Hyperspace travel can be strange and frustrating.
It takes an immeasurably short time to travel between stars: but as the line of travel, or tramline, exists only along one critical path between each pair of stars (never quite a straight line, but close enough to visualize it so) and the end points of the paths are far from the distortions in space caused by stars and large planetary masses, it follows that a ship spends most of its time crawling from one end point to another.
Worse than that, not every pair of stars is joined by tramlines. Pathways are generated along lines of equipotential thermonuclear flux, and the presence of other stars in the geometric pattern can prevent the pathway from existing—at all. Of those links that do exist, not all have been mapped . . . They are difficult to find.
MacArthur's passengers found that travel aboard an Imperial warship was akin to imprisonment. The crew had duties to perform and repairs to make even when off watch. The passengers had each other's company, and what social life Navy routine would permit. There was no place for the entertainment facilities that luxury liners would carry.
It was boring. By the time MacArthur was ready for her last Jump, the passengers saw their arrival in New Caledonia as a release from jail.
NEW CALEDONIA: Star system behind the Coal Sack with F8 primary star catalogued as Murcheson A. The distant binary, Murcheson B, is not part of the New Caledonia system. Murcheson A has six planets in five orbits, with four inner planets, a relatively wide gap containing the debris of an unformed planet, and two outer planets in a Trojan relationship. The four inner planets are named Conchobar, New Ireland, New Scotland, and Fomor, in their order from the sun which is known locally as Cal, or Old Cal, or the Sun. The middle two planets are inhabited, both terraformed by First Empire scientists after Jasper Murcheson, who was related to Alexander IV, persuaded the Council that the New Caledonian system would be the proper place to establish an Imperial university. It is now known that Murcheson was primarily interested in having an inhabited planet near the red super giant known as Murcheson's Eye, and as he was not satisfied with the climate of New Ireland demanded the terraforming of New Scotland as well.
Fomor is a relatively small planet with almost no atmosphere and few interesting features. It does, however, possess several fungi which are biologically related to other fungi found in the Trans-Coalsack Sector, and their manner of transmission to Fomor has stimulated an endless controversy in the Journal of the Imperial Society of Xenobiologists, since no other life forms native to New Caledonia exist.
The two outer planets occupy the same orbit and are named Dagda and Mider in keeping with the system's Celtic mythological nomenclature. Dagda is a gas giant, and the Empire maintains fuel stations on the planet's two moons, Angus and Brigit. Merchant ships are cautioned that Brigit is a Navy base and may not be approached without permission.
Mider is a cold metal ball, extensively mined, and troublesome to cosmologists because its manner of formation does not appear to conform to either of the two major contending theories of planetary origin.
New Scotland and New Ireland, the only inhabited planets of the system, had extensive atmospheres of water vapor and methane when discovered, but no free oxygen. Biological packages in massive quantities transformed them into inhabitable worlds at considerable cost; toward the end of the project Murcheson lost his influence in the Council but by then the investment was so high that the project was carried on to completion. In less than a hundred years of intensive effort the domed colonies became open colonies, one of the most triumphant accomplishments of the First Empire.
Both worlds were partially depopulated during the Secession Wars, with New Ireland joining the rebel forces while New Scotland remained staunchly loyalist. After interstellar travel was lost in the Trans-Coalsack Sector, New Scotland continued the struggle until its rediscovery by the Second Empire. As a consequence, New Scotland is the Trans-Coalsack Sector Capital.
MacArthur shuddered and dropped into existence beyond the orbit of Dagda. For long moments her crew sat at their hyperspace transition stations, disoriented, fighting to overcome the confusion that always follows instantaneous travel.
Why? One branch of physics at the Imperial University on Sigismund contends that hyperspace travel requires, not zero time, but transfinite time, and that this produces the characteristic confusion of both men and computer equipment. Other theories suggest that the Jump produces stretching or shrinking of local space, affecting nerves and computer elements alike; or that not all parts of the ship appear at the same time; or that inertia and mass vary on a subatomic level after transition. No one knows, but the effect is real.
"Helmsman," Blaine said thickly. His eyes slowly focused on the bridge displays.
"Aye aye, sir." The voice was numbed and uncomprehending, but the crewman automatically responded.
"Set a course for Dagda. Get her moving."
"Aye aye." In the early days of hyperspace travel, ship's computers had tried to accelerate immediately after popout. It didn't take long to find out that computers were even more confused than men. Now all automatic equipment was turned off for transition. Lights flashed on Blaine's displays as crewmen slowly reactivated MacArthur and checked out their systems.
"We'll put her down on Brigit, Mr. Renner," Blaine continued. "Make your velocity match. Mr. Staley, you will assist the Sailing Master."
"Aye aye, sir." The bridge came back to life. Crewmen stirred and returned to duties. Stewards brought coffee after acceleration and gravity returned. Men left hyperspace stations to return to patrol duties, while MacArthur's artificial eyes scanned space for enemies. The trouble board flashed green as each station reported successful transition.
Blaine nodded in satisfaction as he sipped his coffee. It was always like this, and after hundreds of transitions he still felt it. There was something basically wrong with instantaneous travel, something that outraged the senses, something the mind wouldn't accept at a level below thought. The habits of the Service carried men through; these too were ingrained at a level more basic than intellectual functions.
"Mr. Whitbread, my compliments to the Chief Yeoman of Signals and please report us in to Fleet Headquarters on New Scotland. Get our course and speed from Staley, and you can signal the fuel station on Brigit that we're coming in. Inform Fleet of our destination."
"Aye aye, sir. Signal in ten minutes, sir?"
"Yes."
Whitbread unbuckled from his command seat behind the Captain and walked drunkenly to the helm station. "I'll need full engine power for a signal in ten minutes, Horst." He made his way from the bridge, recovering rapidly. Young men usually did, which was one reason for having young officers in command of the ships.
"NOW HEAR THIS," Staley announced. The call sounded through the ship. "NOW HEAR THIS. END OF ACCELERATION IN TEN MINUTES. BRIEF PERIOD OF FREE FALL IN TEN MINUTES."
"But why?" Blaine heard. He looked up to see Sally Fowler at the bridge entranceway. His invitation to the passengers to come to the bridge when there was no emergency had worked out fine: Bury hardly ever made use of the privilege. "Why free fall so soon?" she asked.
"Need the power to make a signal," Blaine answered. "At this distance it'll use up a significant part of our engine power to produce the maser beam. We could overload the engines if we had to, but it's standard to coast for messages if there's no real hurry."
"Oh." She sat in Whitbread's abandoned chair. Rod swiveled his command seat to face her, wishing again that someone would design a free fall outfit for girls that didn't cover so much of their legs, or that brief shorts would come back into fashion. Right now skirts were down to calves on Sparta, and the provinces copied the Capital. For shipboard wear the designers produced pantaloon things, comfortable enough, but baggy. . .
"When do we get to New Scotland?" she asked.
"Depends on how long we stay off Dagda. Sinclair wants to do some outside work while we're dirtside." He took out his pocket computer and wrote quickly with the attached stylus. "Let's see, we're about one and a half billion kilometers from New Scotland, that's—uh, make it a hundred hours to turnover. About two hundred hours' travel time, plus what we spend on Dagda. And the time it takes to get to Dagda, of course. That's not so far, about twenty hours from here."
"So we'll still be a couple of weeks at least," she said. "I thought once we got here we'd—" She broke off, laughing. "It's silly. Why can't you invent something that lets you Jump around in interplanetary space? There's something faintly ridiculous about it, we went five light years in no time at all, now it takes weeks to get to New Scotland."
"Tired of us so soon? It's worse than that, really. It takes an insignificant part of our hydrogen to make a Jump— Well, it isn't trivial, but it's not a lot compared to what it'll take getting to New Scotland. I don't have enough fuel aboard to go direct, in fact not in less than a year, but there's more than enough to make a Jump. All that takes is enough energy to get into hyperspace."
Sally snared a cup of coffee from the steward. She was learning to drink Navy coffee, which wasn't like anything else in the Galaxy. "So we just have to put up with it," she said.
"Afraid so. I've been on trips where it was faster to drive over to another Alderson point, make a Jump, move around in the new system, Jump somewhere else, keep doing that until you come back to the original system at a different place—do all that and it would still be faster than merely to sail across the original system in normal space. But not this time, the geometry isn't right."
"Pity," she laughed. "We'd see more of the universe for the same price." She didn't say she was bored; but Rod thought she was, and there wasn't much he could do about it. He had little time to spend with her, and there weren't many sights to see.
"NOW HEAR THIS. STAND BY FOR FREE FALL." She barely had time to strap herself in before the drive cut out.
Chief Yeoman of Signals Lud Shattuck squinted into his aiming sight, his knobby fingers making incredibly fine adjustments for such clumsy appendages. Outside MacArthur's hull, a telescope hunted under Shattuck's guidance until it found a tiny dot of light. It hunted again until the dot was perfectly centered. Shattuck grunted in satisfaction and touched a switch. A maser antenna slaved itself to the telescope while the ship's computer decided where the dot of light would be when the message arrived. A coded message wound off its tape reel, while aft MacArthur's engines fused hydrogen to helium. Energy rode out through the antenna, energy modulated by the thin tape in Shattuck's cubicle, reaching toward New Scotland.
Rod was at dinner alone in his cabin when the reply arrived. A duty yeoman looked at the heading and shouted for Chief Shattuck. Four minutes later Midshipman Whitbread knocked at his captain's door.
"Yes," Rod answered irritably.
"Message from Fleet Admiral Cranston, sir."
Rod looked up in irritation. He hadn't wanted to eat alone, but the wardroom had invited Sally Fowler to dinner—it was their turn, after all—and if Blaine had invited himself to dine with his officers, Mr. Bury would have come too. Now even this miserable dinner was interrupted. "Can't it wait?"
"It's priority OC, sir."
"A hot flash for us? OC?" Blaine stood abruptly, the protein aspic forgotten. "Read it to me, Mr. Whitbread."
"Yes, sir. MACARTHUR FROM IMPFLEETNEW SCOT. OC OC 8175—"
"You may omit the authentication codes, Midshipman. I assume you checked them out."
"Yes, sir. Uh, anyway, sir, date, code . . . MESSAGE BEGINS YOU WILL PROCEED WITH ALL POSSIBLE SPEED REPEAT ALL POSSIBLE SPEED TO BRIGIT FOR REFUELING WITH PRIORITY DOUBLE A ONE STOP YOU WILL REFUEL IN MNIMUM POSSIBLE TIME STOP PARAGRAPH
"MACARTHUR WILL THEN PROCEED TO—uh, sir, it gives some coordinate points in the New Cal system—OR ANY OTHER VECTOR YOUR CHOICE TO INTERCEPT AND INVESTIGATE MYSTERIOUS OBJECT ENTERING NEW CALEDONIA SYSTEM FROM NORMAL SPACE REPEAT NORMAL SPACE STOP OBJECT PROCEEDS ALONG GALACTIC VECTOR—uh, it gives a course from the general direction of the Coal Sack; sir— AT A SPEED OP APPROXIMATELY SEVEN PERCENT VELOCITY OF LIGHT STOP OBJECT IS DECELERATING RAPIDLY STOP IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY ASTRONOMERS SAY SPECTRUM OF INTRUDER IS SPECTRUM OF NEW CAL SUN BLUE SHIFTED STOP OBVIOUS CONCLUSION THAT INTRUDER IS POWERED BY LIGHT SAIL STOP PARAGRAPH
"IMPERIAL UNIVERSITY ASTRONOMERS CERTAIN OBJECT IS ARTIFACT CONSTRUCTED BY INTELLIGENT BEINGS STOP FYI NO KNOWN HUMAN COLONIES AT APPARENT ORIGIN OF INTRUDER STOP PARAGRAPH
"CRUISER LERMONTOV DISPATCHED TO ASSIST BUT CANNOT ARRIVE TO MATCH VELOCITY WITH INTRUDER UNTIL SEVENTYONE HOURS AFTER MINIMUM TIME MACARTHUR VELOCITY MATCH WITH OBJECT STOP PROCEED WITH CAUTION STOP YOU ARE TO ASSUME INTRUDER IS HOSTILE UNTIL OTHERWISE ASSURED STOP YOU ARE ORDERED TO USE CAUTION BUT DO NOT INITIATE HOSTILITIES REPEAT DO NOT INITIATE HOSTILITIES STOP
"BREAK BREAK GO GET IT CZILLER STOP WISH I WAS OUT THERE STOP GODSPEED STOP CRANSTON BREAK MESSAGE ENDS AUTHENTICATION—uh, that's it, sir." Whitbread was breathless.
"That's it. That's quite a lot of it, Mr. Whitbread," Blaine fingered the intercom switch. "Wardroom."
"Wardroom aye aye, Captain," Midshipman Staley answered.
"Get me Cargill."
The First Lieutenant sounded resentful when he came on. Blaine was intruding on his dinner party. Rod felt an inner satisfaction for doing it. "Jack, get to the bridge. I want this bird moving. I'll have a minimum time course to land us on Brigit, and I mean minimum. You can run the tanks, but get us there fast."
"Aye aye, sir. Passengers aren't going to like it."
"Rape the— Uh, my compliments to the passengers, and this is a Fleet emergency. Too bad about your dinner party, Jack, but get your passengers into hydraulic beds and move this ship. I'll be on the bridge in a minute."
"Yes, sir." The intercom went Silent for a moment, then Staley's voice hooted through the ship. "NOW HEAR THIS. NOW HEAR THIS. STAND BY FOR PROLONGED ACCELERATION ABOVE TWO GRAVITIES. DEPARTMENT HEADS SIGNAL WHEN SECURED FOR INCREASED ACCELERATION."
"OK," Blaine said. He turned to Whitbread. "Punch that damned vector designation into the computer and let's see where the hell that intruder comes from." He realized he was swearing and made an effort to calm down. Intruders—aliens? Good God, what a break! To be in command of the first ship to make contact with aliens . . . "Let's just see where they're from, shall we?"
Whitbread moved to the input console next to Blaine's desk. The screen swam violently, then flashed numbers.
"Blast your eyes, Whitbread, I'm not a mathematician! Put it on a graph!"
"Sorry, sir." Whitbread fiddled with the input controls again. The screen became a black volume filled with blobs and lines of colored light. Big blobs were stars colored for type, velocity vectors were narrow green lines, acceleration vectors were lavender, projected paths were dimly lit red curves. The long green line— Blaine looked at the screen in disbelief, then laid his finger along the knot in his nose. "From the Mote. Well, I will be go to hell. From the Mote, in normal space." There was no known tramline to the intruder's star. It hung in isolation, a yellow fleck near the super giant Murcheson's Eye. Visions of octopoids danced in his head.
Suppose they were hostile? he thought suddenly. If Old Mac had to fight an alien ship, she'd need more work. Work they'd put off because it ought to be done in orbit, or dirtside, and now they'd have to do it at two plus gee.
But it was MacArthur's baby—and his. Somehow they'd do it.