There was the Princess Cecile! Adele assumed it was the Princess Cecile, at any rate, but she couldn’t really make out the shape. The vessel was half-brilliant, half darker than the space between worlds; there at least wide-spread atoms glowed with the energy of their creation. The ship was at least a quarter mile distant, though that too was hard to judge under the present light conditions.
Daniel clipped the end of a short safety cord to Adele’s equipment belt; the other end was already secured to his own. Hogg was pulling himself toward the corvette, his legs crossed around the line connecting the two ships and his arms pulling him with long, powerful motions.
Daniel sailed past Adele, caught the line, and began doing the same. When he reached the ten-foot length of the safety cord, he jerked Adele along with him. She knitted her gloved fingers, making a loop of her arms, and tried not to brush the line as she wobbled after him.
“Parsifal, don’t worry about what I mean!” snarled the signal from the heavy cruiser. “Just do as you’re told, or you’ll be piecing the story together in Hell! Shut off all but minimal systems power until our pinnace boards you, or you’ll take the consequences. Bluecher out!”
Because there was no air resistance and they were fighting inertia rather than gravity, Daniel continued to accelerate himself and Adele as they neared the Princess Cecile. The corvette’s masts were at full extension, spreading nobly in all four directions from her axis, but the furled sails gave her yards a fleshy, uncomfortable look.
Adele was echoing both sides of the discussion on Daniel’s receiver, but he could speak only on intercom unless she unlocked his unit. She hadn’t had time to explain what she was doing, but they didn’t dare chance Daniel saying something that would unmask her deception. She’d apologize when they had the time, but the first priority was surviving the next few minutes.
“Bluecher,” Adele said in feigned exasperation, “we’ll obey you, but I won’t lie and claim I understand. When Captain Vanness gets back you can take it up with him. Parsifal out.”
She’d known a man named Vanness once. He hadn’t shown much talent for library work but he’d tried his best, and his bloody murder was one of the scenes that came in the night to plague her. One of many scenes, by now; but she’d chosen the life.
She looked past Daniel’s legs. They were really rocketing toward the corvette’s hull now. What if they—
Hogg, just ahead of them, dived into a billowing length of sail fabric stretched between two stanchions. A pair of waiting riggers swung him out of the way.
Daniel twisted his body like a skilled gymnast despite the bulk of his rigging suit; his boots hit the left stanchion. He took up the shock by bending his knees, leaving the center of the fabric barrier for Adele.
She plowed into it face-first. She’d tried to get her arms out, but she’d misjudged the distance and was tumbling when she hit with an impact that jarred her head back unpleasantly. She’d be lucky if she got nothing worse than a headache from it.
“Cast off!” Daniel shouted over the intercom as hands grabbed Adele. Instead of clanking the weak permanent magnets in her bootsoles down onto the steel hull, two riggers held her between them as they followed Daniel. Adele was still tied to him, she realized, though she wasn’t sure he remembered it. “And Mr. Chewning, get under weigh now! Now!”
“Sir, they’re launching!” Chewning shouted, no longer sounding laboriously dull. “They’re launching missiles!”
The line from the Goldenfels to the Princess Cecile was tied to a bitt near the Sissie’s open dorsal airlock. Daniel dived into the chamber on top of Hogg, and the riggers carried Adele in just ahead of Tovera. As the outer lock began to cycle closed, she felt the jagged note of the High Drive motors starting up. Their vibration was at a much higher frequency than that of the plasma thrusters.
“All the more reason to get under weigh, Chewning,” Daniel said in a cheerful voice. He grinned at Adele as he reached for the control to open the inner hatch. On their two-way link he added, “While there’s life, there’s hope, eh, Adele?”