“But I’m glad you didn’t tell me before,” Daniel continued, noticing the tremble in his voice, “because I would’ve tried to stop it.”
He grinned, a harder expression than his usual.
“And given the good result it’s apparently obtained,” he said, “that would’ve been a pity.”
Adele nodded. A team of technicians under Mr. Pasternak himself was adjusting the jury-rigged High Drive mounts in the bow. Probably to change the subject she said, “The ship those came from was much smaller than this one. Will these be able to lift us?”
“Well, lift isn’t the question,” Daniel said, walking forward a few steps so that they had a better view of the newly installed motors. “The plasma thrusters will do that, and they weren’t damaged when the High Drive failed.”
He grinned again. “Mr. Pasternak and I don’t believe they were damaged. We’ll see, of course. But the High Drive gives us our impulse in sidereal space. Since our progress in the Matrix is a function of that initial impulse, the present much-reduced output will delay our arrival at Radiance by more than I like.”
Now that he was alert again, Daniel noticed shoots that’d risen from soil seared down several feet when the Goldenfels’ High Drives failed. They were curling against the outrigger, inserting suckers into broken seams. And there was a colony of quarter-inch insectoids living in the same outrigger! Goodness, where there was life, there was hope.
Not that there was a great deal of hope for those examples, particularly the tiny animals, unless they could breathe vacuum; but it was a good principle to keep in mind. To continue to keep in mind.
“I thought that the sails drove us in the Matrix,” Adele said. Her eyes were on the gaping hole melted in the belly plates when a High Drive motor spewed antimatter into a normal atmosphere.
The damage was impressive enough to draw attention, that was for sure. Nickel-steel icicles hung down in a three-foot circle. A patch of pink structural plastic glued to the inner surface of the hull closed the hole. The patch was sturdier than it looked, but nobody, least of all Daniel Leary, would pretend to be happy with the situation.
“The sails only give us direction in the Matrix,” Daniel explained, thinking as he spoke that if there’d been time, a cap of sheet metal for this crater and the eleven like it would’ve been a good investment against when they got into action. A plasma bolt would turn the plastic into a chemical explosive. . . . “We have only the momentum we start with when we enter other universes. The constants differ so that our apparent location in relation to the sidereal universe may change very quickly, but we can’t add real velocity while we’re in a bubble universe of our own.”
He looked at Adele. “I don’t mean to sound gloomy,” he said. “If I didn’t think the plan was workable, I wouldn’t attempt it.”
Adele looked amused. “Daniel,” she said, “can you predict with certainty everything that’s going to happen in the course of this operation?”
He drew back as though she’d slapped him. “No,” he said in a reserved tone. “Of course I can’t, not a fraction of the events. I hope to react properly, with the aid of a skilled crew. Granting that we’ll be undermanned, of course.”
“Since many of the events are unpredictable . . . ,” Adele continued. Daniel could hear laughter bubbling under her words but for the life of him he couldn’t understand why. “Then it’s quite possible that most of them, maybe all of them, will turn out for the best, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes,” Daniel agreed. “That’s of course what I’m hoping for, though I won’t claim I expect matters to work out that way.”
“Daniel,” Adele said softly, “a person like you is never going to believe that a plan with so many variables is certainly unworkable. If the goal is important enough, you’re going to attempt it. And every one of us in the crew is going to join you willingly because you’re our captain.”
She smiled, though the curve of mouth was as hard as a thruster nozzle. “And because you’re Daniel Leary,” she added.