Would those men be alive if you hadn’t elbowed your way aboard? Would Johnson’s Climber still be part of the patrol?
A man could go mad worrying about crap like that.
9 Pursuit
We keep chipping away at the mission duration record. Yanevich says the longest was around ninety days. He doesn’t remember the exact figure.
Memory gets tricky out here. It adapts to the demands of Climber service. For instance, the men we lost, I can’t remember their faces.
I knew none but Chief Holtsnider very well, and he not as well as I’d like. I can make a list of physical characteristics, but his face won’t come.
It takes an effort to mourn them.
The lack of feeling seems common enough. We’re under pressure.
We’ve found ourselves an uninhabited star-covert. It has planets and moons and a full complement of asteroidal debris. A fine place to get lost. And just as fine a place for the opposition to have installed a low-profile detection probe, a passive observer as easily detected as our own beacons.
This guilt I have, about not hurting enough for those we lost, isn’t an alien feeling. I used to feel the same way at funerals. Maybe it’s a result of the socialization process. I just don’t hurt.
Our grief and anger didn’t last long after Johnson’s girls mounted Hecate’s Horse, either. Maybe this pocket society has, o room for them.
Piniaz has shifted me to the gamma radiation laser. The weapon has a beam that can punch through the stoutest shielding when properly target-maintained. It’s a notoriously unstable weapon, and this unit is no exception. It’s been acting up for weeks.
The first indication came when it produced barely discernible anomalies in the power-pull readings. The draw varied despite a constant output wattage. The tendency of the input curve was upward, which meant we were putting more and more energy into waste wavelengths.
That doesn’t cripple the weapon as a device for shedding heat, but it does bode ill for its future as a weapon.
That’s bit one of a score of problems plaguing the ship. Mold that can’t be beaten. Stench that seems to have penetrated the metal itself. One system after another getting crankier and crankier. In most cases we’ll have to make do. We carry few spare parts, and not many are available at beacons. Main lighting has begun to decay. The men are spending more and more time on corrective maintenance.
Stores, too, are getting short.
It’s scary, watching a ship come apart around you.
It’s even spookier, watching a crew disintegrate. This one is definitely headed downhill. We’ve reached the point where Command’s policy of having men bounced from ship to ship is paying negative dividends. They don’t have that extra gram of spirit given by devotion to a standing team.
That’s critical when you’re down to the bitter end and barely hanging on.
I say, “Mr. Piniaz, I have trouble here. Output wattage oscillating.”
Piniaz studies the board sourly. “Shit. Guess we’re lucky it held up this long.” He rings Ops. “Commander, we’ve developed a major stress oscillation in our gamma gas cartridges.”
“How bad?”
“It won’t last more than ten minutes if we keep using it.” To me, Piniaz remarks, “I’ve been saying we should be using crystal cassette lasers since I got here. Will they listen to me? Absolutely not. They just tell me crystals burn out too fast and they don’t want to waste the mass-room needed to haul spares.”
“Wait one while I get some numbers, Mr. Piniaz.”
“Standing by, Commander.”
“No replacement cartridges?” I ask. “In the bombards we could change units in five minutes. Like click-click.”
Piniaz shakes his head. “Not here. Not in the Climbers. You have to go outside to get at the cartridges. But Command’s main argument is that we’re never in action long enough to need spares.”
“But this star business...”
He shrugs. “What can you do?”
The Commander says, “Mr. Piniaz, go ahead and use it, but only when Mr. Bradley needs it to sustain internal temperature.”
Piniaz snorts. “Heavier load on the others.”
I listened with one ear while the Old Man talked it over with Yanevich. My bugs steal everybody’s privacy. They decided the weapon was wasted, that the ship has to move to a cooler hiding place. Fine with me. Having all that incandescent fury under my feet is doing nothing for my nerves.
Westhause is calculating a passage to the surface of a small moon. Its gravity shouldn’t put undue stress on the ship’s structure.
Varese, too, overhears the comm exchange. He reasons out the consequences. “Commander, Engineering Officer. May I remind you that we’re low on CT fuel?”
“You may, Lieutenant. You may also rest assured that I’ll take it into consideration.” There’s a touch of sarcasm in his tone. He has no love for Varese.
My guess is we have no more than thirty hours Climb time left. That’s a tight margin if we haven’t been lucky with our sun-hopping.
Are they still after us? It’s been a long time since the raid. A long time since contact. Maybe they’ve overcome their emotional response and gone back to guarding their convoy.
What’s going on out there? We’ve had no news, made no beacon connections. The biggest operation of the war... Being out of touch leaves me feeling like my last homeline has been cut.
Has the raid given Tannian’s wolves the edge they need? Have they panicked the logistic hulls? Once a convoy scatters, no number of late-showing escorts can protect all the vessels. Climbers can stalk the ponderous freighters with virtual impunity. Some will get through only because our people won’t have time to get them all.
Uhm. If the convoy has scattered, the other firm might feel obligated to keep after their most responsible foe. They know this ship of old. Her record is long and bloody. She’s hurt them. Her survival, after what she’s done, might be an intolerable threat.
I’m caught in the trap of circular thinking that lies waiting for men with time on then’ hands and an invisible uncertain enemy on their trail. I want to shriek. I want to demand certain knowledge. Even bad news would be welcome at this juncture. Just make it certain news.
Varese and the Commander, during the computation of the fly to our new hiding place, have a rousing battle over the level of our CT fuel. Finally, against his better judgment, the Old Man says he’ll make the passage without Climbing.
“Goddamn!” Piniaz explodes as an illumination tube above his station fails. “Damned shoddy Outworlds trash...” He excoriates quality-control work on Canaan, insisting nothing like this would happen with an Old Earth product. He’s vicious and bitter. The men tuck their heads against their shoulders and weather the storm.
He has a point, though his claim for Old Earth manufactures is specious. The human race seems incapable of overcoming human nature. Just do the minimum to get by.
With one weapon all but out and the others likely to degrade, our ability to shed heat is crippled. We can’t rely on radiator vanes alone if the pursuit closes in.
Teeter-totter, teeter-totter. Each time the situation shows promise, something ugly raises its head. Lately, it seems, life is a Jurassic swamp.
Sometimes things go from bad to worse without any intervening cause for optimism.
The Commander was right, Lieutenant Varese wrong. We should have made the transfer fly in Climb, and fuel levels be damned.
We fall foul of the other firm’s new tactical intelligence system. They’ve been seeding tiny, instelled probes near stars to catch sun-skippers. If the unit detects a Climber’s tachyon spray, it sends one tiny instel bleep.
The sharks, who have been casting about in confusion, turn their noses toward the scent of blood.
Fisherman gets a trace when the squirt goes out. “Commander, I’ve got something strange here. A millisecond trace.”
“Play it back.” A moment later, “Play it again. Make anything of it, First
Watch Officer?”
“Never seen anything like it.”
“Junghaus, you’re the expert.”
“Sorry, sir. I don’t know. Never had anything like that in E-school. Maybe it’s natural.” There are natural tachyon sources. Some Hawking Holes are known to produce them in much the same fashion as a pulsar generates its beam.
“Maybe you should ask the writer,” Yanevich suggests.
“No point. Wasn’t a ship, was it? That’s what matters.”
“Maybe a Climber going up? Looks a little like that.”
“Shouldn’t be anybody in the neighborhood. Keep an eye on it, Junghaus.”
In ignorant bliss we settle gently into the soft dust of a lunar crater bottom, cycle down to minimum power, and prepare to possum for a few days. Sooner or later the other firm will go after livelier game. If they haven’t already.
The Old Man says, “Old Musgrave used a trick like this when he was in the Eight Ball.”
“Uhm?” The coffee is gone. Even the ersatz. We do our fencing over juice glasses now.
For several minutes he doesn’t say anything more. Then, “Found himself a little moon with a big hollow spot inside. Don’t ask me how. Used to duck in there, go norm, and power down. Drove the other firm crazy for a while.”
“What happened?”
“Went to the well too often. One day he showed up and that moon was a gravel cloud with a half-dozen destroyers inside.”
“They didn’t get him?”
“Not that time. Not in the Eight Ball.” He swallows some juice, chews his pipe. “He was a wily old trapdoor spider. He’d sit in there for a week sometimes, then jump out and get himself a red star. He took out more destroyers than any two men since.” Silence again.
“End of story?”
“Yep.”
“What’s the point?”
He shrugs. “You can’t keep doing the same thing?”
They’re crafty. They do nothing for hours. They make sure they have plenty of muscle before they move. We have twelve hours to loaf and get fat thinking we have it made.
Fisherman says, “Got something here, Commander.” He sounds puzzled.
I’ve been pestering Rose, trying to unravel a few strands of a misty personality. Without success. It’s Yanevich’s watch. He attends Junghaus.
“Playback.” We study it. “Same as before?”
“Not quite, sir. Lasted longer.”
“Curious.” Yanevich looks at me. I shrug. “Same point of origin?”
“Very close, sir.”
“Keep watching.” We go on about our business.
I go try to get Canzoneri to tell me about Rose.
Five minutes later Fisherman says, “Contact, Mr. Yanevich.”
We swarm round. No doubt what this is. An enemy ship. Two minutes of fast calculation extrapolates her course. “No problem,” Yanevich says. “She’s just checking the star.”
She gets in a sudden hurry to go somewhere. I sigh in relief. That was close.
Two hours later there’s another one. She hurries to join the first, which is now skipping around crazily the other side of the sun. Yanevich frowns thoughtfully but doesn’t sound the alarm.
“They act like they’re after somebody,” he says. “Junghaus, you sure you haven’t had any Climber traces?”
“No sir. Just those two bleeps.”
“You think somebody heard us come out of the sun and went up from norm?”
Fisherman shrugs. I say, “Those sprays don’t look anything like a ship.”
“I don’t like it,” Chief Nicastro says. “There’s a crowd gathering. We ought to sneak out before somebody trips over us.”
“How?” Westhause snaps. For the first time in months he doesn’t have more work than he can handle. The lack has him edgy.
“We’ll get you home to momma, Phil,” Canzoneri promises.
Laramie calls, “That’s what he’s afraid of, Chief. He’s had time to think it over.”
I smile. Someone still has a sense of humor.
“Laramie...” Nicastro starts into the inner circle, thinks better of it, wheels on the first Watch Officer. “At least go standby on annihilation, sir.”
The neutrino detector starts stuttering, clickety-clack, clickety-clack, like a typewriter under the ministrations of a cautious two-fingered typist.
“Missiles detonating.” Nicastro says it with a force suggesting he’s just confirmed a suspicion the rest of us are too dull to comprehend.
“I’ve got another one,” Fisherman announces.
“Picraux, wake the Commander.”
Nicastro nods glumly. This one will whip past less than a million kilometers out. The Chief would die happy if she blew us to ions.
More typewriter noise. It dies a little as Brown reduces the neutrino detector’s sensitivity.
“They’re really putting it on somebody.”
“Here comes number four,” I say, catching the first ghostly feather before Fisherman does.
“Carmon^better activate the tank.” Yanevich pokes me with a finger. “Pass the word to Mr. Piniaz to wake everybody up. Picraux. While you’re up there, shake everybody out.”
When it’s no drill and there’s time, general quarters can be handled in a civilized manner.
Brown reduces the detector’s sensitivity again.
“Another one,” Fisherman says.
“Any pattern yet, Carmon?”
“Not warm yet, sir.”
“Move it, man. Engineering, stand by to shift to annihilation.”
The Commander swings down through the jungle gym. “What have you got, First Watch Officer?” He’s so calm that I, lingering near the Weapons hatch, get a flutter in the stomach. The cooler he is, the more grave the situation. He’s always been that way.
“Looks like we’re camped in the middle of the other firm’s company picnic.”
The Commander listens impassively while Yanevich brings him up to date. “Junghaus, roll that second sighting at your slowest tape speed. On the First Watch Officer’s screen. Loop it.”
“What’re we looking for?” Yanevich asks.
“Code groupings.”
The typist is a fast learner. His clickety-clack has become a fast rattle. Brown cuts the sensitivity again.
“Poor bastards have had it,” Rose says. “Their point is taking everything but the sink. Must not be able to move.”
Better they than me, I think, the stomach flutters threatening to mature into panic. And, hey, what does the Old Man mean, code groupings?
“We ought to haul ass while we have the chance,” Nicastro grumbles, trying his luck with the Commander.
“Two more,” Fisherman announces.
“Three,” I say, leaning over his shoulder. “Here’s a big one over here.”
The Commander turns. “Carmon?”
The display tank sparkles to life.
“Damn! Brown. Turn that thing all the way back up.”
Clickety-clack nearly deafens us.
Floating red jewels appear where none ought to be, telling a tale none of us want to hear. We’ve been englobed. The trans-solar show is a distraction.
“Oh, shit!” someone says, almost reverently.
They aren’t certain of our whereabouts. The moon is well off center of their globe.
“Commander.” Chief Canzoneri beckons. The Old Man goes to look over his shoulder. After a moment, he grunts.
He says, “They’re beating the piss out of an asteroid. Must be nice to have missiles to waste.” He strolls toward Fisherman, his face almost beatific. “Fooled us, didn’t they?” he tells me. “Wasted a few missiles and locked the door while we sat here grinning.”
The distant firing ends.
The Old Man stares steadily at the craft Fisherman has in detection.
Yanevich mumbles, “They reckon we’ve got it figured up now and didn’t panic.” There’s agony in his eyes when he meets Nicastro’s gaze.
Varese, you pri
ck. I could choke you.
The swiftest reaction would’ve done us no good. They’ve had half a day to tighten the net. What the hell can we do?
I don’t like being scared.
The Old Man takes a pen from his pocket. He taps the end against his teeth, then against one of the feathers on Fisherman’s screen. “It’s him.”
Fisherman stares dumbly. He grows more and more pallid. Sweat beads on his upper lip. He murmurs, “The Executioner.”
“Uhm. Back from his holiday with Second Fleet. I’ll take the conn, Mr. Yanevich.”
“Commander has the conn.” Yanevich doesn’t conceal his relief.
I want to say something, to ask something. I can’t. My gaze is fixed on that tachyon spray. The Executioner. The other firm’s big man. Their number one life-taker. They want us bad.
The Old Man grins at me. “Relax. He’s not infallible. Beat him patrol before last. And Johnson, she had the hex sign on him.”
I feel awfully cold. I’m shivering.
“Engineering, bring CT systems to full readiness.”
This is a state of readiness midway between standby and actual shifting. It’s seldom used because it’s such a strain on personnel. Apparently the Commander does appreciate the fuel problem.
“All hands. Take care of your personals,” he says. “General quarters shortly.” He sounds like a father calming a three-year-old with nightmares.
I’m so nervous my bladder and bowels won’t evacuate. I stand staring at the display tank. A dozen rubies inhabit it now. Flight would be suicidal. Amazing that they’d devote so much strength to one Climber.
We have to stay put and outfox them.
Outfox the Executioner? His reputation is justified. He can’t help but find us...
“Mr. Westhause, bring up the data for Tau and Omicron.”
“Got it already, Commander.”
“Good. Program for Tau with just enough hyper to give it away. Once we’re up, zag toward Omicron, then put us back inside this rock.”
“It’s mostly water ice, Commander, with a little surface dust. There seems to be a real rock surface several thousand meters down, though.”
“Whatever. I trust you’ve resolved its orbitals? Can you hold us deep enough to shield the point?”