Neptune Crossing (The Chaos Chronicles) Page 29

  He closed his eyes again, squeezing them shut. No, Julie, I can't. And I'm so sorry, more than I can tell you. He cleared his throat, several times. "Julie, I—I wish I could. But I have to go—now. Please trust me. This must be...done. I hope you'll see why." He swallowed with difficulty. "Good...bye, Julie."

  He shifted his thoughts inward. /Do something, damn it!/

  /// Give me a squirt of fuel. ///

  He touched a control and watched in the monitor. The station, and the pursuing tugs, receded at an impossible rate. He felt no sense of physical acceleration. His heart had not stopped pounding yet. He wasn't sure it ever would.

  /// Okay, that's enough simple translation.

  Let's pour it on, John.

  We have a long way to go. ///

  "JOHN? WHAT'S HAPPENING?" whispered Julie.

  Unable to breathe or speak, he opened the flow to chamber four, trusting the quarx to know what he was doing. In the rear monitor, he saw a sunburst of concentric colors expanding outward: white in the center, radiating to blue, to green, yellow, orange, and deep red on the outside. For a few seconds, he couldn't see the station at all. Then the quarx pointed it out—a tiny point of light, vanishing behind the horizon of a shrinking, orange-grey disk of Triton. /Charlie? How are we—?/

  /// We're threading space, man.

  Say good-bye to Neptune. ///

  His heart almost stopped as he realized that the great blue ball of Neptune was also shrinking visibly, and with frightening speed. He could not tear his eyes from it. He wondered what the people on the station had seen, what they thought now. What Julie thought. He imagined a choir of voices...he felt his thoughts spinning toward silence-fugue. He felt the quarx putting the brakes on the process.

  /// Stop it, John!

  Just say good-bye.

  Think of what's ahead.

  Think positively. ///

  He could not breathe, could not swallow. /Good-bye, Neptune. Good-bye, Triton,/ he whispered. /Good-bye, Julie./ And after a moment: /Good-bye, life./

  Chapter 28

  Sunward Bound

  A half hour later, Charlie announced that the course was set, he'd confirmed their trajectory via one last linkup with the translator back on Triton, and Bandicut could relax. Relax? Bandicut watched the white diamond in his right wrist flicker one last time. The black one on the left had throbbed with heat during the linkup. Other than that, he had felt nothing. But he stared at the stones suspiciously, rubbing his wrists.

  /// They're intelligence and communications

  accessories.

  We're passing out of range of the translator,

  but we'll be using the stones again, I'm sure. ///

  Bandicut nodded slowly. He didn't really care about the stones. All he cared about was what he had left behind. The solar system was a vast, cold, dark, and lonely place and he had just set course for himself across its enormous emptiness. How the hell was he supposed to relax? He was feeling severely depressed. He struggled to get out of his cumbersome spacesuit.

  /// John, it's going to be a long flight.

  I hope you can find a way to unwind. ///

  /You can hope./ Bandicut shook his head angrily and hurled the empty suit away. He settled back into the pilot's seat and stared at the monitor images of the planet he had left behind. He kept increasing the magnification as the planet dwindled. Out the front window, he saw only darkness and a few of the brighter stars. He knew if he dimmed the cockpit lights or turned up the light augmentation, he would see more stars; but just now he didn't care to. He knew he should get busy. There was plenty to do, including checking the ship over from stem to stern. He had only Charlie's earlier datanet access to assure him that the ship was ready for space. He wanted to make sure that some hardware problem or missing supply wasn't going to doom them from the start. For that matter, he wanted to make sure no one else was aboard. The datanet had been wrong about that once already.

  /// I suggest you enlist

  Napoleon and Copernicus in your inspection.

  They seem well equipped for the job. ///

  Napoleon and Copernicus—he couldn't believe that the quarx had thought to bring him a pair of mechanized companions, but no one human. He knew why, of course; it was bad enough to be risking one human life on a suicide mission.

  /// I would like to claim that as my only reason.

  But actually, John,

  who would have come with you? ///

  He sighed, not answering, and checked the instruments again. He couldn't quite make himself leave the pilot's seat. He couldn't help wondering just what the translator-stone was doing, back there in the rocket's belly.

  /// I've tried to explain that to you. ///

  /Yeah./ Charlie had told him that "threading space" meant that they were weaving in and out of the "normal" space-time continuum many hundreds of times per second. With each fraction of an instant that they were in "secondary" space, they slipped forward so that they reappeared in the normal continuum at a point considerably displaced from their previous position. The effect created the illusion, to human eyes and instruments, of astonishing forward velocity.

  /// It's not totally an illusion.

  We're picking up energy

  with each passage through the spatial boundary.

  Plus, as we fall toward your sun,

  we'll gain some hefty gravitational acceleration,

  which we need, too. ///

  /Need?/

  /// For the actual destruction of the comet. ///

  /Ah./ Somehow, that did not make him any less depressed. He could well imagine the outcome of all that energy being released. See Julie again? Not likely.

  He wanted desperately to send a transmission back to Triton, but Charlie had told him that it was impossible while they were threading space—and indeed, his brief efforts had met with a tempest of static. Charlie's final link with the translator had been via a spatial-thread connection that human communications equipment could not pick up, and even that link was no longer possible, at the present distance.

  Nevertheless, Bandicut ached to explain again, to justify himself to Julie, to beg her forgiveness and her blessing. He wanted to tell her to wait for him. He didn't want her to think of other men. He wanted her to dream of him the way he dreamed of her. He wanted her to—

  /// Stop it!

  You're making yourself miserable! ///

  /Then find a way for me to get another message to her,/ he said miserably. The letter hadn't been nearly enough; he wanted a chance to say it right.

  /// John, I'm afraid your letter will have to do.

  There's simply no way we can transmit right now. ///

  /Well, when can we transmit? You never told me it would be like this. There are some things I'd like to make clear to the rest of them, too. I don't want people to think I'm a criminal, damn it!/

  /// I understand.

  Maybe they'll find the translator.

  We'll just have to see.

  It depends on when we break out of threading,

  and I don't know when that will be yet. ///

  He grunted, and swiveled in his seat to start another checklist of the instruments. After a minute, he stopped and sighed heavily. /Where are those damn robots, anyway? I might as well get some work out of them./

  /// Good.

  That's really the best way to approach it. ///

  /Go jump in a lake./

  *

  The two robots were parked just inside the airlock, using magnetic anchors. He floated down the corridor and touched them for a moment without speaking. He realized that he actually felt some comfort in their presence. They weren't exactly what he had in mind for companionship—and they weren't even very smart robots, just clever at what they were designed to do—and yet he had already been through some difficult times with them, and in that sense they felt like old friends. "Hi, Nappy," he said finally. "Copernicus. Long time no see."

  "I am at your service, John Bandicut,"
Napoleon answered, raising itself slightly on its ungainly legs. Two lights winked on its holocams.

  Copernicus answered with a series of drumtaps. "With you for the mission, Cap'n Bandicut." The robot rolled forward and back a few centimeters on its conical wheels.

  "Thanks," Bandicut said softly. "Look, you two. I have to tell you right now that you've signed on for a...difficult mission. But I'm glad you're here. I want you to help me inspect the ship. I didn't have time to give it much of a preflight."

  "Preflight inspection is mandatory before all operations," rasped Napoleon. "We should suspend—"

  "Stow it, Nappy. We're in flight already. And I need your help."

  "You are in command, John Bandicut," Napoleon answered. "Would you like a class-one detailed inspection of all systems, a class-two inspection of only vital systems, a class-three—"

  "Just check the fr'deekin' ship, will you?" Bandicut roared. "Look first for any other human aboard, then check vital life-support supplies, then power systems, then anything else you have time for in the next forty days, before we all cash it in. I'm going to stick close to the bridge. Just check in with me from time to time, okay?"

  "Understood," said Napoleon.

  "Wilco," said Copernicus with another quick drumtap.

  /// Could you touch them again

  for a moment, please? ///

  Bandicut pulled himself close and laid a hand on each robot. His hands tingled. /Reprogramming?/

  /// Just fine-tuning.

  Okay. ///

  Bandicut removed his hands. "Get going," he said. He watched, frowning, as they clicked into motion and started down the corridor—Napoleon swinging like an angular monkey on its magnetic feet, and Copernicus rolling smoothly down the side wall of the corridor. Bandicut sighed and returned to the cockpit. It made him nervous to be away, even though there was no piloting for him to do. If he was to be captain of his stolen ship, he just thought he damn well ought to be on the bridge.

  /// You'll get used to it, John.

  You might as well spend some of the trip

  coming to terms with what you've done,

  don't you think? ///

  /I thought I told you to go jump in a lake,/ he said, not meaning it at all kindly.

  *

  It took some time, watching the two robots at work on the monitors, before he was willing to believe that they were capable of inspecting the ship far more easily—and more thoroughly—than he could himself. What finally moved him to quit worrying about it, more than anything else, was hunger. He hadn't eaten in many hours, and he was anxious to take a look at the food supply aboard ship.

  He left the cockpit with Napoleon and Copernicus hard at work on the propulsion deck. Locating the galley again was easy. Finding something he wanted to eat was more difficult. The fresh food had not been loaded; what he had to choose from was freeze-dried, irradiated, and other nonperishables. He finally made some instant macaroni and cheese and a large flask of coffee. He was rusty at handling food in zero-gee, too, and he created a fair amount of mess floating in the air.

  /// Would you like me to adjust the local gravity

  to something more comfortable? ///

  Bandicut stared at the leaking bulb of coffee and the globs of black liquid writhing in the air. /You can do that? Why didn't you say so sooner?/

  /// I didn't think of it.

  But it's a fairly simple adjustment to the

  threading field surrounding the ship. ///

  There was really no reason to be amazed, he thought, but he was, nevertheless. /Sure. How about one-twelfth gee for starters, and maybe we can work our way up so I can get back in shape./

  /// Excellent idea.

  I suggest you find the proper vertical. ///

  Bandicut turned his feet to the ship's acceleration axis. He felt a twinge in his left wrist and slowly drifted down to the deck. The coffee globs hit at the same time, splattering quietly. He sighed and mopped up, then took his dinner to the cockpit. He sat, chewing slowly, watching the robots on the monitors, watching a brightness-enhanced view of the stars before him, watching the silent and effectively disabled comm, thinking about what he would like to say if only Charlie could give him a chance. And wondering if anyone would listen.

  *

  The time passed with numbing slowness. He learned to use the shipboard laundry, and found some clothing in stores that fit him, more or less. He'd finished his speech to Triton and to Earth at least a dozen times, before Neptune vanished into the darkness behind him. How many times he'd finished his speech to Julie was beyond counting, as were the times he'd come to, with a start, realizing that he'd been dreaming that she was here with him. By now, she might have had time to go looking for the translator. Would it allow her to find it? Would she believe him then—really believe him? Would she forgive him?

  He ached to know, to hear her voice.

  /// I didn't expect

  that you would form such intense attachments

  so quickly. ///

  /I guess there's a lot you don't know about me,/ Bandicut thought gruffly. /I'd like to know if that guy lived, too. Jensen. And the people on those two ships./

  /// Yes, ///

  was all Charlie said in reply.

  *

  They were eight days inbound from Neptune when Bandicut felt a sudden trembling in the air, a coiling in his gut, a shiver.

  /What the hell was that?/

  /// We've got a fluctuation in the

  threading field.

  We've got to shut down. ///

  Bandicut felt a leaden weight of anxiety, then weightlessness as he floated up out of his seat. /What's wrong?/

  /// I think we've damaged your

  number four fusion chamber. ///

  Bandicut studied the monitors, and saw nothing. He switched to the neurolink for a closer look. /Seems fine to me. Normal wear and tear./

  /// If we were using it as a fusion rocket,

  it would be fine.

  But the wear is causing a separation in the

  threading field. ///

  He didn't like the sound of that. /Which means what?/

  /// We've got to remove the translator-stone

  and move it to another fusion chamber. ///

  Bandicut said nothing. The last thing he felt like doing right now was going EVA on a solo flight across the solar system. If anything went wrong...

  /// We can send Napoleon out to do it.

  No need to risk yourself. ///

  Bandicut nodded, frowning. Of course. Napoleon could do the job just fine. But it gave him another idea. /Listen, Charlie—as long as we're stopped—/

  /// Okay, ///

  said the quarx, without waiting for him to finish.

  /// I guess I owe you that much. ///

  *

  They first had to program Napoleon and get him on the job. Then they powered up the long-range comm, to see if they could raise Triton. Bandicut nervously waited as the computer initiated the call and monitored for an answer. At this distance from Neptune, the signal lag was going to be almost half an hour each way. Time had never crawled quite so slowly. After a few minutes of that, Bandicut decided to transmit blind; they didn't have time for back-and-forth chitchat, anyway. He sent a focused beam to Triton, and a weaker omnidirectional signal as backup. "Triton Orbital, or any other station, this is Neptune Explorer, John Bandicut speaking. I do not know if you are picking up this signal, so I will just say what I have to say, and hope that it gets through."

  He hesitated, clicking his teeth. All his carefully rehearsed speeches had evaporated from his mind. He struggled for words. "I—apologize for the theft of Neptune Explorer. If there had been any other way, I would never—but really, there wasn't. I guess by now, you all know what I said in my letter to Julie Stone. It was all true. I'm—sorry, Julie, I didn't mean for it—" His voice caught. This wasn't coming out right.

  He drew a breath.

  "To repeat: The reason I took Neptun
e Explorer is to prevent a...catastrophe...to Earth. I know that sounds crazy. But you must...well, ask exoarch, they know where the alien artifact is. Perhaps you've found it by now."

  He squinted, thinking—if that damn translator hides itself, they'll never believe me. He took another raspy breath. "I just want to be clear. It is through that alien...presence... part of which is still with me here...that I learned of the comet which is on a collision course with Earth. I am on my way to intercept it."

  /// Perhaps if you tell them where you are... ///

  /Huh? Why?/

  /// Could you have gotten here yourself? ///

  /Oh./ Bandicut cleared his throat. "My present position—" He leaned to check the nav and read off the numbers. He was almost halfway across the distance between Neptune's orbit and Uranus's. "You understand that I could not possibly have traveled this distance using only the fusion drive. If you doubt that I am using a nonhuman technology—" He hesitated. "Oh, Christ, just believe me!" He rocked back in his seat, growling helplessly to himself.

  /// It's not an easy thing to convey. ///

  /I had this all worked out in my head! I should have recorded it!/

  He sighed and continued: "Please convey the following to Julie Stone, exoarch department, Triton Surface: 'Julie, I'm sorry I couldn't have told you sooner. If you find the artifact, you will know that everything I told you is true. If you don't find it, keep looking. It is capable of...hiding. And please believe me. I don't know what else I can say. You probably all saw me vanish into space like some kind of goddamn holo effect. Maybe you all thought I was dead. Well, I'm not—yet, anyway. I will return—if I can—after Earth is...safe. I...I lo-, I miss you.'" He hesitated, trying to swallow back the lump in his throat. "Unquote," he muttered. After a moment he added, "Just for the record, Julie Stone had nothing whatever to do with this. She didn't know."

  He paused again. "Oh, and Julie, could you please pass on everything I've told you to my niece, Dakota Bandicut, in Iowa City? Tell her...that I am not a criminal, and that I miss her, too. Thanks." He pondered saying more, and finally croaked, "End transmission."