Tones stared at the two grim faces while his mind instinctively tried to reject what it was being told. He gazed past them at an-
other large wall screen that was presenting a view being transmitted from ten million miles away in space. He was looking at one of the three enormous G-beam projectors, cylinders two miles long and a third of a mile across, that had been built in stellar orbit thirty million miles from Iscaris with their axes precisely aligned on the center of the star. Behind the silhouette of the projector Iscaris’s blazing globe was still normal in appearance, but even as he looked he imagined that he could see its disk swelling almost imperceptibly but menacingly outward.
For a moment his mind was swamped by emotions-the enormity of the task that suddenly confronted them, the hopelessness of having to think rationally under impossible time pressures, the futility of two years of wasted efforts. And then, as quickly as it had come, the feeling evaporated and the commander in him reasserted itself.
“ZORAC,” he called in a slightly raised voice.
“Commander?” The same voice that had spoken in his study answered.
“Contact Garuth on the Shapieron at once. Inform him that a matter of the gravest urgency has arisen and that it is imperative for all commanding officers of the expedition to confer immediately. I request that he put out an emergency call to summon them to link in fifteen minutes from now. Also, sound a general alert throughout the base and have all personnel stand by to await further instructions. I’ll link in to the conference from the multiconsole in Room 14 of the Main Observatory Dome. That’s all.”
Just over a quarter of an hour later Tones and the two scientists were facing an array of wall screens that showed the other participants in the conference. Garuth, commander-in-chief of the expedition, sat flanked by two aides in the heart of the mother-ship Shapieron two thousand miles above Iscaris III. He listened without interruption to the account of the situation. The chief scientist, speaking from elsewhere in the ship, confirmed that in the past few minutes sensors aboard the Shapieron had yielded data similar to that reported by instruments from the surface of Iscaris III, and that the computers had produced the same interpretation. The G-beam projectors had caused some unforeseen and catastrophic change in the internal equilibrium of Iscaris, and the star
was in the process of turning into a nova. There was no time to think of anything but escape.
“We have to get everybody off the surface,” Garuth said. “Leyel, the first thing I need is a statement of what ships you’ve got down there at the moment, and how many personnel they can bring up. We’ll send down extra shuttles to ferry out the rest as soon as we know what your shortage in carrying capacity is. Monchar . . .” He addressed his deputy on another of the screens. “Do we have any ships more than fifteen hours out from us at maximum speed?”
“No, sir. The farthest away is out near Projector Two. It could make it back in just over ten.”
“Good. Recall them all immediately, emergency priority. If the figures we’ve just heard are right, the only way we’ll stand a chance of getting clear is on the Shapieron’s main drives. Prepare a schedule of expected arrival times and make sure that preparations for reception have been made.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Leyel. . .” Garuth switched his gaze back to look straight out of the screen in Room 14 of the Observatory Dome. “Bring all your available ships up to flight-readiness and begin planning your evacuation at once. Report back on status one hour from now. One bag of personal belongings only per person.”
“May I remind you of a problem, sir.” The chief engineer of the Shapieron, Rogdar Jassilane, added from the drive section of the ship.
“What is it, Rog?” Garuth’s face turned away to look at another screen.
“We still have a fault on the primary retardation system for the main-drive toroids. If we start up those drives, the only way they’ll ever slow down again is at their own natural rate. The whole braking system’s been stripped down. We could never put it together again in under twenty hours, let alone trace the fault and fix it.”