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Timothy Zahn - Warhorse another lurch twisted the lander around, throwing
Ferrol s head to face the side viewport and the dim red star visible there.
He was still facing that direction when the star vanished.
Chapter 16
Quentin subsided, and the maneuvering jets cut off, and for a long minute the
lander was silent. A hundred curses chased each other through Ferrol s mind,
none of them strong enough to adequately cover the impossibility that had just
happened. Ahead, the edge of a brilliant blue-white star blazed painfully at
them around Quentin s bulk; slowly, Ferrol turned from it to focus on
Kennedy s profile.
Perhaps sensing his movement, she turned to face him, and for a moment they
just gazed at each other in silence. Apparently, a small section of Ferrol s
mind decided, Kennedy s repertoire of curses didn t cover this situation,
either.
Well, he said to her at last, shall we see what we ve got here?
She took a deep breath. Right. Okay. Slowly, as if still half paralyzed by
the shock of it, her fingers began to move across her keys. Ferrol watched
them a moment, then turned around.
The two Tampies were sitting quietly, the helmet on Sso-ngü s head showing all
green. Between them, Demothi had the expression over his filter mask of a
small child who has insisted on carrying the family heirloom crystal and then
dropped it.
We ll dispense with any spilled-milk recriminations for now, Ferrol said,
fighting to keep his voice calm and controlled. Wwis-khaa, I want to know how
Quentin managed that Jump.
I do not know
Yes, you do, Ferrol cut him off harshly. You know, or at least have a good
idea.
What is it, that space horse calves can
Jump at birth, but just can t see well enough to lock onto a target star?
Wwis-khaa tilted his head. It is possible.
But it is only a thought, Sso-ngü cautioned. The Tamplissta do not know for
certain.
I ll settle for good half-assed theories at this point, Ferrol countered.
So. How well could Quentin see? Wwis-khaa?
The Tampy hesitated. I do not believe he could see very well, he said at
last, mouthing the speculation with obvious reluctance.
Ferrol carefully unclenched his teeth. Look, he said, fighting hard against
a sudden urge to wrap his fingers around someone s neck. I understand how you
hate to repeat anything you don t personally know to be a fact. But try and
get it through your heads that we are lost;
and the only way we re going to find our way back is if we have some answers.
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Timothy Zahn - Warhorse
Silence. Demothi, keep working on them, Ferrol growled, the rage turning
into disgust. Do something useful for a change. Turning away, he focused on
Kennedy. Got anything yet?
Not really. Her voice, he noted with relief, was back to its usual iron
control.
The computer s still checking the brightest stars, but I doubt the nav
program s complete enough to have any real chance of locating us. If this was
the
Amity
I
could get it for you in three minutes; as it is, all I can say is that we re
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in a system with a B4 star, we re more than eight hundred light-years from
where we started, and we re almost certainly still in the Milky Way.
Eight hundred light years. Ferrol shivered. Okay, he said. So. Assume
you re
Captain Roman, and you come back to find us gone. What do you do?
Kennedy pursed her lips. Well& if you re right, that it s the calf s vision
that limits its Jumping ability, then it should be pretty straightforward. All
the
Amity
has to do is pick out the brightest stars visible from the 11612 system and
start
Jumping until they find the right one.
Ferrol gritted his teeth. Straightforward enough& unless Roman decided that
this was all some elaborate scheme he, Ferrol, had cooked up with Demothi to
steal a space horse calf. If the captain thought that
, he might try some other response entirely. Such as starting his search with
the Cordonale and nearby stars&
With an effort he shook the thought from his mind. They were in enough trouble
already without going shopping for more. If that s the case, he said, I
guess our logical response is to conserve our resources and wait. Off in a
far corner of his panel, out of the way, was the red-rimmed emergency beacon
switch. Reaching over, he flipped it on. Let s just hope the captain s smart
enough to figure it out.
He is, Kennedy said.
Ferrol winced at the conviction in her voice. Roman was smart enough, all
right.
The only question was whether he was too smart to waste time with obvious red
herrings.
But there was no point in mentioning that to Kennedy. Well, he said, trying
to sound as calm as she did, as long as we re just sitting here, we might as
well get something useful done. I m going to go back and get the telescope set
up; you load the survey program into the computer and get it running. Let s
see if this system has anything worth looking at.
Roman watched the outrider recording twice, a cold knot settling all the
harder into the pit of his stomach. Gone. A space horse calf, three humans and
two
Tampies all impossibly vanished. Marlowe? he asked.
He looked up to see the other straighten from his console and shake his head.
Sorry, Captain. The image is just too distant for the computer to scrub it
any cleaner.
So there s no way you can tell me which way Quentin was pointing when they
Jumped.
He hadn t meant the words to sound like an accusation, but Marlowe winced
anyway. No, sir, he admitted. I m sorry.
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