deduced,
"It's just a picket boat. She's staying out of our way. Carmon, warm the display tank."
I sneer at that toy. On the Empire Class Main Battles they have them bigger than our Ops compartment. And they have more than one. For a thrill, hi null grav, you can dive in and swim among the stars. If you don't mind standing Commander's Mast and doing a few weeks' extra duty.
TerVeen slips past the terminator. Canaan is barely visible. No evidence of human occupation.
Surprising how much effort it takes to make human works visible from space, considering them with the eyeball alone.
I adjust the camera angle. Now I see nothing but stars and a fragment of mother-ship frame almost indistinguishable in the darkness. Doubling the magnification, I set a visual search pattern. I catch a remote, traveling sparkle. "Watch Officer."
Yanevich leans over my shoulder. "One of ours. Putting on inherent velocity. Probably going to check something out."
I continue searching and become engrossed in the view. A while later I realize I'm daydreaming.
We've moved up to point-four gees acceleration. Someone has a magician's touch. His compensations have prevented inertia from vectoring any weird gravity orientations.
We have three bogeys numbered and identified. Chief Nicastro tells me, "They don't bother us before we clear the Planetary Defense umbrella."
The thin screen surrounding the planet will have sucked round our way, to help give us a running start.
From planetside it looked like the gentlemen of the other firm were everywhere. But a sky view from a surface point makes only a tiny slice of pie. A slice studied only when it is occupied. In space the picture becomes much more vast.
The minuteness of an artifact in space is such that you would think that searches might as well be conducted by rolling dice. Chance and luck become absurdly important. Intelligence and planning become secondary.
Still, Command knows whence the enemy comes, and whither he is bound. A sharp watch on the fat space sausage between those points helps narrow the odds. Climbers patrol the likeliest hunting grounds.
The passing legion of verbal reports fades, becoming so much background noise, no more noticed than the ubiquitous plug-ups. I shift my attention from the chatter to the chatterers. I can't always see them, either because they've gone around the curve or because they roam. Fisherman.
Monte Throdahl. Gonsalvo Carmon, who is almost worshipful as he nurtures the display tank. N'Gaio Rose and his Chief, a computerman named Canzoneri who has a diabolical look. Westhause remains fixated on his Dead Reckoning gear. The men I can't see are Isadore Laramie, Louis Picraux, Miche Berberian, Mel-vin Brown, Jr. (he gets insistent about that Jr.), Lubomir Scar-latella, and Haddon Zia. I don't know all their rates and tasks yet. I catch what I can when I hear it mentioned.
The men I can see are serious and attentive, though they don't resemble the heroes Admiral Tannian has created in the media. They sneer at the part, though I think they'd play it to the hilt given leave on a world where they're not well known.
Looks like I've got it made. Nothing to do but watch a screens And damned sure nothing is going to happen on it before some other system yells first. Everybody else is doing two jobs at once. While the Climber is being taken for a ride.
An hour after departure we reach point-five gee acceleration. The compensator finally muffs his adjustment. The universe tilts slightly and stays askew for two hours. The Old Man doesn't bother complaining. They don't notice it down in Engineering because they're closer to the gravity generators in the mother.
Yanevich's prowling brings him within range. "Why are we holding hyper?" Seems to me a quick getaway is in order.
"Waiting for the other firm. They have ships in hyper waiting to ambush us. We won't take till they drop and show us their inherent velocities and vectors. Can't just go charging off, you
"It's just a picket boat. She's staying out of our way. Carmon, warm the display tank."
I sneer at that toy. On the Empire Class Main Battles they have them bigger than our Ops compartment. And they have more than one. For a thrill, hi null grav, you can dive in and swim among the stars. If you don't mind standing Commander's Mast and doing a few weeks' extra duty.
TerVeen slips past the terminator. Canaan is barely visible. No evidence of human occupation.
Surprising how much effort it takes to make human works visible from space, considering them with the eyeball alone.
I adjust the camera angle. Now I see nothing but stars and a fragment of mother-ship frame almost indistinguishable in the darkness. Doubling the magnification, I set a visual search pattern. I catch a remote, traveling sparkle. "Watch Officer."
Yanevich leans over my shoulder. "One of ours. Putting on inherent velocity. Probably going to check something out."
I continue searching and become engrossed in the view. A while later I realize I'm daydreaming.
We've moved up to point-four gees acceleration. Someone has a magician's touch. His compensations have prevented inertia from vectoring any weird gravity orientations.
We have three bogeys numbered and identified. Chief Nicastro tells me, "They don't bother us before we clear the Planetary Defense umbrella."
The thin screen surrounding the planet will have sucked round our way, to help give us a running start.
From planetside it looked like the gentlemen of the other firm were everywhere. But a sky view from a surface point makes only a tiny slice of pie. A slice studied only when it is occupied. In space the picture becomes much more vast.
The minuteness of an artifact in space is such that you would think that searches might as well be conducted by rolling dice. Chance and luck become absurdly important. Intelligence and planning become secondary.
Still, Command knows whence the enemy comes, and whither he is bound. A sharp watch on the fat space sausage between those points helps narrow the odds. Climbers patrol the likeliest hunting grounds.
The passing legion of verbal reports fades, becoming so much background noise, no more noticed than the ubiquitous plug-ups. I shift my attention from the chatter to the chatterers. I can't always see them, either because they've gone around the curve or because they roam. Fisherman.
Monte Throdahl. Gonsalvo Carmon, who is almost worshipful as he nurtures the display tank. N'Gaio Rose and his Chief, a computerman named Canzoneri who has a diabolical look. Westhause remains fixated on his Dead Reckoning gear. The men I can't see are Isadore Laramie, Louis Picraux, Miche Berberian, Mel-vin Brown, Jr. (he gets insistent about that Jr.), Lubomir Scar-latella, and Haddon Zia. I don't know all their rates and tasks yet. I catch what I can when I hear it mentioned.
The men I can see are serious and attentive, though they don't resemble the heroes Admiral Tannian has created in the media. They sneer at the part, though I think they'd play it to the hilt given leave on a world where they're not well known.
Looks like I've got it made. Nothing to do but watch a screens And damned sure nothing is going to happen on it before some other system yells first. Everybody else is doing two jobs at once. While the Climber is being taken for a ride.
An hour after departure we reach point-five gee acceleration. The compensator finally muffs his adjustment. The universe tilts slightly and stays askew for two hours. The Old Man doesn't bother complaining. They don't notice it down in Engineering because they're closer to the gravity generators in the mother.
Yanevich's prowling brings him within range. "Why are we holding hyper?" Seems to me a quick getaway is in order.
"Waiting for the other firm. They have ships in hyper waiting to ambush us. We won't take till they drop and show us their inherent velocities and vectors. Can't just go charging off, you
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