had surfaced, six hours out of every two weeks since 1393, he would still have been on board for almost eight months. The air supply for one person might be adequate, but it would have been unlikely that he'd have had enough food and water. So we were, in effect, hoping for a miracle. Which was why neither of us ever mentioned it. And why the open hatch was so depressing.
And why Alex was bringing along an extra pressure suit.
“Are you on Belle now?” he asked.
I knew he could hear the music in the background. “Yes,” I said.
“Good. They should be contacting you shortly about the suit.”
“Okay.”
“I'll see you in the morning, Chase.”
I was on the bridge doing my routine flight check when Alex, carrying a couple of small bags, arrived, trailing a cloud of media guys. Somebody had called them to let them know we were headed out somewhere, and that was all it took. Where are you going, Alex? Does this have anything to do with Save-the-Boxes? With the ancient ships? With Christopher Robin?
Alex told them we were just going out looking for an artifact, but he refused to say which one. “Sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “but it's our policy not to reveal what we're looking for in advance. I'm sure you can understand why.”
Hands went up. More questions were shouted. But he pushed through into the airlock.
A Courier reporter was right behind him. “When will you be back, Alex?” he asked.
“We'll only be gone a few days, Larry.”
He closed the outer hatch, sealing them off. Two minutes later, he came through into the cabin, looking relieved. “Love the media,” he said.
“Hi, Alex,” I said. “How's it going?”
“I'm not sure. How in hell did they get up here so early?”
“Took the early flight, I guess.”
“How we doing? Ready to go?”
“We're scheduled out in about a half hour.”
“Okay, I'm going to get unpacked.” He looked at me. “Good luck,” he said.
We had no trouble finding the Firebird. We arrived in the target area, and had been waiting only a few hours when Belle reported a contact. “Directly ahead,” she said. “Range nine hundred kilometers.”
I noted the time. “It just appeared, Belle?”
“It would have had to. It wasn't there a moment ago.”
“Okay. Alex? We've got it.”
He was in the passenger cabin. “Coming.”
“We have a visual.”
“Let's see it.”
She put it on the display. It was too far out to get much of an image, but I could make out the lights.
Alex came in behind me.
“As soon as you're belted down,” I said, “we'll be on our way.”
“Very good.” He lowered himself into the right-hand seat, and I activated the restraint.
“Belle, we want to pull alongside.”
She began to accelerate and adjusted course. We were pressed gently back into our seats. “We should rendezvous in approximately ninety minutes.”
I squeezed Alex's shoulder. “Congratulations.”
“Not yet,” he said.
“You still want to board the vehicle?” asked Belle.
“Yes.” Silly question.
“I will line us up appropriately.”
Alex took a deep breath. “Open a channel to it, Belle.”
Status lights blinked. “Done.”
“We've already tried that,” I said.
“I know.” He took a deep breath. “Firebird, this is the Belle-Marie. Please respond.”
Static.
“Professor Robin, are you there?”
An hour and a half later, we drew alongside. The yacht looked exactly as it had two weeks earlier: The cockpit was dark, but the cabin lights were still on. There was no movement anywhere inside. And watching it from a few meters away was different from seeing it on a screen at the country house. When we were back home, it simply looked empty. Up close, we could feel the emptiness. Not so much empty, maybe, as abandoned. An effect emphasized by the open hatch.
“You really do think he got stranded here, don't you?” I said.
He didn't reply.
We eased in alongside. I was looking out at bolts and struts, at the yacht's scanners, which were rotating slowly, and at the serial number W4-771 emblazoned on the hull. And that name again: Tai Ling. “We should have a couple of hours before we need to worry about its making another jump,” said Alex. “Still, we don't want to spend any more time in there than necessary.”
We were already in our suits. The third one was in a storage bin aft. We left it.
“We will be braking slightly,” said Belle. “Get hold of something.”
We did, and there was a slight jar, pulling us both forward a step, as we matched velocity. “Okay,” she said. “This is as close as we're going to get.”
The Veiled Lady looked brighter, denser, bigger, than it ever had before. Don't know why. My imagination was going full bore. I felt as if I'd gotten to know Chris Robin, and I was hoping that, yes, in spite of everything, he was over there, asleep in the cabin, waiting for rescue.
The sky was filled with stars, and I remembered the old Greek line about how they looked like the campfires of an invading army. We were tethered to each other. Just in case. And we wore links so that Belle could follow everything.
The open hatch was directly across from us, only about fifteen meters away. I pushed off, floated across, and landed inside the Firebird airlock.
I turned back to Alex. “Okay,” I said. “Whenever you're ready. Go easy-”
He stepped out of the airlock. I watched the hatch close behind him as he drifted over, and it's funny how long something like that seems to take. It was only seconds when I was crossing, but Alex had almost no experience with this kind of thing, and I was concerned how he might be reacting. But I think he became aware that my breathing had picked up, and he told me to relax. Halfway across, he switched his wrist lamp on.
He arrived in good form, tumbling in, and if I'm making it sound as if it was a clumsy crossing, I don't mean to. It's hard to be graceful in zero gravity when you're wearing a suit. If you get where you're going, you've done pretty well.
I removed the tethers. Alex turned the lamp on the control pad. I pushed, and the outer hatch slid down while an overhead light came on. The status board began blinking, indicating that air had begun to flow into the chamber. “When we get inside, Chase,” he said, “don't remove your helmet. In case we have to get out in a hurry.”
We still couldn't be certain that the ship might not submerge ahead of schedule. The exit process, the fadeaway, took slightly more than two minutes. I timed the pressurization procedure, and suspected Alex was doing the same thing. When, finally, the hatch slid up, and we looked into the passenger cabin, two minutes and forty- three seconds had passed. Assuming the reverse process took as long, if the yacht started its jump while we were inside, we would not get clear.
“Is there a way,” Alex asked, “to keep both hatches open?”
“We'd have to depressurize the entire yacht,” I said.
“Let's do a quick inspection. We might not be here that long.”
The lights brightened for us. To our right, a passageway led back, dividing six sleeping compartments. Eight movable seats were distributed around the cabin. Beyond that lay the bridge.
