“These fractures—are you talking about openings that go all the way down into the Deep Flux?” Glenswarg asked, looking troubled.
“Possibly,” Cantha said. “We don’t know how deep they might go. In the Narseil understanding of the Deep Flux, there are layers far down in the underflux—” the holo shifted to a deeper level, and many of the star systems still visible as ghostly images seemed to draw closer together “—where extremely long routes in normal-space are shortened and compacted, but at the cost of becoming far more unpredictable.” The threads marking starship routes became blurred and wavering. “Too unpredictable, in our view, for safe travel.”
Cantha walked around the display, pointing here and there. “We can only guess at the details. But we have identified places where subsurface cusps or folds in the Flux may occur. Places where movement along hidden boundaries can result in abrupt transitions.” The display flickered with topographic shifts and folds as his pointer beam moved along the indistinct route-threads. “It may happen so abruptly that an unsuspecting crew might not know how to make the transition back.”
Legroeder blinked. “And you think this is what happened to Impris?”
Cantha steepled his long-fingered hands together. “Quite likely. I also believe this is how she can be found.”
Glenswarg cleared his throat. “And that’s why you’re asking me to risk this ship in the Sargasso?”
“It is a risk,” Cantha agreed. “But if these flaws exist, as we believe, in the Sargasso, then they could provide openings where we could break through into the underlying layers.”
Glenswarg waved his arm through the holo. “But Impris isn’t there. As far as we know, she’s up here.” He pointed to what was now the far corner of the display, at the point marking their present destination.
“Indeed,” Palagren said, stirring. “She was last seen up there. But that doesn’t mean we can reach her from there. Legroeder—when you encountered Impris seven years ago, did you have any sense that you could have physically reached her?”
“You mean, if we hadn’t been attacked?” Legroeder shook his head. “I don’t think so. We saw it, heard her riggers in the net… and then it faded, just as the attacking ship—” He shuddered, and allowed the inner hands of the implants to close off that memory for him.
“Exactly. It’s there, but it’s insubstantial… and then in a matter of seconds, it’s gone again. Cantha, can you show the folds more clearly?” As the display changed to highlight the features, Palagren traced with his hand along the irregularities in the Flux. “We suspect that Impris may have become trapped somehow inside one of these folds in the underflux. Trapped in a parallel channel—seemingly close to us, and yet isolated.” Palagren glanced around. “She does seem to move very quickly from one location to another.”
“So,” said Cantha, “we can look for Impris up here—” he rotated the image and highlighted their present destination “—under the nose of KM/C, where we won’t be able to reach her anyway. Or we can try to enter that fold down here—” he rotated it again, highlighting the Sargasso region “—where the pathways converge and there may be openings that will let us reach her from within the fold. Where, I might add, Kilo-Mike/Carlotta will see much less of what we’re doing.”
“Carlotta will love that when she finds out,” whispered a Kyber rigger.
He was silenced by a look from Glenswarg. The captain’s eyebrows looked like two caterpillars trying to merge. He scowled into the display. “It’s an interesting idea. But it’ll be dangerous as hell, won’t it?”
Cantha shrugged. “The Kyber are known for their courage, yes?”
Glenswarg’s scowl darkened even further. “These paths in the folds—are they fast moving?”
Cantha cleared his throat with a rumble. “If they are Deep Flux, they may be very fast. Or short. So if you’re asking, could we hope to make our way to her quickly once we’re in the fold—”
“Not just that,” said Glenswarg. “Are we going to be able to find our way out again?”
The Narseil hesitated.
“Impris couldn’t find her way out. What makes you think we’re different?”
The blood pounding in Legroeder’s ears competed with Palagren’s answer. “Impris probably didn’t know why she was trapped. We will. We’re going to have to look for a way in. Which means we’ll be noting exactly where and how we enter. That’ll make us better equipped to find our way out again.” Palagren turned to Legroeder, then the captain. “With your permission, we would perform some retuning of the rigger-net—to take maximum advantage of our versatility. Human, Kyber, Narseil. All together. That’s another advantage we have that Impris didn’t.”
Glenswarg rubbed his chin. “And assuming we make it out of this fold of yours, what about getting out of the Sargasso itself—once we’re back in the normal Flux?”
“The Sargasso has extremely slow and tricky movement,” said Palagren. “Not no movement. If we plan ahead and map with care, we should be able to manage. I won’t deceive you, though. There’s a degree of risk.”
“High risk, if you ask me,” said Navigator Derrek, leaning into the holo and craning his neck as though trying to extract more information from it.
Glenswarg turned to stare at Legroeder, who was responsible for the rigging decisions. Legroeder took a deep breath. “It has to be the Sargasso?” he asked the Narseil.
First Cantha, then Palagren nodded. “It’s the only place we see an opening,” Cantha said, unfolding his fingers in a humanlike palm-up gesture. “If we want to find Impris, that’s where we have to go.
Legroeder closed his eyes, asking the implants if they had any wisdom. They didn’t. He gazed at Glenswarg and sighed. “I’m afraid I must recommend, Captain, that we take this ship to the Sargasso.”
Glenswarg’s gaze bored into him, as though waiting to see if he would change his mind. When Legroeder held his gaze, the captain grunted and turned to his exec. “Prepare a message to the escort ships. And tell the bridge crew, we’re changing course.”
Chapter 28
Ghost Hunting
It was hard to be sure precisely when they entered the Sargasso, but soon enough the signs became unmistakable. The net softened around them like sails gone limp, as the currents of space slowed to a crawl. Legroeder gazed out at a tenuous skyscape of ocher clouds, and felt the image changing of its own accord to a vision of water. The mists flattened to become the foggy surface of a still sea, with a half-shrouded sun burning overhead.
Nothing moved. Even the water lapping at the side of the ship sounded like something caught in a time warp, the chuckling slap of listless waves drawn out into a croaking sound, like the monotonous drone of some primordial, throaty-voiced creature.
The riggers scanned in all directions. Legroeder half expected to see the cluttered flotsam of drifting ships; instead, what he saw was a profound and oppressive emptiness. It seemed to permeate not just the outward scene, but the mood inside the net, as well. All four riggers were silent, as though a single word might destroy the fragile magic that held it all together.
The Narseil had spent hours working with the Kyber crew, carefully retuning the flux reactor, adjusting the sensitivity of the net in painstaking increments. Palagren and Cantha were trying to make the net more responsive to emotional fluctuations among the riggers. That was easy; what was hard was to do it without losing the usual buffers against mood shifts. The other riggers, especially the Kyber who flew the alternate shifts, felt uneasy about the changes—and even Ker’sell seemed uncertain—but Legroeder and the captain had allowed Palagren and Cantha to try. They were convinced that, by heightening their sensitivity to fainter stirrings of the Flux, they could improve their maneuverability in the Sargasso. And Legroeder was very much in favor of being able to maneuver out of the Sargasso.