Chindi

Chapter 31

THEY WERE ACCELERATING toward jump. “Where we went wrong,” said Hutch, “was assuming because it traveled between the stars, that it had FTL technology.”

“All right,” Alyx said. “So it’s slower than we thought. Why’s that a problem? I thought all we needed was for the chindi to settle into cruise, which it has done. Why don’t we just go back and take him off? What’s changed?”

Nick was looking from Alyx to Hutch. “It kept accelerating,” Hutch said. “We assumed a few hours. Maybe a bit more. But it kept going for several days. It’s cruising now, but it’s moving so quickly, we can’t catch it, so we can’t put anyone aboard. Or take anyone off.”

Alyx felt angry, desperate, cheated. Someone had changed the rules. “How is that possible?” she demanded. “If it’s slower than light, why can’t we catch it? I mean, compared to us, it’s just tottering along. Right? What am I missing?”

Hutch shook her head. “Alyx,” she said, “we can get from one place to another a lot quicker than the chindi can. But that’s not the same thing as saying we’re faster. Not in the common use of the word.”

Nick was nodding, as if he’d already figured it out.

“Can’t we take a shortcut to get in front of him?” Him, not it.

“Sure. But it wouldn’t do any good. All we’d be able to do is wave as he went by.” Hutch looked at Nick, and a signal of recognition passed between them. It was an irritating moment, the two of them telling each other, be gentle with her, this is a bad time, she’s not used to this you know, not very much able to withstand this kind of news. “We made the wrong assumption. We should have realized that the thing didn’t have FTL technology.”

“How should we have done that?” Alyx asked quietly.

“Its propulsion system. If we’d thought about it at all, we’d have figured out that a superluminal had no use for anything as advanced as gravity projection. It’s like putting a paddle in a jet boat.”

Alyx felt the world closing down. Tor was there, but they couldn’t get to him. Was that really possible? She stared out at the Venture, drifting a few hundred meters away. It was bright and polished in the light of the sun.

“Well,” said Nick, “I guess that explains why the chindi’s course for 97 put it out in the woods.”

Hutch’s usual supply of high energy seemed to have abandoned her. She looked exhausted. Depleted. “I think you’re right, Nick,” she said, after a long hesitation, as if she’d had to give serious thought to the comment. “The course is aimed at the place where 97 will be in a couple hundred years.”

“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 running around in a panic.

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 Hockelmann and the Memphis, first on the scene. But anyone, he seemed to suggest without saying so, could blunder across a major discovery.

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.”

He appeared, shadowy, not quite real. Waiting to be activated. “The smile’s not right,” she said.

The smile changed. Some of the tension came out of it. And some of the vacuity left the eyes.

“That’s better,” she said.

She leaned forward and wrapped her hands around her knees. Tor was standing, gazing past her shoulder, out into the mist.

“How you doing?” she asked, starting the program.

“Okay.” He sat down beside her. “Waiting for you.”

“I know. We’re doing what we can.”

“It doesn’t look good, though, does it?”

“No. I hate to say it, but I don’t have much confidence in the plan.”

“I could tell. It’s in your eyes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I got myself into it.”

“Yes, you did. But listen, hang in. Okay? Don’t give up.”

“You mean that?”

“Sure.”

Lying to the construct, she thought, when the lights came on. How pathetic.

SHE RECEIVED ANOTHER transmission from Sylvia Virgil, who looked harried. Virgil was reacting to the news that the chindi had not jumped, that there was now a serious doubt that a rescue could be effected. “We’ve lost too many on this mission, Hutch,” she said, her voice strained to breaking. “I don’t care what you have to do, but get him out of there. Spare no expense.”

IN THE MORNING, they had a casual breakfast and began waiting out the last half-hour before the jump. The distress signal seemed, like most weak ideas, less promising after a night in bed. But it remained the only arrow in the quiver.

A window opened on her overhead screen. TRANSMISSION FROM SYLVIA VIRGIL. Even Bill was becoming withdrawn.

“Put it up, Bill,” she said.

The director was behind her desk. She looked, if anything, even more drained than she had a few hours earlier. It occurred to Hutch this experience was raising hell with everybody. Poor woman thought she was sending some fund-raisers out on a holiday. And look what it had turned into. “Hutch,” she said, “I’ve passed this separately to Mogambo, but I thought you’d be interested: We’ve found stealth satellites in orbit around Earth. Early indications are that they’ve been there for a considerable time. I can report that we’ve learned from our experience and are taking every precaution examining them. I also wish you every good fortune in your effort to extract Kirby.”

With it came another bundle of mail.

Bill observed a discreet silence before asking whether she wished to view the contents page. “Distribute it where you can,” she said. “Put mine on hold.”

Alyx was receiving offers for an account of her experiences. Publishers wanted it, two top composers wanted to do the score and lyrics, Paul Vachon himself had bid on the rights to a musical stage version (offering to hire her to direct), and at least three ghost writers were angling to do the brute work. “I will say,” she told Hutch, “if you live through one of these things, the payoff is fairly decent.”

A few minutes later, they made their jump.

A MARKER BEGAN blinking on the navigation console. “What is it?” asked Nick.

“A comet,” said Hutch. “Or it would be if it ever breaks out and gets close to the sun.”

“It’s a piece of the oort cloud,” he suggested.

“More or less. Actually, we’re off in the fringes. The chindi’s track stays well below it.” She frowned at Bill’s screen, which was blank. “Bill, how’s our position look?”

“Working on it.”

“Okay,” she said. “I don’t see any reason to hold back. Start sending the message.”

Alyx’s hand touched her arm, squeezed it hopefully. Her status board blinked, signaling that transmission had begun. Short, two longs, short. And Tor’s picture. Over and over. They would continue until there was no longer any hope.

“I can’t be precise about our position,” Bill said, “until we locate the chindi. It does appear, however, that we are close to her vector.”

“Okay,” she said.

With nothing else to occupy her, Hutch sat back in her seat and looked helplessly at Alyx.

“You can only do what you can do,” Alyx said.

Nick asked whether anyone wanted coffee. No one did, so he settled for pouring himself a cup.

“Time like this,” Alyx said, “and the best I can think of is a cliché. But you know what I mean.”

“Times like this,” Nick said, “people always use clichés. It’s what we need. Keeps things familiar and lends a kind of stability to the world.”

Hutch smiled. “That what they teach in funeral-director school?”

“It’s the first order of business, Hutch. Whatever else happens, we’ll get through it. We come out the other side, and the world goes on.”

Hutch met his eyes. He really meant it. Everything was going to be okay.

Nick, reading her thoughts, relaxed. “I can see why he loves you, Hutch,” he said.

In the context of the conversation, it was a bolt out of the blue. “I don’t think—” she said. “He doesn’t—I mean, there’s no, uh, relationship….”

“It’s been obvious since he came on board. Did you think we’re blind?”

“No. No, I didn’t.”

She broke away from his blue eyes. Looked at the navigation screen. There was another rock out there. And at the Phillies sketch. And the coffee dispenser. “Maybe I will have some.”

“THE CHINDI WILL pass us in one hour, forty-seven minutes. Plus or minus 5 percent.”

Hutch took a deep breath. “All right. Bill, open a channel to Tor.”

Alyx and Nick said nothing. But she could read their expressions. What are you going to tell him?

She had no idea. Tor would not be able to respond. He was still too far away. But he might be able to hear her.

Ordinarily, Bill would have told her the channel was open. This time, a green light blinked on, without comment.

“Tor,” she said, “I don’t know whether you can hear me. I wanted you to know we haven’t given up.”

Time slowed on the bridge. Somebody’s chair creaked. The bleeps and squeals of electronic systems throughout the ship grew audible. The air was thick and warm and heavy.

“But the situation at the moment isn’t good…” She laid it out for him, explained that the chindi had never jumped, that it was slower than light, that it was nevertheless moving so fast they couldn’t come alongside it to take him off. It was too slow to catch. They were making a new attempt to contact whoever was running the chindi. They had an idea how it might be accomplished. It was a long shot, but they weren’t going to give up.

“—I don’t want to hold out false hope,” she said.

A window opened in the navigation screen: ESTIMATED DISTANCE TO CHINDI: 3.6 A.U.’s.

And below it: CHINDI MOVING AT.26C WHEN LAST SEEN BY LONGWORTH.

“This transmission won’t get to you for almost a half hour. You’ll pass us a bit later. About an hour and twenty minutes from the time you receive this. Tor…” Her voice broke, and she stopped.

OBJECTS IN OORT CLOUD PREDOMINANTLY ROCK AND ICE. SOME IRON.

The Phillies sketch smiled down at her. Had the world ever really been that sunlit?

“Tor, we’re asking the crew to help. The aliens.” She sank back in her chair and stared out through the bulkhead into the darkness. “I’m sorry, Tor. I wish there were more we could do.

“You won’t be able to talk to me. You’ll only be in range for an instant. We estimate you’ll pass us at seventy-five thousand kilometers per second.” She thought about trying to lighten the moment, to find something clever to tell him.

Just as well.

“Bill,” she said, “are we still transmitting the package for the chindi?”

“Yes, Hutch.”

“Course and speed still constant?”

“Yes, Hutch.”

“No way it could work,” she told Alyx and Nick.

Alyx nodded. Nick’s jaw muscles worked.

Hutch kept the channel open, talking to him throughout the approach. When the chindi had closed to within 200 million kilometers, she went down to the cargo deck, collected a telescope out of storage, and put on an e-suit. “Tor,” she said, “I’ll be outside when you pass.”

“Hutch.” Bill sounded unhappy. “There’s a danger. If the chindi has collected any loose rock—”

“Bill?”

“Yes, Hutch?”

“I’ll be outside. I won’t fall off.”

She pulled on grip shoes and a set of air tanks and activated the suit. Throughout the process she continued to talk to Tor. But her voice kept going high, and she had to fight down occasional spasms of rage. All your fault, dummy.

“Hutch,” said Bill, “range is 40 million kilometers. Sensors have acquired it. It will pass us in about eight minutes.”

She let herself into the airlock, closed the hatch, and depressurized.

“Hutch, I wish you wouldn’t do this.”

“Don’t worry, Bill.”

Alyx’s voice: “Be careful, Hutch.”

“I will. Bill, open the hatch.” The system hadn’t responded when she touched the press pad. Now it cycled up into the overhead. She stepped outside and gazed at the stars. The Twins weren’t visible, of course. Even their sun was lost out there somewhere.

She stood quietly until Bill interrupted her thoughts. “Hutch,” he said, “chindi range is 4.1 million kilometers. It is fifty seconds away.”

She set the chronometer built into her sleeve. “Where will it pass?”

“Approximately three hundred kilometers off the port side.”

“Get pictures as it goes by.”

“They won’t be very clear. It’s moving too fast.”

“Do the best you can.” She retreated to the portside sensor array, where Tor had thrown his coin into the night. The weight of the sky pressed on her.

“There’s a configuration of four stars in a line two degrees off the stern. The second star is the class-B, the sun in the Gemini system. The chindi will be coming almost directly out of it. Maybe a little to the far side as you look at it.”

“Okay. Thanks.” She raised the telescope.

“Don’t expect to see anything.”

“I know.”

“I mean, even if we were only a hundred meters away, you wouldn’t see anything.”

“Shut up, Bill.”

“I will. But I hope you don’t get pinged while you’re out there. They’ll saddle me with making out the reports.”

She held on to the array, her feet planted on the hull, straining toward the four stars. “I’m outside, Tor,” she said, quietly. “You’re only a few seconds away now. I wish you could talk to me. I wish I could make this easier for you.”

The scopes lined up to try for pictures. A shadow crossed the stars. Not the chindi. This was moving too slowly and in the wrong direction. She didn’t get a good look, simply felt its passage. A piece of the oort cloud. A rock. Possibly a cloud of dust.

“I love you, Tor,” she said. And she imagined she heard a voice on the link, a distant whisper. Then it was gone, and she was left staring out at the stars.