Navigator Emet had already gone. He had come out of the blowup with barely a scratch, but as soon as he had been discharged he had requested a transfer to another assignment.
Brea hadn’t come out of the smash at all.
After six hours, Darc and Nilis came to visit her.
Pirius was still on Venus. Nilis said he had told Pirius what had happened.
A Virtual replay of the last moments of the run cycled in the air over Torec’s bed, over and over. Torec was forced to watch her own blister, the interior milky with foam, shoot out of the expanding debris cloud that used to be a greenship.
Darc growled, “Look at that Xeelee. You know, Commissary, I’m prepared to believe it is alive. You can see the contempt.”
Nilis was pacing, barefoot. He was overstressed, and extremely distressed by what had happened. “Oh, my eyes, my eyes,” he kept saying.
Torec suppressed a sigh. “Sir, Brea died doing her duty.”
“But if not for me she wouldn’t have been put in harm’s way in the first place.”
Darc said thunderously, “Commissary, with respect, that’s maudlin nonsense. Brea was a soldier. Soldiers die, sir, by putting themselves in harm’s way, as you call it. It’s a question of statistics; that’s how you have to look at it.”
Nilis turned on him, eyes rimmed red, clearly furious. “And is that supposed to comfort me?”
Darc’s expression didn’t change. “If you want comfort, know that she died doing her duty.”
Nilis snorted and resumed his pacing. “Well, if we’re not allowed to complete the test program, she will have died for nothing.”
Darc laughed. “You aren’t going to trap me that way, Commissary. I’m not convinced that throwing away more time and money, and more lives, on this program is justified. I’ve seen no sign that you’re coming close to solving these instability problems with the grav shield.”
Torec knew the situation was delicate. Darc’s power was all negative. He couldn’t approve the continuation of the test program on his own, but he could get it shut down. And she was scared that after a failure that embarrassed him as much as anybody else, he was ready to use that power. She said brightly, “We still have another ship. It’s already being prepared.”
“That means nothing,” Darc said. “Ensign, engineers work on engines unless they’re stopped by force; you know that. It doesn’t mean I’ll be approving another run.”
Nilis glared. “For you to shut us down now, after just one run, would be criminally irresponsible, Commander!”
Darc was very still, sitting in his chair, not moving a muscle. But Torec could hear the menace in his voice. “I know you’re under stress. But I won’t have you say that about me. I’ve been under pressure to terminate this program since the first poor results came in. In fact, Commissary, I’ve been championing you, keeping you alive.”
Nilis wasn’t intimidated. “Oh, have you? Or are you looking out for yourself, Commander? Seeking whatever advantage you can gain from the project, while always keeping your backside covered, in the grand Navy tradition!”
Torec saw Darc’s hands close on the arms of his chair, his knuckles whiten.
To her relief, before they came to blows, there was a soft chime, and a small Virtual window opened up before her. It revealed a shining sphere. She gaped.
“I have a visitor,” she said.
When Darc saw the Ghost’s image, he snarled, “Send it away. I won’t have that monstrosity in a Naval facility.”
Enough, Torec thought. “It’s my visitor,” she said. “Not yours, sir, with respect.”
Darc shot her a glance, but he knew she was right; by ancient Navy tradition sick bay patients had a few temporary privileges. But he waved a hand at the Virtual of the test run, dispersing it — as if, Torec thought, the Silver Ghosts assigned to the project hadn’t seen the whole thing live and firsthand anyhow.
The Ghost’s bulk was barely able to pass through the door. It hovered beside Torec’s bed, massive, drifting slightly, the glaring lamps of the room casting highlights from its hide.
She shivered, as if the Ghost’s immense mass was sucking the warmth out of the air. She pulled her med-cloak a little higher, and the semisentient wrap snuggled more tightly into place. A Silver Ghost, a bedside visitor in a Navy hospital, come to see her…
Nilis’s characteristic curiosity cut in. He stood before the Ghost, hands on hips, rheumy eyes alive with interest. “So,” said Nilis. He held out a liver-spotted hand, as if to stroke the Ghost’s surface; but he thought better of it and pulled back, curling his fingers. “Which one are you?”
“I am the one you call the Ambassador to the Heat Sink.” The Ghost’s chill contralto voice seemed heavily artificial in this small sick-bay room. “We met on Pluto.”
“Of course we did. I should have guessed it was you. But how would I know if you were lying, if you’re a different Ghost entirely? Hah!”
The Ghost didn’t respond. Darc, still as a statue, was almost as unreadable.
Nilis went on, “And what are you doing here?”
“It’s come to see me, Commissary,” Torec said gently.
Nilis made a mock bow.
Torec plucked up her courage and faced the Ghost. She could see herself in its hide, a distorted image of a head and shoulders, clutching her med-blanket. “Maybe that’s what’s so scary about you,” she said aloud.
The Ghost said, “I do not understand.”
“That every time I look at a Ghost, I see myself.”
The Ghost rolled slowly, slight imperfections on its surface marking its movements. “Identity is a complex concept which does not translate well across cultures.”
Torec said, “Why have you come to see me, Sink Ambassador?”
“Because your project is failing,” it said.
Nilis nodded. “Yes, yes. We are battling the instability of your gravastar shield, it can’t be denied.”
Darc snorted. “And it’s a fundamental flaw. The spherically symmetric solution of the equations — a complete gravastar, a shell surrounding a ball-shaped pocket universe — would be stable. Your half- and-half solution, a spherical cap preceding a pocket universe that matches to ours asymptotically, is analytically complete, but is not stable.” He gave a thin-lipped grin. “Oh, don’t look so shocked, Commissary. Even Navy grunts know a little math. The problem is simple: instability. You have your pilot balancing a ten-meter pole on the palm of her hand; she can run as fast as she likes, but sooner or later she will fall.”
The Ghost said, “But we have a solution.”
Nilis and Darc both turned to face the Ghost, startled.
Torec smiled. “So that’s why you’ve come. You weren’t concerned about my health at all.”
The Ghost seemed to think that over. “No offense.”
Nilis gaped. “Did a Silver Ghost just make a joke?”
Darc said sternly, “You say you have a solution. Describe it.”
The Ambassador rolled, and Virtual images scrolled in the air. Torec recognized a map of the phase space of a system. It was a schematic diagram of the possible states of the gravastar shield. It looked like a slice of a rolling landscape, with valleys, peaks, and plains, and it was marked with contours that showed regions of chaos and stability, attractors and poles.
“The trick,” said the Ghost, “is to use the instability, not to fight it. You are trying to emulate the stability of the strongest attractor, which is the spherically symmetric solution here.” A point on the map winked red. “So you allow the shield to form at low velocities, or even when the projector is stationary. You find an equilibrium, but it is not stable. Then when you try to fly, the smallest instability disrupts the solution. Your running child trips on a pebble, Commander, and the pole is dropped.”