THADDEUS
Ask forgiveness, Hancock. This is your last chance to save your immortal soul.
JACK You crazy son of a bitch.
THADDEUS
Then I ask pardon in your name. The Lord forgive you.
(Secure in the knowledge he has won, Thaddeus releases the pressure on Hancock's windpipe, and clutches his crucifix. The water is now cutting off Ann's screams. Jack sees his chance, and seizes the crucifix, ripping it free. He jams it into Thaddeus' groin, and the giant folds up in agony. He seizes Jack and both fall into the pit. We hear a long scream, and then we see a hand rise over the edge of the shaft. Jack climbs painfully out, unbars the door, and casts the bar aside. Theme swells as water pours out of the chamber, and he moves quickly to rescue Ann. He turns off the water, cuts her bonds, and lifts her, choking and gasping, into his arms.)
ANN
Jack, thank God you got here. He said he killed you.
JACK I think he missed. You okay?
ANN
Sure. Dragged up a few flights of stairs. Punched out a bit. Half drowned. Otherwise, I'm fine.
JACK Good. Because the evening's young.
"How long?" Carson watched the mist drift past. He pushed back in his chair, trying to look calm, dispassionate, but he was excited. Damned near ecstatic.
All gauges on the jump-status indicator had gone to a bright amber. "Coming up on three minutes." Hutch began to divert power to the fusion plant. "The jump should be smooth. But buckle down anyhow."
Systems lamps went green. The power levels of the Hazeltines were beginning to rise. Real-space mass was showing zero.
Maggie, closeted with George and Janet in the passengers' cabin, said, "Please, God, let them be here."
Red lamp. Unsecured hatch in one of the rear storage areas. Hutch opened it, closed it again. The light went green.
Janet said, "This is going to be a terrible disappointment if Beta Pac is a radio star, and the analysts were wrong. They've been wrong before."
"Two minutes," said Hutch. The comments around her receded to background noise. Only George's voice got through. But no one really had anything new to say. They were talking to create a web of security, impose a sense of familiarity on a condition they'd experienced before but which was nevertheless potentially quite different.
They floated forward.
"One minute."
Lights dimmed.
The real-space navigational systems, which had been in a power-saving mode, activated. The fusion plant went to ready status. External sensors came on line. Shields powered up.
Someone wished her luck.
Navigation came to life.
And, with scarcely a bump, they slid out into the dark. Stars flowered in the deeps, and she felt a brief flash of vertigo, not unusual during transition. They sailed beneath an open sky.
"I'm always glad to be out of there," said Carson, releasing his restraints.
"Maybe not," said Hutch. She jabbed a finger at the main navigation screen. An enormous black disk lay dead ahead. "Everybody stay belted in, please."
Fusion was about to ignite. She stopped it.
"What's wrong?" Maggie hadn't missed the strain in Hutch's voice.
Hutch gave them the image. "Talk later. I'm going to throw on the brakes."
"What is it?" George asked.
"Not sure." She went to full mag. It looked like a world. "That can't be right. Mass detectors show zero." She reset, but nothing changed. "Don't know what it is. Hold on."
Carson stared out the forward screen. "Son of a bitch—"
"Braking," said Hutch softly, "now." She engaged the retros, didn't ease into them as she normally would, but hit them hard.
"It's just an area with no stars," said Janet. "Like the Void. Maybe it is the Void."
"If it is, it's in the wrong place."
The thing ahead reflected no light.
"Hutch?" Maggie's voice had risen a notch. "Are we going into that thing?"
"It's getting bigger," said George.
"It can't really be there." Hutch's fingers moved across keys. "Self test okay."
"It's not a sphere," said Carson. His beefy features had hardened, and the eager-to-please archeologist had been replaced by the old colonel. Military bearing front and center. In an odd way, it was reassuring.
"What else could it be?"
Carson was squinting at the images. "It looks like a football" he said.
Worried sounds were coming out of the passenger cabin.
"Hang on," said Hutch. "We're going sharp to port." She punched in a new set of values, maybe more thrust than they could stand, and hit the button. Again, they were thrown against the webbing.
A haze had risen before her eyes, and it was hard to talk against the push of the thrusters. "Collision," she said. "Imminent." The words hung in the frantic air.
Carson took time to breathe, steady his voice. "How long?"
Hutch felt cold and empty. "Seven minutes. And change."
The object filled the sky. To their eternal credit, the three in the cabin kept their heads, and did not distract her. She even heard them trying to laugh about their situation. She opened a channel. "You can see what's happening," she said, speaking as though she were describing an interesting view. "We have a problem."
"How serious?" asked Janet. "Is it as bad as it looks?"
Hutch hesitated. "Yes," she said. "I think so."
She eased off on the thrusters, and killed the course change. "What are you doing?" asked Carson.
They were in free fall again. "No point torturing everybody."
"What do you mean?" said Maggie. "We aren't going to give up, are we? Just like that?"
Hutch didn't respond. Didn't know how to.
"How about jumping back?" George suggested.
"Can't."
"Try it."
"There's no point."
"Try it. What's to lose?"
The black football was growing. Carson said, "Not good." In the passenger cabin, someone laughed. Janet.
"I'll try to reinsert when we get closer," Hutch said. "Give the engines a chance to breathe. But don't expect anything."
Maggie whimpered.
Carson, strain finally locking his voice somewhat, asked, "How fast will we be going when we hit?"
Hutch was tempted to dodge the question. Throw back some facile response like fast enough. But they deserved better. "Almost fifty thousand."
What was the damned thing? She decided they weren't quite dead-on after all. They would hit a glancing shot. Not that it mattered.
"Goddammit, Hutch," said George, "we ought to be able to do something."
"Tell me what." Hutch had become deadly calm.
No way out. The object was vast and dark and overwhelming. An impossible thing, a disk without light, a world without rock.
"No moons," said Carson.
"What?"
"It has no moons."
"Hardly seems to matter," someone said; Hutch wasn't sure who.
Four minutes.
A terrible silence took the ship as her passengers settled into their own thoughts. Janet looked subdued and frightened, but managed a resigned smile; Maggie, tougher than Hutch would have expected, caught her looking, wiped her eyes and nodded, seeming to say, not your fault. George's glance turned inward and Hutch was glad she hadn't waited. And Carson: he wore the expression of someone who had absorbed a prank, and was taking it all quite philosophically. "Bad luck," he told her. And, after a long pause: "It happens."
"Did we get a message off?" Janet asked.
"Working on it."
"How big is it?" asked Maggie. "This thing?"
Hutch checked her board. "Forty-three hundred kilometers across. Half again as wide as the Moon."
It crowded out the stars.
Hutch saw a blip on her status board. "It's putting out a signal," she said.