culmination must have shaken her too.
'Well, well,' came Ryan's voice, overly genial. 'That was fun. Now what shall we play?'
'Dada-mann,' Tyra whispered. Saxtorph guessed it was unconscious, her pet name for her father when she was small. He imagined tears running down her cheeks, and wanted to go hold her hand and speak comfort. Her words strengthened, not yet quite steady. 'Y-yes, that is the proper question. Isn't it? How shall we get him out? Have you had any more ideas, Robert?'
They had discussed it, of course, over and over, as watch after watch dragged by. Yonder vessel couldn't decelerate if the kzinti aboard wanted to, and Rover hadn't a decent fraction of the delta't; necessary to match velocities. In the era of hyperdrive such capabilities were very nearly as obsolete as flint axes. If somebody took off in a boat, he'd still have that forward speed, and be unable to kill enough of it to help before his energy reserve was gone. Not that there'd be any point in trying. A boat's screens were totally inadequate against the level of radiation involved. He'd be doomed in a second, dead in an hour or two. The craft would become an instant derelict, electronics burned out.
The UN Navy kept a few high-boosters. They had marginal utility for certain kinds of research. 'Besides,' Saxtorph had observed, 'all government agencies hoard stuff to a degree a squirrel or jaybird would envy. They've also got quite a lot else in common with squirrels and jaybirds.'
Rigged with a hyperdrive, such as a craft could theoretically come out here, spend months building up her vector, at last draw close, mesh fields, and extend a gang tube-if the kzinti cooperated. If they didn't, an operation already perilous would become insanely so, forcing an entry under those conditions in order to meet armed resistance. Either way, the expense would be staggering. Next year's budget might even have to cut back on a boondoggle or two. Would the top brass consider it, to rescue one man, a man convicted of treason? Saxtorph's bet was that they wouldn't. If they did anything, it would most likely be to order the ship destroyed-simple and safe; leave an undeflectably large mass ahead of her-before she brought home intelligence of the black hole.
He'd not had the heart to express his opinion as more than a possibility, nor did he now. After all, in the course of time Tyra might conceivably manage to rouse public sentiment and turn it into political pressure. She was a skilled writer, and beautiful. Never had he pointed out that her success must entail mortal hazard to a number of other lives. Once he'd thought Dorcas was about to say it, and had given her their private 'steer clear' sign. 'She's got grief aplenty as is,' he explained later.
'We start by peering, don't we?' Carita put in. Good girl, Saxtorph thought. You can always count on her for nuts-and-bolts common sense.
'Right,' he said. 'Not that I expect we'll learn a lot. However, let's secure every loose end we can before we decide on any further moves.'
'We shall c-call them,' Tyra stammered. 'Shall we not?'
'Well, I suppose we should, but I want to gang mighty warily. It won't be easy, you know.'
Indeed not. Aberration and Doppler effect complicated the task abundantly. The speed that caused them made matters worse yet. If Rover sent a message, by the time a response could arrive, Sherrek would have passed the point where Rover lay. Saxtorph meant to stay always well clear. It would be nice if he could fake matched velocity by popping in and out of hyperspace. Too bad that transition between relativistic and quantum modes required time to get the wave functions of atoms into the proper phase relationships. Late in the war the kzinti had figured this out and discovered what the neutrino emission pattern was when a drive prepared itself. Warned of impending attack from an unpredictable new direction, they'd actually won a couple of engagements.
Modern vessels changed state in minutes. The engineers talked about future models that would only take seconds. Rover's antiquated engine needed almost half an hour. Ordinarily that made no difference. You'd be doing something else meanwhile anyway, such as completing your climb sufficiently high out of a gravity well. But here she'd better come no closer than a quarter billion klicks ahead of Sherrek. Preferably much more.
'Bloody hell!' cried Ryan. 'Why are we glooming and dooming like this? We've found her! Let's throw a proper luau.'
A sob caught in Tyra's throat. 'Thank you, Kam. Yes. Let us.'
When she's seen the ship and doesn't know whether her father is alive or dead or worse, thought Saxtorph. That's one gallant lass. 'Okay,' he said. 'The computers can handle the observations. We'll put other functions on auto and relax. Aside from you, Kam. We expect something special for dinner this evenwatch.'
'I will help,' Tyra said. 'I… need to.'
'No, you don't,' Saxtorph told her. 'At least, not right off. Report to the saloon. What I need help with is downing two or three large schooners.'
She smiled forlornly as he entered, but she did smile. Quickly, before the rest arrived, he took both her hands in his. Their eyes met and lingered. Hearing footfalls, they let go. He felt a little breathless and giddy.
Either Tyra put tension aside and cheered up in the course of the next eight hours, or she did a damn good job of acting. The party wasn't riotous, but it became warm, affectionate, finally sentimental. After they started singing, she gave them several ballads from her homeland. She had a lovely voice.
Chapter XV
Effort upon effort succeeded ultimately in getting through. The first partial, distorted reply croaked forth. Dorcas heard and yelled. She, who had the most knowledge of kzin xenology, was prepared to speak through a translator for her band. What she would say, she could not foresee; she must grope forward. Could she bargain, could she threaten? To her husband she admitted that her hopes were low. He agreed, more grimly than the situation seemed to warrant as far as they two were concerned.
She was not prepared for human words.
'Sind Sie wirklich Menschen?' And what must be Tyra's own dialect: 'Gud Jesu, endelig! Hvor langt, hvor langt—' Interference ripped the cry asunder. Static hissed and snarled like a kzin.
'Hang in there,' Saxtorph said. 'I'll be back.' He scrambled from his seat and out of the cabin. Dorcas' gaze followed him.
Nobody else had been listening. To endure repeated failures is mere masochism, if you yourself can do nothing about them. Saxtorph pounded on Tyra's door. 'Wake up!' he bellowed. 'We've contacted your father! He lives, he lives!'
The door flew open and she stumbled into his arms. She slept unclothed. He held her rightly until she stopped weeping and shivered only a little. She was warm and firm and silken. 'We don't know more than that,' he mouthed. Did desire shout louder in his blood than compassion? 'It's going to take time. What'll come of it, we can't tell. But we're working on it, Tyra. We are.'
She drew herself free and stood before him. Briefly, fists clenched at her sides. Then she remembered the situation, crossed arms over the fairness above and below, caught a ragged breath and blinked the tears away. 'Yes, you will,' she answered before she fled, 'because you are what you are. I can abide.'
She did, calmly, even blithely, while three daycycles passed and the story arrived in shreds and snatches. When at last the whole crew met, bodily, for they needed to draw strength from each other, she sat half smiling.
Saxtorph looked around the saloon table. 'Okay,' he said with far more steadiness than he felt, 'Peter Nordbo is alive, well, and alone. Two years alone, but better that than the company he was keeping, and apparently he's stayed sane. The problem is how to debark him. I can be honest now and tell you that I don't expect any navy will do the job, nor anybody else that may have the capability.'
'Why not?' Carita asked. 'He's got important information, hasn't he, about the black hole? That expedition checked it over as thoroughly as they could.'
The captain began filling his pipe. 'Yah, but you see, their information's in the radio beam the ship was transmitting till he took over. A hell of a lot quicker, easier, and safer to recover than by matching velocity and boarding. Oh, I daresay what he's gone through and what he's done will stir up a wave of public sympathy, but unless it becomes a tsunami, that probably won't be enough.'
'Among the considerations,' Dorcas added in an impersonal tone, 'Sherrek is approaching kzin-controlled space. Kzinti hyperships are bound to be sniffing about. A few of their kind did have valid reasons, from their
