Jack McDevitt - POLARIS

“It’s okay,” I said. “The first thing we need is some wire.”

“We’ve got plenty of it stapled to the bulkheads. Fore and aft.”

“It’ll be too much trouble to get down. We have some on spools in storage.

Those will be easier to work with.” I released my harness, got cautiously to my feet, and went out into the common room.

This time Alex didn’t ask for an explanation. We went down to cargo and collected four spools of assorted sizes of cable, each sixty meters long. I set one aside.

We unrolled the other three and connected the strands to make a single piece. At one end I stripped off a few centimeters of insulation and attached it to one of the handgrips on the hull of the shuttle, metal to metal.

Then I walked it back and taped about ninety meters of it to the back of the shuttle. That left enough to go up to the bridge and still have some slack. The shuttle was going to go out the door, and when it did I wanted to arrange things so the tape would come loose and the wire unravel. Preferably without fouling.

Simple enough.

Alex collected the fourth spool. I took the remaining eighty meters, and we started topside. I was paying the cable out as we went. But I found myself staring at the airlock that separated the launch bay from the rest of the ship. It would have to be closed before I could launch the shuttle. How was I going to get my wire through a sealed airlock?

I stood there wishing I knew more about electrical circuits.

Okay. All I really had to do was get the charge through.

First I needed an anchor in the shuttle bay, something stout enough to pull the wire free of the tape on the back of the shuttle when it launched, and which could withstand a good yank if need be. There were some storage cabinets along the bulkhead, supported by metal mounts. They looked rugged enough to do the job, so I picked one and secured the cable to it, leaving enough to pass through the airlock and reach the bridge.

That wouldn’t be possible, of course, because I had to close the hatch. So I led the wire from the cabinet mount over to the airlock, just enough to connect the two, cut off the excess, and taped the piece from the cabinet onto the hatch. Metal to metal, again. We went through the airlock, gently closed the hatch, and taped the remaining piece to it, once again ensuring a metal contact.

The remaining cable was just long enough to reach the bridge. I’d intended to tie it into the AG generator, but we didn’t need the same level of power this time. The hypercomm transmitter was sitting there, doing nothing. I connected the line to its power cell. Which meant we had connected a power source with the shuttle. This was the long wire.

We unrolled the final spool. The short wire. I linked it also to the transmitter’s power cell, and we walked it out to the main airlock, which opened off the common room. We did much the same thing we’d done with the hatch on the lower deck. I cut the cable and connected it to the inner door. Then I unwound the rest of it from the spool-there was maybe forty meters left-coiled it on the deck inside the airlock, stripped the insulation from the end, and connected it to the inside of the door.

“We need to put the rest of the wire outside,” I said.

Alex looked from the coil to the outer hatch to me. “We’ll need a volunteer,” he said.

“No. Not like that. We’ll blow it out.”

“Can we open the outer door without depressurizing the lock?”

“Normally, no. But I can override.” We left the lock and closed the hatch.

“Ready to go,” I told him.

“I hope.”

“I’ll need you to turn on the juice, Alex.”

“Okay.”

He had to sit down on the deck to get access to the power unit. I showed him what to push. Showed him which lamps would come on when we established the circuit.

“All right,” he said. “I got it.”

“What we want to do,” I told him, “is to open the outer door of the main airlock and simultaneously launch the shuttle. The shuttle goes out one side; the air pressure in the lock blows the cable out the other.”

“I’m ready.” We looked at one another for a long moment. “Just in case,” he said, “I’m glad you’ve been part of my life.”

It was the only time I’ve known him to say something like that. My eyes got damp, and I told him I thought we had a good chance. What I really thought, I was trying not to think about. “Okay,” I said, “starting depressurization in the shuttle compartment.”

“Chase, do you think it matters whether I turn on the power now? Or should we wait until everything’s outside?”

“Probably doesn’t matter. But let’s play it safe and wait.”

“Okay.”

“Overriding main airlock restraint. Got a green light.”

“Good.”

“I’m going to bleed a little air out of it.”

“If you think. But make sure there’s enough left to expel the wire.”

I took the pressure down to about seventy percent, warned Alex that I was about to shut off the gravity again, and did so. It would help ensure that the coil in the airlock got blown clear. When the launch bay showed green-vacuum-I opened the launch doors, activated the telescopes, and eased the shuttle out of the ship. Then I opened the main airlock. Moments later, the port-side monitor showed the cable drifting away.

“Looks good so far,” said Alex.

I’d instructed the shuttle’s onboard AI what she was to do. She took the shuttle out slowly while we watched on the monitor. The cable broke clear of the tape and began to pay out.

I gave it a couple of minutes. Then I told Alex to hit the juice.

The outside flux sent charged particles into the shuttle and the cable that was attached to its rear. The shuttle strained toward the pulsar and the cable straightened. The charge came toward the ship along the wire and passed through the open airlock. It circled the cabinet mount and penetrated the hatch on the lower deck. The wire on our side of the hatch picked it up and relayed it to the hypercomm power cell, from which it switched over to the short wire, passed through the main deck hatch, and out the main airlock. A luminous blue arc leaped from the shuttle to the tip of the short wire, connecting them. “What do you think?” asked Alex.

“Circuit is complete,” I said, trying to keep the sheer joy out of my voice. “I think we have a magnetic field.”

We got tossed around again, but it wasn’t nearly as severe as the previous time.

Within moments, I felt a gentle shove upward and to starboard. “We’re getting a course change, Alex.”

“Yes!” he said. “You’re right. No question.” His face broke into a huge smile.

“You’re a genius.”

“Magnetic fields don’t like each other,” I said. “The big one is getting rid of the little one. Had to happen.”

“Of course.”

“I never doubted it would work.”

The push was steady. Up and out. And accelerating. We were riding the wave, baby. Moving at a goofy angle, but who cared as long as it was away from the sabers?

The Toronto needed only five days to find us. It didn’t matter to us. All we cared about was that we knew they were coming.

It was a party cruise. The ship was filled with the cast and director of the musical Cobalt Blue, which had been a huge hit everywhere on Grand Salinas and points west and was currently headed for Rimway. Unfortunately, they did not have fuel available for our thrusters, so we had to go on with them.

The passengers were always looking for reasons to celebrate, and we ranked high. They provided food and alcohol, and we got to see Jenna Carthage, the show’s star, performing “Hearts At Sea.” It’s been a lot of years, but “Hearts At Sea,” which is the second act showstopper, remains a standard. And Alex occasionally refers to it as “our song.”