Resurgence

“Torran! Can you hear me?” But Teri felt with sickening certainty that he could not. For there was no longer any sign at all of Torran Veck. In a final split second he had vanished at monstrous speed into the granular unknown of the boundary wall.

* * *

Teri was now obliged to operate one-on-one in her argument with Julian Graves. She wished Torran could be there to offer his support, but in a way it didn’t matter. Whether she could persuade Julian Graves or not would make no difference. She knew what she had to do, and she would do it.

She said. “You have more experience with the Bose Network than I do. Have you ever heard of a case where someone made a transition, and was delivered to an end point from which there was no escape?”

“I have not. But ships have disappeared.”

“If we sit here and do nothing, in the future the No Regrets will be listed as one of them. We have a choice. We can stay and wait for something to happen, with no assurance that anything ever will—other than that we will eventually die. Or we can accept that the boundary itself contains some kind of Bose transition mechanism, but of a type never experienced in the Orion Arm. Remember, Councilor, you were the one who said that the Sag Arm may be stranger than we can imagine. I think that our decision should be an easy one: we follow Torran, and take the No Regrets up to and through the boundary.”

“That might offer nothing more than a swifter and surer form of our demise.”

“It might. But it makes no sense at all for this to be a Bose node if there is no way to leave it. And the obvious method of departure would be through another Bose transition.”

“You make a logical argument.” The blue eyes of Julian Graves were old and knowing. “Suppose, my dear, I tell you that I do not agree with you. What then?” He waited for a moment, then added, “Do not agonize over how to present your answer. I know it already.”

He gestured to the pilot’s chair. “It awaits you. All I say is, proceed slowly. Normally I would say, slowly and cautiously, but in our case the second qualifier does not apply. In our situation, caution no longer has meaning.”

Perhaps not; but Teri was going to be as careful as she could. The No Regrets crept toward the outer wall, meter by slow meter. At last she began to feel directly the body forces that Torran had described. They were not unpleasant, nothing more than vibrations that sent contradictory and exciting tingles through different parts of her. In other circumstances, a woman could get to like that sort of thing.

She halted the forward progress of the ship. “This is almost at the point where Torran lost control. He said ‘Damnation!,’ whirled around like a spinning-top, and vanished. I don’t notice anything changing. Do you see any differences?”

“Only the big one—why did it happen to Torran, when it isn’t happening to us.”

“Unless you object, I propose to take us closer.”

“I object in many ways. But continue.”

Teri glanced at the range sensor. The boundary wall was less than a hundred meters away. Her comment to Julian Graves had not been accurate. Already they were past the point where Torran had encountered trouble. The drive was working harder to hold their position, but still it was nowhere near its limits.

They crept on—and on. Teri felt the force on her body continue to increase, but it was quite tolerable. She had endured two or three times as much in training, with no ill effects. This was, however, inexplicably different from what had happened to Torran.

Closer and closer. At last, Teri said, “Councilor, that’s it.”

“That is what, my dear?” Julian Graves’s face, under a force of two and a half gees, was even more strained and gaunt than usual.

“We have reached the boundary. The bottom part of the ship is in contact.”

“Are you sure of that? What happens if you reduce the drive?”

Teri decreased the thrust little by little. She felt no change at all in the forces on her body. The ship was resting on part of the boundary wall, and being supported by it.

She cut the drive all the way, and looked across at Julian Graves. “We are here, and we have gone as far as we can go. The No Regrets is at rest on the boundary wall of this enclosure. The very same wall, in the very same spot that Torran went through. Any ideas?”

A field of two and a half gees was much harder on Julian Graves than on the younger and fitter Teri. He sat crumpled in his chair, gloved hands gripping the arm rests.

“Oddly enough, I do. It involves, however, a somewhat dangerous suggestion.”

“More dangerous than the fix that we are in?”