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"Everybody glued back there?" Kalahari said into the
inship.
Trafalgar's voice floated lightly back. "Wonderful. A
little sunburned maybe, or that could be my imagination. And
my wristchron' s going backward."
"I'm fine," Val said. "I think I'm some shorter from
RACE ACROSS THE STARS 179
G forces and a bit purple-skinned where I sat down so hard.
somewhere in her mind. Nice work, Captain Cuw!"
Kalahari ignored the compliment, though it registered
"Twenty-three seconds," Pransa said.
"Double-P?" Whitey asked.
"Double-P?" Kalahari repeated. "You strapped down?"
"Pos Captain thank you," came the weak voice of Petaluma
Peeh. "What I have left is strapped down...."
Whitey shook his head ruefully. "It's a wonder that poor
woman has a stomach left."
"Five seconds!" Pransa snapped.
"And here we go!" Kalahari said as Disc & Bud hit the
Tachyon Trail for Barbro.
16
One thing I know about my life is, I can't live without it. . . .
 Robin Kincaid, We Can Talk About It
"Ali, are you all right?" Ulf felt his limbs as he spoke, hardly
daring to believe he was uninjured.
"Pos. I'm fine. Everything feels right. What happened to the
lights?"
Ulf swung his gaze around in the blackness of the cabin. He
recalled the phrase "survival with unspecified damage," that
described one of the possible results of going City.
"Don't know," he said. He groped for the comm button. "Ig?
Eissa! Can you hear me back there? Anyone hurt?"
Nothing. Then a bumping, a scrape, and "Negatory, Captain,"
Igeya said. "Unless you count bumps and . bruises."
"Comm's up," Ulf said, "so we've got "
"Same here, Captain," Eissa said. "We got tossed around,
'sall."
"Good," Ulf said. "Try to check Ah!"
SIPACUM's lights winked twice and came alive. Almost
immediately thereafter the cabin lights flashed and came back
on.
"Run full systems checks," Ulf told Alianora. I ll scan our
position. Everyone else check for localized damage
180
RACE ACROSS THE STARS 181
Ulf called up star charts from the computer's
membanks, comparing them to what he saw on the
mainscreen When it became apparent that they were
nowhere in the vicinity of Skylla and Karybdis he ordered
SIPACUM to compare charts of the known universe at speed.
In just under a mjnute he had his answer.
They were nowhere.
 No known chart matches any of this," he muttered.
"Even extrapolating and rotating for hypothetical positions in
other known galaxies. Either we're in a part of the universe no
one knows about or. ..."
"Or we're in another universe," Alianora fmished.
Ulf nodded. "Systems checks?"
"ASP.* Everything functional according to SIPACUM.
Ship seems to have integrity unless SIPACUM's lying to us.
"Lying?"
"Unless SIPACUM itself is fobbied and our scrute is
unreliable."
"Negative damage aft, Captain," Ig reported.
"Shift forward and keep scanning as you go," Ulf
ordered.
"Well," Ali said, "if this is the Dark Universe it's not so
bad."
Ulf shook his head. "No. We appear to be in the lucky
percentage who have survived intact."
"So can we go back? Do we try?"
"The True God knows, to your first question. No one
who's gone City and returned has ever reported any of these
star formations. Or even being aware of a Dark Universe.
Returners from City know only that they took a flit on the
Tachyon Trail. Presumably those are the ones who lucked out
on a safepoint. Evidently we didn't. Although we've
* ASP: All Systems Pos
182 JOHN CLEVE
suffered no apparent damage, and some of them had.
"As to your second question pos. What else can We
do?"
The others reported in: negative damage throughout.
"That temporary outage must have been due to the
plasma," Ulf said. "Everything else checks. You got an SPTC,
Ali?"
"Pos. But ... will converting take us home? I mean
when we convert in our universe we stay there, or at least
return there."
"I don't know. We'll just have to try. We'll convert,
then reconvert. See where we end up. Since we don't know
where we're starting from, we can't plot a course."
"Ulf? If that doesn't work. . . ?"
He sighed. "Then we jam-cram again. From here to,
we hope, there."
"Do you know the odds on surviving that twice?" Ali
reached for the console to compute them.
"Neg, and don't bother telling me. It's that or stay
here. Unless we decide on the latter the odds make no
difference." She removed her hand. "Firm."
"That safepoint?" Ulf asked.
"Coming up in five."
They waited. Quietly, with nothing worth saying until
they had determined whether they were to live or die. Igeya
and Eissa joined them oncon. At one minute to SPTC Ulf
ordered them to strap down. He looked at Alianora, his mouth
set.
"Here we go," he said as SIPACUM counted down the
seconds. A red light flashed on, their vision distorted, their
innards shifted then settled. SIPACUM showed Starsucker
safely in conversion.
"Well!" Alianora said.
"Well indeed as you so aptly put it. Halfway there.
Next SPTC?"
RACE ACROSS THE STARS 183
"We're in luck. I guess. ....,Depending. Ninety-
foursecs.
"Don't even have to strap down twice,  Ulf said over
his shoulder to the two crewmembers Again they waited.
Again SIPACUM used up the seconds.
 Firm, then," Ulf said. "With a touch more luck we'll
soon be on a course to Barbro" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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