In Enemy Hands (16 page)

“T minus ten.”

It seemed like the entire bridge had taken and held a breath. Everybody was frozen in position, their eyes glued to the viewscreen.

“Five…four…three….”

This is it. No time left for anything. If death comes, I hope it’s quick. And I hope it takes that bastard, Savic, out first.

“Two…one…. Launch.”

It was an anticlimactic second. The ship didn’t shudder, rock, or tilt. But neither did it break apart. Another second passed—time in which the
Differential
remained in one piece, indicating that the crucible and launch tube had done its job—before the screen picked up a glowing, circular inferno speeding towards the small white target star. The image of the energy packet glowed orange around the edges, a computer’s interpretation of the missile’s red shift, then it was swallowed by the star’s corona.

“How long now, Doctor?” Drue craned his neck to look at her.

“I…don’t know exactly. The reaction should begin instantaneously, but the volume of the star is quite large. An hour should be sufficient to pick up the beginnings of a stable reaction.”

She knew she was hedging and he knew it, too. She could tell from his gaze. But she was comfortable with her answer. If the
Differential
was going to get blown into its component atoms, then the opportunity would arise in the next few minutes. But, assuming that was not the case, Moon thought it would take a good hour to verify if the resultant reaction was as self-sustaining as she hoped it would be.

He turned back to the screen. “That seems a long time.”

“Not for a star, Captain,” she answered, her eyes still on the screen. She was willing to stay in that position for every second of the next hour, willing the reaction to work, for the payload to initiate a new sustainable ignition of the star. Even if successful, this experiment would not last more than a few years. A Class M star needed fuel to feed on, and the white dwarf was already depleted. But if she could just prove that the science was possible, then the process of keeping the combustion fed with matter in order to extend its usable lifespan could easily be justified. It would lead to more missions, bigger stars, more leaps of technology, but that could only happen if there was a solid foundation to build upon.

In the end, it took more than three hours. Moon looked at, and heard, the results in disbelief. The white dwarf was still in its default equilibrium. All her work of the past months—years!—was useless.

StellMil had failed.

“What happened?”

A small group of them were in Drue’s quarters, a model of Spartan efficiency. Nobody wanted to sit down—the nonverbal indication of anybody who was physically lower than their neighbour was too much for any one of them to bear. But Drue insisted on it. As captain, he had that right, and they reluctantly obeyed.

Moon sat on the edge of his bunk, hands folded demurely in her lap. After a brief hesitation, Srin sat down next to her, and it heartened her to see that at least one person wasn’t abandoning her to the proverbial wolves. Savic sat in a chair next to Drue’s, on the other side of the captain’s desk, looking down on both of them.

Drue let his gaze rest on one then the other, not even sparing Savic his questioning look.

“The packet failed,” Moon said, still in a nimbus of shock.

“I think we’re all aware of that, Doctor,” Drue rebuked wryly. “My question is, why?”

Silence.

Moon looked at Srin and frowned. Could it have been those magnetic estimates? Or had they somehow miscalculated the effect of the positron pressure field on the fusion bomb seed? Maybe the whole thing disappeared into a transient wormhole at the star’s core although, Moon conceded, that would probably have led to a supernova.

Srin looked at her then turned to the captain. “What we attempted to do was so complex, there’s no easy answer to that.”

“I’ll have to go over everything with a fine-tooth comb,” Moon added.

“How long will that take?”

She shrugged. “If we do it properly, several weeks.”

“So there’s no chance of sending another stellar missile into the star, say, tomorrow?” Drue’s voice was strained.

“No,” she answered firmly, knowing her words were not what anyone wanted to hear. “If the first one didn’t work, there’s no reason for the second one to.”

“The first wouldn’t have—” the captain wiggled his fingers, “—kick-started something that the second might use?”

Moon thought about that for a couple of seconds, then shook her head. “Maybe if we had created, configured and sent a second packet straight after the first. Unfortunately the star has already stabilised to the level of its initial readings. In all likelihood, we’d get the same result.”

“If we try the experiment again,” Drue pursued, “getting two packets ready instead of one, and firing each one in quick succession, do you think that will succeed?”

Moon saw the hope in his eyes made all the more painful by her knowledge of his background. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “Because I don’t know what went wrong in the first place.”

“I don’t see the problem, Captain,” Hen commented, pursing his lips. “This isn’t the first time Srin and I have encountered temporary setbacks. I’m sure he’ll be able to help the doctor get things back on track.”

It must have been Moon’s super-sensitive ears, but she bristled at the analyst’s words, reading into them a subtle blame of her work. Or maybe she was just too tired to think clearly.

“That may be so, Dr. Savic, but I’m under strict orders to report the test’s findings the moment they occur. Considering the funding and resources that have gone into this research so far, questions must be asked.” His gaze flicked to Moon, and she got the feeling he was leaving something out.

It was her loyalty, she deduced. Even after being vindicated of any wrongdoing, the Republic still thought she might be a traitor. And the failure of StellMil One only served to confirm their nebulous suspicions. And she already knew how dangerous the Republic was, once the suspicion of treason wormed its way into a person’s files.

“If you tell me that we can launch a second missile within the next day,” Drue said, “then I might be convinced to hold off on my initial report. But if you can’t….”

Moon tightened her lips and shook her head. Drue’s insistence should have angered her, but she knew the reasons behind his unease. “I can’t. It wouldn’t make any difference.” She met his gaze directly. “You’re going to have to make your report.”

Drue nodded once, understanding what was being said and left unsaid.

“In the meantime,” Srin interrupted, “we can begin reviewing the work. Looking for the flaw. Maybe by the time you get word back from your superiors, we would have found the problem.”

“That, Mister Flerovs,” said Drue, “is something I’m earnestly wishing for.”

“We can start straight away,” Moon added. “All we need to do is shut down the machinery in the cargo bay. I’ll send orders that that happen at once. In the meantime, Srin and I can begin our review in the lab.”

“Very well. I’ll send my report through tonight.”

He didn’t have to do that, Moon thought as the orders were relayed and they headed back to the lab. She knew that Drue should have made his report the moment the results were clear. Instead, he was giving her a few precious hours to come up with a miracle pill, for which she was thankful. His hesitation, with any luck, may end up saving several lives on this ill-fated mission.

However, when she entered the lab and looked around, she almost stumbled. Every installed and working clearboard was completely covered in small, tight script. So much so that it was difficult even looking through them. And that, she knew, was only the latest work. These were the summary calculations. Behind them were boards and boards of preceding equations, all stored in the databanks and cross-referenced through the meta-library unit. For a handful of moments, as she quickly scanned the scripts, nothing made sense. Her calculations were gibberish, undecipherable. Then reason asserted itself, although it was no less depressing.

She walked up to the library unit, resting her sweaty palms on its cool metal casing. This was all her fault. The review could not be rushed. It would take every moment of the several weeks she’d mentioned. Although Srin could be used to help double-check the results, the actual verification of each step was her job, and hers alone. If she had a team working with her, or even one fellow researcher as smart as Kad, the workload could be reduced. But she didn’t. And she didn’t because she had something to prove.

There’s nothing worse, she thought, than a scientist with a chip on her shoulder. And she had one the size of a small moon.

She saved the current clearboard entries then accessed the first set, turning and watching as the boards blacked out for a second then displayed the sparser script of the initial equations. Srin was at the doorway; she could feel his presence over to one side and behind her, but he didn’t say anything. She appreciated his silence.

The Republic had never encouraged an additional member to her research, but Moon knew they would have given in and supplied one if she’d tried hard enough. But she hadn’t wanted to try. She wanted the glory all for herself, an echo of the person she was when working with Kad at the Phyllis Science Centre. She thought she had left such flights of vanity behind her, but she hadn’t. She was—it was disgusting to admit—so firm in her belief that she could do this, make a star live again, that she was loath to share the glory with any other person.

Well, it hadn’t worked. And if the glory was to be hers alone, then the suffering was too. With set lips, she walked over to the first clearboard.

“Do you really want to start it now?”

She turned. Srin. He was faster than any computer and she needed him. But, in a fit of shame, she also—just then—appreciated the utility of his memory loss. Where there was memory, there was the potential for deceit. But, with Srin, it was like a
tabula rasa
every two days. The ultimate cross-check. And she felt a prick of guilt at the thought that she might, even fleetingly, have considered him as a potential source of sabotage.

A dark flush stained her cheeks, and she felt the heat of it on her skin. Srin would notice it. He noticed everything about her. But he’d probably put it down to her disappointment over the packet’s first trial. There was no need to enlighten him of her baser, and baseless, thoughts.

“The sooner we get started,” she said with a sigh, “the sooner we can find the flaw.”

He searched her face. “Have you thought that perhaps you’re too tired to begin this right now.” His voice was kind, and that made her feel even worse.

“Drue is waiting. If I can find the mistake, there’s a chance to salvage this mess.”

There was a flicker in Srin’s expression when the captain’s name was mentioned, but his voice remained gentle. “What if there’s no mistake? What if it’s impossible to re-ignite a star?”

“No.” She shook her head. “No, it’s possible.” Moon looked at the calculations on the board. “I know it is. I can feel it in my bones.”

“You’re a very stubborn woman, aren’t you?” But his voice was soft enough to dull any sense of criticism.

Moon smiled slightly. “You’re not the first to say so.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get to work.”

Saying the words was one thing, but feeling them was another. What if she was kidding herself? Scientists often depended on their intuition as much as their logic, but what if her intuition was wrong and Srin was right—and her dream of stellar re-ignition was a futile one? Kad seemed to think there was value in what she was doing. He wouldn’t have remained a research partner if he hadn’t. But then, Kad Minslok was not the ideal example to compare against. He had his own agenda, one Moon had not known until it was too late.

The next few days were a blur of scribbled clearboards, simulations and too little rest. Moon felt like she was operating on manic-edged autopilot. Her orientation lectures to Srin had been pared back to an efficient minimum that meant she only lost a little over an hour every two days bringing him up to speed. During those days, she stopped seeing him as a man. He was an ambulatory computer, a highly tuned machine, trained to give her answers in as little time as possible. Although sometimes, like the day before…

The food could have been ashes in her mouth and Moon wouldn’t have noticed. Even as she sat at the small table off to the side of the lab space, her eyes darted across the closely scripted boards, looking for discrepancies between the theory of what she had written and the datamaps coming out of the heavy-water tank. After a heavy silence of several minutes, she shook her head and looked over at Srin. He had taken advantage of her distraction to stare at her, and she flushed at the masculine appreciation still evident in his eyes. She had not forgotten their stolen days of passion together, but those moments were cosseted, only to be brought out when she had the time to relive them at her leisure. And that time wasn’t now. Not when she was swamped with work. And guilt. There wasn’t a moment when she didn’t wish she could relive the discussion with Savic in the infirmary. If only there had been a way to save Srin’s mind and his memories? but there wasn’t. And she knew she would live with that decision for the rest of her life.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked her. His voice was smooth and warm, like a tropical cloud she wanted to sink into.

“The equations,” she finally said, wondering if her words sounded as false to him as it did to her own ears. “Just, er, wondering where I could’ve gone wrong.”

“The figures look fine to me.” His tone was reassuring. “The angular velocity is spot on and even your tensor calculations are robust.”

Moon’s eyes flickered to the boards behind him. His ability to perform complex calculations in his mind never ceased to amaze her. The tensor calculations, for example, were—

She scanned the boards again, a thought niggling in the back of her brain. Tensor calculations? They came at the end of the packet configuration, and she was still at the stage of verifying her initial equations. In fact, they probably wouldn’t reach the tensor calculations for another week. So how did Srin know about them?

A fine line creased her forehead and she leant forward, holding his gaze with her own. “Can you remember, Srin?” she asked softly. She was willing, eager, to pounce on whatever sign she could discern? anything that indicated he was more whole than she thought.

“Remember?” He hesitated. “Remember wha—”

Then Savic bustled in, and Moon sat back in her seat with a start. She watched the large figure approach, still walking a little gingerly from his half-healed injuries, with undisguised irritation.

Work was proceeding slowly enough as it was without the man’s constant interference. She was tempted to complain to Drue about him, to demand that Savic be barred from her lab completely, but she knew the
Differential
’s captain had his own problems. He was still awaiting a reply from his report on the first StellMil tests. Even with her limited exposure to the rest of the crew, Moon felt the tension in the air. With that in mind, running to Drue because she was irritated with someone seemed like a petty thing to do.

Still, that didn’t mean she wasn’t tempted.

“How’s it going?” Savic asked without preamble as he stopped by the table.

“Fine,” she answered shortly.

“Have you been helping with the equations, Srin?”

Moon’s curt “yes” was overridden by Srin’s more courteous reply.

“We’re working through the calculations as fast as we can. So far, we’ve found no mistakes in anything we’ve done.”

“Hmm. Dr. Thadin, could I have a quick word with you?”

Hurl yourself into a wormhole, you unethical bastard!

“Certainly.”

Moon rose from the table—her appetite was well and truly dead by now—and followed Savic to the far corner of the room. She shot Srin a small, apologetic smile as she left, but he looked completely unperturbed. She wondered if she had somehow imagined, or misconstrued, that flash of insight regarding his memory.

Or maybe she was going insane. After all she’d been through over the past few years, it wasn’t out of the question. Maybe Srin had seen the more advanced calculations while skimming through the library meta-unit.

“What did you want to talk about?” she asked, the moment he stopped. She didn’t want to look at Savic, but she forced herself to.

“Are you making full use of Srin’s abilities?” he asked bluntly. It was clear from his tone that any pretence of accommodation between them was long gone.