"The point," Jirik interrupted caustically, "Is that we don't know for sure. It's impossible to keep up with scientific progress on several thousand planets. And talk about supralight makes my head ache. To get back to your original question, there are too many 'ifs' involved. That ship was accelerating at a hundredth of the speed of light. How fast could she go? We don't know. How long did it take her to get to our jump point? We don't know. If her supralight generators are as modified as her inertial drive generators, can she travel faster than us, supralight? Probably not, but we don't know. We do know that at least one pirate has an astrogator who could second-guess Via, here, well enough to let him stake out one of our recal points, and nav computers good enough to let him justify it to his captain. Are he, and his computers, good enough to let him predict another of our recal points, and jump ahead to it? If so, you can bet that his crew is at this moment enhancing his sensor array even more. And, even if not, you can bet that they'll at least try. We were very lucky this time. We came out of supralight too far away to catch. But that luck could change in a microsecond."
"But, what can we do?" Tor asked plaintively. "There must be something we can do!"
Jirik sighed. "We'll try like hell. Bran, At our next recal point, you'll contaminate the inertial drive traces. Can you make us look like any specific type of ship?"
Bran shrugged. "There's not exactly a catalog of drive signatures. Basically, engineers have just learned to recognize certain types over a period of time. Off hand, I don't know for sure what I can make us look like. We won't look like a DIN Class Cargo Hauler, though."
Jirik nodded. "All right, just do your best. Via, I know that you can't do anything about the next recal stop now, but what about after that? Can you be even trickier than you have been?"
Via grinned, but this time the grin was savage. "I'm not worried about the next recal point, Skipper. It's inside the fringes of a nebula. Any pirate staking it out from inside the nebula will have useless sensors, and anyone staking it out from outside the nebula will be too far away, even with beefed-up generators. Besides, he wouldn't be able to see us very well."
"What about our sensors?" Jirik asked, "We need them to recalibrate."
"That was the tricky part," Via admitted, "I had to program us to emerge far enough in to be protected, but far enough out to use our sensors. There's going to be a certain element of luck involved. If we emerge too far in, we may have to maneuver for hours to get to where we can recalibrate. If we emerge too far out, clear of the nebula, we'll have to duck in quickly. I'm planning to calculate a microjump to let us jump into the nebula it we're too far off, or if we're ambushed."
Bran was startled. "A microjump? I thought those were so dangerous that no one used them!" He glanced at Tor. "A microjump is a jump whose duration is a fraction of a second," he explained. "The trouble is that it's impossible to calculate them precisely, and you might emerge into a solid body."
Tor looked intrigued. "What happens if you do?"
Bran smiled grimly. "Elementary physics. Two masses can't occupy the same space at the same time. Both masses are converted to energy. One helluva bang."
Via's smile was equally grim. "To answer your question, you're right. They are so dangerous that nobody uses them. But if it comes down to certain death from a pirate, or taking your chances on a microjump, what would you choose?"
Bran looked uncomfortable. "Yeah. Mind telling me how you're going to compute it ahead of time?"
Via shrugged, causing interesting secondary effects under her tunic. "Sure. I'll program the computer with all the information except the direction. I'll write a subroutine to put in that value with a single keystroke. Then, when we emerge, if there's a pirate waiting, all I have to do is locate the nebula, and punch one key. Zap! we're inside the nebula."
"As long as we're not inside an expanding ball of hot gases." replied Bran sourly. Via merely smiled.
"I like it," said Jirik. "It's the kind of desperation move that no pirate would expect, but that could give us a chance. Watch the duration, though. The farther inside the nebula we emerge from the microjump, the more chance we'll have of emerging inside a solid, and the longer we'll have to maneuver on inertial drive to get to where we can use our sensors to recalibrate. I wouldn't want to spend too much time even in a nebula with a pirate, or a pack of them, chasing us."
Via nodded. "No problem, skipper. Even if we emerge outside the nebula, we won't be far outside. I figured that a microsecond should be enough."
Jirik nodded, satisfied, but Bran still looked unhappy. "I guess the risk is justified, but I have a suggestion. Captain, suppose I rig the sensors so that we emerge with them activated. Then, as soon as they get readings, I can rig them to record them. That way, if we have to jump, we'll have a 'snapshot' of the sensor readings. Then Via could start recalibrating while we're still working our way out of the nebula."
"It's a good idea, Bran," Jirik replied, "but won't the sensors burn out if you activate them during a jump?"
"Ordinarily, yes," the engineer replied, "but I think I can rig a buffer circuit that'll protect them. The readings will be garbage in supralight, of course."
"Good," Jirik said. "Via, how much good would 'snapshot' readings like that do you? Would they help?"
Via was looking excited. "Hell, yes. With readings like that to work from, I'd only need a few minutes of direct readings to complete the maneuvering calculations! If I could do all of the recalibrations ahead of time from recorded readings, we'd be able to maneuver and jump within ten minutes."
Jirik nodded in satisfaction. "Great. Do it, Bran. Anyone have any other ideas?
Tor timidly raised a hand. "Uh, Captain? Uh, maybe we should turn on our fake beacon before we emerge. By the time they realize that we're not a robot ore hauler, we might be able to duck into the nebula."
"Good thinking, son," Jirik replied. "Do it, but keep your finger on the switch when we emerge. If we're in the nebula, or if there's no traffic around, we won't want to advertise ourselves. Okay, anybody comes up with any other ideas, let me know. Via, how long before we emerge?"
Via looked at her ring watch. "Seventy-three point two hours, Captain."
"Okay," Jirik replied, "Everybody keep thinking. About both problems. We have to survive to get to Alpha, of course, but Tomys will be waiting for us if we make it."
Shipboard life returned to a tense routine. The close encounter with the pirate had caused each of them to be haunted by a sense of impending danger. The strain showed in small ways. Jirik was having trouble sleeping. Via became irritable and snappish, and began dropping by Jirik's cabin just to talk, to try to relieve her tension. Bran became even more introspective, spending nearly all his time on the engineering deck, puttering or reading. Tor, on the other hand, was bright-eyed and excited. He chattered incessantly, only momentarily abashed when Via snapped at him or Bran rebuffed him. Naturally, he continued to hover around Via, trying anxiously to keep the attention of his "lady love", and instinctively trying to always place himself between Via and the other two male crewmen. Surprisingly, Tor's puppy love antics and his chatter actually ended up easing Jirik's sense of foreboding. He relaxed, and slept better. As a result, he spent quite a bit of time in the boy's company, which pleased Tor considerably, and made him even more talkative.
The strain increased to almost unbearable levels as the jump timer clicked down toward emergence. Via took to pacing the bridge deck and endlessly adjusting sensor arrays that needed no adjustments. Bran had emerged from his self-imposed isolation to modify the sensor circuits, then immediately returned to the engineering deck almost without a word.