Napier shook his head. “The ion tubes are in action right now — which accounts for the very slight weight you can feel — but they were intended only to give the ship a close-manoeuvring capability, and they won’t affect our speed very much. I guess the only difference they’ll make is that we’ll vaporize against Orbitsville a minute or two later than we would otherwise.”
“Well, how about the secondary nuclears? I thought they were for collision avoidance.”
“They are. Maximum endurance twenty minutes. By applying full thrust at right angles to our present course we could easily avoid an object as large as Jupiter — but we’re dealing with that.” Napier pointed at the forward view panels, which were uniformly black. Orbitsville was spanning the universe.
“I see.” Mertz’s face lost some of its pinkness. “Thank you.”
The operations room filled with a silence which was broken only by faint irregular clangs transmitted through the ship’s structure. Far aft, a repair crew was at work replacing the damaged hull sections. Garamond stared into the darkness ahead and tried to assimilate the idea that it represented a wall across the sky, a wall which was rushing towards him at a hundred kilometres a second, a wall so wide and high that there was no way to avoid hitting it.
Yamoto cleared his throat. “There’s no point in speculating about why the ship was sabotaged, but do we know how the bombs got on board?”
“I personally believe it was done by Pilot Officer Shrapnel,” Napier said. “There isn’t much evidence, but what there is points to him. We gave all the information in our emergency call to Fleet Control.”
“What did they say?”
“They promised he would be investigated.” Napier’s voice had a flinty edge of bitterness. “We are assured that all necessary steps will be taken.”
“That’s good to know. Isn’t that good to know?” Yamoto pressed the back of a hand to his forehead. “I had so much work still to do. There was so much to learn about Orbitsville.”
They’re going to learn at least one thing as a result of this mission, Garamond thought. They’re going to find out how the shell material stands up to the impact of fifteen thousand tons of metal travelling at a hundred kilometres a second. And they won’t even have to go far from the aperture to see the big bang… Garamond felt an icy convulsion in his stomach as he half-glimpsed an idea. He sat perfectly still for a moment as the incredible thought began to form, to crystallize to the point at which it could be put into words. His brow grew chill with sweat. “Has anybody,” Denise Serra asked in a calm, clear voice, “considered the possibility of adjusting our course in such a way that we would pass through the aperture at Beachhead City?”
Again the room filled with silence. Garamond felt a curious secondary shock on hearing the words he was still formulating being uttered by another person. The silence lasted for perhaps ten seconds, then was broken by a dry laugh from O’Hagan.
“You realize that, at our speed, running into a wall of air would be just like hitting solid rock? I’m afraid your idea doesn’t change anything.”
“We don’t have to run into a wall of air — not if we turn the ship over again and go in nose first with the electron gun operating at full power.”
“Nonsense,” O’Hagan shouted. He cocked his head to one side as if listening to an inner voice and his fingers moved briefly on the computer terminal before him. “It isn’t nonsense, though.” He corrected himself without embarrassment, nodding his apologies to Denise Serra, and others at the conference table began to address the central computer through their own terminals.
“Overload power on the gun should give us enough voltage for the few seconds we would need it. It should be enough to blast a tunnel through the atmosphere.”
“At this stage we have enough lateral control over our flight path to bring it through the aperture.”
“But remember we haven’t got the full area of the aperture as a target. We’d be going in at an angle of about seventy degrees.”
“It’s still good enough — as long as no other ships get in the way.”
“There’s still time to do some structural strengthening on the longitudinal axis.”
“We’ll shed enough kinetic energy…”
“Hold it a minute,” Garamond commanded, raising his voice above the suddenly optimistic clamour, “We have to look at it from all angles. If we did go through the aperture, what would be the effect on Beachhead City?”
“Severe,” O’Hagan said reflectively. “Imagine one purple hell of a lightning bolt coming up through the aperture immediately followed by an explosion equivalent to a tactical nuclear weapon.”
“There’d be destruction?”
“Undoubtedly. But there’s plenty of time to evacuate the area — nobody would have to die.”
“Somebody mentioned colliding with another ship.”
“That’s a minor problem, Vance.” O’Hagan looked momentarily surprised at having used Garamond’s given name for the first time in his life. “We can advise Fleet Control of our exact course and they’ll just have to make certain the way is clear.”
Garamond tried to weigh the considerations, but he could see only the faces of his wife and child. “Right! We do it. I want to see a copy of the decision network plan, but start taking action right away. In the meantime I’ll talk to Fleet Control.”
The ten science-oriented and engineering officers at the table instantly launched into a polygonal discussion and the noise level in the room shot up as communications channels were opened to other parts of the ship. Within a minute perhaps thirty other men and women were taking part, many of them vicariously present in the form of miniaturized, but nonetheless solid and real-looking, images of their heads, which transformed the long room into a montage of crazy perspectives.
Garamond could almost feel the wavecrest of hope surging through all the levels of the disabled vessel. He told Napier to make an announcement about the situation on the general address system, then went into his private suite and put a call through to Fleet Control. It was taken not by the Fleet Movements Controller, as Garamond had expected, but by a Starflight admin man, Senior Secretary Lord Nettleton. The Senior Secretary was a handsome silver-haired man who had a reputation for his devotion to the Lindstrom hierarchy. He was of a type that Elizabeth liked to have around, capable of presenting a benign fatherly image, while keeping himself remote from the inner workings of the system.
“I was expecting somebody on the operations side,” Garamond said, dispensing with the standard formal mode of address.
“The President has taken the matter under her personal control. She is very much concerned.”
“I’ll bet she is.”
“I beg your pardon?” Nettleton’s resonant voice betrayed a degree of puzzlement which was an open challenge to Garamond to speak his mind.
Again Garamond thought about his wife and child. “The President’s concern for the welfare of her employees is well known.”
Nettleton inclined his head graciously. “I’m aware of how futile words are under the circumstances, Captain Garamond, but I would like to express my personal sympathy for you and your crew in this…”
“The reason I called is to inform Starflight that the Bissendorf has enough lateral control to enable it to pass through the aperture into the interior of Orbits… Lindstromland, and that is what I intend to do.”
“I don’t quite understand.” Nettleton’s image underwent several minute but abrupt changes of size which told Garamond other viewers were switching into the circuit. “I am informed that you are travelling at a hundred kilometres a second and have no means of slowing down.”