“If what?”
“What if we stepped it up to three gees? Maybe a touch more? Would they give up the chase?”
“They would have no choice, but aren’t we topped out?” Dana hated to think about how their passengers were faring after a day at a sustained two gees. But Blake knew about them, too.
“Yeah, a hair above two gees is the DED’s limit. But suppose we also fire up our fusion drive?”
They had never tried running both drives in tandem. With good reason: the bridge controls and sensors weren’t configured or calibrated for that. And what if they needed all their deuterium on the other side?
Because she had to believe they would make it to the other side.
“Let’s try another way first,” Dana said. “Do you trust me?”
“With my life.” Blake grinned. “Every time we launch.”
She reopened the comm channel. “Are you sure you want to know what this is about, Fred?”
“That I am.”
“Only you,” she told him. “No recording, either.”
“Hold on.”
Fred’s image froze. When the display returned to life, minutes later, the backdrop had changed.
In Dana’s years aboard Reliance, she had been to the captain’s cabin maybe a half-dozen times: sometimes to give her candid opinion, twice to get chewed out. She recognized the cabin’s tidy compactness. The holos on the bulkhead behind Fred were new to Dana, but without question were of his wife and sons.
At three gees his trek from the bridge would have been brutal.
Fred had put on earphones. He asked, “Is this private enough?”
“If what we’re seeing is real,” Blake whispered.
“Yes, sir,” Dana said. And she explained.
When she had finished, Torrance asked, “That’s the truth?”
“Every word,” she said. “I’m sorry beyond words that I had to tell you.”
“From you, I believe it.” Torrance saluted. “It has been an honor, Commander. Godspeed.”
The comm display went dark.
“Godspeed to us all,” Dana said.
Ten minutes later, the radar blip that stood for Reliance began to fall back.
9
Dana checked the console chronometer yet again. They had been boosting at two gees uninterrupted for almost six hours. It was past time to give her passengers another respite—That must soon become a session at hard labor.
“Throttling back to one-third gee,” she announced, “in three…two…one…now.”
Over the intercom she heard a ragged chorus of cheers.
Blake unbuckled from his acceleration chair. “Damn, that feels good.”
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Dana advised him. She went on the intercom again. “Forty-five minutes of free time.” That meant taking turns with the bathroom and sonic shower, and grabbing a snack from the galley. “After that, we have work to do.”
“Go ahead,” Blake suggested. “I’ll hold the fort.”
“In good time.” Because passengers came first. Her eyes closed, Dana said, “Marvin, you have the conn. If we come within two minutes of hitting anything, tell me. If we’re within thirty seconds, sound the collision alarm and dodge. Other than that, maintain this course and acceleration. Understood?”
“Understood, Captain.”
“And Marvin, tell me when ten minutes are up. Wake me if necessary.” Not hearing the rustle of Blake getting out of his seat, without opening her eyes, Dana said, “Go see your wife.” And still not hearing him move, she added, “That’s an order, sailor.”
The chair beside her finally creaked. Blake said, “If I don’t see you in the galley in fifteen minutes, I’m mutinying.”
She faked a snore, and he left, chuckling.
Marvin did have to wake her. Yawning, she went through the hatch to the crew quarters.
The little fold-down table had been deployed, and Li and Carlos sat across from each other. Carlos had a cigar in his hand. He sniffed and stroked it before, with a sigh, tucking it away into his shirt pocket. (The last cigar you’ll ever have, Dana thought. And also: I wouldn’t fondle a cigar in front of a shrink.) Antonio stood in the narrow galley, rubbing his chin, intent on the disordered contents of the pantry. Blake and Rikki stood together in a corner, whispering.
After hitting the head and a quick sonic cleansing, after polishing off the sandwich and both juice bulbs Li had given her, Dana felt almost human.
“What’s next, Dana?” Carlos asked.
“Captain,” she corrected. A ship isn’t a democracy.
“Fine,” Carlos said. “What’s the plan, Captain?”
This one will be trouble, Dana decided. “You accompany Blake to the engine rooms. He’s going to start showing you maintenance procedures.”
“I meant longer term than twenty minutes from now, but all right.” Carlos glanced toward the Westfords. “What’s the purpose of me tagging along? You have an engineer.”
“I believe you said you hold ‘the Francis Crick Chair in nanotech?’”
He actually preened. “Microbiology and nanotechnology.”
“I heard ‘tech,’” Dana said. “No one else aboard can say that. If it makes you feel better, I expect you to train Blake to back you up.”
“I really don’t think—”
“Try it,” Dana said, and Carlos’s face reddened. “Suppose anything happens to any one of us.”
“I agree, Captain. We all need understudies,” Li said. “I, for one, would welcome the help.”
“Rikki seems like the logical choice for you,” Dana said.
Li smiled. “Very good.”
Li’s intervention only made Carlos scowl.
Doesn’t he get it? Dana wondered. However incredible and unfair, the six of them were humanity’s last, best hope. They had to pull together. They had to be a team.
All too soon, the break period ended. Dana said, “Enough lolling about, everyone. Blake, show Carlos what’s what in the engine rooms. Li, Rikki, check out supplies in life support and the infirmary. When that’s done, survey the file servers we took aboard at the last minute.”
Because as one defunct hope among many, forget about anyone beaming data after us as we recede. Whatever archive Hawthorne’s men pilfered on that last, chaotic day is all the knowledge we bring.
Dana went on, “Antonio, you and I have shielding to install. We have the literal heavy lifting.”
Antonio looked away from the pantry bins, though not quite at Dana. “All right,” he finally conceded.
“Let’s go to work, Carlos,” Blake said, getting people in motion.
Dana retrieved emergency toolkits from drawers on the bridge. When she returned to crew quarters, Antonio had not budged from
