“It will annoy the Halgarths, they’re the only Intersolar Dynasty who have any real involvement with Far Away. But if you assure me it’s necessary, then of course I’ll use what influence we have. Right now Doi is indebted to my family, she should be eager to grant us something like this.”
“Thank you.”
TWENTY
After departing Anshun, the Conway and her sister scoutships, the StAsaph and the Langharne, took a mere seventy-two days to reach Dyson Alpha. Commander Wilson Kime was thankful for the shortened flight time. For all her speed, the Conway was barely half the size of the Second Chance, with a corresponding shortage of crew facilities. The most obvious change was the lack of a life-support wheel. The new scoutship marque had a crew of twenty-five, whose quarters were integrated with the main fuselage. Although the Conway ’s superstructure was still a basic cylinder, blunt at both ends, she was a lot more streamlined than her pioneering predecessor, measuring a good two hundred fifty meters in length, and eighty in diameter. The reduction in both length and volume was mainly due to reducing the plasma rockets to three, along with all the associated cryogenic tankage. Also, given the mission profile, there was no requirement for the auxiliary craft, their hangars, and their support systems.
Kime had known CST was designing second-generation starships before the Second Chance departed, but even he’d been surprised by the seven-month assembly time. More impressive was the way they’d stuck to the completion deadline with all the chaos of facilities and personnel being transferred to the High Angel. He’d still not got over his anger at that particular act of stupidity. After three and a half centuries he’d assumed government had by now learned how to keep bureaucratic interference to a minimum on big projects. Of course he knew it was all down to horse trading between the Grand Families and the Intersolar Dynasties—after all, he’d taken part in enough sessions and deals himself—but surely the executive knew it had to protect a project as important as this one from petty maneuverings and pork barrel politics? Apparently not.
It didn’t help his temper when he found out the scale of the alliance Nigel Sheldon had formed with the Farndale board, with himself as the figurehead of cooperation. So after being perfectly outmaneuvered by committee and bumped upstairs to Commander of the new Starflight Agency, there was nothing left for him except bitching to Oscar and Anna about losing crucial people at critical times because they were needed to establish a duplicate facility at High Angel. His own involvement with the new shipyards was limited to a few administrative visits and one formal reception with the redoubtable Chairwoman Gall. They’d never liked each other. The reception hadn’t changed that.
As before, he’d devoted his time and talent to pushing the construction of the scoutships. The development of High Angel and running the Starflight Agency could wait until his return. Unlike the Commonwealth executive he realized their absolute priority was to find out what was happening at Dyson Alpha since the barrier went down. At least his new, prestigious position meant he could give himself command of the scoutship reconnaissance mission.
So now he was enduring the physical and unfortunately biological discomforts of prolonged freefall once again. The scaling down of crew quarters had included the loss of the more luxurious fittings they’d enjoyed on the first flight. Conway’s compartments were a cluster of connected spheres wrapped around the fuselage axis, behind the sensor bay and above the power deck. Each sphere had padded walls and all the internal equipment had soft rounded plastic edges, alleviating the worst impact bruises. But just like his time back on Ulysses he spent hours a day on various pieces of ingenious gym equipment to prevent his heart and muscles from atrophying. Once a week he visited the doctor for his organ functions to be monitored, resulting in an assortment of biochemicals being administered to counter their decay. Then there were the meal times when he had to force himself to consume the designated mass of food when he wasn’t remotely hungry; and all day long his e-butler reminded him to sip his water bottle to counter the dehydration that his body could no longer feel. To cap it all, and the undisputed chief of everyone’s bitch list, were the visits to the disposal utility chamber. It wasn’t just politics that hadn’t made much progress over three hundred fifty years. Taking a dump in space still involved a disturbing arrangement of straps and suction pumps. At least having a pee was relatively straightforward—that’s if you were a man. The women on board had all undergone a little cellular reprofiling procedure to make suction tube use more convenient and less prone to slippage. It was a supreme test of character to ignore that during sex.
Half a light-year out from Dyson Alpha the Conway came to a halt, though she remained inside the wormhole. The StAsaph and the Langharne moved up beside her. CST had solved the communications problem for ships in hyperdrive by using modulated pulses of the hysradar function. Given the difficulty involved in producing a hyspulse within the wormhole generator, the process was still somewhat crude. It certainly wasn’t a directional signal; they were broadcasting to anyone in range, and it couldn’t carry anything like the amount of datatraffic a microwave beam could. But voice traffic was relatively easy to achieve.
Wilson drifted into the bridge compartment and secured himself in one of the acceleration couches. On either side of the couch, screens and hologram portals unfolded from their pedestals. He studied the displays and asked Anna to sweep around with the hysradar. “Keep it to a quarter light-year radius,” he told her.
“Aye, sir,” she replied from her own couch. She was serving as his executive officer for the flight, and was very conscious of everyone knowing about their relationship. It made her a stickler for protocol and efficiency, constantly proving to the crew she’d won the position on merit alone. More than one had privately asked Wilson if he could make her ease off the tight-arse routine. From that point of view, he was rather looking forward to the flight ending himself. Freefall really wasn’t everything the spaceflight romantics claimed. More than one of his bruises had been obtained inside their cabin.
The hysradar scan showed they were surrounded by clear space; there was no trace of anything under acceleration. His e-butler opened a channel to the other two scoutships, encrypting the transmission.
“Oscar, what have you got?” he asked.
“Nothing in sight,” the captain of the StAsaph replied. “I guess they’ve stopped sending ships away from their own star. At least in this direction.”
“Looks that way. Antonia, have you got anything?”
“Not a damn thing,” Antonia Clark said from the bridge of the Langharne. “It’s clean out here.”
“All right, we’ll proceed as agreed. Antonia, tag along with us until we’re ten AUs from the old barrier location. Stay in hyperspace and gather as much information as you can. Any hostile activity directed at us or you, and you are to get straight back to the Commonwealth.”
“Understood.” During the mission planning sessions back on Anshun she had spent days arguing that her scoutship should be the one accompanying the Conway, but there was no trace of resentment in her voice now.
“Tu Lee, take us in,” Wilson ordered. “Anna, sensors on passive mode, please.”
“Already switched over, sir.”
Wilson tried not to roll his eyes.
The scoutships closed on Dyson Alpha. Their mission profile was simple enough; Conway and StAsaph were to enter the inner system, scanning for any sign of wormhole activity. If they found one, they were to approach the source, drop out of hyperspace, and attempt to open communications. If there was no sign of the Dyson aliens experimenting with wormholes, they would fly to Alpha Major and try an open communications there.
They were still a quarter of a light-year out from the star when Anna said, “We’re registering quantum fluctuations consistent with wormhole activity.”