(Ross?… Ross… What’s to do?)
“Contact them?” Allison asked.
“No.”
“Stevens… Sandor… what precious else can we do?”
“We keep going on our own business. We let them escort us through the point if
that’s what they have in mind. But we don’t open up to them. Let the contact be
theirs.”
She said nothing. Helm was still under her control. The ship kept her course as
she was, no variances.
“Message incoming,” Neill said: “They say: Escort to outgoing range. They say:
request exact time and range our departure from Pell.”
“They’re tracking us,” Curran muttered.
“They repeat. They want acknowledgment.”
“Acknowledge it,” Sandor said. “Tell them we’re figuring.” He sat down at comp,
keyed through and downed the sound, started calling up the information.
“Sir,” Neill said. “Sir, I think you’d better talk to them. They’re insisting.”
He snatched up the audio plug and thrust that into his ear, adjusted the mike
wand from the plug one-handed. “Feed it through.”
“… accurate,” he caught. “Lives ride… on absolute accuracy, Lucy. Do you copy
that?”
“Say again.—Neill, what’s he talking about, lives?”
“To whom am I speaking?” the voice from the ridership asked. “To Stevens?”
“This is Stevens, trying to do your calculations if you’ll blasted well give me
time.”
“Your ship will proceed to Voyager as scheduled. You’ll dock and discharge
Voyager cargo. You have three days for station call, to the hour. And you’ll
return to this jump point on that precise schedule.”
“Request information.”
“No information. We’re waiting for that departure data.”
“Precise time local: 2/02:0600 mainday; locator 8868:0057: 0076.35, tracking on
recommended referents, Pell chart 05700.”
“2/02:0600 precise?”
“You want our mass reckoning?” He was scared. It was a track they were running,
no question about it He flung out the question to let them know he knew.
“You carrying anything except our cargo, Lucy?”
“Nothing.” The air from the vent touched sweat on his face. “Look, I’ll run that
reckoning on my own comp and give you our RET.”
“Is 0600 accurate?”
“0600:34.”
“We copy 0600:34. Your reckoning is not needed, Lucy.”
“Look, if you want data—”
“No further questions, Lucy. We find that agreeing with our estimate.
Congratulations. Endit.”
“We’re in trouble,” Allison said.
“They’re accounting for our moves,” he said. “Just figuring. I’d reckon Pell
buoy scheduled us pretty well the way they set it up.” He shut down comp, back
under lock. “So they know now what our ETA is with the mass we’re hauling: every
move we make from now on—”
“I don’t like this.”
“Every point shut down. Everything monitored. We make a false move—and we’re in
trouble, all right” He thrust back from controls. “Nothing’s going to move on us
here while that’s out there. Shut down to alterday. Mainday, go on rest.”
“Look,” Curran said, twisting in his cushion. “We’re not going through Pell
System lanes anymore. We’re not sitting here to do autopilot, not with them
breathing down our necks and wanting answers.”
“I’m here,” he said, looking back. “I’m not leaving the bridge: going to wash,
that’s all; and eat and get some sleep right back there in the downside lounge.
You call me if you need anything.”
“Instructions,” Allison said sharply, stopping him a second time.
“Contingencies.”
“There isn’t any contingency. There isn’t any blasted thing to do, hear me?
We’ve got three days minimum crossing this point, and you let— He saw her face,
which had gone from appeal to opaque, unclenched a sweating hand and made a
cancelling gesture. They’re one jump from Mazianni themselves, you know that?
Let’s just don’t give them excuses. We’re a little ship, Reilly, and we don’t
mass much in any sense. Accidents happen in the nullpoints. Now true a line
crosspoint and don’t get fancy with it.”
She gave him a long, thinking stare. “Right,” she said, and turned back to
business.
He walked, light-headed, back to the maintenance area shower, not to the cabins;
had no cabin. The others had. He was conscious of that. And he had to sleep, and
they chafed at the situation. He stripped, showered, alone there with the hiss
of the water and the warmth and a cold knot in his gut that did not go away.