrated his initial efforts off some of the larger, more well-known navigational beacons at intersections of major trade routes.
He tried schemes such as dampening off both Drive and generator systems, then drifting as if the old ship were out of control or disabled. And, indeed, Prize's powerful KA'PPA receiver did intercept two benders talking to each other-one of them even sounded as if it were fairly close. In the end, however, no contact was made.
On another occasion, they thought to encourage a bender attack by making clear KA'PPA signals to their "owners" in Haelic: HAVE BEEN DELAYED BY GRAVITY STORM; AM NOW AT GT*21/-18:154; EXPECT TO ARRIVE PAYLESS WHARF HAELIC 2ND WATCH THREE DAYS.
By prearrangement, they were answered from Payless Starmotive With: MESSAGE RECEIVED. YOUR VALUABLE CARGO ANTICIPATED THROUOHOUT CITY.
The ruse failed utterly; perhaps, as Ursis conjectured, benders didn't monitor all possible frequencies.
Prize finally flushed her first quarry by broadcasting another series of distress messages on the intergalactic emergency frequency. This time, she reported a sham failure in the ship's navigational system and requested a position verification. Brim and Jennings had the D-ship running well below LightSpeed just off a powerful binary star. As a third interval of messages flashed out from their KA'PPA tower, Brim heard Barbousse report a target bearing from directly aft. The Chief's voice brought instantaneous silence to the bridge. "It's a bender, Commander Calhoun," he said from the intercom. "I've cycled the N-ray searchlight three times now, and every time he's disappeared."
"Very well. Chief," Calhoun acknowledged. "Keep him in sight." A moment later, alarms sounded throughout the ship, and presently the aft gun crew could be heard muttering over the intercom.
"Target bearing Green ninety-eight. Apex ninety-five, range one hundred ten percent and steady...."
"Slow her a mite, Wilf," Calhoun suggested. "Let's see if we can't lure them a wee bit closer."
Brim nodded and retarded Prize's speed a few notches.
"Target bearing Green ninety-seven. Apex ninety-eight, range one hundred six percent.
Look lively now, she's closing...."
Brim carefully retarded the power levers again.
"Target bearing Green ninety-six. Apex ninety-seven, range... Uh-oh-wait: she's slowing."
An unpronounceable Lhtrhian oath fouled the intercom for a moment, then, "Range One hundred ten percent... range one hundred thirteen percent... range one hundred fifteen and steady."
Brim bit his lip. He knew he'd caused the Leaguer captain to reduce speed by his own impatience; clearly the man had been closing with Prize through carelessness alone. "My fault," he muttered to nobody in particular.
"Patience, laddie," Calhoun said softly. "We'll gat him yet."
But in fact they didn't. The two ships cautiously toyed with each other for more than two metacycles before the bender apparently tired of their arduous game, reversing course and disappearing into the starry blackness before Prize could get off a single shot. During the entire episode, the Leaguers had never come within range of the 90-mmi antitank disruptors concealed behind Prize's tail cone.
Afterward, Brim found if nearly impossible to put the episode from his mind-especially since he blamed himself for depriving the disruptor crew of their only chance to get off a shot. Two days later, he was still dwelling on his blunder as he sat with Calhoun, Ursis, and Barbousse in the ship's tiny canteen. "If we're all agreed that the Leaguers still don't know we can see them," he said, "then I fait to understand why neither of them would come any closer."