“Chase,” said Belle. “It’s rotating. Looks like a three-sixty.” I could see it on-screen.
I watched it turn until its exhaust tubes were pointed in our direction. Then the engines fired.
“Braking,” Belle said.
“The thing’s not as dumb as I’d hoped.”
“What do you mean, Chase?”
“It’s recognized the danger. So it’s slowing down.”
There was no place to hide.
Belle’s status lamps flickered. “What do you wish to do, Chase?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“At current rate of deceleration, it will be moving at twenty kilometers per hour when it arrives.”
“Give me the new ETA, Belle.”
“Ten minutes, forty-four seconds if current conditions hold.”
Well, at least we’d picked up some time. I fired the attitude thrusters and rotated the Belle-Marie. The tracker showed up in the viewport. Dead ahead. I pointed us at it, warned Alex we were moving out, and fired the main engines. We began to accelerate.
He wiped the back of his hand against his mouth. But he kept his peace.
I went to max sustainable thrust. We were both driven deep into our seats as the Seeker dropped behind.
“It has increased power to engines,” said Belle.
“It’s gone to full braking,” I told Alex. “It figures we’re trying to get past it. It’s trying to slow down enough so it can react.
“If we maintain present rate of acceleration,” Belle said, “it will be moving at one point one kilometers per second when we reach it.”
“I’ve a question,” said Alex.
“Go.”
“You’re going to turn at the last minute, right? Slip by it on one side or the other?”
“Yes.”
“What happens if that thing turns the same way you do?”
“Odds are against. But that’s the easy part. Alex, if it gets behind us, on our tail, it will make getting clear of it very difficult. I don’t know that we can outrun it.”
“Okay.”
“So we have to take it out before it climbs up our rear end. I need you to do something.”
“Name it.”
“I’m going to shut down the engines in a moment. When I do, pick out one of the cases and load it with the heaviest artifacts we have.”
“Okay.”
It wasn’t visible yet through the viewport. But the picture on the monitor was getting bigger.
“Belle,” I said, “take the helm until I come back.”
“I have it, Chase.”
I released my harness and collected a tether and a pressure suit, which I took back to the common room, where Alex was shoving artifacts into a box.
“Here,” I said, “I’ll take over. You put this on.”
“Why?” he asked, puzzled. “Am I going outside?”
“Talk later,” I said. I finished packing the case and secured it. Alex got into the suit, and I shortened the tether, cut it back to about a meter and a half, and connected it to his belt.
“Six minutes,” said Belle.
“Okay,” I told her. “Kill the gravity.”
She shut it down and I picked up the case. “Let’s go.”
I opened the airlock and he went inside. I passed the case to him.
“What do you want me to do with this?”
“We’re going to use it to save our necks.”
I closed the hatch, went back to my seat, and buckled in. There was a glow up ahead.
“That’s it,” said Belle. “Engines are still firing.”
“Okay.”
“Five minutes.”
“Alex, can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear.”
“Start depressurization.”
“I already have.”
“Good. Use the tether to secure yourself to one of the handgrips. We don’t want you going out the door.”
“Hang on a second.”
I watched the glow getting brighter. “Come on, Alex.”
“How’s this thing work?”
“It’s just a clip.”
“I think it’s defective.”
“Just knot it if you have to.”
“Four minutes.”
“Okay, I got it.”
“Give it a good yank. Make sure it’s secure.”
“It’s fine.”
My instincts were all telling me to hit the brakes. “All right. Air pressure will be zero in another minute.”
“Okay.”
“When it is, when the green light on the outer hatch comes on, open it.”
“All right. I know you’re not about to tell me we’re going to hit it with the artifacts.”
“How do you like breathing?”
“It’s still on collision course, Chase,” said Belle.
“Didn’t we have something else we could have thrown at it?”
“We could probably have used a sink if we’d had more time.”
“Two minutes.”
“Belle, power to the main engines. Let’s be ready to move out.”
“Pressure’s zero,” said Alex.
“It is still on collision course,” said Belle.
“One minute, twenty, Alex.” The tracker was still braking.
“Opening the outer hatch.”
The airlock was on the port side. “When you push the case out, try to be gentle. Don’t shove it.”
“Okay.”
“We want it, as much as possible, to continue ahead on our present vector.”
“Okay.”
“Just lay it out there. Let me know when it’s done.”
“All right.”
“Ready?”
“Yes.”
“Do it.”
I heard him grumble. Then: “Okay. It’s gone.”
“Very good. Don’t try to close the hatch. Just hang on. Turn in ten seconds.”
“Okay.”
“Nine, eight…”
The one serious risk was the one Alex had alluded to, that the tracker might guess what I was doing, or possibly even react quickly enough to change its course. But I doubted that was possible. More likely was that I’d cut it too close and would slam into the damned thing on my own.
“Four, three…”
Its engines were still firing, still trying to decelerate.
“… Two…”
I fired the port-side thrusters, turning hard to starboard. The tracker’s starboard thrusters fired as it tried to match the move, but it was too late. We soared past, and the case of artifacts caught it right on the nose at a combined velocity close to two thousand kilometers per hour.
The sky lit up behind us. Alex complained that he couldn’t believe he’d actually done that. Had to have been a better way. Now that there was time to think about it, I realized we might have filled the container with water. But I let it go.
We did a series of long- and short-range sweeps to assure ourselves nothing else was coming our way.
NINETEEN
Orbits, vectors, and intersections. When you understand them rightly, all becomes clear.
- Korim Maas,
In the Lab, 1411 The next order of business was to clean the lenses. It was delicate work and I left it to Alex, who’s the expert. When he was satisfied he’d done the best he could, we showed them to Belle. “What do you think?” he asked her.
We watched lights playing through them. She commented that, considering their age, they were almost in decent condition.
“Can you reproduce the images?” asked Alex.
“I think so. Put one into the reader and let’s see what we have.”
We retreated to the common room, and I loaded the first lens.
“That’s good,” said Belle. Lights dimmed. We were looking at a field under a starlit sky. Dark trees crowded in on our left. In the foreground, two people stood by a gate in a wooden fence. A little girl, and a woman who seemed to be her mother. Beyond the gate were a lawn, a tree with a swing, and a house. Beyond the house lay a river.
Everything was somewhat blurred. “Hang on,” said Belle. “I see the problem.” The picture cleared, and the VR effect took hold. We were standing in the field. On the far side of the river, in the darkness, a ring of light glittered.
“A city, I think,” said Alex. “Where are we, Belle? Can you tell? Is it Earth?”
“I don’t know. It could be anywhere.”
The child was about nine. She wore a blue jumpsuit and a matching bow in her long auburn hair. She was looking directly at us, smiling, waving her hand. The mother’s eyes were also fixed on us. She was dressed in khakis, her head canted, smiling selfconsciously, patiently waiting for the picture-taking session to end.
I could feel rain coming. And the wind whispering in the trees. A yellow glow in a cloud-filled sky suggested the presence of a moon. The girl wanted to run toward us, to embrace us, but I suspected she’d been instructed to pose, and so she did.