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Time. Brodersen muttered to Caitlín, “They’ve sure got to him, haven’t they? Prob’ly by more than an appeal to his loyalty. He’s an officer of the Union, after all, not of Europe. Bribe, blackmail—”

“Your path and vectors are incorrect for a transit,” Lawes said. “Explain.”

“Yeah, I was coming to that. We’ve developed collywobbles in the main control system. Acquired a wrong momentum and have to compensate. Instead of making straight for our first base, we’re applying parameters which will bring us to zero relative velocity near Beacon Bravo. From there, we’ll move to the proper location for a standard approach. I have the figures here, if you’d like me to transmit them.”

Discussion went into technicalities for several minutes. At last, reluctantly, Lawes said., “Very well. We will be tracking you continuously, remember. Stand by for possible further instructions. If nothing suspicious happens, I will re-establish direct communication at nineteen-thirty hours. Is that clear?” Receiving his acknowledgment, he blanked without a goodbye.

Brodersen leaned back. “Wow,” he said. “For a while there, I wondered if he would shoot. His finger’s awful twitchy on the trigger. But of course, at this distance, Frieda can intercept whatever he might send—I presume.”

“It’s desperate our enemies are, I’m thinking,” Caitlín said.

“Right. And the more desperate people get, the more dangerous. Us included.” He turned to smile at her. The darling face drew close to his. “Well, we’ve three to four hours before things get spiny. Better rest up, macushla, if you can.”

She ran fingers down his cheek. “I’ve a more interesting idea, my life.”

“Huh? I—Look, I’ve got to make the rounds, jolly the troops, check everything out—”

“If those responsible have not their departments in good shape by now, you’re too late,” she said firmly. “They do, though. I’ve sounded them out in ways the Old Man cannot. The morale of most is flying banners; the rest are at least of stout heart. Aye, we might hold an assembly, for a few rousing songs of revolution and freedom. But that’s best done as late before our plunge as may be.” She grinned. “Thus you’ve better than an hour free, Daniel Brodersen, and sure I am you’ve the wit to pass it in style.”

“Uh, well, uh, look, frankly, I’m so full of worries, I doubt—”

She stopped his lips with hers. Her hands roved. Presently she laughed. “See?
That
fret of yours was for naught.” Springing to her feet, grabbing his wrist: “Come along, me bucko. No use to struggle. You’re doomed.”

Stars blazed in every viewscreen of the command center. The dimmed image of Sol hung like a burning moon, Earth hidden from sight behind it. Elsewhere a globe glowed wanly golden, the sign at which the ship had halted. In another direction, the cylinder that was the T machine whirled, its mass and might brought by a tiny distance—about fifty megameters, hardly more than the circumference of a terrestroid planet—down to a bit of jewelry adrift in heaven.

Brodersen floated alone, harnessed, listening to his blood. Those tides went more easily than he had expected. He would not have taken a fear suppressant in any event, for he needed each millisecond he could shave off his reaction time, but he had figured on being strung tight.
Pegeen is heap good medicine,
he thought.

If only she could be here. She wouldn’t distract him … willingly. He just wasn’t sure that in her nearness he could remain the complete robot he ought to be. It was plenty hard curbing the knowledge that soon she might die.

And Stef poised at detector and communicator consoles in the electronics shack; Joelle as holothete and Su as linker were parts of the ship, her pilots through the shoals and breakers ahead; Phil and Martti occupied the engine room, though likely they were condemned to do no more than sweat; Frieda had the armament center, with Carlos—who had learned something about it earlier—to give partial assistance. That left Caitlín to comfort Fidelio. Tuning briefly in, Brodersen had heard her swapping music with the Betan.

A blink and beep sent his attention to the outercom. Lawes’ haggard countenance jumped into its screen. “Watchship—there you are. Are you prepared?”

“More or less,” Brodersen replied. “We’ve still got problems. I do hope the apparatus doesn’t suddenly run wild. That could send us off to Kingdom Come, you know.”

Time lag here was imperceptible. Dozsa had reported
Alhazen
as being a few thousand kilometers off. Magnification could have made the lean shape visible, but Brodersen saw no cause to bother. “I… hope the same… for your sake,” Lawes said. “Proceed according to your declared flight plan. I’ll stay in touch…. Proceed!”

“Yes.” Brodersen addressed the intercom. “Captain to crew. You heard the man. Get busy.” He saw Lawes flush and clench teeth, as if twice convinced this was a pack of pirates.

Weightlessness yielded to a small, varying sideways drag and a sense of Coriolis twist, as
Chinook
rotated from her gyros. That stopped; for an instant she orbited; full thrust awoke and she darted forward. Acceleration crammed Brodersen into his seat.

It took a minute for Lawes’ instruments and computers to determine what was going on and inform him. “Hold!” he screamed. “You’re aimed wrong!”

“God damn it, I know,” Brodersen snapped in his best imitation of a person fighting dismay. “I told you we’re having troubles. Hang on, don’t bother me.”

“What are you d
oing?”

“You think we want to go off on a random path and disappear forever? Get off my back. I’ve got to see about stopping us.”

“I’ll give you a short chance, Captain.” Lawes clamped his mouth shut. Brodersen and his followers exchanged words which they had rehearsed.

The ion drive cut out, as it must if
Chinook
was to tread the
measure Joelle had calculated for her. Falling toward the next point of inflection, she turned her nose again. A radar could spot the movement if it was set to do so, but he gambled that that wouldn’t occur to Lawes for a while.

“Navigation estimates we can stay on this trajectory for six hours without getting too far into the field,” he said. It was true. “The engineers expect they’ll repair the breakdown well before then.”

Lawes squinched eyelids close together. “I want to know more about it. Why didn’t you call in sooner?”

“Weren’t we supposed to maintain silence? We aren’t actually criminals, Captain. We’re law-abiding citizens, anxious to get home and clear our names. How the hell we ever got accused of anything, I faunch to learn…. All right, if you wish, I’ll screen the pertinent parts of our log and the CE’s notes.”

Those were works of art, Brodersen judged. Nevertheless he was fumble-thumbed about presenting them. His job as skipper was to talk, nothing else—dish out the blarney as long as possible—keep his adversaries in play, while Joelle and Su and the laws of physics drove his ship onward.

He had a mere twenty minutes or thereabouts of plausibility until the next acceleration fell due. His pilots would go at top speed, no safety margin to speak of, since every margin around them was beset….

A renewed boost.

“Stop,
Chinook!
Are you insane?”

“The controls are insane, that’s what.”

“I can’t believe this any longer.”

“Ask your own CE to study the information we sent. Have him study it real hard.” Brodersen won that debate also.

The drive had stopped and he hung as if at the bottom of a dream. Sweat off his face bobbed around in globules. Pegeen might likewise become glitter strewn among the stars. His underwear absorbed perspiration but left him chill and gamy. Time extended.

Lawes reappeared in the screen. “My engineer says your material does not make sense,” he snapped. “It’s superficially plausible enough that it must have been concocted. You’re attempting to escape.”

“Escape into what?”

“Never mind. Brodersen, you will reverse immediately or we shoot.”

He’s reacting on schedule, he is
. “Wait, Captain Lawes. Wait
half a tick. You’re about to compromise your mission and jeopardize your career. Take heed while you can.”

“What are you raving about?”

“I’m not raving. Please note I’m speaking very carefully.”
As slow and wordy as I gauge I can get away with
. “Curb your own emotions and listen. You can spare a few minutes for saving your ass and maybe your superiors’, can’t you?”

“Well—” Lawes swallowed. “Go on. Speak to the point.”

“I will. Okay, we lied to you, we bought ourselves time to get this far. It was necessary. The fact is, there’s a lot more behind our arrest than a miscarriage of justice. Want to hear?”

“No! I have my orders!”

“It mightn’t be safe for you to know, eh? Well, from our viewpoint, we’ve zero to lose. If we go to Phoebus, the way things are, we’re dead. Jumping off into the galaxy, we have the teeniest chance of finding help somewhere. We don’t count on that, of course. But we’ll have several extra years of life while our supplies last. I don’t think this will bother your bosses much. If anything, they should be glad to get rid of us so cheaply.”

“My orders say, either see you off to Phoebus or kill you. If you don’t return at once, you’ll not get an hour of those years you mention.”

“We’re armed too, Captain. We can block your missiles for a bit. Meanwhile we’ll broadcast—in Spanish, visual, at full power. Can you be certain they won’t tune in aboard
Copernicus?
Or chance to catch it on a different spacecraft? We’ve wattage aplenty to be received ten million kilometers off. It’s a story which will bring down some big people. In cases like that, little people get carried along…. I wish you would let me talk to you, Lawes.”

“No.” Torment. “Have you anything further to say before we start shooting?”

“Why, yes. I have this suggestion.” Brodersen thrust his whole personality forward. “Call Earth and ask what to do. We’ll be zigzagging on, sure, but you’re aware of how long a proper transit pattern takes, and we’d much rather come out in a planetary system, at a T machine, than in the middle of interstellar space. The best guess is, this means we have to pass from beacon to beacon—the more, the likelier—and swing straight inward from the last. You’ve time for a call. Meanwhile, unless you shoot, we’ll stay quiet.”

“Well—You have no right to bargain!”

“I am bargaining, though. Hear me. What I wish you’d do is direct your message not to the office you’re supposed to, but to your own high command. Lay the matter before them. You’ll find them astonished at what’s been going on.”

“We’re under security.”

Brodersen sighed. He’d expected nothing else. “Okay, as you choose.” Louder: “But
call!”

After more argument he won his point. The screen blinked and he collapsed, breathing hard. It would take about three-quarters of an hour for an interchange, via the relay satellite, between here and Earth. By then, at her headlong pace,
Chinook
should be deep into the transport field.

Stars exulted. He stirred and said through the intercom: “You heard that, boys and girls? We’re this far along. Rejoice.”

A few small cheers replied. Caitlín struck a ringing chord from her sonador and declared, “You carried us, Daniel.”

“No, you all did,” he answered. “Hey, Pegeen, I love you.”

“Wait till I get you to myself again,” she said.

Joelle is listening
—By tacit agreement, conversation died away. Occasional words went around, most of them functional. Tastes in music varied too widely for a shared concert. Folk at their posts remained in their lonelinesses. Brodersen relived his latest passages with Caitlín; the first had rated twelve on the Beaufort scale, the second had been as gentle as that final union, close to dawn, in the cave beneath Mount Lorn…. He even dozed for a spell. The ship roused him, changing direction, squandering chemical auxiliaries as well as expending nuclear fuel in order to keep hard on her way.

He was bobcat-alert before the response from Earth came due.

Dozsa’s voice delivered it, a shout: “Missiles!”

The decision was, “Kill,”
Brodersen realized.
Quick, or whoever is at the other end, is afraid we may have a plan
.

He must sit with nothing but fingernails in his fists. Survival had ceased to be any affair of his.

At high accelerations, crossing the gap in a couple of minutes, though they changed vectors at varying intervals to confuse counterfire, the torpedoes homed on
Chinook
. Nobody aboard was spacesuited. If a nuclear warhead exploded near the hull, that was that.

Brodersen spied the exhaust streaks, silver and narrow. Sensors locked onto the tubes. A computer extrapolated.
Zarubayev had fine-tuned the system. Fire sprayed across darkness as energy-gorged laser beams found their targets. An “All clear” jubilated, telling humans they would not die in the next few seconds.

The ship trembled. Von Moltke had launched missiles of her own. This was her ultimate job, to outguess a living opponent.

Chinook
was not only much bigger than
Alhazen,
she carried throw weight out of proportion. Watchships weren’t really intended for battle. Their weapons were partly a relic of the Troubles, partly a concession to vague fears… which Quick’s faction strove to entrench….

The vessel surged around Brodersen., plunging toward her next way station.

Twinkles in heaven—“Gunner to captain,” von Moltke intoned, “they stopped our barrage.”

“They were meant to, this first time,” he reminded her. “A lesson. Stef, have you got contact?… Okay, put me through.”

His intention was to repeat his original threat, negotiate for the escape of his command. He did not, repeat and repeat
not,
wish to kill more men who were doing what they’d been assured was their duty.

The stars were beginning visibly to crawl in the viewscreens. Soon he’d be in such warped space-time that no rocket would have a prayer of tracking him down. Of course, any signal he transmitted from there would be hopelessly garbled. Well, everybody would be satisfied, sort of—

“Missiles!” Dozsa bawled. He spat an oath and rattled off RA, dec, approximate vectors. They had to be from
Copernicus
.