"Sure. Ask all you want. But it's none of your business." Tell him it wouldn't be safe for her, until after her period? Fat chance! Not that she usually had qualms about discussing physical processes, but in this particular case it was simply too peace-wasting personal.
So she said, "You want to take some sim runs now?"
He shrugged. "I guess so." Then, "You said, how about putting a bet on it. All right. If I win, will you answer my question? About what's wrong with right now?"
"And if / win?" He said nothing; suddenly Lisele snapped her fingers. "I know. If I win, the subject is closed until I bring it up, all by myself. You agree?"
The way Arlen frowned, she knew he was looking for
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loopholes. Whether he found any or not, finally he nodded. "All right; you're on."
Arlen came close to winning that bet, but on his final run he pushed too hard, and lost by less than ten points overall. Lisele felt friendly enough to share a warm hug and a quick kiss; then they went downship to their separate quarters. What with the stress of simulated gunnery runs, not to mention the impact of more personal emotions, now she did need a shower.
IV
Over the next few days Lisele got into the swing of her training routine. Once the Hare passed light, none but the inertial instruments would register, so while she could, she concentrated on navigational studies and pilot's skills. She was sitting watch, working with the computer at an auxiliary position, when the ship broke c.
So she cut the screen's now-irrelevant navigational display. The only piloting chores at supercee would be changes of course and accel; since none of those were planned for a time, she switched her monitor position to communications mode. Ranging above light, though, even the comm-panel could run nothing but computer simulations.
Stretching, sitting back, Lisele turned to Jenise Rorvik, who had the official comm. "Well, you're on vacation now, again. Any good ideas, to pass the time?"
Shaking her head, the blond woman smiled. She was about twenty-five, bio, but the years on Shaarbant had aged her: the trek that seemed would never end, the pain of her crippled wrist. She had changed, from the spiritless creature who at first wanted simply to lie down and die; she had, now, a kind of strength.
But she'd paid for it; she looked ten years older. On the Deux, before reaching Shaarbant, Arlen Limmer had for a time given her a certain amount of romantic attention. Somehow Lisele doubted that Arlen, only a few months aged since then, would be interested in the Jenise of today.
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The woman's headshake didn't help conversation much. Lisele thought, and said, "Do you have any plans, especially, for when we reach Earth?"
Another headshake, but then, "I'm not going out again." The once-delicate pale complexion, now lined and roughened, showed sudden color. "I know Hagen can't get back for a few years, groundside time. But when he does, I intend to be there." She put a hand to her abdomen. "His child and I, both."
The pregnancy had to be on purpose, probably decided after the long journey had ended at Sassden but before March Hare's arrival. Lisele reached across and squeezed Rorvik's hand. "That's great. And maybe the Deux won't take so long, backing Elzh's play with the Tsa-Drin, as everybody expects."
"I hope you're right." They talked about Jenise's plans a little longer; then Lisele's watch-shift ended. She was working a rotating "split-trick"; Rorvik still had four hours to go. But Lisele hadn't eaten before watch, and was hungry.
Going into the galley, getting a tray and filling it, she looked to see who was there that she'd like to talk with. Nobody present, that she really knew. One table with four people she hadn't really met. Melaine Holmbach, a Drive-tech from the Deux, sitting alone; Lisele didn't know why the woman was so solitary, and at the moment was in no mood to find out. But at the nearest table were Hare's First Hat, Chief Engineer, and Comm Chief. Looked like a good mix, so that's where Lisele went.
"May I join you?"
Mei Lu-teng, the First Hat, looked up and nodded. The woman, Lisele knew, was descended from Tibetan refugees. She sat tall and lean, gazing from dark slits of eyes above massive cheekbones, gaunt cheeks, and a long, prominent jaw. One hand brushed at a wisp of black hair escaping from the swirl atop her crown, as she said, "Yes. Please sit down. Do you know my fellow-officers?"
Lisele set down her tray and seated herself. "Just barely. We've met, but that's about all."
So she was reintroduced to sandy-haired Chief Engineer Darwin Pope, a tall skinny man looking sunburned even though he probably wasn't; his oversized, Adam's-apple moved
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as he said, in a quiet but rasping voice, "Stick around; we'll get acquainted."
"I'm sure." Well, he had a nice handshake.
Comm Chief Eduin Brower hadn't impressed Lisele the first time and still didn't. It wasn't merely that the man was short and fat and generally untidy, with cigar ashes all down the front of his none-too-clean jumpsuit. He talked like a slob, too-out of the side of his mouth, around the cigar, slurring his words. And the cigars themselves: Tregare smoked one now and then, but his smelled nice. She knew how he'd describe these of Brower's: like somebody frying a chicken with the feathers on!
But when he mumbled "Hi'ya, sis," she took his lax, moist handshake and smiled. It can't hurt to act friendly.
"Hi'ya, Chief."
The conversation, desultory and concerning ship's problems she knew nothing about, went over her head. So she thought on what she know of the Hare's personnel complement. All right; the captain and three Hats, to run Control. Drive Chief and three subordinates. But both Comm and Engineering were three-person contingents; the Chiefs also had to stand regular watches. Fourteen people, then, all told. Plus herself as a sort of cadet, maybe to fill in if somebody got sick, or something.
She guessed it would probably work; shipside, things usually did, if the people were right for their jobs.
And were they? It might pay to listen, and find out.
First Hat Lu-teng was speaking. "Darwin, before we cut Hoyfarul drive I want an extra tuning. Out of sked, I know- but with an anomaly to explore, and the breakout due to happen on a new officer's watch, I'd feel safer."
Pope shrugged. "Sure, Mei. I'm not overworked."
"And you, Eduin." She turned to the cigar-smoker. "An extra check on all comm-channel gear, before dropping to subcee?"
"You want it, you got it."
The woman nodded. "Thank you, both." She stood. "Excuse me, please?"
The woman left. Lisele, now finished eating, felt she should be trying to learn more about the ship, but couldn't think of questions to ask. She looked up, to find Darwin Pope's gaze on her. He said, "You're thinking, perhaps, that
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it's the captain's place, not the First Hat's, to assign extra maintenance?"
She hadn't thought about it at all; now she did. "No. It's any officer's job to see to such things. Long as she logs the request, and I expect she will. If you'd objected, now-which you didn't-then it'd be a matter for the captain."
Brower chuckled. "Thought you'd catch her up, huh, Dar? Hey, this is Tregare's kid you're out to spoof." To Lisele, then, "How the hell far did you walk, around that mudball? And how'd you bust through to talk peaceful with them Tsa, which nobody else ever done?"
So instead of asking questions, Lisele found herself answering them. In the process, she began to change her opinion of Eduin Brower. His speech and person were sloppy, but his thinking wasn't.
Driven by the coherent, ellipsoidal field of the drive named for Pennet Hoyfarul, March Hare began to pile up Big Vee. The velocity-derived mass, that had limited the earlier acoherent drives to STL speeds, manifested itself in parallel, matterless universes where such things as velocity and acceleration had no meaning. As Tregare once said, "Einstein wasn't wrong, you understand. He just didn't have all the facts."
A bit short of three weeks out from Shaarbant, on the day when the onset of Lisele's slightly-overdue menses had her feeling tense and a little uncomfortable, she came on-watch to find Anders Kobolak talking with Captain Delarov. "It was right along in here, that you got the peculiar indications?"
"Close to it," the woman answered. "Of course we're on a different route now; the angle of approach is changed. But I think we should cut the Hoyfarul Drive and drop to STL, some time around the end of your watch."
"How about an hour before? Fifteen hundred. That way we won't have a watch change until we're stabilized."
