Radio interlock of our autopilots, of course, to make sure the ships come out at the other end simultaneously. You’ll have no communication with anybody but us, on a tight beam-we’ll handle everything outside-until you hear differently. Is that clear?”
“Rather too clear.”
“Please, Captain, no offense intended, nothing like that. You must understand what a tremendous business this is. People who, uh, who’re responsible for billions of human lives, they’re bound to be cautious.
Including, for a start, me.”
“Yes, I agree you are doing your duty as you see it, Captain Archer.
Besides, you have the power.” Emissary bore a couple of guns, but almost as an afterthought; her fire control officers doubled as pilots of her launch. Though she could build up huge velocities if given time, her top acceleration with payload and reaction mass on hand was under two gravities; and her gyros or lateral jets could turn her about only ponderously. No one had imagined her as a warcraft, a lone vessel setting off into what might be a whole galaxy. Faraday was designed for battle. (The occasion had never arisen, but who knew what might someday emerge from a gate? Besides, her high maneuverability fitted her for rescue work and for conveying exploratory teams.)
“I’m trying to do our best for our government, sir.”
“I wish you would tell me who in the government.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m only an astronautical officer. It wouldn’t be proper for me to discuss politics. Uh, you do see, don’t you, you’ve nothing to worry about? This is an extra precaution, no more.”
“Yes, yes,” Langendijk sighed. “Let us get on with it.” Talk went into technicalities.
Signoff followed. Langendijk addressed his crew: “You heard, of course.
Questions? Comments?”
A burst of indignation and dismay responded; loudest came Frieda von Moltke’s “Hollenfeuer und Teufelscheiss!” First Engineer Dairoku Mitsukuri was milder: “This is perhaps highhanded, but we ought not to be detained long. The fact of our arrival will generate enormous public pressure for our release.”
Carlos Francisco Rueda Suarez, the mate, added in his haughtiest tone,
“Furthermore, my family will have a good deal to say about the matter.”
A dread she had hoped was ridiculous lifted in Joelle, chilled her flesh and harshened her contralto. “You’re supposing they will know,” she said.
“Good Lord, you can’t mean that,” Second Engineer Torsten Sverdrup protested. “The Ruedas kept in ignorance-that’s impossible.”
“I fear it is not,” Joelle answered. “We’re completely at the mercy of yonder watchship, you realize. And her captain isn’t acting like a man who only wants to play safe. Is he? I don’t pretend to be very sensitive where people are concerned, but I have had some exposure to cliques and cabals on high political levels. Also, the last time we talked on Earth, Dan Brodersen warned me we might return not simply to hostility from some factions, but to trouble.”
“Brodersen?” asked Sam Kalahele, von Moltke’s fellow gunner.
“The owner of Chehalis Enterprises on Demeter,” said Marie Feuillet, chemist. “You must allow for him exaggerating. He is a free-swinging capitalist, therefore overly suspicious of the government, perhaps of the Union itself.”
“We have to commence acceleration soon,” Langendijk declared. “All hands to flight posts.”
“Please!” Joelle cried. “Skipper, listen a minute! I’m not going to debate, I admit I’m hopelessly naive about many things, but Dan -Captain Brodersen did tell me he’d keep a robot near the gate, programmed to look out for us, just in case of trouble. He foresaw the possibility-the likelihood, he called it-that we’d return on a date soon after departure. Well, what else can that second craft be, orbiting far off-we have a radar pickup of it, you remember-what else can it be but his observer?”
Rueda’s voice rang. “Holy Virgin, Joelle, in all these years, why did you never mention it?”
“Oh, he felt we shouldn’t be worried about something that might never happen. He told me because, well, we’re friends, knowing I’d shunt the information off in my own mind. I put it on my summary tape, for the rest of you to play back if I should die.”
“But in that case, there is no problem,” Rueda said happily. “We cannot Side 5