"Tally ho!" ZORAC cried, mimicking a flawless English accent.
Hunt sat up and blinked in astonishment on one of the screens. "Where the hell did it pick that up?" he asked.
"Documentaries of World War II British fighter pilots," ZORAC announced. "That was for your benefit, Vic. I thought you’d appreciate it."
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Broghuilio stood on the bridge of the Jevlenese flagship and scowled while the technicians and scientists clustered around a battery of datascreens in front of him took in the details of the report coming through from the long-range scanning computers. Gasps of disbelief sounded among the rising murmur of voices. "Well?" he demanded as his patience finally exhausted itself.
Estordu turned from the group. His eyes were wide with shock. "It can’t be possible," he whispered. He made a vague gesture behind him. "But it’s true. . . . there’s no doubt about it."
"What is it?" Broghuilio fumed.
Estordu swallowed. "It’s . . . the Shapieron. It’s pulling away from Jevlen and turning this way."
Broghuilio stared at him as if he had just gone insane, then snorted and pulled two of the technicians out of the way to see the screens for himself. For a second his mouth clamped tight, and his beard quivered as his mind refused to accept what his eyes were seeing. Then another screen came to life to show a magnified view from the long-range optical imagers that left no room for dissent. Broghuilio spun around to glare at Wylott, who was watching numbly from a few feet back. "HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THIS? " he shouted.
Wylott shook his head in protest. "It can’t be. It was destroyed. I know it was destroyed."
"THEN WHAT IS THAT COMING AT US RIGHT NOW?"
Broghuilio whirled to the scientists. "How long has it been at Jevlen? What is it doing here? Why didn’t any of you know about it?"
The captain’s voice came from the raised section of the bridge above them. "I’ve never seen acceleration like it! It’s vectoring straight after us. We’ll never outrun it."
"They can’t do anything," Wylott said in a choking voice. "It’s not armed."
"Fool!" Broghuilio snapped. "If it wasn’t destroyed, it must have been transferred to Thurien. And Terrans could have been transferred to Thurien. So it could have Terrans on board it with Terran weapons. They could blow us apart, and after your bungling, the Shapieron’s crew won’t lift a finger to stop them." Wylott licked his lips and said nothing.
"Stress field around the Shapieron building up rapidly," the long-range surveillance operator called from one of the stations above. "We’re losing radar and optical contact. H-scan shows it’s maintaining course and acceleration."
Estordu was thinking furiously. "We may have a chance, Excellency," he said suddenly. Broghuilio jerked his head around and thrust his chin out demandingly. Estordu went on, "The Ganymean ships from that period did not possess stress-field transmission correction, and h-scan equipment was unknown. In other words they have no means of tracking us while they’re under main drive. They’ll have to aim blind to intercept our predicted course and slow down at intervals to correct. We might be able to lose them by changing course during their blind periods."
At that instant another operator called out, "Gravitational anomaly building up astern and starboard, range nine eighty miles, strength seven, increasing. Readings indicate a Class Five exit port. H-scan shows conformal entry-port mapping to vicinity of Shapieron. " The tension on the bridge rocketed. It meant that VISAR was projecting two beams to create a linked pair of transfer ports-a "tunnel" through h-space from the Shapieron to the Jevlenese vessels. A Class Five port would admit something relatively small. The operator’s voice came again, rising with alarm. "An object has emerged at this end. It’s coming this way, fast!"
"A bomb!" somebody screamed. "They’ve exited a bomb!"
Consternation broke out around the bridge. Broghuilio was wideeyed and sweating profusely. Wylott had collapsed onto a chair.
The operator’s voice came again. "Object identified. It’s one of the Shapieron’s robot probes . . . matching us in course and speed. The exit port has dissolved."
And the long-range surveillance operator: "Shapieron closing and still accelerating. Range two-twenty thousand miles."
"Get rid of it," Broghuilio barked up at the level above. "Captain, shake that thing off."
The captain gave a set of course-correction instructions, which the computers acknowledged and executed.
"Probe matching," came the report. "Evasion ineffective. Shapieron has corrected to a new vector and is still closing."
Broghuilio turned a furious face toward Estordu. "You said they’d be blind! They’re not even slowing down." Estordu spread his hands and shook his head helplessly. Broghuilio looked at the rest of the group of scientists. "Well, how are they doing it? Can’t any of you work it out?" He waited for a few seconds, then pointed a finger angrily at the screens showing the tracking data of the Shapieron. "Some genius on that ship has thought of something. Everywhere I am surrounded by imbeciles." He began pacing back and forth across the bridge. "How does this happen? They have all the geniuses, and I have all the imbediles. Give me-"
"The probe!" Estordu groaned suddenly. "They must have fitted the probe and the Shapieron with h-links. The probe will be able to monitor every move we make and update the Shapieron’s flight-control system through VISAR. We’ll never lose it now."
Broghuilio glared at him for a second, then looked across at the communications officer. "We have to make the jump to Uttan now," he declared. "What’s the status there?"
"The generators are up to power and standing by," the officer told him. "Their director is locked onto our beacon, and they can throw a port here immediately."
"But what if that probe transfers through with us?" Estordu said. "VISAR would locate it when it reenters at Uttan. It would reveal our destination."
"Those geniuses will have guessed our destination already," Broghuilio retorted. "So what could they do? We can blow anything that comes near Uttan to atoms."
"But we’re still too close to Jevlen," Estordu objected, looking alarmed. "It would disrupt the whole planet . . . chaos everywhere."
"So would you rather stay here?" Broghuilio sneered. "Hasn’t it occurred to you yet that the probe was just a warning? The next thing they tunnel through at us will be a bomb." He sent a stare around the bridge that defied anybody to argue with him. Nobody did. He raised his head. "Captain. Transfer now, to Uttan."
The command was relayed to Uttan, and within seconds huge generators were pouring energy into a tiny volume of space ahead of the five Jevlenese ships. The fabric of spacetime wrinkled, then buckled, heaved, and fell in upon itself to plummet out of the Universe. A spinning vortex began growing to open up the gateway to another realm, first as a faint circle of curdled starlight against the void, then getting stronger, thicker, and sharper, and expanding slowly to reveal a core of featureless, infinite blackness.
And then a counterspinning pattern of refractions materialized inside the first. The resultant composite of vortices shimmered and pulsated as filaments of space and time writhed in a tangle of knotted geodesics. Something was wrong. The port was going unstable. "What’s happening?" Broghuilio demanded.