"We can't. We can't make gestures, Boz. Can't. I don't know what Koch has in mind up there or down here, but we can't cripple our own side by making independent moves. We have to protect our people and we have to be ready to lift on the instant the orders come. We're the other star-capable ship and we've no right to gamble with it.”
"We've no right not to.”
"I can't listen to you.”
"Won't." Boaz turned aside, drew a long breath, glanced back again. "And what answer does Koch have for us?”
Luiz drew the cassette from his pocket, stared at it as at something poisonous. "I'll lay bets what answer he has; that those overflights aren't ours.”
"Play it," Boaz said. She closed the door. "Let's both hear it.”
He looked doubtful, frowning, but after a moment walked around her desk to push it into the player.
Gibberish filled die screens, codes, authorizations, Saber's emblem. Boaz came and sat on the edge of the desk near Luiz, arms folded, heart beating hard with tension.
". . . request Xen staff cooperation with military mission," the tape meandered to its point, "in on-site recon if this should prove necessary. Your base is base for this operation; request your staff conduct advance briefings prior to start of mission. Mission head is Lt. Comdr. James R. Galey. All decisions mission Code Dante to be made by Comdr. Galey, including final selection among Flower staff volunteers for mission slot. Suggest staff member D. Tenzio. Your full cooperation in this matter urgently pleaded. Mission is recon only, stress, recon only, effort to comprehend nature of civilization and establish character of city installations. Failure of Flower cooperation will jeopardize search for alternative solutions.”
She flung herself off the desk edge and started for the door.
"Boz," Luiz called after her.
She stopped. The tape had run out
"Boz," Luiz said, his wrinkles drawn into lines of anguish. "You're fifty-two years old. There's no way you could keep up with those young men.”
She looked down at herself, at a plump body that resisted diets, that ached with bad arches and wheezed when she had to carry equipment in standard gee. She had not been good to herself in her life; too much of sitting at desks, too much of reading, too much of postponing.
And the sum of her life rested in the freckled hands of a whipcord young soldier with no sense what he was about.
"I'm going," she said. "Emil, I'm going to talk to young Mr. Galey and he's going to listen.”
"Jeopardize the operation for your personal satisfaction.”
She turned a furious look on him, took a breath and drew herself up to her small height. "I'm going to give them the best they can get, Emil, that's what; because I know more than Damon Tenzio or Sim Averson or any three of the assistants put together. Say otherwise.”
He did not Perhaps, she thought halfway down the corridor at as fast a pace as she could manage
She glanced back, half-expecting to see him in the doorway. He was. He nodded to her slowly too old himself, she realized; he knew her mind, knew to the bottom of his heart. He would be down the hall ahead of her if he could.
She nodded, a tautness in her throat, turned and went hunting Galey.
Harris kicked in the engines, took a cursory glance at the instruments, his mind wandering to Saber, to a hot cup of coffee; and to the next day off-duty, which was the reward of a down-world flight. Last of all he cast a glance to his right, at the little man who fussed nervously with the restraints.
"They're all right," Harris said. Groundling, this Dr. Averson, a dedicated groundling. He decided, humanely, to make the lift as gentle as possible; the man had some years on him. Averson blinked round-eyed at him, the sweat already broken out on his brow. Harris diverted his attention again to the instruments, advised Flower bridge of his status, began slow lift.
The shuttle responded with a leisurely solidity. He watched the altimeter, leveled gradually at 6,000 m and banked to come about for their run.
"We're turning," Averson said; and when he gave no answer; "We're turning." Averson raised his voice well over the noise of the engines. "We never turned. What's the matter?”
"We're coming about, sir," Harris said, adjusted the plug in his left ear to be sure he could hear warnings over Averson's clamor. He set the scan to audio alarm, wide-range. "Shuttles handle different than Flower. We're just heading where we should be.”
They came to course. The desert slipped under them by slow degrees, with the indigo to pink shadings of the sky above and the bronze to red tones of the desert, the great chasm which might once have been a sea passed the area of the recent storm and across the chasm. Scan clicked away the whole route, the instruments moduled into cargo. They crossed no cities this way and made no provocations. It was a tame run, toward a gentle parting with Kutath's pull. He relaxed finally as Averson settled down; the man took enough interest to lean toward the port and look down, though with a visible flinching.
Quiet. Sand and sky and quiet. Harris let go a breath, settled for the long run out.
Suddenly a tone went off in his ear and he flicked a glance at the screen, his heart slamming in panic. He accelerated on the instant and their relation to the blips altered in a series of pulses as Averson howled outrage.
He angled for evasion and the howl became a choked gasp.
"Something's on our tail," he said. "Check your belts." The latter was something to take Averson's mind off their situation. He was calculating, glancing from screen to instruments. Two blips, coming up at his underbelly.
He veered again. The blips were in position to fire on the rise, could; might; he felt it in his gut He increased the climb rate and the ship's boards flashed distress at him.
For the first time the bogies separated, shifting position and altitude. His heart went into his throat and he flipped the cover off the armscomp, ready. "Hang on," he yelled at Averson, and punched com, breaking his ordered silence. "Any human ship, NAS-6; we've got a sighting.”
He banked violently and dropped; and Averson's scream echoed in his ear. The bogey whipped by and a screen flared; they had been fired on. He completed his roll and nosed up again as rapidly as the ship could bear.
"Get us help!" Averson cried.
"Isn't any." He punched com again, hoping for someone to relay to Saber. "Got two bogeys here. Does anybody read?”
The pulse in his ear increased, nearing. He whipped off at an angle that wrung a shriek from Averson, climbing for very life, trying at the same time to get an image on his screen. The sky turned pink and indigo, the pulses died, went offscreen. In a little more the indigo deepened and they were still accelerating, running for what speed and altitude they could attain; the sound of the engines changed as systems began to convert.
Averson was sick. Harris reached over and ripped a bag out of storage and gave it to him. For some little time there was the quiet sound of retching, which did no kindness to his own stomach.
"Water in the bottle there," Harris said. And fervently; "Don't spill anything. We're going null before long." He devoted his attention the while to the vacant scan, to making sure all the recorders were in order. He heard Averson scrabbling about after the water, the spasm seeming to have passed. His own stomach kept heaving in sympathy. "Disposal to your right.”
Dayside was under them, and Saber was over the horizon. The instruments had nothing, not a flicker. Harris calculated. Somewhere on this side of the world lay regul Shirug, beyond their scan; and somewhere downworld were cities with weapons which could strike at craft in orbit, if they once obtained a fix on so small a vessel as themselves.
Or if they had it already.
Averson snatched at another bag, dry-heaved for a time. They were in a queasy wallowing at the moment. Harris gave them visual stability with the world, wiped at the sweat that coursed his face, trying to reckon where Shirug might be. He had a dread of her coming up in forward scan, and die bogeys coming up under him again.
"Going to go back on course," he said to no one in particular. "At least that way downworld isn't so likely to have a shot at us.”
Averson said nothing. Harris reoriented and Kutath's angry surface swung under their forward scan.
There was no reaction anywhere. A slow tremor came into Harris's muscles, a knee that wanted to jerk against his will. He reckoned that somewhere over the horizon Saber would grow concerned when they failed schedule, that somewhere near them Santiago must be on the prowl over dayside, regul-watching.
Then a tone sounded in his ear and a blip appeared on the edge of the screen, on and off. He kept his eye on it, his pulse pounding so that it almost obscured his audio. He did not tell Averson. It was of no use yet. He considered another dive into atmosphere. Maybe, he thought, that was what he was being encouraged to do. There had been two of them.
The sweat ran, the single blip grew no closer, and he wiped at his lip and tried to reckon his chances of being allowed to go his way. He could find himself up against some outrunner for Shirug, against which he was a gnat-sized irritant.
"How much longer?" Averson asked him.
"Don't know, sir. Just stay quiet Got a problem here to recalculate.”
There was no way it avoided having him in scan, traveling so neatly at the edge of his own.
Suddenly it disappeared out of range.
That gave him no feeling of safety. It was back there; there could be any number back there.
The ruddy surface of the world slipped under their bow and whitened to polar frost. Ahead was the terminator.
Be there, he entreated. Saber, Saber, for the love of God, be there.
Averson fumbled after something in his pocket, a bottle of pills. He shook one out and put it into his mouth. He was looking gray.
"Things are going all right," Harris lied. "Relax, sir.”
"We're alive," Averson muttered.
"Yes, sir, we are.”
And a blip appeared at three o'clock of the scope, coming up fast. The pulse erupted in his ear, faster and faster, deepening as the instruments gauged size; it was big.
A screen flared, a computer flashing demands to his comp. Hasty pulses flurried across, coded; he punched in, braced for recognition or for fire.