“Steven and I agreed on the probability of survival if the Summer Dreamboat simply makes a direct descent to Glister. Or rather, we disagreed in the third significant digit of the calculated result. But there are other options. It depends on the probability level which one uses to define ‘safe.’ For example, there is a technique that would raise the probability of a successful landing of the Summer Dreamboat on the surface of Glister to a value in excess of zero-point-eight-four.”
“A five-out-of-six chance of getting there in one piece?” Julius Graves glared at Tally. “Why didn’t you mention it earlier?”
“For three reasons. First, it came to me only after a review of analogous situations, of other places and times. That review was completed only thirty seconds ago. Second, the technique should provide a safe landing, but the odds of a safe subsequent ascent are incalculable without additional data concerning the surface of Glister. And third, the procedure would probably lead to the loss of a valuable asset: the Incomparable.”
“Commissioner Kelly.” Graves turned to Birdie. “The Incomparable is the property of the government of Dobelle. As the representative of the government, how would you view its possible loss?”
Birdie had finished the patch on the Dreamboat’s hull and burned his thumb doing it. He pushed himself off and glared around the Incomparable’s hold as he floated up to grab a support beam at Tally’s side.
“It’s a filthy barrel of rust and rot, it stinks like a dead ponker, and it should have been thrown on the scrap heap fifty years ago. If I never see it again, that’s too soon.”
Tally was frowning at him. “Am I to take it, then, that you would sanction the potential loss of the Incomparable?”
“In one word, matey, yes.”
“Then if I may speak, I will outline the technique. It is something that can be found in the older parts of the data banks. In old times, when human individuals wished to accomplish an objective that certain other guarding entities sought to prevent, they often employed a method known as creating a diversion…”
Agreement in principle did not guarantee agreement in practice. E. C. Tally and Steven Graves had argued endlessly about the best method. Should the Incomparable be sent in well ahead of the Dreamboat, passing through the periphery of the cloud of orbiting Phages and seeking to draw them away from Glister? Or was it better to fly the old ore freighter on a trajectory that would impact Glister, and take the Dreamboat in not far behind, relying on its being ignored in the presence of the freighter’s larger and more tempting target?
Tally and Steven Graves had finally agreed on one thing — that they had insufficient data.
“Since there is not enough information to make a reasoned choice,” Tally said apologetically to Birdie Kelly, “the only thing I can suggest is that we resort to aleatoric procedure.”
“What’s ‘aleatoric’ mean, when it’s at home?” Birdie was reaching into his jacket pocket.
“An aleatoric procedure is one that contains chance and random elements.”
“Why, that’s just the way I was thinking myself.” Birdie produced a deck of cards and shuffled it expertly. He held it out to Tally. “Pick a card, E.C., any card. Red, and the ships fly a long way apart from each other. Black, and we tuck ourselves up the old Incomparable’s tailpipe.”
Tally selected a card from the spread and turned it over. “It is black.” He had stared in great curiosity when Birdie shuffled the deck. “What you did just then — it was difficult to see, but is it designed to randomize the sequence?”
“You might say that.” Birdie gave E. C. Tally a thoughtful glance. “Didn’t you ever play cards?”
“Never.”
“If we get out of this alive, why don’t I teach you?”
“Thank you. That would be informative.”
“And don’t you worry,” Birdie patted Tally on the shoulder. “We won’t be playing for high stakes. At first.”
“That could have been us.” Julius Graves was staring straight up. “Not a comforting thought.”
They had finally decided that since the Dreamboat needed time and maneuvering space to land on Glister, it would be a mistake to have the Incomparable fly in all the way to the surface. Instead, the bigger ship had been programmed to zoom down to ten kilometers and then veer away from the planetoid, with luck luring the cloud of attacking Phages with it.
As the Dreamboat increased the power level of its drive for the last hundred-meter deceleration to the surface, the Incomparable could be seen skirting the northern horizon of Glister. The old ship was at the center of a dense cluster of marauding Phages. Already it had sustained a dozen direct hits. The drive was still flaring, but Phage maws had gouged great chunks from the body of the freighter. About twenty Phages clung to the flanks of the Incomparable, like dogs worrying an old bull.
“They’ll be back,” Julius Graves went on. “The way they’re going, they’ll have swallowed the freighter completely in another half hour. And Phages don’t get indigestion, or lose their appetite, no matter what they ingest.”
Birdie had chosen an approach trajectory to bring them no more than fifty meters from the Have-It-All, on the side of the ship away from Kallik’s field inhibitor. There had been no time to examine that installation during their descent, and would not have been even if the Dreamboat’s evasive movements from a handful of isolated Phages had been smooth enough to permit it. Now they had to hurry over to the inhibitor and decide what to do before any Phages returned to harass them.
The two men and the embodied computer had their suits set to full opacity. Kallik, Darya Lang, and Hans Rebka had certainly been able to breathe the atmosphere; and just as certainly, they had disappeared from the surface of Glister. Their vanishing and failure to reappear was unlikely to be the result of Glister’s air — but it could be. As E. C. Tally pointed out, quoting from the most ancient part of the data banks, “Taking a calculated risk, sir, does not oblige one to act rashly.”
While Graves and Tally went on to the site of the field inhibitor, Birdie took a quick look inside the Have-It-All. He headed first for the control room. The ship was untouched, ready to fly within a few seconds of giving the command. That gave Birdie his first warm feeling for quite a while. He patted the control console and hurried back outside.
He had half expected to see the surface of Glister littered with crashed Phages, but there were only two crumpled remains in sight. Did they lose interest if no organic life-forms were present? That was a new thought — though not an encouraging one, to an organic life-form.
Birdie followed the stretched cable from the Have-It-All’s stanchion to the place where Graves and E. C. Tally were standing. Tally had his hand on the line, close to the point where it disappeared into the gray surface, and he was tugging on it vigorously. As Birdie came up to them Tally released the cable, reached down, and pushed his hand easily into the slate-colored plane.
“Observe,” he said. “The field inhibitor is still operating, with near-perfect field cancellation. The surface offers negligible resistance to the penetration of my hand, and at this point it must, I think, be a weakly secured gaseous form. But the cable itself offers considerable resistance to its own withdrawal. We conclude that it must be secured at its lower end, within the interior of Glister.”
“In other words,” Graves said, “it’s tied to something.”