Chindi

“So what do we do now?” asked Alyx.

Nick’s leg was propped up in front of him. He tried to move it. To get more comfortable. “It seems as if there should be some way to do this,” he said.

“What about the Longworth?” asked Alyx. “Maybe it’s fast enough.”

“No. We’re talking a quarter light-speed. Nothing we have can get close to that kind of velocity.”

Alyx refused to accept it. “Why?” she demanded. “What limits our speed? How fast can we go?”

“We can get up to about point oh-three. Maybe a little faster if we have to.”

“What stops us from doing better? I mean, all we have to do is keep accelerating for several days. Like the chindi. Right?”

“We’d have to do it in stages, or the engines would burn out. But the problem is that we’d run out of fuel long before we got anywhere close. That’s what limits us to.03.”

Alyx was thinking bitterly that at least the chindi wouldn’t get completely away. It’d be hanging out there for a long time to come, but they’d apparently have to build a special kind of ship to catch it.

“I might have an idea,” Nick said. “How about if we try a booster?”

“How do you mean?”

“Can these ships refuel each other in flight?”

“If need be, yes.”

“Okay. Suppose we and the Longworth both went back to Autumn and filled up the tanks again. Then we jump out in front of the thing. Accelerate to the best speed we can make. Except that when the tanks are half-empty, the Longworth gives us everything it has. That, I assume, leaves them with no power, but we can keep going. Would that work?”

Hutch shook her head. “They’re big enough to refill our tanks. Now we’re at.05,” she said. “A quarter of the way there.”

HUTCH TOLD HERSELF to calm down. Relax. There was no way to help Tor if she took to ru

The possibility of using a booster had been her first thought. There were reports of a second Academy ship due in the area shortly, and the UNN vessel was coming. But even with four ships refueling each other, they couldn’t get close. They’d need a fleet to get somebody up to chindi velocity.

Tor was down to three days, six hours. The Memphis was going to need most of that just to get back to Gemini.

Another possibility was to try to break through to whatever intelligence was controlling the chindi and enlist its aid. But even if she could do that, she would have to solve the language barrier and make the problem clear. There just wouldn’t be time.

Think, Hutchins.

First things first. Was there a way to communicate?

The chindi had to know Tor was onboard. Its robots had seen him. If it knew he was in trouble, might it attempt in some way to assist?

She called Bill. “Put us back along the chindi’s course. I want to be two hours in front of it. When we get there.”

“And what are we going to do?” asked Bill. “Wave as it goes by?”

“At the very least, we’ll have a chance to talk to him. Maybe, by then we’ll think of something.”

“Hutch…” He broke off, not saying whatever it was he’d intended. “Jump status is seventeen minutes away.”

She shook her head. Talking to the chindi was just trying to pretend she hadn’t given up. The Peacekeepers had a tradition that every problem had a solution. It was a nice slogan. Wasn’t true, but it sounded good.

“Hutch, be aware we’ll be making the jump back into what passes for the local oort cloud.”

“Okay. Do it. Whatever it takes.”

“The rocks are spread pretty far apart. There’s no real danger.”

How to put out a distress signal that the chindi would recognize?

She let her head drift back and closed her eyes and waited for the slight disorientation that usually accompanied a jump.

SHE RAN THE problem by Mogambo, but his only comment was that Tor was lost, and the sooner they faced the reality the better it would be for everyone. He was sorry.

When, on the second day, she received a communication from Virgil, a simple message informing her that Tor was fortunate, that Hutch would rescue him if anybody could, it only inspired a simmering resentment. Hutch didn’t even know whether the director was aware of the latest complication.

She caught herself wishing it was over.

But she continued to press the only course of action that seemed to offer a glimmer of hope: “We’ve got lots of the chindi records on board,” she told Alyx and Nick that afternoon. “Let’s try to find one with a distress signal.”

They looked through military engagements. “Organized mayhem,” Nick commented, “seems to be the chief preoccupation of intelligent species everywhere.” Eventually, they found an airship in trouble.

It was going down at night over a stormy sea. It was impossible to determine its size because there was nothing with which to compare it. But the wind battered it, and gales of rain swept it toward an angry ocean. Lights in the gondola burned brightly, and they could make out movement inside.

“Bill,” said Hutch, “does the record show a radio signal?”

“Yes, it does.”

He put it on audio for them. It was not voice, but rather a simple series of bleeps. Short. Two longs. And a short.

And again.

And again. Then with an added transmission. Location, probably.

Then it returned to the original signal. Short. Two longs. Short.

“Bill?” said Hutch.

“It is certainly easy enough to reproduce the signal.”

“We’ll want to add a picture of Tor.”

“Will the chindi be able to receive a visual?” asked Nick. “It might just complicate things.”

“No,” said Hutch. “Reception gear for visuals is pretty straightforward. We’ll send the picture. It may be the only way to make them understand the problem.”

That night Hutch finally slept reasonably well. She didn’t think much of their chances, but at least she was doing something.

WORD CAME THAT the McCarver, the UNN media ship, had arrived at the Retreat, where they were busy taking pictures and interviewing Mogambo. One network program was passed along by Yurkiewicz.

Mogambo was talking with Henry Claymoor, the heavyweight anchor for UNN’s Science News Sunday. Mogambo wore a light khaki shirt and shorts, de rigueur for a working physicist-turned-archeologist, and he had a scrunched hat pulled rakishly down over one eye. The image was perfect.

He gallantly gave credit to George Hockelma

He said nothing that could be described as factually inaccurate, but everything was shaded, and the overall impression was that the amateurs had had a good day and deserved some credit, and now it was time to look seriously at the implications to be derived from the Retreat. It took somebody like Mogambo, he made clear, to do that.

George, had he been present, would have had a stroke.

EVERYONE ABOARD THE Memphis was anxious. But the pressure on Hutch was more personal. She tried to distract herself by playing chess, by doing computer-generated puzzles, by eating too much. On the last evening, when there was really nothing to do, Alyx suggested they use the holotank to visit, say, a Berlin cabaret, or to do a Jack Hancock adventure. But Hutch declined. The first night out she had used the VR technology to attend a Mozart concert, which she’d hoped might prove a distraction. But nothing had come of it, other than a weepy couple of hours.

Now, however, after Alyx and Nick had retired for the evening, she changed her mind and used it again. To visit the hull of the Memphis. During hyperflight.

After a delay while it searched remote databanks, the holotank duly created the ship’s exterior. And the light mist moving slowly past. She sat down near the main sensor array and did something she’d been resisting: She directed the system to create an image of Tor. To let him appear up near the ship’s prow and come slowly toward her. She wanted him wearing the same clothes he had worn when they’d been out there together, but had to describe them to the computer. “Yellow shirt with an open collar. White slacks. Grip shoes. Blue ones.”