Chinook had passed through.
He resumed his captaincy.
"Arain Janigian, commanding watchship Copernicus," the face in his outercom receiver said, heavily accenting the Spanish. "Welcome, Chinook."
"Daniel Brodersen, commanding. Thank you," was the equally ritual response. "All's well aboard."
"Good. Your position and vectors are acceptable, no immediate correction required."
Familiar though it was, Brodersen felt impressed anew by the fact that a ship always emerged with the same velocity relative to the second T machine as she had had relative to the first at the instant she jumped. Somehow energy differences between stars were compensated for within the transport fields-unless some conservation law that man knew nothing about was in operation.
"Here is your update," Janigian said.
It went directly from computer to computer, starting with the exact local time. A readout showed Brodersen that he was within two hours of his ETA: pretty good. Solar wind conditions, notices of craft elsewhere in the System, etc., etc., followed. When that was done, Janigian delivered selected items personally. Port Helen, of the Iliadic League, was closed by a strike; a shipment of cometary water and hydrocarbons, inbound for Luna, had been granted A priority; an asteroid from interstellar space, swinging by on its hyperbolic orbit, would make close approach to Mars on 3 February; pending further notice, a sphere of one million kilometers' radius around the San Geronimo Wheel was interdicted to unauthorized persons and carriers- Brodersen started, fetched up against his harness, and bounced back. "Huh?" he exclaimed. "How come?"
"A scientific project that doesn't want gas contamination; or so I understand," Janigian said, bored. "Why do you care? You're cleared for Earth."
"Urn-rn. . . I'd hoped to visit the Wheel, as long as I'm here," Brodersen lied fast. "Reviving happy memories. What is this project?"
"I don't know. I'll have the complete announcement fed into your bank if you wish. Perhaps you can arrange permission."
"Thanks. Please go on."
The briefing completed, the farewell courtesies exchanged, the vectors calculated, Chinook set out at one gee. She would need between four and five Terrestrial days to round Sol and reach Earth. It should be a totally routine voyage.
Brodersen tapped for a readout of the prohibition. Having glowered at it, he unsnapped himself and paced among the instrumentalities, blank surfaces, and star-crowded screens of the command center. Eventually he activated the intercom. "Captain to chief engineer," he said. "Phil, would you come up here?" A part of him imagined Caitlin's disappointment that he had said nothing to her. Later, later-to her and them all. First he needed a consultation with the top technical expert aboard, who was also his oldest friend aboard.
Weisenberg sauntered through the door. The furrows in his countenance lay easy; he rarely registered excitement. "What's what, Dan?" he asked in his drawled English. His parents, NeoChasidim, had moved to Demeter to escape persecution in the Holy Western Republic.
"You were listening, weren't you?" As was customary, Brodersen had put his conversation with Janigian on the intercom. "Okay, check this business on the San Gerommo Wheel and tell me what you think it smells like."
Weisenberg placed his lank frame, joint by joint, into a chair before the terminal. Silence followed. Brodersen felt sweat prickle forth on his skin and caught a whiff of it.
"Well?" he snapped at length.
Weisenberg looked at him. "It is rather noncommittal, isn't it?" he said.
"Noncommittal, hell! Who do they expect will take seriously that goose gabble about turning over a public monument, for months, to research that trivial?"
"Anybody who isn't paranoid, Dan. Foundations do underwrite odd undertakings; and the monument in question is monumentally unimportant to just about everyone alive."
Brodersen slammed fist against bulkhead, hurtfully hard. "All right, I'm paranoid! You too. The whole gang of us. For good reason. Emissary is being held somewhere, if she and her crew haven't already been destroyed. Doesn't the Wheel seem logical?"
Weisenberg nodded his white head. "Well, yes, if you insist, it does. No vessel would likely pass near the closed zone. If any did, she'd have no cause to turn scanners that way at full magnification, and identify a modified Reina-class ship orbiting close." Long fingers rubbed a long chin. "Where is the Wheel currently?"
Susanne had gone off duty, or Brodersen could have had that information straightway upon inquiring. As was, he fumbled out his demand on a keyboard. He and Weisenberg peered at the visual display which accompanied the numbers. "Yeah," he said. "Not far off inferior conjunction with Earth. Which gives it an extra recommend as a prison."
From his chair, Weisenberg considered the skipper, who stood crouched above him. "You mean we should swing around and have a peek," he said softly.
"What else?"
"Why, we proceed to Earth as per our flight plan and alert the Ruedas as per our own plan."
"Chancy," Brodersen growled. "It'll take time for them to make an excuse to send off a boat, and go through all the preparations and paperwork. Meanwhile anything could happen. If nothing else, Aurie Hancock's going to get suspicious about me sooner or later-and I'd bet on sooner; she's a smart old bitch coyote. At present, we've got the jump. If that is where Emissary is, we can bring the story to Lima-pictures-why, we can make a public statement and broadcast that will kick the whole miserable conspiracy to shivereens!" He ended on a roar.
"Easy, easy," Weisenberg cautioned. "The detour will add two -three days' travel time, you realize. Suppose we see nothing. How do we explain ourselves when we reach Earth?"
"Oh, we'll write a story en route," Brodersen said impatiently. "Like, well, a freak meteoroid hit that damaged our communications so we couldn't report it, but went into free fall till we'd made repairs. Improbable as a snake on stilts, yes, I admit that. But not totally impossible, and we can fake the traces, and besides, Aventureros can persuade the board of inquiry to treat it as a trivial incident.
"Or doubtless we can dream up a better gimmick. We'll have days." Brodersen swung away from the terminal, around the deck, hands clutching wrists behind his back, footfalls banging. Whenever he passed by a viewscreen, his brow was crowned with stars. "We'll consult the rest, of course, but I'm sure they'll agree. In fact, I'm going to order an immediate change of vectors, toward the Wheel."
"No," Weisenberg said. `Wait a bit."
"Huh?" Brodersen jarred to a halt.
"Till we're far enough from the T machine that the watchship can't notice we're moving wide," the engineer explained.
Brodersen snapped his fingers. "Right you are."
"You're right too, pal. We've got to take the chance. This might be our last possible way to reach the Others." Weisenberg still sat quietly and did not raise his voice; but in his eyes appeared a light which the Baal Shem Toy would have recognized.
Rain had blown in from the sea to take Eopolis unto itself. Aurelia Hancock, Governor of Demeter for the World Union, had opened the two windows near her desk that she might breathe the freshness. Cool damp enfolded her and graced her nostrils, together with sounds of water falling, striking, gurgling, odors of wet roses and grass and gingery thunder oak. The sight, framed in pale daphne panels, was of silver-gray that slanted out of blueblack, down onto darkened verdancies and reds. Beyond lawn and fence, cars passed shadowlike. The far side of the street faded into mystery.
Her phone yanked her from it. "Your call to Miz Leino is ready."
"Uh!" she heard herself grunt. There had been no response when she tried an hour ago. Having put the instrument on "persist, she had riffled through news compendia, fallen into reverie
and not even smoked, her palate reminded her. Her calves tingled, also, and her sacrum protested. I've been in this chair too long, she realized. At my age, you turn to lard fast if you don't move.
"Connect," she said, while her mind wandered on: I've got to get more exercise. Play tennis again-regularly-I may as well admit I'll never make myself go through a lot of dull daily gymnastics alone. But who's to play with? Jim? They used to, she and her husband. Tennis wasn't all we played, either. He was too far gone into the bottle these days: nothing disgraceful, charming as ever, in him it took the form of indolence, but he plain wasn't interested in a cure. Then who? The idea of her fat knotty-veined legs capering around the court opposite some obsequious junior official was uninviting. And be damned if she'd beg for an arrangement with any colonial woman member of the club, after the snubs she and Jim had been getting. And here came Elisabet Leino into the screen, slim, sun-tanned, happy in her house and no doubt in her bed, looking politely hostile.
"How do you do, Governor Hancock," she said, not inquired. "I'm sorry I missed you earlier. I was working in the conservatory and didn't hear the chime."
Or were you stalling me for a half-plausible hour? The tappers report that mostly you do delay answering. Aurie fastened a smile on her face. "Why the formality, Lis? We're old enemies across the card table. And in civic affairs, we've been allies."
Eyes that were slightly slanted and wholly ice-blue scorned hers.
"You know why Governor Hancock."
Aurie gathered her spine together. Fingers found a cigarette. "As you will. If I haven't made things clear by now, no use trying. May I speak to your husband?"
The Athene visage did not stir more than its lips. "No."
"What?" For an instant, it was as if the rain outside flowed upward.
"He is ill."
Attack! "Really? I don't believe a doctor has visited your place."
