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active. And his to command.
"Bring up the main displays," he ordered. "I want outside views all around the
ship."
One by one the large screens facing the dais came to life to show the five
Jevlenese vessels against a slowly moving carpet of stars. The brilliant
cloud-streaked disk of Minerva stood in the background on one, and a part of
the Moon off on an edge in another. A holo image below and in front of the
dais showed a three-dimensional representation of the Shapieron with the
screens indicated around it in their correct orientations and directions.
In the center behind Broghuilio, the commander's chair and console faced out
over it all. Broghuilio turned and regarded it. He straightened his shoulders,
puffed up his chest, and approached his future seat slowly, almost with
reverence. This was a solemn and symbolic moment. His followers watched
silently from below.
And then Broghuilio stopped abruptly.
Another Broghuilio had appeared out of nowhere, already sitting in the
Commander's chair. The expression of rapture that had been on his face lasted
for an instant, then switched to one as bewildered as that on the face of the
Broghuilio who was standing stupefied, gaping at him. The Broghuilio sitting
recovered first. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded.
"I could ask you the same thing," Broghuilio standing shot back. The questions
were reflex. It was obvious to both who the other was. What was far from
obvious was a sensible question to try and make sense of it.
"What are you doing dressed like that, in my ship?"
"Your ship? What do you mean? This is " Broghuilio standing faltered as
Broghilio sitting vanished in front of his eyes.
"Who the hell are you?"
He turned dazedly. Another Broghuilio was halfway up the steps to the dais. At
the same time, consternation was breaking out among the rest of the group
below as two Estordu's recoiled from each other as if they had like charges,
while the flagship captain disappeared from one place to reappear in another.
The whole area below the dais dissolved into a mélange of figures popping in
and out of existence randomly. On one of the screens, the image of a Jevlenese
ship disappeared, leaving just an empty starfield.
And suddenly Broghuilio was back on the bridge in his flagship, looking at
screens showing surroundings of the terrain on Luna. General Wylott was there
somehow. In the background, Estordu was jabbering something unintelligible.
Another Broghuilio came onto the bridge, stopped dead, and gaped.
"What's happening?" Broghuilio from the Shapieron demanded. "How did we get
here? And who the hell are you?"
"I could ask you the same question."
"What happened to the Ganymean ship?"
The other Broghuilio shook his head, obviously not comprehending. "What
Ganymean ship?"
* * *
Fifty miles from the Shapieron, Garuth stood with the others in the surface
lander, watching incredulously as the pattern of craft clustered in space
fluctuated crazily. The five Jevlenese ships performed a dance of vanishing
and reappearing, jumping from one spot to another. At one instant there would
be six or seven, an instant later, just two or three. In a zone extending for
an uncertain distance, the time lines from scores or more of realities in
which they had happened to take up different positions were converging and
becoming entangled. At the center, the Shapieron itself seemed to shift back
and forth spasmodically. The channel from the lander's local control system
was connected through to a simple circuit breaker that would deactivate the
bubble that defined the expanded convergence zone. All Garuth needed was one
specific combination. Below his chest in front of him, his hands opened and
closed as he flexed his fingers unconsciously in anticipation.
The number of Jevlenese ships shrank to three, two . . . he tensed . . . then,
suddenly, six. If none of the time lines impinging on the Shapieron included a
Jevlenese ship, it followed that the Shapieron couldn't contain anyone who had
been brought to it by one, and therefore it would have to be empty.
Then, just for a moment, the Shapieron stood on its own in space. Every one of
the five Jevlenese craft and their various alternative versions were
momentarily in some different reality.
"NOW!" Garuth called. An icon on a display changed to confirm the
transmission. Would the signal get there fast enough?
On the screen, the image of the Shapieron steadied itself. Nothing else
changed.
Everyone waited breathlessly. Nothing. Not a sign of any Jevlenese ship.
"I think you've done it, Garuth," Shilohin whispered.
"Magnificent," Chien complimented.
In the background, Duncan and Sandy quietly clasped hands and smiled at each
other reassuringly.
Garuth swallowed disbelievingly. The picture replayed itself in his mind of
the strutting oaf parading himself inside his ship. The memory came back of
the humiliation he had been forced to accept. And a slow smile of satisfaction
formed on his face. He felt like a starship commander again.
* * *
The lander closed with its regular port in the Shapieron's main docking bay.
Garuth had waited a further fifteen minutes before returning. A systematic
search of the ship confirmed that no trace of Broghuilio and the Jevlenese was
to be found.
It was necessary to search the ship physically because another result that had
been feared was also confirmed. During the wait, nothing further had been
heard from ZORAC, and no response could be evoked from it either from the
lander or upon entering the Shapieron. In the same way as had happened with
the system in the probe, the riot of desynchronization had scrambled ZORAC's
internal processes to the point where it ceased functioning coherently. But
the network that formed ZORAC was far more complex than the probe's equipment,
and the energy concentration at the core of the disruption induced by starship
power was more intense than anything the probe had come through. After
analyzing the logs and records, Shilohin's scientists announced that not
enough was left running for the damage to be repaired. ZORAC was
irrecoverable.
That was why ZORAC had requested authorization by the Commander before
proceeding.
ZORAC had known. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]