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“Are you sorry?” she asked.
“Sorry I lost Hal? I’ll always be sorry.”
She moved closer to him, and he held her, clinging to her. They stood for a long time. Finally he let her go. “But I’m not sorry I found you. Which reminds me, I have to speak to your father—”
“No.”
He frowned. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“You don’t have to do anything,” she said. “That’s not what either of us wants. Haven is ruled by customs and duties — we don’t need them with each other.”
He was silent for a moment. “All right, let’s say I want to speak to your father. It’s time I made an honest woman of you-”
“Or an honest man of yourself.”
They lived in luxury, but there was nothing to do. The research station was isolated, far from any town, sealed from the rest of Prince Samual’s World, and keeping it “secure” required no effort at all.
Since no one objected, Nathan went to technical conferences. Much of the discussion involved forces, and specific impulse, and other meaningless terms. He did understand that Kleinst had no way of reading the cubes they had brought back.
“It’s enough to drive me mad,” Kleinst said. A dozen older engineers seated around the conference table nodded sympathy. “It’s all right here.” He held up one of the small plasticine cubes. “And if I had nothing else to do, I might, in ten years, be able to read this. I know the theory-”
“We’re working on it,” Academician Taylor said. Taylor headed a group who worked on long-distance communicators and other electrical matters. They thought they had a method of reading the Makassar data, but so far it had not worked.
“But I have to spend time on the ship also,” Kleinst said. “And I fear that is hopeless.”
“We’ve got your liquid oxygen,” Todd said. He looked pleased with himself, and MacKi
“Yes,” Kleinst said. “But we can’t build pumps. And the stabilizing mechanisms.” He shook his head sadly. “We have large gyroscopes, but every attempt to make small ones with electrical co
“In time we can make it smaller,” Douglas Starr said.
“Time is what we don’t have,” MacKi
Starr glared at him. “My mechanics are working themselves to death now. I can get no more from them. There are no more hours in the day!”
“I know. I meant no disrespect,” MacKi
“Go back to first principles,” Todd said. “We can’t build true spacecraft. We can’t even build anything like the Empire’s landing boats.”
“So we must build rockets,” Kleinst said. “And large liquid rockets are very complex—”
“Why rockets?” Todd asked.
Kleinst frowned. “What else is there?”
“It largely depends on what you mean by a spaceship,” the midshipman said. “Or rather, what the Empire will accept as a spaceship …”
“If it will take us to space, it is a spaceship,” Kleinst muttered. “We have no time for senseless debate on definitions. What have you in mind?”
“There was an ancient document,” Todd said. “I hesitate to say how ancient—” He saw the intense interest of the others and laughed self-consciously. “Before the second mille
There was a long silence. Earth, MacKi
“The first spacecraft used rockets,” Kleinst said firmly.
“Yes, but they had another concept,” Todd said. “It was not used, but it might have been. And it is something we can build …”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
WITNESS
Lieutenant Jefferson tapped nervously at the door to High Commissioner Ackoff’s office. Jeff could think of no reason why the Imperial governor would want to see him. In the past few months he’d worked on a dozen assignments, all routine and all dull, and as far as Jefferson knew he’d done them all satisfactorily; Ackoff couldn’t be unhappy with him. On the other hand, he’d done nothing outstanding either. Jeff didn’t like economic intelligence work, and longed for a space assignment.
“Come.”
Commissioner Ackoff’s office might have been used as a textbook example: office, one each, governor’s, minor colonial planet. There was the large wooden desk and leather chairs; conference table and more chairs; conversation group with couch and soft chairs off to one side; computer screens and input console discreetly hidden in the desk; portrait of the Emperor draped with the flags of Empire; shelves of curios including models of ships Ackoff had served in; large sideboard filled with liquor—
Ackoff was seated at his conference table. So was Captain Greenaugh.
“Come in, Jefferson,” Ackoff said. “Have a seat.”
“Thank you, Your Excellency—”
“Haven’t seen you for a while,” Sir Alexei said. “I miss those government seminars. Really ought to start them up again. Only time I get to meet my officers.” The
Commissioner shook his head slowly. “Too much work, no one to do it. I’m afraid we’ve an additional job for you.”
“Sir?” Jeff looked to Greenaugh for some hint of what was happening.
“Not in space,” Greenaugh said. He laughed at Jefferson’s expression. “Tired of this place already? I’m told you’re practically engaged to a local girl—”
“Not yet, sir. “Jeff was emphatic.
“But you still see her,” Greenaugh said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, sir.”
“Quite often.”
“Yes, sir,” Jeff said. Often, and the relationship was certainly one that Elaine might take as “practically engaged.” Certainly her father had a right to think so. The less said about that the better.
“Not trying to pry into your private affairs,” Greenaugh said. “But I take it you do not intend to apply for transfer to the civil service.”
“No, sir,” Jeff said. “I’m ready for space duty whenever there’s an assignment—”
Greenaugh chuckled. “And you’d like to know when that will be. So would we all, Lieutenant. So would we all. But I’m afraid not even Sir Alexei knows that. Meanwhile, we’ve a job to do here. Know anything about Haven’s military research establishment?”
“Well, a little-”
“A lot, I’d say,” Ackoff interrupted. “It was your economic analysis that got us interested. Haven has a big research station in the Corliss Grant Hills. From what we can see it siphons off a good part of their budget and a lot of their technical talent. We can’t think why.”
“Any ideas?” Greenaugh asked.
“Not really, sir,” Jefferson said. “Frankly, I can’t see any need for a big military research effort. Haven has just finished the consolidation of this continent, which effectively means the whole planet. They’d have finished the job sooner if they hadn’t dragged their feet. They’ve no one to fight.”
“Precisely,” Greenaugh said. “Which is what disturbs us. One, they did drag their feet. From what we know of their history, unification of the planet has been Haven’s dream since the present dynasty took over. We gave them the chance to do it, and they went very slowly. Then all of a sudden they speeded things up and finished with a bang. Two, they’re spending a lot of money and sending the cream of their engineering talent to a military research station that’s working on weapons they’ll never need. Quickfiring ca