But effort expended was the least of it. Sakalov had died. Died to no purpose whatsoever, pummeled to death by an intelligent rock.
And there was something else she could not help realizing: they were stranded here, she and Wally. NaPurHab was supposed to be a way station for them, a place to wait until the Terra Nova came and collected them. But that was not going to happen anytime soon. Not with a sky full of COREs and SCOREs making everyone’s life interesting. Maybe it would never happen.
But Dr. Sakalov. Would he still be alive, now, if she hadn’t run into Wally that morning a few days and a hundred years ago? If she and Wally had not guessed at the nature of the Charonian command center and inspired Bernhardt to send them off to take a look at it? As best she could see, the only concrete result of that guess was Sakalov’s death.
But no. At least try to listen. Ursula Gruber was on the screen, giving Eyeball an update. Gruber. Strange that the first thing Wally did upon arrival here was to phone in to her.
“Half of the SCOREs are heading through the revived Moonpoint Wormhole,” Gruber was saying. “The other half are taking up positions around the hole. They are going into a layered spherical envelopment outside the perimeter of the Moonpoint Ring.”
“And we be insideward too,” Eyeballer Maximus muttered, too low for the mikes to pick it up. “Not likeworthy.” Sianna had yet to make sense of the Purps in general, and Eyeball in particular. Eyeball was a smart, tough, clear-thinking woman. She could talk normally if she wanted to. Except, most times, she didn’t. Sianna had met her when she breezed through Sianna’s docshop room—in order to ask Wally something. Wally seemed to be fitting in awfully well around here.
“…From what we are able to tell,” Gruber was saying, “the SCOREs are directing their radar toward the hole. They appear to be watching for something coming out of the volume of space they are protecting, rather than trying to keep anything from going into it.”
“Agree there,” Eyeball said. “SCOREs notlooking at incoming cargo cans. And just had malf that told more, too. One cargo can missed NaPurHab, did a flyby instead of latching here. Flew on past, heading out of SCOREguard zone. SCOREs beat hellout uvvit. Can no more.”
Gruber image’s on the screen listened carefully, and seemed to take a bit longer to reply than could be accounted for by just the speed-of-light delay. “Ah, yes. We saw that. A cargo vehicle that missed its docking pass was destroyed by the SCOREs as it moved out of the volume of space the SCOREs are watching.”
“Just said that,” Eyeball said. “No echo need.”
“Ah, yes,” Gruber said. Sianna suppressed a small smile. No one had taken the Purps seriously for generations. Now they had no choice: the Purps were the front-line troops, as it were. Five years ago Ursula Gruber would not have deigned to speak to someone named Eyeballer Maximus Lock-On. Now she was being as polite as she could, no doubt for fear Eyeballer would cut the connection and doom the Earth, or something.
There was the ghost of a smile in Eyeball’s expression. Clearly she knew all that too, and was having a bit of fun with it. “Anyhow, can got creamed. Likewise, empty cargo cans get smashed by SCOREs. What uvvit? No noseskin of ours peeled off.”
“On the contrary,” Gruber replied. “I think there’s a lot of skin off your nose.”
“Say what?” Eyeball said.
“You’ve got your maneuvering tanks just about filled now. What are your plans?”
“Kick orbit upward a bit, get away from black hole.”
“I don’t think that would be wise,” Gruber said. “In fact I think it would be extremely dangerous.”
“How so?”
“The malfunctioning cargo craft and the jettisoned cargo cans were not destroyed when they crossed out of the spherical volume protected by the SCOREs. They were attacked at the first moment they showed any movement out from the centerpoint of that volume of space. Anything that moves outward from the center of the protected area dies.”
“No how,” Eyeball said, her disbelief plain. “We boost the orbit just a tad, stay away from SCOREs, we okay.”
“I wish you were right. Check your own data. See when the SCOREs attacked.”
Wally already had a datapack out. Sianna looked over his shoulder as he pulled up the orbital tracks and attack playbacks. “She’s right,” Wally said. Sianna took the pack from Wally and worked the data herself.
“Tricks!” Eyeball said. “Groundhog tricks to keep Purps down.”
“No,” Sianna said. “Why would they want to do that? They just jumped through hoops resupplying you. The actual impacts happen when the targets are near the periphery of the protected zone, but the SCOREs begin their attack runs the moment the targets start moving out from the center.”
Eyeball grabbed at the datapack and checked the numbers. “Damn all,” she half-whispered to herself.
“It’s no trick,” Gruber went on. “You must not raise your orbit around the black hole—at all. Any raising of your orbit, by however slight an amount, would almost certainly cause the SCOREs to respond and attack.”
“But hafta fix orbit,” Eyeball protested. “Charos destabbing us something fierce. We do a spiral-down onto black hole less we goose the orbit.”
Ursula Gruber nodded awkwardly. “Yes, yes. We know that. But there is another way.”
“What? Stabilize at current radius? Nohow. Unstab. Can’t hold here for long.”
“We know. With all the perturbations your orbit has experienced, it’s a wonder you’re still there at all.”
“Good at job,” Eyeball said, a bit aggressively. “No damn miracle needed.”
“You’ll need one soon,” Sianna said. “You can’t hold out here forever.”
“She’s right, Eyeball,” Wally said. “You’ve managed with repeated microburst corrections. You’re inducing as much instability as you’re correcting. Even without any more perturbations, tidal effects alone are going to get you into trouble.”
“Hey, boyo, don’t yap at me on tidal effects. Been fighting to keep hab out of tumble for days now.”
“And you don’t think that’s going to get worse?” Sianna asked. Eyeball turned and glared at her.
“You’re out of options,” Gruber said, her voice gentle, her words tripping over Sianna’s just a bit, thanks to the speed-of-light delay.
“Not go lower,” Eyeball said. “You’re not telling me to drop to lower orbit, are you?”
“No, not exactly, ah, Eyeball,” Gruber said. “I’m not on that habitat. I can’t tell you what chances to take. But we’ve been learning fast down here. We’ve learned the Lone World’s command set, and now we know how to send its form of commands ourselves. If we have to, if we want to, we can link direct to the Ghoul Modules and control the Moonpoint Wormhole. Open and shut it whenever we want.”
Dead silence. All three of them stared at Gruber’s image on the screen.
“Think about it,” Gruber said at last. “Talk it over. It’s a desperate, risky plan, but as best I can see, the only way out is through.”
Two hours later, not much in the room had changed, except that Gruber’s image was off the screen. Sianna was sitting in the furthest corner of the room, sitting on the floor with her arms wrapped around her knees, trying to force herself to think. Think. Being dropped down a black hole. There had to be another way. There had to be. So think, damnation. What was it?