Bennett and Mackendrick were checking supplies and equipment in the cargo hold when the Cobra gave a sudden jolt. The sensation of riding an elevator indicated that the floor of the repair pit was rising to meet the deck of the spaceport. Bennett grabbed the tail-gate of the open-topped transporter, swaying with the motion.
“If that’s it down here we’ll join Ten,” Mackendrick said.
They took the lift-plate to the upper deck, standing side by side in silence. Mackendrick was wearing a black flight-suit, so tight that it shrink-wrapped his thin frame, emphasising his prominent rib-cage and scooped pelvis. Since learning of the tycoon’s illness, Bennett had never been able to look at Mackendrick without thinking that soon, perhaps within a year, the man would be dead. He wondered how one could go on living with the knowledge that death was imminent. He thought of his father, and how he had coped with the fact of his approaching end. Then he realised that right at this minute, in Mojave Town, the remains of his father were being interred in the grave garden. He recalled his father’s eyes, as he died, accusing him, and he felt a sudden and painful stab of guilt.
The flight-deck was finished in ubiquitous regulation black: jet carpet, couches and curving walls, the better for the pilots to apprehend the dozens of illuminated readouts and screens. Through the delta viewscreen Bennett watched a tug reverse towards the nose of the Cobra, engage grabs and take the weight of the ship. Slowly they trundled forward, past the terminal building, towards the vacant blast-pad and posse of waiting technicians and mechanics.
Mackendrick lay on the engineer’s couch to the rear of the flight-deck, and carefully buckled his thin frame into the safety harness. Ten Lee was already strapped into her couch, the wraparound command console pulled close. Her face, surrounded by a bulging flight helmet with the visor screen down, was a study in emotionless concentration as she cycled through the pre-flight programs.
Bennett took his helmet from the pilot’s couch and pulled it down over his head, feeling the familiar comfort of its snug fit. The irritating chatter of a flight controller played in his right ear; he modulated the noise below the threshold of audibility. They were still one hour from liftoff. He would rather be alone with his thoughts until then.
He climbed into his couch, sinking into its padded depths. Everything about the Cobra, from major mechanical specifics right down to minor design features, was superior to anything else he’d flown over the years. Mackendrick had spared no expense when fitting and equipping the ship.
He pulled the horseshoe console towards him, locking it in place. He flipped down his visor and went through the running program with Ten Lee. This was, he realised, more a routine process to soothe his pre-flight nerves. During his fifteen years in space he had never flown trans-c. In fact, the furthest he had ever travelled was to Mars on a short vacation ten years ago. He had every confidence in his own ability to fly the Cobra, especially when they arrived at Penumbra and he had to take them through the storm-riven atmosphere—and he knew that he could not hope for a better ship or operating system. But the fact remained that they were embarking on a faster-than-light voyage through two thousand light years of unexplored space. He found it hard to grasp the enormity of what was about to happen. The fact of the flight alone was mind-numbing, without considering what they might find when they finally made landfall on Penumbra.
He raised his visor and glanced across at Ten Lee. She was reading off a string of equations with the calm of someone to whom this reality was nothing more than a passing illusion.
They reached the blast-pad and the tug disengaged. Hydraulic gantries took the weight of the ship and eased it to the vertical. Bennett tipped, staring up through the viewscreen at the bright blue sky.
He opened communications with the control tower and for the next half hour went through the process of program checks and data monitoring. Through the side-screen he noticed the bowsers and trucks carrying the mechanics and technicians beetling away across the tarmac. The sight filled him with a feeling of isolation he recalled from ten years ago, when he regularly piloted shuttles from ground to orbit.
One minute before lift-off the main engines engaged. Control counted down. Bennett laid his head back against the rest and gripped the arms of the couch. He glanced back at Mackendrick, strapped into the engineer’s couch. The tycoon sketched a brief smile and gave a thumbs-up gesture.
Seconds later the Cobra surged from the blast-pad, the pressure of ascent pushing Bennett further into his seat. His head rattled with the vibration of the rapid climb, blurring his vision. He thought of the sightseers in the observation gallery, the kids gasping at the spectacular pyrotechnics of blast-off.
In his helmet the tinny voice of the controller signed off. “Good luck Bennett, Theneka. She’s all yours.”
They climbed and turned. Through the sidescreen Bennett made out the vast sweep of the western seaboard, and then the great ochre plain of the Mojave, punctuated with the verdant circles of a dozen townships and settlements. From this high it appeared so artificial, impossible to conceive that down below normal people were conducting normal, everyday lives.
He turned his head and smiled at Mackendrick. “You okay, Mack?”
It was all the old tycoon could do to lift a hand in silent assent. Bennett hoped Mackendrick would be equal to the stress of the take-off.
Ten Lee’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Twenty seconds until phase-out.”
“Check,” he said, glancing at his screen. The system was running smoothly.
“Ten… nine… eight…”
They were almost at the altitude where it would be safe to effect the transfer. Then the Schulmann-Dearing would cut in, tearing the fabric of localised space with such concentrated energy that, had the phase-out been effected on the ground, the area of the port around the ship would have been destroyed.
Bennett felt a stab of apprehension. Hell, but in seconds he would be travelling faster than the speed of light, this tiny shell-like vehicle cancelling the laws of physics and hurtling three frail human beings to the very edge of the galaxy.
He thought of Julia. He almost wished he was with her now, suffering her barbed recriminations.
“Two… one… transition,” Ten Lee said.
The deafening rumble of the main engines cut out suddenly, to be replaced with an eerie almost-silence. As his hearing adjusted he was aware that the ship was ringing with a low, almost subliminal hum, like the constantly dying note of a struck tuning fork.
He peered through the viewscreen. Where the thin blue of the stratosphere should have been, or the familiar scatter of stars, the scene was unique and strange: the stars had turned to streamers and were hosing towards and around the ship like a bombardment of polychromatic flak. He was aware of a sensation of abstraction; he felt at several removes from the reality around him, like a patient in a post-operative daze.
Ten Lee pulled off her helmet. She stared through the viewscreen in silent wonder, her open-mouthed regard unusually expressive. “Some scholars say that the void is the physical embodiment of the state to which we all aspire, Joshua.”
“Josh,” Mackendrick said from behind them. “If you and the Dalai Lama wouldn’t mind helping me to my unit…”
Bennett unfastened himself and moved over to Mackendrick. The old man looked pale, as if the stress of takeoff and phase-out had been too much. He could hardly stand, and it took Bennett and Ten Lee supporting each arm to assist him from the flight-deck. They moved down the corridor to the suspension chamber. The three suspension units—long silver containers resembling nothing so much as coffins—stood side by side in the centre of the room.
Mackendrick lay down in the form-shaped padding and sighed as sub-dermal capillaries eased themselves into his flesh. The transparent cover hummed shut over his unconscious body. In four months, when phase-out of the void was accomplished, he would be woken up.
Bennett was due to come out of suspension at the midpoint stage of the voyage, to assist Ten Lee in routine systems checks. Ten Lee had requested that she remain unsuspended for the duration of the flight. She wished to meditate. She had even brought along meagre rations to last her until landfall, vegetarian fare consisting of lentil bread and soya cakes, even though the ship was equipped with pre-packed food supplies.
Bennett left the suspension chamber and moved along the corridor to his berth. He lifted the simulated identity hologram from his bag and placed it on the bedside unit. He had never talked to Ella’s ghost anywhere other than the memorial garden; it was strange to think that he could commune with her so far from home. He moved around the small room, setting up the projectors and receivers at strategic positions. Then he sat on the narrow bunk and placed his finger-tips on the touch-sensitive module.
