was always worrying, always overreacting. She smiled faintly and shook her head.
I did appreciate your description of the repairs you made to the radio telescope antenna, and I cannot tell you how proud you have made me and how much your mother would have given to know of your accomplishments â¦
Alayna swallowed. She couldnât help it. Her mother had died when Alayna had just finished defending her doctoral thesis at Princeton. Sheâd visited Alayna and then gone to Boston, or what was left of it, to visit Alaynaâs cousin Willie. Willie and Wilhemina, except they were both Wilhemina, had died when Hurricane Ernesto had merged with a norâeaster. So many had died that neither Alayna nor her father had ever discovered the exact circumstances. That was understandable, intellectually, given that more than twenty thousand had perished in the extreme winds and flooding, but Alaynaâs father had pressed for answers ever since. Only in the last weeks had his messages ever referred to her mother.
 ⦠I can only hope in some vain and impossible way that she must know, unpredictable and unfair as I have come to believe this universe is and has always been.
I also hope that you will have success in your research, and that, even if you do not immediately achieve that success, you will take such satisfaction in your work that eventually you will be rewarded, for, because we are seldom granted recognition for our accomplishments, we should take satisfaction in them, regardless of either recognition or lack of recognition â¦
Alayna smiled at yet another phrasing of the words she had heard since childhood.
We have another important case coming before the Noram Court of Appeals, this one dealing with residual groundwater rights in the Ogallala Aquifer, although there is little enough groundwater there after the water mining wars of a half century ago â¦
She nodded and began her reply.
Â
13
D ONOVAN B ASE
16 A PRIL 2114
Sweat oozed across Tavoianâs forehead. He blotted it with the forearm of his shipsuit, just to keep it from drifting into his eyes, trying to focus on the combat screens arrayed before him, half wishing that he had a functioning AI or even a commlink.
He could see that he hadnât corrected enough for the spaceward drift caused by a less than perfectly balanced course shift. He gave a five-second blast to the rear port thrusters to point the burnerâs nose more to port, trying to gauge what an AI could have done instantly.
He checked his targetâzero seven one, negative fifteen, with four minutes to torp release.
Tavoian gave a burst to the orientation thrusters, then followed by adding power to the burner. He kept checking the gee-meter, more properly an accelerometer, making certain that the acceleration remained below three gees. He held the acceleration for less than three minutes, checking the closure rates, his eyes scanning the displays of other craft, as well as the outlying Sinese upper orbit station, none of which were anywhere close to visual range.
Abruptly, all but two of the displays blanked with a flare.
Forward sensors disabled. The warning flashed below the remaining displays.
Now what? The flare suggested heâd been hit with a concentrated laser flash, and that meant it was likely it had been managed from a distance. You hope. At least lasers couldnât do much more than blind sensors except at extremely close range.
There was little else he could do, not without aborting the mission, except sit tight, because he needed to maintain course and acceleration in order to boost the release velocity of the torp before firing, and then beginning his own return to base. Even if heâd looked through the emergency porthole, he wouldnât have seen the target, not when the release point was more than ten thousand kays from the impact pointâa distance covered in less than three minutes from time of release.
He
I did appreciate your description of the repairs you made to the radio telescope antenna, and I cannot tell you how proud you have made me and how much your mother would have given to know of your accomplishments â¦
Alayna swallowed. She couldnât help it. Her mother had died when Alayna had just finished defending her doctoral thesis at Princeton. Sheâd visited Alayna and then gone to Boston, or what was left of it, to visit Alaynaâs cousin Willie. Willie and Wilhemina, except they were both Wilhemina, had died when Hurricane Ernesto had merged with a norâeaster. So many had died that neither Alayna nor her father had ever discovered the exact circumstances. That was understandable, intellectually, given that more than twenty thousand had perished in the extreme winds and flooding, but Alaynaâs father had pressed for answers ever since. Only in the last weeks had his messages ever referred to her mother.
 ⦠I can only hope in some vain and impossible way that she must know, unpredictable and unfair as I have come to believe this universe is and has always been.
I also hope that you will have success in your research, and that, even if you do not immediately achieve that success, you will take such satisfaction in your work that eventually you will be rewarded, for, because we are seldom granted recognition for our accomplishments, we should take satisfaction in them, regardless of either recognition or lack of recognition â¦
Alayna smiled at yet another phrasing of the words she had heard since childhood.
We have another important case coming before the Noram Court of Appeals, this one dealing with residual groundwater rights in the Ogallala Aquifer, although there is little enough groundwater there after the water mining wars of a half century ago â¦
She nodded and began her reply.
Â
13
D ONOVAN B ASE
16 A PRIL 2114
Sweat oozed across Tavoianâs forehead. He blotted it with the forearm of his shipsuit, just to keep it from drifting into his eyes, trying to focus on the combat screens arrayed before him, half wishing that he had a functioning AI or even a commlink.
He could see that he hadnât corrected enough for the spaceward drift caused by a less than perfectly balanced course shift. He gave a five-second blast to the rear port thrusters to point the burnerâs nose more to port, trying to gauge what an AI could have done instantly.
He checked his targetâzero seven one, negative fifteen, with four minutes to torp release.
Tavoian gave a burst to the orientation thrusters, then followed by adding power to the burner. He kept checking the gee-meter, more properly an accelerometer, making certain that the acceleration remained below three gees. He held the acceleration for less than three minutes, checking the closure rates, his eyes scanning the displays of other craft, as well as the outlying Sinese upper orbit station, none of which were anywhere close to visual range.
Abruptly, all but two of the displays blanked with a flare.
Forward sensors disabled. The warning flashed below the remaining displays.
Now what? The flare suggested heâd been hit with a concentrated laser flash, and that meant it was likely it had been managed from a distance. You hope. At least lasers couldnât do much more than blind sensors except at extremely close range.
There was little else he could do, not without aborting the mission, except sit tight, because he needed to maintain course and acceleration in order to boost the release velocity of the torp before firing, and then beginning his own return to base. Even if heâd looked through the emergency porthole, he wouldnât have seen the target, not when the release point was more than ten thousand kays from the impact pointâa distance covered in less than three minutes from time of release.
He
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