“I have a question before you go.”
“Go ahead.”
“Would you have done this if you weren’t running for president?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know. I like to think I would have. I hope so.”
Then they were gone, the governor, his aides, and the security guys. Moments later, a group of ten people carrying luggage arrived, with a tech. “Your passengers, Priscilla,” the tech said.
* * *
SEVERAL OTHER PEOPLE showed up and also tried to board. But more guards appeared and kept them out of the tube. Priscilla returned to the ship, took her new passengers on board, closed the air lock, and invited everyone to spread out through the spacecraft. “Find a seat somewhere and belt down. We’ll be leaving in a few minutes.”
She took her own position on the bridge and ran through her check-off. Yoshie informed her that she was refueled and ready to go. She released the magnetics and began to move away from the dock. The launch doors opened. The last thing she saw before pulling away was a young woman out on the concourse watching the Thompson. She looked to be in tears.
“Thompson, this is Yoshie. Your destination is the Brandenburg Terminal, in Berlin.”
“Roger that,” she said. “Do the passengers know?”
“Negative. The decision’s just been made. Berlin will probably not be the terminal of choice for them. But it gets you back here quickly, which is what we need right now. You are expected there, and arrangements are being made to move your passengers as necessary. There’ll be no additional cost to them. Union out.”
* * *
THE PASSENGERS SPOKE several different languages. Priscilla relayed the destination by putting a map on the displays throughout the ship and marking Berlin. They understood it was a make-do operation, so they were not surprised they weren’t going back to their home terminal. One of the men, a father with two kids at his side, told her in Spanish that it didn’t matter, as long as they were off the station. Priscilla had no grasp of Spanish, but it would have been impossible to miss the message.
Two hours later she delivered her passengers to Brandenburg. Everybody thanked her and pretended they’d enjoyed the ride, but they were obviously relieved to get back onto solid ground. They refueled the lander, and within minutes she’d lifted off and was on her way back to the Wheel.
The call came in before she got clear of the atmosphere. “Priscilla?”
“I read you, Frank. I’m on my way.”
“We need you to do something else first. The Venture’s back, but Jake is reporting a problem. We’re not sure yet what it is, but he’s lost control of the ship. He’s accelerating, and he can’t shut it down. We’ve already fed you his course information. We want you to get within range of him and stand by.”
“Okay. You think he might need an evacuation?”
“I’m not sure yet what we’re looking at, Priscilla. By the way, you may not be able to do much in any case. He’s moving too fast, coming in at two hundred thousand klicks at last count and still accelerating. Just get close, okay? If you can.”
“Two hundred thousand?” she said. “That’s crazy.”
“Like I said, he’s lost control.”
“Okay.” She didn’t see what she could possibly do. But—“Louie, open a channel to the Venture.”
* * *
JAKE DIDN’T SOUND happy. “Acceleration’s constant, Priscilla. It’s taken over.”
“Frank says you’re at two hundred thousand klicks.”
“We’re at two ten. And climbing.”
“That’s not good,” she said. “I’m on my way.”
“I don’t see what you can do, Priscilla.”
“I don’t either. How much fuel do you have left?”
“At this rate, maybe twenty minutes. We expect the acceleration to shut down momentarily. We’re almost out of fuel. Whatever’s controlling the ship will want some left for last-minute adjustments.”
“Last-minute adjustments to do what?”
“We think we’re aimed at the station.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“Jake,” she said, “how about putting everybody on the lander? Get out of the ship, and I can pick you up.”
“Can’t do it, Priscilla.”
“Why not?”
“The acceleration’s too much. Nobody can move. We’re sucking a couple of gees. We’ll have to wait until the acceleration stops.”
“Okay. Then that’s what we’ll do. Just hang on. I’m headed your way. When the engines shut down, I’ll catch up and take you off.”
“If I’m right about this, the engines will shut down in about ten minutes. If they don’t, there’s no chance we’ll ram the station, and we can stop worrying. But I don’t expect that to happen.”
“If they shut down, Jake, how long will we have before the Venture gets to the station?”
“A little over an hour.”
A chill rippled through Priscilla’s breast. “Okay,” she said. “One problem at a time. First, you need to get off the Venture.”
Louie was putting the tracking on the navigation display. The Venture and the Thompson were running on intersecting trajectories. But the Venture would go past her like the proverbial bat out of hell. “Jake, once you launch the lander, I’m going to need a couple of hours to catch up.”
“Okay.”
“Have you told Frank?”
“Of course.”
“What’s he saying?”
“You know how he is, Priscilla. Don’t worry. Everything’s under control. But he can’t give me any answers. The only other ships they have available are the Baumbachner and the Copperhead. The Copperhead left the station a half hour ago with a bunch of evacuees. The Bomb just unloaded some people in Toronto. It’s on its way back, but it’s not in a position to do anything either.”
“Jake, how could this happen?”
“Somebody screwed around with the AI. I have no way of knowing how they managed it. But they set up the system and made it vulnerable to a code. We got an odd message a little while after we surfaced. I’m pretty sure that’s what triggered it. Welcome home. Glad to have you back. Something like that. Signed Lyda. You know anybody named Lyda?”
“Not anybody who’d be likely to commit mass murder, no.” She had to fight down a growing sense of panic.
“As soon as I can move around, I’m going to see if I can disable something. Shut us down. If I can do that, we should be able to head off any collision.”
The mechanical aspects of AIs and engine drives were a mystery to Priscilla. “You think you can?”
“I hope—”
* * *
A FEW MINUTES later, Frank was back. “Priscilla,” he said, “set up for a conference with Jake.”
“Okay, Frank. Hold one, please.”
Louie’s comm lights blinked. “Got him, Priscilla,” he said.
“All right,” said Frank. “We have three-hundred-plus people on the Wheel right now. So there are a lot of lives hanging on this. Jake, when your drive shuts down and you can move around again, I want you to get everyone off the Venture. Everybody goes into the lander. Then launch the thing. Do it as soon as you can.”