Polaris

II.

Rondel (Rondo) Karpik was chief of the communications watch at Indigo Station, near the outer limits of Confederate space. His title, chief, was largely nominal since, except during major operations, he was the only person on the watch. The Delta Kay mission had ceased to be a major operation. Sensor packages had been laid at strategic points, data from the three ships had been relayed and stored, the on-station experts had expressed their admiration for the efficiency with which the researchers had carried out their assigned tasks, but they were predicting it would be months before we knew what we’d learned. There had been a journalist with the Sentinel, reporting to a pool. The pool had filed stories that went on about the majesty of it all until Rondo thought he was going to throw up. Then the fleet had announced its homebound schedule, and the experts and journalists had retired down to Cappy’s gumpo shop, and he hadn’t seen them since.

There was still some tracking data coming in, and a few other odds and ends, but the excitement was clearly over. Well, he had to admit he’d never seen a star blow up before, at least not from close by.

“Indigo, we’re ready to make our jump.” Bill Trask’s image gazed at him from the center of the room. Bill was captain of the Rensilaer and, in Rondo’s view, the biggest horse’s ass among the assorted skippers who passed through Indigo. He had no time for peasants, and he let you know exactly how you rated. He was big, ponderous, with white hair and a deep, gravelly voice, and everybody was afraid of him. At least all the communications people. “We estimate timely arrival Indigo. Keep the stewpots warm.”

The message had been sent fifteen hours earlier. Trask signed off, and his image vanished.

Rondo opened a channel but kept it audio only. “Acknowledge, Rensilaer, ” he said. “We’ll be looking for you.”

All three ships would, of course, stop there before proceeding to Rimway. Indigo was a cylinder world, orbiting Planter’s Delight, which had been settled less than thirty years before and already boasted 17 million inhabitants. Indigo had almost half a million more.

The past few days had been historic, but it was hard to get excited. He was up for a department manager’s job, and that was all he cared about at the moment. Events like this were a hazard. They were no-win situations. Handle them right, and nobody would notice. Screw up somewhere, say the wrong thing to one of the journalists, and it would be bye-bye baby. So he concentrated on maintaining a professional attitude.

Keep the experts happy. And make sure the assorted hyperlight transmissions were received in good order, made available, and relayed to Rimway. It was simple enough. All he really had to do was to let the AI handle the details, be on his best social behavior, say good things about everybody, and keep close in case of a problem.

He watched the Rensilaer ’s status lights, and when they went blue, he informed operations that the ship had made its jump, and he gave them its ETA.

Ten minutes later, the Sentinel ’s captain appeared, Eddie Korby, young, quiet, studious. Look at him and you thought he was timid. The last person in the world you’d think would be piloting a starship. But he always had an attractive woman on his arm. Sometimes two or three.

“Indigo,” he said, “we’ll be departing in four minutes. I hope you got to watch the show. Delta Kay literally imploded. The passengers seem pretty happy with the mission. See you in a couple of weeks. Sentinel out.”

Next up was Maddy. “Coming home, Rondo,” she said. “Departure imminent.”

Behind her, on his operational screen, the dying star gave her an aura. She looked positively supernatural, standing there, silhouetted against the conflagration. A firstclass babe, she was. But there was something about her that warned him don’t touch.

“ Polaris out.”

He took another sip of his gumpo, which was an extract from a plant grown on the world below, and to which he’d long since become accustomed. Lemon with a sting, but when it settled, it provided a general sense of warmth and well-being.

Sentinel ’s status lamps went blue. On her way.

He passed it on, not that anyone in Ops really cared, but it was procedure. He checked the logbook, made the entry for the Sentinel, and waited for Polaris ’s lights to change.

The lamps showed white when the ship was in linear space, and they would go to blue when she’d made her jump. Twenty minutes after Maddy said they were ready to leave, they were still white.

That shouldn’t be. “Jack,” he told the AI, “run a diagnostic on the board. Let’s make sure the problem’s not at this end.”

The systems whispered to one another, status lamps winked on and off, turned yellow, turned green, went back to white. “I do not detect any problem with the system, Rondo,” said Jack.

Damn. He disliked complications. He waited another few minutes, but the lamp remained steadily, defiantly, unchanged.

White.

He hated problems. Absolutely hated them. There was always a big hassle, and it usually turned out that somebody had fallen asleep. Or hadn’t thrown a switch.

Reluctantly, he informed operations.

“ Polaris twenty-five minutes after scheduled jump. Unaccounted for.”

Rondo’s supervisor, Charlie Wetherall, showed up a few minutes later. Then one of the techs, who’d heard what was happening. The tech ran tests, and said the problem was at the other end. At forty-five minutes, the first journalists arrived. Heard something was happening. What’s wrong?

Rondo kept quiet and let Charlie do the talking. “These things happen,” Charlie said. “Communications breakdowns.” Sure they do.

What Rondo couldn’t figure was why they hadn’t heard from Maddy if she’d been unable to jump.

“Busted link,” said Charlie, helpfully, using his expression to suggest that Rondo not say anything alarming to the journalists. Or to anyone at all.

“Then you don’t think they’re in trouble?” one of them asked. Her name was Shalia Something-or-other. She was a dark-skinned woman who’d sulked for weeks because they hadn’t made room for her on the mission.

“Hell, Shalia,” said Charlie, “for the moment we just have to wait until we have more information. But no, there’s nothing to be worried about.”

He ushered the journalists into a conference room and found someone to stay with them, talk to them, keep them happy. He promised to let them know as soon as the station heard from the Polaris.

Charlie was small and round. He had a short temper when people made mistakes that impacted on him, and he was obviously thinking that Maddy had screwed up somehow, and he was getting irritated with her. Better with her, Rondo thought, than with me. Back in the comm center, they replayed the Polaris transmission. It was audio only. “Coming home, Rondo. Departure imminent. Polaris out.”

“Doesn’t tell us much,” said Charlie. “What’s imminent mean?”

“Not an hour.”

“Okay. I’m going to check with upstairs. Stand by.”

Ten minutes later he was back with the station’s director of operations. By then there was a crowd, and the journalists, who had broken out of their holding cell, were back. The director promised to make a statement as soon as he had something, and assured everyone it was just a technical glitch.

They played Maddy’s transmission over and over. The director confessed he had no idea what the situation might be and asked Charlie whether anything like this had happened before. It had not.

“Give it another hour,” the director said. “If nothing changes by”-he consulted the time-“by five, we’ll send somebody in. Can we turn one of the other two ships around?”

Charlie consulted his display. “Negative,” he said. “Neither has enough fuel to make a U-turn.”

“Who else is out there?”

“Nobody who’s close.”

“Okay. Who’s not close?”

Rondo tapped the screen to show his boss. “Looks like Miguel,” said Charlie.

Miguel Alvarez was the captain of the Rikard Peronovski. Carrying supplies to Makumba and running some sort of AI tests.

“How long’ll it take him to get there?”

While Charlie watched, Rondo ran the numbers. “Four days after he reorients and is able to jump. Add time for the request to reach him, and for maneuvering at Delta Kay, figure a week. No less than that.”

“Okay. If we don’t hear by five, tell him to go find the Polaris. Tell him to expedite.” The director shook his head. “It’s a bitch. Whatever we do here, we’re going to have some very unhappy people. What’s the captain’s name again, Charlie?”

“Miguel.”

“No. On the Polaris. ”

“It’s Maddy. Madeleine English.”

“We ever have trouble with her before?”

“Not that I know of.” He looked at Rondo, who shook his head. No. Never any trouble.

“Well, I’ll tell you, when this is over she better have a good story, or we’re going to have her license.”

Rondo turned the comm center over to his relief and retired to his quarters. He showered and changed and went down to the Golden Bat, where he had dinner, as he customarily did, with friends. He started to describe what had happened, but word had already gotten around.

He was midway through a roast chicken when Talia Corbett, an AI specialist, showed up and told them that nothing had changed, they had not yet heard anything from the Polaris. The call had gone out to the Peronovski. Miguel was riding to the rescue.

There was a lot of talk that there must have been a major comm malfunction because nothing else could explain what was happening. Other than a catastrophic event. When you say catastrophic event in a situation like that, you tend to get a lot of attention.

He’d been trying to coax Talia into his bed for the better part of a year. That night he broke through. Afterward, he concluded that the business with the Polaris had, in some way, been responsible. It’s an ill wind… he thought. Meantime, the Polaris lamps remained white.