“How exactly do we do that?” he asked.
“We’ll be getting readings from Barkley about what’s going on in the drive unit. When we have those, I can give him some adjustments. Maybe it’ll break the process. Maybe not. We’ll have to see what happens. Probably, he’ll get hauled down, but he should reappear again within, I hope, a few minutes. And, if we’re lucky, that will be the end of it. If it works out—” She stared at me, and those dark eyes glittered. “If everything goes as planned, we’ll be a step closer to keeping the Capella from taking another five-and-a-half-year dive.”
“Pity it’s not safe to go on board ourselves to do this,” I said. “It would be a little quicker than passing information to an AI.”
That brought a glare from Shara, and I realized I was talking too much. “We had a discussion about that,” she said. “JoAnn wanted to do it, but John said no.” Now she was looking at Nick, but the irritation was fading. “It’s too dangerous.”
“It would have given us a better shot,” said JoAnn.
“Let’s let it go, okay?”
“Well, anyhow,” I said, trying to recover, “this’ll probably work fine.”
JoAnn nodded. “I hope so. It took almost four years just to get the math in place. The truth is there are too many elements to be certain. It’s not only design and mass, but there are details associated with the drive unit, how much power it generates and how quickly it comes online. And, of course, the nature of the damage that’s been done to the continuum. We haven’t figured out yet how to lock that down. We need more time.” She sighed. “This is a place we’ve never been before, Chase.”
The Carver reappeared on schedule. “He’s about an hour away,” said Nick, speaking over the allcomm. I was back in the passenger cabin.
“So far so good.” JoAnn looked pleased. “Barkley, is everything okay?”
“Everything seems to be running as planned, JoAnn.”
The Carver was a low-cost Barringer yacht. They’d been popular at one time, but the company had stopped making them twenty years earlier. Gabe had owned one when I succeeded my mom as his pilot. It was clunky in comparison to the Belle-Marie, but it brought back some happy memories. There aren’t many of the Barringers around anymore.
It took a bit longer than an hour, but eventually we pulled to within a few kilometers of it, off its port side. “Close enough,” JoAnn said. “Let’s stay where we are.” Barkley’s lights were on both inside and out. The ship looked occupied.
“The thing should take effect again in about an hour and a half,” said JoAnn.
We watched the display, which gave us a clearer view than we could get looking out the ports.
Nick pointed out that no one had eaten, but he seemed to be the only person aboard with an appetite. He got some chocolate chip cookies from the dispenser, and we all ate a couple.
The Carver floated quietly on the monitor, transfixed against the background of stars. I sat staring at it, literally praying, thinking how the evacuation problem was maybe about to go away. The Capella would arrive in three months, and we would get everyone off, and it would be over.
And Gabe would be back.
Shara commented that it was a new experience for her. “It’s the first time I’ve been involved in an experiment that had life-and-death consequences.”
JoAnn turned away from the display and looked out through the portal at the Carver. She wanted to be over there. I could see it in her eyes. My own thoughts were centered on whether we were too close.
I treated myself to a couple more cookies. There wasn’t much conversation. JoAnn seemed caught up in her notebook. Shara stayed by the portal for the most part. I thought about going back onto the bridge, but Nick hadn’t really suggested he’d welcome that, and I didn’t want to intrude. So I stayed in the passenger cabin and watched while the time ran down. JoAnn eventually pushed back in her seat and sighed. “Looks like about fifteen minutes.”
The AI posted a countdown on the display.
“Barkley,” JoAnn said, “let me know as soon as you feel something starting to happen, okay?”
“Yes, JoAnn. Of course. I’m already sending the readings from the drive unit.”
“Okay. Good.”
Nick’s voice came from the bridge. “You want them posted, too, JoAnn?”
“Yes,” she said. Then she turned to Shara. “I don’t think it’ll make much difference since I don’t really know what I’m looking for.”
“It’s beginning,” said Barkley.
The readings were starting to move. Fuel input. Conversion levels. JoAnn leaned forward, tapped the screen with an index finger. Quantum resistance. “We’re in business. Damn it. I wish I were over there.”
“Why?” demanded Shara. “You can’t do anything there that can’t be managed from here.”
“Maybe not. But the reaction would be a bit quicker. Okay, Barkley, cut the feed by point two two.”
“Complying. But everything’s becoming transparent.”
JoAnn was studying the numbers on her display. “It’s still too high. Back off to one seven.”
“Done—”
The Carver’s hull was losing visibility. It faded from the display, but a ghostly silhouette remained. “Shara,” she said, “I wanted to be there because time of response is everything.”
And the Carver was gone.
“All right,” said JoAnn. “Good so far.”
Nick came in off the bridge. “You mean because it hasn’t exploded?”
“I mean because nothing has happened. That’s okay. I would have preferred seeing it stay visible. But let’s relax. Time is passing at a different clip inside the ship. If we got it right, it may take a while for us to see some results.”
Nick looked puzzled. “You said a few minutes.”
“I was being optimistic.”
So we sat and watched.
“It might just go downstream and surface at the epsilon point,” said Shara.
JoAnn chewed on her upper lip. “That would indicate it was still caught in the warp. It would be a failure, but not a disaster.”
It had been gone twenty-one minutes when we got a transmission. “JoAnn, I am back up. Not sure where I am.”
Nick was back on the bridge. “I’ve got him,” he said. “He’s on track. About eleven thousand kilometers.”
“Okay,” said JoAnn. “Not a complete success, but we’ve slowed it down.”
Shara’s eyes closed. “We still don’t know where we are.”
Four
Three days later, the Carver was still adrift in linear space. The experiment had been partially successful, and people across the Confederacy were toasting JoAnn.