David Drake: When the Tide Rises

Daniel grinned ruefully. She'd forgotten to say, "Out," but communications protocol had never been her strength. "Thank you, Signals," he said. "Break. Ship, prepare to extract from the Matrix in thirty, that is three-oh, seconds frommark."

He pressed the virtual Execute button with three fingers together. The charge on the starship's hull began to shift; Daniel's skin quivered in sympathy. The hairs on the back of both his forearms stood up, then flattened again. For a moment he felt a rushing sound.

Practical interstellar travel was possible because of varying physical constants among the bubble universes within the overarching Matrix of the cosmos. By slipping from the sidereal universe to others with different realities of space and time, a ship could adjust its position so that when it extracted again from the Matrix it was tens of thousands of light-years from the place where it entered.

The process had costs. Insertion and extraction strained a ship's fabric and often strained the minds of those aboard. Other universes weren't meant for man or even for life. All spacers had stories of things they'd seen or felt during a transit. Many scientists dismissed the stories, but not the ones who'd themselves spent time in the Matrix.

There were costs to everything, however. Most spacers had chosen this life, though that didn't mean they preferred service on an RCN warship to the higher wages and reduced danger of a merchant vessel. Even those who'd been pressed, however, would grant there'd be no safety for the merchant fleet unless the RCN was there to protect it.

As for Daniel Oliver Leary-he'd joined the RCN in a fury, to spite his father. But regardless of the reason for what he'd done, it was the best decision he'd ever made in his life.

ThePrincess Cecile extracted from the Matrix. Nothing actually moved, but objects looked sharper and more textured. When a ship left sidereal space, Danielfelt that it became a manifold of possibilities which didn't register perfectly as they overlay one another.

His console brightened into a chart of the four light-hours volume surrounding the corvette. Carets indicated the sun Jewel and its inner planets including Diamondia.

The console bleeped softly. A legend in green light announced Message Sent.

"Daniel," said Adele. She was using a two-way link and apparently not in her own mind discussing RCN business, so she ignored formality. "The message will take sixty-two minutes to reach Diamondia; their response will take at least as long to reach us. May I go out on the hull?"

"Ah…," said Daniel. "Why yes, of course, if you want to. Ah, would you like a companion?"

He couldn't go out himself at the moment, but perhaps Vesey? Adele wouldn'tcertainly drift off if she went out without a keeper, but there was a bloody good chance of that happening. What in heaven was she thinking of?

"I'll take an escort, yes," she said. In a slightly different timbre-she'd switched to the command channel common to all officers-she continued, "Mister Cory, I'd appreciate it if you'd suit up and accompany me onto the hull. Ah, out."

Cory started at his console and turned with a startled expression. He looked first at Adele, then met Daniel's eyes.

Daniel nodded minusculy. "Mister Cory," he said, "you're at the signal officer's disposal until I tell you otherwise. Six out."

Adele and the midshipman stepped to the rotunda outside the bridge hatch to don suits before exiting through the airlock onto the dorsal hull. Daniel rotated his console toward the bow so that his face wouldn't be visible; he knew that a variety of emotions were playing across it.

The only reason for anybody but a rigger or an astrogator to go onto the hull was to discuss something in a privacy that the strait hull of a corvette didn't permit. What does Adele have to discuss with Cory?

RCN midshipmen were expected to scramble up and down the antennas and to traverse the yards with the same swift certainty as enlisted riggers. Because they were young enough to think about adventure instead of danger, they generally took to the business.

Cory certainly had. He was quickly into his hard suit, then helped Adele don her much lighter, simpler airsuit. Daniel and Woetjans had once pieced together a hard suit which fitted Adele as well as could be done. They'd thought that the rigid panels and reinforced joints would be safer for her than the flimsier suits which hull-side crewmen wore when they had to go out in vacuum.

It hadn't worked. Adele had bruised and scraped herself on the inside of the suit, and its stiffness made her even more awkward than she usually was. Because it was probably more dangerous and certainly less comfortable than an airsuit, she'd refused to wear it again. She wasn't afraid to die, but she found nothing romantic in aches and pains.

Cory locked down her faceplate, then placed a hand on her shoulder to guide her into the airlock. While hydraulic rams drew the hatch closed, he clipped a safety line to the staple on her chest stiffener; the other end was already attached to his equipment belt.

It embarrassed Adele to be treated like a child, particularly by Cory who wasn't notably competent by RCN standards. On the other hand, shewas as helpless as a child; Cory was certainly more competent than she.

The pumps in the floor whirred, voiding the lock. The light flattened with the reduced number of air molecules to scatter it. In an emergency the outer hatch could be opened as soon as the inner hatch locked shut, but air was at a premium on a spaceship. The crew could always electrolyze reaction mass to free oxygen, but nitrogen migrated through the hull itself and was much harder to replace.

The telltale on the outer hatch went green. Cory looked at Adele, waiting for direction. She gave a curt nod; they could talk here in the lock, but there was enough traffic to and from the hull that they'd be in the way.

The hatch cycled open with a spill of tiny crystals frozen from remaining wisps of air; starlight caught them as they danced away. Adele led onto the outer hull, shuffling her magnetized boots in a fashion that marked her instantly as a landsman. Well, better that than to drift into vacuum and have Cory tug her back like a puppy on a leash.

Once they were out of the way, there was no need to go far. The dorsal antenna nearest the bow was only a few steps-well, shuffles-away. Adele set her back to it and waited while Cory transferred her safety line to the turnbuckle of a shroud.

The scene was of no particular interest to her. Stars were bright points on a background that was a negation of existence rather than a color. Adele wondered whether Jewel was visible from this angle-a light hour shrank a normal sized star into the galactic background-but then regretted the question. She'd reflexively reached for her data unit-which of course was unavailable beneath the airsuit.

Adele smiled ruefully. She suddenly felt completely alone, cut off from the information that was her life… but she was on the hull by her own choice.

Cory leaned his helmet into contact with hers. "Mistress?" he said. "You wanted something?"

"Yes, Midshipman," Adele said, looking out toward stars glinting like the points of colored needles. "Why did you sell imagery from thePrincess Cecile 's files to the producer ofThe Conquest of Dunbar's World? A Master Evrian Stanlas, though you may have worked through intermediaries."

Cory jerked upright, snatching his helmet away from hers. He wasn't deliberately breaking contact; he was simply stiffening in shock.

While a vessel was in the Matrix, the electrical potential of its sails controlled its course. The balances were so precise that any extraneous charge, no matter how minute, would throw the vessel unpredictably into the void.