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sensitivity-
Her sensitivity.
Slowly, I withdrew the hand that had been reaching for the intercom. Through
design or accident, Orlandis had continued to spend a fair amount of time with
her even after he'd gotten his confirmation of the Angelwing disaster. I
didn't know how Alana was starting to view him, but even if she were merely
being friendly as part of a crewer's normal duty toward the passengers I still
couldn't risk it. What learning the truth would do to her...
"All right, damn it," I snarled abruptly at the ceiling. "I'll figure it all
out by myself."
And for starters, I'd figure out what exactly-exactly-had happened to the
Angelwing. Because if she'd been fitted with a doomsday Autotorque like the
one in our hold, it was clear the thing had failed in its task. Only the
captain in Alana's cascade pattern had died, which meant the Angelwing hadn't
disintegrated. So... why?
The timer had malfunctioned. If the generator had been fried too soon or too
late, the ship could have possibly stopped rotating in time. Which would have
left it disabled near one end or the other of its real-space translation.
But why then would the captain have died?
The overload device in toto had failed. Not enough power to ruin the generator
at all, though possibly enough to change the lattice voltage balance and
consequently foul that particular maneuver. Again, though, the captain should
have come out of it alive.
I thought about everything Alana had told me about Lenn Grandy. From the old
school, she'd described him, uncomfortable with wizard gadgets like the
Autotorque. Could he have positioned himself close enough to the device during
the maneuver to have somehow taken a lethal shock from it while he slept?
Or could he even have been awake?
Awake.
It was as if someone had suddenly turned on the air-conditioning to my
overheated brain. Of course-Grandy had elected to remain awake during the
maneuver, trading the pain of cascade point depression for the assurance his
Autotorque was indeed performing properly. It was something I could easily
visualize Alana doing in that position, especially with her captain's gold
barely out of its box.
So I now had a key piece to what had at least partially thwarted Orlandis's
sabotage... a piece that
Orlandis very possibly did not have.
Did that really help me? At the moment I couldn't think how, but it was a good
feeling regardless to be a step ahead of Orlandis in at least one aspect of
this mess. Whatever theoretical knowledge he had about
the Colloton Drive and cascade points, he had no first-hand experience with
them. If there was any further information about the Angelwing's fate to be
squeezed out of Alana's cascade pattern, I had a better shot of getting it
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than he did.
Useful information from cascade images. With all the other thoughts crowding
my mind these days I
hadn't really paid much attention to the shock wave this was going to send
through the academic brain trusts. The idea that the cascade images were
imaginary or purely psychological was going to die on its feet, and all of us
who'd always known better could finally thumb our collective lip at them. And
yet, the sheer scope of it was staggering. I'd heard once that collapsing
stars sent out adjusting ripples into the general gravitational field; what we
had here was the same sort of effect, but on an apparently instantaneous time
scale. Even granted the obvious limitations of what sort of information could
be conveyed, someone somewhere would find a way to take advantage of it.
Assuming we stayed alive to report it.
Gritting my teeth, I brought my mind back to the immediate problem at hand. So
Lenn Grandy had been awake during the fatal cascade maneuver; had figured out
what had happened and interrupted proceedings in time to save his ship.
Possibly by unintentionally replacing the Autotorque's missing voltage surge
drain, drawing enough of the extra current through his own body to slow the
Colloton generator destruction those extra few critical seconds. In which
case... the Angelwing could be literally anywhere along a line nine point two
light-years long.
Hell in a bubble-pack.
No wonder Orlandis had been so phlegmatic about the idea of sending a rescue
mission out after the
Angelwing. Even if the searchers thought to look in the space that would
normally have been bypassed, their chances of finding anything there would be
virtually non-existent. Even a single light-year-hell, a single
light-month-was just too much territory to cover, Colloton Drive or no.
Somehow, we had to narrow that range down to something manageable.
And all we had to do that with were Alana's cascade images.
Or... perhaps Alana herself.
I thought about it for several minutes, and the longer I looked at the idea
the nuttier it sounded. Aside from the fact that its chances of proving
anything were slimmer than my credit rating, it might very well drive a wedge
between Alana and me, might finally precipitate her departure from the Dancer.
I didn't want that. I'd grown accustomed to having someone with Alana's
competence beside me in all the big and little emergencies that are part of a
tramp starmer's life. To lose both her presence and her friendship-and I'd
lose both if I lost either. Were the lives of a bunch of rich strangers I'd
never met worth the risk?
They would be worth it to Alana. That much I knew for sure... and I was
willing to defer to her better judgment on such matters.
Rolling onto my side, I poked at the intercom. It took a few seconds, but
eventually Pascal woke up and answered. "Yes?" he said, yawning audibly.
"I need you to work up a special program for the astrogate," I told him. "One
that'll show our position as what it would be if we were on our way to Earth."
"What do you mean, 'if?" he asked. "I thought we were headed for Earth."
"We're going to Baroja," I said. "The passengers weren't-aren't-supposed to
know, and to make sure not even a hint leaks out I don't want the other
crewers to know, either."
"Not even Alana?"
"Especially not her. That's who the trick astrogate's for."
There was a long pause, and I could just about hear his wheels spinning as he
tried to come up with a theory to explain this one. Well, he could just stew;
I wasn't in much of an explaining mood. "I'll do the calculations for the next
maneuver," I continued, "but since she'll be the one actually doing the point
she'll undoubtedly want to double-check the numbers. I want the computer
gimicked so that hers come out identical to mine, even though her input will
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be different. Can you do that?"
"Uh... yessir, I guess so. Uh..."
"You'll get a full explanation after it's all over," I sighed. "For now, just
do it. And do not let anyone know. Anyone. Clear?"
He cleared his throat. "Yes, Captain."
"All right. Your next shift's early enough to start, I guess, so go ahead back
to bed. Sorry I woke you."
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