“Well, there was no initial shower of particles. However, a microsecond or two
The senior duty officer leaned forward. “Makes me want to reopen the book on the concept of tachyons.”
Wasserman shrugged. “I’m not so ready to go down that path-but it sure did look like we were watching ultra high-energy particles crossing back down through the lightspeed threshold, undergoing a rapid-uh, ‘decay’-into normative particles.”
Visser nodded. “I will not pretend to intuit the significance of all these facts, nor do we need them explicated here. Our module is scheduled for transfer to the Dornaani vessel in”-she checked her watch-“less than an hour. So tell us this: what do these facts suggest in terms of the Dornaani drive technology? Or other practical accomplishments?”
Wasserman rotated his hands into a palms-up gesture of uncertainty. “I can only tell you this much: the Dornaani approach to supraluminal travel is way different from-and way beyond-ours. But I don’t know when I’ll be able to tell you anything specific about it. If ever.”
“Why?”
“Because this is like being a paleontologist who’s shown a single fossilized footprint and is then asked to draw a sketch of the dinosaur that made it. I mean, there are certain features you can
Visser’s pout was one of grudging acceptance. “Very well. Mr. Riordan, can you tell us any more about the communication we received from the Dornaani?”
“Yes. The Dornaani relayed the accords of the interstellar organization they told us about.”
Durniak’s smile was genuine, yet rueful. “I am guessing this means many days of reading, no?”
“Erm-no.”
Downing heard the pause and looked at Caine. “How long is it, Caine?”
Caine took the hard copy from the printout tray, checked front and back. “Not quite two pages.”
“How many accords are there?”
He scanned the sheet. “Twenty-one.”
“Only twenty-one?” It was the first time Downing had ever heard Visser sound surprised.
“Only twenty-one. Here you go.” Caine started the thin stack of sheets around the room.
Trevor, the first to finish reading it, turned the document over, as if searching for fine print. “And that’s it?”
Caine nodded at him. “That’s it.”
“Makes me think we’re looking at a very hands-off kind of organization.”
Visser answered with a sharp shake of her head. “This is not an organization. It is a league of nonaligned states that have committed to a universal nonaggression treaty.”
“And who’ve made rules for how to act toward each other when they meet on the playground.” Opal’s comment earned a smile from Caine, a broad grin from Trevor.
Visser folded the sheet and slipped it into a pants pocket. “So. Much to discuss in the days to come. But, if we are done here, let us call-”
“Already here.” The drawl from the doorway seemed to carry in a long, spare man in the blue unipiece fatigues of the USSF. Captain Dale “Tex” Flannery (who was, Downing had learned, from Nevada) waved the suite personnel back into their seats. “Folks, my CPO is about to have kittens, we’re cutting it so close. According to the instructions, we are not going to make a hard dock with the exosapients. So that means we have to cut your module and its intership coupler loose in about thirty minutes. They will then maneuver to pick you up. We will observe from a range of thirty kilometers.”
“That’s pretty far off if something goes wrong,” muttered Hwang.
“Doctor, if something goes wrong, there is probably squat-all we can do about it, anyway. I’m sure you folks have been chatting about the ship that just came in so you’re probably guessing the same thing I am: that if these Dornaani wanted to put their foot up our ass and wriggle their toes out our nostrils, I doubt there’s a thing in creation we could do about it. On the other hand, if they mean to harm us, they’re going about it in an awful neighborly way. If I was you, I wouldn’t worry about any problems during the transfer-or after.”
Flannery edged back toward the door. “Now, I’ve got a ship to run and a transfer to effect, so I must politely insist that you get your asses into your module, button up, and batten down. You’ve got twenty minutes.” He paused, then saluted. “Do Earth proud, folks.” One long, lanky step had him out the door and gone.
ODYSSEUS
Caine checked his watch-just about fifty minutes since Flannery’s brusque farewell-and then felt a reasonable amount of gravity pushing him down into the acceleration couch once again. Trevor’s voice came out of the ceiling speakers a moment later. “Okay, folks. That bump you felt a few minutes ago was indeed the Dornaani connecting to us via our intership coupling node. Instruments now indicate a spin-generated equivalent of 0.97 gees. Be careful if you get up-we don’t know our rotations per minute yet, so we can’t be sure how bad the inner ear or Coriolis effects are going to be.”
Visser’s voice followed Trevor’s: “Might the gravity be natural? Could we have already shifted, and come out near a planet?”
Caine felt a sudden flush of embarrassment for Visser, was glad that Le Mule did not jump down her throat. It was fairly common knowledge-even for someone who had been asleep for fourteen years-that you couldn’t come out of shift near a planet. The proximity to a gravity well would deform the ship’s re-expression pattern and-
Caine toggled his own comm link. “I doubt we’ve experienced shift yet, Ms. Visser. You feel a little jolt when you shift. Not painful, just a start-like when you wake up from a falling dream.”
Movement at the entrance to his stateroom caught the corner of his eye: Opal, in a low-cut T-shirt and shorts. Which looked very fine on her. Caine tapped the commlink which was dragging awkwardly at the neckline of his own tee, rose, smiling-but then saw that her face was as rigid as a mask. He moved past her, closed the door, and steered her toward the acceleration couch in which he had been sitting. She didn’t resist or speak.
He sat down next to her, put a hand on top of hers. She clutched his fingers so quickly and so tightly that he almost cursed. “Opal, what’s wrong?”
Without looking at him, she spat words. “You heard that braying jackass, Le Mule. Shifting is just a nice way of saying that we’re going to be torn into trillions of tiny, subatomic particles.”
“It is a pretty strange concept,” Caine started agreeably.
Opal shut her eyes. “It is suicide.”
He studied her face, started at what he saw there. “Why are you crying?”
She blinked, looked even more surprised than he was, and yelped out a short laugh. “What? I’m what? Crying?”
Caine only nodded: clearly, this was more than just fear.
Opal waved an airy hand. “Oh, that’s nothing. I was just-”
Caine reached out and drew her close slowly, gently. She exhaled and put her arms around him. She was in that position, unmoving, for so long that he wondered if she might have gone to sleep. “Opal, are you-?”
She let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry. I’m-God, I’m such a coward.”
“You?” He held her back to look at her. “
“It’s this whole shift business.”
He doubted that, but asked, “What about it?”
“Well, the mere thought of being shredded into subatomic particles-didn’t it scare you, the first time?”
Caine shrugged. “It couldn’t: I was in cold sleep. And by the time they woke me up, I had already been through three shifts. I guess some part of me accepted that if shifting was going to kill me, it would have already done so. But instead, here I am.” He smiled.
