“Geoformy team?”
“E Eridani. 05:27:14. Their fucking MS coming in right on top of them, 03:29 slack. Had to steam and bake.”
“That’s only a two-twenty cycle.”
“Don’t I know?” Her voice is thin, strained. “Fucking autopsy made me hold. Wanted the cadaver. Almost didn’t make it, steamed one of the loading crew, pretty bad I think. Cycled out with nine seconds slack at that.”
“Too close. Better file a report.”
“Bet your cock I’ll file a report. Six,” she says, automatically, as double chimes announce the hour. “Fucking autopsy acts like they run the place.”
“Want a pill?”
“Took one six minutes ago. I’ll be all right.”
He checks down through the eleven missions they’ll be doing together. “Anybody standing by for the Ag Group samples?”
“No. They called last night, we’re supposed to store. Runner coming at nine.”
“Tell the loading crew about the squeeze on this food shipment?”
“Oh, yeah. Better call again. I prepared them at four but they maybe brought in some new people after the five-twenty-seven. One for sure.”
Arnold places the call. “Whole new crew, as a matter of fact.”
“What about the one I steamed?”
“He’s alive,” Arnold lies instantly. She can find out later. “Fair condition.”
“Hated to do that.”
“They get paid for it.” He points through the window. “There’s our breeders.”
“Thirty seconds early.”
“Twenty-five,” he corrects.
The loading crew has already brought out the floater, now standing upright, centered over the LMT crystal. The three Tamers approach it.
Arnold switches his throat mike to broadcast inside the chamber. “Hey, you guys.” They wave.
“Don’t climb up there yet. Just have to hang on for seven minutes. I’ll drop the cylinder in five; that’ll give you two minutes fourteen seconds slack. Plenty of exercise.”
“Wish they’d do a double shot on these,” Mavis says. Not much volume tolerance.”
“Can’t do it for Tau Ceti,” Arnold says.
“That’s right, I forgot. Too much water, big fish.”
They wait in silence for a few minutes. Then Arnold tells the breeders to climb aboard and he swings the control keyboard over onto his knees. He rests his fingers lightly on the eight emergency keys: SPILL, FILL, HALF SPILL, HALF FILL, BAKE, STEAM, MEDICAL, KILL MISSION.
There are twenty-four secondary buttons on the three rows underneath. His right forefinger automatically touches the one that used to say DROP CYL. The letters have been worn off the button. The only other secondary whose letters have been worn off is AUTOPSY.
“Why do they have both of us on?” Arnold says. The usual combination is an experienced controller in prime, with a new one in backup.
“The Groombridge thing.”
“Ah.” The breeders in place, Arnold drops the cylinder. His finger rests lightly on the KILL MISSION button. He doesn’t launch the LMT, of course-that requires timing to within a hundred-thousandth of a second-but he can kill the jump if he gets a distress signal from inside the cylinder.
The cylinder rises automatically. “Gone.” He swings the keyboard away and looks at her. “What Groom-bridge thing?”
“Don’t you even read the papers?”
“No.”
“They found these creatures that let people read minds. Little squirmy-“
“Oh, yeah. I saw on the cube, that doctor. Claimed one of them made him cut his throat.”
“That’s it. And killed another doctor. They don’t understand quite what happened.”
Arnold shakes his head. “As if the world wasn’t a dangerous enough place already. If they want to play with those things, they ought to go to Groombridge and do it.”
“Yeah,” Mavis says. “Scientists.”
30 – Nine Lives
(From Mlndbridge: A Preliminary Evaluation, Jameson et al, AED TFX, Colorado Springs, 2052:)
The first experiments with the Groombridge bridge ended in tragedy; the second series began without tragedy.
The second Groombridge expedition brought back eight untouched bridges. We had assembled twenty-three people who were among the most gifted psychics in the world: their control scores on the standard Rhine tests averaged from 413.7 to 499.9.
This last score belonged to the amazing Jerzy Krzyszkowiak, the only person in history who could reliably perform feats of telekinesis. In our laboratory he was able to exert several grams’ pressure on the pan of an evacuated analytical balance, for hours at a time, the balance being out of his sight in an adjacent room.