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Updated: June 15, 2025
"Time," he said briefly to Vorongil, "Fifteen seconds...." Rugel looked across from his couch. Bart felt that the old, scarred Lhari could read his fear. Rugel said through a wheeze, "No matter how old you get, Bartol, you're still scared when you make a warp-shift. But relax, computers don't make mistakes." "Catalyst," Vorongil snapped, "Ready shift!"
Rugel left him in a cabin amidships; small and cramped, but tidy, two of the oval bunks slung at opposite ends, a small table between them, and drawers filled with pamphlets and manuals and maps. Furtively, ashamed of himself, yet driven by necessity, Bart searched Ringg's belongings, wanting to get some idea of what possessions he ought to own.
Rugel told him that this was the moment of equilibrium, the peak of the faster-than-light motion. "Perhaps a true limiting speed beyond which nothing will ever go," Vorongil said, touching the charts with a varnished claw. Rugel's scarred old mouth spread in a thin smile. "Maybe there's no such thing as a limiting speed.
He was not on watch when they came into the planetary field of Lharillis, but when he came on shift, he knew at once that the trouble had been located. The panel was pulled open, the exposed wires hanging, and Ringg was facing old Rugel, shouting, "Listen, Baldy, I won't have you accusing me of going light on my work! I checked those panels eight days ago!
His bones itched inside and he was damnably uncomfortable, but he was alive. "I'm fine." "You look it," Ringg said in derision. "Think you can help me get Rugel to his cabin?" Bart struggled to his feet, and found that when he was upright he felt better. "Wow!" he muttered, then clamped his mouth shut. He was supposed to be an experienced man, a Lhari hardened to space.
It seemed fairly simple to Bart; he tried it, and to his own surprise, won. Old Rugel touched a lever at the side of the room. With a tiny whishing sound, shutters opened, the light of Procyon Alpha flooded them and he looked out through a great viewport into bottomless space. Procyon Alpha, Beta and Gamma hung at full, rings gently tilted.
Rugel asked, and Ringg, always ready to let bygones be bygones, grinned and said, "Sure!" Bart could not face him. Vorongil stopped and said, "This your first time here, young Bartol? How would you like to visit the monument with me? You can see the machinery on the way back." Relieved at not having to go with Ringg, he followed the captain, falling into step beside him.
"The the big one there, with the rings almost edge-on. I think they call it Alpha." "It's their planet," said Rugel. "I guess they can call it what they want to. How about another game?" Resolutely, Bart turned his back on the bewitching colors, and bent over the pinball machine. The first week in space was a nightmare of strain.
Bart went down toward the drive room, and to his own surprise, found himself wishing the girl were a mathematician rather than a medic. It would have been pleasant to watch her down there. Old Rugel, on duty in the drive room, watched Bart strap himself in before the computer. "Make sure you check all dials at null," he reminded him, and Bart felt a last surge of panic.
If we spend an hour in here, we'll be safe enough. Did you have any trouble putting the radiation counter out of commission?" So in half an hour they would all be dead. Ringg, Rugel, Captain Vorongil. Two dozen Lhari, all dead so that Montano could have a Lhari ship to play with. And what then? More killing, more murder?
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