He laughed a little. He truly wanted to laugh. “Yeah,” he said. It made him feel better as he went his way down to Medical. Check out the sheets, yeah, pillow, too, got the blankets, already, sir, no problem, got the trank, yeah, I’m on the roster, I’m on galley duty, Jamal said he saw to it.
He got the sheets, he went to lonely L14 and checked out the accommodation. It wasn’t quite a closet. It had plumbing. He remembered what Austin said about turning the water on. He tried it and it was off. But the outbound pipe needed shutting. He got down to locate it, found the cutoff labeled, and turned it.
The first of the acceleration warnings sounded, then. He banged his head on the cabinet getting out, his heart going like a hammer. He heard Christian’s voice, at least he thought it was Christian: “We’ll clear Pell slow zones in ten minutes. At that time we’ll start our acceleration toward departure. We’re releasing non-ops personnel to quarters to secure premises. Please secure all pipes and unplug all but emergency equipment. Area chiefs please check compliance and all vacant compartments. As you are aware, we have a follower. We do not know the ship’s intentions, but we are on condition red alert. Double check all secure latches, secure all non-essential items.”
Damn, he thought, palms sweating. Canned speech. Christian was reading—he couldn’t be that calm and collected. But Christian had something to do besides imagine. He didn’t. The walls seemed to close in on him.
“Be doubly sure of your belts. If you detect any belt malfunction, pad up with all available materials and secure yourself in the smallest area of your compartment. All personnel, review your emergency assignments. “
There wasn’t a ‘smallest area. ‘ The compartment was it. He got up off the deck and tested the belts. They worked. The emergency procedures all seemed unreal to him, more extreme than any drill he’d ever walked through, precautions against maneuvers he wasn’t sure Sprite had ever had to make, at the worst of the War. They’d sat the bad times out in port.
Pieces rattling off the hull. Hell.
The door opened, without a by-your-leave. “Looking for a room-mate,” Saby said.
He was glad. He was incredibly, shakily glad of that offer—welcomed Saby’s arms around him, held to her as something solid, against the suppositions.
“Yeah,” he said. “Good. Fine with me.”
—iv—
“EVERYTHING IN PARAMETERS,” Christian said, on the hand-off. Austin lowered himself into the chair, scanned the console, found the routine settings. “Anything else?”
The boy was always touchy. You never knew, unless you’d deliberately hit the button.
“No,” he said. “Belt in, stay tight, this one’s going to be interesting.”
“We’re going to skim it, right?”
Shoot right through Tripoint with no v-dump. Accumulate v at the interface and come into Viking like a bat out of hell…
Certainly it was one solution. But they were loaded heavy. Hell of a mass.
“You run the calc?”
“‘Pella and I did. It’s on your number two, all the options I figured. She says she can put it in margin. I say it’s dicey.”
“Very.”
“They always short you in the cans. Absolute mass is 200k less. Saby says.”
“That’s nice.”
“Nice. Hell. “ Christian was keeping his voice down, standing right by his chair. “What are we going to do? We’re not stopping.”
“Maybe.”
“God in—”
“Shush, shush, shush, Mr. Bowe, a shade less emotional, if you please.”
“You damn, grandstanding… bastard, no, forget I said it, you haven’t anything to prove to me, I know you can do it, let’s just not try, all right?”
“I’m perfectly serious—as a possibility. I trust you calc’ed that with the rest.”
“It’s on there.”
“It had better be. It had better be right, mister. Bet our lives it’s right.”
Christian’s mouth went very thin. “Yes, sir,” he said, and went forward, said a word to Beatrice, stopped for another to Capella, who wasn’t standing down at shift-change.
Capella listened, frowned, nodded to whatever it was. Christian bent and, definite breach of regulations, kissed the second chief navigator on the forehead.
The second chief navigator grabbed his collar, gave him one on the mouth that went on. And on. Christian came back straightening his collar and headed, clearly, past, without explanation.
“Inspiring the crew?” Austin said.
“Just for God’s sake listen to her.”
“Emotion, emotion. Get some rest.”
Christian left. The sort-out of shift-change was mostly complete.
“You know,” Michaels said, stopping by his chair, to lean on the arm and the back and deliver a quiet word to his ear, “the boy said, hit the sims, first thing; said, stay on ‘em, said don’t even ask you, just push the arming button last thing when we go up.”
“Did, did he?”
“Whole list of orders, yours, his, identical down the line. Just thought you’d like to know.”
He gave a breath, a laugh, couldn’t say what. Michaels patted his arm, went on for a word to Beatrice. Felt all right, it did. There was hope for the brat, give or take what he’d stirred.
No way their tagalong was Mallory’s. The Pell militia wouldn’t chase you from Pell docks into jump. If Pell wanted you, you’d have hell getting undocked. They’d have agents out to blow something essential while you sat at dock, no question, they’d learned their lesson the hard way about quarrels with ships.
So, granted it wasn’t the law, it was clearly a ship with a mission, and it was clearly on the Tripoint heading. If guesses were right, at worst-case, those holds were empty, and their lighter mass was going to give Silver Dream’s big engine-pack a hype to send it right past Corinthian. In terms of v, realspace negligible. In terms of position in space-time… ahead of them. Waiting for them, when hyperspace abhorred their energy-state out again at Tripoint.
But bet they wouldn’t use nukes, not if they wanted to board and take the second chief navigator for themselves. They’d use inerts: simple mag-fired rifle balls, in effect—hoping to cripple Corinthian’s jump-capacity; and they’d have to launch those after they’d picked up the wavefront of Corinthian’s arrival.
“Nav.”
“Sir.”
“Are you comfortable with what you have, with data?”
“Yes, sir, more than adequate. “
He keyed up the alternatives. Found the one he wanted. The supply dump. “Nav, receive my send. How close can you put us?”
“Sir. May I talk privately?”
“Come ahead.”
Capella left her chair, came and leaned an elbow against his console. “Sir,” Capella said. “If you want honestly to leave it to me, give me leave to dump at any point, I’ll guarantee you best of two alternatives.”
“What two?”
“We find this sumbitch far enough out we can make that dump or close enough in we take my bet and skip through to Viking. We can dump down. Swear to you.”
You looked in Capella’s eyes when she was off duty, you learned nothing. You looked there now and you got the coldest, clearest stare.
“I believe you, second chief navigator. Are you saying leave that choice to you? My priorities involve the economics of this ship. Involve keeping a contract, with entities I believe you represent. Can you set us next our target, if our problem isn’t within, say, three hours light? Can you assure me… we can stay emissions-neutral?”