Weightlessness yielded to a small, varying sideways drag and a sense of Coriolis twist, as Chinook rotated from her gyros. That stopped; for an instant she orbited; full thrust awoke and she darted forward. Acceleration crammed Brodersen into his seat.
It took a minute for Lawes’ instruments and computers to determine what was going on and inform him. “Hold!” he screamed. “You’re aimed wrong!”
“God damn it, I know,” Brodersen snapped in his best imitation of a person fighting dismay. “I told you we’re having troubles. Hang on, don’t bother me.”
“What are you doing?”
“You think we want to go off on a random path and disappear forever? Get off my back. I’ve got to see about stopping us.”
“I’ll give you a short chance, Captain.” Lawes clamped his mouth shut.
Brodersen and his followers exchanged words which they had rehearsed.
The ion drive cut out, as it must if Chinook was to tread the measure Joelle had calculated for her. Falling toward the next point of inflection, she turned her nose again. A radar could spot the movement if it was set to do so, but he gambled that that wouldn’t occur to Lawes for a while.
“Navigation estimates we can stay on this trajectory for six hours without getting too far into the field,” he said. It was true. “The engineers expect they’ll repair the breakdown well before then.”
Lawes squinched eyelids close together. “I want to know more about it.
Why didn’t you call in sooner?”
“Weren’t we supposed to maintain silence? We aren’t actually criminals, Captain. We’re law-abiding citizens, anxious to get home and clear our names.
How the hell we ever got accused of anything, I faunch to learn… All right, if you wish, I’ll screen the pertinent parts of our log and the CE’s notes.”
Those were works of art, Brodersen judged. Nevertheless he was fumble-thumbed about presenting them. His job as skipper was to talk, nothing else – dish out the blarney as long as possible – keep his adversaries in play, while Joelle and Su and the laws of physics drove his ship onward.
He had a mere twenty minutes or thereabouts of plausibility until the next acceleration fell due. His pilots would go at top speed, no safety margin to speak of, since every margin around them was beset…
A renewed boost.
“Stop, Chinook! Are you insane?”
“The controls are insane, that’s what.”
“I can’t believe this any longer.”
“Ask your own CE to study the information we sent. Have him study it real hard.” Brodersen won that debate also.
The drive had stopped and he hung as if at the bottom of a dream. Sweat off his face bobbed around in globules. Pegeen might likewise become glitter strewn among the stars. His underwear absorbed perspiration but left him chill and gamy. Time extended.
Lawes reappeared in the screen. “My engineer says your material does not make sense,” he snapped. “It’s superficially plausible enough that it must have been concocted. You’re attempting to escape.”
“Escape into what?”
“Never mind. Brodersen, you will reverse immediately or we shoot.”
He’s reacting on schedule, he is. “Wait, Captain Lawes. Walt half a tick. You’re about to compromise your mission and jeopardize your career. Take heed while you can.”
“What are you raving about?”
“I’m not raving. Please note I’m speaking very carefully.” As slow and wordy as I gauge I can get away with. “Curb your own emotions and listen. You can spare a few minutes for saving your ass and maybe your superiors’, can’t Side 108
Anderson, Poul – Avatar, The you?”
“Well-” Lawes swallowed. “Go on. Speak to the point.”
“I will. Okay, we lied to you, we bought ourselves time to get this far.
It was necessary. The fact is, there’s a lot more behind our arrest than a miscarriage of justice. Want to hear?”
“No! I have my orders!”
“It mightn’t be safe for you to know, eh? Well, from our viewpoint, we’ve zero to lose. If we go to Phoebus, the way things are, we’re dead. Jumping off into the galaxy, we have the teeniest chance of finding help somewhere. We don’t count on that, of course. But we’ll have several extra years of life while our supplies last. I don’t think this will bother your bosses much. If anything, they should be glad to get rid of us so cheaply.”