Jack McDevitt - Coming Home

“There’s no chance of that happening, is there?”

“Actually, there would be,” said JoAnn. “We’re in unknown territory.”

“It’s unfortunate,” said Shara, “that TransWorld didn’t survive. They wouldn’t have had any choice but to cooperate.” TransWorld, which had owned the Capella , had been bankrupted by the incident, a combination of lawsuits and a general business collapse. Nobody had trusted them afterward.

Nick’s voice came over the allcomm. “Okay, ladies, we’ll be making our jump in ten minutes.”

After we got into hyperspace, Shara and JoAnn got talking physics, so I looked for my chance and went onto the bridge. Nick was reading a book and eating a muffin. “How you doing?” I said. “Mind if I join you?”

“Please do.” He picked up the box and offered it to me. “They’re good.”

I took one. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. So is your life as adventurous as it sounds?”

“I wasn’t aware it sounded adventurous. Mostly what I do is sit at a desk.”

He looked at me for a long moment. “Chase, I’m worried about her.”

“Who are we talking about?”

“JoAnn.”

“This thing’s getting to her?”

“Yes. She feels personally responsible for the lives of the people on the Capella .”

“How well do you know her, Nick?”

“We’ve been friends for a few years. We met on the Grainger , when she was one of my passengers.” He was checking his instruments. “She’s the reason I got this assignment.”

“How do you mean?”

“The SRF needed someone who was familiar with the operational side of the cruise ships. John was reluctant to ask for me. It didn’t look good, I guess. I was his brother, and there’d be some question about his objectivity. But I’d been working with JoAnn on aspects of this for three years. She put in my name, and here I am.”

“She seems fine to me, Nick. But I can understand she’d be feeling some pressure. I’m not sure I can do much to lighten the load, but—”

“I know, Chase. Just be aware.”

We surfaced on target and, within an hour, picked up an automated transmission from the Carver . Nick opened the allcomm: “It’s up and running,” he said. “Stay belted in. As soon as I can lock down its position, we’ll be turning toward it.”

It took a while, of course. When he’d gotten a second read on the transmission, he looked at me and shook his head. “We’re too far out.” Then he was talking to JoAnn again. “We’ll need about five hours to get to it.”

“That won’t work, Nick,” she said. “It will probably have moved on before we’d get there. Head for the next target area. The delta site.”

“Will do.” He looked down at the control panel and went to the AI. “Richard? How far do they expect the next appearance to be?”

“About forty thousand kilometers, Nick. If it’s on schedule, it will be there at 1400 hours.”

That gave us six hours. He went back to the allcomm: “JoAnn, Shara, we’ll be doing some maneuvering, then going through another acceleration. Once we get started, you’ll be stuck in the harness for about three-quarters of an hour.”

“Nick,” said Richard, “we have another transmission. This one is from Barkley.”

“JoAnn,” said Nick, “we’ve got Barkley.” He signaled me that he was talking about the Carver AI.

“Put him on,” said JoAnn.

Barkley had a deep bass voice: “ Casavant , everything has gone precisely according to plan. I am caught in the megatemp warp, have already been up and down twice. I am moving within the projected parameters.”

“Okay, Barkley,” said JoAnn. “We can’t get to you before you go under again, so we’ll meet you at the delta site.”

“Very good. I’ll see you then.”

“How long have you remained in linear space after coming back up?”

“Three hours, fifty-seven minutes, and fourteen seconds on the first appearance. The second one was about three minutes less.”

“Okay. How much warning have you been getting before you become aware that you’re being taken back down?”

“Less than a minute, JoAnn. About fifty-seven seconds.”

“Okay. We’ll see you shortly.”

“One more thing, JoAnn: What time is it?”

“It’s 7:57 A.M. Why?”

“It’s just after midnight here. I wanted to set the clocks to reflect reality.”

We reached the delta site in advance of the Carver and began closing toward the area where it was expected to arrive. But we were uncertain, so Nick kept a slow pace. We got out of our seats and returned to the passenger cabin, where JoAnn and Shara were talking about a rumor they’d heard that President Davis was going to apply pressure on Orion in an effort to obtain use of the Grainger .

“Let’s hope it happens,” said JoAnn. “We really need access to it to lock this thing down.” She looked up at Nick. “When the Carver shows up, we want to get within visual range. Then, when Barkley feels the process starting again to take him down, that’s the moment to intervene.”

“How exactly do we do that?” he asked.

“We’ll be getting readings from Barkley about what’s going on in the drive unit. When we have those, I can give him some adjustments. Maybe it’ll break the process. Maybe not. We’ll have to see what happens. Probably, he’ll get hauled down, but he should reappear again within, I hope, a few minutes. And, if we’re lucky, that will be the end of it. If it works out—” She stared at me, and those dark eyes glittered. “If everything goes as planned, we’ll be a step closer to keeping the Capella from taking another five-and-a-half-year dive.”

“Pity it’s not safe to go on board ourselves to do this,” I said. “It would be a little quicker than passing information to an AI.”

That brought a glare from Shara, and I realized I was talking too much. “We had a discussion about that,” she said. “JoAnn wanted to do it, but John said no.” Now she was looking at Nick, but the irritation was fading. “It’s too dangerous.”

“It would have given us a better shot,” said JoAnn.

“Let’s let it go, okay?”

“Well, anyhow,” I said, trying to recover, “this’ll probably work fine.”

JoAnn nodded. “I hope so. It took almost four years just to get the math in place. The truth is there are too many elements to be certain. It’s not only design and mass, but there are details associated with the drive unit, how much power it generates and how quickly it comes online. And, of course, the nature of the damage that’s been done to the continuum. We haven’t figured out yet how to lock that down. We need more time.” She sighed. “This is a place we’ve never been before, Chase.”

The Carver reappeared on schedule. “He’s about an hour away,” said Nick, speaking over the allcomm. I was back in the passenger cabin.

“So far so good.” JoAnn looked pleased. “Barkley, is everything okay?”

“Everything seems to be running as planned, JoAnn.”

The Carver was a low-cost Barringer yacht. They’d been popular at one time, but the company had stopped making them twenty years earlier. Gabe had owned one when I succeeded my mom as his pilot. It was clunky in comparison to the Belle-Marie , but it brought back some happy memories. There aren’t many of the Barringers around anymore.