Jack McDevitt - SEEKER

Embossed on plastic. There were others. Family members, presumably. Kids. Even a dog. I’d brought a plastic sack in case we found anything else of interest. But Alex suggested we leave the pictures for Windy’s people. “Show up with those,” he said, “and we’ll be accused of crimes against humanity.”

The rooms had storage cabinets. We cut into a couple and found clothes. Work uniforms, for the most part. They were in poor condition. It was a pity because they carried the Seeker shoulder patch.

We also made a major discovery in the captain’s cabin. Lying in a corner of a cabinet that was otherwise empty, we came across a small black case that might once have been leather. Inside, we found a plastic packet containing twelve lenses. I showed them to Alex.

They were stuck to the interior of the case, so we couldn’t remove them. But the leather was open on both sides and, after we’d wiped them, we could see through the lenses. Alex examined them in the lamplight. Then he invited me to have a look.

Each of the lenses carried an image. But I couldn’t make out what they were.

“Any ideas?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“You know what I think?” He took the case back and aimed his wrist lamp at it.

Played it through the lenses. Blurry images appeared on the opposite bulkhead. He moved the makeshift projector forward and back. The pictures shifted but did not clear. “Holograms,” he said.

I nodded. “Could be. We can have Belle figure it out.”

He slipped the case into a cargo pocket. “Damn, I wish people would keep better records. It would have been nice if one of them had left us some handwritten comments about what was going on.” He made an irritated noise. “Can you imagine what something like that would be worth?”

Yeah. These people never think about the future.

“We have company,” said Belle.

We hurried out to the bridge, but we couldn’t see anything.

“It appears to be a VTL.”

“What’s a VTL?” asked Alex.

“In the unofficial parlance,” I said, “it’s called a tracker. It’s fully automated. They’re usually used as probes.”

“Would it have been left by somebody?”

“Left or delivered.”

“Chase, I’m trying to ask whether it was capable of making the flight out here on its own.”

“Could it have followed us through a jump? No. No such technology exists. The experts say it can’t be done.”

“Then either someone else happened to find this place, or-”

“-Someone knows about the Seeker. Belle, what’s it doing?”

“Approaching.”

“ETA?”

“About eleven minutes. Coming at high velocity, by the way. It appears to be on a collision course.”

We looked at one another and I remembered the park-building nanos. “Belle, start the engines. Alex, we have to assume it’s hostile. We better get back to the ship before it gets here.”

He didn’t need convincing. We moved quickly off the bridge and down through a half dozen passageways toward the airlock. While we scrambled as best we could through zero gravity, Belle gave me the bad news. “It’s hooked us.”

“What’s she talking about?” asked Alex.

“It has a rider beam. It just latches on, and wherever we go, it will go. It gets a free ride and it can close on us at its leisure.”

“We’ll have to jump clear.”

“Given eight hours, we could do that.”

We charged out through the airlock and onto the hull.

“It’s probably a bomb,” he said.

“Maybe. But no need. All it would have to do is give us a good bump, and it’ll be lights out.” We made the jump over to the Belle-Marie.

“ETA just over eight minutes,” said Belle.

“Let’s see what we have,” I told her, scrambling onto the bridge and looking down.

The intruder was on the monitor. It was a small package, not much more than a set of linear engines and a drive unit with a few black boxes up front. But big enough to put us out of action.

“How fast is it coming?”

“Eighteen hundred kilometers per hour.”

“Yeah.” It was approaching the Seeker from directly forward.

“Chase,” said Alex, “can’t we use the HCS on it?”

The Hazard Control System was a particle-beam unit designed to take out rocks or ice that posed a danger. “No,” I said. “There’s a safety feature to prevent its firing on ships and equipment.”

“Can’t you override that?”

“If we had some time.”

“Then what do we do? You said we can’t outrun it.”

“Watch and learn, boss. Watch and learn.” I took my seat, engaged the harness, and signaled for Alex to do the same. “Belle,” I said, “release the controls to me.”

Status lamps changed color. “Done, Chase.”

I moved the Belle-Marie forward, along the Seeker ’s hull, in the direction of the approaching tracker.

“Range two hundred ten klicks,” said Belle.

A scarlet sunburst was emblazoned on the Seeker ’s prow. I took station on a line between the intruder and the sunburst. “These things are designed to chase asteroids,”

I said. “And comets. Space junk. They aren’t made to contend with something that can move independently.”

“So we’re going to-?”

“-Sit here and wait for it. When it rolls in, we’ll step aside and it’ll plow into the Seeker.”

“Isn’t there a better way?”

“Be satisfied there is a way.”

He looked out at the ship. “I hate to do any more damage.” His face grew hard. “If I get hold of Bolton-”

“You think that’s who it is?”

“Who else?”

“I guess. If he can get us out of the way, he could claim the Seeker and everything else for himself.”

“Chase,” said Belle. “It’s rotating. Looks like a three-sixty.” I could see it on-screen.

I watched it turn until its exhaust tubes were pointed in our direction. Then the engines fired.

“Braking,” Belle said.

“The thing’s not as dumb as I’d hoped.”

“What do you mean, Chase?”

“It’s recognized the danger. So it’s slowing down.”

There was no place to hide.

Belle’s status lamps flickered. “What do you wish to do, Chase?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“At current rate of deceleration, it will be moving at twenty kilometers per hour when it arrives.”

“Give me the new ETA, Belle.”

“Ten minutes, forty-four seconds if current conditions hold.”

Well, at least we’d picked up some time. I fired the attitude thrusters and rotated the Belle-Marie. The tracker showed up in the viewport. Dead ahead. I pointed us at it, warned Alex we were moving out, and fired the main engines. We began to accelerate.

He wiped the back of his hand against his mouth. But he kept his peace.

I went to max sustainable thrust. We were both driven deep into our seats as the Seeker dropped behind.

“It has increased power to engines,” said Belle.

“It’s gone to full braking,” I told Alex. “It figures we’re trying to get past it. It’s trying to slow down enough so it can react.

“If we maintain present rate of acceleration,” Belle said, “it will be moving at one point one kilometers per second when we reach it.”

“I’ve a question,” said Alex.

“Go.”

“You’re going to turn at the last minute, right? Slip by it on one side or the other?”

“Yes.”

“What happens if that thing turns the same way you do?”

“Odds are against. But that’s the easy part. Alex, if it gets behind us, on our tail, it will make getting clear of it very difficult. I don’t know that we can outrun it.”

“Okay.”

“So we have to take it out before it climbs up our rear end. I need you to do something.”