Джек Макдевитт: Chindi

She’d been putting off the decision. Wait till she got to Renaissance. Then explain it to Dimenna.

Not enough air for everybody, Professor.

Not my fault. I didn’t know.

She sat entertaining murderous thoughts about Barber. Bill suggested she take a trank, but she had to be sure she was fully functional in the morning. “I don’t know yet, Bill,” she said.

The interior lights dimmed as it grew late. The observation panels also darkened, creating the illusion that night had arrived outside. Gradually the mist faded until she could see only an occasional reflection of the cabin lights outside.

Usually she was quite comfortable in the Wildside, but tonight the vessel felt empty, gloomy, silent. There were echoes in the ship, and she listened to air currents and the murmur of the electronics. She sat down in front of her display every few minutes and checked the Wildside’s position.

Meantime, Preacher was getting farther away.

She could send a hypercomm after him as soon as she reached Renaissance. But by then it would be far too late.

She decided she would leave nobody. Put them all on board, and run for it. But the Wildside didn’t have the raw power to climb directly out of the gravity well. She’d have to arc into orbit and then lift out. That would put the flare virtually on top of her before she could make the jump. But it was okay. That wasn’t the problem. The air was the problem.

Her only hope to save everyone was to rendezvous with the Condor. She couldn’t do it in deep space; they’d have nothing to key on, so they wouldn’t be able to find each other. Not in so short a time. She had to pick a nearby star, something within a few hours, inform Preach, go there, and hope for the best. The obvious candidate was an unnamed class-M, five light-years away. Approximately eight hours’ travel time. Add that to the couple of hours it would take her to get away from the flare, and she would have people succumbing to oxygen deprivation at about the time she arrived. Even assuming the Condor showed up promptly, it was unlikely Preach would be able to find her inside another three or four hours. It was possible. He could even jump out alongside her. But it wasn’t very likely.

“It’s not your fault,” Bill said again.

“Bill,” she snapped, “go away.”

He retired and left her to the clicks, burps, and whispers of the empty ship.

SHE STAYED ON the bridge past midnight. The engines rumbled into life at about one and began the long process of slowing the Wildside down for its rendezvous.

She looked through the archives and found an old UNN program during which Dimenna and Mary Harper and someone else she didn’t know, Marvin Child, argued for the life of Renaissance Station before an Academy committee. “Do you think,” demanded Harper, “we’d ask our colleagues to go out there, that we’d go out there ourselves, if we weren’t sure it was safe?” Child was thin, gray, tired. But he exhibited a fair degree of contempt for anyone who disagreed with him. Just listen to me, he suggested, and everything will be okay. Dimenna wasn’t much better. “Of course there’s a hazard,” he conceded at the conclusion of the hearing. “But we’re willing to accept the risk.”

What had he said to her? I told them this would happen. She listened to him and his partners assuring the world very emphatically that it would not. Hell, they’d brought their dependents out here.

When the chairman thanked them for coming, Child nodded slightly, the way one does when the last person in the pot folds his cards. He knew they had won. Too much money had already been spent on Renaissance, and some high-powered reputations were involved.

Right, they were willing to accept the risk. And now that the crunch had arrived, they were looking for old Hutch to come in and pick up their chips. Come on, babe. Get your rear end over here. Let’s move.

A little before five she climbed out of her chair, trudged back to her quarters, showered, brushed her teeth, and put on a fresh uniform.

SHE CHECKED THE individual compartments to ensure they were ready. She’d need additional bedding to protect her extra passengers. That would come from the station. She directed Bill to be ready to adjust life support to maximum.

When that was done she went back to the bridge. Her failure to tell Dimenna the truth about their situation hung over her and somehow, in her own mind, laid the guilt for the calamity at her door. She knew that was crazy, but she couldn’t push it away.

“We are where we are supposed to be,” said Bill, interrupting her struggle. “Twenty-seven minutes to rendezvous.” He was wearing a gray blazer and matching slacks. “It would have been prudent to shut the place down a couple of years ago.”

“A lot of people have their careers tied into Renaissance,” she said. “No one yet understands all the details of star formation. It’s an important project. But they sent the wrong people out, they got unlucky, and it’s probably inevitable that they’d stay until the roof fell in.”

THE MIST WAS becoming brighter.

Hutch was watching it flicker across a half dozen screens when Bill broke in. “I have a channel open to Renaissance.”

Thank God. “Get Dimenna for me, Bill.”

The comm screen flipped through a series of distorted images. “Welcome to Renaissance,” said a strange voice, before breaking up. The signal was weak. They’d had transmitter problems of their own. The picture cleared and went out a couple of times. When Bill finally locked it in, she was looking at Dimenna.

“Good morning, Professor,” said Hutch.

He looked at her somberly. “We were worried about you. I’m glad to see that you survived. And that you’re here.”

Hutch nodded. “We have a problem,” she said. “Are we on a private channel?”

The muscles in his jaw moved. “No. But it doesn’t matter. Say what you have to say.”

“There was a communication breakdown somewhere. The Wildside has limited space. I wasn’t aware you had dependents.”

“What? For God’s sake, Woman, how could that happen?”

Maybe because nobody thought you’d be dumb enough to bring dependents out here. But she let it go. “Ship’s designed to carry thirty-one passengers. We—.”

“What’s that?” His face reddened, and she thought he was going to scream at her. “What are we supposed to do with the rest of our people?” He wiped the back of his hand against his mouth and looked to one side and then the other. He was listening to someone. Then: “Is another ship coming?”

“Maybe,” she said.

“Maybe.”

She looked at him. “Let me ask you a question. We got hit by an EMP.”

“It was a spillover from the jet. Happens once in a while. It wasn’t an EMP. Not strictly speaking.” He relaxed a bit, as if speaking about something else helped divert him from the choices he would have to make.

“It had the same effect. Fried everything on the hull.”

“Yes. A stream of high-energy particles will do that. It knocked us out, too. What’s your question?”

“Did you get back up? Have you been in contact with Serenity?”

“No. It’s too hot out there. We set up a transmitter inside so we could talk to you. It’s all we have.”

She swallowed and struggled to control her voice. “Then they don’t know the situation.”

“They certainly know we’ve gone dead. We were talking to them when it happened.”

“Do they know you need to evacuate?”

“We were advising them of that fact.”

It was like pulling teeth. “And did you make your point before you got blown off the circuit?”

He struggled to keep his temper. “Yes.”

Okay. They know he needs to get out. And they know the Wildside is too small. That should mean, has to mean, the Condor is on its way.