Varess’ sudden sharp warning cry shattered his musing. “This-Voice-speaks-warning! I have a massive flow net fluctuation aboard the raft! Performance variance across all patterns!”
“Define!” Tarrischall barked, his head snapping down to his display bubble and to the suddenly racing data lines.
“No definition isolated! Generalized flow failure in onboard energy matrix! Shifting to crisis alternative flow!”
Tarrischall gave himself the briefest of instants for consideration. The cargo raft was still stable and gaining velocity as per the set transfer pattern and all functions aboard it had safety duplicates and automatic switch overs. Yet there was a major function collapse going on within the massive vehicle, something beyond anything he had ever seen before.
He could not risk the River-’Tween-Worlds! He slapped the alarm pad at his side triggering the rising tri-toned wail of the Danger-And-Rally call within all the chambers of the skynest.
“All Voices! Abort the shift! Abort! Raft Guidance, decelerate! Pusher Guidance, position for recapture! Mender and Mooring Gangs prepare! I speak with Voice-of-Crisis!”
“Decelerating!” Varess cried back. “Alternative functions engaged! Braking vents engaged! Drift vectors holding stable. Entry velocity reducing to sixth level… fifth… fourth…
On the far viewer display the vector of the raft’s propulsor vents altered, thrusting forward. The huge freight hauler was losing velocity, but slowly, so slowly. There was so much mass out there to stop.
The blunt curved nose of the raft was approaching the mouth of the perimeter grid.
Maybe it would have been better to trust the duplicate functions and run her through, Tarrischall thought feverishly, but it was too late to bother about it now. They were committed.
“Velocity now third level… second…”
On the main display the double ring of scintillating propulsor vents flickered and went dark.
Varess’ voice rose into a strangled scream. “Alternative energy flow failure! Total failure! Crisis alternative functions do not reply! I have lost raft guidance! She floats free!”
“Marrun, get your pushers in there now!”
The Voice-of-Pusher-Guidance could only look slowly away in the refusal posture. “No good, Tarrischall. No good. She’s entering the grid and I don’t have the clearance. If one of my units bumps her in a crisis bonding, I could knock her off vector and into the grid structure. She’s going in and I can’t stop her.”
He was right. May the Life-Fire-of-All-Things burn all! He was right! Even as Tarrischall looked on in growing horror, the bow of the cargo raft was ghosting into the grid mouth.
Tarrischall twisted to look at Narisara, his last hope of regaining control of the disintegrating situation. “Flow down, Voice-of-Physics! Close the channel!
The black-furred one could only look away as well. “No time,” she replied quietly. “We can’t fade the flow fast enough. The closing channel mouth would catch the raft. She’s going through wild, Tarrischall, and we can’t stop her.”
Tarrischall could only stare up at the far viewer display. “Beware Marta-My-Friend,” he whispered. “Beware.”
The silver-gray curve of the raft’s bow touched the infinite spherical blackness of the channel event horizon.
The tension inside the control center had grown into something physically perceptible.
Tight-lipped, Marta Lane stared as the acquisition time bar crept deeper into the red zone.
“We are now at T plus two minutes and thirty-nine seconds post projected acquisition, Director,” the gate systems manager said almost apologetically.
“I can see it, Mr. Desvergers,” she snapped “Quantum monitoring. Status on the hole?”
“No entry registering yet, ma’am.”
Lane glanced down at her assistant director. “Something’s wrong Wolf side, Estiban.
Tarrischall wouldn’t waste our energy this way with a sloppy transfer. He’s got problems.
Take us to Flash Yellow. Set alert protocols until we get this thing sorted out.”
“Doing it, Marta.”
“Contact,” The quantum monitor leaned in over his workstation display. “Director, we have mass in the hole… but we have a slow entry… way slow! Less than one-fifth standard transit velocity registering.”
“What the hell?” Lane’s brows knit together. “How’s the hole standing?”
“Dimensional structure is stable in all aspects. No variants! We have a good dilation here. This has got to be a barge problem. I confirm we have mass in trans-state and transit. Gravitational displacement is correct for projected payload, but it’s just crawling through.”
“Power boards, reserve status!”
“Down to sixty-five of standard. Load draw steady… Recomputing power consumption rates… We’ll make it, but it’ll be close. Forget today’s outbound shift, though. This is going to drain us dry.”
“Forget the outbound! Stand by your reserve accumulators and alert Ces-Lunar for an emergency power draw! Tug Control!”
“Yo!
“I want your reception tugs holding right outside of the worm cage. The second you can get a good approach, move in and get a latch on her. I think we might have a rogue barge coming through. Barge Control!”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You heard what I just said to Tugs. The instant that brute is out of trans-state, get me a full diagnostic. If she seems to be clearing the perimeter grid on her own, let her drift out. Do not attempt active control until she’s in open space.”
“Understood.”
“Director! There she is. She’s coming through!”
On the main display, the ultradark of the wormhole event horizon bulged. Cherenkov radiation played in spectral lavender waves around the extrusion, hydrogen atoms and solar wind particles from another star system reintegrating into conventional space.
Rippling shadow slowly peeled back from the blunt bow of the cargo carrier revealing steel that shimmered with residual inconsistency.
“Come on, old girl,” Marta found herself murmuring. “Not far now, just a little more.”
“Barge exit velocity one point five meters per second… No! One point four… point three!
She’s decelerating!”
Marta’s world was turning on edge. “That’s impossible! Barge control, could we have a retro burn or an out-gassing event underway?”
“Negative! Negative! Her systems haven’t reintegrated from trans-state and I’m not detecting anything venting! This has to be an outside influence!”
“It’s the magnetic field of the perimeter grid!” Rocardo yelled from his station. “It’s reacting with the ferrous metals in the cargo and hull structure. She’s coming through so far below velocity she may not have the momentum to carry her clear.”
“Damnit, Estiban don’t give me ‘may’! Yes or no!”
“Computing now!”
The answer came from another source. “Velocity point five meters per second… point three… Relative velocity zero! I say again, we have zero velocity… Velocity now negative point one!”
Half the length of the cargo barge protruded from the unstable, quivering sphere of the gate mouth but only half. Then, slowly the expanse of metal hull began to shorten.
“My God,” someone spoke in an appalled whisper, “she’s falling back into the hole.”
“Tugs!” Marta called desperately. “Can you get a lock on her!”
The Tug Controller was already shaking his head. “No room. No time! She’s going!
She’s going! She’s gone!”
Lane’s thumb flipped aside the guard on her console and smashed down on the alarm key. Throughout the Worm Gate complex the Rash Red disaster klaxons began their harsh bray.
“She’s still in there!” Narisara cried. “The raft is still inside the channel! She did not exit!”