“Not at all. I found it exciting,” Potter said courteously.
“The point is, diving straight into a sun is a rare thing in the Service. It doesn’t happen every trip. I thought someone ought to tell you.”
“But, Mr. Whitbread, are we no about to do exactly that?”
“Hah?” Whitbread hadn’t expected that.
“No ship of the First Empire ever found a transfer point from Murcheson’s Eye to the Mote. They may no have wanted it badly, but we can assume they tried somewhat,” Potter said seriously. “Now, I have had verra little experience in space, but I am not uneducated, Mr. Whitbread. Murcheson’s Eye is a red supergiant, a big, empty star, as big as the orbit of Saturn in Sol System. It seems reasonable that the Alderson Point to the Mote is within yon star if it exists. Does it not?”
Horst Staley rose up on an elbow. “I think he’s right. It would explain why nobody ever plotted the transfer point. They all knew where it was—”
“But nobody wanted to go look. Yes, of course he’s right,” Whitbread said in disgust. “And that’s just where we’re going. Whee! Here we go again.”
“Exactly,” said Potter; and smiling gently, he turned on his face again.
“It’s most unusual,” Whitbread protested. “Doubt me if you must, but I assure you we don’t go diving into stars more than two out of three trips.” He paused. “And even that’s too many.”
The fleet slowed to a halt at the fuzzy edge of Murcheson’s Eye. There was no question of orbits. At this distance the supergiant’s gravity was so feeble that have taken years for a ship to fall into it.
The tankers linked up and began to transfer fuel.
An odd, tenuous friendship had grown between Horace Bury and Buckman, the astrophysicist. Bury had sometimes wondered about it. What did Buckman want with Bury?
Buckman was a lean, knobby, bird-boned man. From the look of him he sometimes forgot to eat for days at a time. Buckman seemed to care for nobody and nothing in what Bury considered the real universe. People, time, power, money, were only the means Buckman used to explore the inner workings of the stars. Why would he seek the company of a merchant?
But Buckman liked to talk, and Bury at least had the time to listen. MacArthur was a beehive these days, frantically busy and crowded as hell. And there was room to pace in Bury’s cabin.
Or, Bury speculated cynically, he might like Bury’s coffee. Bury had almost a dozen varieties of coffee beans, his own grinder, and filter cones to make it. He was quite aware of how his coffee compared with that in the huge percolators about the ship.
Nabil served them coffee while they watched the fuel transfer on Bury’s screen. The tanker fueling MacArthur was hidden, but Lenin and the other tanker showed as two space-black elongated eggs, linked by a silver umbilicus, silhouetted against a backdrop of fuzzy scarlet.
“It should not be that dangerous,” said Dr. Buckman. “You’re thinking of it as a descent into a sun, Bury. Which it is, technically. But that whole vast volume isn’t all that much more massive than Cal or any other yellow dwarf. Think of it as a red-hot vacuum. Except for the core, of course; that’s probably tiny and very dense.
“We’ll learn a great deal going in,” he said. His eyes were alight, focused on infinity. Bury, watching him sidewise, found the expression fascinating. He had seen it before, but rarely. It marked men who could not be bought in any coin available to Horace Bury.
Bury had no more practical use for Buckman than Buckman had for Bury. Bury could relax with Buckman, as much as he could relax with anybody. He liked the feeling.
He said, “I thought you would already know everything about the Eye.”
“You mean Murcheson’s explorations? Too many records have been lost, and some of the others aren’t trustworthy. I’ve had my instruments going since the Jump. Bury, the proportion of heavy particles in the solar wind is amazingly high. And helium—tremendous. But Murcheson’s ships never went into the Eye itself, as far as we know. That’s when we’ll really learn things.” Buckman frowned. “I hope our instruments can stand up to it. They have to poke through the Langston Field, of course. We’re likely to be down in that red-hot fog for some considerable time, Bury. If the Field collapses it’ll ruin everything.”
Bury stared, then laughed. “Yes, Doctor, it certainly would!”
Buckman looked puzzled. Then, “Ah. I see what you mean. It would kill us too, wouldn’t it? I hadn’t thought of that.”
Acceleration warnings sounded. MacArthur was moving into the Eye.
Sinclair’s thick burr sounded in Rod’s ear. “Engineering report, Captain. All systems green. Field holding verra well, ‘tis nae so warm as we feared.”
“Good,” Blaine replied. “Thanks, Sandy.” Rod watched the tankers receding against the stars. Already they were thousands of kilometers away, visible only through the telescopes as bright as points of light.
The next screen showed a white splotch within a red fog: Lenin leading into the universal red glare. Lenin’s crew would search for the Alderson point—if there were such a point.
“Still, ‘tis certain the Field will leak inward sooner or later,” Sinclair’s voice continued. “There’s no place for the heat to go, it must be stored. ‘Tis no like a space battle, Captain. But we can hold wi’ no place to radiate the accumulated energy for at least seventy-two hours. After that—we hae no data. No one has tried this loony stunt before.”
“Yes.”
“Somebody should have,” Renner said cheerfully. He had been listening from his post on the bridge. MacArthur was holding at one gee, but it took attention: the thin photosphere was presenting more resistance than expected. “You’d think Murcheson would have tried it. The First Empire had better ships than ours.”
“Maybe he did,” Rod said absently. He watched Lenin move away, breaking trail for MacArthur, and felt an unreasonable irritation. MacArthur should have gone first…
The senior officers slept at their duty stations. There wasn’t much anyone could do if the Field soaked up too much energy, but Rod felt better in his command seat. Finally it was obvious that he wasn’t needed.
A signal came from Lenin and MacArthur cut her engines. Warning horns sounded, and she came under spin until other hoots signaled the end of unpleasant changes in gravity. Crew and passengers climbed out of safety rigglng.
“Dismiss the watch below,” Rod ordered. Renner stood and stretched elaborately. “That’s that, Captain. Of course we’ll have to slow down as the photosphere gets thicker, but that’s all right. The friction slows us down anyway.” He looked at his screens and asked questions with swiftly moving fingers. “It’s not as thick as, say, an atmosphere out there, but it’s a lot thicker than a solar wind.”
Blaine could see that for himself. Lenin was still ahead, at the outer limit of detection, and her engines were off. She was a black splinter in the screens, her outlines blurred by four thousand kilometers of red-hot fog.
The Eye thickened around them.
Rod stayed on the bridge another hour, then persuaded himself that he was being unfair. “Mr. Renner.”
“Yes, sir?”
“You can go off watch now. Let Mr. Crawford take her.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Renner headed for his cabin. He’d reached the conclusion that he wasn’t needed on the bridge fifty-eight minutes before. Now for a hot shower, and some sleep in his bunk instead of the conning chair.