“Counseling. And, where necessary, a way to return.”
“How did you manage that?”
“We knew some people wouldn’t be able to adjust. We also had a couple of crew members to take care of. Who were to go home. They weren’t all members of the community, you know.”
“I assumed-”
“You assumed wrong.” The voice was angry now. “No. Abe was one of us. But that’s because of his girlfriend. It wasn’t a matter of principle with him. Two of the engineers were not staying. One on each ship. And Taja wasn’t.”
“The captain of the Seeker.”
“Yes.”
“So how were they going to get home?”
“The Boykins was going to pick them up.”
“The Boykins.”
“Yes. They were to be taken back, as well as anyone else who wanted to return.”
“So someone else did know where Margolia was?”
“Of course. The pilot’s name was Yurawicz. Marco Yurawicz.”
“Did he actually make the flight? Did anyone go back? Other than the crew members?”
“He made three flights. He returned almost four hundred people who’d changed their minds.”
“Four hundred?”
“Actually a bit more than that. We knew it would happen. We just didn’t know how many. We didn’t advertise our intention to provide an opportunity to return because we knew a lot of people would apply simply to see whether they’d like the experience.
Give us a trial run. We wanted committed people only. But we knew we had to make provision.”
“Wasn’t that too many people to expect to keep a secret?”
“They were like me, Alex. They had no idea where Margolia was. And I don’t think anybody in the government cared where it was.”
“And the crew members never told anybody?”
“As far as I know. That was the deal. They were well paid, and they were obviously as good as their word.”
“What about Taja?”
“She never did return to Earth. Must have liked the new world. Probably found someone and settled down.”
We went back next day for a final visit.
We broke into the captain’s cabin, as well as those set aside for her executive officer and the other three crew members. The cabins were well preserved. Desks and chairs, at least the ones still secured to the deck, were reasonably intact. They’d had their own washrooms. I couldn’t resist punching the pad over the shower, but of course there was no water. Outside, in the passageway, the bulkheads were stained where water lines had burst.
We found a few pictures on the bulkheads. In the compartment we guessed to be Taja’s, there was one of a man, an adolescent girl, an older woman, and a child about five. In the adjoining cabin, we saw a picture of two attractive young women.
Embossed on plastic. There were others. Family members, presumably. Kids. Even a dog. I’d brought a plastic sack in case we found anything else of interest. But Alex suggested we leave the pictures for Windy’s people. “Show up with those,” he said, “and we’ll be accused of crimes against humanity.”
The rooms had storage cabinets. We cut into a couple and found clothes. Work uniforms, for the most part. They were in poor condition. It was a pity because they carried the Seeker shoulder patch.
We also made a major discovery in the captain’s cabin. Lying in a corner of a cabinet that was otherwise empty, we came across a small black case that might once have been leather. Inside, we found a plastic packet containing twelve lenses. I showed them to Alex.
They were stuck to the interior of the case, so we couldn’t remove them. But the leather was open on both sides and, after we’d wiped them, we could see through the lenses. Alex examined them in the lamplight. Then he invited me to have a look.
Each of the lenses carried an image. But I couldn’t make out what they were.
“Any ideas?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“You know what I think?” He took the case back and aimed his wrist lamp at it.
Played it through the lenses. Blurry images appeared on the opposite bulkhead. He moved the makeshift projector forward and back. The pictures shifted but did not clear. “Holograms,” he said.
I nodded. “Could be. We can have Belle figure it out.”
He slipped the case into a cargo pocket. “Damn, I wish people would keep better records. It would have been nice if one of them had left us some handwritten comments about what was going on.” He made an irritated noise. “Can you imagine what something like that would be worth?”
Yeah. These people never think about the future.
“We have company,” said Belle.
We hurried out to the bridge, but we couldn’t see anything.
“It appears to be a VTL.”
“What’s a VTL?” asked Alex.
“In the unofficial parlance,” I said, “it’s called a tracker. It’s fully automated. They’re usually used as probes.”
“Would it have been left by somebody?”
“Left or delivered.”
“Chase, I’m trying to ask whether it was capable of making the flight out here on its own.”
“Could it have followed us through a jump? No. No such technology exists. The experts say it can’t be done.”
“Then either someone else happened to find this place, or-”
“-Someone knows about the Seeker. Belle, what’s it doing?”
“Approaching.”
“ETA?”
“About eleven minutes. Coming at high velocity, by the way. It appears to be on a collision course.”
We looked at one another and I remembered the park-building nanos. “Belle, start the engines. Alex, we have to assume it’s hostile. We better get back to the ship before it gets here.”
He didn’t need convincing. We moved quickly off the bridge and down through a half dozen passageways toward the airlock. While we scrambled as best we could through zero gravity, Belle gave me the bad news. “It’s hooked us.”
“What’s she talking about?” asked Alex.
“It has a rider beam. It just latches on, and wherever we go, it will go. It gets a free ride and it can close on us at its leisure.”
“We’ll have to jump clear.”
“Given eight hours, we could do that.”
We charged out through the airlock and onto the hull.
“It’s probably a bomb,” he said.
“Maybe. But no need. All it would have to do is give us a good bump, and it’ll be lights out.” We made the jump over to the Belle-Marie.
“ETA just over eight minutes,” said Belle.
“Let’s see what we have,” I told her, scrambling onto the bridge and looking down.
The intruder was on the monitor. It was a small package, not much more than a set of linear engines and a drive unit with a few black boxes up front. But big enough to put us out of action.
“How fast is it coming?”
“Eighteen hundred kilometers per hour.”
“Yeah.” It was approaching the Seeker from directly forward.
“Chase,” said Alex, “can’t we use the HCS on it?”
The Hazard Control System was a particle-beam unit designed to take out rocks or ice that posed a danger. “No,” I said. “There’s a safety feature to prevent its firing on ships and equipment.”
“Can’t you override that?”
“If we had some time.”
“Then what do we do? You said we can’t outrun it.”
“Watch and learn, boss. Watch and learn.” I took my seat, engaged the harness, and signaled for Alex to do the same. “Belle,” I said, “release the controls to me.”
Status lamps changed color. “Done, Chase.”
I moved the Belle-Marie forward, along the Seeker ’s hull, in the direction of the approaching tracker.
“Range two hundred ten klicks,” said Belle.
A scarlet sunburst was emblazoned on the Seeker ’s prow. I took station on a line between the intruder and the sunburst. “These things are designed to chase asteroids,”
I said. “And comets. Space junk. They aren’t made to contend with something that can move independently.”
“So we’re going to-?”
“-Sit here and wait for it. When it rolls in, we’ll step aside and it’ll plow into the Seeker.”
“Isn’t there a better way?”
“Be satisfied there is a way.”
He looked out at the ship. “I hate to do any more damage.” His face grew hard. “If I get hold of Bolton-”
“You think that’s who it is?”
“Who else?”
“I guess. If he can get us out of the way, he could claim the Seeker and everything else for himself.”