Intrepid

Once again, the Peterwald heir looked lost in thought.

With a sigh, Kris said, ''Let's see what our last ace can give us.'' She tapped her commlink.

''Mr. Prometheus, we think we've found your son.''

The former official of Xanadu came up on Kris's display. Behind him, she could just make out cramped scientist's quarters. ''Where do you think my son is?'' the father pleaded.

''Diving a loaded starliner into a planet at about .03 the speed of light,'' Kris said. ''When he hits, there'll be an explosion like a trillion tons of dynamite.''

The man said something that might have been a prayer or a curse for an Abdicationist. It meant nothing to Kris. ''What can I do?'' he said.

''In half an hour, I'll try to shoot the engines out of the ship. Could you say something to him that would make him change his mind, slow his ship, turn away from the planet?''

''I will try.''

Kris turned the man over to the comm chief on the Wasp, an old chief with kids of his own. The two hit it off. In five minutes, a message for Lucifer was on its way to the Tourin.

Fifteen minutes later, a reply came back. There was no question it was laced with curses. ''You have thrown yourself against the Guides. You are no better than a nonbeliever. Your eyeballs should be boiled in blood with all the heretics.''

''Should I pass this to his father?'' the comm chief asked.

Kris shook her head. ''The man's hurting enough. This won't help. If he asks, tell him we're still waiting.''

At Kris's elbow, Vicky took a sip of water from her high-gee station before whispering, ''So Longknifes do lie.''

Kris rotated her shoulders, trying to make the padding just right for a body that suddenly weighed over 250 kilos. ''Yeah, sometimes I'd rather lie to an old man than tell him the truth. Next time you hear tell of a Peterwald lie, see if it does as much good as my last one.''

Vicky said nothing to that.

The clock on Kris's station counted down the last five minutes. The target ship was one of the brightest stars on the screen. Their encounter would be very soon.

53

''Four minutes to close encounter,'' the quartermaster said.

''Cut acceleration,'' the captain ordered.

Kris went from near three hundred kilos to weighing nothing.

Vicky grabbed for the burp bag, held it clamped to her mouth for a while, then put it aside, still looking green.

The State Security colonel filled his bag. Gunny handed him another and it was half-filled before he finished.

Kris took in normal life out of the corner of her eye. She concentrated on the reports from the Wasp's inertial platform.

''We are steady,'' Sulwan reported.

''All hands,'' the captain announced, ''where you are is where you will stay. Do not even think of moving.'' The inertial platform reported the Wasp steady to the tenth decimal place.

''Rotate Batteries 3 and 4 to minus thirty,'' Kris ordered. The lasers on the bottom of the Wasp angled themselves down as far as they could. ''Rotate ship up thirty.''

Now the Wasp herself nosed up 30 degrees, bringing the lower two batteries zero on to the approaching liner. When it came time to flip ship during the precious second fragments the Tourin was in range, the Wasp would only have to do 150 degrees.

The actual close encounter would happen too fast for human participation. Kris, Nelly, and Vicky had gone over and over the actual plans for that fleeting second. Those plans were laid into the computer … waiting.

When it came time to execute, only Nelly could do it fast enough. Nelly would fire the two lower batteries. Nelly would rotate the ship, using full power throughout the spin, as Sulwan had approved. Nelly would fire the top two lasers up the kilt of the departing liner.

Humans decided what to do, but Nelly would do it.

Except that Kris had a red button under her palm.

At the first sign that the plan had gone awry, Kris would mash the button. And Nelly would find she had no plans to execute. Probably, Nelly wouldn't remember she'd ever had a plan. With Nelly, you could never tell.

No question, Kris would remember that there had been a plan and that she had aborted it for some reason. Or had tried to abort it. Could something pass from her eye, to her brain to her hand to the red button in anything like the time they had?

She would find out soon enough.

The distance to the Tourin now counted down at a mad pace. The millions of klicks passed in reasonable time. When the count reached hundreds of thousands, the numbers raced. The last five hundred thousand klicks passed in a breath.

Kris quit breathing as the count passed a hundred thousand.

If Kris had to call it, Batteries 3 and 4 fired at a range of thirty-five to thirty thousand klicks.

Then the ship began to flip like a mad dervish.

She fought dizziness but refused to close her eyes.

The Wasp steadied for less than a heartbeat. Lasers 1 and 2 fired.

The Tourin raced on, seeming untouched by their efforts, unmarred by the lasers' caresses.

Kris's eyes widened at the thought of total failure.