A good thing Whitbread hadn't noticed that. There'd be gossip, tales to the crew, panic among the new hands...Blaine felt the metallic taste of fear himself. My God, it was big. "But they'd have to have something that big," Rod muttered. Thirty-five light years, through normal space!
There never had been a human civilization that could manage such a thing. Still-how did the Admiralty expect him to "investigate" it? Much less "intercept" it? Land on it with Marines?
What in Hannigan's Hell was a light sail?
"Course to Brigit, sir," Sailing Master Renner announced.
Blaine snapped up from his reverie and touched his screen controls again. The ship's course appeared on his screen as a pictorial diagram below tables of figures. Rod spoke with effort. "Approved." Then he went back to the impossibly large object on his view screen. Suddenly he took out his pocket computer and scribbled madly across its face. Words and numbers flowed across the surface, and he nodded.
Of course light pressure could be used for propulsion.
In fact MacArthur did exactly that, using hydrogen fusion to generate photons and emitting them in an enormous spreading cone of light. A reflecting mirror could use outside light as propulsion and get twice the efficiency. Naturally the mirror should be as large as possible, and as light, and ideally it should reflect all the light that fell on it.
Blaine grinned to himself. He had been nerving himself to attack a space going planet with his half-repaired battle cruiser! Naturally the computer had pictured an object that size as a globe. In reality it was probably a sheet of silvered fabric thousands of kilometers across, attached by adjustable shrouds to the mass that would be the ship proper.
In fact, with an albedo of one- Blaine sketched rapidly.
The light sail would need about eight million square kilometers of area. If circular, it would be about three thousand klicks across.
It was using light for thrust, so....laine called up the intruder's deceleration, matched it to the total reflected light, divided... so. Sail and payload together massed about 450 thousand kilograms.
That didn't sound dangerous.
In fact, it didn't sound like a working spacecraft, not one that could cross thirty-five light years in normal space. The alien pilots would go mad with so little room-unless they were tiny, or liked enclosed spaces, or had spent the past several hundred years living in inflated balloons with filmy, lightweight walls...o. There was too little known and too much room for speculation. Still, there was nothing better to do. He fingered the knot on his nose.
Blaine was about to clear the screens, then thought again and increased the magnification. He stared at the result for a long time, then swore softly.
The intruder was heading straight into the sun.
MacArthur decelerated at nearly three gravities directly into orbit around Brigit; then she descended into the protective Langston Field of the base on the moonlet, a small black dart sinking toward a tremendous black pillow, the two joined by a thread of intense white. Without the Field to absorb the energy of thrust, the main drive would have burned enormous craters into the snowball moon.
The fueling station crew rushed to theft tasks. Liquid hydrogen, electrolized from the mushy ice of Brigit and distilled after liquefaction, poured into MacArthur's tankage complexes. At the same time Sinclair drove his men outside. Crewmen swarmed across the ship to take advantage of low gravity with the ship dirtside. Boatswains screamed at supply masters as Brigit was stripped of spare parts.
"Commander Frenzi requests permission to come aboard, sir," the watch officer called. Rod grimaced. "Send him up." He turned back to Sally Fowler, seated demurely in the watch midshipman's seat.
"But don't you understand, we'll be accelerating at high gees all the way to intercept. You know what that feels like now. Besides, it's a dangerous mission!"
"Pooh. Your orders were to take me to New Scotland," she huffed. "They said nothing about stranding me on a snowball."
"Those were general orders. If Cziller's known we'd have to fight, he'd never have let you aboard. As captain of this ship, it's my decision, and I say I'm not about to take Senator Fowler's niece out to a possible battle."
"Oh." She thought for a moment. The direct approach hadn't worked. "Rod. Listen. Please. You see this as a tremendous adventure, don't you? How do you think I feel? Whether those are aliens or just lost colonists trying to find the Empire again, this is my field. It's what I was trained for, and I'm the only anthropologist aboard. You need me."
"We can do without. It's too dangerous."
"You're letting Mr. Bury stay aboard."
"Not letting. The Admiralty specifically ordered me to keep him in my ship. I don't have discretion about him, but I do about you and your servants-"
"If it's Adam and Annie you're worried about, we'll leave them here. They couldn't take the acceleration anyway. But I can take anything you can, Captain My Lord Roderick Blaine. I've seen you after a hyperspace Jump, dazed, staring around, not knowing what to do, and I was able to leave my cabin and walk up here to the bridge! So don't tell me how helpless I am! Now, are you going to let me stay here, or. .
"Or what?"
"Or nothing, of course. I know I can't threaten you. Please, Rod?" She tried everything, including batting her eyes, and that was too much, because Rod burst out laughing.
"Commander Frenzi, sir," the Marine sentry outside the bridge companionway announced.
"Come in, Romeo, come in," Rod said more heartily than he felt. Frenzi was thirty-five, a good ten years older than Blaine, and Rod had served under him for three months of the most miserable duty he could ever recall. The man was a good administrator but a horrible ship's officer.
Frenzi peered around the bridge, his jaw thrust forward. "Ah. Blaine. Where's Captain Cziller?"
"On New Chicago," Rod said pleasantly. "I'm master of MacArthur now." He swiveled so that Frenzi could see the four rings on each sleeve.
Frenzi's face became more craggy. His lips drooped.
"Congratulations." Long pause. "Sir."
"Thanks, Romeo. Still takes getting used to myself."
"Well, I'll go out and tell the troops not to hurry about the fueling, shall I?" Frenzi said. He turned to go.
"What the hell do you mean, not to hurry? I've got a double-A-one priority. Want to see the message?"
"I've seen it. They relayed a copy through my station, Blaine-uh, Captain. But the message makes it clear that Admiral Cranston thinks Cziller is still in command of MacArthur. I respectfully suggest, sir, that he would not have sent this ship to intercept a possible alien if he knew that her master was-was a young officer with his first command. Sir."
Before Blaine could answer, Sally spoke. "I've seen the message, Commander, and it was addressed to MacArthur, not Cziller. And it gives the ship refueling priority . .
Frenzi regarded her coldly. "Lermontov will be quite adequate for this intercept, I think. If you'll excuse me, Captain, I must get back to my station." He glared at Sally again. "I didn't know they were taking females out of uniform as midshipmen."
"I happen to be Senator Fowler's niece and aboard this ship under Admiralty orders, Commander," she told him sternly. "I am astonished at your lack of manners. My family is not accustomed to such treatment, and I am certain my friends at Court will be shocked to find that an Imperial officer could be so rude."
Frenzi blushed and looked around wildly. "My apologies, my lady. No insult intended, I assure you... I was merely surprised we don't very often see girls aboard warships certainly not young lathes as attractive as you I beg your pardon..." His voice trailed off, still without punctuation, as he withdrew from the bridge.
"Now why couldn't you react like that?" Sally wondered aloud.