Pila came hurrying along the walkway. She whispered to the Commissary, something about results concerning the nature of Chandra. Nilis looked shocked, and immediately followed her off the walkway and out of the ops room.
Enduring Hope was simply baffled. What in the universe could be more important than to be here, in these next few crucial minutes? But he felt relieved Nilis and his emotional turmoil were gone.
Luru Parz watched suspiciously.
The Marshal himself tapped Hope on the shoulder. “Engineer. Look. Your friend is going back in — Pirius.”
Hope was a bit overwhelmed to be prompted by a Marshal. But he asked: “Which one? Sir.”
“Both of them.”
“This time we send two ships in,” Pirius Red said. “Not just one at a time. I’ll go first.”
Torec said, “You’ve used up your weapon.”
“I know. I’ll go in to guide. Bilson, you’ve been there. We know we’ve breached that netting; maybe Jees managed to make the hole bigger. What if we could pass the starbreakers through that breach? We’d have a short time of free flight, not blocked by the net. We might see enough to hit the event horizon. What do you think?”
Bilson was very subdued. “It’s possible. It would be a very short time. Less than a second—”
“All right. Which is why whoever is going in will need a spotter.”
Torec said, “So who makes the bomb run?”
Pirius took a breath. He wondered how long he could keep making these decisions; he felt as if he was sentencing another crew to death. But he had to make a choice. “Burden — are you ready?”
There was no reply. And as the seconds ticked by, Pirius suddenly understood that there would be none. He brought up a Virtual image of Burden’s face. Behind his skinsuit visor Burden’s face was ghost pale, as if drained of blood.
Burden’s navigator whispered, “He’s been like this since we passed SO-2. I didn’t want to sav—”
Pirius Blue said, “Burden. Burden. Quero!”
Burden’s eyes flickered. He licked his lips, and forced a smile. “I’m sorry.” His voice was a hoarse croak, his throat evidently closed up.
Red said, “He’s frozen. Lethe. Blue, did you know about this?”
Blue sighed. “No. But I wondered… It happened before, didn’t it, Burden?”
Burden seemed to be loosening a little. “Yes. It happened before.”
“And that’s why you got busted down to the penal divisions on Quin. Cohl was right to be suspicious of you.”
“I never lied to you—”
“But you never told me the full truth, did you? It was nothing to do with your unorthodoxy.”
“That didn’t help. But, yes. I froze up. Just like this. People died, you know. Because of me, because I froze. I don’t understand it. I can fight on a Rock. I can fight my way out of those blood-soaked trenches. I can save lives. But up here, in a greenship—”
“And that’s why you kept busting your balls in combat missions? You were punishing yourself.”
“Lethe,” Torec snarled. “And that garbage about timelike infinity — did you mean any of it?”
“I gave hope,” he said quietly. “And it gave me hope. That some day it will all be put right. People died because of me.”
Blue said, “Down on the Rocks, you saved far more.”
“The arithmetic of death doesn’t work like that,” Burden said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Torec said.
“I let you down, Squadron Leader.”
“Yes,” Red said with feeling. “Yes, you did.”
“When you asked me to join you, and then to be a flight commander, I couldn’t refuse. It was such a noble thing to attempt, such a right thing. I wanted to be part of it. I just hoped I’d be able to get through it.”
“Well, you haven’t,” Torec said bitterly.
Red said, “Guys, we don’t have time for this.”
“I’ll make the run,” said Blue immediately.
Red said, “Why? To save face for your buddy?”
“No. Because I’m the better choice for a two-ship run anyhow. Think about it, Red. We’re the same person. If we go in together, communication’s going to be essential. If we can’t understand each other, who can?”
Red said, “But—”
“I know what you intend to do,” Pirius Blue said. “While I drop my bombs, you’ll draw the flak. That’s what you’re really planning, isn’t it, Red? You see, I told you I understood you.”
Pirius sighed. “All right. Cabel. Bilson. Yes, I intend to draw the flak away from Blue. Maybe that way we’ll give him a chance of succeeding with the mission. But you’ve been down there already. If you don’t think you can do this again—”
“Count me in,” Cabel said immediately.
Bilson was clearly having a lot more difficulty. But the navigator sighed raggedly. “You did say that if we screwed up today we’d be back tomorrow. Let’s get it over.”
“Good man,” Pirius said warmly.
“Let’s do it,” Blue said. His ship broke immediately out of the formation.
Pirius grasped his controls, and the two ships settled side by side.
Burden said, “I just want to say—”
“Later,” Red snapped.
Torec whispered, “Godspeed.”
Blue asked, “What does that mean?”
“Something I learned on Earth. Very old, I think.”
“No good-byes,” Pirius Red said. “Ten minutes, we’ll be back.”
Torec forced a laugh. “Knowing my luck, both of you. Or neither…”
In formation, the two ships swept down through the great hollow toward the shining puddle of the accretion disc.
Once again Red found himself flying low over the accretion disc; once again the event horizon itself rose like a malevolent sun before him. But this time Blue’s ship was a green spark off his port bow.
Blue opened a private loop to Red. “Of course,” he said, “if we both get killed down here, then nothing will be left of me — of you.”
“That would be simpler,” Red said.
“That it would. Take care of Torec if—”
“And you,” Red called. “Good luck, brother.”
“Yes — Lethe! I’m in flak!”
Pirius Red glanced across. Two, three, four starbreaker beams were raking the sky, trying to triangulate on Blue’s ship. Red yanked his ship sideways, cutting between. To his satisfaction, two or three of the beams started to track him, while the others lost Blue, who ducked below his nominal course. But if one of those beams touched him, however briefly, he would be done.
Red began to weave back and forth, the CTC pulling the ship through a rapid evasion pattern faster than any human pilot could — faster than a Xeelee, Pirius thought. But the starbreakers tracked after him.
Cabel growled, “I think I’m going to lose my breakfast.”
Pirius shouted, “But it’s working. Bilson! Keep tracking — it’s your job to guide Blue in.”
“Understood, Pilot.”
“Coming up on that netting,” Pirius Blue reported. “Wow — I don’t think I believed it — a contiguous structure light-minutes across! The Xeelee have been busy… Red, I’m in flak again.”
Pirius, following his evasive course, had drifted too far from his temporal twin. No time to get back under sublight.
He punched his controls. The ship jumped, a big FTL jump of a light-second or so. He heard the blister hull creak, and his displays lit up with red flags; you weren’t supposed to make such jumps in spacetime this turbulent. But it had worked, and he had lodged himself just in front of Pirius Blue.
And once again the flak beams were focused on him. He laughed out loud. “Bring it on!”
Bilson said, “I lost the lock.”
“Then get it back,” Pirius shouted. “Come on, navigator, we’re almost there.”
“I have it. I have it!” A starbreaker speared out from the greenship’s weapons pod, and hit a stretch of netting some distance before the two fleeing ships.