“Too bad.” They ate in silence for a few minutes, looking out over the plain below. “Lieutenant, when this is over,” Sickle said suddenly, “we got to do something. There’s got to be some way to remind the Navy about you being here!”
Carnaby tossed the empty can aside and stood. “I put a couple of messages on the air, sub-light, years ago,” he said. “That’s all I can do.”
“Heck, Lieutenant, it takes six years, sub-light, just to make the relay station on Goy! Then if somebody happens to pick up the call and boost it, in another ten years some Navy brass might even see it. And then if he’s in a good mood, he might tell somebody to look into it, next time they’re out this way.”
“Best I could do, Terry, now that the liners don’t call any more.”
Carnaby finished his stew, dropped the can, watched it roll off downslope, clatter over the edge, a tiny sound lost in the whine and shrill of the wind. He looked up at the rampart ahead.
“We better get moving,” he said. “We’ve got a long climb to make before dark.”
10
Signal Lieutenant Pryor awoke to the strident buzz of his bunkside telephone.
“Sir, the commodore’s called a Condition Yellow,” the message deck NCO informed him. “It looks like that bandit blasted through our intercept and took out two Epsilon-classes while he was at it. I got a standby from command deck, and—”
“I’ll be right up,” Pryor said quickly.
Five minutes later, he stood with the on-duty signals crew, reading out an incoming from fleet. He whistled.
“Brother, they’ve got something new!” He looked at Captain Aaron. “Did you check out the vector they had to make to reach their new position in the time they’ve had?”
“Probably a foulup in Tracking.” Aaron looked ruffled, routed out of a sound sleep.
“The commodore’s counting off the scale,” the NCO said. “He figured he had ’em boxed.”
The annunciator beeped. The yeoman announced Malthusa’s commander.
“All right, you men.” Broadly’s voice had a rough edge to it now. “The enemy has an idea he can maul Fleet units and go his way unmolested. I intend to disabuse him of that notion! I’m ordering a course change. I’ll maintain contact with this bandit until such time as units designated for the purpose have reported his neutralization! This vessel is under a Condition Yellow at this time, and I need not remind you that relevant sections of the manual will be adhered to with full rigor!”
Pryor and Aaron looked at each other, eyebrows raised. “He must mean business, if he’s willing to risk straining seams with a full-vector course change,” the former said.
“So we pull six on and six off until he gets it out of his system,” Aaron growled. “I knew this cruise wasn’t going to work out, as soon as I heard Old Carbuncle would be aboard.”
“What’s he got to do with it? Broadly’s running this action.”
“Don’t worry, he’ll be in it before we’re through.”
11
On the upper slope, three thousand feet above the plain, Carnaby and Terry hugged the rockface, working their way upward. Aside from the steepness of the incline, the going was of no more than ordinary difficulty here; the porous rock, resistant though it was to the erosive forces that had long ago stripped away the volcanic cone of which the remaining mass had formed the core, had deteriorated in its surface sufficiently to afford easy hand- and footholds. Now Terry paused, leaning against the rock. Carnaby saw that under the layer of dust, the boy’s face was pale and drawn.
“Not much farther, Terry,” he said. He settled himself in a secure position, his feet wedged in a cleft. His own arms were feeling the strain now; there was the beginning of a slight tremor in his knees after the hours of climbing.
“I didn’t figure to slow you down, Lieutenant.” Terry’s voice showed the strain of his fatigue.
“You’ve been leading me a tough chase, Terry,” Carnaby grinned across at him. “I’m glad of a rest.” He noted the dark hollows under the lad’s eyes, the pallor of his cheeks.
Sickle’s tongue came out and touched his lips. “Lieutenant—you made a try—a good try. Turn back now. It’s going to snow. You can’t make it to the top in a blizzard.”
Carnaby shook his head. “It’s too late in the day to start down; you’d be caught on the slope. We’ll take it easy up to the Roost; in the morning you’ll have an easy climb down.”
“Sure, Lieutenant. Don’t worry about me.” Terry drew a breath, shivering in the bitter wind that plucked at his snow jacket.
12
“What do you mean, lost him!” the bull roar of the commodore rattled the screen. “Are you telling me that this ragtag refugee has the capability to drop off the screens of the best-equipped tracking deck in the Fleet?”
“Sir,” the stubborn-faced tracking officer repeated, “I can only report that my screens register nothing within the conic of search. If he’s there—”
“He’s there, Mister!” the commodore’s eyes glared from under a bushy overhang of brows. “Find that bandit or face a court, Captain. I haven’t diverted a ship of the Fleet Line from her course for the purpose of becoming the object of an Effectiveness Inquiry!”
The tracking officer turned away from the screen as it went white, met the quizzical gaze of the visiting signal lieutenant.
“The old devil’s bit off too big a bite this time,” he growled. “Let him call a court; he wouldn’t have the gall.”
“If we lose the bogie now, he won’t look good back on Vandy,” Pryor said. “This is serious business, diverting from Cruise Plan to chase rumors. I wonder if he really had a positive ID on this track.”
“Hell, no! There’s no way to make a Positive at this range, under these conditions! After three years without any action for the newstapes, the brass are grabbing at straws.”
“Well, if I were you, Gordie, I’d find that track, even if it turns out to be a tramp, with a load of bootleg dran.”
“Don’t worry. If he’s inside the conic, I’ll find him . . .”
13
“I guess . . . it’s dropped twenty degrees . . . in the last hour,” Terry Sickle’s voice was almost lost in the shriek of the wind that buffeted the two men as they inched their way up the last yards toward the hut on the narrow rockshelf called Halliday’s Roost.
“Never saw snow falling at this temperature before,” Carnaby brushed at the ice caked around his eyes. Through the swirl of crystals as fine as sand, he discerned the sagging outline of the shelter above.
Ten minutes later, inside the crude lean-to built of rock slabs, he set to work chinking the gaping holes in the five-foot walls with packed snow. Behind him, Terry lay huddled against the back wall, breathing hoarsely.
“Guess . . . I’m not in as good shape . . . as I thought I was,” he said.
“You’ll be OK, Terry.” Carnaby closed the gap through which the worst of the icy draft was keening, then opened a can of stew for the boy. The fragrance of the hot meat and vegetables made his jaws ache.
“Lieutenant, how you going to climb in this snow?” Sickle’s voice shook to the chattering of his teeth. “In good weather, you might could have made it. Like this, you haven’t got a chance!”
“Maybe it’ll be blown clear by morning,” Carnaby said mildly. He opened a can for himself. Terry ate slowly, shivering uncontrollably. Carnaby watched him worriedly.
“Lieutenant,” the boy said, “even if that call you picked up was meant for you—even if this ship they’re after is headed out this way—what difference will it make one way or another if one beacon’s on the air or not?”
“Probably none,” Carnaby said. “But if there’s one chance in a thousand he breaks this way—well, that’s what I’m here for.”
“But what’s a beacon going to do, except give him something to steer by?”
Carnaby smiled. “It’s not that kind of beacon, Terry. My station’s part of a system—a big system—that covers the surface of a sphere of space a hundred lights in diameter. When there’s an alert, each station locks in with the others that flank it, and sets up what’s called a stressed field. There’s a lot of things you can do with this field. You can detect a drive, monitor communications—”
“What if these other stations you’re talking about aren’t working?” Terry cut in.
“Then my station’s not going to do much,” Carnaby said.
“If the other stations are still on the air, why haven’t any of them picked up your TX’s and answered?”
Carnaby shook his head. “We don’t use the beacon field to chatter back and forth, Terry. This is a Top Security system. Nobody knows about it except the top command levels—and of course, the men manning the beacons.”