Death Sentence (42 page)

And you allowed me to believe the same thing up until now, just in case I was somehow relaying information back to Metran.
But there was no point in taking offense when her hosts were fighting to save all their lives.

"We don't have enough stored boost energy to fly that profile," said Agent Mendez. "Human ships aren't as efficient as Elder Race ships. A ship this small can't afford to speed up, slow down for a rendezvous, then speed up again. Besides, if we're being pursued by a ship as fast as the
Stability
, we don't dare to slow down for a heartbeat. So the
Adler
will have to light her own engines and accelerate enough to match speeds with us. We configured her for remotely controlled operation before we left her behind."

Wolfson studied the plots a moment or two longer. "Once Bulwark of Constancy sees two vehicles under boost and moving toward mutual intercept, it will know it's seeing the real situation. Let's confuse her a bit more before we do anything else. We'll let her build up some velocity in a slightly wrong direction.
Then
we'll shift our course and increase our thrust to a matched-velocity intercept and rendezvous with the
Adler
--but we won't activate the
Adler
or light her engines until we're well under way on our new course. Let Constancy see it all in stages, and perhaps be deceived or confused by each one in turn."

"If so, Constancy will not be the only one deceived or confused," said Taranarak.

"Our apologies for that," said Agent Wolfson. "I acknowledge that we have not been entirely forthcoming. We believe you to be our friend and ally--but we are playing for such high stakes that we dare not trust our own personal feelings. And it is possible that you could be an unwitting spy. Transmitters or other devices could have been inserted into your clothes or other belongings without your knowledge. Surely you would rather be a living friend whose feelings had been slightly hurt, rather than all of us getting killed--and the longlife treatment lost, perhaps forever--because we extended our trust too far."

"I accept your apologies and explanations, and appreciate the situation," said Taranarak. But that didn't mean she had to like it. It also crossed her mind that if the
Stability
changed her heading to match the
Sholto
's final intended course before the
Sholto
made her own move, the humans would know--or at least assume--that Taranarak was the source. They were giving her a test. And if she failed it, they weren't likely to stop to ask if it was accidental or deliberate before they responded.

"Well," said Jamie, hours later, "I've heard the phrase 'a long stern chase' before, but I never thought I'd be in one."

"Let's hope we get out of it," said Hannah. "What's the current projection?" They had shifted their burn profile ninety minutes before and seen the pursuing vehicle alter her own course to a new intercept point.

"The short form is that we got a big head start, and the
Stability
didn't start pursuit anywhere near as soon as we expected. However, her ship has much higher acceleration than we do, and will catch up with us. If all the projections about how our ship and Constancy's ship will perform are correct, we'll beat her to the transfer-jump point by a hair under two hours--
if
everything goes perfectly. That projection is still trending downward a little bit."

"A little bit? You were projecting it at two and a half hours a while back. I'm starting to get really twitchy. I think it's time to wake up the
Adler
."

"Once we do that, we'll have all our cards on the table," Jamie cautioned. "The
Adler
could still match with us if she lit an hour from now--if we cranked her engines up to max boost, full throttle the whole way."

"And if she held together under the stress, and if she hasn't been leaking thrust power at more than the projected rate since we left her, and if about six other things. We've
got
to allow for some margin of error. That ship--and this ship--have both been through too much to crank them up to max
anything
and expect them to function properly. And there is one other card we could play, if need be. If the
Stability
suddenly cranks her acceleration past where we
think
she can go, and we project interception before we can make our transit-jump--then we can still escape. We light the
Adler
's engines, fly both ships toward our intended matched-velocity rendezvous--then skip the rendezvous and docking. If we abandon the
Adler
, we won't have to cut the
Sholto
's engines and fiddle about with the docking and transfer and so on. That will save us a couple of hours right there.

"Plus we can detonate the
Adler
remotely and use the explosion to mask the exact parameters of our jump from Constancy. That'll make us a lot harder to track if Bulwark pursues us into Center System--and I think we have to assume it will, if it doesn't manage to finish us off here. Abandoning the
Adler
might be the difference between life and death."

"We cannot abandon the
Adler
," said Jamie. "I am not going to say one word about why until we're safely aboard her and through the transit-jump--but we can't."

Hannah was quiet for a moment before she spoke again. "Jamie," she said in a low and gentle voice, "if this was just about risking our lives, I wouldn't mind so much. That's our job. But if we're right, and that stuff in the spray gun is what killed Trevor, we need to get it back to Center and analyzed, give them a chance to find countermeasures, before Bulwark of Constancy decides all humans are degenerate troublemaking Younger Race scum and figures it can solve the problem by dropping a thousand liters of the stuff into Center City's water supply. It could wipe out the city. Or maybe it wouldn't take even that much. Maybe a thousand liters would be enough to wipe out the entire population of Earth."

"I know," said Jamie. "I understand that. But Bulwark of Constancy could launch an attack like that right now, if it wanted to. It could beat us to transit-jump range, jump to Center System or the Solar System, and get there long before we did.

And even if we managed to get that spray gun back to Center, who knows how long finding a countermeasure might take? Maybe there
isn't
a countermeasure. But
if
we can get that message cracked, the odds are very good that there will be information inside it that would save the labs weeks or months or years in counteracting it."

Is that the reason, or the excuse?
Jamie's argument was sound--but was it his real motive? What
wouldn't
he talk himself into if it would help him complete Trevor's mission? "All right," she said. "It's just barely possible we're gambling with the survival of the human race--but all right. I trust your judgment. We won't abandon the
Adler
."

Just under an hour later, the
Adler
lit her engines. Not long after, Constancy's ship made a slight course correction as well. They were down to an hour and fifty minutes between when they would reach the
Adler
and when Constancy would intercept. Slowly, far too slowly, that number started to rebound very slightly over the next several hours. Careful study of the nav plot showed that Constancy was reducing her rate of acceleration very slightly. Maybe it was fearful of overstressing its own engines. Maybe it had miscalculated something--or they had. Maybe Constancy's engines were detuning a trifle, and it was unaware of it. Maybe a lot of things.

Two more days passed, but other than all three ships crawling along their projected flight paths, very little seemed to change. Midway through the second day, the
Stability
adjusted her thrust upward again and stopped her very gradual loss of relative position--but she did not seem to make any effort to make up lost ground.

"My reading is that she's not even trying to catch us on this side of the transit-jump anymore," said Jamie as they checked the plot projections for the thousandth time. "Or else Constancy is about to pull some all-mighty rabbit out of its hat, do some stunt we're not expecting at all, and pounce on us at the last minute."

"That's always possible," said Hannah, "but I think you're right. Constancy's running that ship flat out as it is. Push it any harder, and it might risk wrecking the whole propulsion system. It's decided to close in for the kill on the other side of the jump. Constancy's figured out that we're all going to make the transit-jump at about the same velocity--which is another way of saying we'll have pretty much lost all the advantage of our head start by then. Once we're in Center System, we'll be at more or less zero relative velocity, and the advantage will be with the
Stability
, because it can accelerate faster and has greater power reserves, and probably better detection systems. If she can finish us off before we can call for help, or even just before help arrives, that will suit her just fine."

"And you say
I'd
make a lousy morale officer," said Jamie.

"I never said I'd be good at the job," Hannah replied. "Besides, we've got few surprises for Constancy."

"Let's just hope it doesn't have any surprises for
us.
Come on, let's get back to prepping for the transfer. The faster we can switch gear from one ship to the other, the happier I'll be."

The plotting points moved closer together. The
Adler
drew closer to the
Sholto
, and the two ships matched velocities as well, both of them moving at virtually the same terrifyingly high speed. After what seemed like endless hours of everything happening very slowly, suddenly everything seemed to happen at once as the nav plot computer flashed the status reports on the main display.

Range to target ten thousand kilometers. Five thousand. A thousand. A hundred. Fifty. Ten kilometers, and the
Adler
was actually visible, her visual-acquisition lights blinking blue and green in the darkness. Main engine stop on both ships. Final maneuvers on attitude thrusters. Five kilometers. Three kilometers. Commence auto-rendezvous and dock sequence. One kilometer. Half a klick. Three hundred meters.
Adler
holding steady attitude.
Sholto
in active docking mode, coming about to stern-first attitude. Ships nose to nose. Docking alignment confirmed. One hundred meters. Fifty. Twenty. Stand by for soft dock.

A bump, a thud.

Soft dock confirmed.

A series of hard, rattling bangs as the capture latches slammed into place.

Hard dock confirmed.

Hannah was already at the nose hatch, checking the pressure seal, getting it open, entering the tunnel between the ships.

"Display confirms good power, pressure, and temps aboard the
Adler
," she shouted. "I'm opening the hatch to the
Adler
now."

"Okay," said Jamie.

"Right!" a slightly muffled voice replied. "I'm in! Stand by a second." Silence for a little bit, and then Hannah's head popped through the
Sholto
's nose hatch. "It looks like the
Adler
's held together just fine." she announced. "No sign of any leakage from our repairs. Let's get the transfer done and get back under power before Constancy flies up our rear end." She reached out her arms. "Hand me that first bundle."