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the status is no go. Who the hell is in there with you, Effi? Whoever it is is going
to be spaced with you if you don't shut down the systems now."
"Sixty seconds and counting," the controller murmured under Stilman's elbow.
Coos chittered irritably as he called up the ship's status. "Stilman," he urged,
"she's not giving up on this one. She is going to take it out. Primary drives are
engaged, and secondaries are boosting up now.''
Lan-Lu exclaimed in disgust, "Get the master controls kicked in fast. She killed
the override before she left the control room. If you want to stop her, it's got to
be in the next twenty seconds."
"Effi,'' Stilman shouted,  if your brains haven't dried out
too much to think, you'll shut down those drives right now. We've got a backup
team to take that ship out. We don't want an old woman who's lost her senses."
"I'm not half as old as you, fungus brain," Effi snapped back.
"You're jeopardizing the whole damned project," Stilman raged.  Get out of
that ship.''
"Stilman," the com crackled, "you alien lover, eat your heart out. Control, all
systems are on the green. Launch is a go. Repeat, launch is a go."
The com cut out, leaving Stilman speechless.
"She's enjoying this." Coos chittered faintly. "Very clever, our Effi Ragan. It
takes time to override the manual controls since they're supposed to be the last
level of safety. She did not engage the drives until all other systems were on go
status. She made sure she had enough time to take off after we noticed."
"She has enough time to fry what's left of her brains in that piece of junk she's
flying. Does she know what this will do to the project? If that Lightwing goes
down, we're finished. There isn't a single Shield ship within range we could call
up to stop her, and we haven't got a tractor beam on the outpost that could hold
a Lightwing against a launch." Stilman flung the com back at the controller and
strode to the other data bank. In the holotank, the Lightwing flared, launched,
and accelerated away.
"We have launch," the controller intoned. "Repeat, the Lightwing is
launched."
"Oh, shut up," Stilman snapped. "We can see that."
The controller ignored him. "Blast status on go. All systems green.
Acceleration constant."
"You don't really think she can do it," Tior whispered from beside Kiondili,
staring at the screens below.
"She will be able to manage the initial controls," Xia said quietly, "but she
won't be able to make the jump. She's only one person; the Lightwing was built
for three. She'll have to
junk one, maybe two stations and rely completely on the master board."
"Impossible," Kiondili said flatly.
Argon snorted.  How do you know, Mu? Maybe you can't do it, but that's no
reason to assume Effi can't. After all, she's the one who designed the boost
controls."
Tior protested. "How is she going to kick in the disintegrator and control the
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mass loss through the lens at the same time?"
Kiondili became still. "Who set the coordinates for her?" she asked slowly.
"Team B's Lightwing was the last ship programmed for a launch. Lightwing VI
wasn't even primed, let alone registered in the tracking stations for transmission.
She did not have time to program the new test route into that ship from Control
before she left. She must have set her coordinates by hand, from inside the
Lightwing."
Poole began to wheeze until Tior hit him angrily. "Don't you get it?" he
gasped, ripples surging down his stomach fur. "The coordinates. She had a
breakdown going through a warp gate eighty years ago-she can never travel FTL
again. At her age, she's too old to last through another sublight voyage. Effi's on
a one-way trip home. The only coordinates she knows well enough-that anyone
except a navigator knows well enough-to set at the last minute are those of
Earth."
"Shut up," Kiondili snarled. "She'll never make it to lightspeed, let alone get
halfway to Earth. The ship hasn't enough mass to lose.''
In the room below, the tension grew. "We have point six light,'' the controller
chanted.  Point seven light. Point seven five light. All system are green; blast
status is still a go."
"Get those tracking stations back online,'' Lan-Lu hissed.
"I'm getting no response from Number Three, but One and Two are up and
tracking."
"Keep trying," Rae snapped. "Coos, what's the acceleration factor?"
"Acceleration slowing fractionally; however, she's got
enough momentum built up. She should reach lightspeed in two minutes." Coos
chittered excitedly. "Twelve seconds past transmission, her velocity should be
one light-year per minute."
"What about target?"
"Her coordinates are for Earth," Stilman said soberly. "That trajectory could
not take her anywhere else."
"She cannot make it." Lan-Lu flexed her wrist claws in and out, ignoring the
controller, who shuddered. "She will lose too much mass during the crossover."
Stilman growled, sending another set of data to his flash-screen almost
savagely. "She needs more than one brain to control the ship from here on out.
She's got to change her coordinates to something easier. A path with fewer
gravitational masses to get around."
Coos chittered quietly. "She would never do that."
Up in observation, Siln tapped her fingers together. "The ease of the launch [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]