Jack McDevitt - Coming Home

“Let’s hope that won’t be necessary.”

They were farther out than we’d anticipated. We’d just arrived within visual range when JoAnn got on the circuit. “Best you not come any closer, Chase. If things go wrong, there’s a chance you’d get dragged down with us.”

I pulled onto a parallel course, about ten kilometers off their port side. The ship was gigantic . “We’ll be okay,” I said. “When it starts, how quick is the process? Do you have enough time to manage the controls?”

“When the cycle begins, we get tremors throughout the ship. We should have about a thirty-second window to make this work.”

“Okay. Let us know if we can do anything.”

“Of course.”

She handed it over to Nick. “She’s right,” he said. “You really feel alone in this thing.”

“Well, when we get back to Skydeck, I suggest we do a party.”

“I’m in favor of that, Chase.” He paused. “Something else.”

“Okay.”

“When we get home, I’d love to take you to dinner. Maybe Cranston’s.”

Cranston’s was one of those restaurants where they didn’t put the price of the food on the menu. It wasn’t supposed to matter to the clientele. “I’d enjoy that,” I said.

“Beautiful. I’ll look forward to it.”

“Me, too.” Nick, I decided, was my kind of guy. Along with Khaled. Life was good. But we needed to stay on topic. “Did it really take you only a half hour to get here?”

“It was about thirty-four minutes. We were talking to you guys, then the ship shook a couple of times. But whatever it had been went away, and everything quieted down. A half hour later, here we are.”

“Incredible.”

“Yeah, it is. It’ll be even more so if next time you can stop it dead in its tracks.” He had turned and was obviously talking to JoAnn. “By the way, when it starts again, I’ll have to sign off in a hurry. We don’t get much time to react.”

“Maybe we should get off the circuit altogether, Nick. So you can concentrate on what you’re doing.”

“Your call, Chase. But it’s not likely to happen for a few hours yet. By the way, I don’t know whether you’re aware, but everything we do over here with the drive unit is being forwarded to you. Just in case there’s a problem.”

“That sounds a bit scary.”

“It’s just a precaution. JoAnn wants to make sure nothing gets lost.”

A transmission came in from John Kraus. “JoAnn,” it said, “good luck. Keep us informed.”

Nick responded a minute or two later: “JoAnn’s doing math right now, John. But we’re fine. Waiting for the warp to kick in. We’re still four hours away.”

Richard set another countdown going to mark the time since Grainger had arrived in the target area. If everything went according to plan, it would reappear shortly after being taken down, we’d get JoAnn and Nick off and return to Skydeck. Then we’d sit it out for a few days. If the Grainger remained stable, we’d go back and retrieve it. Eventually, it would be returned to Orion which, Shara told me, was already complaining that its customers wouldn’t want to travel on it after this.

As the countdown proceeded, we simply sat on the bridge, exchanging encouragement and assurances with JoAnn and Nick and with each other.

The long silences made everyone uncomfortable, on both ships, but every topic other than the one that hung over our heads seemed trivial. Nick and JoAnn, at different times, both said how they wished it was over. That they wanted it done with.

So did I. I resisted making any more suggestions that they should clear out of the Grainger while there was still time. That we could swing in close, and I could take the lander over and get them off. Of course, I knew the answer I’d receive, how they had a lander on board if they needed one. I thought about approaching the subject sideways by inquiring whether their lander would be safe, or whether it would also be caught when the warp activated. But that, too, had an obvious answer.

I looked over at Shara. “Do they really have to stay on board during all this?”

“Yes,” she said. “JoAnn has a Keppinger detector with her and—”

“What’s a Keppinger detector?”

“It reacts to conditions in the warp. It gives her the information she needs to make the adjustments to the drive unit.”

“Couldn’t they just install the thing and let the AI take care of it?”

“There’s more to it than that, Chase. JoAnn needs to make judgments about the readings.”

“Great.”

JoAnn and Shara were talking quantum theory or something when the conversation suddenly went quiet.

“What’s wrong?” Shara asked.

“It’s starting. Gotta go.”

The Grainger floated serenely among the stars. Nothing seemed to have changed. I could hear Shara breathing beside me, staring out through the wraparound. “Even if it works,” she said, speaking neither to me nor the microphone, “I’m not sure I’d trust it.”

“I can understand why,” I said.

“We’ll need more than a single trial to convince anyone. To convince me , for that matter. But let’s get past this first and see what we have.”

A faint glow appeared along the Grainger hull. And brightened. We could see what appeared to be stars inside the ship. It was becoming transparent. Then the light faded. And, finally, there was only the field of stars.

Theory indicated that if everything went as expected, they would return within minutes. Or maybe seconds. We held our breath.

Richard started another countdown on the auxiliary screen. “Shut it off,” I said.

“I’m sorry, Chase. I was only trying to help.”

“Just leave it alone.”

Shara was holding tight on to the arms of her chair. I sat there looking out at the night, watching for the silhouette of the giant ship to reappear. Please, God. “We should do this more often,” said Shara.

“You want some coffee?”

“No. Not at the moment.”

We sat, listening to each other breathe. We didn’t really know if, when the ship reappeared, we’d be close enough to see it. The vehicles that got tangled in the warp tended to maintain a direct course, so we could assume it would come back along that same vector. But it was possible that it would be several million kilometers away. Which meant that the news might come by radio.

“Chase.” Richard’s voice. “I am scanning for it. Nothing so far.”

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

“Do you wish to receive periodic reports, Chase?”

“No,” I said. “Just let me know if you see something.”

I moved farther to port as a safety precaution, but otherwise maintained the same course and speed. I know this makes no sense, but my natural tendency was to assume the Grainger would show up in the same position relative to us that it had held when it went under. But the minutes dragged on, and no lights appeared.

I began to notice that the sounds in the Casavant were a bit different from what they were in the Belle-Marie . The engines had a different tone, somehow more masculine, more inclined to growl. I heard more beeps and boops from the electronics than I was accustomed to. And the ventilators put out a louder hum.