Maverick

But blood will tell. While Derec looked away, Avery studied the line of his jaw and the shape of his cheekbones. He saw his ex-wife Janet’s genes everywhere; from the sandy blond hair, through the pale complexion, to his thin, expressive lips.

And what did I give you, my son?Avery didn’t need to ask; he knew he’d given Derec the traits that didn’t show. I gave you my temper, I ’ m sorry to say. I gave you my coldness, and my fear of being vulnerable. Not for the first time, Avery felt a sudden need to hug his son.

The moment passed. I ’ m sorry, Derec. I can ’ t open up either. Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t build just a little bridge, did it? Avery decided to take a chance.

“So what do you think, Derec? Would you like to give me a hand? The ship can cough up another robotics terminal in a couple of minutes, and I could use the help. ”

Well, son? Please?

. Derec said nothing, but his face turned tight and thoughtful. Avery watched closely; Derec’ s body language said that he was trying to say yes. The word was working its way up to his lips, but it was a fight every inch of the way. It had started in his gut, clawed its way up his esophagus, and traversed his soft palate. It was on his tongue now; at any moment it would break through to his lips. Derec started to open his mouth

The intercom buzzed. It was Wolruf.

“. Derec? We got somethin’ ‘ere. ‘u better come ‘ave a look at it. ”

. Derec broke concentration, swallowed hard, and turned to the intercom panel. “Can it wait? I’m a little tied up at the moment. ”

Wolruf growled something in her native tongue. “Think ‘u better come look at this now. ”

“Oh, okay. ” Derec turned to his father, cracked a weak smile, and shrugged. “Sorry, I have to, you know. ” He gestured toward the intercom and left the sentence hanging.

“That’s okay. We can continue this another time. ” Avery offered Derec a smile.

Derec just looked at his feet and shrugged again. “Sure. If you want. ” Another hesitation, and then he turned and darted through a pair of open lift doors that had appeared in the cabin wall.

The lift doors hissed open, and Derec stepped out onto the bridge. Mandelbrot stood in one corner, staring intently at the external visual display and conversing with a data terminal. Wolruf was crouched over the main control console, her thick, sausage-like fingers flying over the controls like a multisynth player performing Mothersbaugh’s “Toccata and Fugue in. 25 Kilohertz. ” As she punched keys and adjusted sliders, she kept up a steady stream of short, guttural commands in both broken English and her native language. The console seemed to be accepting both with equal ease.

The lift doors slid shut. Derec cleared his throat and said, “Okay, Wolruf. Where’s all the excitement?”

Wolruf neither turned around nor took her hands off the controls. Instead, she simply lifted her head a little and pointed her nose at the visual display. “’ere. ”

. Derec looked at the display. It was the view astern, he guessed; the exceptionally bright star off to the right side looked about the right color to be the Ceremyon’s sun. Aside from that star, though, he saw nothing that appeared out of place on the usual visiplate starfield.

“So? I don’t see anything. ”

Wolruf growled something untranslatable and started pounding on a different section of the control console. “Sorry. Keep forgettin’ ‘u ‘umans eyes are almos’ as weak as ‘ur nose. ” The visual display shifted, blurred, and came into focus again.

More starfield. Only this time there was a tiny, smudgy gray blob in the middle of the screen.

“Okay, I see it now,” Derec said. “What is it?” He moved to stand next to Wolruf, but the blob wasn’t any more meaningful when viewed close-up.

Wolruf glared at the little blob and bared her teeth. “Ast’roid,” she said with a growl.

. Derec looked at her. “All this fuss over an asteroid?”

“This ‘uns been gainin’ on us for eight hours. ”

“What!” Derec spun around and looked at the visual display. The blob still wasn’t any more meaningful than it was before.

Wolruf punched in a few more commands, and the display went back to its original image. This time, though, a graceful blue curve was superimposed over the starfield. “ Allowing f’r mass, and all known gravitational vectors includin’ th’ cavitation effect of ‘ur drives, here’s th’ projected orbit for th’ ast’roid. ” She punched two more keys, and a jagged red line twined around the blue.

“And ‘ere’s its actual course. ”

Cautiously, Derec touched the visiplate. He traced the red line with a finger, stopping on one particularly sharp bend. “Any known phenomena that could cause this?”

Wolruf shook her head.

“ ‘At bend ‘u got ‘ur finger on iss a manual course correction I made ten minutes ago. ” Wolruf continued. “Five minutes later, the ast’roid changed course to match. ”

Wolruf paused to lay her ears back and look Derec straight in the eye.

“. Derec, ‘at ast’roid iss under power. ”

. Derec studied the visual display a bit more and then looked back to Wolruf. “Recommended action?”

Wolruf gritted her teeth and crouched low over the controls. “Recommend we find out ‘00’s behind it. Also recommend ‘u find ‘urself a seat. ‘iss could get a littl’ rough. ” She shot a fierce grin at Mandelbrot, then slapped a finger down on the intercom button. “Arr’el? Dr. Av’ry? ‘old on tight, we’re makin’ an unprogrammed course correction. Now. ”

An acceleration couch popped up out of the cabin deck; Derec just barely had time to dive into it before Wolruf slammed the ship into a violent roll. The starfield in the viewplate spun dizzily.

The ship was still rolling when Wolruf hit the main thrusters.

In all, the experience wasn’t as jarring as Derec had expected. The ship’s gravity fields did an exceptionally good job of compensating for the changing gravity and thrust vectors. Unfortunately, they didn’t do a thing for Coriolis force. Within instants, Derec was feeling thoroughly dizzy and a little nauseated. He wondered how Ariel was taking it.

Then he wondered about something else; about a story he’d once read. “Wait a minute, Wolruf. This won’t work. ”

Wolruf cocked an ear at Derec, but kept flying.

“It can’t work. The angles of incidence are all wrong. If someone’s behind that asteroid, all he has to do is use his maneuvering thrusters to keep the rock between him and us. The asteroid’s too small for us to enter a gravitational orbit; at this range, there’s no other way we can fly around it faster than he can maneuver around it. ”

Wolruf kept flying. Mandelbrot, back in the corner, spoke up. “Mistress Wolruf has already thought of that. I have all ship’s sensors locked on the asteroid. If the unknown vessel emits any form of radiation or hot gasses during maneuvering, we will detect it. ”

“ ‘sides,” Wolruf growled, “ ‘aven’t ‘u ever ‘eard of spookin’ ‘im out? If ‘e’s got some kind of remote sensor watching us, ‘e now knows we know ‘e’s there. No point in ‘im staying ‘idden any more. ”

As if in confirmation of Wolruf’s statement, Mandelbrot said, “Contact. A stream of superheated boron-11 has just been emitted by a source behind the asteroid. ”

Wolruf’s mouth opened in a toothy grin, and her tongue lolled out. “We got ‘ im. ’, She fired a last round of maneuvering thrusters and stabilized the ship’s course. “Now let’s see-”

“More contacts,” Mandelbrot said. “ Additional thruster exhaust; I am projecting

“Cancel. Visual contact. I am putting it on the main viewer. ” The stars swam, blurred again, and resolved into a much closer look at the asteroid than Derec had had before.

A ship was creeping out from behind the right edge of the asteroid. At first glance it looked like a fairly conventional Settler design. Then Derec realized that he was just looking at the foremost piece of it.