"Meet me in hangar four," he said, then clicked off.
His technicians were finished with the ship!
Chapter Sixteen
Hyatt waved Susan through the ship's outer hatch. She stepped into the airlock. The inner hatch stood open and she continued through, onto the small bridge. Hyatt followed.
Walls, ceiling, floor-everything was painted a light blue, and there were no sharp angles or edges. An acceleration web hung before a conspicuously bare control panel. There was no view screen, and none of the myriad push-buttons and slide-bars Susan was accustomed to seeing on the bridges of Fleet ships. Gone, too, were the indicators and status lights that traditionally displayed ship's functions.
"This is it?" she asked, unable to hide her disappointment.
"You don't seem to understand, Captain. Photon is different than any ship you have ever been aboard."
"I can see that. How am I supposed to pilot it?"
"Through your LIN/C."
"What?"
Again he used the feminine pronoun: "You will control her through your LIN/C." He stepped past Susan to indicate a narrow slot cut into the panel before the acceleration web. "You will insert your LIN/C here, and instantly you'll be tied into Photon's main computer."
"You're serious, aren't you?"
Hyatt nodded. "While tied into the computer, for all intents and purposes, you are Photon. And you can forget everything you thought you knew about astrogation, insertion points, and tensor math. If you know your destination, Photon's computer will see to it you get there-without prior acquisition of an insertion point."
Susan couldn't believe what she was hearing. Although travel through hyperspace was nearly instantaneous, it was necessary for a ship to travel to a specific insertion point in normal space in order to arrive at a desired destination at the other end. That journey through normal space to the hyperspace insertion point was what consumed so much time in hyperspace travel. If the point of entry into hyperspace was not calculated precisely, a ship could not achieve its desired exit point. It might re-enter normal space anywhere-even within the heart of a star.
"You're saying I won't have to figure for insertion?"
"That's precisely what I am saying. With Photon, you may enter hyperspace at any point to achieve any desired destination. Photon actually maneuvers while in hyperspace!"
"That's impossible."
"It was until now. With this ship we are opening up an entirely new era. Finally, Man's dream of an interstellar empire might actually be within his grasp!"
Susan was silent for a few seconds; she didn't know what to say. Hyatt's attempt at Lunar independence was only the first step in what she now saw as a far grander bid for power.
But that wasn't her problem. Right now, her sole concern was the ship, and what it would take for her to pilot it.
"Is my LIN/C compatible with the ship's computer?" she asked.
"It will be made so before you leave Luna. It requires only a minor adjustment to the standard Fleet LIN/C."
"When will I leave?"
"In three days."
"Three days! But that can't possibly allow sufficient time for me to become familiar with this ship. I've never before piloted anything like it."
"The time will be more than sufficient, Captain, I assure you. Familiarization is little more than a formality; Photon does it all. But what little familiarization you will need must wait until tomorrow. I want my technicians present for your initial interfacing with the ship's computer, and they must make the necessary adjustments to your LIN/C." He held out his hand, palm up.
Susan took the card from its pouch at her waist and handed it to Hyatt. The Survey Service Director slipped it into his breast pocket.
"Have you located your double yet?" she asked.
"Not yet. It has been determined that is no longer necessary."
Susan was silent for a few seconds. Finally, she asked, "Is this ship armed?"
Hyatt nodded. "Three laser phase-cannons. They're tied into the computer, and you'll control them through your LIN/C, just as you will all her systems."
"Isn't the inclusion of weaponry a bit unusual for a Survey Service ship?"
"She is an extremely unique ship, Captain, and that uniqueness must be guarded against falling into the wrong hands."
Susan nodded. "What about propulsion?"
"For normal space, an anti-matter engine. And we have completely modified a Grace/Hannover drive for hyperspace. Those modifications allow us, among other things, the ability to maneuver while in hyperspace using the anti-matter engine."
"I'm still having trouble with that."
"Believe me, Captain, Photon is capable of doing precisely that." He paused, then said, "Let's take a look at the rest of the ship, shall we?" and stepped past her, into the short corridor to his left.
"Cold storage and labs on the deck below this one," he said without turning around, "and large equipment stowage below that. We won't bother with either for now."
The bulkheads on both sides of the corridor were lined with small access hatches. He rapped one with a knuckle on his way by. "For life-support systems repair. But I don't expect that sort of trouble; all her systems have been checked, and every possible bug has been worked out."
"Still, it's good to know I'll be able to make repairs if I have to," Susan said. Hyatt didn't respond, but turned around and stepped past her, heading back to the bridge. Beyond where he had been standing Susan saw a small kitchen and a latrine, and that was all.
Something wasn't right; something was missing.
Then, suddenly, she knew what it was. She hadn't seen the bulky cold-sleep coffin that was standard equipment on every ship she had ever served aboard-in fact, on every ship she had ever heard of. She asked him where it was.
"Cold-sleep won't be necessary onboard Photon. Remember, you will spend relatively little time in normal space."
But those coffins were designed for more than making the usually long periods of time in normal space bearable. "You mean, I will actually experience hyperspace?"
No ship's crew had braved hyperspace in more than a hundred years; each had gone into cold-sleep prior to entering hyperspace, trusting ship's functions to the computers. Too many crews had either come back hopelessly insane, or never returned from their missions at all in the first few pioneering years of hyperspace travel. The strange elements that made up that other existence seemed to be totally incompatible with the proper functioning of the human mind.
"That is not entirely correct," Hyatt said. "You will not experience hyperspace directly, but you won't enter cold-sleep, either. Unlike any ship before her, Photon has been completely shielded against the effects of hyperspace."
Again Susan fell silent for several seconds. The answer to the hyperspace problem had eluded man for more than a hundred years. Had the Survey Service finally solved it?
"What is this shielding?" she asked.
"Sixteen small yet highly efficient force field generators form an unbroken shell around Photon's outer hull. They will hold out any form of radiation, wave, or force."
"You said small."
"Don't worry, Captain, they will be more than adequate. That I can promise you."
"How extensively has this shielding been tested?"
"I'm afraid it has not been tested."