As he spoke, the deck trembled beneath Brim's boots while muted thunder from the old merchantman's Drive increased significantly from below decks. Aft, the ship's twin Drive plumes flared up dramatically as she swung off toward open space. Clearly, the single Helmsman piloting both old hulls was preparing to combat some tremendous counterforce.
An urgent voice announced something in Sodeskayan over the blower.
"Twenty clicks till light-off!" Ursis translated. "Brace yourself, Wilf Ansor. One can never accurately predict the results of a lab experiment." Simultaneously, the pod's strobe beacons began to flash more rapidly.
Brim took a grip on the Hyperscreen coaming as the blower announced. "Five..." He had heard enough Sodeskayan to at least count to ten. "Four... three... two... one... zotrob!"
The next instant, a shimmering cobalt glow exploded around the forward end of the pod, followed by an eerie, sapphire Drive plume that was more of a Drive beacon in Brim's reckoning. Unlike "normal" plumes from standard Sheldon-type Drive crystals that appeared to flow aft until they faded into the blackness of space, the Wizard's exhaust wake extended out like a beacon of pure blue light that enclosed a gleaming necklace of saffron-hued refraction bodies marching slowly in the opposite direction of thrust. The effect was absolutely unlike anything he had ever experienced.
And clearly, the Wizard Drive produced thrust in prodigious amplitude. While the Bear at the test console increased the flow of energy to the pod, old Ivanov's Helmsman was compelled to send more and more power to the Drives on the lab ship—enough so that the whole bridge began shuddering uncomfortably.
The Helmsman suddenly bellowed over his shoulder to the Pod Operator, who was peering into his consoles with apparent consternation. Something was clearly 'way out of control; Brim could tell from the way the hull was working and grinding. Outside, the pod had visibly bent the great hullmetal girders and was now swinging its great blue beam in a vast cone like some Brobdingnagian child playing with an equally colossal hand-light. "Sweet mother of Voot," Brim muttered suddenly. "If she broaches at this speed, we'll all be killed—especially with that brute ready to swing us around." Involuntarily, he grabbed at a nearby console, but he knew it wouldn't help.
Ursis bellowed something that sounded like a warning, but he was quickly drowned out by a mounting rumble that shook the framework of the hull.
While Brim watched in horror, the whole network of girders outside ruptured in a churning cloud of hullmetal shards. Instantly, Wizard Prototype Number One disappeared aft, headed up-galaxy for the center of the Universe in a blaze of turquoise light. Brim was thrown to the deck as the starboard half of Ivanov lurched savagely off course and slewed wildly, its massive hull struggling with its own powerful steering engines. The bridge abruptly went dark while Bears roared in alarm and loose debris from a hundred consoles cascaded through the air, smashing to rubbish on the bulkheads or the ceiling.
Abruptly, Borodov's happy voice soared over the confusion. "Wonderful!" he roared. "I say that it's wonderful!" Then he, too, was drowned out—this time by the Ivanov's Drive, which thundered up wildly for a moment as the Helmsman struggled to regain control of the runaway starship. When it finally abated, the wild surges of gravity also ceased and Pandemonium on the bridge died down to a stony silence.
Power was finally restored while Brim dragged himself painfully to his feet. He checked to see how old Dr. Borodov had fared—Ursis was helping him up from the deck. "Are you all right, old friend?" the younger Bear asked with a great deal of concern in his voice.
Borodov shook his furry head and blinked a few times. "Am I all right?" he asked in a voice delirious with elation. "But how could I be anything else! Such power! Such performance! Ah, friend Nikolai Yanuarievich," he said, "it is for our human compatriot that I am now concerned." He looked at Brim.
"We Bears have only to perfect controls for this wonderful monster called Wizard. Wilf Ansor, here, has to fly with one!"
"He's all right," Ursis answered with a wink. "How about you, Wilf Ansor?"
Brim grinned. "I think I'm all in one piece," he chuckled. "Besides, like Dr. Borodov, I'm sort of caught up with thoughts of flying with one of the beasts."
With that, all three turned to peer through the Hyperscreens that were just then beginning to translate again after the power failure.
"Voof," Ursis said reverently.
"Double voof," Brim answered. Outside, the Sovaka Doynetz was just limping back on station, steered by someone in an emergency helm. Something—possibly the runaway test pod itself—had dealt the old merchantman a tremendous blow that staved her hull from the midships radiator section to a few irals from her stern. The starship was rolling wildly, her bow hunting up and down as if she were confused.
"I'd say she's taken some damage to her steering engine," Borodov observed dourly.
"At least her hull appears to be sound," Ursis said, "which is as lucky for us as it is for her crew.
Presently, Krasni-Peych will begin development of the Wizard/R. Then, we shall assuredly need strength."
"The Wizard/R?" Brim asked.
Borodov nodded. "R stands for reflecting."
"I still don't understand," Brim admitted.
The Bear laughed. "At present, only a few individuals in the whole Universe do," he explained. "But reflecting Drives represent the true future of starflight, at least in the eyes of Krasni-Peych. The prototype Wizard you saw today is only a first, brief step in development of this new technology. In spite of its novel engineering, it still operates on the long-established single-crystal/single-pass principal, where energy passes once through the crystal, exciting its lattice structure and providing HyperSpeed thrust." He stopped, glanced at Ursis, and smiled. "Perhaps you will be so kind as to carry on for me, Nikolai Yanuarievich?" he asked.
The younger Bear nodded. "Reflecting Drives," he proceeded, as if he were lecturing at the Dityasburg Institute, "are composed of one or more crystal shells grown around a central core in layers. The most simple example is a core surrounded by a single, thin shell. During normal operation, both fire aft as a unit, with the shell contributing as much as twenty-five percent of the total thrust. However, when short bursts of speed are necessary, the outer shell's thrust can be reversed, directing its output energy forward into a ring-shaped, focusing reflector that feeds back directly into the core. This, we calculate, will increase the unit's thrust aft by as much as forty percent—but only for brief periods of time."
Brim glanced through the Hyperscreens at the limping Doynetz. "You'll need a hefty pod structure to test that beast," he said with awe.
Ursis nodded his huge, shaggy head. "Those words may have just won you a most prestigious Sodeskayan award, Wilf Ansor," he said gravely.
"An award?" Brim asked with interest. "What for?"
"Understatement of the year," the Bear answered with a grin, "—and in this case perhaps understatement of the century."
Sodeskayan Rescue Service vessels were standing off the damaged laboratory vessels less than a metacycle afterward....
Later, having returned to the surface much earlier than they had expected, the three friends killed time in a Krasni-Peycli recreation complex before Brim's departure to the planet of Rhodor. The large, ornately panelled dining room in the complex was lighted by crystal chandeliers and a huge, blazing fireplace at one end. Waiters dressed in formal uniforms with white aprons darted here and there serving tables of Krasni-Peycli clients and employees from all over the Empire—and beyond. In the background, a strolling peasant orchestra played melancholy Sodeskayan music on enormous stringed instruments.