And jerked her hand back as the hatch shuddered. From inside came a surprised basso grunt, then a thud.
As the hold’s hatch opened, Dana scuttled a few rungs down the ladder. Let it appear she was coming from an engine room.
Li grabbed the ladder, swung into the shaft, and slammed the hatch behind her. She was breathing heavily, all but panting. “Oh, Captain. I didn’t know you were up and about.”
“Just making rounds,” Dana said. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“I thought I heard voices in the hold,” Dana hinted.
“Carlos asked about my help with something, and I advised him to handle it himself.”
“And everyone is all right?”
Li sighed. “Okay, so you overheard. I believe Carlos has acquired an appreciation for my point of view.”
“Which is?”
“That if he’s Adam, I’m AWOL. And that a scrawny Martian beanpole shouldn’t cross Earth girls who know tae kwon do.”
“Applied psychology?” Dana asked.
“Self-defense.”
A soft moan drifted through the hatch.
Dana said, “From what I overheard, he deserved what he got. That said, I hope you didn’t inflict any permanent damage.”
“He’ll be fine, and perhaps wiser. I could have planted my foot much deeper.”
Carlos didn’t seem the type to admit that his advances had been spurned, or that a woman had decked him—especially to another woman. Dana said, “Assuming that he doesn’t bring the matter up to me, do I know what happened? It’s your call.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary, Captain. Not that I noticed a brig on this ship.”
“It’s your call,” Dana repeated.
Her hands shaking, Li started up the shaft toward the crew cabin. “Damn Hawthorne!” she burst out.
Huh? “What do you mean?”
Li paused on the ladder. “Rikki and Blake, dotingly married. You and Antonio, of similar ages. Carlos and me, the same. Don’t you imagine Hawthorne had more than professional skills in mind when he picked this crew? Or that Carlos also sees the obvious pairing?”
In encrypted files Dana would never admit to having aboard, Hawthorne had revealed Antonio as a widower, Carlos as three times divorced, and Li as between serious relationships. Of Dana herself, the same data field had delicately declared: career-oriented.
Dana said, “It’s understandable that you don’t care for the apparent matchmaking.”
“You do?”
Antonio was so focused, the marvel was that he had ever gotten together with someone. All Tabitha’s doing, Dana had to believe. There would be no unwelcome advances from that direction. That made Li’s situation all the more unique.
“Regardless,” Dana said, “Carlos has no right to act as he did. Forget him and Hawthorne. Are you all right?”
“Fine, Captain.”
“Dana. One woman talking with another.”
“In that case, I’ve been better.”
“What do you say you and I check out the supply of medicinal alcohol?”
Li tipped her head, considering. “That, Dana, is an excellent idea.”
*
Under the ongoing, relentless acceleration, the pilot and copilot seats were the closest things to comfortable on the ship. Blake and Rikki’s turn had come around again on the rotation and he dozed fitfully, listening to her gentle snoring and wishing he could sleep. But since he couldn’t, he took turns watching Rikki and, in the main bridge display, the unblinking, brilliant spark that was Sol.
Someone rapped on the hatch set in the deck.
“Go away,” Blake said.
“It’s Dana.”
“Sorry,” he said. “Come in.”
Cautiously, the hatch swung open. Dana climbed onto the bridge and squeezed into the space beside his seat. Antonio followed, to stand beside Rikki. Despite the crowding, Antonio latched the deck hatch while Dana secured the already closed hatch to the crew cabin.
Blake started to stand. With a hand on his shoulder, Dana nudged him back into the acceleration chair.
All the rustling or the whispering woke Rikki. “What’s going on?” she asked.
Blake shrugged.
Dana turned to Antonio. “Now will you tell me what we all must hear?”
“One of the big issues with Big…Bang theory is that…”
After—could it have been a month?—cooped up together, Blake recognized the enthusiasm in Antonio’s voice. More astronomical esoterica?
“Stop,” Dana said. “Before you get going on the Big Bang, tell me why I wouldn’t be better off sleeping.”
“Because maybe we don’t have to…die.”
Rikki twitched.
“Maybe start at the end,” Dana said.
“Our odds of getting clear,” Antonio said. “Maybe two percent.”
“You’ve said we had days of margin,” Rikki said.
“There are uncertainties. I gave you the best-case scenario.”
Perilously close to a lie, Blake thought. He noticed that Dana didn’t look surprised. “You knew?”
“Hawthorne told me. The more realistic, longer odds didn’t change what needed doing, so why deny you some hope?” Dana turned to Antonio. “All right, you have my complete attention. But can we start a few billion years after the Big Bang?”
“I’m afraid not.” Antonio began fingering the scar on his chin. “Many observations about the universe make sense only if everything…had enormously rapid expansion right after the Big Bang.”
“Cosmic inflation,” Rikki said. “Space-time expanding at many times faster than the speed of light.”
Dana frowned. “I thought nothing went faster than light.”
“Right,” Rikki said, “but space-time isn’t a thing. And if space-time did once expand at super-luminal speeds—faster than light—otherwise counterintuitive observations make sense.”
“Like the uniform distribution of galaxies across the…universe.”
“About not dying?” Dana prompted.
“Cosmic inflation is a mathematical fix,” Antonio said. “It fits what astronomers see so well we’ve come to accept…it as what must…have happened. The particular details don’t matter.”
“Then why are we talking about it?” Dana asked.
“Because there’s an alternative mathematical fix. If certain universal constants aren’t constant. Maybe only their ratio must be.
“I only vaguely…remembered this old theory. None of the files aboard mention…it. I had to derive enough to reconstruct the hypothesis.”
“And that hypothesis is?” Dana tried again.
“Under early universe conditions, light went faster than light. Than light does…today.”
Blake saw the struggle on Antonio’s face, the words refusing to come out. “Take your time,” he told Antonio.
Even though time is the commodity we most lack.
“May I try?” Rikki asked. “I think I see.”
Eyes cast downward, Antonio nodded.
Rikki said, “Suppose light speed was much higher under early-universe conditions. Cosmic strings, like the one we see ahead, froze bits of the early
