Resurgence

“Perhaps not. You have a right to offer an opinion on that point. As you pointed out to me earlier, I have much experience in the use of the Bose Network. A Bose transition is always limited by two different factors. First, and rather obviously, an object cannot enter a Bose node if its size exceeds the physical dimensions of the entry point. In our case, we don’t know what that dimension might be, although it appears to be very large. However, the second limiting element is just as important. An object cannot enter a Bose node for a transition if the exit node is smaller than the object to be transferred.”

“You think that Torran—”

“—was small enough for both the entry and the exit nodes to accommodate him. Yes. But the No Regrets, much bigger than a human suited figure in every way, exceeds the exit node capacity. A transition will not be permitted.”

Teri glanced across the control board’s array of instruments. The drive of the No Regrets had easily enough power to lift them away from the boundary wall and accelerate back to the middle of the closed region.

“How confident do you feel that the problem lies in the size of the Bose exit point?”

“Confident? Why, I am confident of nothing. What I am suggesting is a theory, and like any theory it may be wrong.”

“People act based on theories.”

“Indeed they do. Some of them die as a result.” Julian Graves struggled to his feet. “And if I sit here much longer with two and a half gees pressing this old body into the seat, I will feel as though I myself am dying. Come on, my dear. It is time for us to leave the No Regrets.”

“Right now?”

“If not now, when?”

“But you always say that thought should precede action and we should evaluate every alternative.”

“Correct. But when there is only one course of action available and no alternative, making a decision becomes easy.”

He headed for the airlock. Teri, struggling under the load of a body two and half times its normal weight, followed.

At the outer wall Julian Graves did not hesitate. He stepped forward, and dropped like a stone. He was gone before Teri could look down and follow the line of his fall.

Poised on the edge, she found action difficult. It sounded easy to take one step forward, but what if that single step was the last one you would ever take, and the airlock of the No Regrets the last sight that your eyes would ever see?

Teri decided that the time for thinking, especially thinking like that, was over. It was time to act—and maybe to pray.

She stepped out of the airlock.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Pompadour

“Quite true, Captain. It’s as you say, we could leave here today. But there’s no one in his right mind as would leave here today.”

Claudius was sitting at his ease in the aft control cabin. His body was coiled down on a wide chair and he held a small bowl in his upper two arms. From time to time he raised the smoking bowl to his face, and sniffed deep. When he did so his single slate-gray eye rolled in its socket.

“You see,” he went on, “you’re not dealing with something simple and predictable here, like the Great Galactic Trade Wind. Oh, no. Otherwise we’d have been out of here days ago. But I know the route from Pompadour to Marglot like the tip of my own tail, and I’m telling you, there’s real dangers if you try to make the jump at the wrong time.”

“Dangers of what?” Louis was feeling mightily frustrated. It didn’t take pheromones to guess that the Chism Polypheme was not telling the truth, but Atvar H’sial’s silent, “He’s lying, you know,” was an added irritant.

“Oh, things I doubt that you beings from the Orion Arm have ever seen. Space reefs and sounders, stuff that can swallow a ship up quick as a wink.”

“He’s lying, Louis.” Atvar H’sial was crouched beyond the open door, out of sight.

“Hell, I realize that. You don’t need to keep sticking me with it every ten seconds. But what am I supposed to do? Explain that a Cecropian is secretly listening, and she always knows if a Polypheme is telling the truth or not? I’d rather keep that sort of knowledge for use in emergencies.” To Claudius he said, “What’s your plan, then? Stay here in orbit forever, ’til we run out of supplies an’ starve to death?”

“No, no. I’ll know when it’s the right time to go.”

“How?”

“Experience, and what I pick up from other Chism navigators. It’s hard to explain to anyone who isn’t a Polypheme. But I was thinking maybe I ought to be taking another trip down to the surface.”

“You’ve done that every day for the past four days. What is it this time?”

“Why, as I told you. I collect information. I need to know the latest word on the condition of all the trade routes out of here.”

“And I suppose the hot radiation bars have nothing to do with it.”

“Why, Captain.”

Louis didn’t bother to answer. He turned, and left the cabin.