That process would not end for years, perhaps not for rejuvenations. The readouts and graphics that Esker saw flash before him were the barest preliminary theorizing. They might be dead wrong. It was a powerful mind that could, regardless, immediately grasp something of what went on.
Time went timelessly past, but in retrospect astonishingly short, until he said, “We’re clear to move on, Captain.”
Praise him, Lissa thought. He needs it. He’s earned it. “Fast work,” she chimed in.
His laugh rattled. “Oh, we could spend weeks here and not exhaust the material. But we haven’t got them.”
No, she thought, we now have days to reap a share of the harvest for which the Susaians spent years or decades preparing.
“Right,” Valen agreed. “I take it you want to go on to your next planned point?” Same distance, but directly confronting the impact to be.
“No. I’ve changed my mind, on the basis of what I’ve learned in the last few stops. The latest input seems to confirm my ideas. We’re going straight in.”
“What? Immediately? You know we’re close to the boundary for hyperjump, given masses like those.”
Once inside it, we run strictly on plasma drive, till we’ve gotten remote enough again, Lissa knew. We’re committed.
“Yes, yes, yes.” Lissa heard how Esker barely controlled his temper. “But you know, or should, contact will take place in a hundred and seventy-six hours. I want to be at the two hundred million kilometer radius I calculated was safe, before that happens, in time to set up experiments I’ve devised. How fast can you get us there, ship?”
“At one gravity acceleration, with turnover, considering our present velocity, that will require eighty-eight hours, plus maneuvering time,” Dagmar told him.
Lissa visualized him shaking fists in air. “You can boost higher [123] than that. A lot higher! We’ve got medications against excess weight. We could even go into the flotation tank.”
“Such a delta vee would seriously deplete our reserve. Does the captain order it?”
“No,” Valen decided at once. “One gee it is. You can still observe as we go, Harolsson.”
“But—” The physicist gasped in a breath. “Can’t you understand? We’ve got to be close in, and prepared, for the main event. I expect fluctuations in the metric, short-lived superparticles, polarized gravitons, superstrings— Aargh! Time’s grown so scant as is. If you hadn’t farted it away, everywhere else in space—”
“Most of what we lost was because the people you chose turned out to require training,” Valen interrupted stiffly. “Prudence demands we don’t squander so much mass that we can’t get onto emergency trajectories.”
“Yes, you’ll keep your hide safe, won’t you, whatever else may be sacrificed?”
“That will do. If your considered judgment as a scientist is that we should head directly inward, I assume you don’t want to dawdle here arguing. Give the ship the coordinates you have in mind. Crew, stand by for boost at one gravity.”
XXII
LISSA and Valen were in his cabin when the message came. “To the captain,” Dagmar said. “Incoming audio signal on the fifth standard band. Radar touched us sixty seconds ago and is now locked on. Code: ‘Acknowledge and respond.’ Shall I?”
Valen disentangled himself and rose from the bunk. “Do, and relay to me, with translation. Surely a Susaian.” To Lissa, wryly: “I knew this couldn’t last. We’re picking up more powerplant emissions every hour. Somebody was bound to notice ours, and wonder.”
She needed a moment more to swim up from the sweet aftermath of lovemaking. The warmth and odor of him still lingered as she heard “Ship Amethyst, Dominator Ironbright commanding and speaking, to vessel accelerating through Sector Eighty-seven dash eighteen dash zero-one.” That must be Dagmar s best attempt to render the coordinate system established for this locality, she thought. “You do not conform to the plan. Identify yourself.”
“Captain Gerward Valen, from Asborg, Sunniva III, with crew on a scientific mission,” the man stated. “We intend no interference or other harm, and will be glad to cooperate in any reasonable way.”
The last drowsiness fled from Lissa. She glanced at her watch. Silence murmured. She got up too. The deck felt sensuously resilient beneath her bare feet, but remote, no longer quite real.