Jack McDevitt - Coming Home

We were just finishing when Operations called. “Chase,” they said, “the Casavant ’s ready. It’ll be at Dock Six.”

Fifteen minutes later, we boarded the yacht and sat down on the bridge. I ran the systems check while the luggage arrived. We took it back to our cabins, returned to the bridge, and got ready to leave. As best I can recall, we were trying to divert a general sense of unease by talking about guys when the radio blinked on. “ Casavant ,” said a female voice, “you’re cleared to go.”

“Acknowledge, Ops. On our way.” I switched over to the AI. “Richard, release the magnetics and take us out.” On the far side, the doors were opening. “So what’s the plan, Shara?”

“They’ve put the original drive unit back into the Grainger . That makes it vulnerable to the warp. Nick and JoAnn left early because they didn’t want to emerge from hyperspace anywhere near the affected area. So it took them almost three days to get to their destination. Which is the same place we were last time. When we get close to our target, which is eight million kilometers downrange, they’ll submerge. The drive should react exactly as the Capella ’s did. It’ll get them tangled. If that happens, they’ll get pushed forward like the Carver . Except a lot farther. JoAnn has it worked out so they’ll come back in about seventeen hours, in an area where we’ll be waiting.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear it’ll only be a few hours and not five and a half years.” That was supposed to be a joke.

Shara didn’t react. “When they come out of it, they’ll contact us, and we’ll join them. JoAnn says she’ll be able to get some readings on how the drive gets affected, which should help. She expects that after they come out that first time, it will take about five hours before they get pulled under again. When that happens, she’ll put the drive into acceleration. She thinks they can run the ship out of the warp. There won’t be much time to do it because she says it has to happen during the first minute or two of the process.”

“What happens then?”

“If it’s successful, they’ll come out of it immediately. They’ll surface again, and it will be over.” Her lips formed the words I hope .

I didn’t like going anywhere near warps. Most, if not all, interstellars are now equipped with drive units that theoretically don’t line up with the damaged area and consequently prevent you from getting dragged under. We’ve only lost one vehicle in the last three years, and that didn’t seem to be connected with the issue. But I’m never going to believe we’re entirely safe around those things.

We rolled out under the light of the Moon, adjusted course, and accelerated. After about a half hour, Richard announced we were ready to make our jump.

“Do it,” I said. The lights dimmed, and we passed into transdimensional space.

We’d been back on the surface less than an hour when the AI announced that he had located the Grainger . “Range is eight million kilometers.”

I looked at the navigation display. But it was too far to get a picture.

Richard again: “Incoming transmission.”

It was Nick: “Hello, Casavant . Good to see you guys.”

“Hi, Nick,” I said. “How’s it going?”

There was a delay of about a minute before his response got back to us. “Chase, is that you?”

“Sure. Who else did you expect?”

I covered the mike. “Shara,” I said, “does John know Nick’s doing this?”

“Yes. And he’s not happy. Nick said his brother threatened to cancel the attempt.”

JoAnn’s voice came in: “Right now,” she said, “we’re adrift. We’re on the bridge, which is probably bigger than the entire ship you guys are riding in.”

Shara leaned over the mike. “Everything okay, JoAnn?”

“So far. Of course, we haven’t really done anything yet.”

“Okay. If there’s any problem, we can pick you up.”

“Negative. We’ll see you downstream. There’s a slight adjustment in the area where we should come back out. Nick has forwarded it to you.”

Richard indicated we had it, and I acknowledged.

“We’re accelerating now,” said JoAnn. “We’ll make our jump in about thirty-five minutes. Nick says we’ll arrive tomorrow at approximately 1100 hours.” The current time was 1813. Seventeen hours would pass before they’d show up although for them it would be only about thirty minutes. “It’s spooky,” I said.

Shara passed my comment on to JoAnn. She laughed. “Tell Chase that what’s spooky is walking around in this giant ship and finding absolutely nobody.”

Eventually, Nick got back on the circuit and told us they were about to make their jump. “See you in a half hour.” He flashed a wide grin.

I brought up a picture of the Grainger . It could have been the Capella . The colors were different, silver rather than light blue. But those were only details. The external design of the two ships was identical.

“Everything is in order,” said Richard. “If all goes according to the plan, we will arrive in the target area approximately one hour before they do.”

We spent the evening watching comedies. Neither of us felt much like sleeping, but we would need to be awake in the morning. Nobody wanted to be alone either so we both slept in the passenger cabin. I spent much of the night staring at the overhead. Then, in the morning, we were up early. Richard would have awakened us had anything happened, but I couldn’t resist asking him anyway. “No, Chase,” he said. “There’s been no activity.”

We had breakfast and went up onto the bridge, where we sat trying to think up things to talk about other than how unnerving the situation was. With two hours remaining, Richard posted a countdown on the auxiliary display. “Does anybody really understand time/space structure?” I asked.

Shara laughed. “Anybody who says he does is deranged. The math works, Chase, and that’s all we have. Maybe all that matters.” We watched the stars. We’d long since gone to cruise mode, so there was no sense of movement. The Casavant could have been frozen in place.

Shara took to walking around the ship. I tried reading. Couldn’t do fiction. Not under those circumstances. I did a search for Apollo artifacts. Alex, guessing I’d do that, had loaded several books on the subject into the library, but they were all highly speculative. One argued that Dmitri Zorbas had sold them to his father-in-law, another that Zorbas had tried to transport them east, but they’d been taken from him as they passed through Chicago, a large and lawless city at the time. Even more so, apparently, than other big cities.

The arrival time came and went. Shara was back in her seat by then, staring at the clock on the display. “Don’t worry, Chase,” she said, “they’ll be okay. There’s a fair amount of give-and-take in the estimate.” She was obviously scared out of her wits.

But at 11:22, Richard’s voice broke through the silence: “They’re here.”

“Hello, Chase.” It was Nick. “What time is it?”

“You’re twenty minutes late, Nick.”

“It’s JoAnn’s fault.”

“Everything okay?”

“We’re fine.”

JoAnn got on: “Shara, Chase, everything looks okay. We’ll be with you for about five hours, then the process will start again. We’ll go under, but we should be able to shut it down. If it works as I expect, as I hope, we’ll be back in linear space within a few minutes. Your time, that is. If that happens, we should be able to go home and have a parade. And then see if we can convince everybody that we can rescue the Capella . You’re here in case it doesn’t work. If that happens, you’ll have to wait another—what?—seventeen hours so you take us off.”