The Parafaith War (24 page)

“No, ser.”

“We see them now and again. They all look something like that.” Folsom paused. “Don’t mess with them. Rumor has it that they once just lifted a whole ship of Revenant high-muckety-mucks, examined them within a gram of their lives and let them go-after fusing all their torps.” “Why?”

“I don’t know. Lieutenant, and I’d recommend that you never get in a position to find out.” The commander cleared his throat. “Now, an Ursinian track, since we’re on the subject of alien EDI patterns-that looks more like a series of ovals, and they’re very slow compared to the Farhkans.”

“The Farhkan track has almost a red overlay,” Trystin commented. “What about the Ursinians?” Trystin knew next to nothing about Ursinians except that they came from a sector even farther from Galactic Center than old Earth and that they resembled a cross between intelligent cats and small bears.

“You’re a sensitive? That’s interesting … well, I can’t see it, but I’ve been told that an Ursinian EDI track holds a shade of maroon. Have you seen a real revvie track?” “No, ser. Just through perimeter sensors.” “Supposedly, the revvie tracks shade to the blue, if you can see it. The Hyndji tracks are green, but fainter than ours, and Argenti tracks shade to the silver. The shades are a result of the harmonics in the drive tuning scales we use: It’s a maintenance thing.” Folsom cleared his throat. “Now, we’re going to do a short recon run.” He stretched his hand toward Trystin. “Here’s another cube.”

Trystin popped out the previous cube, the one that had the data for the outbound flight, stored it in the recessed rack, and slipped the new cube into the reader. The data poured through the net, and he had to frown because the recon run wasn’t through the Chevel system, with a simulated translation, but through the Kaisar system. Kaisar wasn’t inhabited, not by any life-form detected by man, not without water planets and nothing but hunks of molten rock or gas giants.

That meant a real translation.

He continued to scan the profile. “Do you want me to send a revised profile to Chevel Control?” “It might be nice, just in case we run into trouble.” Trystin flushed, but compiled the profile, and zapped it out on ED standing wave.

Then he checked the ambient dust density-a shade over point four-before adding thrust outbound. If the attenuation remained standard, they would be clear of the fringe within ten minutes.

As they moved outward, he checked the screens for other debris-water comets, dark asteroids, but the screens remained blank. He studied the Kaisar profile, but it seemed straightforward enough-a highspeed pass by the outer gas giant with a full-scan sweep, and then a return and translation home. As Trystin began the translation power-up, he wondered what else the commander had in mind.

As the power built, he ran through the mission profile. “Are you set up for translation. Lieutenant?” “Yes, ser.”

“Then translate. This is for real. Translate us to the outer Oort range of Kaisar.”

Trystin punched the translation stud and pulsed the initiation key through the net. Translation was about the only maneuver that took both physical action and neural command. In an emergency, the stud would work alone, but only if the internal net were off-line.

Darkness became light; noise became silence; and order flipped to chaos as the ship turned itself inside out. So did the ship’s systems, and all the data streamed through Trystin inside out, meaningless gibberish, yet with the hint of something … something beyond chaos. Thud!

The sensors showed no overt change. The temperature outside the corvette was still only a handful of degrees above absolute zero. No stellar bodies registered within light-hours. But the EDI screen was blank, and the representational screen showed a new solar system.

Trystin accessed the temporal comparators, then the representational comparison system, but the comparators registered first. “System matches Kaisar profile.”

He adjusted the thrusters and eased the corvette on the course line toward Wilhelm, the outer gas giant, letting the acceleration build, bleeding off the artificial gravity and feeding the saved power into the acceleration. Shortly, the temporal compensators clicked in. “Translation error was five hours and twenty-four minutes.” “Not too bad.”

Trystin continued to scan the screens as the corvette swept insystem, noting that the temporal comparators began to jump as actual velocity entered the time-distortion curve.

He looked back to the tech seat, where Subcommander Folsom sat, eyes closed, apparently dozing. Trystin shook his head, then almost laughed. Why not? There wasn’t much the commander could do, and he probably had his implant connected to the out-sensors and a dozen other warning inputs.

Trystin just wished he dared to take things that easily. He did take a long swallow from the Sustain bottle in the holder by his knee.

In time, he began to program the data sweeps of the big gas giant-Wilhelm. Why would anyone name a gas giant Wilhelm?

He took another swallow of Sustain and rubbed his forehead. Still a good standard hour on the corvette before they began the sweep. He didn’t even try to figure the out-of-envelope elapsed time.

Eventually, Wilhelm appeared large in not only the representational screens but in every other way.

The full-scan information poured through the sensors, leaving Trystin inundated with data on everything-just beginning with temperatures, natural EDI, magnetic fields… . And all the data were not just energy bits inscribed and recorded in the ship’s data banks, but sensation and more ensation, to the point that Trystin’s head ached. Beyond the standard, there was … something… .

With another gulp of Sustain and a deep breath, he forced his mind through the data. Feeling like he was mentally wading through a mass of numbers that sliced at him, he forced his concentration back toward the anomaly, the peaked and pulsed energy source. He frowned.

“Commander, there’s what seems to be a locator beacon there.” “Where?”

“Best I can make out, north latitude about thirty degrees, about eighty apparent on scan four.” “Put it on my screen three.” Trystin obliged.

“It is a locator beacon, and it’s what you were supposed to find. Take us home.” Folsom closed his eyes and leaned back in the tech/instructor couch again.

Trystin adjusted the course toward the nearest low-dust, low-ecliptic translation point. Nothing great, nothing spectacular-just find a locator beacon without being told. What if he hadn’t? Would he have found himself back on the Maran perimeter line? Or driving transports or insystem solar sails?

From the rear seat came the soft sound of snoring. Trystin watched the temporal envelopes curve up, wondering how much time they were jumping, but feeling too tired to really care. Seldom did the short missions around Chevel Beta involve time distortion beyond an hour or so.

Less than a subjective hour later, Trystin punched the translation stud for the second time and pulsed the initiation key through the net. Darkness again became light; noise became silence, and order flipped to chaos as the ship turned itself inside out. So did the ship’s systems, and all the data streamed through Trystin once more, still with the hint of something beyond chaos. Thud!

The sensors showed no change. The temperature outside the corvette continued to register a handful of degrees above absolute zero, and no stellar bodies registered within ight-hours. The EDI screen was alive, mainly with the emissions of training corvettes.

Trystin again accessed the temporal comparators and the representational comparison system, and the system comparison registered first. “System matches Chevel profile.”

“Good. Nice to know we got where we were supposed to.”

Shortly, the temporal comparators clicked in. “Translation error was three hours and Fifty minutes. Total error of nine hours and fourteen minutes. Time-envelope dilation in the Kaisar system was eleven hours.”

“So … this one flight jumped us forward in time, so to speak, a little more than a standard day. And the error was minimal. That’s why we use Kaisar. Do you see why we don’t do translations as a matter of course in training?” “Yes, ser.”

“What’s the power flow on the fusactor? Fuel reserves?” “Running eighty percent. Reserves are down to ten hours objective.”

“Poor bucket’s ready for overhaul.” Folsom sighed. “Aren’t we all, sooner or later. Don’t answer that. It’s not a question.”

Trystin moistened his lips and kept watching the screens, crosschecking them with the implant data-feed. Was this really his last training flight? Had he made it? Or was he so bad that he was done-headed back to perimeter duty somewhere?

He hadn’t done anything wrong, not that he knew. Finally, he toggled the comm band. “Beta Control, this is Hard Way one five. Request cradle assignment.” “Hard Way one five, interrogative status.” “Control, one five, status is green.” “Tell them green beta,” suggested the subcommander: “Control, this is one five. Status is green beta. Green beta.” “Understand green beta.” “That’s affirmative.” “Your cradle assignment is delta four.”

“Understand delta four.” “Stet, one five.”

“Green beta,” added Folsom conversationally, “means all right for short hops around the base. Fusactor output dropped off almost fifteen percent with the last translation, and you had it set up right, with optimal dust density on both ends. But I wouldn’t want to take her out on another translation.”

“Does that kind of drop-off happen often, or just before trouble?” asked Trystin.

“Nine times out of ten, it’s before trouble, but not always. That’s like everything else in this line of work. Nothing’s absolute, and you have to go with the odds. The only thing that’s absolute is death, and not even that, if you believe the revs.” Folsom stretched again. “It’s all yours until we’re cradled. Try not to crash into anything. ” He grinned, then leaned back and closed his eyes.

Of course, Trystin realized, he scarcely needed his eyes with his implant, not for monitoring the ship. Trystin kept on the net and the screens, occasionally wiping his forehead, making tiny corrections and easing the corvette toward Chevel Beta.

“Beta Control, this is Hard Way one five. Approaching cradles this time.”

“Stet, one five. We have you. Cleared to delta four this time.” “Stet, Control.”

Trystin dropped the closure rate to meters per second, then meters per minute, finally easing the corvette into the apparently frail docking cradle. By the time he shut down the thrusters and attitude jets, his forehead and shipsuit were damp, for the first time in almost a dozen flights.

“Beta Control, Hard Way one five is cradled. Shutting down this time.” “Stet, one five. Congratulations.” Congratulations? Trystin wiped his forehead, and magnetized the holdfasts, then began the shutdown procedures. “We’re cradled. Commander.”

“Soft cradle. Nice touch.”

“Thank you.” Trystin continued methodically through the shutdown, ignoring the twisting in his guts when he flicked off the artificial gravity.

“By the way, what did you think of Marshal Warlock’s talks on ethics?” Commander Folsom asked as he stood.

Trystin gathered up the mission data cubes and handed them back to the commander, trying not to swallow too hard. The stocky man had been Marshal Warlock, the hero of the Safryan Standoff?

“He doesn’t like to announce himself, but he insists on giving some of the ethics lectures. What did you think?”

“Well … I understood the theory behind what he was saying, and I’ve read all the handouts.” Trystin shook his head. “I keep having trouble understanding how intelligent people can swallow such crap about self-declared prophets. I mean, I know they do, but I can’t make the connection between that kind of self-delusion and how understanding it makes us better pilots. Or whether it matters when you’ve got to stop a troid ship or even a tank assault on the Maran perimeter line.”

“In short, you thought it was useless fertilizer?” Commander Folsom smiled.

“I didn’t say that,” Trystin said quietly, holding back a surge of anger. After all, he was one of the few who had actually read and studied the materials. “I just don’t know how to apply it.”

“Well, young fellow, if you’re a top pilot, you’ve got a long career ahead of you. You might end up on the Planning Staff. Or as a perimeter commander. Or in Intelligence. You might even end up being an agent-don’t look at me like that. You look like a lot of revs, and it’s a lot easier to take someone with the right genes than to rebuild people who don’t have them. And most Intelligence agents are former pilots, you know.”

That was something Trystin didn’t know, and he swallowed.

“If that happens, what Marshal Warlock said might come in handy,” continued the commander. “Then it might ot. You might die young.” Folsom paused. “You ever find out a way to “detect a stressed accumulator?”

“Ser?” Trystin wondered what stressed accumulators had to do with ethics.

“A stressed accumulator? I think we discussed this, didn’t we?”

“Oh, yes, ser.” Trystin cleared his throat. “I couldn’t find any one foolproof way, but there are a couple of things I did find out. One was a check of the average system dust densities encountered. I didn’t know this, but the maintenance system holds the records of all ambient conditions over the last ten missions. Ships with more than five missions out of ten with a dust density over point four five show a thirty-percent greater rate of accumulator problems.” Folsom nodded. “Go on.”

“Also, accumulator problems occur more often on ships with frequent short-jump translations. The only physical thing I could track down is that some of the techs say that if you start getting dust on the supercon line, you’ll have problems.” Trystin shrugged.

“Not bad,” admitted Folsom. “You spent a lot of time tracking down information on one subsystem of your ship. You’re going to be spending a career chasing and being chased by revs. Maybe a little more work on understanding the information you’ve picked up on the revs would be helpful in keeping your posterior intact.” Folsom unstrapped from the rear seat. “You know. Marshal Warlock was one of the few survivors of the first wave at Safrya. He’s one of the few to make a dozen successful recon runs through the Jerush and Orum systems. He’s also one of the few experts on rev ethics and culture.” Folsom paused. “Anyway, Lieutenant, it was a good run, and you should be pleased. You’re basically a good pilot, and you might get to be really good someday.”