Rob Chilson - Refuge

Derec shook his head somberly. “It calls for precision tools and a fairly lengthy research effort. First, just to determine what broadcasts the Keys spray their static on.”

“Ship static wavelengths, perhaps?”

“Perhaps…Likely, in fact.” Hyperwave static was a fact of life, one the usual hyperwave link was designed to ignore. “But when did you even hear of a hyperlink designed to pick up static?”

Ariel smiled faintly, shook her head.

A week out from Earth, they started calculating the Jump to Kappa Whale.

“It hasn’t been too long,” said Ariel. “Wolruf’s food will hold out, of course, and so will their energy. The micropile is good for years yet. They’ve a sufficient supply of fuel to do what little maneuvering they may require. They could Jump out of Kappa Whale and back to avoid pursuit, if they have to.”

“So they should still be there. Where would they go, without us, if they acquired star charts?”

Ariel couldn’t guess.

Charts were one of the first things he and Ariel had checked for when they had entered the ship. There was a complete set, and if there hadn’t been, they could have requested a copy from Control. One would have been beamed to them immediately, without a question.

“It’s easier to calculate a single Jump for Kappa Whale,” he said. “But it definitely isn’t safer.”

Ariel calculated three Jumps, and Derec almost agreed. “The trouble is, Kappa Whale is nearly behind us. Your first Jump turns us in hyper, which is possible, but it’s a strain on the engines. I suggest we Jump to Procyon, which is near enough to our line of flight, and do a partial orbit about it, burning to bring us out on direct line for the first of your Jumps.”

She bit her lip and said, “I’m sorry. I know I’m too reckless. I think it’s because I had a sheltered childhood. I never got hurt much when I was a kid.”

Derec grinned. “I have to admit that in my few short months of life I’ve acquired a healthy respect for the laws of chance.”

Their first approximations done, all that remained was to put final figures into the computer and let it solve the equations of the Jump. They needed to know their correct speed and direction with some accuracy, so they would know what to expect when they landed in Procyon’s arms.

Ariel bent to the instruments while Derec fumble-fingeredly tried to set up the computer for their first Jump.

After a long time, he said, “ Ariel, can you handle this? I can’t seem to concentrate, and my fingers are made of rubber.”

She looked at him in concern. “I was afraid you were going off into a fever again.” Twice before on the trip he had had feverish episodes, as the chemfets altered their growth, in turn altering the environment around them: him.

Derec tried to fight off fear. He had no idea yet of the ultimate purpose of the chemfets, and had not been able to “talk” to them. Worse, he had no idea if he was contagious. After that one hug, they had avoided so much as touching each other, for fear that Ariel, too, would be infected with them.

They could well kill him-and might not care if they did.

“Very well,” Ariel said, her voice trembling a little. “Why don’t you take some febrifuge and stretch out? Maybe a nap will bring you out of it.”

It sounded good to him. The febrifuge had helped break the last fever, they thought. He was swallowing the thick liquid carefully, because of free-fall and a slightly swollen throat, when Ariel cried out.

“Yes?” he said, catching his breath and relieved that he had not choked.

“There’s a spaceship closing on us.”

Pursuit from Earth! he thought.

The Star Seeker didn’t have very good detection apparatus, mostly meteor detection. It was this that had flashed an alarm. Meteors, however, do not move very fast. This object was flashing toward them. The detector gave two readings, and Derec finally-through the throb in his head -concluded that their assailant had come up behind a more slowly moving rock.

“We should be able to get some kind of picture,” said Ariel.

“It’s still too far off, I think, for a visual image,” Derec said. He blinked his eyes to bring his vision back to a single focus. “I wish we had neutrino detectors.”

All nuclear power plants gave off neutrinos, and nobody bothers to shield them off. A neutrino reading would give them an estimate of power generating capacity, and thus of ship size. Of course, a battleship and a medium freighter would have similar-sized power plants, but some information would be better than none.

“Heat?”

“It isn’t burning at the moment,” she told him, consulting the bolometer. “It must have spotted us days ago and burned to intercept.”

“Go ahead and enter our Jump in the computer,” he said. It was all he could think of, and it wasn’t much. “How long will that take?”

“Too long,” she said gloomily. “You are right, though. It’s the best bet, especially if that’s an Earth Patrol ship. Derec, it might follow.”

He opened his mouth to say that it didn’t matter, then closed it. “Frost!”

They intended to maneuver at Procyon-they might be in the system a week, during which the bigger ship could hunt them down. Nor would there be any hope of help there.

He grasped at a straw. “Bigger ships need more fuel. If he can’t match our maneuvers-”

“And you call me reckless. Let’s not bet on it, okay?”

“Frost.”

The other pilot wasn’t maneuvering: he was swooping in to intercept their course from behind and to one side. He’d cross their course at a very sharp angle, pull ahead, and brake down, to let them drift into his arms. He was moving quite rapidly relative to them, far faster than the rock he was coming up behind, and would have to burn soon or swoop helplessly by them.

Their options were limited: they could fire their rockets to speed up, they could roll the ship and burn to slow down, or they could Jump. It would take time to set up the computer for that; Jumping blind might not mean certain death, it might merely mean being permanently lost in the vastness of the galaxy -or the galaxies! In hyper, all parts of the normal universe were equidistant.

Or they could roll the ship ninety degrees and turn aside.

Ariel didn’t consider it, and Derec didn’t even think of it. They had spent twenty percent of their fuel to acquire their current velocity. They would retain it no matter how much they pushed “sideways” on their course. It would therefore take another twenty percent of their fuel to turn the ship aside at an angle of a mere forty-five degrees-a negligible turn.

“Call for help?” Ariel asked dubiously.

“He’ll be on us in twenty minutes or less,” said Derec glumly. No help could possibly reach them. “Unless he burns toward us. “

“Unlikely.”

“True.” His head wasn’t working right. The rapidly closing ship wouldn’t want more velocity toward them; it would have to brake down enough as it was, when it passed.

“I think we can assume that no Earth Patrol will fire on us without sufficient reason,” Ariel said. “So I propose that we talk to them as politely as possible, but maintain course and speed. We can burn if necessary, but-”

“You think it’s Earth Patrol?” Derec said, then nodded. “A Spacer wouldn’t shoot, either-”

“A Spacer would be calling us. Face it. Whoever this is, it’s an enemy,” Ariel said.

“We should have a good idea of our course and speed relative to Sol before he reaches near point,” Derec said, nodding in agreement. “We can Jump any time after that now that you have the prob input.”

The enemy spaceship wasn’t going to ram, of course; its point of nearest approach was its “near point” with their course, but the two ships would be farther apart-it would then be ahead of them.