Chindi

“She threw up,” he said.

“Okay. Hang on to her. I’ll send the shuttle over for you.”

Hutch struggled.

“Take it easy, Sweetcakes,” he said. “You’re all right.”

She tried to speak but couldn’t seem to get anything out. Claymoor smiled. She was not at all the take-charge little fireball who’d come aboard.

“Just relax,” he told her. “We’re still outside, but you’re okay.”

She looked at him and stiffened momentarily. Her eyes were bloodshot, and she was still gulping down a lot of air. She tried to rub her hands against her face but seemed surprised to find the shell. “E-suit,” she said.

“Yes.”

Her eyes drifted shut. “How’d we do?” she asked.

The question confused him until he realized it was meant for the captain.

“Don’t know yet. Can’t tell anything until we locate the chindi. We did run a bit longer in the sack than we should have.”

Hutchins nodded and she looked as if she were trying to digest what she’d just been told. Abruptly she turned her eyes on Claymoor. “Henry,” she said. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I used to make my living rescuing beautiful women in distress.”

She made a gurgling sound that might have been an attempt to laugh. Or maybe she was still trying to clear her throat. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Yuri,” he said, “did we pick up the velocity we needed?”

“That’s the same question Hutch asked. I don’t know.”

“Why not?”

“Nothing to measure it against out here. Give me a little time.”

The shuttle had disco

“You sure?”

“Yes.” She looked up at Claymoor. For a long moment they simply floated there, while he watched the McCarver continue to dwindle. Then she told him to hang on, suggested he watch his foot, and lighted her go-pack. It was maybe a one-second burst and it jolted him because it had more kick than he’d expected, but they were headed back toward the airlock.

FOR BROWNSTEIN, IT had been a frantic experience. He was engaged in an exercise that put the yacht at risk. He wasn’t sure what his status would be if it sustained damage. Engines were not cheap. And he’d come within a hair of losing one of his passengers, and then had seen his prime-time star jump out of the airlock.

He’d been piloting superluminals for more than twenty years, first for LightTek, then for Kosmik, and finally for Universal News. And in the last ten minutes he’d watched his entire career pass before his eyes.

He hadn’t violated the code. In fact, refusal to help Hutch recover her own lost passenger could have left him open to legal action. At the same time, he could get into serious trouble for putting his ship in jeopardy. Law, as it applied off-Earth, was a confusing and sometimes contradictory business. (There were those who maintained that was nothing new in jurisprudence.)

Nevertheless, he was still trying to settle his own nerves when Claymoor reported that they were both back aboard. He activated the visuals as they came through the airlock and saw that Hutch looked a little beat-up. Bruises and broken blood vessels were evident. Of course, one would expect that of somebody who, in the last few minutes, had twice been breathing vacuum.

“We have acquired the chindi,” said Je

He took a deep breath. “Status?”

She put it on the display board. They were behind the chindi, as they’d hoped they would be.

And they were moving slightly faster than.26c!

Incredible. Hutch had been right, and they’d effectively scored a bull’s-eye. In almost every way. But he’d been in the sack a bit too long. They were closer than they wanted to be and had to shed more velocity than had been pla

The AI had already begun rotating the McCarver, pointing its thrusters forward.

“We’ll reach it in twenty-six minutes, Yuri. But we’ll need a twenty-two-minute burn to overtake and match velocity.”

Twenty-two minutes? With engines already red-hot? The plan had called for seven or eight. “Hutch,” he said, “we have a problem.”

BROWNSTEIN’S NEWS HAD, on the whole, been encouraging. Greenwater had worked, and now they had a decent chance.

Hutch was still somewhat shaken up. The first thing she did on returning to the yacht was to gargle and brush her teeth. She did that on the run, with a lot of spilled water, while the ship maneuvered into braking position. It stopped, started, realigned. Pointed its main thrusters forward.

She grabbed a clean blouse from her bag and hurried half-dressed to the bridge, arriving just before the fusion engines came back on line and fired.

Claymoor, looking every bit the heroic male, was already there. His voice seemed to have deepened. He was enjoying his moment, and she saw him looking surreptitiously through the Mac’s visuals of the incident. Some of that was undoubtedly going to show up on the UNN coverage.

Yuri shook her hand and congratulated her, but his mood was subdued. On the console beside the navigation screen the engine warning lights were already blinking.

She was in the right-hand seat. “Can you patch me through to the chindi, Yuri?” she asked. “I want to talk to Tor.”

They were still pretty far away. “Can he reply at this range?” he asked.

“No. But I can talk to him.”

“Go ahead, Hutch. You’re on.”

“Tor,” she said, “if you can hear me, we’re less than a half hour away.” She checked the time. He should be all right for another hour or so.

She chattered away at him, trying to stay upbeat, describing how the jump had been perfect, how the transit had worked, how they’d dumped the mass but kept the velocity and roared out of hyperspace. How they were coming. Almost there. We’ll not do any more wandering off onto alien artifacts, will we? Especially ones with big propulsion tubes.

“In about fifteen minutes,” she said, “we’ll be within your transmission range. You’ll be able to talk to us.”

Claymoor nodded approvingly. “If I ever get in trouble,” he said, “I hope you’re with the rescue party.”

She smiled with all due modesty.

“You could have killed yourself out there.”

“I’m responsible for him.”

“Only up to a point.” He tilted his head, appraising her. “Anybody ever try that before? Staying outside during a jump?”

Brownstein looked back over his shoulder. “Nobody else that crazy,” he said.

“And I didn’t get any pictures.”

“Sure you did,” said Hutch.

“Not of you during the jump.” His eyes narrowed. “You know, I’ll bet if we check the hull imagers, we might find something.”

“Henry,” she said, “you pulled my rear end out of the fire out there, and I wouldn’t want you to think I’m not grateful.”

“But…?”

“But you’re probably right, and I’m sure there is a visual record of me throwing up and all the rest of it.”

“It’s great stuff, Hutch. Nobody expects you to maintain appropriate decorum in that kind of situation.”

“I’m not talking about decorum. I’m talking about how I looked. I don’t want the world to see me like that and I’d appreciate—” She stopped dead, listening. The gee-forces were gone.

“What’s wrong?” asked Claymoor.

They both answered: “The engines are off.”

“Automatic shutdown.” Je

“How long will they stay shut down?” Hutch asked.

“Minimum time’s about twenty minutes,” he said.

“That’s way too long. Can you override?”

“This is not one of the designated situations, Hutch.”

“Who the hell cares? We can explain later.”

“Je

“Goddam, Yuri. Override her.”

“It’ll take too much time.”

Claymoor was looking from one to the other. “What does it mean?” he asked.

“It means,” said Hutch, “that we’ll go roaring past the chindi with all flags flying.”