Forty-one days.
Kea thought there were only two alternatives. First was that he was living in a completely mad universe. The second was that he was mad himself. Because a solution seemed quite obvious. But no one had taken it At least yet.
Kea moved. First was to punch a com through to Earth. He snarled at the time it took to get through, and then at the fuzz-iness of the hyperspace link. Someday, he thought, he would have to find himself an R&D dwonk, give him assistants, a few million credits, some AM2, and tell him to come up with some kind of system that'd enable one being to talk to another across a distance without both of them sounding like they're sitting in barrels and looking like so many triple-imaged blurs. Someday.
He eventually got through to his target—Jon Nance, the highest-rated liviecaster going. Nance was busy. The world was coming to an end, or so everyone said, and he was occupied being Chicken Little. Kea said very well. He would go to the competition. What did Kea have? He would not say. But it was big. And it involved Wanderer. Nance was very interested—there had to be something new to the story besides reporting the latest hysteria or drone of inaction. Richards told Nance to pack. Stand by with a full crew. A complete recording setup, plus two remotes. And a link to go live to Terra. A ship was on its way to pick them up.
"O Joy," Nance said sourly. "I'm going to have to unfasten an entire crew. Walk away from the desk, and put in my summerman to anchor. And just a smile for the cheeses and the producers. You've got to give me more than that."
"Never mind," Kea said. "This link isn't secure, and I don't always trust you, anyway. I'll still have the ship at Kennedyport in... two E-hours."
"Christ, it'll take me longer'n that to get a gravcar out to the port!"
"Sounds like a personal problem. Two E-hours. Or else I'll rent a doculivie crew and your net can bargain for their reels. Along with everybody else." He shut off. Then he let himself grin. Masterson may have been the prog specialist in some areas, but Kea wasn't that bad himself. Prog: that Nance would be there with bells and recorders? 79 percent. Minimum.
He ordered the ship that was on standby at his own field to lift for New York. That was one ship. He needed two more. One of his newer transports would serve. He ordered Masterson and the best sober pilot he could winkle up to get ready. He sent for his own ship, the starship he had seen so many aeons before in its junk orbit off Mars. The ship that had been the first fitted for AM2. So what?—he had avoided sentimentality when it came to objects. He had never even given the ship a name beyond its registry numbers. It was time to get rid of the starship— increasingly he'd wondered, if the ship ever fell into the wrong hands, if it might somehow provide a clue to the Alva Sector. This would be a fitting way—if Kea was correct—for its end.
He had a pilot lift it to a clear area outside one of his experimental workshops. One minor modification was made to the controls. Starships are not normally fitted with timers. Then he himself lifted the ship, and hovered it into the supersecure AM2 storage areas. A remotely controlled, Imperium-sheathed cargoloader took a chunk of Anti-Matter Two from a vault. Kea, as he delicately took it in his own snip's grab-claw, thought the less-than-500-kilogram-in-weight block might even be what was left of that first chunk of AM2 he'd grabbed on this ship's maiden voyage into the alternate universe. He was ready to roll.
The two ships cleared Ganymede and set an orbit to intersect Wanderer. Waiting for them was the third ship. And, as Richards had known, a grumpy, evil-tempered Nance was aboard. Evil-tempered, until Richards told him what he proposed. And then he melted.
Kea had one remote set up in the control room of his own ship, the second in the port of the ship Masterson was aboard. The three ships were powered into Wanderer's path. Richards fancied he could feel the whirling chunk of rock moving toward him, like a railbound train in a tunnel. Enough. He told Nance he had better patch down to New York, to his net. There wasn't much time left.
Nance's ship hung about fifty kilometers from the other two. Richards thought it was far too close, but Nance said uh-uh. He had to get his "picture," and little dots of dark against a greater dark wouldn't cut it Kea shuddered again, thinking about the nature of livies. How could anyone allow—let alone spend a career lifetime ensuring—other beings to gather in his mind, smelling what the liviecaster smelled, seeing what he saw, and even experiencing the ‘caster's conscious, controlled thoughts? Masterson's ship was less than fifty meters from Richards's. Kea donned a spacesuit and dumped ship atmosphere, leaving both lock doors open. A line linked the two ships.
Nance was ‘casting. Inside Mars's orbit, he said, in his calm-but-excited patented manner. About to witness what might well be the most spectacular feat in man's history. Kea Richards was about to attempt to destroy Wanderer, using a new and unspecified method, but one that involved his secret engine. And as coached by Kea, Nance wondered why the Federation hadn't even tried anything, but were still sitting on the Moon, jacking their jaws... (though he worded it far more politely than that).
Kea was ready. The remote—a vid, of course—showed a spacesuited man moving around a control room. What was not shown was the outside bay port opening and the ship's grab-claw extending that huge chunk of Anti-Matter Two in front of it, exactly like a fearful peasant trying to ward off the evil eye.
For melodramatic effect, Richards had told Nance to begin a countdown when signaled. It started. There wasn't much to do— the trajectory was set, and the controls were linked to the down-counting timer. At three minutes thirty seconds, Kea headed out. He swarmed across the rope, severed its connection to his doomed starship, and closed the lock door, his every action recorded by that second remote. He shut the vid off—Masterson had been emphatic that he never wanted to be seen on vid or livie—and went into the other ship's control room.
One minute, he heard Nance cadence. Twenty-seven seconds. And ten...
And zero... the timer closed, and the ship across the way vanished. Vanished into full-power stardrive. Not even a second later, it impacted into Wanderer.
The livie-recorder that Nance wore like some great helmet, and the accompanying vid camera aboard his ship, overloaded into the ultra and burnt out. Kea had warned him. But the audio pickup was still active, and Nance's voice continued, live» straight to the net headquarters in New York, and from there to man's worlds.
Kea barely noticed the ‘caster's excitement. He was busy-He'd taken the ship controls and sent the transport, under half Yukawa drive, toward the meteor. What meteor? A collection of gravel in loose formation. Of Kea's ship, there was nothing whatever remaining.
Kea listened to the broadcast, still live, coming from Nance's ship. He had not known there were so many synonyms for "hero." Richards smiled. Actually, this time, he was a bit of 2 hero. He was surprised he felt a shade embarrassed. Hero, eh‘? Kea the Galactic Hero, he thought in amusement. Now Kea had the name. The tools. Wanderer had given him the stage and thЈ floodlights for his grand entrance. All he needed was the fanfare-And he was fairly certain what it would be, even if he didn't know who'd show up to blow in his ear.