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Updated: May 10, 2025
He worked busily for minutes, checking the position of the Wealdian landing-grid mapped in the Sector Directory against the look of continents and seas on the half-disk so plainly visible outside. He found what he wanted. He put on the ship's solar-system drive. "I wish," he complained to Maril, "I wish I could think straight the first time! And it's so obvious!
It might be faster, and might reach the solar system of Mekin before the Horus broke out there. It had every advantage but one. It had solar-system drive, for use within a planetary group, and it had overdrive for use between the stars. But the Horus had an intermediate drive as well, which was faster than the enemy's slow speed and slower than the fast.
Then it asked apologetically, "You got the battleship, sir?" The voice from space sounded as if the man who spoke were grinning. "We'll celebrate that, sir! Good to have served with you, sir." Bors swung the Isis and drove on solar-system drive to get well away from Garen. He watched the blip which was the captured ship as it seemed to hesitate a very, very long time.
Of course for this action to be successful, it had to be performed with the stealth of sneak-thieves. What seemed a long time passed. Then one ship turned slowly upon some unseen axis. It wavered back and forth, seeking a point of aim. A second twisted in its place. A third put on the barest trace of solar-system drive to get clear of the rest. The fourth ... One ship vanished.
You just figured an overdrive jump for me that's the most accurate I ever heard of! But I'm desperate for time and we've got to spend two days in solar-system drive because we can't make an overdrive hop of less than light-days! So we're losing forty-eight hours or more." Logan said as stridently as before: "But I just showed you you don't have to! Cut the field-strength according to that table."
He waited while the solar-system drive pushed the Med Ship a quarter of the way around the bright planet below. The sunset line vanished and the planet's disk became a complete circle. Then Calhoun listened to the monitor earphones again, and grunted once more, and changed course, and presently made a noise indicating satisfaction.
Overdrive was sometimes not fast enough but solar-system drive was infuriatingly slow. Yet one couldn't use overdrive in a solar system. Approaching a planet on overdrive would be like trying to garage a ground-car at sixty miles an hour. One couldn't stop where one wanted to. He wondered vaguely if Logan, the math Talent, could handle such a problem, and dismissed the idea.
He calculated a moment. The distance was too short for even the briefest of overdrive hops, but it would take time to get there on solar-system drive. He thumbed down the communicator button and spoke into a microphone. "Med Ship Aesclipus Twenty reporting arrival and asking coordinates for landing," he said matter-of-factly. "Purpose of landing is planetary health inspection.
But nobody'd ever tried to find out how slowly one could travel in overdrive, because solar-system drive took care of short distances! "Wait a minute!" said Bors, staring. "Do you really mean I can drive this ship under two light-speeds in overdrive?" "Look at the table!" said Logan, trembling with anger. "Look at it! You'll find the figures right there!" Bors looked. Then he stood up quickly.
The Isis drove to meet the cruiser. The two vessels should be approaching each other at a rate which was the total of their speeds. Bors punched computer-keys and got the gravitational factor at this distance from Tralee's sun. He set the Isis's solar-system drive to that exact quantity. He waited. His own radar was now non-operative.
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