Hatching the Phoenix

CHAPTER X

I kept one eye on the time, but I had plenty for what I wanted to do. I even gave myself a little diversion first. I went to my island.

I don’t mean in person, of course. I simply checked out everything on Raiwea through my monitors and listened to the reports from the department heads. That was almost as satisfying. Just looking at the kids, growing up healthy and happy and free the way they are — it always makes me feel good. Or, in this case, at least a little better.

Then I left my remote-accessed Raiwea and went into the reality of the Phoenix ship.

Hans was busily shifting focus every time a few new frames came in, so now the pictures were coming in faster than anybody could take them in. That couldn’t be helped. There was a whole world to look at, and anyway it didn’t matter if we saw it all in real time. All the data were being stored for later analysis and inter­pretation—by somebody else, though. Not by me. I had seen all I wanted.

So, evidently, had most of the Phoenix crew. Starminder and Julia Ibarruru were in the eating chamber, but they were talking to each other about the Core and paying no attention to the confusing images pouring in. Bill Tartch had his cameras turned on the display, but he was watching the pictures only with sulky half-attention, while Denys hung, sound asleep, beside him. “What’s the use of this, Klara?” he demanded as soon as he saw me. “I can’t get any decent footage from this crap, and most of the crew’s gone off to sleep.”

I was looking at Denys. The little tart even snored prettily. “They needed it,” I told him. “How about Terple?”

He shrugged. “Kekuskian was here a minute ago, looking for her. I don’t know whether he found her or not. Listen, how about a little more of your interview, so I won’t be wasting my time entirely?”

“Maybe later,” I said, not meaning it, and went in pursuit of June Terple.

I heard her voice raised in anger long before I saw her. Kekuskian had found her, all right, and the two of them were having a real cat-and-dog fight. She was yelling at him. “I don’t give a snake’s fart what you think you have to have, Oleg! We’re going! We have to get the whole installation the hell out of here while we’re still in one piece.”

“You can’t do that!” he screeched back at her. “What’s the point of my coming out here at all if I can’t observe the supernova?”

“The point,” she said fiercely, “is to stay alive, and that’s what we’re going to do. I’m in charge here, Kekuskian! I give the orders, and I’m giving them now. Hans! Lay in a course for the neutron star!”

That’s when I got into the spat. “Cancel that, Hans,” I ordered. “From here on in, you’ll be taking your orders from me. Is that understood?”

“It is understood, Ms. Moynlin,” his voice said, as calm and unsurprised as ever. Terple wasn’t calm at all. I made allowances for the woman; she hadn’t had much sleep, and she was under a lot of strain. But for a minute there I thought she was going to hit me.

“Now what the hell do you think you’re doing, Moynlin?” she demanded dan­gerously.

“I’m taking command,” I explained. “We’re going to stay for a while. I want to see that star blow up, too.”

“Yes!” Kekuskian shouted.

Terple didn’t even look at him. She was giving her whole attention to me, and she wasn’t in a friendly mood. “Are you crazy? Do you want to get killed?”

It crossed my mind to wonder if that would be so bad, but what I said, quite reasonably, was, “I don’t mean we have to stay right here and let the star fry us. Not the people, anyway. We’ll evacuate the crew and watch the blowup on the remote. There’s plenty of room for everybody in the two ships. I can take three or four with me, and Bill can take the others in his rental.”

She was outraged and incredulous. “Klara! The radiation will be enormous! It could destroy the whole installation!”

“Fine,” I said. “I understand that. So I’ll buy you a new one.”

She stared at me in shock. “Buy a new one! Klara, do you have any idea of what it would cost—”

Then she stopped herself short and gave me a long look. “Well,” she said, not a bit mollified, but more or less resigned to accepting the facts of life, “I guess you do know, at that. If that’s what you want to do, well, you’re the boss.”

And, as usual, I was.

So when I gave orders, no one objected. I got everybody back in the dining chamber and explained that we were abandoning ship. I told Terple she could come on my ship, along with Starminder and Ibarruru. “It’s only a few days to Earth; the three of you can all fit in my guest bedroom. Mason-Manley and Kekuskian can go with Bill and Denys. It’ll be a little crowded in his rental, but they’ll manage.”

“What about Hans and me?” Rohrbeck asked, sounding puzzled.

I said offhandedly, “Oh, you can come with me. We’ll find a place for you.”

He didn’t look as thrilled as he might have at the idea of sailing off through space with a beautiful, unattached woman, such as me. He didn’t even look in­terested. “I don’t just mean me personally, Klara,” he said testily. “I mean me and my shipmind. I put a lot of work into designing Hans! I don’t want him ruined!”

I wasn’t thrilled by his reaction, either, but I do like a man who likes his work. “Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I asked Hypatia about that. She says she has plenty of extra capacity. We’ll just copy him and take him along.”