Orbitsville

for Christ’s sake!”

“I know,” Garamond said calmly. “And after we do you’ll have about two seconds to get those crosshairs back on target. Now let’s see how good you are.”

The other shuttle ballooned ahead of and slightly above them until they were looking right into its main driver tubes, there was a shuddering clang which Garamond felt in his bones, the shuttle vanished, and the vital docking target slewed away to one side. Events began to happen in slow motion for Garamond. He had time to monitor every move the pilot made as he fired emergency corrective jets which wrenched the ship’s nose back on to something approximating its original bearing, time to brace himself as retros hammered on the craft’s frame, even time to note and be grateful for the discovery that the pilot was good. Then the shuttle speared into the Bissendorf’s transfer dock at five times the maximum permitted speed and wedged itself into the interior arrester rings with a shrieking impact which deformed its hull.

Garamond, the only person on the shuttle not protected by a seat, was driven forward but was saved from injury by the restraint field’s reaction against any violent movement of his clothing. He felt a surge of induced heat pass through the material, and at the same time became aware of a shrill whistling sound from the rear of the ship. A popping in his ears told him that air was escaping from the shuttle into the vacuum of the Bissendorf’s dock. A few seconds later Chris began to sob, quietly and steadily. Garamond went aft, knelt before the boy and tried to soothe him.

“What’s happening, Vance?” The brightly-coloured silk of Aileen’s dress was utterly incongruous.

“Rough docking, that’s all. We’re losing some air but they’ll be pressurizing the dock and…” He hesitated as a warbling note came from the shuttle’s address system. “They’ve done it — that’s the equalization signal to say we can get out now. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“But we’re falling.”

“We aren’t falling, honey. Well, we are — but not downwards…” It came to Garamond that he had no time at that moment to introduce his wife to celestial mechanics. “I want you and Chris to sit right here for a few minutes. Okay?”

He stood up, opened the passenger door and looked out at a group of officers and engineering personnel who had gathered on the docking bay’s main platform. Among them was the burly figure of Cliff Napier. Garamond launched himself upwards from the sill and allowed the slight drag of the ship’s restraint field to curve his weightless flight downwards on to the steel platform where his boots took a firm grip. Napier caught his arm while the other men were saluting.

“Are you all right, Vance? That was the hairiest docking I ever saw.”

“I’m fine. Explain it all later, Cliff. Get through to the engine deck and tell them I want immediate full power.”

“Immediate?”

“Yes — there’s a streamer of nova dust lagging behind the main weather front and we’re going to catch it. I presume you’ve preset the course.”

“But what about the shuttle and its crew?”

“We’ll have to take the shuttle with us, Cliff. The shuttle and everybody on it.” “I see.” Napier raised his wrist communicator to his lips and ordered full power. He was a powerfully built bull-necked man with hands like the scoops of a mechanical digger, but there was a brooding intelligence in his eyes. “Is this our last mission for Starflight?”

“It’s my last, anyway.” Garamond looked around to make sure nobody was within earshot. “I’m in deep, Cliff — and I’ve dragged you in with me.”

“It was my decision — I didn’t have to pull the plug on the communications boys. Are they coming after you?”

“With every ship that Starflight owns.”

“They won’t catch us,” Napier said confidently as the deck began to press up under their feet, signalling that the Bissendorf was accelerating out of orbit. “We’ll ride that wisp of dust up the hill to Uranus, and when we’ve caught the tide… Well, there’s a year’s supplies on board.”

“Thanks.” Garamond shook hands with Napier, yet — while comforted by the blunt human contact — he wondered how long it would be before either of them would refer openly to the bitter underlying reality of their situation. They were all dressed up with a superb ship. But a century of exploration by the vast Starflight armada had proved one thing.

There was nowhere to go.

four

They were able to put off the decision for three days.

During that time there was only one direction in which the Bissendorf could logically go — towards the galactic south, in pursuit of the single vagrant wisp of particles which lingered behind the retreating weather fronts. They had caught it, barely, and the vast insubstantial ramjets formed by the ship’s magnetic fields had begun to gather power, boosting it towards light-speed and beyond. It was the prototypes of starships such as the Bissendorf which, a century earlier, had all but demolished Einsteinian physics. On the first tentative flights there had been something of the predicted increase in mass, but no time dilation effect, no impenetrable barrier at the speed of light. A new physics had been devised — based mainly on the work of the Canadian mathematician, Arthur Arthur — which took into account the lately observed fact that when a body of appreciable mass and gravitic field reached speeds approaching .2c it entered new frames of reference. Once a ship crossed the threshold velocity it created its own portable universe in which different rules applied, and it appeared that the great universal constant was not the speed of light. It was time itself.

On his earlier missions Garamond had been grateful that Einstein’s work had its limitations and that time did not slow down for the space traveller — he would have had no stomach for finding his wife ageing ten years for his one, or having a son who quickly grew older than himself. But on this voyage, his last for Starflight, with Aileen and Christopher aboard, it would have resolved many difficulties had he been able to trace a vast circle across one part of the galaxy and return to Earth to find, as promised by Einstein, that Elizabeth Lindstrom was long dead. Arthurian physics had blocked that notional escape door, however, and he was faced with the question of where to go in his year of stolen time.

His thinking on the matter was influenced by two major considerations. The first was that he had no intention of condemning the 450-strong crew of the Bissendorf to a slow death in an unknown part of the galaxy in a year’s time. The ship had to return to Earth and therefore his radius of action was limited to the distance it could cover in six months. Even supposing he travelled in a straight line to one preselected destination, the six-month limitation meant he would not reach far beyond the volume of space already totally explored by Starflight. Chances of this one desperate flight producing a habitable world on which to hide had been microscopic to begin with; when modified by the distance factor they vanished into realms of fantasy.

The other major consideration was a personal one. Garamond already knew where he wanted to go, but was having trouble justifying the decision.

* * *

“Cluster 803 is your best bet,” Clifford Napier said. He was leaning back in a simulated leather chair in Garamond’s quarters, and in his hand was a glass of liqueur whisky which he had not yet tasted but was holding up to the light to appreciate its colour. His heavy-lidded brown eyes were inscrutable as he continued with his thesis.

“You can make it with time to spare. It’s dense — average distance between suns half a light-year — so you’d be able to check a minimum of eight systems before having to pull out. And it’s prime exploration territory, Vance. As you know, the S.E.A. Board recommended that 803 should be given high priority when the next wave is being planned.”

Garamond sipped his own whisky, with its warmth of forgotten summers. “It makes sense, all right.” The two men sat without speaking for a time, listening to the faint hum of the ship’s superconducting flux pumps which