He climbed out of his uniform, showered, and slipped into bed. But the lights had just died when Eve's voice filtered through the room. "Captain, we have a problem."
He sat up. "What's wrong, Eve?"
"The lander is preparing to launch."
"Stop it." He threw the sheet aside, put his feet on the deck, and waited for her response.
"I can't. I'm locked out."
He called for lights and threw on a robe. "Go to the red circuit," he told her. "Shut it down. Shut everything down in the launch bay if you have to."
He was out the door, headed for the lower deck.
"Negative," she said. "Lander is sealing."
She put a visual on a wallscreen. He watched the vehicle rotate, saw the bay doors open. "Who's doing it?" he demanded.
I can't tell if there is a deliberate agency at work. There seems to be a partial breakdown in Delta comm." In Eve's ability to communicate with the various automated systems.
He watched the lights in the launch bay brighten and dim, as they routinely did at the start of an operation, and then the lander floated out into the gray mist.
Penkavic now made the history books. In the only known instance in which a commercial starship attempted to maneuver in hyperspace, he banked to port, tried to calculate the location of the lander, and made an effort at intercept.
He had to work manually because Eve's condition had not stabilized. Jack Castor, his copilot, was already on duty.
He put Castor on the sensors despite his protests that they would not work.
They tried them anyhow. Short-range, long-range, pinpoint, and shotgun. It didn't matter; all returns were negative. There seemed to be nothing out there but empty space. Optical visibility was limited to a couple of hundred meters, and attempts to activate the lander AI failed.
No one knew how to pinpoint a position in transdimensional space. Because the only other physical object in the field was the lander, and they did not know where it was, the notion of position became meaningless.
Eve came back up. "The disturbance seems to have abated," she said.
"Can you tell where the problem originated?" Castor asked.
Not that the answer mattered. Penkavic knew who had arranged it.
"Lambda."
The backup mission control.
Helm was dressed and waiting for him.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" demanded Penkavic.
"I'm aware," he said. His eyes were hooded. He seemed unusually pensive. "I know exactly what I've done."
"You've condemned those people. We were the only way they had of getting clear."
"Eliot." He nodded, agreeing with the accusation. "I wish there had been another way. But the Quraqua operation can't afford a nine-day delay. Some of the material we have on board is time-sensitive. Extremely so. As are two critical operations that depend on our making a prompt delivery. The company would have been hit very hard. Very hard. It would have cost millions, at the very least. God knows how many ongoing efforts would have to be restarted. If we had gone off to the rescue, nobody at Corporate would have thanked us, believe me."
"I don't really care-"
"I do, Eliot. And so would you, if you knew the people involved, how hard they've worked to turn Quraqua into a second Earth. What the stakes are. These idiots got themselves into their situation, and they're just going to have to get themselves out." He seemed to be studying the chessboard. Penkavic noticed the position had not changed. "God help me, I wish it could have been otherwise."
Penkavic stared at him.
"You'd have done the same thing," Helm persisted, "if you'd had my responsibilities. Known what I know."
"I don't think so," said Penkavic.
"Eliot." The kindly uncle showed up again. "Your investigation
will uncover a defective switch in the central system and a cross-connected R-box in Lambda. You'll want to find both promptly and replace them so that the problem with the AI does not recur. Unfortunately, the launch was triggered when a signal intended to shut down the mess for the night was misrouted through the bad switch to the launch system. Because the R-box activated almost simultaneously, Eve was effectively locked off for several minutes and was unable to stop the sequence. An unfortunate accident. One in a million. But quite comprehensible. Responsibility will be laid on the AIs that run the inspection programs back at the Wheel, or possibly on design glitches. In any case, no one here need be blamed."
For a long time, neither man spoke.
"Unless you insist."
Penkavic sat down and tried to resist his inclination to look the other way.
"You have a choice to make now," Helm continued. "You can accuse me, and log what you know. Or you can forget this conversation ever happened, and the incident will remain what it presently is, a piece of bad luck. I'd remind you there's always a price to be paid for progress. And that there's nothing to be gained by sending anyone to a hanging." His fingers touched the crown of the black queen. He lifted her, moved her diagonally across the board, and settled her behind a protecting knight. "I'm in your hands, Eliot."
"Incoming traffic, Marcel"
"On-screen, Bill."
"You're not going to like it," the AI added.
TO: NCA WENDY JAY
FROM: NCK ATHENA BOARDMAN
SUBJECT: LANDER DIFFICULTIES
MARCEL: REGRET TO REPORT THAT SYSTEMS BREAKDOWN RESULTED IN UNCONTROLLED LAUNCH OF LANDER DURING HYPERFLIGHT. ALL ATTEMPTS AT RECOVERY FAILED. NO CHOICE BUT CONTINUE TO QURAQUA. REGRET UNABLE ASSIST YOU. ELIOT.
Marcel was reading the message a second or third time when Beekman broke in: "How the hell do you accidentally launch a lander?"
"I don't know." A chill was expanding at the pit of Marcel's stomach.
"And they don't have a spare?"
"No."
He could hear Beekman's slight wheeze. "There must be somebody else."
"There isn't. We checked." The room had gone quiet.
"So what do we do now?"
Marcel couldn't see there was anything they could do.
"I don't think we should try it," said Kellie. "What if you get inside the damned thing and it decides to go the rest of the way into the chasm?"
They were looking down on the Star lander. It was wedged sideways, starboard side up. The hull was gouged, and the cabin roof was hammered in. One wing was bent, one of the jets looked misaligned. And both landing treads had been, broken off.
Hutch thought the descent looked more,dangerous than it was. Her link tingled, and Marcel's voice whispered her name. "I'm here," she said. "How're we doing?"
"Not so well, I'm afraid."
She read it in his voice, knew what he would say before it went any farther. "What happened?"
"Boardman. They accidentally launched the lander in hyper-flight."
"They lost it."
"Yes."
Hutch saw the others watching her. "How the hell could that happen?"
"Don't know."
"What is it?" asked Kellie.
They all looked scared. Even MacAllister. She switched the conversation onto the allcom. "Nobody else in the area?"
"No. Nobody."
"What about the Patrol?"
"Not even remotely close."
"No private vessels? A corporate yacht, maybe?"
"No, Hutch. Nothing with a lander." She listened to him breathing. "I'm sorry."
"What happened?" asked Nightingale. -
"We haven't given up," Marcel said.
"I don't suppose that means you've thought of something else."
"Not yet."
"What happened?" Nightingale demanded, louder this time. The question hung there.
"What now?"
Hutch wasn't sure who'd spoken. They stood on the brink of the chasm, staring down, while the implications settled around their shoulders.
MacAllister looked into the sky, as if to locate Wendy. "Captain Clairveau. Are you listening?"
A brief delay. Then: "I'm here, Mr. MacAllister."