The getaway special (3 page)

It hardly mattered. Either way, it would mean war if she didn't explain what had happened. Allen looked over at her and said, "I've cut the radial distance by one percent. I don't know where that will put us, but it should at least be out of Earth orbit."

Judy nodded. "Okay. Do it." She turned to the radio.

The hyperdrive did its trick again, but the Earth didn't fill the view. In fact it took Judy a moment to find it: a gibbous blob of white reminiscent of Venus seen through a cheap telescope. At least she supposed that was Earth. A bright point of light that might have shown a disk if she squinted had to be the Moon beside it. They were too close together, though, or so she thought until she remembered that the Moon could be between the ship and Earth, or on the other side of it, and the apparent distance would be shorter than it really was.

She shook her head. "Too far," she said. "We'd never make ourselves heard from this distance. You'll have to take us closer."

Allen was starting to sweat. "Look," he said. "I can't keep moving us around without calibrating this thing. Every time we jump we're compounding our error, and we get farther and farther from knowing where we are."

"I know exactly where we are," Judy said. "We're too far for radio communications. Take us closer." She waited about two seconds while Allen hesitated, then added, "Now."

"All right," he said. He tried to throw his hands up in a shrug, but he overbalanced and had to grab on to the overhead panel to steady himself. He pulled himself down again and began to work with the keyboard.

Judy heard the radio pulse and the view changed again. Earth was larger, about the size that it would be when seen from the Moon, though it showed only a crescent now. She didn't see the Moon out the front windows, but when she looked back through the cargo bay windows she found it. It was bigger than the Earth. Much bigger. They couldn't have been more than a couple thousand miles from it. She watched the surface for a few seconds, trying to determine their relative motion. Was it getting closer?

She couldn't tell.

All the same, as she plugged her headset into the radio she said, "Get ready to move us again." This time Allen didn't argue.

"Control, this is
Discovery
, do you copy?"

She had forgotten about the time lag. She was about to call again when she heard, "Roger
Discovery
, we copy, but your signal is weak and you have disappeared from our radar. What's happening up there?"

"We're not in orbit any longer. Doctor Meisner's experiment has moved us to the general vicinity of the Moon. I repeat, Doctor Meisner's experiment is responsible for our change in position. There is no cause for alarm. Do you copy?"

A pause. "We copy,
Discovery
. No cause for alarm. You bet. We'll tell the President to get his finger off the button, then. Hold on a second—uh. . ." The timbre of Control's voice changed, and Judy realized he was reading. Someone had evidently handed him a note. He read: "Due to a state of national emergency, the Pentagon has taken control of this mission. You are now a military flight. Any information concerning the nature of Doctor Meisner's experiment is now classified top secret. Do you copy?" Judy had been expecting that. She laughed into the microphone and said, "Don't tell the world that we've got hyperdrive? You know where you can tell them to put it, Control. Kindly remind the idiots at the Pentagon that I am a civilian pilot, and that my loyalty goes to humanity first, nation second. What they request is tantamount to suppressing knowledge of the wheel, so you can tell the Pentagon to stuff it deep, over."

Judy saw motion out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Allen applauding silently. He said, "I sent e—"

Judy held up her hand to quiet him as Mission Control responded. She could hear the cheering in the background. "Roger,
Discovery
. We copy and concur. Your, ah, hyperspace jump seems to have messed with the telemetry. We're getting low pressure readings in the hydraulics and APUs. Do you confirm, over?"

"Your readings are correct. We have sustained damage to the vertical stabilizer. We won't be able to reenter. Request you reserve space for us on the next flight down."

"Roger,
Discovery
. What kind of damage to the stabilizer?"

"It's been vaporized. Completely melted away. We assume it was either a particle beam or laser antisatellite weapon, automatically fired. We do not consider ourselves to have been attacked. Please be sure the Pentagon understands, over."

"Roger,
Discovery
. I'm sure they'll be glad to hear that." Allen butted in. "Uh, Commander?"

"I'll bet they will. Hold on a sec." She turned off the mike. "What, Allen?"

"I think we should get away from here. We're picking up velocity being this close to the Moon. It'll make it hard to put us back into orbit."

"Velocity? How?"

"Gravitation. We're falling toward the Moon. When we make our next hyperspace jump the velocity we gain will still be with us. We'll have to cancel it before we can go into Earth orbit."

"Oh. Right." Judy tried to visualize the situation in her mind. Too close to the Moon; well, "Can you put us on the other side of the Earth?"

"I don't want to fool around near the planets any more. I need to calibrate it. I think the danger of war is past, is it not?"

Judy nodded. "Okay. Give me a minute to explain what we're going to do, then you can take us wherever you want. Within reason," she amended quickly. She turned on the radio again and said,

"Control, this is
Discovery
. Doctor Meisner says that the Moon's gravitation is causing us to build up unwanted velocity. We'll have to make another hyperspace jump in order to leave the area, plus another series of jumps to calibrate the engine. We'll be out of radio contact for a while. Promise you won't let them blow up the world while we're gone? Over."

"We'll do our best,
Discovery
. Things are a little hot down here." Judy imagined they were. If the ground controller didn't have a Marine holding a pistol to his head within the next couple of minutes she would be very surprised. "Just keep the lid on until we get back," she told him. "Remind the President that this would be a really stupid time to go to war."

"We'll do that. Good luck,
Discovery
."

"Good luck to you.
Discovery
out." Judy switched off the radio, turned around, and screamed.
3

"Be calm," Gerry said as he floated up through the mid-deck hatchway with the .45 from the emergency survival kit in his hand. "Allen, you may continue with your jump. Judy, you will please come away from the controls."

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

"I'm appropriating this vessel for the Russian Federation. You won't be harmed so long as you do as I say."

"Come off it, Gerry. You're not going to fire that thing in here. One stray shot and you'd lose all your air."

"There is that risk. I'd have preferred a less destructive weapon, but the survival kit doesn't carry a dart gun. I'll just have to be careful not to miss, won't I? Now come away. Slowly, that's it." He reached out and stopped her in midair, leaving her floating where he could see her move long before she reached anything to push off against.

He glanced out the aft windows at the surface of the Moon beyond the cargo bay and said, "Allen, you may move us away now." He kept the gun aimed at Judy as he spoke. Allen swallowed. "Right." He turned to the keyboard and began keying in coordinates.

"Why are you doing this, Gerry?" Judy asked. "You're not a Russian."

"That depends on your definition. I've been a sleeper agent since before I entered the space program, since before the Union collapsed. In any case, my nationality is not the issue. What matters is my belief that the Federation should have this device."

Allen cleared his throat. "I, uh, I was planning on giving it to everybody. You see, part of the reason I did things the way I did was to get everybody's attention so they wouldn't think it was a hoax when I sent the plans out over the internet."

Gerry shook his head. "A noble thought. Unfortunately, the world isn't ready for it. Russia will have to keep your idea secret until the rest of humanity is sufficiently civilized to handle something this dangerous."

"Bullshit," Judy said. "You can't believe that. You want to keep it for yourself. You want Russia to be a big superpower again, and you think this will—"

Gerry waved the pistol at her. "Be quiet. Allen, you will make the jump now." Allen turned back to his keyboard and pushed the transmit key. The radio sent its timing pulse, but nothing else happened.

"What—?" He looked out the window, pushed the key again, and again. Still nothing changed.

"I must have miskeyed it," he said. He entered the coordinates again, canceled the tinier and reset it, and hit "Jump" again.

Still nothing.

"Something's wrong."

"Allen." Gerry had the gun pointed at him now.

"I'm not lying! It's not working! It's hardly surprising, with all the jumps we've been doing in a row. Something's probably burned out. It's still an experimental model, you know."

"Then you will find the problem and fix it." Gerry glanced out the window and added, "I suggest you do it quickly."

Judy followed his glance. The Moon's surface was definitely closer now. Allen said, "You'll have to go out and get the canister."

"Not until you've exhausted the possibilities inside. The problem may be in the computer."

"It isn't. The signal is reaching the radio, and all the data uses one line. The problem is in the canister."

Gerry thought it through and nodded. "All right, but Judy will go out and get it. I prefer to remain here where I can watch you."

The Moon was larger still by the time Judy stepped out into the cargo bay. She had cut the suiting-up time to its bare minimum, but it still took time breathing pure oxygen to wash the nitrogen out of her bloodstream, and even Gerry with his pistol couldn't force her to go outside before she was sure she was safe from the bends. Once she was out she took time for one quick look—she could see their motion now, the cratered surface growing inexorably closer by the minute—then she unfastened the

"mystery" canister and climbed back into the airlock with it under her arm. When she got back inside she handed it to Allen and started to pull off her helmet.

"Leave it on," Gerry said. Judy could hear the tension in his voice even through the intercom. She understood the reason for it, and for his order. She wouldn't have time to become uncomfortable in the suit. If Allen found the problem she would have to take the canister back outside, and if he didn't they would crash into the Moon; either way she wouldn't have to worry about the suit for very long. Allen floated over to the wall of lockers in the mid-deck and opened the one holding the tool kit. Then he opened the canister and held it so the light shone down inside. Judy looked over his shoulder and saw a maze of wires and circuit boards. Allen looked at them for a minute, then reached in and pushed a few wires around. He let go of the canister and left it floating in front of him, looked up, and said, "I think I've found it. Judy, could you help hold this a minute?" She nodded and reached out to take it from him.

"Here, over on this side," he said, pulling her around so she was on his left. Gerry floated to his right with the gun at the ready. Carl was still unconscious in his bunk beside Judy; evidently Gerry had given him a sedative when he had the chance.

Allen handed the canister to Judy, positioning her like a piece of lab equipment until she held it at the right angle, then he pulled a screwdriver out of the tool kit, reached into the canister's open end with it, and looked sideways at Gerry.

"I've just taken over the ship," he said. "Now float that gun over here, very gently." Gerry didn't look amused. "What are you talking about? Get busy and fix that before I—"

"Before you what? I give you ten seconds to surrender or I take this screwdriver and stir. Shoot me before I make the repairs and you get the same result. Maybe they'll name the crater after you." Gerry shifted the gun to point at Judy. She felt her breath catch, but Allen shifted his head to be the target again. "Won't work. You can't risk hitting me and you know it. Float the gun over. Five seconds." Allen slowly threaded the screwdriver in between the wires until his hand was inside the canister, saying all the while, "Four seconds, three seconds, two seconds, one—very good, Gerry. Judy, catch that." She let go of the canister and fielded the gun, sandwiching it between her gloved hands, but she couldn't get her finger in the trigger guard. Her heart pounding, she said, "Allen. . ." He saw the problem. "Trade me," he said, letting go of the canister and taking the gun from her.

"Get in the bottom bunk, Gerry."

Wordlessly, Gerry drifted over and slid into the bunk. Allen closed the panel after him, then hunted in the tool kit until he found a coil of what looked like bell wire and used that to tie the panel shut. Then he gave the gun back to Judy and began looking inside the canister again, poking and prodding around.

"What are you doing?" Judy asked.

"Looking for the problem."

"I thought you said you'd found it."

"I lied. I didn't figure there was much point in looking until we had Gerry safely out of the way."

"But what if—never mind. Just hurry. We don't have much time."

"It won't take long. If it isn't something simple I won't be able to fix it anyway. I don't have any test equipment. All I brought along were spare parts."

Judy propped herself against the lockers, her back against the wall and her feet out at an angle against the floor. She'd discovered the position on her first flight. It almost felt like gravity, at least to the legs, and it had the added advantage of holding her in place. She said, "I can't believe you. Do you have the slightest idea what this means to the human race?"

"I think I do, yes."

"Then why are you risking it like this? You should have made it public the moment you realized what you had. Good god, if the secret dies with us now, we—"